Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Min-Gi’s washcloth slid across the surface of the counter, frictionless. Horace munched idly on his breakfast at his booth, thankfully without requesting anything of Min-Gi just yet. That would change soon, Min-Gi was sure, but for the moment, he was allowed peace.

Dumpty’s was empty, for the most part. Just Horace—who was always there, and always a jerk—and two customers whispering frenetically at each other in the corner booth. They seemed like...spitfires, both the woman with the undercut and the guy with the red glasses. But as long as they kept their energy confined to that side of the room, Min-Gi didn’t mind their morning presence too much.

He was curious to know what they were talking about, though. They certainly sounded energized, whatever it was.

For a fleeting moment, Min-Gi let himself wish he had a life like that. A life where he had that kind of energy in the morning, where he looked forward to every day.

Then the moment passed, and Min-Gi brought himself back to reality, to the diner, to the shape his life took, and his focus returned to the state of his countertop.

He’d spent enough time on daydreams.

"I can't just go up to some guy while he's working!" hissed Ryan. "There are two pretty big problems with that! There's the 'working' part, and then there's the 'guy' part!"

"Oh, come on," scoffed Kez. "It's not like he's actually doing anything. He's been scrubbing the same spot for, like, eleven minutes."

Ryan crossed his arms and shrugged, lifting a lighthearted smirk to his lips. "Maybe it has a really stubborn ketchup splatter on it."

Kez raised an eyebrow, looked at the counter, then back at Ryan.

Unceremoniously, she stood from her bench, hands flattened against the table.

"Um, Kez?" Ryan followed her with his eyes as she rounded the table. "Kez, what are you doing?"

She grabbed his wrist and pulled, hard. "Up!"

"What?!"

"Up!" Kez grabbed Ryan's other wrist in her free hand and pulled him cheerfully out of his seat.

"Kez," he hissed. "Think about what you're doing."

"You need to think less," said Kez cheerfully. "You're being weird. Stop being weird."

"I'm being weird?!" Ryan laughed bitterly. "You're the one who— Hey, what are you doing now?!"

Kez turned Ryan around, grabbed fistfuls of his jacket so he couldn't get away, and pushed him toward the counter, knuckles digging into Ryan's back.

"Kez—" Ryan dug his heels into the linoleum floor. It did nothing. How was she so strong?! "Kez, no."

"Too late. He's already looking at you."

"What!?"

Ryan lifted his head, attention shooting toward the counter.

Oh, no.

Oh, no, the cute diner guy was absolutely looking at him. And he was very cute and very...very annoyed.

Shoot. Definitely too late to turn back.

But, hey, fine. That was cool. If Ryan couldn’t escape, he’d just have to roll with it.

The moment he stopped fighting Kez, she let go of him and took a step back.

“I totally believe in you!” she stage-whispered, hands cupped around her mouth, as she walked backward to her booth.

Ryan ran his hand through his hair, tossing it back in the way he hoped would be most enticing, and turned back to the counter.

The guy behind it set his cloth down with a sigh. “Can I help you?”

Yikes. Okay. Not the best response I’ve ever gotten. But, hey, not the worst, either. “Maybe. It depends.” Ryan climbed onto one of the bar benches and sat astride, the toes of his boots perched on the ring around the feet. “Min-Gi, right?” He pointed to the name tag on the man’s apron. “Am I pronouncing that right?”

“Yep,” sighed Min-Gi, hand already on his cloth again.

“Cool, so…” Ryan crossed his arms over the countertop. “Been here long?”

“My shift started about an hour ago,” said Min-Gi conversationally. He seemed to sound a little less annoyed. Maybe.

“No, I mean like…” Ryan leaned a little closer. “How long have you worked here?”

“Oh.” Min-Gi turned his attention back to the spot on the counter. “Almost a year.”

“And already shift manager,” said Ryan brightly, thumbing over his shoulder at the photo of Min-Gi on the wall behind him. “Impressive. You rise to the top like that often?”

Ryan wiggled his eyebrows.

Min-Gi looked at him like he’d just spoken the language of a vinyl record in reverse. “Uh… What?”

“Just, you know, you seem very...successful.”

“...Thanks.”

Ryan turned around in his chair and sent Kez a pleading look.

Kez gestured a sweeping motion toward him, the universal sign for “Keep going!”

Ryan turned back around. “So, do you like...music?” He winced. What kind of a question is that? Everyone—

“Everyone likes music,” said Min-Gi, echoing Ryan’s thoughts.

“What kind of music do you like?” asked Ryan.

Min-Gi scrubbed that same spot he’d been working on for the past ten minutes. Up close, Ryan could confirm there was no ketchup stain. He was just idly swirling the washcloth around. “...Rock.”

“Rock!” echoed Ryan. Finally, something he could go on. “Same here! What kind of rock? Like, Ridge Irvine, or—?”

“Sure,” said Min-Gi. “He’s cool.”

Ryan wanted to bash his head into the counter. See, Kez? This is why I don’t hit on people while they’re working. He clearly just wants to do his job, and I’m just getting on his nerves.

“Well…” Ryan curled his hands into fists. “Do you play any instruments?”

Min-Gi’s scrubbing stopped. “...Viola,” he said passively before continuing exactly where he left off. Either he was going to sand the countertop right off, or he was going to break his wrist. Whichever came first.

“Well, that’s...kind of like guitar,” said Ryan. “Y’know, just using a bow instead of your fingers. I, uh. I play guitar.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Actually, I have a gig tomorrow night. Down the road from here. That place a couple of blocks down. The Boulder Cafe? And I was thinking, y’know...maybe you’d like to see it?”

Again, Min-Gi stopped scrubbing, and for the first time since Ryan walked up, he made eye-contact.

His lips pursed into a thin line, and Ryan wasn’t sure how to take that. Was he thinking about it? Was Ryan getting on his nerves? What—

“I’m busy tomorrow,” said Min-Gi. “Sorry.”

Ryan took a deep breath through his nose. That was a lie. He could tell. Roughly translated, that meant “leave me the hell alone and let me work”. But like, in a polite way. And Ryan would take “polite refusal” over “punch in the face” any day. Which was, incidentally, that “worst response he’d ever gotten” he’d been thinking about before.

“Sure. Yeah, no problem.” Ryan stood from his stool, and his boots hit the floor with a pair of light taps. “Just thought I’d ask. Thanks anyway, Min-Gi.”

Feeling small, Ryan dragged his feet back to the booth he’d been sharing with Kez and hit the bench, instantly burying his face in his arms.

“That was so embarrassing,” he sighed. “I can’t believe you made me do that.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have known it was embarrassing if you didn’t try.” Kez’s hand landed lightly on the back of Ryan’s head. “And like, imagine how cool it would have been if he said yes!”

Ryan grumbled and hid his hands under the table to rub anxious circles into the center of his right palm.

“Wow, you’re taking this pretty hard,” noted Kez. “What’s your deal? You only met him, like, two minutes ago. It’s not like you just got rejected by your lifelong love or something.”

Ryan closed his eyes. He knew that, but for some reason, that was...sort of what it felt like. Which seemed pretty stupid.

Give it a day, he told himself. You’ll get over it.

“So, I was thinking tonight we could, like, hit the town? Check out local shops and stuff? Could be a good way to get your mind off your utterly humiliating rejection from the cute diner guy. Hm? Hmm?”

Ryan lifted his head off the table and sent Kez a glare.

Kez just smiled back in the same, bright way she always did.

With a sigh and a roll of his eyes, Ryan held out his hand, and Kez slapped his palm.

Whatever. Min-Gi was just some guy in a diner. Platonic or not, Ryan had a real lifelong love right in front of him, and he could always count on Kez to make him smile.

Always.

Min-Gi opened the door to his apartment with a quiet sigh. Sometimes, he regretted moving out of his parents’ house. Sometimes, he was scared. Sometimes, his parents’ words, their worries, got lodged into Min-Gi’s head. That he was too young, that he didn’t have a good enough job. And honestly, when Min-Gi thought about it, he couldn’t even remember what gave him the courage to leave in the first place.

But he was out. And his home was small, but it was his, and it was nice to have his own place at the end of the day.

With a huff, he draped his apron on the hook by the door, dug into his pocket for his mini-synth, and made his way through the dark to his old, beat up couch.

His parents would have preferred his viola, but they weren’t there, and Min-Gi’s mini-synth seemed to carry comfort in its flat keys for reasons Min-Gi couldn’t explain.

Still, old habits from his childhood lessons still carried over, and Min-Gi found himself tapping out Rachmaninov. He didn’t even particularly like Rachmaninov, even among all the composers he was taught about during his lessons, but the second movement of his second piano concerto was oddly familiar.

“All by myself...don’t wanna be—”

Min-Gi set his mini-synth on his lap, plunging the room into silence. He rolled his neck over the back of the couch. The ceiling over his head glowed red in the lights from beyond his window.

He wasn’t that lonely, was he?

Ryan laughed and set another hat on Kez’s head. Some kind of gray bowler hat. It suited her.

She tossed a plaid newsboy cap back at Ryan’s face, and he adjusted it in the store mirror.

“Not bad.”

Kez laughed. “I used to have a friend who was, like, way into hats. I guess I learned a thing or two about fashion from him.”

Ryan tipped his hat in the mirror and turned around to shoot Kez a smile. “You think I should buy it?”

“Not unless you plan on going golfing anytime soon.”

“Hm.” Ryan pulled the front of his hat down. “I don’t know. I think the red kind of suits me.”

“All right, sure, get yourself the weird golfer hat,” said Kez. “Then we head back to the hotel, okay? There’s a movie I want to watch. Some cheesy romance I saw in the TV Guide about two rock stars falling madly in love while they’re on tour.”

Ryan laughed. That sounded exactly like the kind of trashy thing Kez would be into. The kind of thing Ryan would want to live.

But the real world wasn’t like that. It wasn’t all adventure and romance. And as much as his mind wanted to wander back to that guy at the diner, the idea that maybe that story could have been theirs if they’d just gotten the chance to talk a little longer, they hadn’t, and the guy was probably straight to begin with, and that was just the way things were.

“No problem. Just let me pay for it, and then we can head back.”

Min-Gi peeled back the thick, navy blue blankets on his little twin bed and climbed underneath.

His pyjamas were scratchy. His sheets were scratchy. A month prior, he hadn’t even noticed. Hadn’t even thought about it.

He hadn’t thought about his room being so empty a month prior, either.

But there it sat, a blank, empty wall across from his bed. Nothing on it to catch the moonlight. No photos, no keepsakes, no roommate.

A month prior, he hadn’t cared at all.

And he didn’t feel like caring that night.

With one last sharp, deep breath, Min-Gi closed his eyes, and he shut his mind down to sleep.

Numb.

A numb, dreary ache.

Darkness, like cold, like standing in the snow in bare feet for hours, like forgetting what it felt like to feel.

Voices, asking questions, seeking answers. Irritated. Confusing.

Tears, somewhere. On faces, hands, dripping onto shirts.

Slick, sticky hands.

Sick. Queasy.

Numb.

A numb, dreary ache.

Like forgetting what it felt like to feel.

Like forgetting—

▇▇▇?

▇▇▇▇▇ ▇▇ ▇?

▇▇▇▇?

▇▇ ▇▇▇▇... ▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇? ▇▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇ ▇▇? ▇▇▇▇▇ ▇▇ ▇?

▇▇, ▇▇▇▇? ▇▇▇ ▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇ ▇▇? ▇ ▇▇▇▇▇ ▇’▇ ▇▇▇▇.

▇▇▇▇...

▇▇▇▇’▇ ▇▇▇▇?

Ryan raised his head off the cold, comforting door of the hotel washing machine and blinked at the lights.

Too bright. His head hurt. He felt sick, too.

He groaned and pressed his hands to his forehead.

It was so heavy, and it felt like something sharp had invaded his skull from the inside, as if someone decided to open him up and use his head as a toolbox to dump all their nails into.

“Must have been one heck of a party,” grumbled Ryan. “I’d love to remember it.” He looked at the washing machine he’d slumped into, which was well into its spin cycle. “Then again...maybe I’m better off not knowing why I suddenly needed to wash my clothes.”

He looked down at himself. At least, according to the state of his hair, it seemed like he’d taken a shower. And, hey, he hadn’t drowned himself in the process. That was something, right?

He must have been real keen on forgetting the diner guy, huh? Too bad that didn’t work.

Ryan popped his neck, and the washing machine beeped.

Tired beyond exhausted, Ryan dragged himself to his feet and opened the front. His clothes, just the ones he’d been wearing that day, came tumbling out and landed on the floor at his bare feet. At least they wouldn’t take too long.

Halfway done. Just needed to dry and he could get to bed.

With a yawn, Ryan moved his clothes to the dryer, popped a quarter, and started the machine.

An hour of half-snoozing on the laundry room floor later, Ryan dragged his feet back to his room. He had no energy left, no particular need to keep that shirt and pair of jeans wrinkle-free, so he laid them on the other bed and flopped face-down on his own.

Sleep hit him like a train.

It was raining. That sound, Min-Gi could recognize right away. It was familiar. Known. It sent dark, cloudy light shifting through the blinds, flickering through the droplets on his window like moonbeams through diamonds.

The traffic below Min-Gi’s window, too, was familiar. Its usual chattering purr was far from uncommon in fall, especially this far into Powell Lake.

But there was another sound in his room. Like...if a bee was made out of wind chimes, and it jingled instead of buzzed through the air as it flew? That was an entirely new sound.

Min-Gi blinked blearily at his ceiling, eyes cloudy and confused. His alarm hadn’t even gone off yet. What was that?

With a heavy head, he sat up and looked around his bedroom.

It was still as empty and lonely as it had been the night before.

With a groan, Min-Gi rubbed his eye and threw his legs over the side of his bed. His alarm might not have gone off, but, well, he was awake, and the sun was already up. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep.

Grumbling, he dragged his feet to his dresser and dug through the top drawer to find his comb. He’d just finished running it through his hair when he sneezed loud enough to drop it.

He shivered, hair standing on end underneath the sleeves of his pyjamas. “Why is it so cold?”

Min-Gi picked his comb up and slapped it on his dresser before walking into his hallway to look at the thermostat.

“That’s weird…”

The thermostat looked back at him, a lot colder than Min-Gi remembered having it set to. It certainly hadn’t seemed so cold when he got home the night before.

Deciding he must have hit the dial with his shoulder on the way in, Min-Gi turned it back to a more comfortable temperature and headed for the restroom at the end of the hall.

As he turned his back, he thought he heard that sound again, that quiet tinkling, and he quickly looked over his shoulder.

Nothing stood behind him but his unlit kitchen.

With a shake of his head, he turned back around and headed into his bathroom to take a shower.

Thankfully, the heat had returned to a normal level by the time Min-Gi stepped out of the warm water, so he didn’t have to freeze while he got dressed, and, more than that, he didn’t have to freeze while he made himself breakfast.

He winced as he turned the kitchen light on, the incandescents burning his eyes the same way they did every morning. Nearly as offensive was the dark ring on his countertop between the stove and the microwave.

Min-Gi frowned. “How long has that been there?” He was normally much cleaner than that.

Bare feet plodding gently across the kitchen floor, he walked to the drawer where he kept his washcloths and wet one under the sink. The ring he’d apparently left behind at least a day before came up quickly, at least. Small miracles.

Satisfied, Min-Gi grabbed his breakfast from the freezer, opened the package, popped the microwave door, and—

“Grody…”

Min-Gi leaned down to inspect the interior of the microwave. The entire interior was coated with what looked like...melted butter?

More importantly, that definitely wasn’t the state Min-Gi had left his microwave in. The tea stain was one thing, but he’d never leave a microwave like that. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d eaten something with that much butter. Maybe the last time he had popcorn, but there was no way that much could have leaked out of the bag. Not without him noticing.

Min-Gi stood slowly, bending the plastic of his microwave breakfast in his wringing hands.

He hadn’t made that mess.

So...who did?

Who was in his apartment, melting butter in the microwave? Leaving tea stains? Messing with the thermostat? When did they get in? And how? Min-Gi lived on the second floor, and he always locked his door. Always. He distinctly remembered unlocking it when he got home the night before. So when did someone get in? Why did someone get in, when what few valuables he owned all seemed to still be in place? And when—

...When did they leave?

They’re not...still here, right?

...twinkle…

“Huhh—!”

Min-Gi whipped around, his frozen meal clattering to the floor, sending bits of frozen scrambled eggs rattling around inside like pebbles in a shoebox. He swallowed, hard, eyes darting around his kitchen, through the archway leading into his living room.

Most of the light that bled into his living room reached it from the lights in the kitchen. Some of it came from the window.

But not all of it.

That faint, blue glimmer behind the refrigerator didn’t come from either of those sources. Nor did it seem to come from anything natural. It was like, like something from a toy. He’d seen a little girl come into Dumpty’s once with a butterfly barrette that lit up and changed colors when she pressed a button. Maybe it was something like that? But why would someone who broke into Min-Gi’s house have…?

God, like it mattered.

Min-Gi grabbed a wooden spoon from where it dangled off the rack above the sink. In both shaking hands, he held it like a baseball bat, or a sword, and inched his way around the corner of the refrigerator.

...twinkle…

The light inched behind the wall.

Min-Gi swallowed. A bead of sweat rolled down his cheek. His feet stayed planted, frozen on the floor, his heart doing more than their fair share of moving, beating, thumping.

He took a shuddering breath.

Adjusted the spoon in his hands.

Nodded sharply.

And like a flash, like a strike of lightning, like a bullet fired from a handgun, Min-Gi leapt out from behind the refrigerator, belting out a war cry. He swung the spoon in his hands, without thinking, without looking, without even knowing what he attacked. He didn’t need to know. The spoon connected, and the invader, whatever it was, went flying.

CLANK

THUD

ding!

“OW! Hey, what was that for?!”

Min-Gi’s jaw dropped.

The wooden spoon in his hands slid from his stunned, loose fingers and landed on the linoleum at his feet with a low clatter. He stumbled backward, lip trembling, his spine smacking hard against his front door.

There was a bell glaring at him.

“Man, that was so rude.” The bell—the floating, talking concierge bell—rolled its eyes. “Like, what did I even do? Nothing! Probably…”

It hummed, like it was trying to think of something it forgot.

Min-Gi pressed himself harder against the door at his back, feeling for the doorknob beside him. “U-U-Um… Wh— What— What are you?”

“Wow, you’re, like, really good at being rude.” The bell clicked its tongue. Min-Gi tried not to think too hard about the fact that it had a tongue. “It’s ‘who’ are you, not ‘what’ are you. I’m not a thing. I’m a person.”

“You’re a bell!” protested Min-Gi, his voice breaking.

“Psh, I mean, yeah.” The bell twirled around, blue sparks spitting out from beneath it. “But I’m still a person.” It averted its eyes. “I think…”

Its eyes slid back to Min-Gi, and it smiled as if none of the past few minutes had happened.

“I’m Kez!” it said cheerfully. “And you—!” It gasped, eyes widening. “You’re Min-Gi!”

Min nearly jumped out of his skin.

The bell didn’t seem to notice. “That’s right! I came here to find you!”

“F-Find me?” Min-Gi brought his hands to his chest, instinctively guarding his torso. “For what?”

“Um, actually… You know what?”

Kez frowned, its (her?) eyes narrowing to mere slits.

“I can’t remember.”

Chapter Text

“Behind each racing carthorse

There’s a man atop the cart

I need my 

Lion tamer”

The music from Min-Gi’s clock radio as its alarm went off in his bedroom at the end of the hall sounded like it came from a dream. Min-Gi wasn’t entirely convinced he wasn’t dreaming. He was still adjusting to the floating bell. Not to mention—

“What do you mean you can’t remember?”

“What, like you can remember every thought you’ve ever had.” Kez scoffed.

“If it was something important enough to completely rewrite someone’s understanding of reality?” Min-Gi peeled himself from the door. “Yeah! I think I’d remember that!”

“It’s just a little slip of the mind,” said Kez casually. “I’ll remember it eventually. I just need something to jog my memory.”

Anxiety coursed through Min-Gi’s veins like cold static. This had to be against some kind of natural law. Or a supernatural one? Something was very wrong, somewhere.

“Where did you come from?” asked Min-Gi.

“Uh…” Kez averted her eyes. “I...don’t remember that, either.”

“How do you not—” Min-Gi pressed the heels of his hands into his forehead, and just as quickly, threw them down by his sides. “Have you always been like this?”

“Uhhh…” Kez winced.

“What about the bell thing? Have you always been a bell, or did you run into a witch who was tired of toads?”

“Um…”

“You don’t remember.” Min-Gi groaned. “I can’t believe this. I’m surprised you even remember your name.”

Kez went quiet.

Min-Gi pursed his lips. “Kez…”

“Well—!” She turned her body around, revealing a little steel plate affixed to her base. “You would have seen it sooner if you didn’t hit me across the room with a wooden spoon! You twisted me all out of place!”

All former terror rendered moot by irritation, Min-Gi held out a hand, palm up. “Let me see.”

Kez floated across the room and landed on the platform he’d given her.

Min-Gi turned her base toward the light and squinted at the engraving.

KEZ

“That’s how you know what your name is?” Min-Gi gestured sharply at her with the flat of his free hand. “This could be anything! A word in a different language, a coded message, the manufacturer of the bell…” Min-Gi sighed. “I don’t have time for this.”

He dropped his hand, but Kez didn’t move with it. She floated in place exactly where Min-Gi left her.

“I have a job,” said Min-Gi. “And thanks to the mess you made of my microwave, I also have to stop somewhere to grab breakfast, because otherwise, my only options are to either clean it, which is going to take more time than I have, or to risk burning my microwave because of all the molten butter.”

He strode back to the middle of the kitchen and bent down to pick up the microwavable frozen breakfast he’d dropped in his initial fear of… Fine. Kez. He’d still call her Kez until further notice. If that was what she wanted to be called, then fine. Kez until further notice.

“Dude, the microwave is fine!” assured Kez. “It’s just a little greasy! That’s all!”

Min-Gi shoved his would-be breakfast back into the freezer and slammed the door. “Why did you do that in the first place?”

He looked at Kez.

Kez just floated in place. She didn’t have shoulders to shrug with, but Min-Gi could still picture her shrugging. “...I ’unno.” 

Min-Gi marched to his coat rack to grab his apron off its hook. “Did you forget that, too?”

“No!” said Kez. “I remember everything that’s happened since I got here this morning! I just...can’t remember anything before then.”

Min-Gi rolled his eyes and bent down to grab his runners, as well as the wooden spoon he’d dropped, seeing as it was within reach. “Real helpful.” He tied his shoes before climbing back to his full height and setting the wooden spoon on the counter behind him. “Okay, I’m leaving.”

“Okay, let me grab my stuff.” Kez frowned. “Wait, I don’t have any stuff.”

Min-Gi grabbed the doorknob. “I didn’t say, ‘We’re leaving,’ I said, ‘I’m leaving.’ Me. Not you. If…” He squinted at Kez. “I don’t know if you eat, but if you get hungry, fine. Make a sandwich or something. Just don’t make another mess. Please.”

“Hey, wait!” The moment Min-Gi turned to face the door, Kez flew in front of his nose. “What if I remember something important while you’re gone?”

“Then you’ll just have to tell me when I get back.”

“What if I forget before you come back?”

“Is that likely to happen?”

“Man, I don’t know! I’m still trying to figure out why I can’t remember in the first place!”

Min-Gi scowled at Kez.

Kez scowled right back.

With a roll of his eyes, Min-Gi grabbed his keys out of the bowl by the door and held open the pocket of his apron.

“You can’t move,” he said firmly. “You can’t talk, either. Not where people can hear you.”

“I’ll be good!” said Kez brightly. “I promise!” And without complaint, she dove into Min-Gi’s pocket.

“...It smells like pencil shavings in here.”

Well, mostly without complaint.

Kez stayed true to their agreement, at least until halfway through breakfast.

“Dude,” she whispered, thankfully while they were tucked into an empty corner near the entrance to the restroom. “That smells so good.”

