Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jisung lives his life based on what he knows. Sureties, constants, things that don’t have to be figured out. He has an aversion to fear, naturally, as any sane person does.

The grass is green, the sky is blue, the schoolyard is always empty at twelve thirty nine in the morning. 

It takes nine minutes to walk from his apartment to the nearest elementary school, coincidentally the same one he attended as a child. When he leaves his apartment at twelve thirty and arrives at the schoolyard by twelve thirty nine, the swings should be empty. The schoolyard is always empty at twelve thirty nine in the morning. 

There’s someone else tonight, at the very end of the line of swings that Jisung likes to take up residence at, hunched over a glowing cellphone, feet dragging in the wood chips. Jisung falters, feet scuffing on the pavement. He could turn around, go back home. But maybe the man on the swings has fantastic hearing, because he lifts his head up and sees Jisung standing there, and then it feels more embarrassing to leave. 

Adaptation, then, is the natural progression of unknowns. Jisung hates change, he hates being caught off guard, he hates that the man looked up and now he’s being forced to adapt. He only comes here when his brain won’t slow down. On the worst nights where he’s laying in bed and he has to be up for work in seven hours, but his neurons won’t quit firing. He probably would have turned around and gone home, regardless of the man looking up, if he wasn’t so on edge. But he is on edge, and the chains on the swing creak when he drops to the plastic seat. 

His heart hammers in his chest, and maybe he doesn’t have much adapting to do, because he remembers feeling this way on this very schoolyard many times before. Years ago, when he was much the same but smaller. He glances over to the other man. His hood is up, he’s gone back to hunching over his phone. Jisung focuses on breathing. He’s here to clear his thoughts, not complicate them. 

The appropriate time to sit, to avoid awkwardness, while someone else is here is lost on him. Fifteen minutes? Thirty? Should he wait for the other person to leave first? 

Maybe the man has fantastic hearing and can read Jisung’s mind, because the metal structure clangs along the top, and he’s getting up and walking away. 

Right before he rounds the building he turns back for a second, only a sliver of his face visible in the nighttime, but Jisung is pretty sure he looks familiar. He probably is, logically. Everyone around here knows one another. 

Jisung will let it go. 

Everything is sure again, there’s no reason to dig for any more.

𓐆

“All good, Sungie?” Chan leans back from his laptop, shoves his headphones off his ears when Jisung walks through the door. 

As if Chan doesn’t know. Chan always knows everything, especially about Jisung. Or, at least the outward things. 

“Yes. Couldn’t sleep,” he steps out of his shoes, shuffles across the floor, waiting awkwardly in the middle of the floor, knowing Chan isn’t done with him quite yet. 

“Work tomorrow?” Chan scans him up and down, like he might find signs of injury, or hints of self destructive activity. There’s none, not really, those are all within his head. 

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Chan nods, curt. He tosses Jisung a kind smile. “Try to get some rest.”

And then, to cut some of the awkward air between them, the feeling that Chan is pretending to be his dad rather than his friend, “Where’s Changbin?”

“Fuck if I know,” Chan scoffs, rolling his eyes. “I think he’s seeing someone. He’s being weirdly secretive about it.”

“Boo for her,” Jisung comments lamely, making for his room, slowly, in case Chan holds him up again.

Not today. Chan just chuckles, turning back to his screen. “Night, Sung.”

𓐆

Jisung spins the silhouetted figure of the man on the swings around in his head all day. Through his shift, walking home, laying in bed. He can’t put a finger on why the man looked so familiar. It really shouldn’t matter, but his brain is telling him it does. 

He forces himself to wait until exactly twelve thirty to walk to the park, but because he’s got fire in his belly he arrives one minute early anyway. Twelve thirty eight in the morning and the man is on the swings again, this time without a hood. Jisung steps in time with his heart, practically throws himself into the same swing as last night. He doesn’t dare look up, not yet. 

What he can see out of the corner of his eye, in the low buzzing light of the tall street lamp hanging off to the side; medium-long reddish hair, a straight sloped nose, hands curled around swing chains. Not nearly enough to get a clue. 

Everyone knows everyone in this town, but Jisung is bad at keeping up. He gets up and goes to work, and on nights he can’t sleep he goes to the schoolyard. He doesn’t have friends besides Chan and Changbin, and by extension, whoever they introduce him to, though he seldom thinks any of them care much that he’s around. His only coworker doesn’t like him much at all, and he hasn’t spoken to his mom since she caught him on the street a few months ago and asked him for cash. He doesn’t keep up with how long someone’s hair has grown or what color they’ve dyed it, but now he wishes he had.

Maybe he could go talk to this guy, ask if they know one another. No, though, that seems too far. Too much. Besides, it’s only the second time he’s seen him, and Jisung usually waits for thirds. 

The man leaves a short while later when Jisung is still ruminating over why he is the way he is. He catches a glimpse, right as the man turns the corner, and he does know who the schoolyard intruder is after all. They went to school together.

Minho. Last name slipping his mind. They never ran in the same circles. Jisung didn’t run in many circles, and he remembers Minho being much the same, just from the opposite end of isolation. They never talked. They’d never have reason to. Maybe if Jisung knew he’d run into Minho five years after graduation in the schoolyard he would have made an effort back then. But who is he kidding, no he wouldn’t have. 

He supposes, since next time would be the third, that maybe he could try to talk to him then. Chan and Changbin are always trying to get him to talk to new people. No, he probably won’t, but he doesn’t understand why he wants to try. The loneliness is probably catching up with him, to be frank.

If he runs into Minho a third time, he’ll have to speak to him. The rule has been created in his head, it’s much too late to go back. 

Jisung can’t decide if he hopes Minho comes again or not. 

𓐆

Another surety, Yang Jeongin coming into the smoke shop where Jisung works to flirt with his coworker. 

Once a week, at least, this happens. Today Jisung is rearranging the bongs, tucked away behind a few glass cases, content to listen. 

“I told you, Jeonginnie,” Hyunjin sighs, twirling a strand of his long hair around his finger. Always mixed messages with him. “I’m too pretty to smoke.” 

“And I told you,” Jeongin retorts, sleazy grin accompanying his heavy eyelids. “I’ll make it worth your while.” 

Hyunjin is lying. He smokes nearly every day after they close. He also gets hordes of patrons coming by just to ogle at him and ask for nearly the exact same thing, though none are quite as persistent as Jeongin. 

To be honest, Jisung doesn’t get the hype. Hyunjin is tall and thin and he’s pretty like a girl, but he’s also kind of a bitch. He dislikes Jisung for no real reason at all and does a horrible job hiding his rolled eyes and scoffs. He treats many of his admirers that come to shoot their shot much the same way. 

“No thanks!” Hyunjin smiles at Jeongin, saccharine sweet. “Bye now!”

Jisung waits until Jeongin is gone, bell ringing on the door behind him, before he dares to speak. Returning back behind the counter, much to Hyunjin’s dismay. “Why do you do that?” 

“Do what,” Hyunjin’s lip curls up in disgust, as it often does when he’s speaking to Jisung. 

“Lead him on.” 

Hyunjin laughs, loud and condescending. “Don’t you like to be desired, Jisung?” His face twitches like it does right before he’s about to say something particularly nasty. “Or is that out of your wheelhouse?” 

“No need to be a dick,” Jisung grimaces, turning away, pulling out his bottle of nail polish he keeps under the counter. It’s cheap, smells like chemicals. It’s shit at staying on, but he prefers that, because then he has reason to touch it up, something to do at work besides mindlessly doodling in his sketchbook. 

“Then stop bothering me,” Hyunjin retorts, pissy. 

Jisung presses his chin close to his wrist, eyes hovering over his work as he paints over his chipping black polish with a fresh coat. His nose stings. He probably deserves it. Hyunjin snaps his gum, loud and sharp against Jisung’s eardrums. He snaps his gum much more often ever since Jisung asked him to please stop. 

Hyunjin is like that. He does things very meticulously, small enough acts to be waved off as happenstance. A snap of his gum every ten minutes, but ‘of course he’s not doing it on purpose, Jisung is just crazy’. A sharp dig, but Jisung is too sensitive. 

The worst of it all is that Hyunjin is right. Jisung is crazy and sensitive, and he can’t tell which way is up, and he still doesn’t understand why Hyunjin hates him so much, but he has a bad feeling he probably did something to deserve it. 

𓐆

Bad things come in threes. 

Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison. One after another, all twenty seven years old. Divide twenty seven by three and get nine, and nine divided by three is three. Three can only be divided by one, and one divided by three is three.  

Three is Jisung’s favorite number. There’s not really a rhyme or reason, just a feeling in his gut. Three is easy to count to, it’s not too soon and it’s not too long, and if something is really not meant to happen it probably won’t happen three times by accident. By the same measure, if something is meant to happen, it will probably happen a third time, until it sticks. 

Minho is at the schoolyard a third time, even though Jisung decided that he hopes Minho never shows up again. 

Jisung doesn’t have to do things in threes, it’s not like he’ll die if he doesn’t, but he almost takes threes as a sign of sorts. 

His heart thrums steady in his chest and he sits at the far end of the swings, as far away as he can. He should talk to Minho, because he said he would if he was given a third, and now he has been. He looks over, and Minho’s looking back, and Jisung’s breath catches in his throat until he looks down again. 

Jisung told himself that if Minho was here a third time, that he would talk to him. An internal binding, rope tied around his ribs. If he doesn’t, he’d be ignoring the rule, or the fate of it all, and then maybe he’d be subjected to a bad three the next time around. Something like that, something bad. Jisung doesn’t have to do things in threes, but sometimes it feels like he may die if he doesn’t. 

He looks up again, and Minho is still looking back, and this time he waves.

“Fuck it,” Jisung mutters under his breath, shoving himself up before he can think better of it. He tries not to count his steps in threes as he walks across the wood chips, but he only ends up counting in sixes instead. Three sixes, imagine that, that’s how many steps it takes to deliver him to the swing directly next to Minho’s. 

“Minho, right?” Jisung asks, coughing when his voice shakes. “Choi?” 

“Lee.”

He curses himself internally for such a stupid mistake, he should have asked someone, saved the humiliation. “Ah. Sorry.” 

Minho shrugs. “Easy mistake.” 

“We went to highschool together,” Jisung feels awkward, painfully so. He hates speaking to strangers, he should have stayed on his side. 

“Yes,” Minho’s lips curl up on the edges, Jisung can see it happen from the corner of his eye. “You’re Jisoo.”

“Jisung,” he corrects. “Han.”

Minho snorts, and Jisung’s heart kicks up, a shot of adrenaline, anxiety. “I know. I was just trying to give it back to you.” 

“Oh. Okay,” Jisung stares at his feet, he squeezes the chains on the swing, wills his breath to come out less shaky. By holding it in it only gets worse. And he’s sure that when he stands his hands will be soaked through with the smell of metal. He’ll feel gross until he can scrub the smell off. He probably should have shoved his hoodie sleeves over his hands before he grabbed on. He was too busy thinking about Minho. 

“Why are you out here every night, Han Jisung?” Minho cuts through the silence. His voice is different than Jisung expected. The tone is pitched uniquely, or something. Minho looks stoic, serious, but his voice carries a lilt of the opposite. 

“Not every night,” he mumbles, kicking into the dirt with his shoe.”

“Okay, why are you out here most nights, Han Jisung?” 

Jisung swallows, thick. “I have trouble sleeping. My brain won’t shut up.” 

“Ah,” Minho hums, pushing himself back just enough to rock forward again. “What’s it telling you?” 

“Nothing good.” 

“Fair enough.” 

Conversations go two ways. Ask, answer. How are you? I’m good, how are you? A formula to follow. Easy enough. Jisung also wants to know— he so terribly, desperately wants to know, “Why are you out here?” 

Minho smiles, not skipping a beat, “I cruise in the woods.” 

Jisung’s cheeks heat up, one of the things he hates about himself, how fierce and fast he blushes. He knew few things about Lee Minho from school, and before tonight he didn’t even know his full name, but he always knew that Minho is gay. Not that he was paying specific attention, but people talk, and Jisung is always listening. He knew Minho is gay. He’s known forever, just as almost anyone else in this town has, he just didn’t know it was like that; that Minho did things like that. Unabashed, outward about his preferences for the unsavory, if Jisung could call it that. He’d never call it that out loud, but in his head he says lots of things he doesn’t mean. 

“Oh,” he says lamely, sounding completely idiotic. His hands sweat around metal, sure to be soaking up even more of the smell he hates so badly. It’ll probably take a few washes. 

Minho looks at him then, steady, and his eyes are sort of feline, sharp, they give the impression of a higher level of sight. “I’m just joking.” 

“Oh,” Jisung repeats. His mouth is dry. 

“A little nervous, huh?” Minho asks, but it doesn’t sound condescending like when Hyunjin says it, it sounds more like an observation. 

Jisung shrinks in on himself, wishing he could disappear. “I don’t know.” But the real answer is yes. 

Minho laughs, light and airy, and pushes off his swing, on his feet. “Ah, so that’s it,” he says, grinning back at Jisung over his shoulder. “See you tomorrow, Han Jisung.” 

Jisung sinks low, the earth feels hard beneath his feet, Minho rounds the corner like he was never there at all. Maybe he wasn’t. Jisung hopes he’s just sunken so far into his head that he dreamt it all up. 

The first thing he does when he lifts himself off of the swing is smell his hands. Just as expected, he can feel the pin pricks across his palms, a feeling that won’t go away until the smell does. 

Changbin is in the kitchen when Jisung gets home. 

Jisung does his best not to touch anything, hands splayed out at his sides, heavy with needles. He brushes past Changbin and shoves the sink on with his wrist, squirts soap into his hands. He can see Changbin watching him, chewing on whatever he’s eating. Jisung tries not to let it bother him as he goes back for more soap, jacks the heat of the water up higher now that he’s used to the warmth. 

“Do people go cruising in the woods?” he asks, attempting casual. Attempting to distract from his washing. 

“Fuck if I know,” Changbin snorts. “Probably. Why?”

“I was just wondering.” More soap, hopefully the last bit. 

Changbin blinks at him, slow and steady. “Please don’t go cruising in the woods, Jisung. Or, if you do, let Chan and I track your location. That’s how kids die.” 

“What! No!” Jisung splutters, face, ears on fire. “That’s not. No. I’m absolutely not interested in that sort of thing. At all— in any way.” 

“Okay!” Changbin raises his hands defensively. “I’m just letting you know.” He looks down at the stream of water, Jisung’s hands bright pink beneath the flow. He goes to leave, but right before he turns the corner he leans back, says, “Don’t forget lotion before bed, alright? I don’t want blood all over the couch again.” 

“Alright,” Jisung mumbles, shutting off the faucet. “Goodnight.”

𓐆

Jisung doesn’t go to the schoolyard the next night. 

𓐆

Desire, or wanting is a funny concept. Jisung doesn’t tend to want. 

When he was a child, as his mom tells it, he didn’t cry often. He slept through the night and he was quiet as a mouse. He didn’t want then, allegedly, and he doesn’t feel like he wants for much now. 

Chan and Changbin keep trying to set him up with girls. They’ll rope him into going somewhere, dump him with someone they perceive to be good for him and fuck off. Jisung usually ends up fumbling through the dates, going home with the girl and having sex with her, if she’s into it, and then wallowing in a disgusting feeling about what he’s done for the rest of the week. It’s not like he doesn’t want it too, because he does, but he feels like he’s missing the point; not making a connection with any of them. 

Sex feels good, but the rest of it doesn’t. It’s not enough to put him off. He almost feels like he needs to prove it to himself, that he’s not a complete lost cause in the scope of humanity. Like if he’s having sex every once in a while that means he’s not the shell of a person that’s got nothing to want for. 

Jisung wants his days to go well. He wants to go to work and feel as normal as he can and go home and be able to go to sleep. He wants to be normal, and to be unassuming, and for people to not know who he is. 

On days that Jongmyeong and his friends come into the smoke shop, Jisung wants to die. 

There’s usually three of them, sometimes one more or one less, but bad things come in threes. He went to school with them, of course, and they didn’t like him then either. He didn’t do anything but exist, and that seemed to be enough to set them off. 

Jisung is willing to bet they get gratification from holding onto something when they’re left behind, all of the rest of the popular boys heading off to college. 

The door rings and Jisung’s welcome dies on his tongue, because as soon as he hears the jingle of the chain on Hongjun’s pants he knows who it is. It’s just the two of them today, Jongmyeong and Hongjun, and they seem worked up, loud, rowdy. He prepares for the worst. 

“Oh, look who it is,” Jongmyeong sneers, as if he’s expecting anyone else, as if Jisung isn’t always here, and Hyunjin doesn’t always disappear when they walk in. 

Jisung doesn’t respond, he continues hunching over his sketchbook, watching ink bleed into paper, lining the sketches he made. 

“What? Are you deaf and stupid today, Han?” Jongmyeong walks up, pushes Jisung’s forehead back with two greasy fingers. Jisung flinches, he scoots back, a bit further out of reach. 

“Just this today?” he asks, reaching for the Swisher’s they usually buy. Grape flavor, the ones that smell the worst. Jisung hates the taste of artificial grape. “Or do you need anything else from over the counter?” 

“Three packs.”

Jisung’s hands shake as he tries to pull the packages off the wall. He can hear the men snickering behind him, he closes his eyes tight for one second, trying to still the swimming black spots there. He hasn’t eaten today. He should have eaten today. 

“Here you go,” Jisung says, sliding the packages across the glass display. He doesn’t bother giving the price, Jongmyeong already knows. 

Jongmyeong looks at him, pulling his wallet out of his jeans achingly slow. He licks across his teeth, something rotten in his eyes, a shake of his chest, laughing. “I bet it gets you off, huh, Han? Being such a little bitch?” He peels bills back, flipping through them one by one, silently counting. “Probably get all hot and bothered from someone being mean to you. I’m sure you like things like that, fucking disgusting freak.” 

Jisung takes the cash with a wavering hand, clicks open the register drawer and closes it up. He doesn’t have anything else to say, though he can be sure of what comes next.

“Stupid fucking faggot,” Jongmyeong scoffs, to a cacophony of laughter from Hongjun, slipping out the door into the street. Jisung braces himself, but still, when they pound their fists on the window out front, he jumps in fright, and he can only squeeze his eyes shut and wait for the laughter to fade away.

He uncaps his pen, tries to trace another line, but he’s shaking, and he ruins the whole thing. The tip rests on the page, ink blooming into a circle, dark, deep black, until the bleed stops, fully saturated. 

“You shouldn’t take their bullshit, you know,” Hyunjin is suddenly back, his feet kicked up on the display, face wholly uninterested. “You need to stand up for yourself.”

Jisung can’t stand to look at him for more than a moment, staring at the tip of his pen instead. He swallows and it hurts going down. He’s much too nauseous to eat now. “It’s easier to just take it.” 

“That’s your fucking problem, Jisung,” Hyunjin says, dripping with a resentment so pure that Jisung’s skin crawls. “You’re a coward.”

“What the fuck is your damage, man?” Jisung’s nails bite into the skin of his palms, the lump in his throat grows to something unmanageable, poisonous, probably killing him slowly. “What did I ever do to you?”

Hyunjin looks at him in plain disgust, lip curled, eyes dark. “Forget it.” 

𓐆

Chan is someone who is desired in the way Hyunjin is. Girls claw through crowds for a chance to get him to look at them, to steal him away, to take him home. Hyunjin asked Jisung if being desired is out of his wheelhouse, and Jisung hasn’t stopped thinking about it since. Hyunjin was being an asshole, yes, but Jisung thinks he was right anyways. 

When Jisung has sex it’s because he has a date, or because his friends have introduced him to someone, or because he’s not done it in a while and he’s getting antsy with sexual frustration. People don’t seek him out, but he doesn’t mind. He’s not exactly advertising himself as a prospect. He keeps to himself, keeps low, tucked away. He agrees that girls want to have sex with him, but that doesn’t mean that he feels desired in the way Hyunjin was talking about. If he is, then it’s not something nice, like Hyunjin says it is. He doesn’t like it, the attention. 

He’s been putting off going back to the schoolyard because he’s afraid to run into Minho. He’s afraid that Minho will find him odd and think he’s stupid. But he can’t sleep, and Chan is desired, evidenced by the noises of pleasure bleeding through the wall between his room and Jisung’s. 

Besides, it’s only eleven thirty six, so maybe Minho isn’t there. 

Jisung arrives at the schoolyard at eleven forty three, as expected, and Minho is on the same swing as always. Jisung debates if he should just walk up and sit on the swing next to him, if it would be weird to head to the other side now that they’ve talked. But maybe Minho doesn’t want to see him, or talk to him. His feet stutter, stomach churning with the decision, but then Minho looks up, and he grins and waves, and Jisung walks towards him. 

“Hi,” Minho says. “I thought I may have scared you off.” 

Jisung shakes his head, sits down in the same swing as last time he saw Minho. “No. Just busy with some personal stuff.” Not a total lie, but not the full truth either. 

Minho nods, hums. “You’re early today. What gives?” 

“My— uh, roommate has a girl over,” Jisung’s cheeks heat. “You know how it is.” 

“My roommate doesn’t date girls.” 

“Well,” Jisung falters, not expecting the response. “You know what I mean.” 

“I do.” 

The chains on the swing creak, Jisung pushes himself back and forth a bit with his toes. He remembered to cover his hands with his sleeves today, so that he doesn’t have to wash out any smell. He clears his throat and it sounds too loud against the silence between them, Minho probably thinks he’s strange, abnormal. 

“Do you think I’m a coward?” Jisung asks, and his voice breaks. He cringes after he says it, immediately wonders why he can’t act normally, interact with people normally. 

