Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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Jisung

“How does that quote go?” Jisung mutters to the closest person walking down the hallway with him. “The best way to learn is under intense, life-threatening pressure?”

The person giggles and trains appreciative eyes on him. The cut of their suit and subtle make-up don’t make it immediately apparent whether they prefer to identify as a particular gender. “You like the Spider-Verse movies too?”

Jisung grins. “Yeah. Love them. Did you also cry when Uncle Aaron—"

“The most important thing—” Dr. Kim calls over the approaching hubbub. “Is to please stay out of people’s way. It’s going to be you all out there starting next week, trust me when I say you’ll understand very soon.”

And she hits the button that opens the double-doors into the Emergency Department.

Eight apprehensive new interns shuffle into the main wing of SNUH’s flagship ER, and ‘hubbub’ doesn’t begin to cover it. Jisung completed two full ER rotations as a medical student (and aced them, thank you very much) so he has been in this kind of environment before, but SNUH is special. It’s huge. It’s like its own microcosm of a city during rush-hour except the traffic is stretchers and the harried pedestrians are nurses and doctors and technicians and clerks, and alarms are beeping and blaring and conversations overlap in a dizzying cacophony and someone is shouting that they need to use the bathroom now.

Jisung’s pulse quickens with excitement, with dread, with panic, with anticipation.

He made it. He finally made it, and he’s going to get to work here for the next four years.

“Coming through,” someone calls out, and much as a school of fish would scatter around a boat so do the eight interns suddenly spring apart to allow a woman grimacing in a wheelchair to be taken into the hallway they just emerged out of, which leads to the CT scanner. Jisung notices that her skin is concerningly yellow (icterus, he notes mentally) and wonders if her liver is failing.

Dr. Kim waves for them to follow her deeper into the belly of the ER, and continues her tour.

“This is the Red Team, or Red Pod,” she gestures to the enormous space they are in, with its section of cubicles, section of back-to-back stretchers, section of patient rooms with glass doors, section of curtained procedure areas. Two big circles make up the desks with the doctor’s computers and the nursing charting area, and she leads them to the small stretch of hall between them. “The Trauma Bay is behind there, I’ll show it to you later, and the pediatric Pod is across from there, but you won’t have shifts in pediatrics until the second half of intern year. Blue Pod is down that hallway. I know some of you had in-person interviews and at least one of you rotated with us as a student—” She scans the eight twenty-somethings in suits and seems to find who she’s looking for in the tall, ethereal-looking man near the back. “But it’s important to familiarize yourselves with the layout because getting lost is not an option.”

“Dr. Kim sunbaenim!” One of the doctors gets up from the computer area and walks over to them, and she smiles at him. “Are these the new interns?”

“Yes. Everyone, this is Dr. Seo Changbin, one of your chief residents.”

There’s a chorus of greetings and bows, and as he joins it Jisung remembers reading that name at the bottom of an email about his yearly rotation schedule. Not just a senior, but a chief. A boss among his peers.

“Dr. Hwang, you probably met him during your rotation,” Dr. Kim prompts that tall guy again, and Dr. Hwang bows at Dr. Seo again, but says nothing, and his expression doesn’t change.

“I remember you!” Dr. Seo says loudly, with a genial smile. He is wearing a mask but the way his eyes scrunch makes it impossible to miss. “Hyunjin, right?”

Hyunjin nods, but still says nothing. Jisung wonders if being that attractive makes you kind of an asshole.

“Welcome guys, I’m excited to work with you. If you have any questions you can come to me.” Changbin smiles again, or more, unfazed by the new intern’s rudeness, and Jisung likes him already. “See you all at the intern welcome party—” His expression changes comically when Dr. Kim coughs. “I-I mean, the welcome dinner that is definitely not going to become a party at my place after.”

The interns titter in laughter and Jisung smiles at his Spider-Verse friend, who giggles again with bright amusement in their pretty eyes.

“Moving on,” Dr. Kim sighs, but it’s indulgent. “Let’s walk over to Blue Pod.”

They wave goodbye to Chief Seo and Jisung spots two of the female interns exchanging looks, in the universal language of unspoken acknowledgement that they are departing a hot person’s presence. He silently agrees.

The Red Pod had seemed chaotic to Jisung, but in retrospect it was its own kind of organized chaos. When they enter the Blue Pod, the noises there have an edge, and everyone seems to pick up on it immediately.

This space is smaller, the size of a volleyball court instead of a basketball one, but a very large group of people seem to have accumulated near a particular room. The glass doors are open, and Jisung spots the familiar motion of someone performing CPR on a patient.

Dr. Kim immediately strides over to assess the situation, and the school of fish that the eight interns have become follow her.

“Eun-u, pass me the IO kit…?”

“Who is keeping time?”

“Someone call respiratory, please! The ventilator is alarming!”

“I think we’re due for a pulse-check…?”

It’s a mess, but before Dr. Kim has to start sorting it a loud, clear voice takes over the room.

“All right everyone, let’s try to speak one at a time so we can all hear each other,” a man says.

He’s standing at the far end of the patient’s room, and he looks younger than Dr. Kim but his bearing and his white coat speak to his title; the man must be an attending.

“The patient lost pulses almost a minute ago, I will keep time and let everyone know when it’s time to check pulses again.” His voice carries well without him having to shout, and he looks calm. He’s making Jisung feel calm even as a woman continues to perform chest compressions on the poor patient. “Ri-ah, please call respiratory to take a look at the vent. Minho, please get ready to take over compressions. Nurse Park, please prepare a chest tube kit.”

“A chest tube?” someone from their group gasps.

The man in charge has moved on to checking the patient’s lungs with his stethoscope during a break in the CPR, and he makes a face when he’s listening on the right side.

“Chan,” Dr. Kim calls over. “You good?”

The man nods at her, seemingly noticing her and her group just now.