Min-Gi took a cursory look around. No one was in sight. “...Do you want my hashbrowns?”

“Uh, hell yeah.”

With another quick glance just to make doubly sure no one was looking, Min-Gi opened the pocket of his apron and slipped the hashbrowns from his meal inside, sleeve and all.

Kez eagerly chowed down.

Min-Gi resumed his McMuffin with a surprised hum. Guess Kez does eat.

“How can you taste that?” he whispered. “Do you have a tongue?”

“Huh-uh,” replied Kez through a mouthful of potato.

“Do you taste it?”

“Mmhmm!”

Min-Gi squinted into his pocket at her. “How?”

“I don’t know! It’s just sort of happening. I put food in my mouth and there’s just an explosion of salty, savory goodness.”

Kez punctuated her statement with a burp, and Min-Gi slapped a hand over his pocket, smothering the sound.

“Ew! Don’t dutch oven me with my own burp, man!”

“Someone could have heard that!” hissed Min-Gi.

“So what?” asked Kez, her bell pushing against his hand with every syllable. “They would have just thought it was you!”

“Wow, thanks.” Min-Gi lifted his hand from his pocket. “I guess you haven’t remembered anything yet.”

“Dude, it’s been, like, twenty minutes.” Kez narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t think I was going to remember something the second you left!”

“Do you have any ideas at all?” asked Min-Gi.

“Uhh…” Kez screwed her eyes shut and rocked back and forth. “Something about a...person? Or like...multiple people, maybe?”

Min-Gi took a bite from his sandwich. “Thank you, Kez. That’s very specific.”

“No probs! I got you!”

Three things were immediately evident.

One: After going to McDonald’s to avoid having to go to the diner where he struck out with the cute diner guy the day before, Ryan found said diner guy committing treason by eating his breakfast at said McDonald’s.

Two: Cute Diner Guy was talking to himself. Ryan might not have been able to hear what Cute Diner Guy was saying, but he definitely sounded kind of anxious.

Three: Cute Diner Guy was, unfortunately, still cute.

And, well, maybe “struck out” was a little strong, right? Like, to strike out in baseball, someone had to miss the ball three times. Ryan still had two more chances, and the guy was right there, and Ryan wasn’t bugging him at work anymore meaning he was less of a captive audience, and—

“Sir!”

Ryan flinched.

The man behind the counter waved an arm over his head to catch Ryan’s attention.

“Do you want your hotcakes or not?”

“Uh…” Ryan’s eyes darted toward Cute Diner Guy. “Sure…”

Warily, he returned his attention to the man behind the counter and approached him to pick up his tray, barely resisting the urge to watch Cute Diner Guy from the corner of his eye.

“Don’t come here just to loiter,” snapped the man behind the counter. “If you ordered something to eat, your job is to stand at the counter and wait for it to be done.”

Ryan blinked, taken aback. “Uhh… My bad?”

“‘Your bad.’” The man scoffed. “What is wrong with the grammar of your generation, boy?”

“Uhh—”

“‘Bad’ is an adjective! Use it like one!”

“Um—”

“Now take your hotcakes and sit down!”

He didn’t have to tell Ryan twice. Alarmed by the unexpected lecture, Ryan scooped up his tray and hurried to the back of the restaurant where he’d seen Cute Diner Guy sitting, only to find an empty table.

With a soft, disappointed sigh, Ryan sat in the booth across from the previously occupied table and popped open his package of plastic silverware.

“Strike two,” he muttered, dropping his chin into his hand. “Come on, universe. Give me just one more shot.”

“Right away, Ma’am. It should only take a few minutes.”

Min-Gi walked away from the table, order in hand, and passed the ticket to the guy in the kitchen.

“Two burgers. No fries.”

“Min. Min, I can’t see.”

“What was that last part?” Rudy, the guy on the fryer, sent Min-Gi a raised eyebrow through the window.

Min-Gi shoved his hand into his pocket to cover Kez’s mouth. “No fries?”

“Got it.” Rudy threw him a thumbs-up and disappeared around the corner.

Min-Gi bent down behind the counter, moving his eyes from shelf to shelf under the guise of looking for something. As soon as his head was covered by the counter, he pulled Kez out, cupped in his hands.

She winced. “Ow. Bright—”

“I told you not to talk!” hissed Min-Gi. “You can’t do that! If anyone finds you, they’re gonna freak out!”

“Yeah,” said Kez, rocking from side to side in his hands, “but like, what if someone important walked through the door? Someone I recognized or something? If I don’t see him, I’ll never know?”

“You’re not going to know if you get whisked away to some alien dissection site or something, either!”

“Yeah, so obviously, both are equally bad.”

Min-Gi rammed his forehead to the shelf above Kez, frustrated. Anxious.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Kez had some kind of, of magical quest that involved him somehow. Once talking bells get involved, it’s hard for doubt to play a role in anything anymore. He’d made peace with that straight away.

But his worldview was turned on its head in a matter of minutes, and, for whatever reason, the universe decided that the magical bell that made a mess of his microwave was his responsibility, and she seemed to have no self-awareness whatsoever, so she was definitely screwed if Min-Gi didn’t treat her like a child, and he was not ready for that level of commitment.

“Can you please just think?” Min-Gi lifted his head. “For five minutes, could you think about what could happen as a result of your actions?”

“I am,” Kez insisted cheerfully. “Which is exactly why I need to get out of the pocket.”

“And go where?” demanded Min-Gi. “Float in mid-air? Wave your—your glitter hands in their faces when they pass by just in case they didn’t notice you?”

“No,” assured Kez. “You can just put me up there!”

She pointed one of those weird glitter hands at the window behind Min-Gi, the one that led into the kitchen.

“That way, I’ll be able to see people, and they won’t think too much about seeing a bell in a public space, and they won’t be able to ring me,” she said brightly.

Min-Gi furrowed his brow. “Is ringing you...a problem?”

“Hmmm…” Kez frowned. “The brain says ‘whatever’, but the gut says ‘yes’.”

Min-Gi sighed. “It doesn’t matter. People are still going to see your eyes.”

“Not if I do this!” Kez closed her eyes confidently, and sure enough, the second she did, she looked like any other bell. “Stealth.”

“What’s the point of getting out of my pocket if you’re just going to close your eyes anyway?” asked Min-Gi.

“I’ll just open my eyes to look around sometimes,” said Kez. “And then I’ll close them again so fast that anyone who thinks they saw a pair of eyes will think they were seeing things. I mean, think about it. If you hadn’t seen me floating around—” She lifted off his hands and did a little twirl to prove her point. “—do you think you would have believed I was a person who could move and talk and make sick pancakes?”

“You—” Min-Gi raised an eyebrow. “You can make pancakes?”

Kez stared blankly at him. “...I dunno.”

Min-Gi pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine. You know what? Fine. I’ll put you up there. But you have to be careful.”

“It’ll be fine,” assured Kez. “Careful is my middle name. Or, y’know, like. It could be. Not that I would know.”

Min-Gi groaned. “Just— Just close your eyes.”

Kez complied, and when Min-Gi stood up, he gently placed her on the window, turned toward the door.

“Two burgers—”

Min-Gi flinched.

Rudy raised an eyebrow and set the tray down right next to Kez. “No fries.”

“Right.” Min-Gi cleared his throat and took the tray. “Thanks.”

Ryan always liked cool weather.

Not cold, necessarily, but...cool. A good, brisk breeze under the right conditions could energize in a way even a whole gallon of coffee couldn’t.

He tuned each string in the cold, tapping his heel against the trash can he’d found overturned at perfect seat height in an alleyway, listening to the way each note on his guitar resonated with the others until it was perfect.

He wondered if the band that was supposed to back him up at the Boulder Cafe was any good. He’d never even worked with any other performers before, much less a bunch of people he’d never spoken to, much less played with. Not that he’d had a choice. The owner was so pushy.

Would they outshine him?

Would they hold Ryan back?

Did that guy from the diner even remember meeting Ryan, or did he just slide into the vague blur with every other customer the guy ever had?

Ryan flicked himself in the forehead. “Stupid—”

All day. All frikkin’ day his brain had been wandering back to the stupid guy in the stupid blue apron that he’d probably never see again. The guy who probably had no idea who he was.

But there was something inside Ryan, a hopeless romantic buried deep down inside that said that they’d already bumped into each other twice, and that that had to mean something. That Ryan had told him where he was playing that night, that he could remember, that he’d walk in just for a quick look and that they’d talk after the show and get swept up in a whirlwind, Hollywood romance.

“What was his name again?” murmured Ryan, plucking out notes on every fret of his E string one by one, high to low, until he hit a G note. “Gi.” He adjusted his fingers to turn that G into a G minor and strummed the chord. “Min-Gi. Yeah. That was it, wasn’t it?” He strummed again. “Min-Gi.”

There was something about that chord… When he talked to people about music, they always seemed to call minor chords sad, but G minor didn’t sound sad to him. Not really. Maybe a little, but not quite. G minor felt more...anxious. Rich and full and anxious.

Ryan strummed the chord again.

Yeah. Very anxious.

“Wonder if he’s like that,” mused Ryan, idly dragging his pick back and forth over the strings.

A bitter sort of smile tugged at the corners of his mouth and he hit the strings with the palm of his hand to stop the ringing of their sound.

“Or, y’know, maybe you’re building up some grand idea of this poor guy without actually knowing anything about him. Could be that.”

He laughed sharply and strummed that same G minor. There was something oddly voyeuristic about what he was doing, playing a chord that sounded almost-kind-of-not-really like a complete stranger’s name and wondering if his soul sounded the same way.

“You know what?” Ryan stood from the trash can he’d been using as a seat. “There’s only one way to find out! You talk to him!” He turned his pick over between his fingers. “You know where he works! You just need to go up to him and strike up a light conversation and find out who he is! Sure, he’s going to be a little fake-polite since he’s working, but that didn’t stop the McDonald’s guy from chewing me out this morning!”

He strummed that G minor frantically, full of nervous energy.

“That’s it!” he announced to the dark, empty alleyway. “It’s settled! I’m talking to him—” He strummed one last time and held his pick out to the side in a grand, dramatic gesture. “—tomorrow!” 

He blew across the tip of his pick like an old west cowboy blowing smoke off his gun.

“No more bullshit. I’m gonna get to know the real Min-Gi. Even if it kills me.”

A bright blue glow scattered across the bricks in front of him, outlining his shadow across the wall of the building he faced.

Startled, Ryan grabbed his pick and squeezed it hard enough for the edge to bite his skin. He turned, slowly, cautiously, peering a petrified look over his shoulder.

He saw where the blue light came from, and it sent a stone crashing from his throat to his stomach, bruising his heart and lungs on its way down, down, down.

“Okay... Listen,” he squeaked at the massive, shining thing that loomed over him. “That was not supposed to be a challenge.”

“Feller over there didn’t finish his browns, so I’m takin’ ‘em. ‘Night, Mingie.”

“It’s -Gi! Hard G…”

The bell on the door jingled as Horace passed through, always the first to enter and the last to leave.

“Is everyone gone?”

Min-Gi paused in his sweeping to look at Kez, where she still sat on the windowsill.

“Why would you ask that if you didn’t know the answer?” asked Min-Gi. “You could get caught!”

“Aww, are you worried about me?” Kez batted her eyes.

“Yes,” said Min-Gi sharply. “I am. I have no idea what you are or why you’re here, and neither do you.”

“Pssh, I know what I am.” Kez lifted herself proudly off the windowsill. “I’m a bell. Duh.”

“Get down!” hissed Min-Gi. “Anyone could walk by and see you at any time!”

Kez scoffed and sat herself down on the bar, irritated, but compliant.

“I don’t know what you are,” repeated Min-Gi. “You’re not like any bell any normal person has ever seen. But you had to have come from somewhere, which means someone out there probably knows what you are.”

“Maybe they could help us,” said Kez.

“Or maybe you came to me because you were trying to escape from them.” Min-Gi pried his dustpan off the end of his broom. “We could be in danger. Neither of us knows for sure.” He bent down to sweep up the dirt he’d gathered. “Not unless you remembered something on the windowsill.”

“Nope,” said Kez, popping the P.

“Yeah,” said Min-Gi. “I didn’t think so.”

He returned to his full height with a tired sigh and walked his dustpan to the bin behind the bar.

As he clipped the dustpan back to its spot on the broom handle, an oddly metallic rumbling echoed to his right, and he turned to find Kez, wide-eyed, just as surprised as he was.

“...Was that your stomach?”

Kez narrowed her eyes. “Maaaaybe…?”

Silence stretched between them.

Min-Gi was the one to break it first, giggling under his bowed head, hand covering his eyes.

“I thought it’d take more than one day to lose control of my life, but here we are, I guess.”

“Huh?”

Min-Gi raised his head, and the hand over his eyes ran down his face. “Don’t worry about it. Let me just...make you some fries, or something.”

WHAM

The thing—the spidery, metallic thing—crashed into the brick wall where Ryan stood just a moment before he’d ducked out of the way. Shards of porous, manufactured stone splintered and clattered to the asphalt below.

The thing shook its head, debris sliding off its pale, human face. It seemed disoriented, and Ryan wasn’t about to miss that chance.

He sprinted to the mouth of the alley, hunkered down low, guitar pinned to his chest because he’d rather die than let anything happen to it.

He tore into orange lights of the city, boots sliding against the street beneath him, sweat already coating his brow.

And in his defense, no one in his situation would have looked both ways before crossing the street.

“Could you sit in the back, please?”

“Why? No one’s going to see me!”

“I just don’t want you making a mess of my front seat,” said Min-Gi.

Kez looked at the fries in her glowing, not-quite-there hand. “Hm.” She shook it back and forth a little, and salt came trickling out through the bottom of the bag. “...You know what? That’s totally fair.”

Min-Gi opened the door to the back seat, allowing Kez to enter first, fries and all.

He grabbed the latch to his own door, about to enter, when something gave him pause. He tilted his head back and looked up into the clouds that hung low over his head. The wind smelled cool and damp, like it was about to rain.

Kez tapped the base of her body against the window, and her blue glow caught the corner of Min-Gi’s eye. “Are you getting in or not?”

Min-Gi sighed. Kez didn’t seem like a bad...person? But she was definitely going to take some getting used to.

Min-Gi climbed inside, shut the door behind himself, and started the car. It took two attempts before the engine turned over.

“Your car’s a piece of crap, man,” said Kez around a mouthful of french fries.

“If you can get me a better one, be my guest.” Min-Gi pulled out of his parking spot and onto the road.

“Mm.” The bag rustled. “Wanna see me catch a fry in my mouth?”

“Sure,” said Min-Gi, who had absolutely no plans on taking his eyes off the road.

An odd patting sound caught his ear, like the sound of several french fries flying through the air and sending salt all over the back seat.

“Kez!”

“What?” asked Kez around what sounded like the one french fry she did manage to catch in her mouth. “You said I could!”

Min-Gi smacked his steering wheel, frustrated. “You asked if I wanted to see you catch a fry in your mouth! One fry!”

“Yeah, and that’s how many I caught!”

“You can't expect me to—!”

WHAM

Min-Gi slammed his foot on the breaks, too late.

Too late, it registered in his mind what he’d just seen, what he’d just crashed into. Too late, he saw the red glasses, the guitar, the long hair, the wild and terrified eyes.

Too late, he realized he’d just hit a man with his car.

Never in his life had he heard a silence so loud.

“Dude,” breathed Kez.

Min-Gi swallowed.

“That,” he rasped, voice breaking an octave too high, “was not my fault.”

Chapter Text

Min-Gi sat in his car, frozen, horrified.

Kez floated onto the console. “Dude. I think you killed someone.”

“He’s not dead.” Min-Gi pursed his lips. Probably. “Look, I’m gonna go check on him. Just—” He reached for his door handle. “Stay out of sight. And act like a bell, in case he does see you.”

“Gotcha.” One of Kez’s glowing, blue hands came up to the crown of her little bell head in a sort of salute, and she disappeared behind the driver’s seat.

Min-Gi popped open his door and stepped outside. The world felt damp and cold where his car heater couldn’t reach. A puddle beneath his car’s tires soaked into his trainers.

A quiet groan squeaked out from under his front bumper.

Okay. The guy he hit wasn’t dead. Good. Dying, maybe, but not dead, and that was the important part.

“Hey…” Min-Gi rounded the front of his car. The man on the ground had pulled himself to his hands and knees. Or, well, one hand and knees. The other hand clutched his hip, no doubt nursing one hell of a bruise. “I’m, uh, sorry I hit you,” said Min-Gi, quiet, sheepish, feeling rather silly but unsure of what else he was supposed to say to someone he’d just hit with his— “I can drive you to a hospital. Is your guitar okay—?”

The man Min-Gi hit lifted his head, eyes wide and wild and terrified. For a split second, the clouds parted, and he looked at Min-Gi with some almost comical mix of shock and confusion and awe before the terror came rushing back and he stole a look over his shoulder.

Min-Gi followed his gaze into the alley, into the darkness the streetlights couldn’t touch.

There was something there.

Something. That was the only word Min-Gi could use to describe it. Something.

Something metallic, with a porcelain, human-like mask with eyes that cried tears of blue flame and claws that reached out weakly, wiggling in uncanny paths.

An epiphany popped into Min-Gi’s head.

He’d never been scared before.

He’d watched movies that made him shiver and had him hesitant to walk through dark hallways alone for weeks afterward.

He’d had nightmares that stuck with him hours after he’d woken up, that made him flinch from strangers on the street and open the medicine cabinet in his bathroom so he couldn’t see himself in the mirror.

He’d woken up to evidence that someone else was in his house while he slept that very morning.

But if what he felt that night, if what coursed through his veins as he looked into that alleyway and saw an incomprehensible something looking back, if what sent crystals of ice shooting through his blood as he watched that thing stumble slowly toward him like a spider with too many legs to adequately control was fear, then Min-Gi had never been scared before.

Too scared to run.

Too scared to fight.

Too scared to scream.

But the man he hit was not.

“Get in the car!” He scrambled to his feet, injured or not. “Go!”

He grabbed Min-Gi’s arm, and it was like the dispelling of a curse. His feet could run. His lungs could breathe. He screamed.

The guy he’d hit pushed him toward the passenger side of the car, and he was too scared to argue. He ran, apron flapping around his legs, and frantically grabbed the passenger side door. No sooner had he claimed the passenger seat than he found a guitar dropped into his lap.

“Take it!” The man Min-Gi had hit grabbed the keys left in the ignition and turned them.

The engine chugged, but didn’t start.

The man laughed sharply, hysterically. “Oh, we’re fucked!”

Min-Gi slammed his door. “Try again! It never starts the first time!”

The man did what Min-Gi said. Still nothing. “Your car’s a piece of crap!”

“I know!” Min-Gi looked through the window at the—the thing, the thing that was still coming straight toward them, shuffling like a zombie. “Just keep trying!”

“Why would you stop your car if you knew it did this?!”

“It’s not like I knew that thing was— AAH!”

CLACK

The metal creature’s claw pounded clumsily against the window.

CLACK

It pressed its cracked, porcelain face to the glass, the orange street lights mixing with the flames behind its gaping eyes.

VRRRRR

The person with the red glasses slammed his foot on the gas, and Min-Gi’s car shot down the street like a cannonball. His back hit the seat behind him, and fearing for his life for more than one reason, Min-Gi scrabbled at his seatbelt with one trembling hand, eyes on the mirror attached to his door, staring at the thing that stood too still in the reflection.

The thing stared back.

Min-Gi yanked so hard on the seatbelt that it stopped short and he had to slide it back up. “What is that thing?! Some kind of alien?!”

“How should I know?!” cried the Red Glasses Man. “I was just minding my own business, practicing before my show, when it jumped out of the shadows and tried to squish me like a bug!”

Min-Gi kept his eyes on the mirror as he clicked his seatbelt in place.

The thing still just...stared. It hadn’t moved from the spot where his car had been just moments before.

“It’s not—” Min-Gi narrowed his eyes. His heart’s frantic beating slowed. “It’s not following us.”

The Red Glasses Man laughed bitterly. “No offense, but I am not sticking around to watch it prove you wrong.”

“Well, you’ve put enough space between us and it,” said Min-Gi. “I think you can stick to the speed limit.”

The car slowed, at least a little bit. Just enough for Min-Gi to hear the sound of the engine drop its whirring pitch to a low note. Something in tune with the music bleeding through the tinny speakers inside his tiny car.

“Every Breath You Take” sounded a lot different when Min-Gi was in the middle of a staring-contest with something he never could have imagined in his most bizarre nightmares.

“Where are you taking us?” asked Min-Gi, breaking eye contact to look at the driver.

“I don’t know!” The Red Glasses Man raised his hand off the wheel to drag it frantically through his hair. “I’m just—trying to get away!”

Min-Gi pursed his lips and looked back at the mirror.

“...It’s gone.”

“WHAT?!” The Red Glasses Man slapped the steering wheel. “What do you mean it’s gone?!”

“It’s just not there anymore,” said Min-Gi, perhaps a little sharper than was absolutely necessary. “It was watching us leave before, and now it’s not.”

“Or,” said Red Glasses Man, “it’s still watching us, but now it’s invisible. We don’t know what it can do! Maybe it can teleport and we’re about to drive right into it! Who knows!” He laughed, high-pitched and anxious. “I’m still not stopping!”

Min-Gi swallowed. He couldn’t blame the man. Losing track of the...whatever-it-was felt the same way losing track of a spider in the house felt, but...worse. Min-Gi clenched his hands, one around the seatbelt strapping him down, one around the neck of the man’s guitar.

He tried to relax the hand around the guitar. He didn’t want to damage it.

...step you take. Every move you make…

“So, uh… I’m Min—”

“Min-Gi. Yeah. I know.”

Min-Gi raised his eyebrows. “Uh…”

“I asked you to see my show tonight, remember?” The man glanced at Min-Gi through the corner of his eye.

“That was—?” Min-Gi relaxed his grip on the seat belt. “You remember my name just from that?”

“I’m…” The man’s eyes darted toward him again. “...good with names.”

Min-Gi’s hand fell to his lap. “Well, I’m not, so…”

“Ryan,” said the man. “Ryan Akagi.”

“Cool,” said Min-Gi, who wasn’t sure what else to say. “Cool...”

They slowed to a stop in front of a street light just as the instrumental solo of the song on the radio kicked in. It made their conversation feel even quieter. Tense. Awkward.

The light turned green, and Ryan made a right turn without using his blinker. Dangerous, but there was no one on the road, and he’d probably done it on purpose to throw off the thing that attacked them, in case it really was invisible and still chasing them like he said.

Inertia pushed them to the left as they turned, and Min-Gi heard Ryan suck a breath in through his teeth, no doubt as his injured hip pushed into the door.

“You should probably get checked out at a hospital.”

Ryan laughed sharply. “And risk leading some weird alien-robot...Terminator...thing into a building full of sick, injured people?”

“You don’t know it’s following you!”

“I know I don’t know where it is, or why it attacked in the first place.”

Min-Gi looked at the road ahead of them. He didn’t live in a particularly big town, but it was still weird to see so few cars on the street. It added to the quiet, the awkward. “...What about your show?”

Ryan sighed and shrugged, tense. “I don’t know. Maybe. I want to, I just…” He rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand, knocking his glasses slightly askew and forcing himself to fix them. They clicked quietly as he pushed them up his nose. “I don’t want people to get hurt. I—” He gestured vaguely in front of himself, heated, frustrated. “I shouldn’t have even gotten you involved, I just— You were there, and I—”

“Dude, are you kidding?” Min-Gi leaned forward, holding Ryan’s guitar close to make sure nothing happened to it. “You saved my life back there!”

Ryan went quiet. The hand that had been previously rubbing his eye fell to his lap.

His gaze darted back and forth between the road and Min-Gi’s face.

“...How?”

“I just…” Min-Gi shrugged. “...froze. That thing could have eviscerated me and I would have just stood there and let it happen.”

“Maybe,” said Ryan. “But if I wasn’t there in the first place, you would have been fine.”

Min-Gi felt his face screw into a disbelieving sneer. “I hit you,” he said firmly. “With my car.”