Minho turns his head, leaning forward so he’s looking at Jisung sideways. His reddish hair flops down with gravity, sticking out. “What kind of question is that?” 

“I don’t know,” Jisung mumbles, embarrassed that he asked. “Forget it.” 

“No,” Minho says simply.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” 

A teasing smile, one that Jisung wouldn’t expect to receive from someone he barely knows. But Minho seems different, a little bit odd. “I won’t forget it. You asked for a reason.” 

Jisung breathes out of his nose, and then in, because one time someone told him that you get more oxygen that way. “Just something stupid my coworker said.” 

“But you’ve been dwelling on it.” 

“I guess so.” 

“Well, Han Jisung, I have no idea if you’re a coward,” Minho kicks his feet, sending his swing rocking back and forth. “I don’t know you well enough yet.” 

“Yet?” Jisung frowns, disbelieving. “Do you want to know me?” 

Minho pumps his legs, picking up speed, his face flashing through Jisung’s line of vision every few seconds. Jisung can still tell that Minho is smiling. 

“Sure. There’s no one else at the park from the hours of eleven fifteen to one in the morning.” 

“Is that when you get here? Eleven fifteen?” Jisung’s neck aches from trying to follow Minho’s path.

“Yes.”

“Why?” Does Minho count too? Unlikely. Jisung’s never known anyone who does. He’s never told anyone about his own habits, either. Too embarrassed. 

“Because I get off work at eleven.” 

“Oh. Okay.” 

“So, will you come back tomorrow?” Minho asks. “For real this time? No skipping out.” 

“Okay. Sure.”

“I might be late, though,” Minho whooshes by again and again, swinging higher and higher. “So aim for twelve thirty.” 

𓐆

Minho arrives at the swings at twelve thirty two. Jisung was there at twelve thirty, just as Minho said. He made sure to leave home at twelve twenty one so he’d be on time. Minho shuffles over, seeming to be out of breath, looking more disheveled than usual. He has a dopey grin on his face, his neck is red. Jisung’s stomach curls with anxiety for no good reason at all, just from the change in appearance, the change in the small piece of normal they’ve created for themselves. 

“Hi, sorry I’m late,” Minho huffs, plopping into his normal swing with a giggle. 

“No, it’s fine,” Jisung stammers, heart beating double time. He hates his body for betraying him. “Did you stay late at work?” 

Minho laughs, the sound carrying across the empty schoolyard, bouncing off of pavement and brick. “No. I was getting fucked.”

“Oh,” Jisung shrinks in on himself, blood rushing in his ears. 

“Yeah,” Minho laughs again, this time softer. Jisung can feel eyes on him, on the heat rising into his cheeks. “If you don’t mind me asking— Do you have sex, Jisung?” 

Jisung swallows, it feels like there’s nails in his throat, his chest. “Yes,” he snips, more defensive than intended. “Of course.” 

“Hm,” Minho hums thoughtfully. 

Neither of them speak for a few minutes, only the sound of chains, Jisung’s feet digging into wood chips, the dull hum of crickets. Jisung’s spine crawls, pins and needles, he still feels like Minho is staring at him, he doesn’t have the courage to check. 

Would Minho have sex with him? Would he want to? The thought turns Jisung’s stomach. He doesn’t want Minho to get the wrong idea about why he comes here, why he’s meeting up with him.

“I’m straight,” he blurts, without prompting, heartbeat heavy in his fingers, his cheeks, behind his eyes. 

Minho twists around so that the chains of his swing are crossed, staring Jisung dead on with his eyebrows raised. “Um. Okay? I’m not trying to sleep with you.” 

Shame burns deep in Jisung’s insides, through the cavity of his chest, between his bones. “I–I know,” he stutters. “I’m–” swallowing back bile, something sharp. “Sorry, I don’t know why I said that.” 

“Don’t apologize,” Minho scowls, not seeming put off at all, even though he probably should be. “You apologize too much.”

Jisung knows. He apologizes for everything because he always feels like he’s done something wrong. He wants to get ahead of it, let everyone know he doesn’t mean to, he doesn’t want to be like this. His mouth moves before his brain can catch up, he’s spilling over with things he doesn’t intend to speak out loud, “Was it nice?” 

“Was what nice?” Minho lowers his chin, looking through his eyelashes, his creased forehead. “The sex?” 

Jisung nods, unable to maintain eye contact. 

Minho tightens his lips in thought, looks up to the sky. “It was okay.” 

“Okay.” 

“Mhm.” 

Jisung scrambles, his mind reels, frantic to pick up the pieces, to break the uncomfortable tension he’s created. He doesn’t know why Minho is still here, why he’s putting up with it, why he’s even come back. He probably won’t come back next time. 

“Where do you work?” he asks, an attempt to learn something safe, something that he might be able to talk about. 

Minho lifts his feet off the ground, his swing flips right ways around, untwists, throws his body back and forth against the chains. He’s smiling slightly when he answers, “The public library.” 

“Really?” Jisung sounds more interested than not, something he didn’t intend to reveal. He’s endlessly interested, in reality, but he doesn’t want Minho to know that. 

“Yep. Why? Did you think I’d work at a gay sex shop? Corrupting the youth?” 

“No!” Jisung defends. “I– I just—” 

Minho laughs over Jisung’s stammering, completely amused at his suffering. “I’m joking around, Jisung, my god. It’s fine. Where do you work?” 

Jisung thinks that he could cry if he focused long enough. The feeling of being tossed about, never knowing what to expect. He doesn’t hate it as much as he should, not when Minho is the one doing the tossing. “I work at the smoke shop on Main.” 

“Really?” Minho matches his interest, eyes wide, shiny.

“Yes.” 

“You have to smoke me out sometime,” Minho says decisively, grinning. 

“Oh, uh,” Jisung’s brows pull together. This is always fucking awkward, no matter how many times anyone says it to him. “I don’t smoke.” 

Minho cocks his head to the side, smiling brighter than before. His hair is wild, mussed up, he looks silly. Jisung almost laughs. “You are endlessly interesting, Han Jisung.” 

“I don’t think so,” Jisung mumbles, looking down. 

“I didn’t ask for your opinion.” 

𓐆

Before leaving for work Jisung snuck two of Chan’s yearbooks off of the bookshelf and shoved them into his bag. He never bought yearbooks himself, but Chan has them all, and they’re all signed to hell, a trophy of his popularity. 

Jisung waits until he’s well into his shift before he pulls out the newer version, thumbs through it, shoulders hunched. He keeps the book open between his thighs while Hyunjin is distracted braiding his hair. Not that Hyunjin cares much what Jisung does anyway, but just to be safe. He doesn’t want to explain himself. 

Minho was in Chan’s class, a year above Jisung, but only because he skipped a grade in elementary school. Jisung knows where to look. He runs a finger across the glossy pages, the lines of headshots, most of them recognizable but not important to him. 

His finger shakes when it nears the L names, his pulse elevated. Stupid, it’s unbelievably stupid how nervous he gets at the thought of Minho. There’s no explanation, no rhyme or reason, but that seems to be a theme with Jisung’s brain, his normal reaction. Constant cycles and spirals, and not one of them makes sense to him. 

The Minho on the page, captured in time, looks like Minho in person, but younger, more awake. He’s smiling with his mouth closed, lips pressed together, a glint of mischief in his eye. His list of activities includes only one, club tennis, still beating out Jisung’s own zero. Jisung is pretty sure one of his old friends used to be on the club tennis team, but he doesn’t care to check. 

The bell on the door rings, Jisung jumps, Hyunjin scowls at his reaction. It’s just Jeongin. Jisung sniffs, goes back to his looking. He flips to the club sports pages, searching for signs of Minho elsewhere. 

“You look beautiful today,” Jeongin purrs, reeking of weed. 

“Thanks, I know,” Hyunjin says easily. “You smell like shit.” 

“Aw, babe. I wore this scent just for you.” 

Jisung tunes them out, fingers grazing pictures, tracing the edges of the squares on the page. He finds Minho, in full color, an action shot of him hitting a ball. His shorts were red, they hit him mid thigh. His thighs look strong, well built, Jisung wonders if he runs. 

Minho still looks strong. Jisung has noticed— not that he’s been staring— not in any creepy way, at least, but Minho’s arms are usually a couple feet from his head, and Minho’s legs are always where Jisung’s eyes land when he looks down, when he’s unable to stare Minho in the face. 

Jeongin laughs, breaking him out of his own head, and then the bell rings and Jeongin is gone. Jisung snaps the yearbook shut, shoving it back into his bag. Hyunjin stares at him, bored, annoyed, probably both. 

“What?” Hyunjin sneers. “Just say what you want to say about me and my sinful ways so we can move on.” 

Jisung doesn’t know what Hyunjin means, not really, but he has been wanting to ask a question. “What do you remember about Lee Minho?” 

Hyunjin is obviously taken off guard, he blinks a few times, his body stiffens. Jisung can count on one hand the number of times that he’s been able to surprise Hyunjin like this.

“Why are you asking?” he recovers easily enough. And then the poison, “Are you gonna fuck him? You’re his type.”  

Jisung’s forehead scrunches up, he burns, quick and hard, from his neck to his cheeks. “No, gross, why the fuck would you ask that?” he spits, without thinking, extraordinary defensive. Hyunjin works to rile him up, but he doesn’t usually pull shit out of thin air like that. 

“Chill,” Hyunjin fires back, lip curling in disgust, his trademark. “No need to get homophobic with it.” 

“I didn’t mean—” Jisung defends, eyes going blurry for a second. Fucked up, everything fucked up again, speaking before he thinks, his throat pushing out words that he doesn’t consent to. But maybe that is how he feels. Red, black, white, his vision is spotted. Is he homophobic? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. Something is wrong with him. 

“Save it, Jisung,” Hyunjin cuts him off, saving them both the trouble. 

They don’t speak the rest of the day.

𓐆

Chan and Changbin like to make Jisung go places he’d rather not go. Tonight it’s out to a bar for dinner. They poked and prodded him until he broke, agreed to get into Chan’s pickup, smushed between the two of them and their unreasonably large arms. Jisung’s only real stipulation is that they don’t go to his mom’s regular place, which was easy enough for them to agree to. 

Jisung is sure his life is about to end when they sit down at a high top and Minho walks through the door. He hunches over immediately, looking down at his hands on the table. It’s not that he’s ashamed of being friends with Minho, it’s just that he doesn’t want Changbin and Chan to know that he’s friends with Minho. Because they’ll make a big deal out of it, and Jisung hates when they do that. He likes having one part of his life for himself, for just him. 

“Shit, is that Minho?” 

Jisung wills the ceiling to fall and take him where he sits. He knew Chan was familiar with Minho, but he didn’t think they were to the level of talking.

Chan cups his hands around his mouth, shouting across the way, “Minho!” 

Minho turns around, eyes searching. He finds them easily, with Chan’s arms waving around in the air. Jisung doesn’t miss the way Minho’s eyes stick to him, almost in question. He hopes his body language is portraying enough bad energy to let him know to keep their cover. That he’s asking Minho to pretend, to lie. 

“Hey, Chan, Jisung,” Minho says. “And you’re Changbin, right?” 

“S’Right,” Changbin nods. 

“Oh shit!” Chan smiles, slinging an arm around Jisung’s shoulders. “How do you know Sungie?” 

Jisung’s heart claws its way up his throat, threatening to spill all over the floor, or maybe that’s the alcohol and empty stomach he’s working with. 

Minho looks over at him one more time, eyes raking down his face. “From school, I think. Right? We talked a few times.” 

Jisung nods. Chan enthuses about how nice that is, and Jisung barely has a moment to feel relieved before Chan is ruining his life all over again. 

“Are you here to eat? Come join us!” 

“I was just going to order to go, I have to get back to work—”

“Sit with us while you wait! It’ll be nice to catch up! What have you been up to lately?” 

Chan has always drawn people in like this, disallowing them to say no, to escape. He’s charming, outgoing, everything Jisung isn’t. Jisung’s brain turns to static as Minho sits down, unable to resist the charm, tells Chan all the things about himself that Jisung already knows. 

Jisung swirls his straw in his drink, a vodka soda, just to take the edge off. He counts the circles. One, two, three. One, two, three. He ignores Changbin’s pointed glances. 

The waitress comes eventually, takes their orders, Minho’s on a separate tab— to go. Jisung hasn’t even been paying attention. He sees red hair, sharp eyeliner, but not much more of the girl. He certainly wasn’t scoping her out as a potential date, but as soon as she’s gone Chan says, “She was cute, huh, Sung?” 

“What?” he blinks, forces himself to sit up straighter. 

“The waitress. You should ask for her number,” Chan elbows him annoyingly, jostling him around. 

Jisung goes red hot, blood in his cheeks, he avoids looking in Minho’s direction, humiliated. “I didn’t even look at her, Chan. I think I’m fine.” 

“It could be good for you, Sung,” Changbin chimes in, shrugging. “It’s been a while since you went out with anyone.” 

“No, guys, really— I’m not. God. I’m not worried about it right now,” Jisung feels like an icepick is being hammered into his temple. His pathetic love life being hung out to dry, waved in front of Minho, no care in the world for tact, humility. He knows his friends mean well, but Jisung would rather be shot. 

“Don’t be shy, Sung. Minho understands, I’m sure. Right Minho?” Chan raises a hand in Minho’s direction.

“Sure,” Minho says, looking pointedly at Jisung. “I understand not wanting to date right now, taking time for yourself.” 

“You guys are no fun,” Chan laughs like something is funny, like they’re all on the same teasing vibration as him.

The angel of death; the waitress returns. She is pretty, Jisung will admit that, but he feels nothing when he looks at her. Not a prick at his gut or a flame under his skin. She drops off their food, takes Minho’s payment, Jisung loses himself in ignoring the world around him again. One, two, three. One, two, three.  

When Minho leaves, Jisung wonders if he’ll be at the schoolyard tonight. The way Minho’s eyes linger when he says goodbye, Jisung is inclined to think he will be. 

The waitress writes her number on Chan’s receipt at the end of their meal, and tells him to call her.

Minho is on his swing when Jisung shows up at the schoolyard at eleven fifteen. 

“What was that about?” he asks, not bothering with a proper greeting. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“What did I say about apologizing?” 

Jisung wishes he brought a bottle of water with him. He’s parched, his tongue feels like sandpaper, he forgot to put his sleeves over his hands before he grabbed the chains, the metal is sweaty and the stench is sinking into his skin already; he can feel it. 

“I don’t want you to think that I don’t want them to know we’re— friends,” he coughs, unsure if he should call them that. He peeks up, but Minho nods, encouraging. Friends, then. The thought pricks his stomach. “They’re overbearing. They push me into things, always have to know everything, to take care of me. I just want something on my own terms for once.” 

Minho nods. “I understand that.” 

“You do?” 

“Yes,” he moves himself to the side, drops his feet until his shoulders bump into Jisung’s with the side to side of the swing. “Why do you let them do it?” 

“Because I know they care,” Jisung frowns. “Because they took me in when I was fifteen and I feel like I owe them.” 

“Fifteen?” 

“Mhm,” Jisung’s heart skips a beat or two. He’s never told anyone about this. He hasn’t had anyone to tell. “I couldn’t really live with my mom anymore— uh. Chan and Changbin would help me out. Chan let me stay with him, Changbin too sometimes. They’d help me with money, food, that kind of thing. It’s whatever. Just kind of stuck— we still live together.” 

“They’re kind,” Minho says. 

“Overly.” 

“It’s good to have people that care about you so much, though.” Jisung wonders if Minho is speaking from experience. 

“I know. That’s why I deal with it,” Jisung sighs, toes making lines in the dirt. “I just wish they’d listen to me sometimes.”

“You should tell them that,” Minho says simply.

Jisung shakes his head. “Haven’t you heard? I’m a coward.” 

𓐆

Minho texts Jisung for the first time on a random weekday. He sends a picture of a squirrel and says ‘it looks like you lol’. Jisung doesn’t reply because he doesn’t know what to say. 

They exchanged numbers so that they could let each other know if they weren’t coming to the schoolyard on their usual nights. It hasn’t been an issue thus far, but he appreciates the forethought. 

“Why didn’t you text me back?” Minho asks that night, sitting on the swings.

“I didn’t know what to say.” 

“Don’t overthink it, Jisung. Just be yourself.” 

“I’m trying.” 

Minho texts him again the next afternoon, a picture of the cover of a children’s book with an evil looking cartoon rabbit on it. ‘This one’s me,’ he says. Jisung responds, ‘he has your eyes’ and Minho sends him back a string of crying and happy emojis. 

“What are you smiling about?” Hyunjin scoffs. “Torturing an unassuming girl with your masculine wiles?” 

Jisung frowns, clicking his phone screen off, laying it face down on the counter. “None of your business.” 

“Oh, you so are, aren’t you?” Hyunjin’s face goes devious. “You totally have a crush, don’t you? What’s her name? C’mon, tell me!” 

“I don’t have a crush,” Jisung mutters, going back to scribbling angry doodles into his sketchbook. He was drawing a fox, a little picture to send to Minho. 

“Right, and I don’t have a crush on Jeongin,” Hyunjin says sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

Jisung squints up at him, perplexed. “I thought you didn’t have a crush on Jeongin?” 

“Why else would I let him come and harass me so much?” 

A good point. To be honest, Jisung thought Hyunjin just liked the attention, even if he wasn’t interested. Jeongin is consistent, yes, but he’s also plenty respectful. He never crosses the line of the counter, he never gets anything more than teasingly flirty, he always buys something while he’s in. Maybe Hyunjin would be nicer if he was with someone like Jeongin, dating him. 

“You scare me,” Jisung mumbles, snapping a photo of his doodle and sending it to Minho as inconspicuously as he can manage.

“The feeling is mutual.” 

For a miniscule moment in time, Jisung feels like he and Hyunjin have gotten along. He’s sure it won’t last, but it was nice while it did. 

𓐆

The autumn grows tired fast, a freeze seeping into the air, the dirt, before Jisung even realizes it. He and Minho have been friends for a month or two, also before Jisung even realizes it. 

Minho calls him at eleven at night, and Jisung’s hands shake as he answers the phone. 

“Hello?” his voice shakes too.

“It’s cold out,” Minho says, matter of fact. 

“Yes.” Jisung almost nods, but then he remembers Minho can’t see him. 

“How do you feel about getting in my car?” Minho asks. 

Jisung clears his throat. “What?” 

“My car, y’know. It’s a two thousand and twelve Toyota, if you want specifics.”

Twelve divided by three is four. Not the worst year for a car to be made, at the least. Toyota has six letters, too, not that he’s counting. 

Minho continues when Jisung doesn’t say anything, “I just thought that over the winter we could keep up our tradition, keep hanging out— but since it’ll be too cold to be outside we could just do it inside. Inside of my car.” 

“Oh,” Jisung says. “Okay. That sounds fine. What are we going to do?” 

“Hah!” Minho laughs, short and sweet. Jisung can picture the kind of smile that usually accompanies that sort of laugh on him. “What the fuck else is there to do in this town? Go sit in the cemetery or the Walmart parking lot.” 

“Alright, sure. Let’s do that,” Jisung shifts on his bed, he feels flame underneath his skin, it makes it feel too tight around his insides. “Do you want me to meet you at the school?”

“Nah, just text me your address, I’ll be there soon,” Minho hangs up before Jisung can protest. 

He doesn’t really mind if Minho knows where he lives, but he’s more concerned with Chan and Changbin catching on to his secret. They know he goes out at night when he can’t sleep, but they also know he doesn’t go out in the winter, because he gets cold much too easily. It wouldn’t be too hard for one of them to catch him climbing in or out of Minho’s car. 

He sighs, texts Minho instructions on where to park, and sits on his hands so that they stop shaking so badly before he has to go. 

𓐆

Minho’s car is comfortable, the heat thrums low, warming Jisung’s fingers where they dig into the seat. 

Jisung has never had the urge to learn to drive, he doesn’t think he ever will. Minho seems like a safe driver. He keeps his hands on the wheel and checks his mirrors and makes full stops. He does it all with a practiced ease, and Jisung doesn’t think he’s ever watched anyone drive before, but Minho makes it look nice. 

“Cemetery or Walmart?” Minho lets him decide.

“Cemetery,” Jisung says, because there’s less people there. 

Minho hums to the song he has on the radio, tapping his fingers on the wheel. It sounds like he has a nice singing voice, even if he’s not doing much. Minho is like that, though, Jisung has concluded; he doesn’t have to do much to excel in whatever he’s doing. He exists in a place of elevated status, already succeeding before he’s begun. 

The cemetery lot is tucked away, they’re the only car, obviously, and when Minho pulls up his headlights shine across the expanse of grass and tombstones. He throws his car in park, shuts his headlights off. 

“Wouldn’t want to disturb them,” he says, grinning cheekily at Jisung. 

Jisung’s mouth pricks with a smile of his own. “My grandparents are buried here.”

Minho’s face grows horrified in an instant, smile falling into an open mouthed gape. “Shit, sorry, we can go somewhere else—” 

“No!” Jisung stops him. “That’s not why I said it, sorry. I don’t know how to fucking talk to people normally. I was just saying shit.” 

“So they’re not buried here?” 

“No, they are,” Jisung amends. “I was just throwing out how I know the place. Connecting it to myself or whatever. It’s not a big deal. It’s fine.” 

Minho blinks at him, a series of a few quick ones. Sometimes Minho does that, just stares and blinks a handful of times when he’s confused, or trying to figure something out. He looks at Jisung like he’s going to be able to pull a thread of information out through the top of his head with his mind, and he always blinks as he does it. 

“Okay,” Minho says. 

“Okay,” Jisung repeats. 