“New interns?” he calls, silencing the blaring ventilator alarm behind him. The CPR has resumed, but the woman performing it looks like she’s tiring out.

“Yes. Everyone, that’s Dr. Bang.”

Dr. Bang waves and walks over to a cabinet to grab something. “Hi guys! I’m going to have to needle-decompress his chest, I think his right lung collapsed which is why the vent is alarming.” He looks over the group, then points to Jisung’s new friend. “Hi! What’s your name?”

Jisung’s friend’s eyes go very wide, and they were huge to begin with.

“I’m Felix,” they say, and it’s the thickest their accent has sounded so far.

“Felix, have you ever needle-decompressed a chest before?”

Felix gapes, but to their credit quickly recovers and says: “No, but I can try.”

Dr. Bang grins behind his mask. “Grab a pair of gloves and come in, we’re going to do it right now. Myung, get him a mask please?”

Jisung notes Felix’s total lack of discomfort or displeasure at ‘him’, and figures that’s fine with him. The intern class has erupted in gasps and mutters, and Jisung feels a complicated mix of jealousy and relief that he didn’t get singled out—likely by virtue of having been standing a little bit behind Felix, who was at the forefront of the group next to Dr. Kim.

“All right, time to switch compressors, let’s do a pulse-check,” Dr. Bang calls, and the woman performing CPR steps down from a stool to let a man behind her take over. This man is wearing dark blue scrubs and Jisung can tell he is extremely fit—not that Dr. Bang isn’t, and he’s actually not as built as Dr. Seo clearly was, but… it feels noteworthy, in this case. Jisung is noting it. He’s sure the man will have no trouble going two, hell even three rounds of CPR, with those shoulders. Maybe even four?

“Felix, are you ready?”

In the time Jisung spent assessing the fit new doctor, Felix put his blond hair in a haphazard bun, has gloves and a mask on, and is positioned to the right side of the patient. The chest compressions have resumed because no pulse was found, and Dr. Bang is directing Felix on how to do a needle-decompression. Jisung wishes he could see, but it’s all happening too far inside the room and he can’t even hear what Dr. Bang and Felix are saying to each other while it happens. The doctor in dark blue scrubs is getting some of his fringe in his eyes when he pushes down, but is blinking it away without breaking his perfect rhythm.

It’s over very quickly, and Dr. Bang seems very pleased because he claps a couple of times at Felix, then listens to the patient’s right lung again with his stethoscope during another pause in compressions, then claps again.

Felix, in the suit and gloves and mask, looks pale and sweaty but incredibly proud as he emerges from the room.

The patient has a pulse during the following pulse-check, and the man doing compressions stops and steps off the stool. He’s barely even breathing hard from it. He uses his forearm to wipe at his bangs, but they fall onto his forehead and into his eyes again. His chest is subtly rising in time with his mask puffing, but it looks like he barely even broke a sweat.

“Bit of an eventful tour,” Dr. Kim says, mostly to Felix.

Felix takes his mask off and grins hugely. “Yeah.”

“He did great,” Dr. Bang says to Dr. Kim, voice warm with admiration. “Welcome to SNUH, everyone! I have to do this chest tube now but I look forward to working with you all!” And just like that he’s back in the melee that is the recently resuscitated patient’s room, and Dr. Kim is ushering them away.

*

The rest of the tour is, thankfully, far less eventful, and the group ends up taking the elevators to the 20th floor where the program director’s offices are. They all interviewed with and met Dr. Park Jin-young individually, of course, but he scheduled an introductory meeting with them as a class and is going to give them a brief lecture. Jisung likes Dr. Kim much better but she is only the assistant program director, and after ushering them into a big, well-lit conference room she takes a seat in the back and goes quiet.

Jisung makes a point of sitting next to Felix while they wait, but before he can ask him anything one of his co-interns beats him to it.

“How was it?” A handsome man with dark black hair and a stylish undercut says, leaning forward in his seat across the large oval table. “How did it feel?”

Felix smiles. “It was easier than I thought! I felt the gush of air as soon as the needle was in, like, it blew in my face—” He seems so animated, so excited, that Jisung’s earlier balance is tipping into jealous. “And that’s how I knew I got it.”

“Wow,” someone else says.

“That’s so impressive, Felix,” Jisung says. He means it, too; he can be jealous and admiring at once. “You’re so cool.”

“Thanks.” Felix smiles even bigger. He is stunning to look at, actually—beautiful in a way Jisung doesn’t think is fair for someone who also has a medical degree. He should be modeling somewhere.

“I’m Seungmin, by the way,” the handsome man says to Felix.

“Felix.”

Seungmin turns to Jisung, who volunteers his name, and they begin an impromptu round of introductions amongst themselves. Jisung resolves to study their class poster (a PDF document with their names and faces taken from their applications) and memorize everyone by the time the intern dinner comes around, after-party or no. Felix, Seungmin and Hyunjin stand out in his mind by virtue of all being ridiculously attractive, but he will know everyone.

“Welcome, intern class.”

The eight of them suddenly stand up as Dr. Park Jin-young walks into the room, and everyone bows.

“Congratulations on making it to the hardest training program in the most prestigious hospital in the country,” he goes on to say. A bit pretentiously, in Jisung’s opinion. “The next four years are going to be the hardest and best of your lives. I want to take some time to impress upon you the importance of this training, so please pay attention because I will not be repeating myself.”

*

“We’re done for the day, right?” Jisung asks Felix as they walk out of the hospital building. The lobby is a mix of patients, family members, and hospital workers in scrubs, coats and suits, but it’s early in the afternoon and Jisung still feels full of that panicked anticipatory energy that started when they walked in to the ER in the morning.

“You’re not doing your simulation lab stuff today? I heard it’s half of us today half tomorrow,” Felix responds, pulling up the schedule on his phone.

“Mine’s tomorrow.”

“Mine too,” says Seungmin, unprompted, from behind Jisung.