“Yeah, well…” Ryan just shrugged.

Min-Gi ran his thumb along the sixth string, its texture so rough against his skin it almost burned.

In spite of Ryan’s tension, in spite of the reason for Ryan’s tension, Min-Gi felt himself smile.

“This is an E, right?” He plucked the thick string he’d just been playing with and winced. It was supposed to be an E, he was pretty sure, but that didn’t sound like an E. He must have done something to the poor guitar when he hit Ryan with his car.

Turning down the radio, Min-Gi followed the string to its peg and twisted it the same way he would on his viola, cautiously plucking the string until the sound rang true to his ear.

He began to do the same with the fifth string, which he was pretty sure was a B rather than the C that would have been on his viola, but he’d barely begun to twist the peg before he realized the car had stopped, pulled over on the side of the road.

Confused, he turned toward Ryan, trying to figure out why they’d stopped, only to find Ryan looking back at him, backlit by the street lights behind him, expression impossible to see. It couldn’t have been a happy one, though, if he’d been scared for his life and stopped anyway.

“...Sorry.” Min-Gi set his hands on the strings. He wasn’t even sure where that came from. He normally had much better manners than that.

Ryan breathed, emptying out his lungs, shoulders sinking. “You have perfect pitch?”

Min-Gi raised an eyebrow. “...Yeah?”

“That’s so—” Ryan shook his head, mouth hanging open. “How did you figure out how to do that?”

Min-Gi shrugged and clasped his hands. “I told you my parents made me take viola lessons when I was a kid, didn’t I? It just kind of...happened.”

“Okay, that is not an explanation,” said Ryan. “I’ve been playing that guitar since grade seven, and I still have to play along to ‘Born in the USA’ to make sure it’s tuned right.”

A quiet laugh escaped Min-Gi before he could stop it. “That sounds complicated. Couldn’t you just ask someone else at a venue to play a note before a show?”

“Sure.” Ryan leaned back, and the light from the window caught the corner of his casual smile. “If I had enough time before a show for something like that.”

Min-Gi’s smile vanished. “Have you ever thought about showing up earlier?”

Ryan shrugged. “Eh.”

Min-Gi pursed his lips. He couldn’t say he approved, but Ryan was a stranger, and it wasn’t his place to lecture him. “Well… Judging by the fact that we aren’t being attacked right now, I think we’re safe to go to the cafe.”

Ryan shot upright, suddenly tense, as if he’d forgotten about their attacker entirely before Min-Gi reminded him.

“Go to the end of the road and take another right,” said Min-Gi. “It should take you straight there.”

Ryan looked through the windshield. “Uh… Sure.”

He sat up straight, wiggling to get back into a comfortable position, and pulled onto the road proper again.

“So. Does this mean you’re seeing my show?”

Min-Gi shrugged. He didn’t really want to leave Ryan alone after what just happened. He didn’t want to be home alone, either. Sure, he had Kez, but Kez had already lost to his frantic flailing with a wooden spoon. He doubted she’d stand up against the metal-alien-robot-thing for very long. And Ryan might have been a stick, but a stick was better than a bell.

“Why not?”

Ryan smiled.

And wow did Ryan smile.

His eyes were still on the road, but they shined, catching the city lights, the light from the dash, light from places Min-Gi couldn’t determine.

“Cool,” said Ryan quietly. “Very cool.”

Very, very, very cool.

Ryan squeezed the steering wheel of Min-Gi’s car, barely resisting the urge to do a victory dance right in front of him.

Hit by a car? So what?

Attacked by some weird, metal monster? Negligible!

Anything could happen to Ryan that night—anything—and he’d still consider it the best night of his life, because, for once, the universe gave him a “yes”. The green light, the go-ahead, the hell yeah, and dropped Min-Gi right in front of him when he asked.

And sure, it was at kind of a weird time, but hey, it was a weird time that probably saved his life! He sure wasn’t about to complain.

With Min-Gi’s directions, Ryan found the cafe quickly from where they were and parked Min-Gi’s car near the door.

Min-Gi handed him his guitar.

He handed Min-Gi his keys.

“Hold on,” said Min-Gi, sliding the key part of his Dumpty’s uniform over his head. “Gotta do something with this.”

“Sure.” Ryan leaned against Min-Gi’s car, guitar in hand. “Take your time.”

Min-Gi opened the rear door on the driver’s side, and Ryan idly tuned his guitar, trusting Min-Gi’s tuning on the sixth string and trusting his own ear with the fifth.

Min-Gi emerged quickly, hand shoved firmly into the pocket of his jacket. There was something so much more casual about the way he looked without his apron. Something comfortable. Almost like they were, at the very least, actually friends.

“Ready,” said Min-Gi, and it wasn’t until then that Ryan realized how wide he was smiling.

“Sweet,” said Ryan, trying to play himself off as casual and not as someone who just managed to get the guy he’d been daydreaming about for the past few days, apropos of nothing, to watch his show, also apropos of nothing. “So, ready to—?”

Ryan sucked in a breath and pressed his hand to his hip.

The way he stood from Min-Gi’s car hurt. A lot.

“Jesus, are you okay?”

Ryan looked at Min-Gi and found him staring right back, particularly at the hip he was clutching, thick eyebrows furrowed with concern.

Ryan raised his hand and flipped it dismissively. “Psh, I’m fine.” He nodded toward the cafe. “Come on! I’ve got a show to play.”

Min-Gi scowled, but said nothing. He simply followed Ryan to the front door, just a few steps behind.

Ryan bit his lip, smiling where Min-Gi couldn’t see it.

Min-Gi was worried about him.

Oh, yeah. Definitely the best night of Ryan’s life.

The inside of the cafe was different than Min-Gi had been expecting.

It was cramped, and dark, and full of people his age. College-age.

Instead of the uniform tables and chairs Min-Gi expected, there were couches and coffee tables. People huddled around each other, playing cards, chatting, with a comfort that seemed to imply that they all knew each other.

Min-Gi felt like he was intruding, like he’d just stepped into someone’s living room rather than a public venue.

Ryan didn’t seem to feel his anxiety.

“I gotta go check in with the owner,” he said, turning around with a smile that was far too bright for such a dimly lit room. “You can just…” He shrugged. “Make yourself at home. Get yourself a coffee or whatever.”

“Yeah.” Min-Gi stroked the bell in his pocket with the side of his thumb. “Sure.”

Ryan disappeared into a door behind the...stage, which really just seemed to be a bit of wood flooring with a drum kit, amps, and speakers around the edges, leaving Min-Gi...alone.

Very alone.

Min-Gi took a deep breath and looked around at the people that surrounded him, at a room full of strangers who shouted at each other from across the room like they were family. Feeling alone in a room full of people was far from a new sensation for him. He always seemed to feel that way.

He was used to it.

Submitting to his fate, he waded through the shallow crowd, squeezing between the card players and the people knee-deep in a conversation about what sounded like Wham! to the counter to order a cup of coffee, just to avoid feeling like a leech.

Then, he found a couch—an old, worn one at an awkward angle near the stage that seemed to be abandoned due to the fact that it was so far away from everything else—took a seat, and, after a moment of hesitation, pulled Kez out of his pocket.

She winced at the light, however dim, and looked at Min-Gi warily. “Should I be out here? Why aren’t you freaking out about someone seeing me?”

Min-Gi shrugged a shoulder. “No one’s looking. Even if they did, I mean… As far as they’re concerned, you’re just a bell. They might think it’s weird that someone came in with a bell, but…” He shrugged again.

“Huh.” Kez blinked owlishly at him, as if she hadn’t expected him to take a risk like that. Honestly, Min-Gi couldn’t blame her. It surprised even him.

“Thanks for staying quiet,” he said quietly. “I know it couldn’t have been easy when Ryan and I were freaking out about the…” He still wasn’t sure what to call it. “...You know.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t really see what you guys were screaming about?” She looked through the corner of her eyes as she thought. “But like...I assume it was something really freaky.”

“Is that why you found me?” asked Min-Gi. “Were you trying to warn me about some...monster?”

“Man, I don’t know. Maybe.” Kez inched closer along Min-Gi’s leg. “Like I said, couldn’t see it. Why do you think that has something to do with it?”

“Two supernatural events in one day?” offered Min-Gi. “I mean, I think it’d be weird if that thing didn’t have something to do with you.”

“Fair,” said Kez. “So, this Ryan guy…”

“What about him?”

Kez winked. “Eh? Eh?”

Min-Gi pursed his lips. “What?”

“Psh.” Kez scoffed. “Whatever, man.”

The door Ryan had stepped through reopened, and he emerged, two others behind him.

Min-Gi curled his hand around Kez with the hand that didn’t hold his coffee, fully aware that was probably just as suspicious as having a bell sitting freely on his lap, but too anxious about the idea of Ryan or the drummer or synth player that followed him out seeing Kez to stop himself from trying to hide her anyway.

Ryan plugged his guitar into the amp, stood up straight, and threw Min-Gi a wink. Where the headband he wore had come from, Min-Gi had no idea.

He took a step toward the edge of the “stage”, but before he got too close, the synth player tapped him on the arm and whispered something Min-Gi couldn’t hear, stealing Ryan’s attention while the drummer continued to set up. Whatever he said, it made Ryan laugh.

Min-Gi’s mind wandered to the mini-synth in his pocket, the pocket opposite of where he’d been keeping Kez.

He looked at the synth its player had just carried onstage.

For an instant, he felt just a little…

...jealous.

“All right!” Ryan took the center mic. “How’s everyone feeling tonight?”

A wave of quiet cheers and polite clapping rolled through the cafe. Min-Gi would have joined in, but his hands were full. Ryan seemed to catch his smile, though, judging by the way his own grin widened when their eyes met, however briefly.

“Sweet! Since you’re all pumped and ready to rock, I won’t waste any time revving you up.” A few people laughed. Not many. “I’m just gonna say that that’s Spiceman, that’s Beehive, and I’m Ryan. And together, we’re Some Guys Who Met For the First Time Ten Minutes Ago.”

That got a few more laughs. Even one from Min-Gi.

“Five, six, eleven, twelve!”

The drummer and the synth player both took their cues, stumbling clumsily into a rhythm, emphasizing Ryan’s point that they’d never practiced together. Going off Ryan’s wince, it emphasized his point more than he thought. But they figured each other out quickly, and Ryan’s guitar filled in the gaps they had left.

“I walk along the avenue

I never thought I’d meet someone like you”

Min-Gi bit his tongue to keep himself from rolling his eyes. Those were not the words.

But Ryan’s glasses glinted in the stage lights, and his eyes twinkled behind them, and a smirk played on his lips, and when Min-Gi caught his eye, his toes curled inside his shoes.

“Meet someone like you”

Ha-ha, Ryan. Very funny. I didn’t expect to hit you with my car, either.

Min-Gi hadn’t expected anything that happened that day. If someone had told him that morning that he’d end the day sitting in a bohemian coffee shop with a talking bell on his lap while the frontman of the performing band winked at him from the stage, he would have started looking into changing his locks.

And yet, there he sat, some of the leftover adrenaline from his earlier supernatural run-in still charging his veins, along with the adrenaline from those looks Ryan kept sending him.

“A beam of light comes shining down on you”

Min-Gi couldn’t remember the last time anyone had willingly spent so much time with him. Ryan actually seemed excited that Min-Gi wanted to see his show, even after an experience that should have exhausted him on the spot. Sure, Ryan had asked him to see his show, but he was just trying to advertise it, right?

This was different.

“Aurora comes in view”

This was...sort of nice.

“And I ran, I ran so far away

I just ran, I ran all night and day”

Ryan flashed Min-Gi another smile, and the sparks flying off it went straight to his chest.

“I couldn’t get away”

Outside of an old, brick building with a worn, peeling sign that labeled it as The Boulder Cafe, stood a Steward, its cracked, porcelain face pressed to a window.

The cold glass fogged under its breath as it watched the performance that took place inside.

The guitarist. The boy with the Stylophone hidden in his pocket.

The bell.

They were together.

That was a problem.

The Steward sank behind the windowsill, breathing ragged. Its humanoid mask lifted with a hiss, allowing the human face beneath it easy access to fresh air.

The human reached out from the cables that shielded its body and touched its cheek with trembling fingers.

It wondered if its eye could be saved, or if the shard that wounded it did too much damage.

It didn’t matter. Not in the face of what had just taken place.

“Morgan.” The human sealed within the Steward pressed a button on its neck. “Morgan.”

“I’m listening,” snapped Morgan. “What is it?”

“I found our runaway,” said the human. “But there’s a problem.

“She found them. Both of them. They’ve met, and not in a way they’re bound to forget on their own anytime soon.

“What do we do about it?”

Chapter Text

Soft, surprised laughter rose inside Min-Gi’s car.

“No, I’m serious, he’s Beehive, and the guy with the beehive tattoo is Spiceman!”

“Did they know each other before they got the tattoos?”

“What, you think I asked?”

The light turned green, and Min-Gi stifled his laughter enough to put his foot on the gas without fear of driving them into a wall.

“I am not used to playing with other people,” said Ryan. “It’s usually just me and my guitar up there. Tonight was, wow, weird. Like I had to be responsible for their mistakes on top of my own.”

Min-Gi smiled. He couldn’t help it. Ryan’s enthusiasm was infectious.

“I’m so glad you wound up coming to the show,” said Ryan, leaning back in the passenger seat. “I had way more fun knowing you were there.”

“You’re glad?” Min-Gi laughed sharply. “I wouldn’t have come if I hadn’t hit you with my car.”

“So worth it.”

Min-Gi shook his head, smile unshakable. “You need to take a harder look at your priorities.”

“Oh, I think my priorities are just fine.” Ryan put his feet up on the console.

“Dude, get your boots off my car.”

“You got it.”

Ryan set his feet back on the floor without protest and looked through the window.

“Turn right here.”

Min-Gi ducked his head to get a better view of the sign for the hotel they pulled into. The sign simply read Powell Lake Town Centre. “This is the place?”

“Yep.” Ryan pointed through the window. “My van’s right there. Just park next to it.”

Min-Gi nodded, obeying Ryan’s instructions, and pulling the emergency brake to ensure his car wouldn’t slide down the rain-slick road before hopping out.

Ryan stretched his arms over his head, guitar swinging freely by his hips. He sent Min-Gi a smile around his sleeve. A strangely warm one. Like he was glad to see an old friend.

Min-Gi, bashful, tucked his hands into his pockets, briefly forgetting Kez was still in the right one. He stroked her with his thumb, a quiet apology for smacking her, and adjusted his hands to a position much more comfortable for both of them.

“Which room are you staying in?”

Ryan let his hands drop to his sides with a couple of light pats. “Oh, I’m not staying in a room.”

“Uhh…?”

Ryan rounded the corner of his van and grabbed the handle on the rear doors. Min-Gi followed him with his eyes through every step, inching closer around the trunk of his own car to get a better look when he threw the doors open.

The first thing Min-Gi saw was a blanket.

It took a beat longer for him to notice a mattress beneath it, but he did. Followed by the two mismatched pillows behind the front seats, neither with pillowcases.

Then Min-Gi saw the guitar case propped up in the corner between the mattress and the wall, the misshapen cardboard box placed casually on the foot of the “bed” with its flaps hanging open, a couple of hangers dangling down from hooks above the windows.

“Are you…” Min-Gi rubbed the toe of his shoe into the paved parking lot. “Are you living out of your car?”

“No, I’m living out of my van.” Ryan set his guitar aside on the blankets before turning around and grabbing a seat on the edge of the mattress, one boot perched casually on the bumper, hands propping him upright behind him. “I mean, usually. Every once in a while, I’ll get an actual room so I can do laundry, take a shower...”

“Every once in a while,” echoed Min-Gi.

Ryan laughed. “What, do I stink?”

Not yet, thought Min-Gi, eyeing the sweat from the stage lights that matted Ryan’s hair to his forehead. I wouldn’t bet on tomorrow, though. “It’s supposed to get cold tonight.” Min-Gi brought his gaze down to meet Ryan’s eyes.

Ryan shrugged. “Psh, like five below. I’ve had way worse. I can handle a little out-of-season chill. Unless…” He raised a hand to his chin, and a slow smirk stretched his lips. “...you’re volunteering to stay the night and keep me warm?”

“WHAT.”

“Easy, easy…” Ryan raised his hands in surrender, laughing quietly. “If your face gets any redder, it’s gonna explode. It was just a joke.”

Min-Gi pursed his lips. Joke. Right. Yeah. ...Good.

Ryan turned his face away, hand pressed to the back of his neck, sandwiching his hair in-between.

Min-Gi took a breath through his nose. “I, uh… I guess I better go, then. I have work in the morning.”

“Yeah,” said Ryan. “I gotta, you know, get up early so I can move the van before anyone figures out I’m bumming in the parking lot.”

Min-Gi nodded. He...didn’t approve, but Ryan was a stranger, and it wasn’t his place to lecture the guy. So he nodded.

“Guess I’ll...see you around, then?” Ryan dropped his hand, glistening with sweat, from his hair, and held it out for Min-Gi to shake.

Min-Gi eyed the hand, hesitant to take it. Not because it was sweaty, but because—

Well. It didn’t matter. It didn’t make any sense anyway.

Min-Gi took his hand and shook it, once, sharply, like he was thanking a businessman for his time.

"See you."

Ryan frowned. He looked disappointed.

"Yeah," he said softly. "Yeah..." He rubbed the back of his neck and turned around, shadows falling over his lean form as he inched inside. "'Night, Min."

The doors closed, and Min-Gi took a long, slow breath of cool night air.

"Good night."

He turned toward his car, took one step in its direction, and paused. His eyes returned, hesitantly, to the doors of Ryan's van, the wall sealed between himself and Ryan. Then, inexplicably heavy-hearted, Min-Gi returned to his navy blue car, climbed inside, and shut the door.

He gripped the steering wheel, glaring at the hood beyond his windshield, making no move to reach for his keys.

Kez rose out of his pocket with a faint blue glow and a sound like wind chimes. "Min."

"What?" Min-Gi twisted to face her. "What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to invite some stranger into my house? He said he was fine, so he's fine!"

Kez sat on the armrest between his seat and the one still warm from Ryan's body. She didn't say a word. She just...looked.

"Does this have to do with the fact that I hit him with my car?" snapped Min-Gi. "I tried to get him to see a hospital! He wouldn't! And— And what does it matter if we got along, right? I mean, sure, he's a nice guy. Sure, he's charismatic and made me laugh. You know who else is charismatic? Ted Bundy."

Kez stayed silent.

"And if someone saw us?" Min-Gi turned away from Kez and folded his arms over the top of his steering wheel. "If someone heard him talk to me like... Like the way he just did?" He pressed his face into his arms. "If he kept saying stuff like that in the halls, and my neighbors heard him... They could think we're... They could think I'm..."

Still, Kez said nothing. Min-Gi wasn't even looking at her anymore. His eyes were back on the hood of the car. But he could feel her eyes on him. Judging. Questioning.

Min-Gi looked through his window at Ryan's van. The warm colors painted on its side. Colors as warm as him. As his smile. As the energy that came off him in waves.

The steering wheel felt a lot harder against Min-Gi's forehead than gripped in his hands. He pounded his head against the top of the wheel again and again, sure if he did it much harder he'd set off the airbags. His stomach felt like it was twisting, tightening, like a rusty string coiled too tight around a peg, ready to snap.

He snapped.

Min-Gi didn't know what it meant. Why he was so eager to throw out his inhibitions, his worries about what people would think of him and what would happen to him if they thought the wrong thing. Nor did he know why he was so eager to march right back to Ryan's van, leaving the door to his car wide open, trusting Kez to know to hide somewhere on her own so when he came back, she would be out of sight.

But that's what he was doing. What his arms were doing, what his legs were doing, all without his permission. Or maybe with more permission than Min-Gi was willing to accept he'd given them.

He didn't know what he was doing. He couldn't say.

But he was doing it.

"Ryan!" Min-Gi whacked the back door of Ryan's van with the flat of his hand, slapping more than knocking.

The door he'd hit his hand against opened slowly, and Ryan peeked his head out, red toothbrush hanging out of his mouth, a soda bottle he'd refilled with what Min-Gi guessed—hoped—was water in his hand, jeans shamelessly removed. Jacket still on. Of course.

Ryan lowered the toothbrush from his mouth with a raised eyebrow, white foam clinging to the corners of his mouth. "Yeah...?"

Min-Gi caught himself staring for a beat too long. He yanked his gaze away, pointing it at his own car, and screwing his eyes shut when he felt like that wasn't enough. A frustrated, heated sigh broke out of him like a roar. "Could you— Could you put your pants back on, please?"

"Sure," said Ryan slowly. "But, uh... Why?"

"Because, I—" Min-Gi pressed a hand into his face, pinching the bridge of his nose between the end of his thumb and the side of his index finger. "I'm trying to invite you to stay at my apartment and it feels weird doing that when you're half-naked."

"Your apartment?" Min-Gi heard a rustling noise followed by what sounded like a zipper. He opened his eyes and looked back. Too quickly, apparently, because Ryan was on his back, hips lifted off the floor, hand on his button, and that wasn't any better than him being without his pants, actually. "Like...for the night?"

Min-Gi pursed his lips. "Like...for however long you want to stay. Or need to. Or...whatever."

"A— Wh..." Ryan sat up, slack-jawed. "You're serious?"

Min-Gi nodded sharply, as if he could make the conversation go by faster if he gestured faster. "Yeah. Serious."

Ryan's eyebrows disappeared into his bangs. He pursed his lips again, this time for only a moment. Then, "Yeah." His voice cracked. "Sure." He reached for his boots and inched toward the edge of his mattress, as if he planned on following Min-Gi to his car.

"You'll...probably want your van." Min-Gi rubbed his shoulder. "I'm guessing all your stuff's in it."

Ryan frowned. "Yeah, I was..." He raised an eyebrow. "It's easier to get to the steering wheel by going through the door. You know, instead of climbing over the seats and..." He glanced over his shoulder. "...everything."

"Right." Min-Gi wanted to kick himself. Duh. His brain felt like it was getting bad reception. Static. He couldn't explain what he was doing. It was just...happening. Like some all-emotions-no-logic part of his brain was piloting his entire body without his input. "I'll, uh. Go get my car. So I can lead the way. Yeah."

He ran his hand through his hair, pushing a few flyaway hairs into place.

Stupid.

Ryan wanted to say that Min-Gi's apartment suited him, but...it really didn't.

It was way too clean.

And sure, Ryan saw that Min-Gi did everything he could to portray "cleanliness"—that too-pristine, flawless mask he wore—but there was something rougher than that in his laugh. A guy as clean as Min-Gi pretended to be wouldn't have let Ryan go to his show instead of seeing a hospital, and he definitely wouldn't have let a stranger crash on his couch.

Nah. There was more to him. Ryan wouldn't have bothered flirting the morning they met if there wasn't. His instincts knew better than that.

"I'll, uh..." Min-Gi shuffled his feet between Ryan and the door he'd just closed. "I'll...get you a blanket. You can...shower, or whatever you want. The bathroom's at the end of the hall."

Ryan dropped his bag by the couch and slipped his guitar over his head. "Sounds good. Stage lights, man. They really make you sweat."

"Yeah, I noticed," said Min-Gi, already headed into the hallway.

"Oh, so I do stink. Is that why you brought me here?" asked Ryan. "Couldn't stand the thought of me stinking up my own van with my stage sweat?"

Min-Gi didn't answer.

Ryan frowned and carefully leaned his guitar case against the arm of the couch. "Why did you bring me here?"

"I don't know," sighed Min-Gi, exasperated enough to sound honest. "I just...didn't feel right leaving you out there, you know?"

Ryan shrugged. Good enough for him, as long as he got to spend more time with Min-Gi. "You're not a serial killer, are you?"

"You should have thought about that before you agreed to stay with me," said Min-Gi. Ryan supposed he had a point. "...Are you a serial killer?"

Ryan laughed sharply. "Maybe you're the one who should have thought about that before inviting me into your apartment."

"I did," said Min-Gi.