“Why are you so nervous?” Minho asks, smiling softly, a hand coming up to nudge his knuckles against Jisung’s shoulders. “It’s just me?” 

It is just him. Because they’ve been friends for a while but Jisung still bubbles with nerves, and now Minho feels comfortable enough to casually touch him, and that makes Jisung burn beneath his skin. But isn’t that the problem? Jisung can’t tell anymore. “I don’t know,” he sighs. “I’m just a nervous person.” 

“Well, that’s alright too.” 

Hyunjin really pisses Jisung off, because he says things as off handed comments and jabs and they stick inside of Jisung’s chest for days and weeks on end and Jisung can never shake them loose.

The thing about desire, the thing about Jisung being a coward, the thing about Jisung being Minho’s type. 

“Do you have a type?” Jisung asks, as casually as he can, eyes roving over the lines of headstones. He thinks his grandparents are buried in the middle, but he can’t remember very well. He was so little when it happened. He was looking at the sky the entire time they lowered the caskets into the ground. 

“What, in guys?” Minho questions. The seat makes a noise when he turns his head towards Jisung, but Jisung doesn’t look back, he just nods his affirmation. “Sure,” Minho says. “Doesn’t everyone have a type?” 

“I don’t think I have a type.” Jisung has been with all sorts of girls, none of them much like the last. Short hair or long, tall or small, he doesn’t care. “What’s your type?” 

Minho smiles, and his eyes flicker with something alive, so expressive. Jisung remembers thinking that Minho’s eyes look like they can see more, but now he knows that they show more, too. 

“I like cute. Cute, pretty, just someone approachable, but nice to look at. Maybe a bit smaller than me, I’m not really into crazy muscles. Someone who’s easy to talk to— a must.” 

Jisung follows along, filing through attributes in his head. Hyunjin must be mistaken, Jisung doesn’t fit the description Minho gave. He doesn’t think he does. Jisung really hates Hyunjin, because now he can’t figure it out, and he’s still stuck. 

“I don’t know. Don’t you just know when you’re attracted to someone?” Minho shuts one eye, smiling. He looks nice, Jisung thinks, the picture of casual youth. “You just feel it.”

“I don’t know,” Jisung sinks further into his seat. “I usually just go out with girls my friends set me up with. If they’re into me I’ll go for it. I don’t know if I have much of anything else going on.” 

Minho looks at him a bit funny, and Jisung feels embarrassed, almost like he’s said something wrong. 

He rushes to continue his thought, “I guess I wish I felt something like what you’re describing, because that sounds nice too. Or maybe I do feel it and I just don’t get out much. I don’t know— I’m rambling.” 

“What kind of porn do you watch?” 

Jisung coughs, chokes, “Excuse me?” 

Minho laughs, grin wide. “What kind of porn do you watch? That can be a good insight into your type. What you like to see.” 

One, two, three. One, two, three. Jisung’s heartbeat cuts off some of his lung function. “I don’t think it’s anything out of the ordinary,” he says. “Just whatever is there. Uhm. Nothing too kinky.” 

“Okay, we don’t have to talk about it if it’s weird,” Minho laughs again. “Just thought it might help you figure it out for yourself.” 

Jisung’s mind spins as Minho launches into a story about his childhood cat. 

Figure it out for himself, he doesn’t know what that means. He doesn’t pay attention to what porn he picks out. He usually goes through the thumbnails of what’s popular, he finds one where the guy looks as normal as possible, like someone he could know, just so that it feels more realistic. 

“Jisung, are you listening?” Minho pokes him. 

“Yes, sorry.”

𓐆

“Jisung!” Changbin’s voice rings through the apartment. “Did you get blood on the couch again?” 

Jisung groans, shoving his pillow over his head, waiting for the inevitable. He hears his door open, smacking against the wall, no knock afforded to him. 

Changbin rips the pillow from his arms without care, tossing it away, staring down at Jisung with fire in his eyes. “What did I tell you?” 

“I’m sorry!” Jisung whines. “I hate the way lotion feels on my hands! And it got cold so fast I couldn’t keep up, and then I was really tired after work and I washed my hands when I came in and I didn’t even feel it until later, really! But I fell asleep on the couch and, I swear to you, I didn’t feel it, Changbin.” 

“Jesus,” Changbin grumbles, turning around and coming right back where he came from. 

Jisung sits up, confused, but when Changbin comes back a minute later with a pair of cotton gloves and scissors, he understands. 

“You know I don’t give a fuck about the couch, right?” Changbin asks, eyebrows raised, snipping the tips off of each finger on the gloves. “I care about you, and that you’re not bleeding everywhere because your hands are so fucked up.” 

“I know,” Jisung says under his breath. 

“Okay, well you’re not hearing it again, so.” Changbin thrusts the now fingertip-less gloves into his hands, perfectly prepared how Jisung likes them. Covering most of his skin but room to touch his phone screen. “Here, now I don’t want to hear any complaints about sleeping with lotion on.” 

“Thank you,” Jisung looks down at his lap, embarrassed. He feels stupid, being taken care of like this. If he lived alone he could bleed on the couch as much as he wanted. Chan would never let him do that, though. Jisung wouldn’t want to, either. 

“Have you been trying to cut back?” Changbin crosses his arms. “Or no.” 

“I don’t know. I’ve been going outside more.” Changbin’s problem is that he thinks Jisung’s hands are the worst of it. He thinks that whatever he sees is the worst of what Jisung does, and he treats it like the end of the world. “How’s your girlfriend?” 

“Not my girlfriend,” Changbin sighs, dropping to the bed. “But good. I’m having fun.” 

“That’s good.” 

“I can’t decide if you two would get along or not. You might be too much alike.” 

Jisung perks up at that, flopping his head to the side to stare Changbin down. “What do you mean?” 

“You both count.” 

“Count,” Jisung goes still. 

Changbin turns his head then, looks Jisung right in the eye as he shatters everything Jisung thought he knew about Changbin’s perception of him. “Yeah. Min’s number is seven. Yours is three, right?” 

Jisung blinks. “Right.” 

𓐆

When Jisung was in elementary school, in the same school building that sits near the swings he met Minho at, he learned about nuclear war. 

Their teacher told them that other countries have big missiles, bombs, and that if they wanted to, they could shoot them off at any moment. The bombs are big enough to level cities, kill everyone, destroy civilization. 

It seems a bit fucked up now, Jisung thinks, that a teacher would say that to kids so young. But Jisung also figures that most of the kids in his class didn’t dwell on the information in the same way he did. 

A few days after Jisung learned about nuclear war, his grandparents took him to a baseball game in the city. He specifically remembers sitting in the back seat of their car and staring into the blue abyss of the sky between rows of buildings and waiting, hoping, that he would at least catch a glimpse of the bomb before it hit. If he were to die at the foot of a nuke, he wanted to see it first, to see it coming, so that he knew. Silly, maybe, to want to know you’ll die seconds before it happens instead of going blissfully unaware; but he figured at least he’d know. He just wanted to know. 

‘If they bomb us, we’ll bomb them back,’ is what his teacher said. All Jisung could think about is how he’d be dead either way. He was horribly afraid of death, for no good reason at all, besides maybe the fact that it was an unknown. 

He didn’t tell anyone why he was looking up at the sky, waiting for the moment where he’d see the missiles, but he thought about it plenty. 

Mutually assured destruction. 

Jisung thinks it sounds like a nice way to go, knowing that someone else is coming with you. 

“Do you have a favorite number?” he asks Minho, their seats leaned back, staring at the ceiling of Minho’s two thousand and twelve Toyota in the cemetery parking lot. If there were a sunroof, Jisung would be able to stare into the sky and wait to see the bombs hurtling for them. 

Minho makes a noise like he’s thinking. “Not really.” 

“Do you know any girls around here with ‘Min’ in their name? I’m trying to figure out who Changbin is fucking.” 

“Sure,” Minho goes with his change of topic without question. “Somin, Minjeong, Minju, Minnie. What else do you know about her?” 

Jisung sighs. “That her favorite number is seven.” 

He wonders if Changbin’s Min looked up in the sky when she was a child too.

𓐆

Jeongin comes into the shop while Hyunjin is out, something that’s never happened before. Hyunjin doesn’t leave often, but he said he had an errand to run and Jisung didn’t complain. Jisung is almost positive that Jeongin has never even looked at him, in all the times he’s come in, he’s always too busy staring at Hyunjin. 

Today he does. 

“Shit, hey,” he laughs, grin wide, vulpine. “Is Hyunjin here?” 

“He stepped out, but he should be back soon. You can probably wait, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind,” Jisung offers him a tiny, tight smile. 

“Cool, cool.” Jeongin starts looking around, bending over and peeking over shelves, his attention span short as can be. 

Jisung pulls out his nail polish, shakes the bottle. His nails aren’t that chipped, but he hates just sitting here while someone meanders around the shop, and who knows how long Jeongin will wait for Hyunjin. Probably all day, if it came to it.

Jeongin gets bored quickly, wandering over to lean against a pillar near the counter. “Are you the coworker that might be homophobic? Or is that someone else?” 

“Is that what Hyunjin says about me?” Jisung grimaces. “I’m his only coworker, so, probably.” 

“Yo, that’s crazy,” Jeongin chuckles. “Because I swear that I thought you were into dudes too.” 

Blood rushes up Jisung’s neck, he’s sure his face is bright red, shining off the LEDs. He hopes Jeongin is too high to notice, or too nice to care, or both. “Nope,” he manages, hand shaking on the stroke of his brush, a bit of black paint tainting the tip of his finger. “Not into dudes. Also not homophobic, I don’t think, just bad at talking to people.” 

“But you know Lee Felix, right?” Jeongin presses. His eyes weigh heavy on Jisung, though Jisung is pretty sure he’s too high to think straight. “Weren’t you two close?” 

“We were friends in school. That’s about it.” 

“Oh. Alright.” Jeongin seems satisfied for the moment, falling quiet. 

Jisung finishes off one hand, moving on to the next. The smell stings his eyes more than usual today, he almost feels like they’re watering. It might be time to get a new bottle of polish. 

“If it helps, I don’t think Hyunjin hates you, man,” Jeongin rambles, hand rubbing at his cheek, lost in thought. “I think you’re misunderstood.” 

“Thank you?” Jisung laughs, bitter, though only slightly. 

“Yeah,” Jeongin nods, he’s cracked the code, apparently. “You’re just a misunderstood dude. Like, in general.” 

“Okay. Thank you, Jeongin.” 

“Shit. How do you know my name?”

“Because I’m always here when you come in to flirt with Hyunjin.” 

“No way?” Jeongin smiles, eyes wider than Jisung has ever seen, looking genuinely surprised. It’s kind of cute, in a way. “That’s so crazy! Dude. I’ll totally say hi next time, I swear.” 

Jisung laughs. “Okay, thanks. Also, Hyunjin is lying to you— he does smoke.” 

“Oh, I know. I’m his plug.” 

𓐆

“Where have you been going lately?” Chan grabs Jisung’s wrist as he’s on his way out the door. “You’ve been gone almost every night at the same time.” 

“Uhm,” Jisung falters. But maybe this is an out, an answer to his prayers. He doesn’t know why he hasn’t thought of this sooner, actually. “I’ve been seeing someone. A girl.”

Chan blinks, surprise replaced with genuine joy. Jisung feels a little guilty at how happy he seems. “That’s great, Sungie! Are you two getting serious?” 

“I don’t know. We’re just hanging out, it’s nothing crazy yet,” Jisung swallows, mouth dry. “I’ll let you know if it turns into something— but I'm definitely not looking elsewhere right now.” The drop, the solution to his problems with Chan and Changbin trying to set him up. 

“Look at you, stud!” Chan laughs, socking him on the shoulder. “Go on, don’t leave her waiting! But I want to hear about it later!” 

“Okay,” Jisung chuckles nervously, tugging his scarf tighter. He scurries out before Changbin can come see what the noise is about, taking the stairs down two at a time. 

Minho is waiting right where he usually does, headlights bright against the night. 

Jisung slips into the passenger's side, smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Hi, sorry I’m late. Chan held me up, being annoying.” 

“No problem,” Minho says, shifting the car into drive. He looks over, takes Jisung in, head to toe, says, “You look cute.” 

“Thanks,” Jisung smiles for real, hiding his mouth in his scarf. 

“What did Chan want?” Minho backs out of the lot, starting down the road. His fingers tap on the wheel. 

“He thinks I’m seeing someone.” 

Minho glances over. “Are you?”

Jisung snorts, “Only you.”

His answer rings out in the empty space of the car, tone teasing, but words heavy, dripping with something else; dark, serious, much too scary for Jisung to face.

Hyunjin was right, he is a coward.

𓐆

Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon. All three died in the summer of two thousand and nine. Nine divided by three is three, and three is a prime number. 

If Jisung thinks about kissing Minho three times, he’ll be bound to think about it. But he hasn’t thought about kissing Minho three times, he’s only thought about it once, right now, while Minho sings to the radio, a Michael Jackson song, ironically, and his lips are shining in the passing lights of the city as they drive. Jisung thinks about kissing Minho then, but it doesn’t mean anything, because he’s not gay, and he isn’t going to be gay, and he’s only thought about it once. 

Intrusive thoughts, another symptom of whatever is wrong with him. That’s what this is, this thing with Minho. Intrusive thoughts. He’s not gay, because when he thinks about it, it makes him sick to his stomach. He might be homophobic. He’s definitely misunderstood. 

He’s not gay, even though he’s thinking about kissing Minho. He’s not gay. He’s not gay. He’s not gay.

Three times so it will stick.

Chapter Text

Jisung kissed a boy once, but it would be more accurate to say that a boy kissed him and he kissed back. 

Felix and Jisung were the best of friends for three years. They met at freshman orientation, hit it off when they realized their birthdays were only a day apart, that they were both a year ahead when they shouldn’t be. It felt inevitable in that way, like it was something made to last. 

They spent every day together, a lot of nights too. When Jisung moved out of his mom‘s apartment Felix came with. He flirted with Chan the entire time and Jisung rolled his eyes. It was fun, light, everyone loves Felix. Jisung loved Felix, but not more than as friends. 

It happened the summer after their junior year. They were sitting on the porch of Felix’s house, eating popsicles, red and blue dripping into the heat. Felix had been fidgety all day, but Jisung didn’t ask, because Felix hated being asked about things like that. 

Felix turned to him, his lips red with dye, and said, “I really, really like you, Jisung.” And then he leaned in and kissed him.

Jisung was stunned, shocked, and he kissed back because he didn’t know what else to do. He kissed back because it felt good, he kissed back until his popsicle slipped out of his fingers and fell, cold, wet, sticky on his leg. He gasped, pulled away, and Felix looked at him with worried eyes. 

Right then, Jisung ruined their friendship. He said something vile, he called Felix names, in the same vein of what Jongmyeong and his friends call Jisung now. 

He still remembers what Felix said to him then, tears streaming down his face. 

“I’m sorry, I thought you felt the same.”

Jisung left the popsicle melting into the concrete and he ran, his eyes hot and wet. Chan’s mom tried to ask him what was wrong when he got home, but he made for the bathroom. He brushed his teeth, his tongue, even his lips, until any hint of blue or red dye was gone. 

He didn’t talk to Felix after that. When they got to school in the fall Felix had a new friend, Kim Seungmin. Felix and Seungmin glared at Jisung with disgust. He deserved all of it. 

Jisung didn’t try to apologize, even though he was sorry for the things he said, because he was too scared of facing what he’d done. He made himself small, put his head down, got a part time job at the smoke shop down the road, and bided his time until graduation. 

When Jeongin asked Jisung if he knew Felix, he lied. He knows why Jeongin asked, its the same reason everyone asks; he thought Jisung and Felix were together. Everyone thought that Jisung and Felix were together. 

They weren’t, they were just friends, but even Felix thought that Jisung was interested in him in return, so Jisung’s memories must have gone fuzzy. 

He can’t remember. He can’t remember what they were like, or what he felt, or how it went. All he remembers is that he kissed back. 

𓐆

The first time it snows, Minho drives to the schoolyard and just parks there. The plows are busy on the streets, but the pavement behind the school is always pristine, untouched. Fat flakes drop onto the window, melting as soon as they touch, heat blasting inside. The overhead lights reflect off the blanket of white on the ground, but Jisung can’t hear the buzz from here. 

Minho is busy fiddling with the stereo, trying to tune it to some local radio station, just because he swears the announcer used to be a teacher at their school and Jisung doesn’t believe him. It’s relaxing, they don’t need to talk all the time, they’ve known one another long enough now that they feel comfortable just sitting quietly if there’s nothing to say. Jisung didn’t think it possible for him to feel that way about anyone besides Chan and Changbin. 

The snow affords more light than usual in the nighttime, Minho’s face lit in shades of murky white. The bridge of his nose, his cheekbones, his lips; the highest points of his composition shine. 

Jisung is staring, unabashedly, because it’s not like there’s anything else to look at. Minho’s forehead creases as he moves the knob around on the radio, his lips poke out with a small puff of air. Minho’s top lip sticks out more than the bottom, though they’re both just as pink, plush. Expressive eyes, exquisite nose, his skin is golden even in the dead of the winter.

“You’re really pretty,” Jisung blurts, because he’s too comfortable with Minho and his brain to mouth filter doesn’t work in the middle of the night. “You know, like— for a guy.” He has to qualify his statement, because he doesn’t want Minho to get the wrong idea. Because the last person he was comfortable like this with got the wrong idea and Jisung ruined it. He doesn’t want to ruin things with Minho. But Minho is really, very pretty. He’s prettier than many girls, Jisung is sure, and he’s certainly prettier than any boys Jisung has seen. 

“Thanks, Jisung,” Minho glances up, small smile playing on his lips. His eyes shine in the snow too. “You’re really pretty. Full stop.” 

Jisung’s cheeks heat. “I’m not,” he mumbles, not expecting the praise in return. Minho likes to take Jisung by surprise, he likes to drop in tiny compliments, flirty jokes, but it’s never overt, not like this. 

“You are,” Minho says, back to fucking with the radio, completely uncaring of the disaster he’s caused in Jisung’s chest.  

“Shut up,” Jisung retorts lamely, barely above a whisper. 

Minho doesn’t bother looking up, but he does smile, wide and toothy. “No.” 

Sometimes Jisung wishes Minho were a girl. 

Minho is so easy to talk to, Jisung feels safe with him, he feels listened to, understood. He and Minho are very different from one another, but Jisung’s favorite part of each day is the time he spends with Minho, or spends talking to Minho. On days they don’t meet up they text, chatting back and forth. They’re friends. Good friends, great, even. 

If Minho were a girl, Jisung would probably want to be with him. Her. He’d want to be with her. Because Minho is pretty, and he’s calm, and he doesn’t ever make Jisung feel stupid for his questions, or for saying sorry. 

Minho’s hands are always warm, too, and Jisung’s are always cold, and he thinks that would be a nice thing to find in a girl. Sometimes, when Jisung forgets gloves, Minho playfully grabs his hands and holds them together between his own to warm them up while Jisung laughs. 

Minho would look beautiful with long hair, with blush painted on his cheeks. He’d probably look beautiful in a dress, too. 

If Minho were a girl, Jisung would ask for a second date, even though he’s never made it past a first before. If every girl he went out with was as easy to talk to as Minho is, if they were as pretty as Minho is, if he knew he felt safe and comfortable with them like he does Minho, he’d ask them for a second date too.

Click your heels together three times and say what you want. 

It doesn’t work. Jisung has tried. 

I want to be normal. I want to be normal. I want to be normal. 

𓐆

Jeongin walks into the shop, eyes already searching for Jisung. When they land he smiles, dimples visible, and waves. “Hey, Jisung!” It turns out that he takes his promise of saying hello very seriously, he always does it first thing. 

“Hi, Jeongin,” Jisung smiles, small, polite. He’s about to go back to doodling when Jeongin saunters right up to where Hyunjin is scowling at both of them, grabs him by the back of the neck and pulls him in for a lingering kiss. 

Hyunjin squeaks, but he doesn’t seem surprised, he melts into it, his body bows forwards. Jisung feels awkward staring, but he doesn’t stop. 

“Jeongin,” Hyunjin complains when they break apart, cheeks flushed pink, hand swatting at Jeongin’s shoulder. “Not at work.”

“Didn’t wanna wait,” Jeongin mumbles, leaning back in for more. 

Jisung’s stomach swims with something he can’t quite place. It’s not necessarily negative, but not positive either. It may have something to do with the romance of it, the spur of the moment show of affection. Jisung never thought himself the type to be into that sort of thing. 

He’s spacing out, drawing angry lines on his sketchbook when he hears Hyunjin hiss, “Jisung is right there, Innie, chill.” 

“No, babe,” Jeongin returns, much louder than appropriate for secrets. “Jisung isn’t homophobic, he’s just misunderstood.” 

Jisung looks up, blinks. 

Hyunjin is staring dead at him. “That’s for fucking sure,” he says, spiteful. 

Jisung goes back to his drawing. 

February third, nineteen fifty nine. Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, The Big Bopper. The three of threes, on the third day of the month. Two nines to round it off, and nineteen fifty nine is divisible by three, Jisung checked. He’s never been good at math, but that’s why calculators were invented, to spur on neurotic assholes like him. 

Jisung wonders if the three men getting into an airplane together on a snowy night was good as assured destruction. 

There’s plenty of things that no one can know. Every day walking to work, Jisung doesn’t know if he’ll be run over by a rogue car, he doesn’t know if it will be the day a missile falls from the sky and kills him, he doesn’t know if he’ll run into his mom on the street on his way home. He hopes none of those things happen, but the fuck of it all is that he just doesn’t know. 