Jisung looks at them both. “Do you guys want to hang out?”

Felix’s smile is blinding, and Seungmin considers for a moment and then nods.

“Oh, looks like it’s us three and Hyunjin,” Felix notes, and looks around for Hyunjin, who was walking near the back of the group. “Hey, Hyunjin,” he calls him with a smile. “The three of us are with you in sim tomorrow, we were going to hang out now. Wanna come?”

Jisung’s quickly-formed opinion of Hyunjin imagines him scoffing, but he is proven wrong when Hyunjin, after a startled pause and a look of surprise, says: “Yeah, okay.”

They decide to get coffees and wander the city blocks around the hospital, blending with the suits taking lunch breaks from their office jobs.

Jisung hopes he’s about to make three new friends.

Felix

Felix is still buzzing and maybe even lightly vibrating from the excitement of his needle-decompression. He tries to pay attention to his co-interns, and succeeds to a degree, but in the background of his thoughts is a constant replay of the scene from this morning: the give of the patient’s skin, the gush of air in his face, the close warmth of Dr. Bang, the patient’s pulse coming back thanks to something he did, Dr. Bang’s approving look, Dr. Bang’s clapping, Dr. Bang’s eyes, Dr. Bang’s shoulders, Dr. Bang’s forearms—Dr. Bang’s wedding ring outline under his gloves, snap out of it Felix.

“I can’t believe Dr. Bang just pulled you in to do a procedure like that.”

Felix startles, staring at Jisung. Maybe he summoned Dr. Bang as the topic of conversation by mental force alone. “Yeah. Me neither, I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

“That was cool,” Hyunjin says quietly, smiling a little. Felix smiles back.

“Thanks, Hyunjin.”

“Doctor Bang is cool,” says Seungmin, in the tone with which someone might say ‘this water is wet’. “I heard he’s won the Best Teaching Faculty Award two years in a row, and he’s only been an attending for two years. I think I’m already starting to get it.”

“I can’t believe he could hear lung sounds with all that noise going on,” Jisung says.

“Did you work with him during your rotation, Hyunjin?” Felix asks him, dying to hear more. He hasn’t quite snapped out of it just yet, wedding ring or no.

“I did. He’s just as great as everyone says, always staying late to help his colleagues, taking care of so many patients, helping the nurses… a bit of a workaholic, I think.” Hyunjin bites his lower lip in thought, and Felix marvels at his beauty in the afternoon sun while soaking in his words, because yes, that makes perfect sense, of course that is what Dr. Bang is like. “He’s engaged to one of the General Surgeons, I’m pretty sure. A Dr. Choi?”

Okay, he knew that. Engaged is basically married.

“A man?”

Hyunjin’s smile is knowing, but not in a pitying way. He gets it. Makes Felix think he gets it gets it.
“A woman, sadly.”

Felix shoots him a similarly tinged smile back.

“Why sadly?” Seungmin asks.

“Because he’s hot.”

It’s Jisung who says it, which surprises Felix a bit. Pleasantly, of course.

“People are bisexual, you know,” Jisung adds, looking from Hyunjin to him with a pointed eyebrow raise. Felix has a feeling he is implying that he, Jisung, is people.

“Sorry, you’re right.” Feeling brave and safe in this little unit of new friends, he decides to just rip that particular band-aid off. “I like men.”

Hyunjin’s eyes dart to Seungmin and Jisung before settling back on Felix, and Felix wonders if their shared look earlier had been Hyunjin assuming this commonality was going to remain between them. Maybe he, like Felix, had made assumptions about the other two as well.

“Me too,” says Jisung. “And women.”

There’s almost an expectant silence after, but before Hyunjin can feel pressured to say anything to fill it Seungmin says: “I’m undecided,” and shrugs.

“Undecided on what? Men? Women? People who—"

“Just… undecided. And too busy.”

Hyunjin snorts. “We are about to be the busiest we’ve ever been.”

“For four years,” Jisung adds, with a panicky smile.

Felix grins, unable to contain his glee. “I know, isn’t it exciting?”

*

That night, Felix barely gets any sleep but his tiny, shitty little apartment for once is not depressing, the unpacked boxes aren’t scary, and the thought of the long commute he’ll have in the morning can’t bring him down.

He wakes up still somehow feeling full of energy and yes, a lot of nerves but he puts on his best casual outfit and grabs a banana for breakfast to eat on the bus. He calls his mom while on it and ignores the sidelong glances from fellow commuters when he starts speaking English, as they soon lose interest anyway.

“Oh my, and what does that mean?”

“It means the patient’s lung had collapsed, that’s why the ventilator was alarming! And I had to stick a needle in their chest to release the air and re-inflate the lung!”

“So you saved his life?”

Felix flushes. “I mean, I just did what Dr. Bang told me to—he was the one who realized the patient’s lung had collapsed.”

“Dr. Bang is your supervisor? You work under him?”

Oh, the work I would do under him... “I—yes, he is an attending. He finished his training, so he is going to be supervising me if we’re on shift together. My direct supervisor is my program director, Dr. Park Jin-young. And Dr. Kim Ji-a is the assistant program director.”

“Aah.” She sighs. “Felix, I am so proud of you that you did that. This Dr. Bang and you, together, you saved someone. Don’t pass off the credit. You are amazing, my love, remember that!”

Felix smiles, hit by a wave of sudden homesickness. He is reminded again of his boxes, waiting to be unpacked.

“Thank you. Love you.”

“Love you, dearest.”

When he hangs up, eyes burning with threatening tears, he notices that a new group-chat has popped up in his phone. It’s called ‘I wish Dr. Bang would bang me’, in English, and Felix lets out a choking laugh instead of crying.

There are four members.