Ryan tilted his head back, surprised. "And you brought me here anyway?"

Min-Gi reappeared at the mouth of the hallway, face barely visible behind armfuls of thick, plush blankets and pillows. He shrugged, and Ryan could only tell he had by the jostling of the blankets. "I guess I did." He rounded the end table, giving the lamp atop it a wide berth, and set the blankets on the couch. "I'll make your bed," he said. "Go—" He turned his face away and stifled a yawn. "Go shower."

"You sure?" asked Ryan. "You seem kind of beat. I can spread a blanket out on my own if you need sleep."

"I think my mom would kill me if she knew I wasn't being a hospitable host," said Min-Gi. "Go on. I'll be fine."

Ryan rubbed his shoulder. "Yeah. Sure."

His mom, huh? Ryan almost forgot what it was like to have one of those.

Min-Gi's bathroom was...yellow. Really yellow. Yellow shower curtains, yellow walls, a yellowed age to the lights, yellow linoleum on the floor.

Ryan didn't like it. It didn't suit him or Min-Gi.

Ryan slipped his jacket off and reached for the hem of his shirt. Just starting to lift it up made him wince. It hurt like hell. Sucking in a steeling breath and pulling his shirt off revealed why.

It was already a deep, dark, mottled red, matching the mark on Ryan's opposite side, on his leg. The bruise he'd had to hide from Min-Gi when he came back to Ryan's van. One from the front bumper of Min-Gi's car, one from being thrown to the asphalt in the collision.

He'd have to be careful with that, both to keep himself from getting hurt further and to keep Min-Gi from knowing about it. He'd probably drag Ryan to the hospital kicking and screaming if he saw it. An anxious mess in G Minor.

"Oh, mama, I'm in fear for my life from the long arm of the law..." Ryan bent over to start the water with one hand, undoing the button of his jeans with the other. "Lawman has put an end to my runnin' and I'm so far from my home..."

Ryan sang in the shower.

Of course he did. Why wouldn't he? He sang for a living.

Min-Gi leaned his back to the sliver of wall between his closet doors and his bedroom door. Listening. Unable to keep himself from singing along.

"The jig is up, the news is out, they finally found me..."

"You do like him."

Min-Gi looked through the corner of his eye and found Kez floating in mid-air at the center of his room.

“I mean, people usually don’t sing along with people they don’t like. Not unless they’re at a concert or something.”

Min-Gi shrugged. "Sure." He pressed his temple to the wall. "He's great."

Kez drifted closer as if pushed by a gentle breeze from nowhere. "Then why didn't you want him to stay with you?"

"Because inviting a total stranger into your house is stupid," said Min-Gi. "And dangerous and reckless and..." He shrugged. "I don't know. It's not like me."

"I'm as much of a stranger as he is," said Kez. "You seem okay with me staying here."

"I hit you with a wooden spoon," reminded Min-Gi.

"Eh, it's in the past."

Min-Gi huffed a quiet laugh despite himself and held out his hands. Kez landed peacefully in them. Part of Min-Gi expected her to be hot to the touch so soon after she'd been flying around. The sparkles that rained down from her underside reminded him a little of jet engines. But no, Kez wasn't hot. She was just...warm. As warm as any human.

Min-Gi let the back of his head find the wall again, and he closed his eyes, listening to Ryan sing.

"Do you think he really likes Styx?"

Kez scoffed. "That's what you're thinking about?"

"It's...one thing I'm thinking about," said Min-Gi. "I mean...it's Styx. As in 'Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto' Styx. And have you seen the album cover for Kilroy Was Here?" He shifted uncomfortably. “It’s not just that, either. The actual album is a nightmare. It’s supposed to be a concept album about a post-apocalyptic future where rock music is outlawed as a statement about Christian groups who think it’s ‘devil music’, and sure, that I can get behind. But half the songs aren’t even about that. One of the singles off the album isn’t even about that.”

"I mean, you've got a point. I don't know, maybe it was just in his head." Kez turned in his hands. "I didn’t know you were that into music.”

“I’m not,” said Min-Gi.

“I don’t know,” said Kez. “You seem a little too invested in a ‘total stranger’s’ taste in music for it to be a casual interest.”

Min-Gi shrugged sharply. "He's got a nice voice. I just think it'd be a shame if he used it on shitty music. That's all."

"Mmmm..." Kez floated up from his hands. "Okay." She didn't believe him. Min-Gi didn't blame her. He didn't believe himself. But he couldn't really explain why Ryan's taste in music mattered to him so much. Even to himself. It was just...a thing that happened.

"Well, you should get some sleep." Kez settled down on the pillow Min-Gi had retrieved for her when he'd gotten blankets for Ryan. "It's been a long day."

Min-Gi laughed bitterly. Boy, had it. Two new roommates in one day. A supernatural bell and a wannabe rockstar. God, if his parents knew—

Min grabbed fistfuls of his pyjama bottoms at the knees.

God, if his parents knew...

It didn't matter. Because they wouldn't. He lived on his own. They didn't drop by without warning. He could just...not tell them.

Min-Gi took a sharp breath and stood from the floor.

"Yeah."

A knock came at his bedroom door. Min-Gi flinched, some voice in the back of his head terrified of being caught doing something he wasn't supposed to, but he realized quickly that the sound of running water had stopped, as did Ryan, and it was probably Ryan standing outside his door and not, as the most anxious part of him said, his dad.

Min-Gi opened the door just a sliver.

He immediately slammed it shut.

"Dude. Everything's covered."

Min-Gi pressed his face into the door. No. No, it wasn't. His dick was covered. There was a very clean stripe of wet skin running utterly obscured all the way from head to toe down his left side. Ryan had gotten a fucking hand towel to cover his junk and decided that was fine. What the fuck was wrong with him?

"I know it's late and you were probably in bed. Sorry. I just couldn't find the towels and I don't have one of my own, so..."

Min-Gi pressed his eyes tightly shut and his forehead harder into the wood of the door, willing his heart to stop pounding out of his chest.

"Yeah. Yeah, just—" He took a deep, calming breath that actually didn't do much to calm him. "There's a closet in the hallway. Across from the bedroom door, about halfway to the living room. Do you see it?"

"Sure," said Ryan. "But I don't want to just...go through all your stuff."

"It's fine."

"You sure?"

"Yeah." Please don't make me go back out there. "Yeah, just...help yourself."

"All right, man," said Ryan, somewhere between surprised and accepting. "If you insist."

The floor groaned quietly as Ryan traveled down the hallway. The door squeaked as it opened.

"...Gloria Gaynor, huh?"

"What—? Oh." Min-Gi lifted his head. He forgot he had that poster hanging on the inside of the closet door. It was white noise to him. To be expected to remember it was there when his head was exploding was a little much. "Yeah. Yeah, that's...Gloria Gaynor."

"Cool," said Ryan. "Good taste." The door clicked shut. "Thanks, Min! Sorry for bothering you."

"Yeah..." Min-Gi let out a breath and turned around, pressing his back to the door. "No problem..."

He slid to the floor, exhausted, head pounding. When his eyes landed on the far side of the room, he found Kez watching him, smirking from her pillow.

"What?" he hissed.

She winked, silent.

Min-Gi didn't know what that meant.

He didn't want to think about what it could mean.

He just picked himself up, dragged himself to his bed, and hit the mattress face-first, groaning on the way down.

Straight guys don't like Gloria Gaynor, do they?

The ceiling of a near-stranger's apartment had never been so magnetic.

Maybe it was something his mom shoved on him before he left home. Maybe his mom likes Gloria Gaynor. Maybe his mom liked Gloria Gaynor when he was a kid and he put the poster up to remember home. Maybe it's a nostalgia thing.

Ryan gripped fistfuls of the blanket over his chest. He couldn't even close his eyes. The ceiling was a fisherman and his eyes were the fish. There was no closing them. They were hooked.

Do straight guys like Gloria Gaynor? Maybe Min-Gi is the one straight guy out there who likes Gloria Gaynor. Maybe I'm stereotyping too much.

Why am I thinking about this now? I should have thought about this when I tried to ask him out the first time. Why didn't I think about this then? Why the hell would I ask him out without knowing if he likes guys? Do I have a death wish? ...Rhetorical question.

Why did he freak out like that when I got out of the shower? It wasn't, like, a violent freak-out, so that's good, I guess, but...was that an "I'm repulsed by the male body and couldn't even use locker rooms in high school gym" thing or an "I can't handle a hot, mostly-naked guy right now" thing? Is he just a prude that doesn't want anyone walking around his house until they're fully clothed? I mean, is he secretly an old, white lady? Is he going to hit me with his purse the next time he sees me without a shirt? Everything in his apartment's so clean. Maybe he is an old, white lady.

A quiet click sounded from down the hall. The sound of an opening door, the latch bolt sliding across the plate. The quiet creak of hinges. Then the closing of another door.

Ryan covered his face with his arms. He was about to have a very restless few nights if he started flinching every time Min-Gi needed to use the toilet.

Doot-doo-doo-doo-doot doo-doo-doo-doot

...Unless Min-Gi wasn't in there to use the toilet.

Doot-doo-doo-doo-doot doo-doo-doo-doot

Ryan sat up, borrowed blankets sliding off him. What was that? A mini-synth?

Doot-doo-doo-doo-doot doo-doo-doo-doot

He threw the blankets off his legs, uncovering the red boxers underneath, and crept down from the edge of the couch.

His guitar was looped around his neck before he'd even grabbed his glasses.

He inched toward the restroom door, distributing his weight carefully from foot to foot, careful not to let the floor beneath him creak too loudly.

Doot-doo-doo-doo-doot doo-doo-doo-doot

Sounded like two notes. Ryan didn't have perfect pitch like Min-Gi, but that...sounded like an F and a G? Maybe? He fingered a chord on his guitar. He could work with that.

Doot-doo-doo-doo-doot doo-doo-doo-doot

Brum-bah-nah-nah-nah bah-nah-nah-nah

"Shit—"

Something mini-synth-sized clattered to the linoleum on the opposite side of the door.

Ryan might have smirked if he wasn't so worried about what Min-Gi was about to say. He hadn't heard him swear before. At least Min wasn't a total old lady. But that still didn't tell Ryan how the rest of that night was about to go.

Min-Gi cleared his throat on the other side of the door. "Are you—?" It didn't stop his voice from cracking. "...Are you dressed?"

Ryan looked down at himself. "...Do boxers count as dressed?"

Min-Gi cursed again.

For a moment, Ryan thought he wasn't going to open the door.

Then he heard a creak, and a sliver of blue light slinked between the door and its frame.

Ryan took that as an invitation, if a concerning one.

The bathroom looked completely different in its current light. Rather than turn on the overhead lights—Ryan wouldn't want to, either, at such an hour—it seemed Min-Gi had gotten his hands on a nightlight. A blue skull plugged into the wall outlet by the mirror. If Ryan had to guess, he'd put money on it being a Halloween decoration. Maybe one Min-Gi had gotten on a whim once when he allowed himself to be fun for a whole five minutes. Probably the only holiday decoration he had. But maybe that was too many assumptions.

It bathed the whole bathroom in a cool light that stole the yellow walls away. It made every inch beyond the bathroom door feel a thousand times more inviting than it had when Ryan used it earlier. The skull itself may have been surprising, but the color... That seemed like Min-Gi. At least, to Ryan it did.

The shower curtain was still pulled aside from when Ryan had used the bath earlier, and Min-Gi sat on the edge of the tub, casting a shadow on the wall behind him. His head was bowed, half his face hidden in shadow. He held something a little too tightly in his hands, like he was trying to hide it as much as possible. It was small, rectangular, no more than a couple of centimeters thick.

A mini-synth. Yeah, Ryan thought so.

"I thought you played the viola," said Ryan, closing the door behind him. He wasn't sure it was necessary, but he did it anyway. There was something intimate about the atmosphere. He wanted to trap it inside.

"I didn't say it was all I played." Min-Gi shrugged. "Besides, this isn't a real instrument. It's just a toy."

Ryan scoffed. "I've seen people go on stage with a bunch of PVC pipes and a mallet. If you can make sounds with it, it's a real instrument."

Min-Gi didn't respond.

Ryan laid a hand across the body of his guitar. He wanted to get closer, but Min-Gi was clearly uncomfortable with any level of nudity. Ryan was lucky Min even let him in the bathroom with him. He didn't want to press that. But at the same time...

Ryan weaved between the towel rack and the sink to where Min-Gi sat, keeping an eye on him as he took off his guitar and lowered himself onto the edge. Min-Gi didn't flinch or shy away. There was no discernable shift in his expression. He seemed okay. If that changed, Ryan could leave.

"I'm sorry if I woke you," said Min-Gi. "I tried not to."

"You didn't," said Ryan. "I was having trouble sleeping."

Min-Gi closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath through his nose. "...Yeah. Yeah, me, too."

Ryan pursed his lips. "...Do you want to talk about it?"

"Do you?" asked Min-Gi, turning toward him.

Ryan could have laughed. Talk about what? Me trying to figure out if I have a chance with you?

Min-Gi took his silence as an answer and looked back at his mini-synth. "Me neither."

Ryan moved his guitar aside, tucking it into the corner between the wall behind him and the edge of the tub. "Can I see it?"

Min-Gi turned toward him, looked at his Stylophone, seemed to debate it for a moment, then held out his hand, Stylophone flat on his palm.

Ryan, recognizing that Min-Gi had just given him a show of trust, reached out with a careful hand and plucked the stylus out of its groove.

He played a few notes at random, which didn't sound good together at all, and winced. "Agh."

Min-Gi leaned toward him and pointed out one of the reflective, piano-like keys. "This is C. All the bottom keys are natural."

"So if I..." Ryan tapped out a scale from one C to the next, almost stretching across the entire set of keys. "Okay. That's pretty intuitive."

"Like I said, it's just a toy."

Ryan frowned. Something about the way Min-Gi said that really made him sound down on himself. He didn't like it.

Understanding the notes, he moved his stylus up and down the scale, fumbling around, looking for a key, only to get frustrated when he realized what he was really looking for would have required more than one stylus.

"Is there a way to make chords with this thing?"

Min-Gi laughed. "Are you kidding me?"

"Just thought I'd ask," said Ryan. "But that's fine. I can make it work."

He chose the key that was the closest to the chord he was trying to use, which he figured was F-ish, and tapped out a rhythm before repeating the same rhythm on a higher note.

"OMD?" asked Min-Gi, leaning in over his shoulder.

"Mmhmm," said Ryan, continuing to play. "It was the first synth song that came to mind. You picked it out pretty quick."

"I listen to the radio," mumbled Min-Gi.

Ryan smirked, but he resisted the urge to point it at Min-Gi. They weren't quite at the level of familiarity that allowed teasing yet, disappointing as it was.

He kept playing the same sequence again and again, trying to make his shift from one key to the next a little less clumsy each time.

He stopped the second he heard something harmonize with his playing.

He looked to his left. Min-Gi was almost close enough to lay his head on Ryan's shoulder, and god... Was Ryan nuts for wishing he would? But rather than getting closer, Min-Gi leaned back.

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize," said Ryan. "Was that— Were you singing?"

"Humming," said Min-Gi, gripping the side of the tub. "Sorry, I wasn't trying to—"

"No— Stop— I liked it." Ryan leaned closer. "I'd like it even more if you were actually singing."

Min-Gi laughed sharply but didn't raise his voice over the whisper it had been. "I can't sing."

"Neither can I," said Ryan. "I still do it on stage all the time. Come on, what are you embarrassed about? Who's gonna hear you?"

"You will," said Min-Gi.

"Just imagine I'm in my underwear," said Ryan.

Min-Gi looked pointedly at his lap.

Ryan grinned. "Like I said, there's no reason to be embarrassed."

"Come on, Ryan," sighed Min-Gi.

"You come on!" said Ryan. "What if I sing with you?"

"Ryan..."

"Please?"

"I can't."

"Sure you can. We can do it together." He returned the Stylophone to Min-Gi. "There's no one else here, okay? It's just you and me."

Min-Gi's eyes looked from the door to Ryan's face, then he screwed them shut. Stress was written all over his expression.

Ryan reached for his guitar. "Come on, Min." He strummed an F. "If you don't start singing with me, I'll just start singing without you." D minor. "I'll serenade you, right here and now." B flat. "In this bathroom." C. "In my underwear."

Min-Gi looked at him desperately. "Please, don't."

Ryan just grinned. "If you leave—"

"No, Ryan—"

"—don't leave now—"

"Cut it out, please—"

"—please don't take my heart away—"

"Stop."

Ryan's grin widened. "Promise me just one more night—"

Min-Gi buried his face in his hands. Well, one hand and the mini-synth that was in the other.

"Then we'll go our separate ways..."

Min-Gi took a sharp breath between his hands. "We always had time on our sides..."

Ryan beamed. Sure, Min sounded less like he was singing and more like he was a hair's breadth from killing him, but...

"Now it's fading fast—"

It was so worth it.

Ryan poked Min-Gi's shin with his bare foot, trying to get him to look up from his hands. "Every second—" When he didn't, Ryan poked him again. "—every moment—"

Min-Gi dropped his hands, setting his mini-synth on the edge of the tub, just to glare daggers into Ryan's eyes. There was no doubt in Ryan's mind that, if the blue weren't bright enough to even everything out, his cheeks would have been a glorious cherry red from a mixture of frustration and embarrassment. He wouldn't exactly win awards for charisma if they were on stage, but he didn't need to. Like Ryan said...

"We gotta make it last!"

...it was just them.

He scooted closer, turning his back toward Min-Gi to make room for his guitar. "I touch you once—" He leaned back across Min-Gi's arm. "—I touch you twice—"

Min-Gi pushed Ryan away with a warm hand between his bare shoulder blades. "—I won't let go at any p-price—"

Ryan tilted his head back to make sure he hadn't made Min-Gi genuinely uncomfortable, only to find his face turned away, toward the light, a quiver on his lips. Not a disgusted quiver, and not the kind of quiver like he was about to cry. It was the kind of twisted, tense quiver that someone got when they were trying not to laugh.

Ryan smiled so hard he felt like his face was going to split right in half and pressed further into Min-Gi's side.

"I need—"

"Every sec—"

Min-Gi pushed him harder. "We already sang that part!"

Ryan pushed back. "Maybe I like it!"

"That's not—! Shit!"

Min-Gi lost the battle with Ryan's weight and slipped backward into the tub with a loud thud. Ryan jerked upright, eyes wide, a frantic "Are you okay?" already half-formed on the tip of his tongue, but he didn't get to voice it.

Min started laughing before he got the chance.

Loud, deep, shocking belly laughs, the kind that shook the walls, his hair a mess all over his face, and god, there was no way Ryan was going to get any sleep that night. Not with that playing in his head on loop.

"Dude—" Ryan set his guitar aside and offered Min-Gi his hand. "Dude, you gotta be quiet. Your neighbors are gonna call the cops—"

Min-Gi grabbed Ryan by the wrist, not to pull himself up, but to drag Ryan down with him. He hit the bath with a thud just as loud as Min-Gi's initial fall, and although he landed on his bruise and it felt like he'd been hit by a car all over again, he barely hissed before he started laughing just as hard as Min-Gi.

"God," gasped Min-Gi. "What am I doing?" He didn't stop laughing, but he did trail off into giggles, wiping mirthful tears from his eyes with his fingertips. "I'm supposed to be sleeping right now."

"Psh." Ryan poked him in the side. "If you were going to die, which one would you choose on your death bed? A life where you went to sleep at a proper time, or a life where you sang and laughed with a total stranger in the middle of the night?"

Min-Gi laid his head against the wall, shaking it mildly, grin still firmly planted on his face. "I know which one I'm going to want tomorrow."

"Yeah, I don't blame you." Ryan sat up and heaved a sigh. Not a tired or disappointed sigh, but a satisfied one. "I get to sleep in tomorrow. I guess you—"

The sneeze snuck up on him so fast that the most he could do to stifle it was to sneeze into his shoulder.

Min-Gi laughed, just as surprised as Ryan was. "You okay?"

"Gah." Ryan sniffed. "I'm in a damp bathtub in my underwear. What do you think?"

Min sat up. "Why are you in your underwear?"

"No pyjamas," admitted Ryan. "No a-lot-of-stuff. I've been on the road, remember? You make sacrifices."

"Apparently," said Min-Gi.

He averted his eyes, a frown creasing his lips, erasing the absolutely gorgeous smile he'd been wearing.

"What?" asked Ryan, concerned.

Min-Gi answered by unbuttoning the front of his shirt.

So much for being cold. Ryan's temperature shot through the roof. "Um—"

He got a split-second view of Min-Gi's bare, wide chest before his vision was blocked by the striped, blue pyjama top that was thrown in his face.

"You can borrow that."

Ryan carefully peeled the pyjama top away from his eyes. To his disappointment, by the time he could see again, Min-Gi's arms were self-consciously crossed over his chest, his eyes averted. But that didn't change what he held in his hands.

"...Oh." Ryan's voice cracked. He clutched the shirt to his chest, his mind catching up slowly to what had just happened, before he wrapped it around his shoulders and stuck his arms through the sleeves.

It was warm.

"If you're staying with me," said Min-Gi, "you won't be spending as much money on hotels, right?"

Ryan buttoned the front slowly, from bottom to top. "I guess."

"So you'll have enough money to get yourself a set of pyjamas by the next time you would have stayed in one." Min-Gi's eyes flicked warily back toward Ryan. "You can give mine back when you have your own."

Ryan's hands lingered on the top button. "...Thank you."

Was that really all he could say? "Thank you"? Some random guy shows up in his life and shows him more kindness than his own parents ever had, and all he could say was "Thank you"?

"Um, not just for letting me borrow your shirt, but for everything." Ryan fiddled with the top button, unbuttoning and rebuttoning and unbuttoning and rebuttoning. "Letting me stay at your apartment and saving me from a whatever-the-heck-that-thing-was and giving me a ride to my gig—"

"Dude." Min-Gi pulled himself onto the edge of the tub. "Your hip looks like a crime scene. We're square."

Ryan's hand flew to the bigger of his two bruises, the one he'd only just covered up. Right. He...forgot he was trying to hide that. At least Min-Gi hadn't freaked out like Ryan thought he would. But...that was probably because he didn't look so hot himself when Ryan came in.

"...Are you feeling better now?" asked Ryan, which he only just realized was a non-sequitur as it left his mouth.

"What?" Min-Gi looked over his shoulder.

"I mean..." Ryan twisted his body and pulled himself onto the edge of the tub with Min, his feet still on the inside. "You let me in even though I told you I was in my underwear. Judging by how you acted when I got out of the shower, and when you saw me in my van, I'm guessing that's kind of a big deal for you."

"I mean..." Min-Gi shrugged and looked toward the door. "Better boxers than a hand towel."

Ryan gave him time.

"...But yeah." Min-Gi looked at his knees. "Yeah. I am feeling better. Thanks."

Ryan's heart melted and dripped into his stomach like icicles in spring. "No problem."

When they returned to bed, Ryan found he was right, before, when he'd decided he wouldn't get any sleep that night with Min-Gi's smile in his head. Not helping matters was the smell of his shirt. He'd probably hate to know he smelled like bacon—bacon and oranges and maple syrup and whatever combination of soaps he used that all melded together into a single, clean scent—but Ryan couldn't help being intoxicated.

Was it normal to develop such a powerful crush on someone after only a day? Maybe two if someone was being really generous about their first meeting? Probably not, but...god, there was no denying it was there. Maybe it was the thrill of potentially being killed together, maybe it was their multiple serendipitous meetings made it all feel destined, maybe Min-Gi was just that incredible. And fuck, maybe he was straight and Ryan was running headfirst into a world of hurt.

But for the moment, he could simply turn onto his side and press his face into his pillow in a half-hearted attempt to suppress his grin, knowing he'd get to see Min-Gi again the next day.

For the moment, Ryan could just be happy.

Chapter Text

"Kez."

...

"Kez..."

...

"...Kez!"

"Huh—?!"

The little concierge bell sleeping on Min-Gi's pillow shot upright, blue sparkles sputtering out behind her as she shot off the pillow.