Sureties, constants, routines, those are things that he can be comfortable with. His tiny piece of the world feels less unsure, less like he could succumb to sudden death at any moment, so long as he follows his rules. He works with things he knows. 

As Jisung sees it, he was right all along, because Minho ruined one of his sureties, and then everything else came tumbling down. One routine, cracked down the middle, a wedge with something new fit in, and now he feels like he doesn’t know himself anymore. 

When Jisung was young, he could never be sure if his mom would come home on any night, but he could be sure that the weatherman would always be the same. The local man, his name might have been Tom. A replacement for the unsure of his mom. Tom would always get on the TV at nine PM sharp and deliver the forecast. 

One time Tom was out sick, and it aligned with a night his mom didn’t come home, and Jisung felt like he would die. He got called into the nurses office at school the next day, got sent home, but didn’t they know that was the problem? Misunderstood. 

Another trick, to keep his head on straight, is to make up rules so that he can stop worrying for the rest of the day. 

Okay, Jisung, if you pass the mailman on the way to work, that means you’ll have a good day today. 

This morning he made that rule, but he didn’t pass the mailman, so he had to make a second. 

Okay, Jisung, if the light is red when you get to the cross, you will have a good day.

This morning the light was green, and this is the part where Jisung starts getting nervous. Because the third rule is always the last shot. If something happens three times, that means it’s meant to happen. 

Okay, Jisung, if Hyunjin isn’t at work when you arrive, you will have a good day. 

Hyunjin is never at work on time, and see how that works out? A surety. The constant of Hyunjin being late can be twisted up into his third rule, guaranteeing him a good day. It all makes perfect sense. 

Since he arrived this morning, Hyunjin nowhere to be found, and unlocked the door, he hasn’t worried about having a good day. He hasn’t had to worry, because he took care of it for the rest of the day, just by doing something so small. 

He hasn’t gotten blood on the couch lately, even though it’s winter. He hasn’t washed his hands as much. 

Changbin congratulated him, told him he’s proud. There’s nothing to be proud of. Jisung is just touching less. He gets in Minho’s car, where nothing is dirty, and there’s no need. When it’s winter, his sleeves can cover his hands, so there’s nothing to touch. The more he talks with Minho, the less his brain runs, the less time there is to think about it. 

It’s strange. Minho running through his life, fucking it all up. Because Jisung feels less certain of who he is, but at the same time, he’s bleeding significantly less on the couch. 

𓐆

Minho is riding him. Or, some version of Minho. 

Long hair, dress hiked up, she makes pretty noises as she does— soft moans, cries. She breathes Jisung’s name into his mouth. Jisung’s mind is hazy with pleasure, he wishes he could kiss her. He fucks his hips up, so close to release. 

Minho’s hands find his cheeks, hands warm, thumbing over his lips. He looks down on Jisung, and his voice is all the same as in real life as he says, “Jisungie, you feel so good. So big. You fill me so well.” 

Jisung finishes with Minho’s name on his lips. 

He jerks from sleep moments later, hips canting helplessly against a pillow, a mess in his pants.

He lays, squeezing his eyes shut, counts to three hundred and thirty three before he’s able to calm his heart enough to slip away to the bathroom. 

𓐆

Jisung told Minho he was busy tonight. He feels guilty, even if he didn’t really do anything wrong. He can’t control his dreams, he certainly can’t control how his body reacts while he’s asleep. Maybe he feels guilty because of how grateful he is that the Minho in his dream was a girl, and not Minho as himself. Although, if he dwells for too long, that too gets messy. 

Regardless, Jisung is busy tonight, because Chan and Changbin invited him to a party. He just had no intention of going until after he had the dream. Until after he got off to the thought of his friend riding him, fucking him, moaning into his mouth. 

He’s probably had too much to drink. He doesn’t know where Changbin went, but Chan is talking to some girl in the kitchen, and Jisung feels sort of floaty. It’s easy enough to slip away from Chan’s sight when he starts pressing the girl against the counter, shoving his tongue down her throat. Chan is desired. Chan makes moves. Chan probably isn’t thinking about a man while he kisses that girl. 

Stumbling down the hallway, closer to the living room, Jisung’s chest grows heavier. Maybe he should be finding someone to sleep with, to really reset his system. It could be good for him. He could use a reminder that he likes sex with girls. That it feels good. 

There’s a pretty girl leaning against the wall near the bathroom. She has big eyes and a sharp nose, her hair is reddish brown. “Hi,” Jisung says. He knows he’s tipsy when he says, “You’re beautiful.” 

She giggles, shakes his hand. “Thank you.” 

Jisung finds it easy to flirt when there’s so much going on. It’s hard to misstep when both parties are clearly looking for one thing, when he’s drunk, and she’s probably a little high, and they’re both standing close together. 

It’s easy to flirt when he doesn’t see Minho walking by, when he doesn’t have the, impossible to avoid, urge to follow Minho through the crowd, when he’s not telling the girl he’s talking to that he’ll be back, that he has to go talk to someone really quick. 

“Minho,” he reaches out, puts his hand on Minho’s shoulder. 

Minho spins around, face annoyed, but he breaks into a marvelous grin when he sees who it is. “Sung? What are you doing here? I thought you were busy?” 

“I am,” he steps closer. It’s loud. Minho’s hand comes to his bicep, holding him in place. “With this, I guess. Chan asked me to come.” 

“This is great!” Minho laughs, spilling over with the sound. He’s drunk too. Jisung has never seen him like this. He likes it. “Let's go dance!” 

Jisung isn’t given a choice in the matter. He hates dancing but he likes Minho. His hand is taken, fingers woven together, he’s dragged to the middle of the crowd. 

He can’t remember the name of the girl he was talking to, but he hopes she’s not waiting around. His heart thrums heavy with the bass, Minho is smiling, his face flashing with colored lights. He turns to Jisung, hooks his arms around his neck, pulls him close. 

“Just go with the flow, yeah?” Minho shouts into his ear, over the music. 

Dumbly nodding, Jisung brings his hands to Minho’s hips, what feels appropriate for their position. He wants to do well, to impress Minho, but he’s too distracted by the way Minho laughs, throws his head back, exposing the long lines of his throat, miles of skin. He has the urge to sink his teeth into the flesh, to taste. He could eat Minho whole, go back for seconds, thirds. 

His fingers curl into Minho’s shirt, their hips rock together. Time stretches and slows, Jisung is entranced. Eventually Minho turns, his arms still behind Jisung’s head, placing his back against Jisung’s front, his ass in Jisung’s pelvis. Jisung hisses, his hands move forward, over the tight muscle of Minho’s abdomen. Minho pushes back further with the pressure, fully grinding on Jisung. 

Dancing. They’re dancing. Minho asked him to dance, and they look like many other people around. Minho throws his head back against Jisung’s shoulder, and Jisung can smell him, his cologne. Something deliciously citrusy sweet that suits Minho perfectly. He splays his hands flat across Minho’s stomach, his hips jerk forward, and the blood leaves his face all at once. 

He’s hard. Undeniably so. Minho is grinding on him, and he’s hard, and his body is seeking more. Minho hums, content, and he smiles. This has never happened to Jisung before, not without explicit help, not without feminine hands wrapped around him, stroking him full. 

Jisung drops his hands from Minho, leaving him stumbling forward a couple of steps. Minho turns around, confusion painted on his face. Jisung’s vision blurs. He’s sure Minho could feel it. He hopes Minho is too nice to say anything. 

“Bathroom,” he explains, and then he’s gone, hot coals bubbling under his skin. He shoves his way through the crowd, back towards where he came from. The girl is still there, he breathes a sigh of relief, asks her if she wants to find somewhere more private, and she takes his hand. 

Somewhere more private is a bedroom, and he lets himself be kissed into the bed. He shuts his eyes and moans when she lays kitten licks to his already aching cock, while she blows him. 

When he cums he’s thinking about the Minho from his dreams. 

𓐆

Jisung spends all afternoon formulating an excuse to not go out with Minho the Monday after the party. All of them fall flat. Anything he comes up with seems stupid, obvious. Also, he misses their nighttime talks, just a little— though he wouldn’t admit it out loud. Just enough for it to matter, for him to climb down the stairs and slip into Minho’s car. 

At the cemetery again, headlights shut off, radio playing low. Jisung told Minho an anecdote about something that happened at work. A nonstarter; Minho is rambling to ease Jisung’s harried nerves, he can probably sense them.

Jisung almost thinks Minho forgot, or that Minho isn’t going to mention it, but the first time they lapse into silence, he does.

“I saw you sneak off with that girl at the party.”

Jisung squeezes his eyes shut extra tight on his next blink. “Yeah,” he sniffs. “I hooked up with her.” He feels like an idiot saying it. It sounds like he’s trying to brag, some sort of masculine pissing contest that Minho isn’t even participating in. 

Minho’s mouth tightens into a thoughtful line, his head bobs up and down slowly. “Ah.” 

“‘Ah’ what?” Jisung laughs, nervous. 

“Ah nothing. I figured you did. You were dragging her into a bedroom when I saw you.”

Jisung didn’t know Minho was watching. He doesn’t know if it would have changed anything if he did know.

“Was it good?” Minho tacks on, voice thinner than usual. A near repeat of the question Jisung asked him the time Minho showed up after a hookup. Has Minho been hooking up with anyone lately? Probably. Jisung figures Minho is desired. Deeply. 

Another laugh, this one edging vulnerable. Jisung bites at his lip, can’t decide how bad of an idea it is to be honest about something like this, says it anyway, “I don’t think I’ve ever had a blowjob I liked. I think there’s something wrong with me.” 

Minho blinks, three times, quick, his head cocks a few degrees to the side. “Really?” 

“Yeah,” Jisung nods, barely managing to look at Minho. He’s sure his cheeks are pink. “I dunno. Like, it was fine, and it’s usually fine, but I feel like I always have to picture something else for it to get me off.” 

“Huh.” 

“Yeah,” Jisung huffs, unsure where to go from here.  

“Well. If you ever wanted to test your theory,” Minho clears his throat, and when Jisung looks over he averts his eyes, staring blankly ahead. Jisung swears his cheeks are tinted pink, but it’s too dark to see for sure. “I’ve been told I give great head.” 

Jisung’s mind goes blank, fuzzy, static, like an untuned TV. “Sorry, what?” he blanches. 

“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” Minho swings his head around, looks at Jisung with shaded eyes. “We can call it practice. For the next time you’re with a girl. So you can tell her what you like.” 

Honestly, Jisung has thought about something like this. Not with Minho, of course, but with a faceless person. Someone that will help him figure things out, no pressure, no expectation, just trying. His mouth feels a little gummy, his hands clench together in his lap, he squeezes too hard and one of the raw patches of skin stings over his knuckles. 

“But—” he chokes a little on nothing. “Why would you need practice? If you’re already so good.” 

Minho laughs wryly, tongue running over his lower lip. Pink, plush, Jisung knows what it looks like, he can see it in full clarity in his head. He’s spent enough time looking. “I’ll be honest, Jisung, I just like having cock in my mouth. That’s enough for me.” 

“Oh,” Jisung mutters. He guesses that’s as good a reason as any. “But won’t that be weird, like. You’re a guy. I’m straight.”  

Minho shrugs. “A mouth is a mouth. No gender attached to that. Nothing to differentiate mine from a girl’s.” 

“O—Okay,” Jisung feels a little dizzy, a lot horny. He’s probably pent up, tired, anxious. He’s horny. He’s hard. “Alright.” 

“Yeah?” Minho confirms, moving to unbuckle his belt. 

“Mhm,” Jisung nods, breath labored. His hands tremble as Minho reaches down, pulls the bar under his seat to send it sliding back, does the same to Jisung’s, leaning over the console. “But this stays between us. You have to promise.” Jisung feels his words begin to slur, heat swirling in his gut. 

“I promise,” Minho whispers. He’s closer now, he’s leaning over the center console, hand hovering over Jisung’s crotch, sweatpants clearly more filled out than normal. Still, Minho asks, “Are you hard?” 

“Mmm, yeah–” Jisung breathes. He stares down his nose, watches Minho work, watches Minho look up at him, eyes bright, alive. Minho looks so pretty. “But just because you were talking about it and— hhhaaah—” Jisung whines when Minho makes contact with his clothed erection. His hand is warm, kneading, he cups Jisung, smiles sweetly up at him. 

“You don’t need to explain yourself to me, Jisung,” he says. “Just relax. Enjoy it.” 

“‘S easy fr’ you t’say,” Jisung murmurs, lifting up a bit to help Minho slide down his pants, his underwear. He whimpers when his cock hits the air, already painfully hard, wet. 

Minho’s lips curl up coquettishly, absolutely pleased with himself. He looks Jisung directly in the eye when he wraps a hand around him, firm, tight. Jisung squeezes his eyes shut, head falling back against the seat. “You have a pretty cock, Sungie,” Minho swipes a bead of pre-cum off the head, spreading it down the shaft. “Has anyone ever told you that?” 

“No,” Jisung manages, eyes stinging. 

“Shame,” Minho simpers, and then he places his lips on the head, lightly. Jisung’s eyes fly open along with his mouth, breath punched from his chest. Minho is kissing his cock, laying his lips down lightly. Skin to skin, Jisung has never seen anything like it. Minho’s pretty mouth, he’s spent so much time admiring it. 

“F—fuck, Minho, don’t tease,” Jisung pleads, already on the precipice of something great. His hands dig into the seat, he brings one up, awkwardly hovering, unsure. 

Minho laughs lightly, takes hold of his wrist and guides Jisung’s hand to his hair. “You can pull my hair, I like that,” he says.

“Oh— uh, alright—” Jisung stammers, his breath shaky. “I— holy shit!” He watches, eyelids heavy, as Minho takes him into his mouth. 

Red hot, wet, so much. So, so, so much. Three times over. 

Jisung’s hands fist into Minho’s hair on instinct, tight, pulling tighter, Minho moans in response, vibration running through his tongue, over Jisung’s dick as he bobs his head, takes him deeper. 

“Oh my god.” 

It’s too much, Jisung can’t take it. Minho is so good at this, he’s unlike anyone else who’s ever touched Jisung, better.  

Minho pulls off with a slick popping noise, a string of spit connecting his mouth to Jisung’s cock, his hand continuing to stroke up and down from the base. 

“Good?” Minho asks, smiling. He already knows, Jisung is sure. He already knows. 

Jisung nods, words failing him. 

Minho licks his lips, cleaning up the mess of spilled spit, he hums, pleased. “You can let go, baby. Let go, I can take it.” He goes back in, and Jisung follows directions as best he can. Baby. Baby? Baby.

He cries out, clamps his lips shut immediately afterwards, embarrassed, he pulls at Minho’s hair, feeling the pleasure through the sounds Minho makes around his dick. Jisung’s eyes lose their fight, shutting tight again, focusing on the feeling of Minho around him. Of a mouth around him; any mouth, just a mouth.

Jisung is teetering on the edge faster than he ever has been at someone else’s hand, someone else’s mouth, someone else’s manipulation. Minho is good, he’s unmatched, he looks beautiful, and Jisung’s brain is blank. He can’t think of anything, he can’t picture anything other than what he sees through his barely functioning eyes; Minho’s mouth wrapped around him, Minho’s eyes, shiny wet, unreal, ethereal. 

“Min— shit— aaah! I’m gonna— I’m close,” Jisung tries to warn him, fists his hands into Minho’s hair, but Minho keeps going. He picks up the pace, even. Jisung cums in his mouth, down his throat, and Minho takes it all. 

He swallows around Jisung, pulls off of him, goes back for more, to clean up the rest. When he finishes he looks up, smiles, laughs, out of breath. Jisung fumbles to pull his pants up, heart beating out of his chest, wild. 

Minho wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, leans back into his own space. “How was that?” he asks, amused.

Jisung can only huff an incredulous laugh, chest heaving.

He waits for the gross, disgusting, festering feeling that usually follows his hookups to come, but it never does. 

𓐆

Chan catches Jisung on his way in, by the wrist, cheeks burning, ears ringing, in desperate need of a shower. 

“Why do you look so guilty?” he asks, forehead scrunched up, looking at Jisung carefully. 

Jisung shakes his hand off. “I don’t look guilty.” 

Chan stares at him, leans a bit closer, takes in the state of his hair. “Did you just come from your girlfriend’s?” 

“Yes.” 

“Good for you, Sung,” Chan splits into a grin, dimples poking out. “Looks like she treats you well, aye?”

“Yes,” Jisung repeats. 

𓐆

Jisung doesn’t have to count how many times it happens because it doesn’t mean anything. But it’s definitely more than three.

𓐆

Bell, chain, whispered snickers. Jongmyeong walks into the shop with two of his friends. Hongjun, hence the clinking of metal, and the other one that Jisung doesn’t know the name of. 

Hyunjin is nowhere to be found, and now Jisung thinks that maybe Hyunjin is the real coward out of the two of them, because he always runs. Jisung would never say anything like that to Hyunjin’s face, though. The most he’d do is tell him that they’re much more alike than Hyunjin thinks. 

“How’s it going, Han?” Jongmyeong sneers, egged on by the laughter of his friends. 

“Your usual?” Jisung stands up, grabs the packs from the wall.

“Aw,” Jongmyeong simpers. “Not in the mood to play today? Did you and Hwang already get it on in the back? Tire yourselves out?” 

“Don’t talk about him like that,” Jisung spits, surprising himself. “He’s not even here to defend himself.” 

“Oh, but he doesn’t need to be. Because his little boyfriend will do it for him, huh?” Jongmyeong’s friends break into raucous laughter. 

“Money, please,” Jisung says. 

Jongmyeong snatches his wallet, tossing the bills on the counter. “Pathetic little bitch. You and Hwang both.”

Jisung takes the money, shoves it in the drawer, walks to the furthest corner of the counter and sits on his usual stool. “Okay. Thank you. Goodbye.”

He’s pretty sure he hears them call him a slur on the way out, he’s pretty sure they spit on the floor, but this time when they bang on the window from the outside, he doesn’t jump.

His bottle of nail polish has been replaced, brand new. He does all of his fingers before Hyunjin slinks out from the back, acting like nothing’s happened. Jisung caps the bottle, shakes it, does another coat. 

“Thank you,” Hyunjin mumbles, a while later. 

“Don’t mention it,” Jisung mumbles back. 

𓐆

The second time Jisung thinks about kissing Minho, it’s because Minho is talking. He’s smiling and laughing throughout his story, and Jisung’s eyes are pointed down, hazily focused on his lips. 

Minho has beautiful lips. Jisung is well acquainted with them, with the way that they wrap around his cock, how they look stretched and spread and covered in spit. Minho’s lips are soft and pink and Jisung wants to try to kiss him. He wants to know how it feels. 

He runs through excuses in his head. None of the girls he’s kissed are any good, but that won’t work, Jisung has kissed far too many girls for that. He’s not good at it himself, but he thinks he’s fine, he’s kissed so many people, none of them have complained. But then again, there hasn’t been a moment where Minho doesn’t understand him, innately, understand what he’s asking. Minho wouldn’t make him feel bad if he asked;

“Do you like kissing?” 

Minho laughs, smiling thoughtfully, eyes hot on Jisung. They flick down towards Jisung’s lips, and then his tongue pokes out, runs over his own. “Mmm, yeah, I do. Why? Do you wanna practice that too?” 

Jisung mirrors him, he licks over his own lips, his breath shallows, he looks openly at Minho’s mouth. “It wouldn’t be weird?” 

“I think we’re long past that, Jisung,” Minho says softly, like he’s trying to comfort Jisung. He’s already shifting in his seat, turning his shoulders in Jisung’s direction. He raises a hand, motions Jisung towards him. “C’mere.” 

This is a bad idea, probably. No, it’s definitely a bad idea, because Minho’s hand catches Jisung around the back of his neck, drags him in, and the second their lips meet, Jisung’s word ends. 

He gasps, and Minho swallows it down, doubling the pressure, the time. Jisung melts, he stretches and warms and heats up. He’s in the microwave with a spoon, wrapped in tinfoil, and he’s destined for destruction. Spark, flame, light. Minho does that to him. 

A painting by Salvador Dali; surreal, twisted, uncouth. Jisung feels like that. Like he’s been thrown on the canvas, spun up with a brush and twisted about. His brain is intact, but it's mixed around, confused, it doesn’t look how it should. 

He moans into Minho’s mouth, and Minho makes a soft noise of pleasure into his, and Jisung needs to be closer. He scrambles up, clumsy, climbing over the center console, glad he lost his shoes a while ago. Minho laughs, his eyes light up with something precious, and he makes space for Jisung, to accommodate him, take him in. 

Jisung straddles Minho in the driver’s seat, their kiss turns messy, wet. Minho’s hands wrap around his waist, it feels nice to be held there, Jisung doesn’t know if anyone ever has.

“Your waist is so tiny,” Minho murmurs, surprised. “So pretty, Jisungie.” 

Minho doesn’t know what he’s doing, how he’s ruining Jisung. Jisung threads his hands into Minho’s hair, uses his grip to tug Minho’s head backwards, to give himself better access to lick inside of Minho’s mouth. 

Closer, closer, closer. Jisung forces himself forward, flush, his hips bear down against Minho’s, a shock of pleasure that sends him reeling. Minho reciprocates, his hips pressing up, chasing, his hands moving down, groping at Jisung’s ass, pulling him closer, closer, closer. 

Jisung whines, rolls his hips with the help.

“Is this okay?” Minho asks. 

“Yes, shit— Mmmm, my god— Yeah,” Jisung whimpers, hips starting a steady grind. “It’s okay.” 

Minho leans in, sucks Jisung’s lip into his mouth, his tongue, he nips, kisses. He’s fucking his hips up against Jisung, they’re dry humping, both seeking something much more desperate. 