Seungmin

Their day in the simulation center involves multiple sessions with attendings and senior residents who make sure all the interns have passable skills and a chance to practice various procedures before they start work in just a few days. They get evaluated on their suturing skills, incision and drainage skills, IV insertion skills… the list goes on. Seungmin can tell that he’s one of the best just by glancing around, which is interesting—only Hyunjin does a neater job than him at stitching up the fake plastic arm. Also interesting is that when they are asked impromptu questions about pathology it’s Jisung who has most of the answers. Seungmin knows the answers too, he just prefers to keep quiet and assess the others’ knowledge. He is pleased by his findings.

There’s a medical student joining in on the sessions too, some kid from Busan who sits quietly and politely in the back, wearing ill-fitting baby-blue scrubs whereas the four interns are all in casual clothing.

“Great, so let’s take a five-minute break and we’ll move on to lumbar punctures,” Chief Seo says. He smiles a lot. “Anyone want a shitty coffee? I’m going to go to the cafeteria.”

They all decline even though Hyunjin had muttered something about desperately needing coffee during their last session.

“Hey, what’s your name?”

Felix is asking the medical student. Felix’s smile is so soft and kind; Seungmin wonders if he’ll survive the harsh training conditions they’ve all been warned about. Will that softness remain after rotating with the surgeons and being forced to stay awake for twenty-four hours?

“Yang Jeongin, sunbaenim,” the student says, sharing a small smile of his own. Now that he looks at him properly, Seungmin can’t help noting that his facial proportions are perfect—his features almost look cartoonish, they are so sharp and symmetrical. It’s surprisingly pleasant, to stare into a face like that. Normally Seungmin doesn’t particularly enjoy looking at faces, and especially not at eyes, even though he knows it’s expected of him so he does it anyway.

“You can call me hyung, Jeongin,” Felix says.

Jeongin’s smile goes from tentative to huge, and it emphasizes his cheekbones and dimples, narrowing his eyes. Hm. Seungmin’s initial impression was correct; it truly is a perfect face, maybe the most perfect face Seungmin has ever seen in real life.

“Okay, hyu—"

“Me too.”

Jeongin’s eyes flicker to Seungmin, who—just said that too loudly.

He gets it; the air became a touch awkward, he didn’t modulate his voice like he normally does and he interrupted the student. He… forgot. He drops his gaze from those eyes, and is about to say something else (he genuinely isn’t sure what is about to come out of his mouth) when Jisung swoops in.

“Yeah, and me. We’re here to help you. You’re in your sixth year, right?”

“Yes.”

“Wah, big exam coming up! And you want to be an emergency medicine doctor?”

“I want to be a pediatrician,” Jeongin says, which makes perfect sense for some reason.

“Ooh, that’s great!” Felix exclaims. “We have a pediatric Pod in our ER too, hopefully you’ll get to work some shifts there.”

“You can call me hyung too, by the way,” Hyunjin adds, turning elegantly in his stool. He’s got his legs folded up under him somehow. “Are all your sixth year rotations at SNUH?”

“Yeah. I have Surgery after this month, then ICU.”

Seungmin blinks down at the floor. He also has a month of Surgery after this block, then ICU. He’s going to be with the same medical student for three months? The odds of that are so low.

“Are you invited to the intern welcome dinner?” Jisung asks. “You should come.”

Seungmin looks back up in case Jeongin is smiling that big blooming smile again.

He is.

*

Dr. Park (whom Chief Seo calls JYP) comes to watch over them during the last session of the morning.

Seungmin understands the need to respect his elders and to uphold the hierarchy of their medical training, but… he does not like the man. He especially does not like the way his eyes linger on Felix’s pink sweater when he comments on their ‘excessively casual attire’ as a group. It’s the first thing he does when he arrives: takes the four of them in, doubles back to reassess Felix, and appears displeased with what he finds.

“I try to be understanding of young people’s habits in this day and age, I do, but you are doctors at SNUH now. You are setting an example to students and to patients.” Well, the patients today are made of plastic, Seungmin doesn’t say. “Your appearance reflects on the hospital. The group yesterday had females in it and they were dressed more professionally.”

He looks at Felix again. Seungmin bristles, and notices Jisung and Hyunjin doing the same.

Felix is pale but stays quiet.

“Mobility during procedures is important.”

Oops. He was a bit too loud, again.

Dr. Park is looking at him, now.

“Having mobility… that’s important. Scrubs allow for good mobility, and can be easily cleaned if stained, but the email said not to wear scrubs to the simulation center today. We did not have any other instructions.”

Dr. Park looks like no one has ever talked back to him in his entire life. Maybe that’s the case.

“The day was described to us as procedural practice. Comfortable clothing—”

“That’s enough, Dr. Kim.”

He is angry, Seungmin can tell. He made his program director angry on the second day. His medical student self, with his perfect report card, would be considering self-immolation right now if he found out.

For some reason, it feels easy to discard his past self’s hypothetical feelings on the matter when Felix’s feelings are so clearly on the line.

Chief Seo is frowning at Dr. Park. “I think Seungmin has a good point,” he says firmly. Relief floods Seungmin at the backing from someone senior. “If there are specific clothing guidelines you require I will include them in the next chief email. Please provide me the details so I can inform the interns, since they were not aware there was any particular dress code today.”

Dr. Park still looks angry but seemingly chooses not to get into an argument with his chief resident in front of them, so they manage to move on to practicing sterile gowning procedures, their last task of the day.

A nurse from the surgical department has come to demonstrate the practice, which is a two-person activity. She uses Dr. Park as her assistant, ordering him about this way and that, much to the interns’ gratification.

Felix and Jisung pair up, and Hyunjin turns to Seungmin with a questioning look but Seungmin’s mouth, already on an anarchic spree today, does something else unexpected.

“Jeongin, come assist me so you can learn.”

Jeongin jumps up from his chair and walks to him, eager. “Yes, sunb—hyung.”