Min-Gi caught her with his hands before she could make a dent in his ceiling. "Hey, quiet!"

He coaxed Kez gently downward and she blinked at him with bleary eyes. "What's... What's goin' on...?"

Min-Gi had to force himself not to smile. Kez was kind of cute when she wasn't making a mess of his kitchen. "I have to go to work," he said softly. "I need you to keep an eye on Ryan and make sure he doesn't steal anything or...do something weird to my couch or something." He held out his hands beneath Kez. "Just don't get caught, okay?"

"Okay, sure." Kez yawned and settled into his cupped hands like a dog cuddling into its bed. "...Why would he do that?"

Min-Gi sighed. "I don't know, I just... It's not a good idea to invite strangers into your house."

"Oh, come on," huffed Kez. "You spent half the night giggling with him in the bathroom and you still want me to think you don't like him?"

"You—" Min-Gi froze. It felt as though all the muscle in his shoulders was replaced with bone. "...You heard that?"

"Dude." Kez snorted. "You are so red!"

"What?! No, I'm not!"

"You so are!"

"Shh." Min-Gi pulled Kez close to his face. "Don't let him hear you!"

Kez smirked. "Like you're not just as loud as I am. Seriously, what's your deal? It's so obvious you think Ryan's the coolest guy you ever met. Why are you pretending you don't?"

"I'm not—"

Min-Gi sighed and walked backward until he found the edge of the bed he'd already made.

"Listen, Ryan's...great." He set his hands on his lap, and Kez with them. "I'll admit that, okay? He's really cool. I like talking to him. He's a little...much sometimes.” He hesitated. “...A lot of the time. But I like him."

Kez looked up at him with curious eyes, surprisingly patient for him to continue.

"It's just..." Min-Gi bit his lip, mulling his words over. "It's just that liking someone and trusting someone are two totally different things."

"So why don't you trust him?" asked Kez.

"I don't know him," said Min-Gi.

"But you know him enough to know you like him."

"Yes."

Kez frowned. If she had a nose, Min-Gi got the feeling she'd be wrinkling it. "...You're weird."

"Oh, says the talking bell," scoffed Min-Gi.

"Yeah," said Kez. "Which really says something about how weird you are."

Min-Gi scowled. "Are you going to watch him while I'm gone or not?"

"Yeah, sure." Kez rose off his hands. "I'll stalk your roommate. No problemo, captain."

"It's not stalking," said Min-Gi, watching Kez float to the post at the foot of his bed. "It's just...taking necessary precautions."

"Yeah," said Kez. "By stalking him."

"I don't have time for this." Min-Gi climbed to his feet and swept his hand over the crown of his head, nervously flattening his already-styled hair. "I already got breakfast. I had to go out for it again, since I didn’t have a chance to clean the microwave oven you made a mess of yesterday. Your breakfast is by the door. Eat fast, unless you want Ryan to catch you. I got you breakfast, but after that, you’re on your own. Help yourself to anything in the kitchen, just as long as Ryan doesn't catch you. If all else fails, I have a box of cereal in the second drawer of my dresser. You can eat that if Ryan glues himself to the kitchen."

"...Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you keep a box of cereal in your t-shirt drawer?"

Min-Gi groaned. "Because sometimes I don't feel like leaving my bedroom to grab food."

"...Why don't you feel like leaving your bedroom?" asked Kez.

Min-Gi zipped up his coat. "That's...personal."

"...O-kay!"

Min turned around and grabbed Kez off his bedpost like a hamburger. "I'm opening my door now. If you make even the quietest sound—"

"I won't, geez." Kez rolled her eyes. "But like, just so you know? Your walls are kinda thin. Ryan could have already heard us."

“He’s asleep,” said Min-Gi. “I've checked."

Kez scoffed. "And you think I'm weird."

“I think you're very normal for a floating, glowing, talking bell." Min-Gi reached the doorknob. "Though I'd be very happy if you dropped the last part for a day."

"I can't just stop being a bell."

"Shh."

"Oh, right."

Kez obediently closed her eyes, seeming all for the world to be a normal bell, and Min-Gi opened the door. One footstep past the edge of the hallway confirmed what he'd already said, that Ryan was still very asleep on the couch, arm draped over the side above his head, one hairy leg sticking out from the edge of the blankets, mouth hanging open. At least he didn't snore.

Min-Gi set Kez on the counter next to the bagel and coffee he’d given her, gave her a goodbye in the form of a gentle stroke across her dome, and, as quietly as he could, he left for work.

Ryan woke with a dry mouth and a stiffness in his shoulder. He also woke in a really good mood. At first, he couldn't remember why. Then he looked around, and he slowly, slowly remembered where he was. It only really, fully hit him when he took a deep breath and he got a big whiff of the shirt he was wearing.

Right. That blue, striped shirt.

And more importantly, the guy it came from.

The guy it still smelled like.

Beaming, Ryan rolled over and pressed his face into his borrowed pillow, arms outstretched beneath it, folding it around his face like a tortilla. He screamed into the pillow, hands balling into fists over the arm of the couch, all of it a muffled expression of utter excitement. That scream tapered into laughter and Ryan lifted his head, beaming. He reached for his glasses on the end table and sat up, abnormally full of energy for the morning. Only when he had his glasses on did he notice that they weren't the only thing on the end table. A white, paper bag sat beside the lamp, its top folded neatly, perched on top of what looked like the newspaper for that day. Folded just as neatly as the paper bag and propped elegantly against it sat a piece of paper labeled with a single word.

Ryan

Of course, Ryan doubted it was a love letter. (That would be ridiculous, hahah...hah...) But he still threw it open as eagerly as if it was.

The message written on the inside was barely legible. Chicken-scratch. Ryan kind of loved that about it.

I don't know what kind of bagels you like, so I got you blueberry, poppyseed, and everything. I hope at least one of them works for you. You can have all three if you want. If you like cream cheese, you can find that in the fridge.

There's milk and orange juice in the fridge, and if you want coffee, I've already set up the machine for you. All you have to do is flip the switch on the side and it will start automatically. Help yourself to anything else in the kitchen you want, whether it's dishes or food. Just don't use the microwave. (Long story.)

I don't know if you can find any venues to play in the newspaper, but I got one for you just in case.

I'll be back at 6:00 or so. Relevant phone numbers (Dumpty's, the super, best pizza in Powell Lake) are on the back. Obviously, you're free to leave the apartment for any reason. Just leave a note so I don't think you left left without saying anything.

Try not to break anything. I want the deposit back on this apartment one day.

But stay safe. If that thing from last night comes back, do whatever you have to.

—Min-Gi Park

At the bottom, in pencil rather than pen, as if Min-Gi had remembered at the last minute and just grabbed whatever utensil was closest, sat a hastily-scrawled post-script.

There's aspirin in the far-right cabinet. Top shelf.

And sure, maybe Ryan was a little bit crazy for going nuts over the most matter-of-fact letter he'd ever read, but...

But Min-Gi didn't want him to leave without saying goodbye.

He told Ryan that his safety was more important than the deposit on his apartment.

He left Ryan breakfast and a newspaper and basically coffee—even if Ryan had to flip a switch, which meant the coffee would be fresh—and he'd gone to Ryan's show instead of forcing him to see a hospital and...

And his shirt still smelled like him after Ryan wore it all night.

Ryan pulled the collar of Min-Gi's pyjama shirt up to his nose, grinned, and shot upright, his feet hitting the floor.

Home. Freaking. Run.

He grabbed a pair of socks from his luggage before he even considered the bag of bagels beside it. He slid into the kitchen, aiming to stop right in front of the coffee machine.

"Just take those old records off the shelf—! Owww...!"

He might have overshot it and sent his bruised hip right into the drawer handle beneath it.

But it didn't wipe the smile off his face. He saw it in the reflection of the bell on the counter as he pressed the switch on the coffee machine.

"Still like that old time rock and roll..."

"Sure. I'll bring it out in just a moment."

Min-Gi pocketed his pen and carried himself heavily to the kitchen. On his way past the bar, his eyes lingered on the phone in the corner.

It was an irrational fear. He knew it was. But he didn't like leaving Kez and Ryan alone. Not because of what he told Kez. That worry was genuine, sure. It wasn't that he'd lied to Kez...exactly. He really was nervous about inviting a stranger into his house. But...he was more worried about that thing. The thing that attacked Ryan the night before.

Truth be told, as embarrassing as it was, Min-Gi had hesitated to go to work that day, and for reasons that ran much deeper than just whether he'd come home to a (bigger) mess in his kitchen or a missing TV. He was scared that alien mass of metal legs would attack Ryan while he was gone. That he'd come home to broken windows or the splintered remains of a door and a corpse in a leather jacket. That he'd have to live out the rest of his life knowing he could have done something if he'd just taken a day off.

But his bills didn't pay themselves.

And he had two roommates. One with unstable income and one with no income at all.

He couldn't just skip work.

"Rudy! Two poached, two bacon!"

Ryan stood up, frowning. "No butter... Weird." He crossed his arms. "I thought Min-Gi would be the kind of guy to keep his fridge fully stocked with the basics at all times."

He squinted around the inside of his refrigerator, more likely to believe he'd overlooked the butter—despite having searched for several minutes—than that Min-Gi had just neglected to get more after he'd used the last of it. Either way, though, Ryan couldn't find it, so it was as good as gone either way.

"All right, fine. I guess I'll just use vegetable oil." Ryan dropped his hands to his hips, only to wince when one of them collided with his bare bruise.

"...After I take advantage of Min-Gi's graciously offered aspirin."

He closed the refrigerator door and turned around to reach for the cabinet to the right of the sink. The aspirin bottle was immediately evident, between bandages and vitamins.

"...Oh, my gosh."

Ryan reached for the tin of bandages and turned it to the side.

Minnie Mouse smiled back at him, her chin resting daintily in her big, cartoon-gloved hands.

That was it. Min-Gi was adorable, and he was going to slay Ryan in cold blood.

Ryan sighed wistfully and set the tin on the countertop, admiring it. There was a chance Min-Gi had just gotten those because they were on sale, but somehow, Ryan got the feeling he didn't. The tin looked old and weathered around the edges of the lid, implying he didn't just pick it up from the store last week. Either it was a leftover from his childhood, or he'd deliberately gotten it from a yard sale.

The rest of Min-Gi's house was completely void of life, excluding that little Halloween decoration that lit up the bathroom the night before, and yet... Minnie Mouse Band-Aid tin.

It was funny. Ryan felt like he knew Min-Gi the moment they met, but he wouldn't have guessed Min-Gi was the type of person to buy Mickey & Pals Band-Aids. Little things like that and the mini-synth and his reaction to Ryan's bruising forced Ryan to remember that they really were strangers.

Min-Gi was still G Minor. Ryan was firm about that. But maybe he was less of Renegade, less Tainted Love, more...Days of Wine and Roses. The anxious guy Ryan had first picked up from him was still there, but there was something else underneath, too. Something more... Well. Something more. Like he was reaching for something he didn't have. Adventure? Companionship? Ryan didn't know. What he did know was that a guy who was really as much of a professional stick-in-the-mud as Min-Gi pretended to be wouldn't have cartoon characters on their Band-Aids or stay up late talking to strangers who wanted to kiss them in their bathrooms.

He just...needed a little help bringing that person to the surface.

Resolved, Ryan returned the bandage tin to the cabinet and picked up the aspirin he'd gone there for in the first place. The lid proved difficult until he got frustrated enough to take a closer look at it.

"...Oh. It's...one of these. Right."

He twisted the cap until the arrows lined up and the top popped right off.

In the exact same instant, he heard a snort from the direction of the door.

...That came from outside, right?

He shivered. If Min-Gi's apartment was haunted, they were going to have words. Being in a near-stranger's apartment, even if that near-stranger was as hot as Min-Gi, was as off-putting as it needed to be without the added bonus of hearing creepy laughter.

...I'm gonna need some music.

The plate met table number 6 with a quiet clink. "Here's your pancakes."

"Thank you." The man at the table pulled the plate of pancakes closer and stared at them for a long moment without reaching for his fork.

Min-Gi raised an eyebrow. "Is there anything else I can get you?"

"No, thank you," said the man. "Though it's a shame it's so quiet here. Do you think you could turn some music on?"

"There's a jukebox over there," said Min-Gi, pointing to the wall by the bathroom door. "You can queue up three songs for a dollar."

The man reached into his pocket and plucked out a coin. "Why don't you pick something out for me?"

Uncertain, Min-Gi picked up the coin and inspected it, half-expecting a trap. "...I don't, uh—"

"Just pick whatever you like," said the man, reaching for the packets of grape jam under the window. "I just don't want to eat by myself in silence."

Min-Gi looked around the diner. He was the only customer at the moment. He'd missed the breakfast rush, so it was eerily quiet. Yeah, Min-Gi could understand wanting to listen to at least something.

He took the coin and carried it to the back wordlessly, already preparing himself to pick a song at complete random. He stopped in front of the jukebox, dropped the coin in, and hovered his finger over the A key when he caught a familiar song title glowing up at him through the glass. He wasn't even sure when that song had been added. It was awfully new. But...

Min-Gi felt himself smile. Before he could even consider where that smile had come from, he selected E6. The jukebox answered with a series of clicks and whirring groans until one last short hum set the disk on the record player just out of sight.

And a recorded drum machine beat came to life on the speakers.

If you leave, don't leave now. Please don't take my heart away.

Min-Gi pressed a few more buttons at random to queue two more songs and set his hand on the corner of the jukebox, smiling to himself.

Ryan probably had no idea what he'd done for Min-Gi that night. Of course, he'd also added to the anxiety he'd distracted Min-Gi from when he'd arrived in his underwear with his guitar looking like...

(Like what, exactly?)

But the way he'd gotten Min-Gi to laugh, to relax so he could actually sleep instead of sitting in his room like the nervous mess he was, staring at the empty space on the wall across from his bed with that foreboding feeling gnawing at his gut all night. The way Ryan was so...effortless. The way he was just Ryan, with no expectations weighing him down, no worries about whether what he was doing was okay. The way he just...

He was a rock star. Min-Gi had seen it himself the night before, the way he played with all his heart, no reservations, no holding back. He was a star, and he knew it. The rest of the world just hadn't figured it out yet.

In ten years, Min would probably be bragging to people about how Ryan Akagi surfed his couch when he was still gaining notoriety, and no one would believe him. Ryan would be famous someday.

And Min-Gi would just be some guy he forgot existed.

And that was fine. Min-Gi wasn't the rock star type. He didn't know what type he was. Apparently, he wasn't the college type, either. As much as he hated to say it, maybe he was the Dumpty's Diner type. Permanently. Or maybe he was lucky enough to wind up sitting in front of a computer in a cubicle for the rest of his life even without that finance degree he was supposed to get.

But hey, if Ryan really made a name for himself, and Min-Gi got to spend the rest of his life knowing he once sang OMD with him in his pyjamas. And maybe that was good enough of a consolation prize for spending the rest of his life alone in a dead-end job.

Min-Gi would probably forgive him for borrowing his clock radio, right?

Yeah. Totally.

"Man, you have the worst bedroom," murmured Ryan, his eyes scanning the bare walls. Everything was so...unbalanced. The walls were blue and the carpet was blue and everything was pushed into the left side of the room like Min-Gi was trying to make room for something. Except for a chest of drawers that sat by itself on the right, like Min-Gi was trying to convince himself that he wasn't leaving room for something.

Maybe he really was lonely. Maybe he was conscious of it. Maybe that was the real reason he'd invited Ryan to live with him.

Well, if he was lonely, Ryan would be more than happy to solve that problem. In more ways than one, if applicable.

But...

Ryan frowned thoughtfully at the barren right side of Min-Gi's room. When he imagined himself having his own bed and his own dresser and his own mirror and his own everything across from Min-Gi's side of the room, his skin crawled. That implied staying. For a long time. Maybe for the rest of his life. Ryan couldn't handle more than a year or two, tops. Staying with Min-Gi for the rest of his life, well, that was something he could consider. But staying in Powell Lake? Yeah, no. He'd pass.

The dream would be taking Min-Gi with him. He could get used to that for sure. And as much as Min-Gi protested, he clearly did like music. No one locks themselves in a bathroom with something in the middle of the night unless they've got a little bit of lust for it.

There was just the matter of getting Min-Gi to admit it. Maybe to graduate from a mini-synth to a full synthesizer.

Ryan could think of something later. Until then...

He wrapped the cord around the clock radio he'd stolen from Min-Gi's bedside and tucked it under his arm.

"Brownie time."

The key to Min-Gi's apartment crunched each of the tumblers in the lock into place. He turned the key and, carefully shifting his weight to accommodate for the heavy paper bag in his left arm, pushed the door open.

The first sound that reached his ears was music. "Almost Paradise" from Footloose, belted out by a person Min-Gi knew to be a better guitarist than a singer, accompanied by a radio.

The first sight his eyes landed on was ass.

Ryan's ass. Covered only by the same underwear he'd been wearing the night before.

"You're still not dressed?!"

Ryan looked over his shoulder from where he crouched, hunched across his luggage. He stopped singing immediately, lips occupied instead by a smug grin. "I'm getting dressed now. So, what do you think?" He climbed to his full height and turned around, a pair of pants in either hand. "Denim, or leather?"

Min-Gi urgently closed the door behind himself. "Dude! What if that thing came back?! Were you planning on running away in your underwear?"

"Nah." Ryan looked pointedly at the black leather pants. "I probably would have just given up. I mean, I didn't have my dashing knight in shining armor to rescue me this time, so—"

"That's not funny."

"I'm leaning toward the leather. I don't wear them enough, and they were expensive, so—"

"Ryan, you could have gotten— Why does it smell like chocolate?"

"Oh!" Ryan lifted his head, bright as the sun. "I made you brownies."

"Brownies," Min-Gi deadpanned. "You made brownies."

"Yeah! You know, as thanks for letting me stay here." Ryan draped his black denim option over his arm and put his hand on his hip. "And for the bagels and stuff. I think they turned out okay. I haven't actually tried them out yet—I wanted you to have the first one—but I tested them with a toothpick and they're nice and fudgy in the middle."

Min-Gi sighed, some of the heat from his frustration bleeding out of his face at the sight of the casserole dish sitting on the stove. That was...really nice, actually.

"At least there's that," said Min-Gi. "Otherwise it'd j—"

"—just be a cake."

Min-Gi raised his eyebrows.

Ryan grinned back at him, proud of himself. "I might not be that great of a cook, but I do know how to make brownies."

Min-Gi tightened his grip on the paper bag he held. Some of that leftover frustration from before was bleeding back into his face. He could feel it. "Speaking of cooking, uh, what do you want for dinner? I picked up some things, so—"

"Oh." Sincere disappointment filled Ryan's face. "Oh, man, were you gonna cook for me?"

"...You have plans," assumed Min-Gi, his heart echoing that disappointment.

"Yeah, I..." Ryan gestured vaguely behind him, toward the newspaper Min-Gi had given him before work. "I found a gig. One of the places I called was actually desperate for a substitute guitarist tonight. Apparently, the guy they were going to have tonight called in, uh, sick. I was just about to take a shower and leave."

"Oh." Min-Gi's disappointment sank in deeper. "Well, uh... Good. I left you the paper for a reason, so... I'm glad you found a use for it."

"Raincheck," said Ryan. "For sure. I want to try your cooking. I mean, you work in a restaurant."

"Just waiting tables," said Min-Gi. "I'm not an awful cook, but I'm not great, either. I just know what my mom taught me."

"And I bet your mom taught you well," said Ryan. "I'll just have to see for myself tomorrow." He tossed his jeans on top of his clothes in his open suitcase and walked backward toward the bathroom. "And I will! Promise! It's a priority."

"It shouldn't be."

"Well, lucky for me, I don't have to listen to you."

He blew Min-Gi a flippant, jocular kiss and disappeared into the bathroom, closing the door behind himself.

Min-Gi set his bag of groceries on the counter. At least he had a chance to clean the microwave.

As he took the new package of butter out of the bag, he heard the hiss of running water at the end of the hallway, and he opened the refrigerator door with a glance over his shoulder.

"You can stop playing dead now."

"Phew!” Kez floated off the counter, glowing a faint, shimmering blue from her underside as always. "That's, like, really boring. You have no idea what it's like to sit in the same place all day."

"Of course I do," said Min-Gi. "I have a service job." He set the butter inside and took to emptying the paper bag of the rest of the groceries he bought. "So, did he, uh...behave?"

"I mean, he went into your bedroom to steal your alarm clock." Kez formed a pair of blue, sparkling hands and gestured at the clock on the counter between the sink and the stove, where the Thompson Twins had begun to sing about a strained relationship, replacing Mike Reno. "But other than that and the fact that he burned the first batch of brownies he made because he was staring off into space like a corpse, he didn't really do anything. He just...made phone calls and sang a lot and kept screaming into his hands."

"Screaming into his hands?" Min-Gi paused, freezing the gochujang in his hand halfway to the shelf. "Was he stressed out about finding a gig or something?"

"I don't think so," said Kez. "I think he just really likes you."

Min-Gi turned around. “He likes me? Likes me how?”

“The same way you like him,” said Kez. “Except, like…a lot. I think he’s trying to impress you or something.”

Min-Gi looked from Kez to the brownies, then toward the bathroom, where Ryan was showering in preparation for a job he’d accepted on such short notice. A wave of guilt that felt like nausea washed over Min-Gi. The first thing he’d done when he came home was scold Ryan for not getting dressed earlier. Like he was Ryan’s parent or something. Whether most of Min-Gi’s own social experiences came from his own parents or not, that wasn’t really his place. Even if he was worried about Ryan getting caught with his pants down, literally, maybe he should have just…brought his concerns up to Ryan patiently instead of screeching at him the second he walked in. He’d just gotten…emotional. For some reason. But that wasn’t an excuse. He liked Ryan, too.

“…Do you think I should—?”

“Hey, Min?”

Min-Gi, wide-eyed, snatched Kez out of the air and shoved her into the fridge with the gochujang, slamming the door shut with both inside. Clearing his throat, he turned to look down the hallway, where Ryan stood, hair wet, peeking through a crack in the bathroom door. He wasn’t wearing his glasses. Hopefully, that was enough to keep Kez’s existence a secret. “Y-Yeah?”

“I just realized I forgot to grab a towel again.” Ryan pushed a clump of his wet bangs away from his squinting face. “Do you mind grabbing one for me?”

Min-Gi took a slow, steadying breath and ran a hand down his face, relieved that was all Ryan wanted. “Yeah. Sure.”

He abandoned the groceries on the counter for the linen closet halfway down the hall. Thoughtful, he plucked a towel off one of the shelves and ran his thumb across the threads in the terry cloth. Wherever he pushed one down, another sprung up in its place. His mind felt like that sometimes. He tried to ignore every problem he couldn’t solve on his own, but with every new problem he tried to squash down, another rose to the forefront in its place.

Min-Gi closed the closet door with a sigh, keeping his eyes on the floor. “Here.” He approached the bathroom door slowly and carefully, keeping his head down so he wouldn’t catch more of Ryan’s naked body than he wanted to see. When he held the folded, green towel up to the crack in the door, a wet hand reached out for it, brushing along his fingers and leaving a wet trail in their wake.

“Thanks.” Ryan made to close the door.

Min-Gi had to act fast. “Ryan?”

The door froze, hinges falling silent mid-creak. “Yeah?”

Min-Gi turned around, inhaled a sharp breath through his nose, and tilted his head back to look pointedly at the light fixture on the hallway ceiling. “Do you, uh… Where’s your gig?” He rubbed the back of his head, idly tugging his own hair between his fingertips. “Maybe I could watch you again.”

“Oh.”

Ryan went quiet. Strangely quiet.

“You don’t have to say yes.” Min-Gi grabbed his own arm and squeezed it anxiously right above his elbow. Hard enough to hurt, but not hard enough for someone to tell it hurt. “I know I’m kind of a nerd and maybe you don’t want someone like me cramping your style, but—”

“Dude! What? No! You’re way cooler than, like, ninety-nine percent of the hosers I play with. It’s just that, uh… I don’t know if you’d want to come.”