This is nice, it’s nicer than with girls Jisung has done this with, because Minho has something between his legs. Because Jisung can feel Minho’s arousal, hot and hard, meeting him, he can feel the pleasure of both of them rutting together. 

Jisung can feel wetness seeping through his boxers, his cock aches. He has half a mind to fuck it all, do him and Minho both a favor and pull their dicks out, jerk them to completion with shaky hands. But this is better, because Minho is kissing him, and Jisung’s hips are needily kicking forward, and Minho’s hands are on his ass, fingers spreading him apart a bit. Jisung is unbelievably turned on, he’s moaning and his fingers are on Minho’s throat, and he wonders what it would be like to ride Minho for real. 

His orgasm hits a second later, obliterating any thoughts, any meaning. Minho follows, their lips going loose, catching intermittently in breathless kisses. 

“Fuck,” Minho laughs.

Jisung laughs too, chest bursting with light, the afterglow. “Yeah, fuck.” Jisung kisses him three times, just because he can. 

“Are you hungry?” Minho grins. “I forgot to eat dinner, I’m starving.” 

“I could eat.”

“Thai?” 

“Fuck yeah.” 

𓐆

Minho has to pull extra clothes out of his gym bag in the trunk, because both of them are a fucking mess, and their pants are cum stained. They laugh as they replace their bottoms, and Jisung feels dizzy with the normalcy of it. Of this, with Minho. 

Soon enough they’re sitting across from each other at the Thai restaurant right downtown. The one that stays open all night for drunk people from the main strip of bars. 

Jisung didn’t realize how hungry he was until his bowl arrived. He’s ravenous. Sex always makes him hungry, though. Minho’s mouth twists to the side, like he’s trying to bury a smile as he looks at Jisung. 

“What?” Jisung questions. He wishes his mouth weren’t so full, so he could send Minho a bratty scowl. 

“You look so cute when you eat,” Minho says, digging into his own meal. “Your cheeks are so big.” 

Jisung blushes, but it doesn’t feel uncomfortable. “Shut up,” he mumbles, less than halfheartedly. 

They eat in silence for a while, enjoying their food. At some point Minho won’t stop staring at him again. He has a staring problem. 

“What?” Jisung repeats, just as he does every time he catches Minho doing it. This time Jisung’s own mouth is playing at a smile. Minho brings it out of him.

“Aren’t you, like,” Minho scrunches his brow. “Worried about being seen with me?” 

A wave of guilt runs hot under Jisung’s skin, lips dropping their curve. “No, Minho, god,” he says. “It’s never been like that.”

“What if people talk?” Minho presses. 

Jisung shrugs. “So what.”

“I just thought—” Minho swallows, looking conflicted.

“Hm?” Jisung leans in a fraction. He needs to know. He should know. 

Minho sighs. “I just thought that someone so focused on how straight he is would be scared of being seen as anything else.” 

Jisung’s stomach twists unpleasantly. It’s not an unfair question, no matter how upset it makes him. This is the exact reason why Hyunjin thinks poorly of him too. Can he be misunderstood and a bad person at the same time? 

He laughs sourly. “It’s not like that,” he offers a tight smile. “I don’t really give a fuck what other people think.” 

“You seem to care what I think,” Minho says quietly. 

“That’s different.”

“Why?”

Jisung stares into the center of his bowl, ashamed. Minho is his friend. Minho might be his best friend. He deserves to know, not for Jisung’s sake, but for his own. “I’m trying to prove something to myself.” 

Minho doesn’t say anything. He goes quiet. Jisung’s breath shakes, and it sounds loud. Much too loud. He needs to unfuck whatever he’s just fucked up, make it lighter again. Normal, normal, normal. He wants to feel normal with Minho. He needs to. 

“Aretha Franklin, John McCain, Neil Simon,” Jisung says, swirling his straw round and round in his soda. “Do you know what they have in common?” 

Minho perks up, smiling, his eyes crinkled up at the edges. Bingo. “American icons?” 

“No!” Jisung sighs dramatically. “You know me better than to think I’d care about that.” 

Minho laughs. “What is it, Jisungie? Tell me.” He seems genuinely interested. He always seems genuinely interested in what Jisung has to say. 

“They all died in August of twenty eighteen. One after another.” 

“The celebrity death rule?” Minho laughs again. “Do you believe in that?” 

“Sure,” Jisung smiles, pinpricks rolling across his insides. He’s never talked about this with anyone. “I like to pull patterns out of things. It’s an interesting theory to pay attention to.”

“I guess I never thought of it that way,” Minho says. “Makes things more predictable. Understandable.” 

Jisung blooms into an idiotic smile. “Yes, exactly.” 

How could he ever feel embarrassed to be seen with someone like Minho? Someone so beautiful and smart, who understands him well. 

Jisung is glad that he and Minho didn’t meet in high school, because he thinks that they wouldn’t have hit it off then. Jisung was too sensitive, too touchy. He didn’t have his bearings, and he didn’t know how to make his days go well. He was drowning, tumbling through. He’s doing the same now, he thinks, but he feels more sure of it. But that probably doesn’t make sense, but he’s just glad. He’s glad he has Minho now. For this. 

“Oh, shit,” Minho says suddenly. He ducks down, head closer to the table.

Jisung’s heart kicks up without hesitation. “What?”

“My fucking asshole ex boyfriend just walked in,” Minho mumbles. “Fucking hell. God damnit, he’s coming over here. Shit. Sorry, Jisungie, work with me, yeah?”

Lost, Jisung doesn’t respond, he watches owlishly as Minho rises back up, bright, handsome smile on his face. Watches as Minho snakes a hand across the table, laces his fingers together with Jisung’s, a thumb running soothingly across the back of Jisung’s hand. 

“Minho,” a masculine voice simpers. Jisung swings his head up. A tall man, he looks older. He’s good looking, but definitely not cute or pretty, like Minho says his type is.

“Hi, Kyutae,” Minho says, voice dripping with faux sugar. Jisung squeezes his hand slightly, trying to comfort him. He feels silly for doing it right after. 

“It’s been too long, I’ve missed you. You told me you’d call,” the man grins, tilts his head condescendingly. He hasn’t bothered to look at Jisung the entire time.

“Hah!” Minho laughs, too loud. “That’s because I didn’t want to. Let me introduce you to Jisung,” he waves their joined hands. “My boyfriend.” 

Kyutae looks at him then, disdain coloring his features. His lip curls up, just like Hyunjin’s does. “Oh? Is that what this is?” 

“Yes,” Minho says easily. “You understand, I’m sure.” 

“Sure,” Kyutae smiles, fake, his nose scrunching when he looks back towards Minho. 

Jisung’s hand tightens. He feels bad, that he doesn’t know how to stand up for them, that he can’t help Minho more, keep him safe. He wants to keep Minho safe, he realizes. 

“We’re on a date,” Minho deadpans. “So if you could carry on, that would be appreciated.” 

Kyutae’s jaw twitches. He’s angry. He looks to Jisung once more before scoffing, “Whatever. When you get bored of the twink, you have my number.” 

Jisung bubbles with rage, not for him, but for Minho. The tops of his ears burn red, he hopes his hair covers it. He waits until Kyutae is out of earshot before he says, “Wow. He’s lovely.” 

“I sure know how to pick them!” Minho laughs sarcastically. 

Jisung half wonders if Minho is talking about him, too. He drops it, but Minho doesn’t drop his hand until Kyutae walks out the front door with his takeout. Jisung finds himself wishing that he stayed longer.  

𓐆

They moved to the backseat tonight because Minho complained about getting sick of leaning over the console. 

Jisung pulls Minho’s hair, just as he likes, dragging up moans and sounds of pleasure as he swallows down Jisung’s cock. Minho sucked a mark into Jisung’s thigh today, three of them, nipped and sucked at the soft skin inside of his legs until Jisung was trembling. Jisung was out of his mind before Minho even placed him on his tongue. 

Jisung’s hand rakes through Minho’s hair, he brings it around to cradle Minho’s face, thumbs across his cheekbone as he sucks. Too intimate. 

“Fuck, baby,” Jisung hisses, because he knows Minho likes it. “‘S so good. Shit.” 

Minho hums contentedly around him, eyelids fluttering. Pretty, pretty, pretty. Jisung can’t even count while Minho is touching him like this. He’s tried, he’s failed, he gave up a long time ago.

He finishes down Minho’s throat, and Minho takes it like he’s thirsty for it, just like he always does. Jisung always takes a minute or two to come down from the high, for his brain to settle enough after orgasm. 

He loves getting blown when Minho does it. He loves it, and he doesn’t understand why it can’t feel like this when it’s someone else. He’s mad, frustrated that he’s like this. 

Minho settles back into his side of the seat, laughing a bit. From here, without anything between them, Jisung can clearly see that Minho is aroused. 

He’s wearing sweats, black, and the impression of his erection visible. Jisung never thought that Minho would get turned on from helping him out, he figured he was repulsive enough to keep away from anything like that. But Minho is clearly hard, and it’s right there, and Jisung can’t stop looking. 

“Sorry,” Minho mumbles, tugging the hem of his sweatshirt down.

“No,” Jisung protests, eyes shifting up to Minho’s face. His cheeks are pink, he looks embarrassed. “Don’t be. Uhm—” he swallows.

Minho’s fingers twist into cotton, he peeks up, expectant. 

“Would you want some help?” Jisung’s voice shakes. “I can help.” 

“Hah,” Minho’s laugh is watery. “That’s alright, I don’t want you to do something you don’t want to.” 

“I— I want to, it’s not fair, y’know,” Jisung sits up straighter, more sure. “It’s not fair that I’m the only one that gets to cum.”

Minho blinks at him in that certain way he does, his cheeks are fully red, Jisung wants to touch them, feel the heat pooling beneath the surface. “That’s not very straight, Jisungie.” 

“I can pretend it’s—” Jisung sucks in a breath, through his teeth. “I can just pretend it’s me. Myself. I do it to myself all the time. I feel bad that you’re left hard while I get off.” 

“I don’t want you to do something you don’t want to, Jisung,” Minho repeats, more firm. “I want to help you, I don’t want you to feel pressured, it’s—”

“I do want to!” Jisung blurts before he can think better of it, chicken out. He wants Minho to feel as good as he does, he wants to watch Minho get lost in pleasure. 

Minho hesitates for a few seconds, he leans his head back, thinking, chewing on his lip. “Okay,” he nods eventually, smile curving at the edge of his lips. He blows out a breath, a short chuckle.“Yeah. Okay. I’d love that.” 

Jisung crosses the distance immediately, lifting himself into Minho’s lap. He wants to be close, he can’t begin to figure out why. It doesn’t seem important, so long as he is can have this. Minho shifts himself up against the seat, hands ready to help Jisung settle into his lap. 

When they find a comfortable spot, Minho’s hands rest on the curve of Jisung’s ass. Jisung smiles, his fingers skim over Minho’s waistband, helping him shove it down enough to work with. Jisung looks away, looks into Minho’s eyes. 

“Can I—” 

“Yes,” Minho breathes instantly, without letting Jisung ask. 

“Kiss you,” Jisung finishes, but he’s already leaning in, capturing Minho’s lips with his own. He can taste himself on Minho’s tongue, but he doesn’t care, he wants more, he digs deeper, until he pulls a noise of surprise from Minho’s throat. His hands skim down Minho’s stomach, under the waist of his boxers. Minho whimpers, right into Jisung’s mouth, when Jisung curls his fingers around his cock. 

Jisung can’t not look then. Minho feels heavy in his hand, bigger than he is. His cock is flushed, tip shiny with pre-cum, Jisung watches in awe as he pumps his hand down the first stroke. He brings his hand to his mouth, gathering saliva, dropping it into his palm, returning to work with an easier slide. 

Minho lets out something near to a cry, hands gripping into Jisung’s ass. “That was so hot, baby,” he says, eyes clouded over. “Holy shit.” 

“Yeah?” Jisung laughs, high in his throat. Minho only calls him baby when they’re doing this, but each time it makes Jisung burn, ache. 

Minho nods, leaning his chin forward, asking, needy. Jisung gives him what he wants, kisses him full and hot. He gets a good speed going, Minho’s cock grasped tight in his hand. It’s nothing like doing it to himself, he doesn’t even try to pretend. 

When Minho nears his release he warns Jisung, and Jisung pulls back, sure to watch Minho’s face as he spills hot over himself and Jisung’s hand. Minho’s eyebrows are knitted, his lips apart in the prettiest way, he says Jisung’s name as he cums.

Jisung’s breath hitches along with Minho’s as he comes down. 

“Shit,” Minho laughs, knocking his forehead with Jisung’s. “That was good. You did good, baby.” 

Jisung preens, he grins, he kisses Minho, he lets himself feel, for just a moment. 

When Minho drops him off a couple of hours later, Jisung thinks about kissing Minho for a third time. Three times, and now he has to think about it. 

Minho turns to him, smile dopey, both of them blissfully giggly since they came. “See you later, Jisungie.”

“Thanks, Min,” Jisung says. “For everything.” 

Minho’s lips are slightly parted, his bunny teeth visible, and Jisung wants to kiss him. He can’t stop thinking about it, the third time, and he’s already leaning in but he doesn’t even realize it until Minho is meeting him halfway, a hand on his cheek. They kiss lazily, for just a moment, a tease of their tongues, running together between their barely parted lips. Perfect. A perfect goodbye.

“Night,” Jisung smiles, pulling away. “Text me when you get home.” 

Minho smiles back, warm and fond. “I will.”

𓐆

When Jisung was a child, he thought he might be gay. He didn’t want to be gay. Being gay meant that he wasn’t normal, it meant that he had a label, something different, and something different meant bad. 

He got himself very worked up over it once, maybe eleven years old and so scared that he might be gay that he broke down. He cried in the shower, wailed, at the thought. When it was over he decided that he’s not gay, and that he could be sure of it because he said so. 

Jisung is wound up today, because he made a rule that said he’d have to ask Hyunjin his question if he saw the mailman, if the light was red, if he was first to work. And now he has to ask Hyunjin his question, because he’s bound to it. 

He waits all day, searching for a moment where Hyunjin seems more calm, relaxed. There isn’t one, not really. Hyunjin is on edge from the moment he arrives until the moment Jisung asks, with no sign of coming down. He should go smoke a joint, probably. Jisung wishes he could tell Hyunjin to do so. 

“Hey, Hyunjin? How did you know that you—” Jisung’s voice goes stale halfway through his ask. 

“Spit it out, Jisung,” Hyunjin snips, annoyed. m

Jisung coughs, clears his throat, face heating under Hyunjin’s sour gaze. “How did you know you were gay?” 

Hyunjin scowls at him, absolutely put off. “Is this some weird political thing? Are you trying to find out if the fluoride in the water turned me on to the devil? Fuck off, Jisung.”

“Nevermind,” Jisung mutters, turning away. “Forget it.”

𓐆

Jeongin comes to visit the next day, and he kisses Hyunjin sweetly and tells him he’ll see him later, and then Hyunjin turns to Jisung and apologizes. 

“I’m sorry I jumped down your throat yesterday,” he says, filing his nails, not bothering to meet Jisung’s eyes. 

Jisung is taken aback. Shocked, really. He wonders if Jeongin talked some sense into Hyunjin. He gets scared that Jeongin knows his secret, but only for a second. Jeongin is someone he trusts, he supposes, at least as much as he trusts Hyunjin, and Hyunjin is the one he asked in the first place. 

“It’s ok. I get it. You don’t have reason to think I’m being genuine.” 

Hyunjin sighs, swiping his hair out of his face in an irritatingly attractive way. “But that’s the thing, Jisung. There’s literally no good reason for me to be such a bitch to you.” 

“Are you, like. Okay?” Jisung shakes his head in disbelief. “Did Jeongin lace your supply with something?” 

“God,” Hyunjin rolls his eyes. “Nevermind, you’re fucking annoying. Just— ask me again, Jisung. Then I’ll pretend to hate you after I answer and we can go back to normal.” 

Pretend to hate him. Normal. Jisung can probably find a way to blame this on Minho fucking up his life. 

“How did you know you were gay?” 

“I think I just knew. I know that girls are pretty, but I never had the urge, not the way I do with boys. I tried, you know? But it never felt right. Kissing is nice, but it’s not the same when you’re not into it, attracted to someone. But, like, everyone has a different path to figure themselves out.”

“Oh.” Jisung picks out a point to stare at, something in the distance above Hyunjin’s shoulder. That’s more words than Hyunjin has ever said to him at once.  

Hyunjin frowns, Jisung can see it out of the side of his vision. “Do you like the thought of kissing boys?”

 “I don't know.” Yes.

“Do you like the thought of kissing girls?” 

“I don't know.” No. 

“Are you lying to me?” 

“Yes.” 

Hyunjin’s frown deepens. He goes back to filing his nails. “Okay, well. Don’t bother me again until you're ready to stop lying.” 

“Okay,” Jisung says. 

A sigh, Hyunjin pauses again, hoisting himself up onto the counter. “Why didn’t you ask Minho? You two are close, right?” 

Jisung doesn’t know how Hyunjin knows. But Hyunjin knows everyone, and he probably knows everything. 

So he tells the truth, “I think you know why, Hyunjin.” 

Hyunjin considers him for a long moment, and a sad look passes across his face. “Yeah. I do.” 

𓐆

Jisung doesn’t know anything. His world is tilted off its axis, his head is on backward, he’s counting in fours and seeing stars instead of earth and Minho is hovering above him, sinking down on Jisung’s dick.  

Ten minutes ago, Jisung asked, “Would it hurt your feelings if I pretended you were a girl?” 

“No,” Minho said, after thinking for a few seconds.  

“Why?”

“Because it would still be me.” Minho had sounded determined when he said it, but Jisung still thinks he may have been lying. 

And now Minho is riding him, and Jisung could never begin to pretend that Minho is anything other than what he is; the most beautiful man in the world. 

“You’re so beautiful,” Jisung breathes. “You’re so tight— holy shit, Minho.” 

Warm, tight, wet, Minho is everything he’s ever wanted, ever needed. He’s prettier than a dream. He’s prettier than every dream Jisung has ever had of him. There’s been so many dreams. Jisung hasn’t counted because if he did he fears it might make him insane. 

Minho lays a hand flat to Jisung’s sternum, looks down on him with starry eyes. “Does it feel good, baby?” 

“Yes.” 

Jisung’s heart is steady beneath Minho’s palm, warm and rough. Sex has never felt like this before. It’s good, too good, he could cry, he can’t cry, not when he’s being given a show. But he’s on fire, under his skin, down to the bone, and he can’t stop looking, staring. 

It isn’t until then, with his hands tight on Minho’s hips, completely taken with him, that Jisung realizes this is the first time he’s been attached to himself while having sex. Body to mind, mind to body. Fully present. 

Minho moans, throwing himself down harder on each fall. Jisung could watch him forever, he could do this forever, he can’t begin to think of the consequences, not now. 

He turns them over when Minho grows weak, his legs trembling. Jisung is on top, like he usually is when he sleeps with girls. He watches Minho’s breath catch when he presses back inside. Magical. Their lips meet. Minho’s legs wrap around his hips, hold Jisung tight to him. 

Jisung doesn’t usually wish that hookups would last. He usually goes hard and fast, the goal is release. Minho’s hair sticks to his forehead with sweat, Jisung brushes it away, he wants to look into Minho's eyes.

“Are you ready?” Jisung asks, more for his own sake than anything else. He needs cues, to prove to him that this is real, that he’s here, that something could be this much. Minho nods.

On his first thrust, Minho cries out, “Jisungie! Please!” 

“Please what, baby?” Jisung asks, head in the clouds. 

“Don’t stop.” 

Jisung doesn’t, not until Minho his clenching around him, spasming with the force of his orgasm, Jisung following right behind, spilling into the condom. He wishes he could fill Minho for real. He shoves the thought away, down, down, down his throat.

He works them through the aftershocks with deep thrusts, Minho’s fucked out babble as a backtrack to his self destruction.

𓐆

Jisung wakes up in Minho’s bed, and he panics. He doesn’t know what to do, or what to say, or what’s going on in his head, because he hasn’t begun to process. 

He can’t begin to process, so he grabs his things and sneaks out. He has to go to work, so it’s not as if he’s being a complete asshole. That’s what he’ll tell himself. 

There’s a man in the kitchen. Jisung forgot that Minho had a roommate. Jisung never expected that Minho’s roommate would be someone he knows, but everyone knows everyone in this town, and Jisung is shit at keeping up. 

He has blue hair, and he’s slight, and Jisung could recognize the line of his shoulders anywhere, even after all this time. Felix turns at the sound of the door opening, probably expecting Minho, but his smile falls when he sees Jisung. 

“Um. Hi,” Jisung croaks, voice sore like he’s swallowed glass. He didn’t shower last night, but the pins and needles didn’t start sinking in until right now. He can feel every inch of his skin, dirty, and he can feel remnants of his filth, and he wants to step out of his shell and walk away, to flee.

Felix stares at him, jaw shifting, throat bobbing as he swallows. “Are you the guy Minho has been seeing?” 

The guy Minho has been seeing. Jisung hopes so. His gut twists with jealousy at the thought of there being someone else. More pins, more needles, or maybe that one is a dagger, straight through his chest, carving him down to the belly button. He feels nauseous at the realization. 

“What?” he asks instead, stupidly. 

“The one he sneaks off with at night. Is it you?” Felix’s cheeks start going blotchy, red. He doesn’t give Jisung a chance to answer, he’s already jumping down his throat, suffocating him. “After everything? Really? That’s fucking sad, Jisung. You’re pathetic.” 

Jisung understands why Felix hates him so much, and he knows exactly what he did to deserve it.