Seungmin has put on sterile equipment before, so he shows Jeongin how to hold the right part of the gown and then spins around to get wrapped in it. The spin makes him a bit dizzy (probably because he didn’t eat breakfast) and the dizziness gets paired with a bout of unpleasant palpitations just as Jeongin is carefully tying him in.

“The… the top, too,” he manages, palpitations worsening for several seconds while Jeongin walks around him to tie the gown around the nape of his neck.

The backs of his fingers brush Seungmin’s skin and Seungmin contemplates saying something to the group about the fact that he is clearly having some sort of hypoglycemic episode, because he genuinely feels like he’s going to faint. Is it more embarrassing to warm people and end up not passing out, or to drop to the floor out cold?

Out of the corner of his vision he sees that Hyunjin ended up getting assisted by Chief Seo, who good-naturedly holds his sterile gown tag while Hyunjin does a slow spin of his own.

“Good job, Hyunjin,” Chief Seo says.

Hyunjin finishes the turn and goes still as a statue, and says nothing in return.

Seungmin’s dizziness eases (Jeongin finished and has retreated backwards a few paces), and eventually he decides he will not be passing out after all. He definitely needs to eat soon though.

Hyunjin

“That man is a dinosaur,” he says with feeling.

Felix winces. “Thanks, Hyunjin.” His accent is adorable, and seems to become more pronounced when he’s feeling a strong emotion, which includes right now.

“I’m so glad you said something, Seungmin,” Jisung adds, even though he just put a dumpling in his mouth and the effect of his speaking with full cheeks is rather ridiculous. “I’m sorry I didn’t,” he adds to Felix. “I should have.”

“Me too,” Hyunjin admits. “I’m sorry, Felix.”

Felix is shaking his head. “He didn’t even say anything to me directly. Don’t—don’t worry, it’s fine.”

Hyunjin purses his lips. They all heard what JYP didn’t say to Felix.

They went out to lunch together after their long morning of sessions, and ended up at a hole-in-the-wall dumpling place a block away from the hospital campus that Jeongin, of all people, had recommended. It’s not bad.

“I wonder if there’s a way to report stuff, if he keeps being shitty—oh hey! Seo Changbin! Sunbae!”

Hyunjin’s pulse jumps just as Jisung does, abruptly standing and waving through the window at Changbin, who just walked past their restaurant.

“Sunb—he can’t hear me.” Jisung drops his chopsticks and rushes out the door, and Hyunjin almost cries out ‘Don’t!’ but that would be weird, and he can’t do that.

Sure enough, a minute later Jisung comes back with their chief in tow, looking very pleased. So do the others; Felix smiles that beautiful smile of his, Seungmin seems happy, Jeongin grins.

Hyunjin should smile too, or it’ll stand out. But he doesn’t… he can’t, and he doesn’t know how to act.

“Hi guys!”

They give him little half-sitting bows and he sits with them, in a stool Seungmin pulls up—which puts Changbin right between him and Hyunjin, and squeezes them tightly together. Changbin is just as broad as he remembers, and he can only hunch his shoulders so much but it’s not like the sheer bulk of his delts and biceps can be compressed.

“Good to see you here. How are you guys feeling? Orientation week is exciting, right?”

They all nod happily, even Jeongin who is just rotating through and ostensibly along for the ride.

“I’m very glad we ran into each other, actually. I want you guys to know that I’m here for you for whatever, okay? I mean it.” He glances at Felix, and his smile doesn’t drop but there’s a steel to his undertone that is hard to miss. “I’m here to watch out for you, and help you, and advocate for you. That’s what it means to be chief.” The steel drops away: “And I also control your schedules, so you all need to suck up to me lots.”

They laugh, and Jisung makes some crack about what kind of dumplings Changbin wants and can he order them for him.

Hyunjin remains silent, and focuses on his breathing.

He hates this. Hates having to focus on control—this never happens to him. He feels so… affected. By what? The brush of a bicep? Fuck Changbin. He’s clearly fine. They are both adults and they will be working together for at least a year, more if Changbin stays on at SNUH as an attending. Changbin is acting totally chill. Hyunjin… can be chill. He normally is, he’s not sure why he’s finding it so damn difficult right now.

“Hyunjin. Hyunjin,” Jisung is waving his hand in front of his face. Hyunjin startles.

He never spaces out.

“Sorry, I have a headache.”

“I was just asking if you wanted another round of food.”

“No.” He sees Jisung note his blunt tone with displeasure. He can’t help it. He can’t—“I’m going to go splash my face, actually. Be right back.”

He shifts away from the pressure of that damn deltoid digging into his arm and stands, almost stumbling over his chair as he makes his way to the back of the restaurant, down a narrow hallway to the bathroom, away, away, away.

He should have predicted what happens next.

The whole point is that he wasn’t thinking straight, though. Hasn’t been thinking at all.

“Hyunjin.”

Oh he’s so dumb. Stupid dumb airhead Hyunjin; who let him graduate medical school?

Hyunjin’s hand is still on the knob of the single-stall bathroom when Changbin calls his name again from the hallway. “Hyunjin, can I talk to you for a minute?”

Instead of answering, he opens the door and goes directly to the sink to splash his face like he announced he would, and he hears the creak and thump of Changbin following him inside and shutting the door behind himself. A twinkling, innocent sound gives away that he also locks it. If any of the others comes back to use the bathroom—

“Is… is this okay? I’m sorry.”

There aren’t any paper towels.

Hyunjin stands up straight and looks at Changbin under the overbright bathroom lights, knowing what he probably looks like right now: deranged, with shuttered eyes, a shining face, clumped lashes, still gorgeous because he knows he is, but very much on the ‘wet cat’ end of the spectrum. Not how he was hoping their first one-to-one conversation would go. Not that he was hoping for a one-to-one—

“You want to talk right now,” he says.

“I don’t have your number.”

Hyunjin scoffs. “Yes you do, you’re a chief. You have all of our numbers, and our emails, and our home addresses.”