He went quiet again.

Min-Gi waited for him to elaborate.

Ryan sighed. “It’s at a gay bar.”

“…Oh.”

“Yeah. ‘Oh.’”

“…Well. Uh…” Min-Gi took another deep breath, trying to clear his mind. It wasn’t like he, personally, thought there was anything wrong with being gay. He just…didn’t want anyone who did think there was something wrong with it to see him there and think he was—? God, that wasn’t better. “I can—”

“Dude, it’s fine.” Ryan laughed faintly. “I wouldn’t want you to have to sit through an entire night of Bowie covers.”

“I like Bowie,” said Min-Gi honestly.

“Yeah, when it’s Bowie,” said Ryan. “Not when it’s some guy fumbling the chords to ‘Let’s Dance’ in front of an audience too drunk to care.”

Min-Gi disagreed. He hadn’t seen Ryan fumble a single chord the night before and he doubted that would change if it happened to be Bowie he was playing. But he didn’t want to look…suspicious by arguing too much, so Min-Gi decided to leave it.

“If you say so.” He crossed his arms. “But…maybe I could drive you?”

“…I mean, if you want to. I’ve got a perfectly functional van, but—”

“I want to.”

“Oh. Okay, cool.”

Min-Gi ran his hand through his hair. “I’ll, uh, write down my phone number so you can call me when you want to be picked up. Or in case of that thing attacking you again.”

“Sweet. I got a guy’s number before I even got to the club. Everyone’s gonna be so jealous.”

Min-Gi pinched the bridge of his nose. Of course that was Ryan’s concern. Though it did bring up a question. “Ryan, are you…?”

Min-Gi trailed off. Was he really about to ask that? Just straight up? No preamble? You can’t just ask that!

“Am I…what?”

“Nothing!” Min-Gi threw his hands up. “Nothing! Just… If you ever wanted to bring someone home, from the place you’re going or…wherever else, that’s…fine. Just don’t… Don’t do it on my bed, all right?”

That was okay, right? It was sort of an indirect way of asking, along with an explicit statement that it was fine if he was. That was good, wasn’t it? It had to be, right?

At least that was what Min-Gi thought until Ryan held his silence for just a little too long.

“…Did you just say ‘do it’ instead of ‘sex’?”

Min-Gi went stiff. Heat pooled in his neck and spread all the way into his face. He put his hands on his hips, trying to seem more relaxed than he felt. “Uh—”

Ryan laughed, high and light and half-sighing. “Min, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. I promise I’m not going to ‘do it’ on your bed unless you’re the person I’m ‘doing it’ with.”

Oh.

Okay.

Well, that didn’t make Min-Gi any less red.

“By which...I mean...I wouldn’t have sex on someone’s bed unless the bed belonged to the person I was having sex with. Not like…you in particular. Like in a way that implies I’ve been thinking about having sex with you. Because I totally haven’t. Not because you’re not attractive—”

Min-Gi heard a smack behind him, like someone being slapped.

“I’m...just gonna finish my shower now. Okay? Okay.”

“Sure.” Min-Gi swallowed, hard. “I’ve got groceries to unpack anyway, so you…”

The door closed a little too hard behind him.

“…do that.”

Min-Gi shook his head, patted his cheeks, and wandered back into the kitchen.

It was only when he opened the refrigerator door to a very annoyed-looking bell that he remembered where he’d left Kez.

“Um. Sorry.”

Ryan lay on the floor of Min-Gi’s tub, one arm draped over the side, cold water pelting his bare chest. He glared at the yellow ceiling, embarrassed, angry at himself, and above all, disappointed.

He could see in his mind’s eye how that conversation was supposed to go. He would have gotten all flustered about accidentally implying he wanted to have sex with Min-Gi, and Min would have gotten all quiet and pensive and said, “Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad idea,” and Ryan would have thrown open the door and kissed him hard and Min would have dragged him to his bedroom and—

And that was way too much to expect, huh?

Honestly, Ryan didn’t even really want that. Not yet, anyway. He just...wanted Min-Gi to like him, and that would have been one hell of a sign that he did.

Or at least something like that. Like maybe Min would have turned around and looked at him for a minute and said something like, “Are you sure you can’t join me for dinner tonight?”

And Ryan would have called off his gig in a heartbeat and they would have had a perfect, romantic evening and—

And that was too much to expect, too.

Ryan’s eyes slid shut. He sighed heavily, and in doing so, he inhaled a mist that had him jerking upright and turning onto his side to cough into his hand.

“God damn it—”

Chapter Text

“You’re sure?”

“Trust me, it’s nuts. I don’t know what’s going on. Probably some kind of…sports…something. But if you bring a car out here, you’re not getting it back for, like, hours probably. The music store’s our best bet.”

Min-Gi pressed his forehead into the wall beside the phone. The cord hung heavy by his hip. “Is that safe?”

“Sure!” chirped Ryan. “I mean, compared to fender-bender city.”

Min-Gi sighed. “I wasn’t talking about you getting hit by a car.”

“Oh, that thing. It’s probably faster than your car anyway, right? So the only thing that would be different if you were there would be us both getting creamed.”

“Ryan…”

"The music store isn’t that far! It’ll be fine! But if you’re not into it, I mean, I can just hitch a ride. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Min-Gi hit the wall with his forehead. “How have you survived this long?”

“Hey, you’re the guy who invited a stranger to stay in his apartment. You know, I think you’re as crazy as I am deep down. You just gotta—”

A voice from somewhere on Ryan’s end cut whatever he was going to say short.

“Okay, someone else needs to use the phone. I gotta go.”

“Ryan, wait, I really don’t think—”

“Love you! Bye!”

A click closed the call, leaving Min-Gi with nothing but a dial tone and an empty kitchen.

Well, a mostly-empty kitchen, anyway.

“What was that about?” asked Kez, her voice muffled through a mouthful of chips.

“Traffic’s bad around the bar where Ryan’s performing,” said Min-Gi. “He wants me to meet him at a music store instead.”

“Oh.” Kez grabbed another handful of chips with her glittering, ethereal hands and shoved it in her…bell…mouth. Min-Gi screwed up his face. He really didn’t want to give any further thought to Kez’s anatomy. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“What? No, it doesn’t!” said Min-Gi. “He’s carrying a guitar! That’s practically begging to be mugged!”

Kez scoffed. “Well, yeah, but better mugged than killed by a weird metal tentacle monster.”

“Oh, like walking around in the open is going to help with that,” said Min-Gi.

“Look, man, all I’m sayin’ is that in one scenario, you’re on the sidewalk and you can run if you see something crawling over the side of a rooftop.” Kez shrugged with her blue hands, one still holding the bag of chips she was snacking from. “In the other scenario, you’re a can of sardines in gridlock and all Mr. Metal Hands has to do is peel back the roof of your car. Bam.” She popped another chip into her mouth. “Chicken dinner.”

Min-Gi sighed. As loath as he was to admit it, Kez was right. In a weird way. A Kez way.

He grabbed his keys out of the bowl. “You coming?”

“Nah.” Kez swallowed her mouthful of chip. “Not feeling the pocket lint today.”

“All right, but don’t make a mess.” Min-Gi reached for the doorknob. “And try to stay in my bedroom. I don’t want Ryan to see you flying around in the open.”

“Orrrrr you could just tell him I’m here,” said Kez.

“No, Kez.”

Kez set her chips aside and drifted closer. She set herself down on the counter with a look Min-Gi swore his mother had given him more than once. “Why not?”

Min-Gi took a deep breath. “I don’t know how to tell you this, Kez, but you’re a talking bell.”

“Ryan would understand,” said Kez, oddly somber compared to her usual self. “What part of the way he acts makes you think he’s going to reject something just because it’s weird?”

Min-Gi took his hand off the doorknob and patted the back of Kez’s dome. “Okay, sweetie, there’s a difference between walking around a stranger’s apartment with nothing but a hand towel covering your dick and appreciating the charming personality of something that’s normally not sentient.”

“Yeah,” said Kez, “but you’re way more uptight than Ryan and you adjusted to me right away! Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? I want a real answer!”

He could leave.

Min-Gi retracted his hand from Kez, surprised by the first place his mind went. That wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. That shouldn’t have even been considered a bad thing. Ryan was still a total stranger living in Min-Gi’s house and he should have been eager to get rid of him.

But he wasn’t. And knowing that Ryan would eventually leave and continue his tour across Canada no matter what Min-Gi did left a melancholy weight on his shoulders.

“He could sell you to someone who’d pay a lot of money for a talking bell,” said Min-Gi. “Or he could freak out and call you a demon and try to smash you.”

“PFFT! Yeah, right!” Kez pulled the edges of her mouth back into a derisive sneer. “Like Ryan wouldn’t be a hundred percent stoked about a demon bell.”

“You don’t know that!” said Min-Gi. “And I don’t want anything to happen to you, so we’re going to do what’s safe. Okay?”

“Man, whatever.” Kez sighed, exasperated. “One of these days, you’re really going to have to learn to trust your friends.”

Min-Gi scooped her up and tossed her toward the hall, gently enough that she had a chance to orient herself before she fell. “Go to my room, Kez.”

Kez huffed a sigh, but fluttered back to the kitchen to grab what was left of her chips before doing what she was told.

Min-Gi stepped through the glass door, out of the dark and cold and into the bright, artificial light, and scanned the store. Ryan was pretty hard to miss, but even among the small number of patrons, he was nowhere to be seen, which meant one of two things.

Either he was in the bathroom…or he wasn’t there yet.

Trying to pretend he was disgruntled instead of worried, Min-Gi shoved his hands into his pockets and picked a spot beside the door, deciding he’d have a good viewpoint for when Ryan did show up.

That only worked until an employee found him there.

“Hi!” she greeted, soft and friendly and all smiles, her hair tied back with a striped bandana she’d folded into a headband. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Uh, no.” Min-Gi shuffled his feet. He was never good with social situations. Not outside of work, at least. Work came with scripts to follow and prescribed jobs to do with his hands. Anywhere else was new territory. “I’m just…meeting my friend here?” He winced. He hoped that was allowed. “I-I don’t know why he chose a music store. I guess because he’s a musician? He hung up before I could—”

“Do you play any instruments?” asked the girl, thankfully stopping Min-Gi before he could stick his foot any farther into his mouth.

“Uh, not really?” Min-Gi winced. “I mean, I played the viola when I was a kid because of my parents? And— And I mean, there’s this?” He pulled his mini-synth out of his pocket. “But that’s just a toy so…” He laughed anxiously.

The girl just smiled. “Well…we have the real thing, you know.” She gestured behind herself, just a little bit past the front desk, to a synthesizer that was already set up, wired to some speakers across from a grand piano. “As long as you’re here, you’re free to try it out.”

Min-Gi absently deposited his mini-synth back into his pocket, attention consumed by the synth. He knew the girl was just trying to get him to buy something, to grab his curiosity and convince him that he liked the synth enough to buy it. And he didn’t really have the money for it. Not if he wanted to support himself and maybe help some other guy who might run out of places for gigs pretty soon and…keep a bell fed.

But he couldn’t deny the fact that he really did want to try it. And there was no obligation to buy it even if he did like playing it, so…

“…I guess I could wait for my friend over there.”

“Great!” The girl’s smile widened. “I’ll be at the register if you need me for anything.”

True to her word, she retreated, leaving Min-Gi to wander to the synth on his own, which he did, feeling as though every eye was on him.

With unsteady hands, he lowered himself into the provided seat and found middle C.

Min-Gi looked over his shoulder at the dad behind him buying his kid a flute. He stole a glance at the back of the room, where someone inspected guitars.

No one was looking at him. Not really. No matter how much it felt like they were.

Min-Gi cleared his throat, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and pressed a key.

“Sh—!” Were the speakers supposed to be that loud?

Min-Gi looked over his shoulder again.

No one was looking at him.

Maybe it was loud only to him. He took another deep breath and picked out another note.

It quickly became evident that he had absolutely no idea what he was doing. He wasn’t classically trained. He had his mini-synth, sure, but “one note at a time” to “entire chords” was quite the leap to make all at once. He didn’t know where to start.

But…maybe he could play something by ear?

“If You Leave” was still stuck in his head from the night before. That was as good of a starting point as anything, right?

He gave it a shot.

When it didn’t sound right, he adjusted it until it did. Maybe it was never perfect, but it was still recognizable, and when he felt like he had the hang of it, he moved on to trying a very slow “Baba O’Riley”.

He lost track of time trying to get that right, picking out the right notes slowly working up his confidence with the speed until he accepted he’d never quite be able to copy an arpeggiator.

“Alone” by Heart was easier. Not as fun, but…easier, for sure.

Min-Gi hummed under his breath as he rocked his right hand back and forth. It was rhythmic, basic. He swore he could hear the metronome he played with as a kid counting beats in his ear.

“I wonder where you are tonight, no answer on the telephone…”

The metronome feeling was probably intentional, now that Min-Gi thought about it. The first verse of the song talked a lot about time passing slowly. Being alone certainly had that effect. How many nights had Min-Gi stayed awake staring at that empty spot across from him in his bedroom, wishing there was another bed occupying the space? Time definitely went by slowly on those nights.

Having Kez around definitely changed something about that. Kez and—

“‘TIL NOW—!”

A guitar blared, deafening in Min-Gi’s ear. Something kicked the side of his bench.

“JESUS—”

“—I ALWAYS GOT BY ON MY OWN! I NEVER REALLY CARED UNTIL I MET YOU!”

Min-Gi whipped around to find—who else—Ryan right next to him, inches away, boot perched on the edge of his bench, guitar on his leg, pick in his hand.

“AND NOW IT CHILLS ME TO THE BONE—” He threw his head back, sweat-drenched bangs flying over the crown of his head.

The employee who led him to the keyboard stood behind Ryan, smiling beside the amp his guitar was suspiciously plugged into. Of course Ryan dragged her into this.

“HOW DO I GET YOU ALONE?”

Ryan leaned forward, grinning. Close. Too close. Min-Gi leaned back, swallowing. He really did look like a rock star.

“How do I get you alone?”

Ryan winked.

Min-Gi pushed his foot off the bench. “Where have you been? I was worried about you!”

“You didn’t look that worried.” Ryan slid his glasses up the end of his sweaty nose. “You looked pretty engrossed in your music, actually.”

His music…

“How long have you been watching me?” demanded Min-Gi.

“Somewhere around the end of ‘If You Leave’ and the start of ‘Baba O’Riley’.”

“That long?!”

Ryan climbed onto the bench beside Min-Gi. “You’re pretty good.”

Min-Gi narrowed his eyes. “This was my first time.”

Ryan just draped his arm over his guitar, grinning benignly. “Yeah, exactly.” He still looked euphoric from his performance. Or maybe just pleasantly exhausted from the walk over. He dragged his hand through his hair to push it over the top of his head. The sweat held it in place. Something in Min-Gi tried to remember that was gross, but something more basic, more surface, more innate, wanted to call it something else.

Min-Gi swallowed.

Ryan leaned toward him again, the hand between them so close it grazed against the side of Min-Gi’s thigh. “So…how do I get you alone?”

“What—”

“By which I mean…how do I get you to start a band with me?” Ryan wiggled his eyebrows. “Hm?”

Min-Gi stared at him. A laugh broke out of him. “Oh, okay. You’ve lost your mind.”

He stood from the bench and walked around Ryan’s back, only for Ryan to turn around and look at him the same damn way. “I’m serious.”

“No, you’re not.” Min-Gi found Ryan’s discarded guitar case and shoved it toward him. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Ryan let out an exaggerated sigh and turned toward the employee of the music store. “I’ll get him to change his mind. You’ll see.”

“I believe you.”

“Ryan.” Min-Gi gestured at the door. “Let’s go.”

“All right.” Ryan scoffed, his smile still in place. “You’re like a dog.”

Ryan put his guitar in its case and followed Min-Gi to the door, waving one last time at the store clerk before following him outside.

“What’s your hurry?” asked Ryan. “It’s not like we have anywhere to be.”

“Maybe you don’t,” said Min-Gi. “Some of us have an early schedule and need to go to bed at a reasonable time.”

Ryan scoffed. “Come on. You volunteered to watch my show until you learned where it was. You would have stayed up just as late doing that.”

“Yeah, well—” Min-Gi glared at the sidewalk beneath his feet as he led the way to where he’d parked his car. “That was before you wasted time watching me mess around with a stupid instrument for ten minutes when we could have just gone home.”

“You weren’t messing around,” said Ryan. “You were playing. And you were having fun until I showed up. Do you hate me or something?”

“No!” said Min-Gi, voice cracking.

“Then what’s your deal?” Ryan ran in front of Min-Gi and grabbed him by the shoulders, stopping him, his face just inches from the end of Min-Gi’s nose. Sweat clung to his forehead. His deep brown eyes caught the light from the music store window.

Min-Gi’s heart skipped a beat.

“Min, you—”

“Get off me!”

Min-Gi brought his arms up beneath Ryan’s, forcing them off, pushing him hard enough to make his guitar swing back. Ryan stumbled, eyes wide, hurt, before something else took hold. Something less vulnerable.

Hard, frozen anger.

“Oh.” Ryan lifted his head. “I know what this is.”

“Oh, yeah?” Min-Gi balled his hands into fists in his pockets. “Then what is it? Tell me.”

“This is about me playing at a gay bar, isn’t it?”

Min-Gi felt goosebumps crawl across the back of his neck. “What? No, it’s not—”

Ryan raised his voice. “Oh, you were totally fine with letting a stranger sleep in your house last night. You even, literally, gave him the shirt off your back. But the second he associates himself with gay people, he’s not even worth basic—human—decency anymore!” His tone reached a peak as he jabbed Min-Gi in the chest with a finger, fiercely punctuating his words. “Well, guess what, Min! They weren’t the only ones in that bar who were gay!”

Min-Gi’s heart struck the inside of his chest, thumping hard enough to hurt, this time for a reason entirely unrelated to Ryan’s eyes. “Ryan, don’t—”

“I’m just as gay as they are!”

Min-Gi’s blood ran cold.

There it was. Out in the open. Exactly what he’d been worried about.

And Ryan hadn’t just told him in confidence. He’d screamed it, loud enough for the whole street to hear.

“So go ahead!” snapped Ryan. “Throw me out! Kick me to the curb! Do everything you can to forget that I exist! You wouldn’t be the first! You wouldn’t even be the second! There’s a whole plethora of people who came before you! Even, you might say, a whole family! So say what you gotta say. I’m waiting.”

He crossed his arms. Min-Gi saw his outline tremble, pale in the light from the music store’s white walls. All he did, all he could do, was stare, watching Ryan quiver. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what he could say, how he could possibly make Ryan understand without hurting him. Or worse, putting himself at risk.

He never had the chance to figure it out.

From the corner of his eye, hidden in the shadows of the alley behind Ryan’s back, Min-Gi caught a glint, the faintest flicker of something moving. Something reflective. Something metal.

He felt his feet lift off the ground without his say-so. He felt the cold wind cut into his face as his body surged forward. He felt the warmth of Ryan’s arm beneath his hands as they shoved Ryan a second time, hard enough to knock him to the ground.

Then he felt the crunch of glass beneath his back as something massive knocked him into the window of a car on the other side of the street.

His ears rang. His head swam. Through the buzzing in his head, he registered, however muted, the screeching of a car alarm. Then the screeching of his own name.

“MIN!”

Another crashing sound. A pained gasp.

Ryan?

Min-Gi clenched his teeth. He tried to push himself up, to lift himself off the asphalt and the broken glass scattered around him.

A pair of sharp metal claws briefly hoisted him off the ground only to slam him back down, knocking his jaw into the street and worsening the spinning of his head. Another claw groped around his body, reaching into his pockets. Something plastic clattered to the ground. His mini-synth…?

He opened his eyes.

The creature’s porcelain face loomed over him, upside-down, expressionless, green fire bursting from the holes where its eyes should have been, climbing up the cheeks of its inverted face like flaming tears.

“WHERE IS IT?” screamed the thing, fury in its voice if not in its face. “WHERE’S THE BELL?!”

Min-Gi’s heart lurched.

Kez?

This thing was after Kez?

“GET AWAY FROM HIM!”

The light from the street lamps overhead was briefly blocked out by an obscure black shape. A loud crack echoed off the brick walls of the surrounding buildings. The creature lifted its head to glare at what just struck it.

So did Min-Gi.

“Let him go!” Ryan stood over them both, shaking, his guitar case hanging from his hands. The shoulder of his jacket was torn, and his cheek was scraped just hard enough to break skin.

“Ryan!” Min-Gi squirmed in the thing’s grip, trying desperately to free himself before Ryan could do anything stupid. “What are you doing?! Run!”

Ryan ignored him completely. “Back off, or I’ll— I’ll think of something to hit you with that’s a lot heavier than my guitar case—”

“STOP IT!”

Min-Gi cried out as the beast lifted him up only to throw him back into the ground harder than ever. It dove between them, a mass of spider-like legs blocking Ryan from Min-Gi’s view. But he heard him. He heard the strange, half-chopped grunt as the wind was knocked from him. He saw Ryan’s guitar case hit the ground.

“Where did you come from?! Why are you still here?!”

Min-Gi tried to lift his aching body off the ground, to save Ryan, to do something.

Another loud slam shook the ground, sending Min-Gi falling back into the street, eyes slamming shut, a pained hiss racking his body. The glass shards littered around him clattered.

The glass…

Min-Gi opened his eyes.

“You hated him just moments ago! You barely know each other to begin with! Why are you still protecting him?!”

He saw glass everywhere, all around him, from the window of the still-screeching car he’d been thrown into. A huge piece, barely visible in Min-Gi’s own shadow, stood out. Min-Gi grabbed it. The glass bit into his hand. He clenched his teeth as blood rolled down his wrist, biting off a pained gasp.

“Look at me! Open your eyes and look at me, you pile of shit! You don’t even know what you’ve done!”

Min-Gi turned toward the beast. Something was in the mass of metal limbs. Something that appeared where they parted. Something ridged, catching the light in striped shadows.

Corduroy.

Min-Gi raised his arm.

The glass shard sliced through the fabric easily, sinking deep into whatever was on the other side.

From the feel of it, flesh.

“AUGH!”

The corduroy, and the glass embedded into it, disappeared behind the mass of metal legs.

One of them smacked Min-Gi hard, rolling him back into the tires of the car he’d been thrown into. He heard a crack. A loud one. For a moment, he thought he’d broken a bone, that the pain was just delayed because he’d hit his head harder than he thought.

But it was the creature who screamed.

Half a porcelain mask fell to the ground in front of Min-Gi’s face, breaking further, a clean line separating its chin from the rest. Ryan’s feet followed as the creature threw him down.

And in a flash of chrome limbs, it was gone.

“Min!”

Urgent, clumsy hands grabbed at Min-Gi’s shoulders, yanking him across the asphalt. Min-Gi’s eyes snapped shut as he grimaced against the scraping and the glass driving deeper into his skin.

“Min-Gi…! C’mon, buddy, please! Look at me, okay? You gotta look at me, I—!”

Min-Gi opened his eyes, grudgingly complying.

There were tears smudging Ryan’s glasses.

“Oh, my god.” Ryan let out a sound. A laugh? A sob? Something in-between? “Oh, my god, Min, I— For a second, I thought—!”

“I’m fine,” grunted Min-Gi, letting his eyes close again.

“No, you’re not.” The world lurched as Ryan yanked Min-Gi’s arm across his shoulders with an exaggerated grunt and dragged him to his feet. “Come— Come on, buddy,” managed Ryan, just barely, as he pulled Min-Gi across the street. “Let’s—get you home and—cleaned up.” He let out a strained huff. “Sound good?”

“The car…”

“I’ll—drive—”

“No, the car. The…” Min-Gi tried to look over his shoulder and found it hurt too much. “The one I hit.”

“…What?” Ryan stopped moving and barked a disbelieving laugh. “You’re worried about that? Dude! They can deal with it themselves! It wasn’t your fault! Let them take it up with that big creepy metal monster thing. If you got stabbed, you wouldn’t blame the knife!”