“No,” Jisung protests, tears pricking his eyes. “It’s not what you think, I—” he doesn’t know what to do, he hasn’t seen Felix in years, since he called him such foul names, since he gutted him for something he was too ashamed to admit he felt himself. He suddenly feels sixteen, with syrupy blue melting down his hands, out of his eyes, his mouth. He cares, right now, and he wants things to go back to how they were before, because there’s too much to handle and Jisung’s body is collapsing with the weight of it. “I’m not gay, I’m not– We’re not doing anything at all. I got too drunk last night. Minho took me home.”  

Felix knows he’s lying. That’s the worst part of it all. “I think you're a bad person, Jisung.” 

“I’m— I—” Jisung stutters. “It’s not what you think. I’m not. I’m not into him, it’s not like that.” Jisung’s eyes run wet with tears, his face is hot, nose stuffy, he wishes the bomb would fall now, or maybe it already has. “I was drunk. I didn’t—”

“Leave.” Minho, standing in the hallway, looking at Jisung like he’s nothing. His face is plain, uncaring. 

Jisung is nothing. He never should have been anything to Minho. Mutually assured destruction. 

“Minho I—” his chest shudders, heaves, it breaks in two. 

“Just leave, Jisung,” Minho says, nothing behind his eyes. “I don’t think we should see each other anymore.” 

Felix’s hair is the same color as the popsicle Jisung left melting on the concrete when he ran away last time. He wonders if Felix had to pick up the stick when everything was through. He wonders if he’ll clean up his mess again. 

𓐆

Jisung doesn’t go to work, he goes home. He pushes through the door, cheeks streaked with tears and burning hot, and he comes face to face with Kim Seungmin. 

Every sick joke from his past playing like a reel in front of him, one after the next. At least it’s all in order. 

“Jisung,” Seungmin says. “Hi.” 

Changbin is there too, and he’s got his hands out flat, eyes wide in surprise. “Why are you home?” 

Min. Not a girlfriend. How could Jisung be so stupid? 

He looks right past Seungmin, right at Changbin, tears welling new. “You’re gay?” he asks, voice breaking. Accusing. 

“I—” Changbin falters. “Bi. Yeah.”

Jisung can’t breathe. He stumbles inside further, shoves Changbin’s shoulders. Changbin takes the hit, shoves Jisung back. Jisung wishes he could push him harder. “Why have you been lying to me?” 

“Lying to you?” Changbin barks out a cruel laugh, finger poking Jisung in the center of his chest. “That’s rich, Jisung.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Jisung grits, pushing him again. 

“Jisung, stop!” Seungmin. Talking as if he knows anything, as if he knows anything about him, about them. 

Changbin puts his hand out, face firm, shakes his head minutely, telling Seungmin to back off. Jisung sees red. 

He hates himself, and he hates Changbin because Changbin is supposed to know. He knows it’s not fair to put on him, but Jisung thought Changbin was supposed to know when he needed help. He thought Changbin would know. All Jisung needed was help, and he needed to know he wasn’t alone. He doesn’t deserve help, not from anyone, but he’s mad at Changbin all the same, because his heart is smashed to pieces at his feet and he’s a rotten person that does nothing but hurt. 

“Why did you lie to me? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know, Jisung,” Changbin snipes, vicious. “Maybe the same reason you didn’t tell me you’ve been sleeping with Lee Minho.” 

Jisung chokes, he sucks in a shaky breath. “I needed you, Changbin! I needed help! You lied to me!” 

“I think you forget that I’m not your fucking parent, Jisung. You need to take some fucking responsibility for yourself for once, Jesus fucking Christ.” 

“Fuck you. I hate you. You’re just the same as me.” 

Changbin looks at Jisung with such mirth, a boot held above the pieces of his heart, his ribs, cracked and broken on the floor. He looks at Jisung like he’s pathetic. “At least I didn’t pretend my boyfriend is a girl,” he fires, one last hit. 

Jisung breaks, he collapses to a heap at Changbin’s feet, hyperventilating, sobbing. He wishes he could die. He wants to die. He can see through his tears enough to watch Changbin soften, just like he always does. Because he loves Jisung, and Jisung loves him, and they’re family, even if Changbin isn’t his parent. Even if neither of them asked for it. 

Changbin gives Seungmin a kiss goodbye, and Jisung’s heart breaks further when Changbin whispers something low. Seungmin looks scared. Jisung fades to dust as he watches Changbin shut the door. 

But Changbin comes back, a surety, and scoops Jisung up, carrying him to the couch. Changbin soothes him, soft hums, a hand down his back. Jisung doesn’t deserve any soothing. 

“I’m not a good person, Changbin.”

“You're a fine person, Jisung, you’re just hurting.”

“I fucked up.” 

“It’s okay. We’ll figure it out together.” 

“I’m gay.”

“I know, Jisungie. I know.” 

𓐆

Jisung doesn’t smoke because he did it once and he liked it too much. 

It made his mind go quiet, it made his limbs jelly, it made him feel peace like he’s never felt. That scared him more than anything else. He liked it so much that he couldn’t do it again. He made a rule with himself that he wouldn’t, because if he did he’d be giving in to the one surety he so desperately wants to erase; he is his mother’s son. 

Jisung thinks his mom is sick too. 

Actually, he knows she is. She’s an alcoholic. She’s a hoarder. She drinks to pretend like she doesn’t think the same way Jisung does. 

Jisung thinks his grandma was sick too. 

He doesn’t know for sure, but the way his mom’s apartment is packed to the brim with things, trinkets, items found, for good luck, Jisungie, his grandma’s house was clean. Spotless. She’d come behind him with a cloth, bleach. Any spill picked up right away, every chair pushed into place. 

Each time they’d leave home, his grandma would make his grandpa turn around, as soon as they got to the end of the street. It happened every time, without fail. She needed to check that the stove was off. She forgot. His grandpa knew, it was part of his routine too, to make a u-turn at the end of the block and go back home.

His grandpa loved her so much that he didn’t even mind. He’d laugh, shake his head, say, silly woman. You make sure you love your wife enough to keep driving back when you get married, Jisung. 

Jisung’s father was never known to him, but he minded, from what his mom says. 

Minho makes Jisung want to believe that he wouldn’t mind. That he’d try to help. That he’d laugh and give Jisung a kiss and hold him until the static in his brain was manageable. 

One, two, three. Grandmother, mother, son. Maybe Jisung was supposed to be a girl. But he should stop making excuses, explanations for the way he feels. 

Sometimes it just is, like that. The grass is green, the sky is blue, sometimes there’s a man at the school yard when Jisung arrives at twelve thirty nine in the morning, and some people are just gay, but most of them don’t hate themselves as much as Jisung does.  

One, two, three. Grandmother, mother, son. Jisung is a sum of their parts. He thinks that his creation was mutually assured destruction too. A fusion of cells, destined to become something much the same. 

Wrath, at his mothers hand, and her mother before her. Another life, afflicted, but at least they weren’t alone. 

Chapter Text

Yellow, green, brown, blue, orange, red. 

Yellow, green, brown, blue, orange, red. 

Jisung sits at the kitchen table, separating the pack of M&M’s he dumped onto the surface after wiping it down three, four times. 

Yellow, green, brown, blue, orange, red. The order he eats them in. It just feels better that way. He scoops the yellow pile towards himself, puts one in his mouth. 

Changbin is mad at him. Or, disappointed with him, which is worse, as far as Jisung is concerned. He told Jisung that they can’t work anything out until Jisung tells Chan what happened. Until he tells Chan that he’s gay. Changbin says he can’t handle keeping something from Chan, because he’s as much a part of this as either of them. 

Jisung knows he's right. 

Green. 

Jisung bled on the couch and Changbin scolded him and then he huffed and puffed and said he’s going to stay with Seungmin for a bit, and that he hopes Jisung figures it out by the time he comes back. 

Nothing has been figured out. Jisung has been calling in sick to work. Hyunjin is probably pissed at him. He’s been sitting here, watching Chan go in and out, eating his arranged piles of M&M’s and bleeding on the couch by accident. 

Brown.

The worst of it is that he hates how stupid he felt after he said it out loud. He told Changbin he’s gay and it was like being shot in the chest, because Jisung knew. It wasn’t as if he’d just discovered something. He knew for so long, and he was just pretending. Trying to convince himself that he wasn’t. 

He’s never liked being with girls, he just liked the feeling of getting off. He’s always found masculinity attractive, he was just working against the current of his mind, of what he was supposed to know. 

He knows he’s gay, and he has known it for some time,  probably much longer than he's even aware of, but he was avoiding admitting it to himself because it meant he was wrong and not normal. And he feels stupid and guilty for how horribly badly he was trying to convince himself he isn’t, because it made him into a bad person that did bad things and hurt the people he loves. He’s gay, and he still wrestles with the guilt of it, the weight. 

Instability. His life has been built off of a rickety house on a hot fault line. He was standing outside trying to hold the structure up even though it was destined to fall anyway. Now that it has he feels stupid, because everyone watched him stand there like a fool pretending the earthquake would never hit. 

Blue.

From everything Jisung has read, coming out is supposed to be a happy occasion. Something to be proud of, something that lifts a weight off of his chest. 

It doesn’t feel like that. Jisung feels like shit. 

No one wrote anything on the blogs or the fucking listicles about what happens if you’ve been pretending you’re straight because you hate yourself, because you hate what you are and you thought you could force yourself different. No one told him how bad it would feel. 

But, then again, he probably knew. That’s probably why he waited so long. 

Chan is his oldest friend, and he still hasn’t worked up the courage to tell him what’s going on. 

He tried, but Chan said, “Shit, Ji, did you and your girlfriend break up?” and all Jisung could say was, “Kind of?” because the rest got stuck in his throat. 

Orange.

But now it’s Friday, and it’s been nearly a week, and Chan walks through the front door with a big smile on his face and says, “We’re going out tonight.” 

“What?” Jisung looks up from his candy. He probably looks like hell, as disgusting as he feels. 

“Yep,” Chan laughs, always so cheerful. “Get your ass in the shower, we’re going out. We’re going to party your blues away, maybe we can find you a rebound girl!” 

“I don’t want a rebound girl.”

Chan sighs. “Okay, you don’t have to kiss anyone if you don’t want, but it’ll be good for you to get out of the house. I’ll be right next to you the whole time, yeah?” 

Jisung doesn’t think he has a choice, but he’d also really love to get drunk, swallow back his feelings for a second. He is his mother’s son. Another hard truth. 

“Okay. Fine.” 

Red.

𓐆

Chan doesn’t stay by Jisung like he said he would. He does for a while, to be fair, but then Jisung is drunk enough to tell Chan to leave, and Chan takes him up on it right away. 

Jisung doesn’t blame Chan. Chan is a good friend, a good person, he’s done nothing but help Jisung for half of his life. Jisung knows that if he were to walk back up to Chan and tell him he wants to leave there would be no hesitation. 

He takes another shot. And then another. There’s a man in the kitchen, he has dark black hair and heavily shaded eyes, and Jisung is just drunk enough to think that he looks a lot like Minho. 

“Hi,” the man says. He’s smirking, lips curled up like he knows. He probably knows Jisung is sad and pathetic and stupid. He can probably smell the loneliness seeping off his skin like a bad perfume.

“Hi,” Jisung downs the rest of his mixed drink, steps closer, until he has to look up at the man. Minho isn’t this tall. “I’m Jisung.” 

“Jiwoong.” 

Jiwoong is nice. He smiles and he leans into Jisung and Jisung leans back, and he thinks they might be flirting. He can do that now, because he’s gay, and maybe if Chan catches him he won’t have to explain it and Chan will just know. Jiwoong asks Jisung if he can kiss him, and Jisung says yes, and his gut swirls and twists and he’s kissing a man. 

He’s kissing a man, and he can almost pretend it’s Minho. 

He’s kissing a man and it feels better than kissing girls, but it feels worse than kissing Minho. 

He tries to pretend. He tries to pretend that his hands are threading through Minho’s hair, and that the hips pressing him against the counter are Minho’s, but Jiwoong kisses more forcefully than Minho’s soft, and he’s taller, and his hair is too short. 

Jisung feels sick. He pulls away, shoves away. Jiwoong looks at him with wide eyes. “Are you alright?” But Jisung’s head is swimming and he can’t answer. His stomach sloshes, it’s got nothing in it but yellow, green, brown, blue, orange, red. A fuck ton of liquor. His brain is blacking out at the corners, and sometimes this happens when he drinks too much and starts to panic. He slumps over, and Jiwoong catches him, and he calls into the house and asks if anyone knows who Jisung came with, and someone takes pity on him and goes to find Chan. 

Everyone knows that Jisung is Chan’s ward. Everyone knows everyone in this town. 

Jisung’s eyes roll back, he loses his grip on reality. 

“God, Sung.” 

He can hear Chan murmuring through his disorientation. 

“‘S worse than I thought, huh?” 

Jisung’s hands grope around, and the surface below him is soft and familiar. The couch, the one stained through with his blood in ten different places. The stains Changbin couldn’t get out. 

“You back with me?” Chan’s hand is on his cheek, and Jisung comes to with tears in his eyes. 

“‘M sorry,” he slurs, chest shuddering with the first signs of a cry. 

“Why are you sorry?” Chan scrunches his brow, raising his hand to Jisung’s forehead like he’s checking for a fever. 

Jisung heaves out a massive sob, his body shakes, and he breaks apart, and he thinks he can hear his bones snapping. 

“I’m all fucked up.” He’s still so drunk, he can’t see straight, or think straight, but he forces himself up anyways, and Chan steps back. 

“Chill, Sung, it’s fine,” he says, coming back for more— to try to comfort Jisung. Jisung doesn’t deserve comfort. 

He slaps Chan’s hands away with weak arms. “I am! I am all fucked up!” a gasping sob. Everything pours out of him like a clown tossing up a string of scarves. One after another, knotted together, all the colors of the rainbow, yellow, green, brown, blue, orange, red. 

“I’m gay, Chan! That’s why I’m so fucked up and why I’ve been such a bitch and hiding shit from you. I’m fucking gay and I’m in love with Minho and I fucked everything up and he hates me! And Changbin hates me and you’re going to hate me too, and—” Jisung doesn’t realize what’s happening before it does. He empties his stomach onto the couch— all over it— and the acid stings his throat, and his eyes burn with painful tears, and Chan is staring at him like he’s an idiot, or something close to it. “And I hate myself!” Jisung cries, through a cough, because his mouth hurts, and his throat and lungs hurt too. 

Jisung cries, he shakes and he falls to the side, against the back of the couch, and he’s messy and disgusting and broken. 

Chan has a hand on his back, running soothing circles. Chan is calling someone on his cellphone. 

“Hey,” Chan says, in his most calm voice, like Jisung hasn’t just ruined everything again. “Can you come home? — yeah— no— he’s fine— or, he’s not fine, but— okay— alright, yeah, I’ll leave the door unlocked.” 

Jisung is fifteen, and he can’t live at home anymore. He’s sixteen and he’s just been kissed by Felix and even though he doesn’t know what’s going on, Chan holds Jisung while he cries himself to sleep. He’s seventeen and he’s eighteen and he’s aimless, and Chan is there with a smile. 

He’s twenty three, and he’s helped into the shower like a baby, and he’s cleaned up with careful hands, and he’s wrapped in warm clothes and fed, given water. And Changbin is there too, and he looks so sad, and Jisung wonders if he’ll ever be able to stop making the people he loves sad, but he doesn’t think so. Because he is his mother’s son. 

“Oh, Jisung,” Changbin sighs, running a hand over his head. And then he turns to Chan and raps him across the back of the head with a flat palm and says, “What the fuck were you thinking, dumbass? Bringing him to a party?” 

“I didn’t know!” Chan defends. Changbin hits him again anyway. 

In the morning they carry the couch to the dumpster. When it’s lifted in they all stand back, arms across their chests, staring at the thing. 

“End of an era,” Chan sighs, shaking his head with a smile. 

Changbin squints, scrunches his face into a frown. “I never liked that thing anyway,” he says, knocking his shoulder with Jisung’s, trying to lighten the mood. Jisung shrinks in on himself further. “Let’s get a leather one next time. Easier to clean.” 

Jisung can’t stop staring. His mouth tastes disgusting. A mix of toothpaste, from when Changbin did his best to brush for him, and bile. He feels ill, still. But Changbin made him help them to the dumpster, because Jisung is the one who ruined the couch. Fair enough. 

Tipped on its side in the trash; tan cloth streaked and dotted with red. Painted in the shades of Jisung’s failure. Jisung holds himself tighter, lest he fall apart. 

“Ready, Sung?” Chan asks, hand on his back. “We have a lot to talk about.” 

“No,” Jisung says honestly. 

Changbin snorts. “Too bad. You ran up your not talking about it clock, and now we don’t have a couch.” 

Jisung grimaces. “I ruined the couch while I was talking about it,” he argues. 

Chan and Changbin laugh. 

Everything will be alright with them. Jisung realizes he was more worried about that than anything else.

𓐆

They talk about it. They sit Jisung down and pull out everything and then they hammer it into the ground until he feels like he’s been run over by a steamroller. 

Chan seems surprised that Jisung is gay. Somehow that gives Jisung comfort; that not everyone could see straight through him. If everyone could, he would feel like an even bigger idiot. But, if no one else, at least Chan. 

Despite that, everything is fine. Chan loves him, he tells him so a thousand times. He tells Jisung that he’s thought about kissing boys too, which earns him a suspicious look from both Jisung and Changbin. Chan just laughs like it’s funny, like he doesn’t really mind either way, that he could kiss a boy tomorrow and it wouldn’t be a big deal. Jisung admires that about Chan, his ability to adapt, his comfort in himself. 

It comes down to three things. Or, it comes down to some things, but Jisung funnels the things into three so that he can have a little bit of safety in the mess of his life. 

Amends, acceptance, ego death.

Maybe it should be twisted around. Ego death, amends, acceptance. 

Jisung figures his ego has already died. It died when he was bathed like a child and taken care of by two men that aren’t his parents but act like they are. Jisung’s ego has been bleeding out at his feet since he climbed into Minho’s car the first time and sat in the cemetery parking lot. Now the pool of red is thick and sludgy, and Jisung is up to his ankles in it, and the thing has finally died. Done. Wrung out. 

He kicks it, just to make sure, but he still doesn’t know who he is. 

Jisung hates talking to people, but he needs to. He has nothing to lose, really, with his ego buried and sprouting new. He’s never been so scared in his life. 

“I’m gay.” He’s said it three times now, so it will stick. The war in his mind can settle. He knows it won’t be so easy, but he hopes there’s a small comfort in the fact that it’s the third. 

Hyunjin blinks at him from the other side of the counter. “Okay,” he says, and then he goes back to filing his nails. 

Jisung’s first day back at work. He hates change, he hates having to adapt, he hates that this place that feels so comfortable has become scary again, but Hyunjin doesn’t seem to mind, and maybe it’ll be okay. 

“Did you know?” Jisung asks.

“Yes.”

Jisung swallows back a wave of nausea. “Since when?”

“Uhm,” Hyunjin flicks his eyes up, staring through his lowered brow. “I’ve suspected since you kissed Felix in highschool.” 

“How—” Jisung’s heart stutters in his chest. Anxiety washes up like the tide, steady but all at once. “How did you know about that?” 

A shrug. Hyunjin tosses his nail file to the side. “He told me.”

Jisung wishes there were music playing. Something to cut the silence, cover the sound of the spit in his mouth, working around. Awkward, embarrassed, anxious. “I didn't know you were friends.” 

Another shrug. “There's a lot you don't know about me.” 

They fall to silence then, Hyunjin organizing the wall of products, Jisung tapping his pen against the counter. But Jisung’s not satiated, despite the fact that he did what he set out to do. He grits his teeth, scratches at his head. That too is loud against the silence. 

“Why didn't you tell me?” he asks, voice small. 

Hyunjin spins around, raises his eyebrows. “Would it have mattered?” 

Jisung would like to say yes. He’d like to think that if someone told him he were gay, that they knew, that he would have come to his senses. But he knows that’s not the case, because it’s happened before, and it only made things worse. “No.”

“Okay then,” Hyunjin nods, going back to his organizing. 

“Would you—” Jisung’s pen taps faster. He swallows dry. “Would you want to hang out? Like, outside of work?” 

Hyunjin laughs, short, not unkindly, just surprised. He’s grinning when he faces Jisung again. “Are you asking me out?” 

“Oh – no! God, no, sorry just—” Jisung scrambles to pick up the pieces. “You’re pretty and all but I'm not— I’m into Minho, obviously— and Jeongin! God, Jeongin. Yeah, no.” 

“Okay,” Hyunjin licks over his lips, smile widening, completely amused. “Fine.” 

𓐆

Jisung thinks of Minho all the time. 

He thinks of Minho and then he feels guilty, because he has no right to think of Minho. 

In his belligerent drunkenness, he told Chan that he loves Minho. He knows how it goes, what people say, that subconscious thoughts are drunken words, that drunken words hold truth beneath the slur. It’s not that Jisung doesn’t believe that he might be in love with Minho, it’s just that he had kind of been banking on the idea that he was incapable of love altogether. 

But now he can’t stop thinking about Minho, and isn’t that what love is? In the most basic sense of the word? 

He thinks of Minho when he sees the snow, even though the winter is ending by now. He thinks of Minho when he looks up at the sky. He imagines Minho sitting on top of the nuke that’s flying down to kill him, waving and smiling. He thinks of Minho when he touches himself, and then he thinks of Minho after, when he’s overcome with guilt. He thinks of Minho at night when he can’t sleep, and he wants to reach out, but he knows it’s not fair when he’s just started to figure his shit out. 