Changbin frowns. “I wasn’t going to use my position as chief like that. You didn’t give me your number.”

Hyunjin wouldn’t have thought twice about doing that in his shoes, he thinks dispassionately. “Okay, well…” turns out he doesn’t know what to say. “What. What would you have said. What do you want to say.”

Changbin shrugs. “That we should talk about it. Clear the air, so to speak.”

“…Clear the air.”

“Yeah.”

Hyunjin waits him out, skepticism dripping from his every pore. Also some water.

Finally, Changbin makes a cute little face. “I mean, we both thought you’d be going to Asan Med. Obviously I never would have… we had no idea you’d be my intern.”

My intern. You’d be my—

“Okay. And here we are.” He sounds angry, he knows he does. He also knows it’s not fair to Changbin that he’s being such a bitch to him, since they are facing a year of close contact ahead and acknowledging what happened seems reasonable with that prospect in mind. No, he knows who between the two of them is being unreasonable right now.

And yet.

“…Okay. I take it you have nothing to say?” Changbin says it so kindly. Then, to add insult to injury he adds: “Which is fine, by the way. I get it. I heard you loud and clear last time, when—” he chuckles. “I heard you. We can just act like it never happened.”

Hyunjin nods. “Okay.”

“Um. Okay. I… promise I’m going to treat you like the others. I will do my best to be totally impartial.” He grins. “That means you can’t complain if I put you on a night shift here and there.”

Hyunjin clenches his jaw.

“I would never complain about that.”

“Right, right. That was a joke.”

I know, Hyunjin wants to say. I’m sorry I’m being such a piece of shit, you’re being so nice to me, he wants to say. You were nice back then, too. It’s been nine months, people create life in that time, isn’t that crazy? Some cells become a baby, and in the time I’ve been away from you I became a doctor. And now I’m here and I’m your intern and you’re here and I can’t be a fucking person around you, apparently, and I—

“Okay, Hyunjin. I’ll go back out there.” He nods. “Glad we… cleared things up.”

He leaves and Hyunjin just stands there, drops of water pooling at his chin and falling onto his chest once in a while, and he’s breathing way faster than that nothing of a conversation warranted.

Nothing feels clear to him at all.

Jeongin

He picks the seat next to Seungmin on purpose but then sort of regrets it because they dim the lecture hall lights, and that does not lend itself to thoughts that are appropriate in a formal academic setting.

It’s a massive theatre; the biggest lecture hall in the hospital, to fit all the starting interns from every specialty: emergency medicine, but also surgery, internal medicine, pediatrics, anesthesia, psychiatry, and on and on. The chair of the department of internal medicine is giving some speech about hospital-wide unity and work ethic, and is reinforcing the principles of excellence of care that SNUH prides itself on… snore.

Seungmin is so much more interesting to look at, if only the lights weren’t so dim. Jeongin could focus on looking, instead of imagining.

He’s not sure what it is about him that makes Jeongin so… attracted. He can see that Felix is incredibly pretty, and Jisung is somehow both hot and cute and grabbable, and Hyunjin should be on a runway right now, and that chief—but Seungmin makes Jeongin’s palms itch. He has looked at men before, but it didn’t feel like this. He thought about biting his neck yesterday. Not kissing—biting it. When he was tying that flimsy gown and Seungmin swayed a little bit like he was lightheaded Jeongin didn’t think: ‘oh no is he feeling okay?’ he thought ‘if I bit him on the neck really hard he’d cry out, what would it sound like?’.

“… which is why you represent SNUH wherever you go, in and out of hospital grounds. And that is important to remember. Our reputation is untarnished, we are counting on your to carry it forward.”

On his other side, Jisung scoffs lightly and Jeongin gets why. This part of the speech is starting to sound too close to JYP’s cut-off rant yesterday about ‘appearances’. Seungmin had been so brave and cool, standing up to his boss like that. His eyes had flashed with defiance, his posture had been so aggressive in that chair, his shoulders tense. God, the way he’d even been breathing a little hard, angry like that—there’s a weird urgency to Jeongin’s want. He just wants to taste it so bad. Just to try it, he’s never been with a guy before, surely just trying it a little bit wouldn’t hurt. He has no idea if Seungmin is into men, but he’d make it good, he’d figure out ways to make him feel good, he wouldn’t stop until Seungmin felt amazing, and maybe then Seungmin would let him bite his neck like he cannot stop thinking about doing, just once, God, please—

“Jeongin, this shit is useless and you’re not gonna learn anything,” Jisung mutters to him.

Jeongin stops breathing for a second. He really needs to calm down a lot.

“Do you wanna leave? We have to be here, you don’t.”

He senses Seungmin looking at them from his other side, and waits to answer while Seungmin leans into his space a little (oh God oh God) to speak to Jisung.

“We can’t dismiss the med student, Jisung. Only a chief or an attending can do that.”

“Who is even keeping track of the fact that he’s here? It’s only us interns here. This is literally a room full of interns. All the interns in the hospital,” Jisung whispers back.

He can see enough of Seungmin’s face now to see that he is not appeased by this logic. He’s so close; his shoulder is digging into Jeongin’s, and his neck is literally right in front of him, extended like he’s freaking taunting him with the stretch of skin Jeongin is not allowed to bite.

“We don’t know that. We can’t be overstepping on our first week.”

“You talked back to our program director on our second day!” Jisung retorts, but it’s admiring, like a compliment.

Seungmin hangs his head, which puts his mouth that much closer to Jeongin’s crotch, which brings up another idea—

“I want to stay,” Jeongin says. Jisung is right, that there is nothing useful or educational about listening to some old department Chair rant about the sacred medical oath and his good old days, but there’s a non-zero chance they could run into an attending or one of the chiefs, and anyway there’s only an hour of lectures left before the day is over.

“Okay, up to you.”