Min-Gi tried to turn toward Ryan, to argue, only to let out a pained hiss when he turned his head. It felt like his entire back was on fire.

“You need to worry about yourself once in a while, man.” Ryan resumed dragging him. “Come on.”

Chapter Text

“Okay, I found the gauze and the tweezers.” Ryan turned the brown bottle in his hand over to squint at the label again, one more time, just to make absolutely sure. “And the peroxide. I hope it’s okay if this washcloth gets ruined. The blood’s absolutely going to stain.”

Min-Gi didn’t answer. He just lay there, on his bed, face pressed hard into his pillow. If it wasn’t for the way he was still trembling in pain, Ryan would have thought he’d fallen asleep.

His eyes wandered over Min-Gi’s back, over the jagged cuts in the blue of his jacket. Over the shards of glass still poking out of his skin, yet to be removed. Over the blood. His shoulders sank as he took in the sight, the picture Min-Gi’s broken body painted.

That attack had been meant for him. He couldn’t understand why when the thing made clear what it was looking for.

Thing… Guess Ryan couldn’t call them that anymore.

“Look at me! Open your eyes and look at me, you pile of shit! You don’t even know what you’ve done!”

Ryan writhed in the too-tight grip of the metal claws, desperate to get himself free. At least an arm, a hand, a finger. Something.

The metal beast, the alien, the robot, whatever it was stared him down, eyes burning that vicious green, the flames reaching higher and higher with every word, like they fed off the creature’s anger. And it was right. Ryan had no clue why it was angry, what he or Min-Gi could have possibly done to make it want to kill them. All he knew was that the thing’s claws were wrapped around his chest, pinning down his arms, squeezing him tighter, and tighter, and tighter, and if Ryan didn’t do something soon, his ribs were going to snap like uncooked spaghetti.

“AUGH!”

Without warning, without explanation, the beast’s masked face twisted around to glare at the ground behind it.

Its grip loosened.

Min.

Ryan took a gasping breath, his first in too long.

For the second time that night, Min-Gi had saved him, and Ryan wasn’t about to let Min take his gruesome death in his place. He had to act fast.

Finally, he managed to jerk an arm out of the creature’s grip, and with all the strength he had left in him, he reeled back an arm and punched the thing in its stupid white face.

CRACK

The mask split clean down the middle, its left half, the side that connected with Ryan’s fist, crashing to the ground, revealing everything beneath. The tubes that had been spitting out flame, less magical when Ryan saw the mechanism. The hinge that had probably been used to hold the mask in place before Ryan dislodged it.

A flash of pale skin.

A single cerulean eye rolled toward Ryan, terrified, furious, but before Ryan could get a better look at what he was seeing, he was dropped. A hand parted through the countless chrome legs to shield the revealed half of the face beneath the mask, and the machine fled with its pilot.

Ryan might have given chase, but with the legs out of the way, he could see Min-Gi again, lying limp on the ground, his eyes closed, his body unmoving, a small pool of blood soaking into his arm.

Ryan’s heart leapt into his throat.

No, no, no, I can’t lose you, not after—

“Min!”

Ryan set the supplies he’d gathered on Min-Gi’s chest of drawers next to the bell. Hands free, he picked it up and turned it over in his hand. He’d seen Min-Gi carry it around everywhere with him since they met. He even had it on his lap in the coffee shop after the first attack. But as far as Ryan could see, it was just an ordinary bell. A weirdly warm bell, but there was probably a vent under it or something. Ryan squinted at the plate on the front, at the plate screwed into the base that happily branded it with the word Kez. Huh. Kinda familiar. Maybe it was a really rare…bell. Weird, sure, but if it was some sort of antique or something, and the guy in the robot was a collector…

“Why did they want the bell so bad?” asked Ryan, looking over his shoulder.

“I don’t know,” sighed Min-Gi, muffled through the pillow. “Why did they attack you if that’s really what they were looking for?”

“Good question.” Ryan set the bell back down. “But you know what? If finding out means getting attacked by a weird, futuristic robot again, I think I’m fine not knowing.” He stepped back from the chest of drawers, returning to Min-Gi’s side. “Okay, stand up. I’ll help you get your shirt off.”

Min-Gi’s back tensed, sending a visible shiver of pain through his body. He sucked a breath in through his teeth, and Ryan winced sympathetically. Not only from the pain, but because he knew this probably wasn’t Min-Gi’s ideal evening following the topic of their fight from earlier. There was no time to get used to the idea of a gay guy touching his bare skin, though. It was either Ryan or a doctor, and they both knew it.

So Min-Gi climbed shakily to his feet, turned around, and offered Ryan his back.

The blue jacket came off relatively easily. It still snagged shards and splinters as Ryan maneuvered it back, but with Ryan carefully picking at the fabric around the fabric, it came off with only a few pained, stifled grunts.

The formerly-white t-shirt beneath was a little less friendly.

“Hold still,” murmured Ryan, sliding his hands up past the hem of Min-Gi’s shirt. This…wasn’t how he pictured running his hands across Min-Gi’s skin. In those quiet moments, the moments he’d been sighing over all day while he was home alone, the catching of Min-Gi’s breath had been a lot hotter and a lot less like he was biting down the urge to cry out in pain.

Not like that’s going to happen now…

Ryan carefully removed the blood-stained shirt millimeter by millimeter, wincing at the way it stuck to Min-Gi’s skin. After a great deal of gentle tugging and cautious inching, however, Ryan managed to loop the shirt off the glass that pinned it to Min-Gi’s back and peel it over his head.

He really was pretty.

He’d be a lot prettier without all the blood.

“Okay,” said Ryan. “Well… You probably won’t get much use out of this shirt going forward. I guess you have a few new dustrags now.” He set the shirt on the foot of Min-Gi’s bed, bloody-side-up, to avoid staining anything else. “You should probably lie down now. This is definitely going to hurt, and I get the feeling you won’t flinch so much on the bed. Wouldn’t want to make any of these holes bigger, right?”

“Sure,” grumbled Min-Gi, already doing what Ryan suggested. “And this way I’ll have something to scream into.”

He buried his face in his pillow to prove his point.

Ryan grabbed the first aid supplies with a sigh. Man, what he wouldn’t have given to tell Min-Gi to get on his bed for a different reason.

Stop it. God, you’re the worst. You nearly lost him tonight and all you can think of is sex? Seriously?

Ryan lowered himself onto the edge of Min-Gi’s bed, right under where his arm curled to press the pillow into his face. He dropped the peroxide and the gauze by his feet, leaving him with only the tweezers, which he used to start picking out the smaller pieces of glass and dropping them into the small bin he’d dropped by Min-Gi’s headboard. The bigger glass shards…scared him. He didn’t want to pull those out until he was ready to bandage Min-Gi up.

The glass made a ring shape around the edges of Min-Gi’s back, avoiding the center. Probably because the center hit the window first and caused all the rest of the glass to crater outward, right into his skin.

That could have been me, thought Ryan. Maybe it would have been my arm, and I wouldn’t have been able to play for a while.

Or maybe it would have been my throat.

Ryan’s hand froze in mid-air, halfway to the next glass shard.

“…Min?”

“Y-Yeah?” grunted Min-Gi, voice more muffled than it was before. It sounded like he was biting his pillow.

Ryan rested the side of his hand on Min-Gi’s arm. He still held the tweezers, but he just…had to touch him. “Why did you save me?”

Min-Gi didn’t answer at first. Maybe trying to figure out what he was going to say. Maybe trying to decide whether it was safe to stop biting his pillow. But eventually, he turned his head to the side and laid it flat on his pillow. “What else was I supposed to do?”

“You could have done anything,” said Ryan. “You could have been frozen in fear and not done anything. You could have decided I wasn’t worth saving because we were fighting—”

“I’m not a monster,” said Min-Gi, narrowing his eyes.

“Never said you were.” Ryan set the tweezers on the edge of Min-Gi’s bed and brushed his fingers along the top of Min-Gi’s arm, cherishing his presence, his warmth, the fact that he was still alive despite the night they’d had. “I’m just saying we haven’t known each other that long, and we were fighting about something pretty serious, and… You know what? I’m not going to beat around the bush. I just came out, and you decided my life was worth saving anyway. I think it’s pretty safe to say, based on current ideas about certain epidemics, that that puts you safely in the minority.”

With a sigh, Min-Gi closed his eyes. “I don’t hate you for being gay. Honestly, I kind of suspected it, even before you told me you were playing at a gay bar. You’re just so…”

“Freakishly good-looking?”

“…Free.”

Ryan raised his eyebrows. Okay. Not what he was expecting, but he was listening.

“You’re not held down by anything,” said Min-Gi. “Not a town, not your family, not societal expectations… You don’t act like getting married and settling down to have a family was ever something anyone had in mind for you. You’re not bothered by living out of a van or by some guy you don’t know walking in on you in your underwear, or getting attacked by a killer robot…”

“I don’t know, man, that last part does kind of freak me out.”

“But it doesn’t stop you,” said Min-Gi. “I feel like I keep having to remind you it’s out there because you just keep going on. Life as usual for Ryan Akagi.”

Ryan looked down at the blue carpet beneath his feet, the twists in the shag texture, the shadows between the blue. “Well… It wasn’t tonight. When I saw you get hurt, I thought…” He bowed his head and kneaded his brow with his knuckles as the image of Min-Gi bouncing off that car like he was made of rubber ran through his mind. The visual of him meeting the asphalt with a slap and not getting up. “I… I don’t know what I thought. Just that, I guess. Everything in the world was just that.”

He lifted his head and took a long look down Min-Gi’s bare back, at the bloody spikes jutting from his skin, the myriad of still-bleeding lacerations yet to be cleaned.

“I was scared,” said Ryan, reaching for the tweezers again. “Honestly, I’m…usually scared. I’m not as free as you think.”

He plucked a splinter from Min-Gi’s shoulder, earning a whimper and convincing Min-Gi to bury his face back into his pillow.

“I could never do the apartment thing even if I wanted to,” explained Ryan. “It’s too…”

“Boring?” offered Min-Gi through grit teeth.

“Risky,” said Ryan. “I know, I know. The van thing probably seems way riskier to you, but… If something happens to me when I’m living out of my van, I can just move on to the next town. Get fresh jobs, make new friends, live a new life. Leave everything behind. If tonight went differently, I could have just zipped up my bag, loaded it into my van, and gone…somewhere. I couldn’t do that if I had an apartment of my own and furniture and…and a family.”

Min-Gi grunted when Ryan pulled a piece of glass out just a little too hard.

“Sorry,” muttered Ryan. “But, uh…all but the biggest pieces of glass are out now. I should probably clean the smaller cuts before I get the big ones out, though. They’re probably gonna bleed a lot.”

SMACK

“Wait.”

Ryan looked from the hand that had just wrapped tight around his wrist to the face of the man it belonged to.

“It’s either gonna hurt now or later, Min,” said Ryan. “I won’t judge you for crying.”

“No, that’s not—” Min-Gi tightened the hold he had around Ryan’s wrist. “Just— Before I spend the rest of the night fighting the urge to scream, I have to ask. When you say you would have left if tonight went differently, do you mean if I handled you coming out differently, or if I died?”

Ryan looked away, toward the side of Min-Gi’s room that was strangely empty. “Both, I guess.” He shrugged. “Either. If there was no reason for me to stick around anymore, what would be the point?”

“I’m…the reason you’re here?”

Min-Gi’s thick eyebrows drew together.

Setting the tweezers aside, Ryan bent down, hovering over Min-Gi’s head. He held his breath as he reached up, and with an uncertain, experimental hand, he found Min-Gi’s hair. It was softer than it looked as Ryan threaded his fingers through the shortest parts, up to the crown of Min-Gi’s head, where he’d styled the longest parts up and over.

Ryan was afraid to meet Min-Gi’s eyes again, afraid of what he’d see when Min-Gi felt his hand in his hair, aware that it might not be entirely platonic, that there was a chance, if Ryan liked men, that he could like this particular man. But Min-Gi’s eyes were just curious, patient, determined. He was waiting for his answer.

Ryan gave it to him.

“If you weren’t here, I would have left the day after the first attack.”

“What?” Min-Gi lifted his head, wincing when he put weight on his elbows, which in turn put weight on his back. “Wh…” He grimaced. “Why didn’t you—?”

“Easy.” Ryan took his hand out of Min-Gi’s hair. “That can’t be good for you.”

Min-Gi reluctantly lowered himself back onto the pillow, holding Ryan’s gaze the entire time. “Why were you going to leave?”

“Well, I kind of wanted to the day after I first met you,” explained Ryan, bending down to uncap the peroxide. “This town kind of… I don’t know. It just made me sad. The night after I met you in the diner, I cried myself to sleep. I don’t even know why, I just…” He shrugged. “I wanted out. But I had one more show to do, and then we got attacked and you invited me to stay, so…I stayed.” He looked from the open mouth of the peroxide bottle to Min-Gi’s face. “I’m glad I stayed. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have learned what a great musician you were. Or just…how much fun you are. The way you light up when you forget about all the things that stress you out.” Ryan looked down. “How brave you are.” He breathed in through his nose, faster than Min-Gi could realize how gay that sounded. “I mean, you fought that thing back long enough for me to get an arm free when you could barely move.”

“…I guess.” Min-Gi shifted on the bed, a quiet hiss eking out through his teeth. “Ryan, that thing… I think it’s—”

“Human,” said Ryan. “It’s human under there. He’s moving the legs around like a car. Or she. They? I don’t know, I didn’t get a good look. But there was definitely a human face under the mask.”

“And human legs,” said Min-Gi. “Wearing corduroy pants.”

“Stylish,” said Ryan passively.

Min-Gi huffed a laugh against his pillow.

“Seriously, though?” Ryan raised the bottle over Min-Gi’s back. “If it’s just some guy in a fancy metal suit, that makes it all way less scary.”

“Still pretty scary,” said Min-Gi.

“Yeah, but like, dude-with-a-gun-wants-us-dead scary, not end-of-the-world scary.” Ryan smiled benignly. “Now would be a great time to bite the pillow, by the way.”

Min-Gi turned and pressed his face into the pillow, shoulders rock hard.

Ryan carefully poured hydrogen peroxide over Min-Gi’s back, catching the runoff with the cloth as Min-Gi spat out what sounded like a muffled stream of curses into his pillow.

“Sorry, Min.”

Min answered with a kick to the foot of his bed.

With the smaller cuts disinfected, Ryan finally turned his sights on the three big bastards surrounding the epicenter of the collision.

These…he wouldn’t need the tweezers for.

Ryan reached for the biggest piece first. His breath caught in his chest as he pinched it between his thumb and the side of his index finger. He couldn’t wiggle it out. Not without making Min-Gi’s wound bigger, which he did not want to do. He’d have to pull it out all at once.

Oh, man…

“Ready?” Ryan tightened his hold on the piece of glass. “Three, two—”

“Just pull it!”

Ryan yanked. The feeling of flesh sliding against glass made his stomach roll. It was like pulling a fork out of a steak.

One that started to bleed. A lot.

“H-Hold on, Min!” Ryan urgently pressed the washcloth he’d been using into the wound, stemming the flow of blood but immediately making the wound hiss and fizz into the peroxide-soaked cloth. “Two more, okay? Then we’re done.”

Min-Gi, face buried in his pillow, said something Ryan couldn’t quite hear but that sounded angry. Probably another demand to get it over with.

Ryan complied, quickly pulling out the last two chunks of bloodstained glass and laying a layer of gauze on the disinfected wounds before Min-Gi could lose too much blood.

Once everything was sealed with medical tape, Ryan leaned back, set the washcloth on the edge of the bin so it wouldn’t make a mess, and wiped his hands off on his shirt before using one to card through Min-Gi’s hair again.

“Okay, there we go. You’re all patched up.” With a fleeting reluctance, Ryan bent over and planted a kiss on the back of Min-Gi’s head, purely platonic. …Mostly platonic. Honestly, he just wanted to treasure the fact that Min-Gi was still with him. That he was still warm and receptive to kisses.

Min-Gi lifted his head, twisting it with a small wince to look over his shoulder. “Ryan?”

Ryan took his hand back, worried he was about to get told off for being a little too touchy-feely now that Min-Gi knew he was gay. “…Yeah?”

“You don’t seem too scared to me.”

Ryan raised his eyebrows.

With a hard, pained grimace, Min-Gi rolled onto his back and took a deep breath through his teeth. “I just mean…you seemed pretty brave when you hit the robot guy with your guitar case to save me.”

Ryan opened his mouth to argue, to insist that Min-Gi was even braver, that the thing with the guitar case was nothing, but Min-Gi didn’t let him.

“I also think…being able to be yourself…especially like this, right now…being gay, openly, with everything else that’s going on?” He shrugged and looked away. “That seems pretty brave to me. Even if you always have an escape plan just in case things don’t go well. I don’t think that’s cowardly. I think that’s just being safe. I’m sorry you have to take steps like that to be safe. And whatever happened with your family, why you get all…stiff whenever you bring them up?”

Ryan rubbed his arm, self-conscious. Part of him hoped Min-Gi would pick up on that, but now that he’d actually done it, he only felt like he must have been embarrassing himself by being so…accidentally-on-purpose vague about the whole thing. Maybe he was being dramatic. Maybe he should have just said something.

“It wasn’t right.”

Ryan raised his eyebrows.

Min-Gi narrowed his eyes. “I’m sorry your family sucks. Whatever they did, whether they kicked you out or disowned you or just…made you feel like so much shit you had to leave? It wasn’t right. And you deserved better. And if you thought I was going to do the same thing they did? I…” He looked away, just briefly, before his eyes darted right back, fierce and unyielding. “I can’t hold that against you. Anyone in your place would have done the same thing.”

Ryan wasn’t sure what to say. He stood stock-still, gaze latched onto Min-Gi’s face, at the determined scowl he sent back.

A long, slow breath shuddered from Ryan’s lips. “All right, man, cool.”

“Cool?” asked Min-Gi. “Of all the words you could have said, you went with ‘cool’?”

“Well, what was I supposed to say to that?” asked Ryan. “‘I’ve been waiting for my whole life for someone to tell me it’s okay that my family doesn’t love me, that it’s their loss, and you just said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world and that shook me to my core’? Is that what I’m supposed to say?”

Min-Gi blinked, slow and sluggish, looking as unsure as Ryan felt. “I mean… I guess that works better than ‘cool’.”

“Okay, well.” Ryan crossed his arms and shrugged. “Great. Glad I said it, then.”

He swallowed.

Min-Gi set his hands on his stomach and curled them into fists. There was something in his face, something that told Ryan there was something he needed to say.

Ryan waited for him to say it.

“You know, it’s not…” Min-Gi sighed. “You being gay really doesn’t bother me.”

“Maybe not,” said Ryan. “But something clearly does. So is it the fact that I’m so loudly gay?”

“No.”

“So is it that I hang out with other gay people?”

“No!” Min-Gi groaned. “Why are you so defensive all of a sudden? It doesn’t have anything to do with you being gay, personally or as part of the scene! Geez.”

“Sorry,” huffed Ryan. “I’m— I’m sorry. It’s just— The family thing, and with everything else we’ve talked about tonight, I guess I’m a little…” He shrugged sharply. “…tense.”

“No kidding,” said Min-Gi. “But I’m not out to get you.”

“I know. I…” Ryan sighed. “I know. But you clearly still have some kind of a problem with me, so what is it?”

“It’s not…” Min-Gi shrugged. “It’s not a problem, exactly? Well, I guess it is, but it’s not a problem with you.”

“Would you just spit it out already?”

“Fine!” Min-Gi groaned. “Fine. I’ll just—” He leaned back, his head hitting the mattress behind him. “The problem isn’t that you’re gay. The problem is—”

He froze.

Ryan raised his eyebrows expectantly, but all Min-Gi responded with was a sigh and silence. Whatever it was, he couldn’t bring himself to say it. And that definitely didn’t make Ryan feel any better, it just redistributed his concern from himself to Min.

“It’s not your fault.” Min-Gi turned his head so his cheek found the mattress. “It’s dumb anyway.”

“I doubt it, if it has you this worked up,” said Ryan. “But yeah. Fine. We don’t have to talk about it. But you know I’m not gonna, like…leave you, right? Not after…everything.”

“You are, though.”

Min-Gi’s voice was so quiet, Ryan could barely pick it up.

“You are leaving. Just not yet.”

“And not because of anything you’re freaking out about right now,” said Ryan. “I wouldn’t leave because of you. Not if you wanted me to stay.”

Min-Gi’s fists tightened until his knuckles turned white.

Ryan sat beside him. The mattress creaked beneath him. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Yeah.” Min-Gi’s hands relaxed, but he didn’t open his eyes. “Me, too.” Beat. “I mean—” He slapped a hand across his face. “I’m glad you’re okay, not—”

“I know what you meant,” said Ryan, almost laughing. “Just…hey.” He reached for Min-Gi’s face. As his hand traveled up, toward his moussed-up hair, forcing it to fall loose between his fingers, Min’s eyes finally opened. And when they did, they opened wide. “I like you a lot. And I kind of want to keep you around for a while, so…” He tucked a newly loose lock of hair behind Min-Gi’s ear. “Try not to get yourself killed. Okay?”

Min-Gi closed his eyes, and with a long but sharp breath through his nose, he reached for Ryan’s wrist.

“Back at you.”

Ryan nodded and pulled his hand out of Min-Gi’s. “Get some sleep. And don’t even think about working tomorrow.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” grumbled Min-Gi.

“Good,” said Ryan. “Okay, in that case, there’s a couch in the living room that’s calling my name.” He stood from Min-Gi’s bed and grabbed the bin, along with the peroxide, the medical tape, and the gauze. “‘Night, Min.”

Min-Gi’s eyes lingered on him, just for a little bit past what Ryan would have expected before sliding shut.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “Good night.”

The door creaked all the way closed and shut tight with a click. Min-Gi waited for Ryan’s steps to disappear down the hall before calling out.

“You can come out now.”

Kez floated off Min-Gi’s chest of drawers and drifted close enough to land on his chest. “Wow, are you okay?”

Min-Gi set a hand on her dome and rubbed it gently. “That thing—or that guy, I guess?—attacked us again. But yeah.”

“No, I got that part,” said Kez. “I meant, like, you guys. You seemed kind of…high-strung? And like. Not on the same page?”

“We’ll be fine,” said Min-Gi. “We just sort of…had a rough conversation.”

“The gay thing?” Kez scoffed. “Like you didn’t know.”

“No, I mean…” Min-Gi’s hand stilled on the back of Kez’s bell. “I suspected. But I’m not…bothered by it. I’m just…scared he’s going to be too open about it at the wrong time and get himself—or both of us—hurt.”

“Then why didn’t you tell him that?” asked Kez.

Min-Gi chewed his lip.

Because that wasn’t the whole problem. Part of it, sure, but not all of it.

Yeah. Ryan’s…gay. And that makes things complicated. But it’s not actually him being gay that’s the problem.

The problem is…

…I think I am.

Chapter Text

A weirdly gentle knock came at Min-Gi’s door.

And for the first time since he was eleven years old, Min-Gi pulled the blankets over his head and groaned in response.

A beat passed. Then two. Then the door gently creaked open. “…Min? Normally, I’d be totally in support of you sleeping in, but like…it’s noon? And you seem like the kind of guy who’s going to get a headache if you sleep past noon.”

Min-Gi sighed and peeked out of the top of his blankets, squinting blearily at the sunlight and the way Ryan glimmered in it like an angel as he stood sheepishly in his doorway, balancing a box in one of his hands.

Shit. He wasn’t supposed to look like that.

“I brought doughnuts,” said Ryan, a note of hope in his voice. “And coffee?” He held up his other hand, revealing the reason why his knock had sounded strange. He’d probably knocked with his foot if both his hands were full. “Y’know, to pay you back for the bagels? Except I didn’t know what kind of doughnuts you like, so uh… I just got a dozen and tried to mix them up as much as possible.” He bent over to set the doughnuts on the edge of Min-Gi’s bed. “I figured we could split them, so whichever ones you don’t want, I’ll happily take.”