He wants to see Minho again, even if it’s just to apologize. Even if Minho says he never wants to look at him again. Even if all of that, Jisung thinks he’ll be thinking about Minho forever. For the rest of his life. 

𓐆

Kim Seungmin went to college. 

He got out of their shitty hometown, went to college, and he still came back. Jisung can’t even begin to imagine why. 

Kim Seungmin has a respectable job, and he’s got his shit together, and his favorite number is seven, and he’s seeing a doctor about it. That’s what he tells Jisung. 

Jisung didn’t mean to get roped into talking to Seungmin, but it’s not as unbearable as he expected it to be, now that they’re in the thick of it. Jisung had walked into the living room a while ago, and Suengmin was on their new couch, a faux leather one that’s easy to wipe clean. 

“Changbin asked me to talk to you,” Seungmin said. And Jisung bitched and moaned and then sat down anyway. 

Kim Seungmin counts to sevens, and he checks to make sure his doors are locked, and sometimes, when he can’t help it, he makes Changbin turn the car around at the end of the block and go back so he can check the oven. 

“I know I shouldn’t diagnose you, like, just morally,” Seungmin says, head propped up on his hand, knees tucked under himself on the couch. “But, like. I don’t know. Real recognizes real, man.” 

Jisung scrunches up his nose, laughs a little bit. “I can’t believe you talk like that.” 

“Like what?” 

“Like a frat bro, I don’t know. I guess you are with Changbin. He’s a fucking lug.” 

Seungmin laughs too. “Well, to be fair, I just code switch. I always thought you were an asshole straight guy, so.” 

“Fair enough.” 

“But, anyway,” Seungmin shakes his head, still smiling slightly. “I know I shouldn’t diagnose, but, like. I’m pretty sure you have OCD, man.” 

“Uh,” Jisung averts his eyes. A label, another, that makes him less than normal. If he thinks about it, he’s been avoiding figuring it out because he didn’t want a label to what’s wrong with him. He wanted to pretend like it was fine, not something that could be worked on, or helped, because working on himself is hard, and it’s scary, and it means that he’s not normal. It means that he was set out to fail from the start. Set up by his mom, and his grandma before her, mutually assured destruction. 

Acceptance, though. Something like that. “Yeah. You’re probably right.” 

Seungmin nods. “I know that it’s hard to accept, and— whatever. But when you’re ready you can come talk to me, like,” he pauses, scrubs a hand over his face. “God, this sounds so stupid, but I didn’t realize how much it impacted my day to day until I started working on it.” 

“Yeah,” Jisung mumbles. 

“It fucking sucks, and it’s hard, but you deserve to be happy. To cut free from some of it.” 

Jisung laughs sourly, unbelieving. “Yeah,” he repeats. “I just— I don’t think I’m ready yet.” 

“That’s okay too!” Seungmin assures, hands in the air in defense. “But, I just want you to know that you should think about it, and that I have things to help, or people to direct you to— books, you know. Whatever.” 

“What if you and Changbin break up?” Jisung peeks over. He’s testing Seungmin, really, just because he can. Because Changbin’s never been with someone for so long and it makes Jisung giddy. 

“Hah!” Seungmin laughs a short, loud laugh. “Changbin is sorely mistaken if he thinks he’s getting rid of me by this point.” 

Jisung smiles. Good. Changbin deserves someone that will hold on and not let him go. 

“But,” Seungmin continues, dropping the teasing lilt. “It’s fine. I’d still want to help you. I know how fucking lonely it is.” 

“So fucking lonely,” Jisung huffs, smile breaking wider. 

“God, right?” 

Kim Seungmin might be the most normal person Jisung has ever met in his life. He’s tall, handsome, he wears glasses sometimes. He’s smart, he was valedictorian, and he went to college and came back, and now he has a normal, respectable job. Seungmin is gay, and he’s sick in the way Jisung is, but he’s still normal enough. 

Acceptance, then. 

Jisung can see why Changbin likes Seungmin. 

“Do you think Felix would talk to me?” Jisung asks after some time of them both sitting quietly, lost in thought. “I want to apologize.” 

Seungmin presses his lips together, thoughtful. “Probably,” he says eventually. “Felix is a giant fucking softie. He just knows how to hold a grudge.” 

“Okay,” Jisung nods, hopeful. Maybe too hopeful for his own good. 

Jisung was going into fifth grade when he got accelerated to sixth. He remembers crying, he was sad that he had to leave behind the class he knew. His mom was proud, said that Jisung was smarter than she’d expected him to be. But, in fourth grade Jisung learned about nuclear war. 

“Hey, weren’t you in Mr. Lee’s fourth grade with me?” he blurts, the memory hitting him like a brick to the head. 

“You were in there?” Seungmin’s brow creases in thought. “Oh, shit, yeah! You were— I was. I remember.” 

“Do you remember when he told us about nuclear war?”

“Holy fuck,” Seungmin laughs. “Yes! Why did he do that? That was so fucked up!” 

“Dude, I looked up at the sky every day for like two years.” 

“Oh my god, me too. I thought I was the only one.” 

𓐆

Spring comes quick. Maybe mother nature knows that Jisung is tired of enduring the cold now that he has no one to help him warm up his hands. Either way, the flowers bloom in the pot outside of the shop, and Jisung feels better, a lot better than he has in weeks. 

He and Hyunjin have been hanging out after work, and Jeongin is there too most of the time. They make the corner booth at the diner a few doors down from the smoke shop their usual. 

They’re sitting there, Hyunjin and Jeongin on one side, Jisung on the other, the first time Jisung sees Minho again. 

“Oh, shit, is that Minho?” Jeongin asks, staring over Jisung’s shoulder towards the door. Hyunjin’s eyes grow round, he tries to smack his hand over Jeongin’s mouth but it’s much too late. “Minho!” 

Jisung’s heart stops, and then it goes again at triple speed. He manifests the nuke to drop right now, to put him out of his misery. He knows it won’t. This is just like last time, when Chan called Minho over, but much, much worse. 

It’s worse because a few days ago Jisung tried to text Minho and ask to meet up, and he got an undelivered message, the kind you get when someone blocks your number. He took it as a sign that it wasn’t time yet, that Minho wasn’t ready, that he could push it off a bit longer. Anything, really. 

But now Minho’s here, standing over their table, and he doesn’t look at Jisung at all. He acts like Jisung doesn’t exist. 

“Hey, Innie,” Minho says, raking a hand through his hair. “Hyunjin.” 

He looks good. More than good. His skin is golden, and his eyes are shadowed in a way that reads as pretty rather than tired. His hair is less rust and more brown now, but he’s still so beautiful. 

Jeongin shakes his hand, grins wide. “What is up, man? You know Jisung, right?” 

The most surprising thing of everything that happens next is not that Minho looks at him, bored, uninterested, and not that Minho says, “Mmm, no. Don’t think so.” It’s the fact that Jeongin doesn’t know. 

Jisung’s eyes dart to Hyunjin. Hyunjin looks like he wants to die too. But, apparently, Hyunjin has been keeping Jisung’s secrets. He hasn’t even blabbed to Jeongin, because Jeongin doesn’t know. Despite the sick feeling he gets from Minho ignoring him, Jisung feels warm, happy, that Hyunjin has been there for him the entire time. 

Minho ducks out when his order is called, and his eyes graze over Jisung as he waves goodbye, not sticking. 

“I’m so sorry, Jisung,” Hyunjin says as soon as Minho is out of earshot. 

“No, it’s fine,” Jisung gives a pathetic smile. “It was bound to happen eventually. I need to figure it out.” 

Hyunjin looks sad. He reaches across the table to squeeze Jisung’s hand. Jeongin looks confused. 

“Hey, Jisung, now that you’re gay you should go for Minho. He’s hot and single! And, he’s just as weird as you!” Jeongin falls back into his easy grin. 

Jisung can’t help but laugh. And then Hyunjin starts laughing too. Jeongin follows behind, even though he definitely doesn’t know what they’re laughing about. 

𓐆

Jisung goes to see Felix on a day he knows Minho will be at work. 

His hands shake when he knocks, still afraid that somehow he’s gotten it wrong, that Minho will open the door and Jisung will look crazy, like he’s stalking him to try to force him to talk. It’s not like that, he's just on his amends part of the tour. 

The lock clicks, the door swings open, and Felix is there, his face going sour immediately. 

“What the fuck do you want, Jisung?” 

Jisung shoves his hands into his pockets, willing the tremor to quit. And so he doesn’t pick at his cuticles until he bleeds on Minho and Felix’s floor. “Is Minho home?” 

“No.” 

“Are you lying?” 

“No.” 

“Okay, good,” Jisung laughs, nervous. “Can I come in? I came to see you.” 

“You came to see me?” 

“Yes.”

“Are you lying?” 

“No.” 

Felix studies him. Jisung can see the soft rise and fall of his chest, the tight grip Felix has on the doorknob. “Okay,” he says, stepping aside. 

Jisung hurries in, before Felix can change his mind. He’s led to the kitchen table. There’s already a steaming mug of tea on the surface, an open book. Felix was probably just sitting down. Jisung sits on top of his hands, hoping that it will keep the rest of him steady, even though his legs feel restless. 

Felix sits across from him, pulling his tea in. He doesn’t say anything. Jisung watches as he picks up the string on the tea bag, lifts it up and down, soft clouds of brown blooming outward in the drink. Felix still says nothing. He looks up at Jisung, expectant.

“Uh, sorry,” Jisung clears his throat. He doesn’t know where to begin, he didn’t really make a plan. “I wanted to come to apologize.” 

“To apologize,” Felix repeats. 

“Yes. For everything.”

Felix frowns. “I’m not sure what you mean, Jisung,” his voice is tinged with sarcasm. “Please, enlighten me.” 

Jisung blinks a few times, clearing his head. He thinks he might have picked up the habit from Minho. “Yeah, sure,” he begins, scooching forward a bit more, until his chest touches the lip of the table. He’s trying to hold his heart in place. “I guess, to start, I want to tell you that I’m gay.” 

Felix doesn’t react.

“And I’m not trying to say it as an excuse, and not as like, an explanation either, because I know it’s not any of that! But I just want to tell you, so that you know, because I’ve been a shitty person and I need to start being honest.” Jisung takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m sorry for what I did in high school. I’m sorry that I called you such horrible, awful things, and I’m sorry I never apologized then, or tried to make it better. And I wanted you to know that you were probably right, back then, I think I did feel the same way.” 

Felix takes a sip of his drink, still maintaining neutrality. 

Jisung swallows, continues. “And I’m really— Jesus, I need you to know I’m not expecting you to accept an apology, for any of it, but I just really needed to say it, because it’s been haunting me since it happened, and it’ll probably haunt me for the rest of my life, but I just need you to know that I’m sorry.” 

“Okay,” Felix says. “Anything else?” 

“Yes. I’m sorry about when you found me here in the morning after I stayed over. And I need to apologize to Minho too, but I wanted to talk to you first, so that when I talk to him I know everything else is in line. But I lied, and I panicked, and I know you knew I was lying, but I freaked out anyway. I know it’s not fair— for me to be like this— and to come into your house with Minho after everything I said to you. Because I’m a hypocrite, and an asshole, and I’m sorry you had to find out that way before I could tell you myself. And mostly, I’m sorry that I left you to clean up my mess— again. It’s not fair.”  

“Okay,” Felix repeats. 

“Okay.” Jisung nods. “So. Yes. That’s all, I think. Unless you want to chew me out or something, which I will happily allow, but, uh. Yeah. I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry, and I’m working on myself, and also I think I have OCD, which isn’t really relevant at all, but I guess it serves as proof that I’m working on myself that I’d admit it, and—”

Felix cuts him off, “Jisung, shut up. You always talk too much.”  

“Yep!” Jisung laughs, nervousness seeping into the air. “Will do.” 

Felix swirls his tea bag around a bit more before taking it out, letting the excess drip off, setting it aside. He stares into the swirling liquid, quiet. Jisung lets him think.

“I’m glad,” Felix says, a few minutes later. Two words, though the contraction could be separated to three. 

Jisung’s eyebrows lift, probably nearing his hairline. “Huh?” he says idiotically. 

“I’m glad you’re working on yourself.” 

“Oh, yeah! Me too.” 

Felix looks at him, stares right into his eyes. Jisung can’t maintain the contact for long before he looks down. “You can leave now.” 

“Yes,” Jisung hurries out of his chair, standing on shaky legs. “Okay, I’ll go. Thank you for listening. I appreciate it a lot.” Felix just stares up at him, doesn’t move. Jisung makes for the door. The handle is cold, his fingers wrap around it. He sees a chance, so he takes it. “Could you tell Minho that I’ll be at our spot? Every day this week. I’ll come every day, at the normal time, uh. And if he doesn’t show up then I’ll drop it, I promise. I won’t reach out again. But I’ll be there. Starting tonight.” 

“I’ll think about it,” Felix sighs, lips tight.

Jisung nearly cheers. It’s not even a surety, and yet, he’s still out of his mind with excitement. He grins, goofy and stupid. “Thank you, Felix.” 

𓐆

Minho doesn’t come to the schoolyard that night.

𓐆

Minho doesn’t come to the schoolyard the next night.

𓐆

Minho doesn’t come to the schoolyard the third night. 

Jisung likes threes because it’s it’s not too soon and it’s not too long, and if something is really not meant to happen it probably won’t happen three times by accident. By the same measure, if something is meant to happen, it will probably happen a third time, until it sticks. 

If Minho were going to come to the schoolyard, Jisung’s gut tells him he would have come by now. The third time. Not coming three times, surely, seems like a sign. 

But, then again, Seungmin would probably say the same thing about seven, and Jisung has afforded himself seven days.

𓐆

Jisung hates fours, because they’re one more than three, and the number four feels clunky and clumsy and all too many. 

On the fourth night, Jisung arrives at the schoolyard at eleven thirty nine, and Minho is on the swings. 

Jisung’s breath catches, his heart stops, and he knows Minho has fantastic hearing, because he’s experienced it first hand, so he’s not surprised when Minho looks up, sees him shuffling across the pavement. 

“Hi,” Jisung breathes, setting himself lightly into the empty swing next to Minho. 

“Hi,” Minho says. 

“I’m glad you came,” Jisung digs his toes into wood chips, steals a sidelong glance at Minho. “I missed you. So much.” 

Minho doesn’t look at him, he doesn’t respond, he just stares blankly ahead. 

“But, that’s not why I wanted to see you. Uh— god,” Jisung coughs, clears his throat, it feels like his heart is lodged in his windpipe. “I wanted to apologize. I’m so sorry, for everything. It could never be enough, because what I did to you is unforgivable, but I need you to know that I’m sorry.” 

“Okay,” Minho says. Just like Felix. This, Jisung knows. 

“And, I guess, okay— I’ll just get everything out at once and then I’ll leave you alone, but, I’m gay. I’ve come to terms with it and understood it, and I’ve probably told everyone who knows my name by this point, because I’m working on being honest. And I need you to know that I don’t expect anything from you, and I know I don’t deserve anything, and if you leave tonight and never want to see me again then I understand. I really do.” Jisung squeezes his eyes shut until he sees stars. “But I really, really like you, Minho. I’d like to try again, and even if you just want to be friends, that’s fine too, but anything. I’ll take anything, because I know I deserve nothing.” 

Minho stands up when Jisung is finished talking, and Jisung’s breath quickens. He half expects Minho to shove him to the ground. He’d deserve it. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Minho says, and then he starts walking away. A few steps later, he turns, over his shoulder, says, “I’ll be late, though. Aim for twelve thirty.” 

Jisung rises, body on fire, he nods erratically, even though Minho is looking away again already. “Okay!” he calls after him. “I’ll be here!” 

Minho lifts his hand in a lazy wave, and then he’s gone. 

Jisung’s legs give out, he’s on his knees in the wood chips, and his hands are covered in dirt, and he can’t stop smiling, laughing, his eyes fill with tears. Minho will be late, because he’s probably going to hook up with someone that appreciates him for all he is and treats him like he deserves, and Jisung can’t be mad because he was given the chance and he threw it away. But Minho is going to come back, tomorrow night. 

𓐆

“All good, Sungie?” Chan leans back from his laptop, shoves his headphones off his ears when Jisung walks through the door, still smiling stupidly big. 

“Yes,” he steps out of his shoes, shuffles across the floor.

Chan smiles at him, soft and fond. “Good. Get some rest. Love you.” 

“Love you too.”

𓐆

“Minho, right?” Jisung asks, coughing when his voice shakes. “Lee?” 

“Mhm,” Minho looks up at him, smile teasing the edges of his lips. 

“We went to highschool together,” Jisung says, because he’s committed to the bit now, and he has to make it count. “I know your name because I used to stare at you across the lunch room every day, because I thought you were beautiful.” 

“Oh?” Minho tilts his head. “But not anymore?” 

“No,” Jisung laughs, and the tremor in it is noticeable. “You’re still beautiful. I never would have plucked up the courage to talk to you in the first place if I didn’t think so.” 

Being honest with himself is horrifying. Looking back on the past, on the way he acted, mulling over the truth of it all. There’s so much there, so much that Jisung was pretending wasn’t there. And now he’s laying it all out, carefully placing down each part, for Minho to study, examine, to read him from the inside out. Vulnerable. Unsure. Human things. 

Minho’s lips curl up on the edges, Jisung can see it happen from the corner of his eye. “You’re Jisoo?”

“Jisung,” he corrects. “Han.”

Minho snorts, and Jisung’s heart kicks up, a shot of adrenaline, but not anxiety. “I know. I would stare at you across the lunch room too.” 

“Really?” Jisung breaks, looking at Minho for real. 

“Yes,” Minho says easily. “I was on the club tennis team with Lee Felix. I think you know him.” 

“I do. We kissed once.” 

“Funny how life works, huh?” 

“Everyone knows everyone in this town.” 

“It’s crazy,” Minho smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I feel like I already know you.” 

Jisung laughs, and his heart takes a rest. “I think so too. But, there’s a lot more, if you’re willing to get to know me for real.” 

“Are you here every night?” Minho asks, calm. Always so calm. 

“Most nights. My brain won’t shut up.” 

“What does it tell you?” 

“Honestly? All it’s been saying recently is that I’m lucky to have met you.” 

“Hm,” Minho hums, standing up. He stretches his arms above his head, looks down at Jisung with one eye squeezed shut. “That’s kind of gay.” 

“Very gay,” Jisung corrects. 

Minho laughs as he walks away, the sound ringing off the pavement and bricks in the yard. “See you tomorrow, Han Jisung!” he calls, and then he’s gone. 

𓐆

They meet up on most nights. Sometimes Minho is late, and something nasty punches into Jisung’s gut, jealous. He has to swallow it down, because he knows it’s not his place. Still, he feels jealous, that Minho is probably seeing other people. 

Friends. He and Minho are friends. Nothing more. Minho doesn’t flirt with Jisung, and Jisung doesn’t flirt with Minho. They meet up for an hour or two each night and talk. They’re honest with each other, they start from square one, and even though it feels regressive, and even though Jisung is still in love with Minho and desperate to touch him again, he maintains his distance, stays grateful that he has anything at all. 

He bleeds on the couch and wipes it up, and Changbin doesn’t even have to worry about it, because Jisung is already pulling out his gloves. 

He doesn’t tell any of his friends that he’s seeing Minho again, even though he’s pretty sure they know. He feels lighter, happier. Chan keeps catching him smiling on his way in, and Changbin keeps looking at him like he knows. Hyunjin and Jeongin are Hyunjin and Jeongin, but Jeongin keeps telling Jisung that he’s smiling more, and that he likes when Jisung smiles. 

Annette Funicello, Margaret Thatcher, Lilly Pulitzer. 

All three women died within twenty four hours of one another in twenty thirteen. Usually, the celebrity threes wait a few days, weeks. Always close enough to tack together but not usually on the same day. 

Jisung doesn’t care much for the work of any of them, he doesn’t even really know what each of them do, but the closeness of their deaths fascinates him. 

They probably didn’t know they’d be tied together, they probably didn’t know one another, but they’re tied together because they died in three. And Jisung is tied to them, he’s tied himself to them, even though he probably shouldn’t know their names. Three plus one. 

Thirteen isn’t Jisung’s favorite number containing three. He prefers a multiple of eleven, because that creates a string of threes, or something that can be reduced to a basic three, the purest form. 

Seungmin says that Jisung will probably think in threes for the rest of his life, that even as things get easier, the threes will linger. The thought brings Jisung a strange comfort. He doesn’t know if he should feel safer knowing that he won’t ever be rid of it completely, but he does. 

A constant. A surety. The thought of the future doesn’t seem so grim. 

𓐆

Jisung doesn’t realize that Jongmyeong has come into the shop because he and Hyunjin are laughing over some unintelligible text Jeongin sent to Hyunjin, curled over his phone. 

“Wow! It’s my lucky day!” Jongmyeong drawls. He’s alone, without his friends, and sneering, his finger waving between the both of them. “Usually Hwang runs and hides, but here he is!” 

Hyunjin stiffens beside Jisung, and Jisung moves to step in front of him, tries to shove him towards the back. He doesn’t budge. 

Jongmyeong laughs cruelly. He leans over the counter, elbows bent beneath him. “Two fags for the price of one!” 

Everything goes fast, then. Jisung is shoved away by Hyunjin, and he almost trips over his own legs when he hears a sick crack, a scream, from both Hyunjin and Jongmyeong. There’s blood, and more yelling and Jongmyeong is holding his face in agony. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you!?” he wails, blood gushing from between his fingers. “Can’t take a fucking joke!?” 

“Get out!” Jisung orders, face on fire. “Right now or I’ll call the cops.” 

“Fuck you! Both of you! Fucking— fucking fairies!” 