From Seungmin’s other side, Felix waves at him. Apparently he’s been eavesdropping. “You’re still coming to the welcome party right? I mean dinner.”

It’s Jeongin’s turn to lean towards Seungmin, who leans back in parallel and for a second they are moving exactly in sync, until Seungmin’s back hits the back of his chair and Jeongin’s forward movement is stopped by the armrest separating them digging into his tummy.

“Yeah, I emailed Chief Seo and he said it was cool. Apparently the whole department is coming—” he can’t resist pushing against the armrest just a little, leaning his torso a little further forward. Seungmin smells amazing, some sort of spicy soap Jeongin wants to lick off of him. “Not just the doctors, but the nurses and technicians and clerks and stuff.”

“Nice, that’s great.” Felix gives him a thumbs up, so cute. Jeongin thumbs-ups him back, and as he does his elbow brushes Seungmin’s arm, which gets wrenched back with a force that is upsetting.

Just once, please? He thinks, settling back in his seat. Please I want it, let me try it, let me just try it once and then I’ll leave you alone, promise.

Seungmin scratches his own neck and Jeongin chews on the inside of his cheek, both of them staring straight ahead. Jeongin has no idea what that man on stage is talking about anymore.

Felix

After the comments from JYP at the simulation center, Felix scraps his original outfit plan for the intern welcome dinner on Saturday. He wants to make a good impression, and he doesn’t want to stand out; it’s upsetting, but he knows he’d be more upset if he was singled out or shamed for wearing something too feminine. Doesn't matter that most idols these days wear a full face and lots of jewelry, the medical world has a lot of—he smiles to himself at the memory, ‘dinosaurs’, as Hyunjin called them.

Unfortunately, having to put a new, more acceptable outfit together means confronting his boxes, and he’s been putting that off all week so he finds himself still undecided by midday on the day of the event.

A notification from ‘I wish Dr. Bang would bang me’ shakes him from his dark thoughts, as they have been wont to do since Jisung created the group chat.

what are peeps wearing tonight

It’s Jisung.

I also need help, Felix sends.

omg can I come over

pls im desperate I know it’s like 5 hours away but pls

Heart so light it floats up to his throat, Felix types: Y E S

*

Turns out both Jisung and Hyunjin end up in his apartment, and Felix finds their attempts at positive thinking… very kind.

“It’s cute,” says Jisung, not looking him in the eyes. “And just think of how easy it will be to block off light when you’re on night shifts! With just… you know, that one little window.”

“It’s cozy,” Hyunjin says fiercely. Almost aggressively.

Felix loves them already, the way he loved Seungmin when he spoke up for him. “Thanks, guys. I…” he swallows. “I’d rather save up for a plane ticket home, you know?”

“Home is Australia, right?” asks Jisung. He plops himself in front of a box labeled ‘CLOTHES’ in English, either by chance or because he can read it. He starts unpacking. “When did you move to Korea?”

“Oh, just two months ago. I mean, I’ve been to Seoul a bunch growing up, but… yeah, the move was just two months ago, for my training. I did my medical school in Australia.”

“Oh wow!” says Hyunjin.

“That’s so amazing!” says Jisung, in English.

Felix cries out. “Hey! You speak English?”

Jisung laughs, shaking his head, and switches back to Korean immediately. “No, no, just a tiny bit.” He takes out a bunch of Felix’s pajamas. “These look comfy.”

They sort through his boxes for a while. Turns out Jisung has only brought two outfit choices, so it’s a pretty easy decision and Felix and Hyunjin unanimously vote for the more slim-cut dark brown suit with a pearly white shirt underneath. Jisung’s waist is something else, and the suit tapers nicely to his narrow hips.

“What are you wearing?” Felix asks Hyunjin.

“A suit,” Hyunjin responds breezily, going through a bunch of socks in the box labeled ‘SOCKS AND SHOES’. “A black one. I’ll show you in a bit.”

Felix’s original suit choice had been a light blue color that he thought went rather well with his complexion and dyed-blond hair, but now he needs to find something more sober. Something… brown, or black, or grey—

“Ooh, I found the right box!”

Jisung pulls a collection of neatly folded dressy shirts and then pulls out the suits that Felix’s mom dutifully piled up underneath them. He has resigned himself to some creases due to not having time to properly launder the pieces, and that’s just something he’ll have to live with.

“I brought a steamer,” Hyunjin says, eyeing Felix’s expression.

Felix’s jaw drops. “Can you read minds?”

Hyunjin smiles and doesn’t answer, and Felix suddenly is so curious to hear how someone with a face made to star in dramas ended up in medical school.

“Okay so the color options are gorgeous?” Jisung says, laying them out. “I like the white one so much.”

“I wore my only black suit on Monday, when we had the tour and the meeting.” Felix bites his lip. “Don’t you think the white will stand out too much?”

Hyunjin and Jisung both look at him, then at each other, and Felix almost wants to take it back.

“I like the white, but this wine-colored one is good too, and a bit more… traditional. Wow you brought four suits? I gotta step up my game.”

“My mom was worried there would be a lot of events.”

“She wasn’t wrong, there are a lot of events.”

Felix walks over to the burgundy suit. It has black lapels and it fits him well, he knows—women’s suits tend to hug his waist better. The cream-colored shirt that goes with it also has some burgundy detailing that is not… traditional of a man’s—

“Felix, I think you’ll look amazing in this,” Hyunjin says, interrupting his train of thought.

Jisung nods vigorously. “Seriously, try it on at let us see. And then do my make-up for me, please.”

It’s the latter request that makes Felix smile and agree to the former. He hears what Jisung didn’t say: ‘I’ll be there with you. We’ll be in it together’.

They both look at Hyunjin, who shrugs. “What? I don’t need help, I do my own make-up, thanks.”