As Ryan opened the box, Min-Gi watched his hair, the way it swung forward with the change in gravity, the way it traced the edge of his jaw, the way it tickled his neck. And the way it slid off his cheekbone, revealing a bruise that Min-Gi hadn’t seen before.

Where did he get that? Was that from last night? When that robot thing threw him across the road?

Min-Gi reached out of his blankets, freeing himself from their grip to hold Ryan’s face, to swipe his thumb gently across the blotch of red and purple, as if a simple concerned touch could save him from that minor wound, as if it was something that could be kissed better.

Then he realized what he was doing.

His gaze darted from Ryan’s cheek to his eyes, which had flown wide open, seeming to glow white against his newly bright red face.

Min-Gi was sure he’d gone the same exact color.

“Uh—!” He snatched his hand back. “Uh, I was— You have a bruise? And—”

“Oh.” Ryan stood up straight, flattening his hair over his injured cheek. “Right, yeah, that’s from last night.”

“I thought so,” said Min-Gi. “I just— Does it hurt?”

“I mean, yeah,” said Ryan. “It’s a bruise.”

“Did it hurt when I touched it?”

“No, no.” Ryan repeatedly flattened that lock of hair between his thumb and index finger. “You were, like…super…gentle.” He cleared his throat. “So! Coffee?” He transferred one of the cups to the hand he’d been using to pet his hair. “I don’t know how you like it, so I just got it black, but there’s some sugar packets rattling around in the bottom of the doughnut box, so…?”

“Thanks.” Min-Gi took the cup from Ryan and reached into the box for the sugar, pushing a sticky bear claw out of the way to reach.

Ryan lowered himself silently onto the space beside Min-Gi’s legs and grabbed a jelly-filled doughnut out of the box. Min-Gi took a bite out of a classic sprinkled doughnut, eyes on Ryan as he pensively chewed his own first bite.

Okay. This is fine. I can do this. We can just…be friends. I don’t have to think about how it felt when he kissed the back of my head last night, or how scared I was that he’d get hurt. I mean, that last part is fine, I guess. Friends can worry about each other. And he can date guys and I can just…ignore it. And if I am gay, then I mean…I don’t actually have to act on it. I mean, he never has to know. No one has to. I can just…ignore it. It’s fine. We can be friends. It’s fine.

Swallowing his mouthful, Ryan looked down at his doughnut, raised his eyebrows, and took another bite. “Y’know,” he began, mouth half-full. "I can tie a knot in a cherry stem with my tongue.”

Min-Gi coughed and yanked his coffee to arm’s length, afraid of splashing himself as he spluttered and gasped for air. “What?!”

“I was just thinking, you know…” Ryan shrugged a shoulder as if he hadn’t personally pile-driven Min-Gi’s mind straight into the gutter. “When that robot-pilot-person was beating me up, they were all—” He gestured with his doughnut like he was holding up a claw. “‘Why do you care? You don’t even know each other! Wooooooo…’ So you know…” He shrugged again. “I decided I want to fix that.”

Min-Gi swallowed. “And you decided to start by telling me…that?”

“Well, I’m eating a jelly doughnut,” said Ryan. “And I was like… ‘Raspberry jam…raspberries…cherries… Hey, I can do that thing with my tongue!’” He took another bite, smiling proudly. “Why? Did it make you start wondering what else my tongue can do?”

“No!” Yes.

Ryan laughed, like he knew damn well what he did. And damn it, he probably did know. He seemed…weirdly perceptive. Not smart, exactly, but…observant.

Min-Gi held his doughnut in his mouth and turned his attention to his coffee, pouring the sugar in and replacing the cap so he could swirl the contents around in lieu of stirring without making a mess. Taking his doughnut back to free his mouth, he took a contemplative sip of his coffee and looked up.

Ryan was staring at him.

“What?” asked Min-Gi.

Ryan went just as red as he had when Min-Gi touched his face, but it didn’t stop him from giving a sharp, deadpan response. “That was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Min-Gi was going to start sweating through his pyjamas at this rate. “…What was?”

“Uh, everything you just did?” squawked Ryan as if it was obvious. “With your doughnut and your coffee—”

“I just added sugar!”

“Yeah, in the cutest way possible!”

“How was that cute?!”

“It just was!”

Min-Gi, lacking an argument that amounted to more than a “Nuh-uh!” (which Ryan would have no doubt countered with a “Yeah-huh!”), shoved the urge to argue back down his throat with a gulp of still-quite-hot coffee.

Having given himself a moment to think, Min-Gi lowered his cup, took a breath, and said, “I was supposed to go to college. Finance. With an emphasis on risk assessment.”

He looked at Ryan over the lid of his cup.

Ryan looked back, eyebrow raised.

“You said we should get to know each other,” said Min-Gi.

“No, I know, I just…” Ryan averted his eyes. “That, uh… Sounds fun… Why…?”

“Why did I pick finance?”

“Why didn’t you go?”

Min-Gi fell quiet. He swirled his coffee around in his cup, idly stirring the sugar, putting off the answer.

“I couldn’t handle the stress,” he muttered. “I never wanted to go anyway. It’s just what my parents wanted for me. I started…throwing up. Getting sick at the idea of going. Physically sick. And I knew I’d never be able to keep up with work that stressful if I couldn’t even think about it without puking, so…I gave up before I even started.”

“That doesn’t sound like giving up to me,” said Ryan. “That sounds like making a smart choice.”

“Smart choice?” Min-Gi laughed bitterly. “Look at me. I’m living alone in a shitty apartment with no friends, working at a dead-end job, with no future.”

The bed shifted. The box of doughnuts made an audible creak as it was lifted and moved to the other side of the bed. When Min-Gi looked up, he found Ryan sitting closer. Much closer.

“You don’t seem that alone to me.” He set a hand on Min-Gi’s leg. “I’m your friend, aren’t I?”

“…Sure.” Min-Gi looked back at his coffee. “I guess. But…” But you’re leaving eventually. And Kez has some mission that’s going to have to be done eventually, and then I’ll be alone again. “That still leaves the ‘no future’ thing.”

“Dude.” Ryan shook Min-Gi’s leg, sending a small amount of pain jolting up his back just from being jostled. “You don’t have ‘no future’, you have an open future. You’re, like, a life plan bachelor. You can do whatever you want. Be whoever you want. Screw your dead-end job. You could travel! Go to Toronto or, hell, New York! Or Dubai or Tokyo or any other big city in the world! You could change the world! You don’t know! There are tons of opportunities out there. You just have to wait for yours to knock.”

Min-Gi scoffed. “Most people wouldn’t see it that way.”

“Screw people!” Ryan shoved Min-Gi’s arm, sending a slightly bigger shock of pain up his back and evoking a tiny “ow” coupled with a wince. “Who cares what they think? What, are they going to steal your opportunities and throw them in the trash because they decided you don’t deserve them? Dude, if you were smart enough to get into uni, you’re smart enough to be someone without it. I mean, you’re what, twenty-three? You’ve got your whole life ahead of you, dude! You’re so young!”

“I’m…actually twenty-one,” said Min-Gi.

“Really?” The determined twinkle in Ryan’s eye was replaced abruptly by blank confusion. “Huh. I thought you were, like, a couple of years older than me. Wait, I’m not older, am I? When were you born?”

Min-Gi raised an eyebrow. “April 15th…?”

Ryan blinked.

He sat back, oddly silent, a strange sort of smile on his face. “Oh. Heheh. That’s…funny, Min. Seriously, when’s your birthday?”

“April 15th,” Min-Gi said again, firmer this time. “Why would I lie about that?”

“Because, uh…” Ryan hesitated, for reasons Min-Gi couldn’t understand. “That’s…my birthday.”

“Oh.” Min-Gi felt a warmth come rushing back to his face. Which was stupid, right? There was nothing about Ryan having the same birthday as him that should have turned him red. Except for the fact that Min-Gi immediately started having fantastical ideas about the two of them being born on the same day because they were meant for each other and neither of them was meant to be without the other and that maybe that was why Min-Gi had always felt so lonely—not because he didn’t have friends, but because he didn’t have Ryan, specifically—and that maybe he’d been leaving that space on the opposite side of the room open because all that time he’d been waiting for Ryan and that was where his belongings were always meant to be, filling the space in his room just as Ryan filled the space in his heart.

Min-Gi shook his head. Romantic nonsense. The real world didn’t work that way. There were no soulmates, and their shared birthday was just a coincidence.

“Well…” Min-Gi looked at his doughnut, hesitant to take another bite. “…at least I know I’m not going to forget your birthday.” He took the bite anyway.

Ryan laughed. “Yeah… Guess not.” He set his doughnut on the lid of the box behind him, dusted flakes of glaze off his hands and scattering them across Min-Gi’s floor, and he reached across Min-Gi’s lap to set a sticky hand on the other side of his thighs. “It’s weird, though, right?”

Min-Gi swallowed hard enough to nearly choke, flustered in part by the mere idea that Ryan might have thought the same thing he did, and in part by the fact that Ryan’s hands were straddling his legs. “Weird?” His voice came out too high-pitched. “What’s weird? Why would it be weird?”

“I mean, I was born in BC,” said Ryan, dead serious. “We’re not that far from my parents’ house, and I bet we’re not that far from where you grew up, either. So like, what if we met before? What if we were born in the same hospital, at the same time, on the same day, and we were in the same nursery, and our souls just—” He pulled his hands off Min-Gi’s legs and brought them together, hard enough to clap, but not to bounce off each other. Just hard enough for Ryan to interlock his fingers without hurting himself. He held his joined hands there, right above Min-Gi’s lap. Min couldn’t take his eyes off Ryan’s, and Ryan wasn’t moving his eyes from Min’s. “What if we, like, connected, you know?”

Min-Gi laughed, sharply. “What? That’s ridiculous.”

“Dude, I’ve heard weirder,” said Ryan. “Weirder true stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Like getting chased by a giant robot, dude!”

Min-Gi sighed, exasperation taking over his anxiety. “Ryan—”

“Think about it,” said Ryan. “Even in, like, a totally believable way, what if we just saw each other. We saw each other, and—and we remembered? Or at least I did? Like way deep down. And maybe when I saw you working in that diner, that was what made me talk to you. Wait—” He dropped his hands onto Min-Gi’s thighs. “Where did you go to school?”

“Uhh…” Min-Gi raised an eyebrow. “Like, secondary school? Powell Lake.”

Ryan’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “Dude… We went to the same school.”

“…No,” said Min-Gi. “No, not possible. If we’re the same age, we would have been in the same year. I would have noticed the only other Asian guy in my year.”

“So would I!” said Ryan. “That’s what I’m saying! This is so weird! Quick, who was your math teacher?”

“How do I know you’re not just going to say ‘mine, too!’ no matter what I say?” asked Min-Gi.

“Because we’re going to say it at the same time!” Ryan grabbed Min-Gi’s shoulders and shook them gently. “On three.”

“Ryan—”

“Please, Min? Just humor me?”

Min-Gi sighed. “Fine.”

Ryan nodded sharply and took a deep breath. “Three, two…! Mrs. Ot—”

“Mrs. Otto.”

Min-Gi raised his eyebrows, surprised by the echo of his own answer falling from Ryan’s lips.

Okay, so…getting admittedly weirder…

“When did you have math class?” asked Ryan, all the more urgent, squeezing Min-Gi’s arms so tight they almost hurt.

“It was the first class of the day,” said Min-Gi cautiously. “I always had trouble staying awake because—”

“Because she kept her classroom at, like, five degrees all the time?” Ryan shook Min-Gi’s shoulders. “I know! I’d always sit in the way back row because it was right over the vents—” Min-Gi furrowed his brow. “—Well, actually, the vent was in the back corner, next to the window. I always sat in the seat right next to that one because I never got there in time. The corner seat was always taken up by someone who got there earlier—”

“By me.”

Ryan shut his mouth. Sharp enough that his teeth clicked when they met. He stared, frozen, wide-eyed.

Min-Gi stared back. “Ryan, I sat in that seat. Right…next to—”

“Next to me…” Ryan’s hands slipped down from Min-Gi’s shoulders. “You were right next to me. How—?”

“I don’t know,” said Min-Gi. “I guess we just…forgot?”

“No way,” said Ryan. “It’s only been a couple years and I could never forget a face like yours.”

“…Is that an insult?”

“It’s a compliment, Min,” said Ryan distractedly, climbing to his feet. “You’re a total zeek.” He crossed to the empty side of the room, fingers steepled and pressed to his lips, leaving Min-Gi to absorb what Ryan had just said by himself.

And he did, face turning a bright, blotchy, tomato-ish red and a thin sheen of sweat spreading across every inch of his skin.

“So here’s what I’m thinking.” Ryan turned around, fingers steepled, eyes averted in thought. “We were supposed to meet. In fact, we did meet, but the guy in the robot is a time-traveler—hence the giant, futuristic robot—and he went back in time to stop us from meeting for some reason, but fate was on our side, so we met anyway, and the guy doesn’t like that, so he’s trying to make us un-meet. …Or something.”

Min-Gi ran his hand down his face, trying to calm himself enough to answer. “Why wouldn’t he just go back in time to when we met and stop it from happening?”

“Maybe he can’t do it anymore for some reason,” said Ryan. “Or maybe…” He gasped theatrically, spinning around to point at Min-Gi’s chest of drawers. “The bell!”

“…The bell,” deadpanned Min-Gi.

“Yeah! What…” Ryan winked and tapped the side of his nose. “…if it’s actually part of his time machine?”

Min-Gi hid his face in his hands, as much to hide the blush he knew was still there as to express exasperation. “You’ve watched way too many movies.”

“It could be part of, like, a Rube Goldberg machine,” said Ryan. “Like he has to sound an exact tone that he’s only ever been able to get just right with that particular bell to get his time machine to work, and he lost it somehow, and you wound up with it?” He paused. “…How did you wind up with it, anyway?”

“Not important,” said Min-Gi, perhaps too quickly. “Why would someone need a sound to make a time machine work?”

Ryan scoffed. “Do I look like a time travel scientist?”

Min-Gi pinched the bridge of his nose. “You don’t look like you could figure out a home computer.” He sighed and leaned back. “Ryan, these ideas are, uh, great, but maybe we should stick to this side of reality.”

“Dude. Chased by a crazy robot guy.” Ryan flailed his arms at the window as if the crazy robot guy in question was just outside. “I think we’ve moved past our usual realm of reality. This is way bigger than us in any way we’ve ever experienced.” He hesitated. “That we know of, anyway. I’m still kind of reeling over the supernatural-forgetting-about-you thing.”

“Ryan—”

“Don’t.” Ryan raised a finger. “Don’t try to say we haven’t met before, because we have. Only two Asian guys in our year, same exact birthday, sat next to each other in Mrs. Otto’s class? We would have at least talked. Or had some opinion about each other, even if we weren’t best friends—which, by the way, we totally would have been.” He pressed his face into his hands, sliding them under his glasses, and when he took a breath, it sounded almost…sad.

“What’s wrong?” asked Min-Gi.

“I just…” Ryan took his glasses off and rubbed his eyelids with a thumb and his first two fingers. “I’m trying to remember what you looked like in high school, or what the apparent nameless guy who sat next to me every day in Mrs. Otto’s class looked like, and there’s just…nothing. It’s like static on an old, worn-out tape.”

Min-Gi pushed his blankets off and got out of bed with a wince. “I think I have my old yearbooks…somewhere.”

He grimaced as he kneeled in front of his chest of drawers, back tugging in all the wrong places.

“Dude…” Ryan dropped to the floor beside him. “You should be laying down.”

“It’s fine,” said Min-Gi. “It’s just for a minute.” And as much as he didn’t want to say it out loud because he could imagine the face Ryan would make and it hurt, he really didn’t want Ryan going through his stuff.

He opened the heavy bottom drawer and started taking his belongings out. Records, old music books, and a photo album all piled beside him before he reached the bottom, where his yearbooks sat. Or around half of them. Some of them, he supposed his mom must have kept. But there was a decent variety. Including senior year, when he had Mrs. Otto’s math class.

“Here.” Min-Gi handed Ryan the entire stack. “Knock yourself out.”

Ryan took them eagerly, rushing to the bed so fast he nearly sat on the doughnuts just so he could set them on his lap. He opened the one at the top, flipping through page after page until—

“…Yeah, I definitely would have noticed you. Kid me would have thought kid you was the coolest guy on the planet. And…he would have been right.”

Min-Gi allowed himself a smile, but said nothing to encourage the compliments.

Ryan strode ahead, flipping through pages all the way to the end.

“…Check it out.” He turned the yearbook around, wide open, pointing to a picture inside. It wasn’t much, just a simple black-and-white photo of small kids working on some kind of construction paper craft.

The weird thing about it, the part Ryan no doubt meant to show Min-Gi, was that they were sitting across from each other at the same table, Ryan cheesing at the camera, Min-Gi focused intently on what he was doing.

Ryan, the one sitting on the edge of Min-Gi’s bed, turned the book back around, uncharacteristically quiet. He ran his hand down the glossy page, across their childhood faces, every trace of every sparkle in his eye faded to nothing. He was just…somber. Lost in thought, as crazy as it sounded.

“Something must have happened,” he murmured. “I know I was supposed to meet you.”

Min-Gi held his breath. Everything in him screamed to tell Ryan…something. To pat his shoulder, to encourage him, to tell him everything would be okay. But that was a slippery slope. If he gave into his basest desires, his most demanding wants, right here, then what would happen next time, when it was more than sympathy he wanted to give? What would happen when it was an embrace? A hand to hold? A…

Min-Gi ran his thumb across his lips, briefly, before hiding his thoughts behind biting his thumbnail.

“…You did.”

It wasn’t until Ryan lifted his head and looked Min-Gi in the eye that he’d realized he’d said something.

Urgently, he averted his eyes. “I-I just mean… We met. Maybe it wasn’t as early as we could have if we met at school, but we met. It’s not like we ran out of time.”

Ryan stayed quiet.

“Like, sure—” Min-Gi, anxious, started to ramble. “Okay, maybe we could have grown up together, playing music in the back yard and driving our parents nuts, and maybe we could have made a million memories together. Maybe all your memories of home wouldn’t suck so much because someone who didn’t care if you were gay or not was there, and maybe all my memories of home wouldn’t have been so lonely, but we can’t go back and change that now. What we can change is what’s happening right now, and…and we already have, so, I mean…don’t worry about it.”

Ryan snapped the yearbook shut.

“You know what? Yeah.” The bed creaked as he climbed to his feet. “You’re right. Fuck the past. We have an entire future together. And no one—not my parents or your parents or some creepy guy in a robot—is gonna take you away from me.”

Min-Gi’s heart stuttered, warm and thrilled and terrified. He couldn’t remember anyone, with that much conviction, telling him he wanted to be in his life before.

“But I mean, aren’t you…?” Min-Gi swallowed, hard, thinking about how little time they really had left. “Didn’t you just say last night—?”

He lifted his head to find Ryan standing above him, looming, almost scary from how serious he was. Almost, but not quite; it was hard to be afraid of someone with tears in their eyes.

Ryan sniffed. His glasses clacked, plastic on plastic, as he reached underneath them to wipe his eyes with his thumb and fingers.

Then he descended, arms open like an owl on the hunt. Before Min-Gi could catch his breath, Ryan was wrapped around him, warm and clinging and just gentle enough not to hurt his back.

“Sorry for phrasing it this way after what we were just talking about, but where the hell have you been all my life?”

“Uh.” Min-Gi set a hand on Ryan’s shoulder. He’d never stop blushing at this rate. “Apparently, right next to you in math.”

Ryan giggled, helplessly, almost hysterically, seemingly unable to stop even as he pressed his face into the side of Min-Gi’s neck. “Fuck you, man…” He tightened his grip, inching impossibly closer, climbing over Min-Gi’s legs. “Fuck you.”

Min-Gi averted his eyes. He’d never heard a “fuck you” that sounded so close to an “I love you so goddamn much, bro” in his entire life. But he didn’t hate it. “Yeah, well… Fuck you, too.”

Ryan laughed. This time, it sounded like a sob.

Min found his hand sliding into the ends of Ryan’s long hair. He should have pulled it right back out, but… “Okay, seriously, I have to— I mean, weren’t you just telling me last night that you don’t like being tied down? That you couldn’t do the apartment thing even if you wanted to? How the hell do you go from being in the process of leaving to swearing you’re never going to leave in a day?”

“You don’t get it,” said Ryan.

“Get what?” asked Min-Gi.

Ryan pulled back, out of the hug, tear tracks shining on his cheeks. Wet speckles on his glasses decorating the smudges from Min-Gi’s neck. Apparently bothered by the way it impacted his vision, Ryan raised his glasses to the crown of his head, pinning his bangs back with them in the process, rather than bothering to clean them. He must have been close to Min-Gi’s face to see it without his glasses because he didn’t squint and his eyes didn’t glaze over like he couldn’t see and couldn’t be arsed to fix that. He just…looked into Min’s eyes like the space between them didn’t matter anymore, like his dark brown eyes pierced into Min-Gi’s soul, carried there by a wormhole.

He was close. Close enough that Min-Gi could smell the toothpaste on his breath. And god, his breath must have smelled terrible, but for some reason, Ryan didn’t flinch away. He just kept looking into Min-Gi’s eyes, their noses almost near enough to touch, paralyzing Min-Gi, sticking him to the floor like static cling.

“We knew each other when we were kids,” said Ryan. “We’ve known each other forever. We were so inseparable that someone tried to, I don’t know, change fate to make it so we never met, and it didn’t work.”

Min-Gi swallowed, hard. “...A-Allegedly.”

“Humor me.” Ryan’s hands slid up Min’s back, up his neck, to his cheeks, where he could hold his face. “Please, Min, for five seconds. You can stop believing me after this, but for once, stop being so smart and just listen to me. Okay?”

Min-Gi wasn’t sure he was breathing anymore. It was hard to tell.

“We’ve been together this whole time, and it worked.” Ryan tipped his face forward until his forehead met Min-Gi’s. “Something… Something about you is different. Or something about us. I don’t know what it is, or how it works, but if even someone deliberately trying to pull us apart couldn’t do it, that means something. So, from now on, if you’re not going anywhere, neither am I. Not unless you’re coming with me. You…” Ryan licked his lips. “...You stuck with me.” He swept his thumbs across Min-Gi’s cheeks. “So…now you’re stuck with me.”

He smiled, teary, benignly, blissfully unaware of the goosebumps crawling under Min-Gi’s bandages, across the arms behind Ryan’s back, out of his sight. Since when was he so sincere?

“Oh,” whispered Min-Gi, as if those words weren’t something he’d been begging to hear since he was old enough to walk, as if they hadn’t just been said by someone who made earthquakes jealous of his heart. “…Okay.”

Ryan laughed breathlessly, less than an inch from Min-Gi’s lips. “Okay.”

Then he pulled back, fixed his glasses, and climbed off Min-Gi’s lap, like nothing had happened at all.

“Anyway, I’ll let you get dressed. Unless you need help with—?”

“No!” squeaked Min-Gi. “No, no, I’m, uh, I’m good.”

“All right, cool.” Ryan shot him a grin. “So I guess I’ll be in the living room, setting up a comfy-as-hell couch situation so we can watch TV until we puke.”

Where normally Min-Gi would have asked how watching TV was supposed to make them puke, he just sat on his bedroom carpet instead, watching Ryan close the door between them.

And Kez, casual as can be, zipped off the chest of drawers toward the box of doughnuts. “Dude, I thought he’d never leave, y’know what I’m sayin’? I am, like, famished.”

To the soundtrack of Kez gorging herself, Min-Gi leaned back until his spine hit the floor, trying to remember how to breathe.

As self-conscious as he was, it was a damn good thing he hadn’t brushed his teeth yet. Because if he had…

Fuck.

Fuck.

There was no way in hell he could have resisted kissing Ryan. Which pretty definitively answered a question Min thought would take a lot longer to answer.

He covered his face and groaned into his hands.

This is not good. This is really, really not good.