Jisung’s breath comes fast and heavy, he watches Jongmyeong drip blood across the floor as he flees, bell ringing on his way out. When he turns to Hyunjin, his friend’s eyes are wide and watery, he’s cradling his hand, jaw unhinged. 

“What the fuck were you thinking!?” Jisung hisses, taking Hyunjin’s hand gingerly to check for breaks. 

“I don’t know! I’m sick of him talking to you like that!” 

Jisung sucks his teeth. “I don’t think you broke your hand, but, like, oh my god, Jin.” 

Hyunjin pouts, bringing his sore hand back to his chest. His eyes glide over the mess they’ve made. Assessing. “Why the fuck did he bleed so much?” 

Jisung snorts, shoulders slumping as he looks at the damage. “I think you broke his nose.” 

“Do you know how to get blood out of carpet?” 

“What the fuck, Jisung?” Changbin nearly screams into his ear. “Did it get that bad at work? I told you that you need to bring lotion with you, I’m serious. Just because Minho is gone doesn’t mean you need to be washing your hands so much. I know it’s hard but—” 

“No!” Jisung cuts him off before he can go further. Changbin could lecture him forever if he tried. “Hyunjin broke someone’s nose, there’s blood all over.” 

“Oh,” Changbin stops. Then, a few seconds later, “What?”

𓐆

About a month into rebuilding their friendship, Minho breaks. 

Jisung has just asked him what his favorite movie is, and Minho has been restless in his swing all night, wiggling around and kicking his feet, but instead of answering, he blurts, “God, Jisung! You’re so frustrating!” 

Jisung blinks, he gapes, he didn’t think he did anything wrong. Maybe he flirted on accident? Pushed it too far? He counts to three in his head, and then to six, and then to nine. “What?” 

Minho throws his head back in agony, sighs. “You really care this much?” 

“What do you mean?” Jisung squeaks.

“About me! About being with me!” Minho is raising his voice, something he doesn’t often do. “You care enough to come sit on these stupid fucking uncomfortable swings every night and pretned you dont have my number?”

“Yes,” Jisung breathes. “Wait, you think the swings are uncomfortable?”

“Why?” Minho demands, ignoring his ask. 

Jisung frowns, his cheeks flare red, blushing. He’s always blushed so easily. Minho makes him blush so easily. “Because I like you more than I’ve ever liked anybody,” he mumbles. 

Minho throws his hands up, shoving himself off of his swing and stomping off into the lot. Jisung scrambles up to follow. “You're unbelievable!” Minho says over his shoulder. 

“I am?” Jisung is speed walking to catch up, dizzy with confusion. 

“Yes!” Minho stops all at once, sending Jisung slamming into him. Jisung can barely catch his balance before Minho is kissing him.

He makes a noise of surprise, but it goes soft when Minho brings his hands to either side of his face. Jisung melts, his hands twist into the fabric of Minho’s t-shirt, he bows in, receives what Minho gives him. 

Minho sighs pleasantly into his mouth, runs his tongue across the seam of Jisung’s lips, and Jisung thinks he must be dreaming. Minho tastes like chai, the kind he drinks after work, Jisung knows it well. Their lips slot together again and again, until Jisung is all wound up and warm, bubbling, burning underneath his skin. 

He laughs when they finally separate, when Minho holds him close, hands at his jaw, foreheads pressed together and says, “Take me on a date.” 

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” Minho grins, tips his chin forward and catches another sweet peck. “You have my number.” 

“But, you blocked me.” 

“I unblocked you weeks ago. The day you came to talk to Felix.” 

“Oh,” Jisung says, knocked dumb by the feeling of Minho’s fingers against his skin. 

“Yeah, oh,” Minho laughs, soft. “Call me?”

“Okay,” Jisung nods, smiling so hard it nearly forces his eyes shut. “Yeah, I will. I’ll call you.” 

Minho giggles, a sound Jisung has missed so fucking much that he could cry, and then he’s stepping away, moving on ditzy feet out of the schoolyard, leaving Jisung vibrating in his wake. 

“See you around, Han Jisung,” Minho calls, right before he turns the corner.

“I’ll call you!” Jisung shouts back. 

He listens, waits, soaks in Minho’s laugh as it fades off into the night. 

𓐆

Even though Minho is going to drive, he makes Jisung pick him up at the door. 

“Have him home by eleven,” Felix warns, a stern finger in Jisung’s face. 

“Okay, I will!” Jisung doesn’t know how serious he is, but he looks serious. 

Minho stomps his foot with a playful smirk and whines, “Daa-aad!” 

Nerves bubble up in Jisung’s belly as they drive. He fidgets. He’s well aware that he hasn’t been in Minho’s car since they were still— seeing each other, if that’s what he can call it. Minho peeks over, smiles, holds out his hand for Jisung to take, and then it’s all okay again. 

“You’re good, right? Not having major regrets?” 

“Oh, god, no,” Jisung rushes. “More than okay, I just feel like such an idiot that I fucked this up so bad the first time.” 

Minho squeezes his hand. “You are an idiot.”

Jisung groans, slumping against the window. “I know. I deserve that.” 

“But I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t forgive you,” Minho continues. “You have me all fucked up, Han Jisung. Everyone told me you didn’t deserve another chance.” 

“Is everyone Felix?” 

Minho’s lips quirk up. “Yes.” 

“Well,” Jisung shifts uncomfortably in his seat, he thinks his hand is getting sweaty. “He’s right.”

“Shush,” Minho scolds, smiling brightly, stealing glances as he drives. “I just told you, I’m really into you. I want to be here. If anything else comes up we’ll talk about it, communicate like adults, yeah?” 

“Okay,” Jisung relaxes, just a fraction. Then, quieter, “I really like you too.” 

Minho laughs, and the sound is beautiful. “I know.” 

The date is better than Jisung could have hoped. They hold hands walking downtown, and Jisung’s happiness overcomes his nerves. They eat dinner at the Thai place, and they kiss down by the river until they’re both laughing like idiots. And Jisung gets Minho home by eleven, just as he said. 

Their hands are tangled together, and Minho pulls him in for one more kiss, and then another, standing at the door. “Don’t you want to come in?” he whispers against Jisung’s lips, nodding back towards the apartment. 

“No,” Jisung sighs. He does, but— “I want to do this right. I really like you, Minho. So, so much.” 

Minho’s bites his bottom lip, smiling. “Okay,” he says. They kiss a few more times, just for good measure. 

𓐆

Jisung doesn’t have many friends. Three of them in total. Four if he counts Hyunjin and Jeongin as a separate entity, but Hyunjin insists that he doesn’t. 

He tells his friends after their third date, because he wanted to make sure things with Minho stuck, that Minho wouldn’t get tired of him. 

“I don’t want you guys to make a big deal out of this, but I’m seeing Minho again.” 

Hyunjin screams, Chan cries a little bit, and Changbin hugs him. Jeongin looks confused, but that’s part of his charm. 

Dating Minho is better than anything else. Jisung doesn’t get the sick, disgusted feeling in his gut when he goes home, and he always wants for more. He’s never liked someone so much that as soon as they drop him off he’s texting them, wanting to talk more. He likes Minho that much. 

One day Minho comes into the smoke shop before he has to go to work, and he stalks right up to Jisung and grabs him by the back of the neck and kisses him, full and deep, just like Jeongin had with Hyunjin all those weeks ago. 

Minho gives him butterflies, he lights Jisung on fire, makes him burn beneath his skin and feel a pinch at his gut. 

Jisung thinks the bad parts still linger. He feels ashamed, with himself, when he’s alone, and sometimes his brain works against him. He knows it will hang around, the feelings of what he was before. Minho is patient with him, and Jisung tries to be patient with himself. 

They spend a lot of time together, just kissing and talking, cuddling, but never further than that. Jisung wants Minho to know that the next time is for real, that he’s committed, before they do anything more. That doesn’t negate the fact that he wants it, he wants Minho so bad, but he loves Minho. Truly, he’s discovered, through so much extra time he’s been afforded, he loves Minho. 

He’s going to ask Minho to be his boyfriend. 

“Will you be my boyfriend for real, Jisungie?” Minho asks him first.

“No!” Jisung blurts, face running red.  

Minho blinks, incredulous, taking a step back. “What?”

“That’s not what I meant!” Jisung panics. He didn’t realize how his outburst would sound. He closes the distance between them again, links his arms around Minho’s waist. “I had it all planned out! I was going to ask you tomorrow– I—” 

Minho’s chest shakes, and then he’s bubbling over with laughter. “Okay. You can ask me tomorrow, Jisungie.” 

“Really?” Jisung grins, warm in every spot he and Minho touch.

“Yes.”

𓐆

Boyfriends. They’re boyfriends. Lee Minho is Jisung’s boyfriend. 

Jisung laid out a picnic in the center of the school yard, and he asked Minho there, at exactly twelve thirty nine in the morning, and Minho grinned pretty and bright and his eyes sparkled in the floodlights and he said yes. 

And now Jisung has been making out with his boyfriend in the middle of the schoolyard for who knows how long. 

“Will you come home with me?” Minho asks into his mouth, smiling, still smiling, neither of them can stop. 

“Yes, why?” 

“Because I want to have sex with you, Jisung,” Minho says, like Jisung is stupid for asking. 

“Oh—“ Jisung gasps, Minho’s teeth trailing down his throat. “I mean, yes. Yeah, I’d love that.” 

“Good,” Minho laughs. “I’ve been crawling out of my skin with how little you’ve been touching me. Do you know how hot you are? How pent up I am? You’re a demon, Han Jisung.” 

“What?” Jisung laughs, incredulous. “I thought you’d been seeing other people?” 

Minho pulls back, forehead crinkled in confusion. “What?” 

Jisung’s cheeks go even hotter than they already are. “Uh, like, all the times you’ve shown up late? I just assumed you were—“

“No. I wasn’t,” Minho snorts. “I was trying to make you jealous because I’m an asshole.” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah, ‘oh.’” 

Jisung smiles, giggles a little. He can’t help it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how hot and bothered you were. We could have engaged in some heavy petting or something.” 

Minho bites him, harder than necessary, until Jisung yelps. “Shut up. I appreciate taking our time. It was perfect, you’re perfect, Jisungie.” Minho kisses him again, slow and sure. “But now we’re boyfriends and I miss your dick so much it’s making me sick. So.” 

“Okay, okay,” Jisung laughs, already halfway off the ground. “Let’s go.” 

For someone who was acting like they were starved of physical and sexual touch, Minho sure is taking his time. Not that Jisung can complain, not when he’s rolling around in bed being kissed half to death. 

They lose their clothes slowly, until they’re both bare, and Jisung wants to feel every inch of his skin pressed to every inch of Minho’s. He wants to fuse them together, to never be apart. 

Minho reaches for the lube, condoms, Jisung tries to control his breathing, laying beneath him. 

“Wait!” he blurts, when Minho starts getting ready to finger himself. 

He stops in his tracks, eyes wide. “What? Is everything okay?” 

“Yes! Sorry— I just— was wondering if maybe you’d fuck me this time? If that’s something you’d want,” Jisung chews his lip nervously. “If not then don’t worry about it— but—”

Minho cuts him off with a heated kiss, sucking on his lip when he pulls away. “Yes, baby. I’d love that. Are you sure?”

Jisung relaxes, Minho’s hand soothing down his thigh, his soft voice helping tension bleed out of his muscles. “Yes, I’m so sure. I want to, so bad. I trust you, Min. I love you.” 

He didn’t mean to say it, but Minho sends his head spinning like a top and he has him so relaxed and pliant that it just slipped out. Minho pauses for a minute, but the surprise on his face is quickly replaced with a lovely grin. 

“I love you too, Jisung,” he says, so gently, and he kisses Jisung even gentler. Jisung is breaking in half with the emotion behind it. He loves this man so much, he is so in love. “We’ll go slow, okay?” 

Jisung smiles, nods, dazed. “I trust you,” he repeats. “I want this so bad. I love you.” 

Minho giggles. “I love you too, baby. Can you spread your legs for me?” 

Silly. Jisung is undeniably silly, to think he could ever belong anywhere but here, with Minho. Silly, silly, silly, that Jisung ever thought he was incapable of love, when he’s overflowing with it, dripping red from every orifice with the feeling of Minho on his blood. 

He’s tried this before, fingering himself, but it’s unequivocally better when Minho is doing it. Minho kisses him, until he’s made of putty and butterflies, and he asks Jisung if he’s ready. 

Yes, yes, of course he is! 

He’s hard, his cock weeping pre-cum onto his stomach, and Minho presses inside of him for the first time. He gasps, air stolen. 

“Relax, baby, it’s just me.” 

Jisung nods, he kisses Minho again, and again, and again. 

“Oh,” he breathes, when Minho crooks his finger, brushes something deep within him. 

Minho smiles, half cocky. “Yeah? Feels good?” 

“More, Minho,” Jisung pleads. “I can take another, please!” 

“You’re doing so well, Jisungie,” Minho coos, swiping Jisung’s hair from his face. “So good for me, my love.” 

Jisung preens, he grins, he groans when Minho goes back with two. He feels it in his core, the pleasure, something so natural and hot. He loves this, he loves being present, feeling everything. 

More, more, he’s fuller still, and Minho is rubbing against his prostate, and it’s still not enough, even though it’s so much, he wants more, fuller, deeper. 

“I’m ready,” he whines between the noises Minho is pulling from his trembling form. “I need you, please. I’m ready.” 

Minho smiles down at him so fondly it makes Jisung ache. He kisses Jisung through the emptiness of his fingers being pulled out, so that he doesn’t feel so alone. He rolls a condom on, more lube, Jisung is shaking with need, desire. This is so right. Nothing has ever felt so right. He feels a fool for denying himself something so perfect for so long. 

“Is it okay if you’re on your back?” Minho whispers, leaning down to press delicate kisses to the insides of Jisung’s thighs. “It might be easier if you turn over, but I’d really like to see you.” 

“I need to see you, Min,” Jisung laughs, brainless. “Please take me like this, I want to be close to you.” 

Minho hums, satisfied. “Okay, baby. Tell me if it’s too much, okay?” 

“Okay.” 

Minho is painstakingly careful. He goes so slow that Jisung is nearly crying out from desperation rather than pain. He holds Jisung steady with his always-warm hands and guides them together inch by inch. When he’s fully inside, he runs a thumb across Jisung’s cheek, lays a kiss to his lips. 

“Oh, Minho,” Jisung breathes, his eyes threatening to roll back into his head. 

“Is it alright? Does it feel good?” 

“It’s amazing,” he manages to look up, and Minho is there with stars in his eyes. “‘M so full.” 

Minho laughs, kisses each of Jisung’s cheeks. “I’m gonna move, okay?” 

“Please—aahhahhh!” 

The first thrust sends a warm flush of pleasure rolling across his skin. He holds tight, doesn’t hold back the noises Minho is eliciting from him, slamming into him at a steady pace. Jisung hooks his ankles together behind Minho’s hips, fusing them together further. Minho grins, he stays close, their breaths mingle, hot. 

“You feel so good, Jisung— shit,” Minho’s breathing is labored. Jisung can tell he’s enjoying this just as much. 

“You make me feel so good, Minh— oh my god!” His brain is wiped clean on every snap of Minho’s hips, replaced with scribbles and static, something indescribable. “I’m not— hhhnggh— I’m not going to last much longer,” he cries, nearly at his limit. Minho hasn’t even touched his cock, he won’t need to, it feels enough without it. 

“‘S okay, baby,” Minho says. “Me too. You’re so pretty for me, Jisungie. I can’t believe you’re mine.” 

“Yours,” Jisung whimpers, edges of his vision fading. “I’m yours. Yours.” 

He cums with a strangled moan, near a sob, body rolling through the aftershocks. Minho wraps his fingers around Jisung’s cock then, to help him through, his own hips slowing when Jisung tightens around him, still inside. 

“Fuck, Jisung— ahhh,” Minho finishes only a moment later, their lips coming together in a messy slide. Jisung can feel the warmth inside the condom, inside of him, he commits this to memory, this moment in time. 

Heavy breaths, sloppy kisses, Jisung laughs, breathy and exhausted, and Minho follows suit. 

“That was,” Minho laughs again, more solid. “Fuck, Jisung. I love you.” 

“I love you. I loved it. Oh my god.” 

“Oh my god,” Minho agrees. 

𓐆

Felix is in the kitchen when Jisung wakes up. 

“Hi,” he greets.

“Hey, Jisung,” Felix affords him a tight smile. “Not sneaking out again, right?” 

“No, no,” Jisung shakes his head emphatically. “I wanted to talk to you.” 

“Hm,” Felix pauses, spatula dripping with pancake batter. “What if I don’t want to talk to you?” 

Jisung shrugs, drops into a dining chair. “Then I came for coffee.” 

“Fair enough,” Felix says, and Jisung swears he catches the ghost of a smile on Felix’s lips before he turns back around. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About saying sorry.” 

“Yeah?” Jisung perks up. 

“Mhm,” Felix hums, nodding his head without facing Jisung. 

“Neat.” 

Felix laughs, surprised. “Neat?” He turns around then, grinning, eyes alight. A plate of pancakes is delivered to Jisung with an outstretched arm. 

“Yes?” Jisung tries not to smile too wide, in case it makes Felix feel weird. 

“Hm,” Felix’s nose scrunches. Jisung always thought that was the cutest thing, even when they were young. He wanted to be as cute as Felix. 

They sit in quiet for a while, until Felix has produced two more plates, set them on the table. He sits down across from Jisung, digs in. “You know,” he says, mouth full. “Minho really fucking likes you.” 

Jisung can’t maintain his cool demeanor after that, breaking into a lovestruck grin. “I really fucking like him too. I love him.” 

“God,” Felix sighs, but he’s smiling too. “You’ve always worn your heart on your sleeve, even back when you were being a cunt, you know? It’s kind of refreshing now that you’re not— being a cunt.” 

“I try my best.” 

Jisung lets himself hope. For this, for them. He’d like to be close with Felix again, if that’s something Felix could try. If not, he understands, but he’d like it. He likes Felix, he always has, so much. 

“Are you giving my boyfriend trouble, Lixie?” Minho’s voice floats in from the hall. Jisung warms at Minho’s mere presence. Unbelievably, insanely gone for him. 

“No. I was telling him about the one time you peed yourself during tennis.” 

Minho gasps, running across the room to fuck up Felix’s hair. When he’s fought off by balled fists and squeals, he leans over to Jisung and gives him a sweet kiss, scoots his chair over so they can sit shoulder to shoulder. Felix just rolls his eyes and acts like nothing is wrong. But maybe it isn’t. 

“Hey, you owe me, by the way,” Felix says, direct to Jisung, when they’re almost done with their food. 

“Okay, sure,” Jisung responds immediately. He’d do anything to earn Felix’s favor. “What do you want?” 

Felix smirks, half smug. “Is Chan still single?” 

“Yes, actually,” Jisung nods, eyes wide, shaking his fork at Felix. “And apparently he thinks about kissing boys in his free time.” 

“Obviously,” Felix scoffs. “I could have told you that when we were fifteen.” 

Jisung pouts. “Goddamn. I have so much to catch up on.” 

Felix leans over the table, putting on his best stage whisper, “Get me a date with Chan and I’ll forgive you.” 

“Okay,” Jisung instinctively leans further into Minho’s side. “I’ll get you a date but you really don’t have to forgive me, that’s not why—“

“Jisung, shut up for once. Get me a date with Chan and I’ll forgive you.” 

“Okay.” 

𓐆

Sometimes Jisung bothers with ‘what ifs’. 

What if he’s not gay, and hes fucked everything up again. It scares him. It scares him so bad that he figures the fear of the opposite is proof enough of the truth. 

Twinkies, cockroaches, Jisung’s grandpa. 

His mom used to joke that the only three things that would survive a nuclear apocalypse would be twinkies, cockroaches, and his grandpa. Because his grandpa was old, and he’d lived through so much, and he seemed invincible. Jisung would laugh with her, but then he’d look up at the sky. 

His grandpa died anyway, just as everyone does eventually. He and Jisung’s grandma died one day apart. Jisung thinks that he couldn’t go on without her. That the thought of not having to turn around at the end of the block to go back home was too much to bear. He wonders if their third was out there somewhere, dying alone. 

The other day, he asked Minho if he’d turn around and go back home every time they left, if Jisung asked. Minho looked confused, but he said yes, if it were really important, of course he would. Jisung kissed him silly, and Minho seemed perplexed but satisfied nonetheless. 

When Jisung is too tired at night, Minho helps him put on his lotion. Minho kisses each of his knuckles and he doesn’t say a word about the blood on the couch. Minho is beautiful, and lovely, and caring, and Jisung is so glad that he isn’t a girl. 

“Do you ever think about nuclear war?” 

Minho pulls his head up from where he’s lazily sucking marks into Jisung’s collarbone. “No?” 

“Mutually assured destruction. It’s a little bit scary, isn’t it?” 

Minho sighs, scooting up enough to capture Jisung’s lips in a short kiss. “But aren’t the scary things what make you realize how precious life is?” A kiss to Jisung’s cheekbone, the roundest part of his cheek, his nose. “Don’t you think, ‘ oh, how lucky I am to be in love with Lee Minho, the most beautiful man in the world, that the thought of nuclear war is so grim!?’”

Jisung giggles, hooking him by the back of the neck and dragging him in for a real, lingering kiss. “You’re joking, but yes.” 

“I wasn’t joking,” Minho smiles into his mouth. “That’s how I feel about you.” 

Jisung lives his life based on what he knows. Sureties, constants, things that don’t have to be figured out. Or, more accurately, things he’s already figured out on his own.

The grass is green, the sky is blue, Lee Minho loves him.