Chan

The welcome dinners have been hosted at the same banquet hall since Chan was an intern. Supposedly the hospital must have some sort of deal with them. It’s also tradition that the rowdy residents (joined by some of the nurses) will not end the night there, but Chan isn’t supposed to know about that part, now that he’s an attending himself. It makes things a bit strange, because he still remembers when Changbin, San and Wooyoung were his interns, and he was their chief resident. They have told him multiple times that he has an exclusive open invitation to resident-only debauchery, but Chan refuses to hang out with them in those settings. He’ll seek the three out as individuals, but he will not crash the resident-only debauchery ever again; it’s not his place anymore.

“Dr. Bang, hi.” Chan looks up from his dinnerplate to find Seri standing at his shoulder. She’s a third-year resident. He’s pretty sure she has a crush on his fiancée, which is adorable. “I-I’m sorry to interrupt your dinner, I just wanted to ask… is your wife coming tonight?”

Chan smiles, and hopes it doesn’t let any hint of strain through. “Dr. Choi Nari is not my wife yet,” he says, and might imagine the relief on Seri’s face, but probably not. “And sadly no, she is working tonight. A 24-hour call shift, actually.”

Seri puts a hand to her mouth in sympathy for Chan’s not-yet-wife. “Oh, I see! Sorry to bother you.”

She bows and leaves before Chan can say anything else, and Changbin, who is sitting next to him, says: “Seri is like… in love with Nari, right? It’s not just me?”

Wooyoung chokes on the water he’d just sipped from Chan’s other side, and San starts patting his back without looking up from his own meal.

The three of them are hard to shake. Seems like the chiefs regress a little bit around Chan—and they never let him sit with the other attendings at formal dinners.

“I’m just saying, it is noticeable.”

“She always says ‘wife’ so that you can correct her and say ‘not yet’,” San tells his noodles. “Which has been going on for two years and counting, by the way.”

But the three of them know better than to let the topic linger on Nari or their never-ending engagement for too long.

“Anyway, I hung out with some of the interns the other day,” Changbin says. “They seem cool, but the class has already sort of split in two.”

“Sim day groups?” Wooyoung asks, recovered.

“Hah, yeah.”

“Happens every year.”

“Which four did you hang out with?” Chan hears himself ask.

“Oh, um Seungmin, Felix, Jisung and Hyunjin.” He smiles. “Jisung basically chased me down the street. They are a sweet group, already feel tight-knit and protective of each other. JYP was an asshole during the sim and Seungmin basically called him out before I could.”

Chan frowns at him, then glances at the third rectangular table where most of the departmental leadership is sitting, which puts Dr. Park about as far from them as he can be in this massive room. “What did JYP do?”

Changbin rolls his eyes. “He reprimanded them on their appearance like, the second he walked in.”

“Their appearance at the sim lab?” San asks, snorting. “I think I wore swim trunks there once because I hadn’t done laundry, and no one said anything.”

There’s an uncomfortable silence, and somehow Chan knows. He can’t put faces to the names of the other three, but he remembers the fourth so vividly and he knows exactly the kind of problem an asshole like JYP might have with him.

“Tell me,” he grunts at Changbin. “Say it.”

Changbin squirms and sighs, and he looks angry and upset too, but not… enough. Not the way Chan is starting to feel, a wave that is building and building as he waits.

“One of the interns, he was… it was a completely appropriate work-casual outfit. But. He’s.” Changbin squirms again. “It was pretty obviously a woman’s sweater, pink, and his hair was down—”

Chan is standing.

He blacked out during the two seconds it took him to actually bend his knees, transfer his weight forward and push the chair back; all he knows is that he was sitting and now he’s standing and the screech of the chair scraping back is ringing in his ears. And other people’s ears, actually; several guests are looking at him.

“Chan.” Changbin, alarmed, stands too, and immediately latches onto his arm. “Chan, the fuck? What are you doing?”

San and Wooyoung are staring up at him in utter confusion, and Chan is… Chan is a bit confused too, because what he is doing is preparing to walk over and punch JYP in the face, right in front of all these people, and it’s something he’s wanted to do for years but he didn’t wake up this morning imagining that tonight would be the night.

“Chan, sit down.”

Changbin is really fucking strong but nothing will stop Chan. Nothing. He takes a step and then he sees him.

Him.

The intern, the be—blond one that did the needle-decompression with him; the source of his fury, not the target of it.

Felix.

He’s one of the people that noticed Chan’s abrupt move. He’s sitting at the opposite end of the next table over, and he’s looking at Chan with wide, beau—big eyes.

“Chan, sit,” Changbin hisses again. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you but this is getting weird, man, I’m not letting you throw away your career? Sit. Down.” He wrenches him back down and Chan hasn’t looked away from Felix yet so he’s distracted, that’s why—he finds himself thumping back down in his seat, and thinks—I shouldn’t do it in front of Felix. I can wait. I will wait.

“Um. The fuck?” says Wooyoung. “I’m upset too, but what the fuck were you going to do about it now? Yell at him in front of everyone? The program director?”

I was going to punch him, actually, Chan thinks, and when has he ever resorted to violence? Even once in his life?

For some reason he suspects Changbin knows exactly how close they came to a lot worse than ‘yelling at him in front of everyone’.

“Okay, well, Seungmin spoke up about it, and so did I, and I have added the incident to the List,” Changbin says pointedly. The List is their compendium of things they are hoping will oust JYP from his position one day. “So action is being taken. Please meditate on that for the next couple of minutes so I don’t have a heart attack, thanks.”

Chan stares down at his plate and attempts to do that, because Changbin is very smart and he usually tries to heed his advice. Unfortunately he only ends up with: JYP made Felix feel bad, so he needs to punch JYP. Two plus two equals four. JYP needs a punch, from Chan’s fist, as soon as possible, preferably now but Felix shouldn’t have to see it, so maybe later—

He's trapped in a pretty gnarly loop when a finger tentatively taps his shoulder.

“Hi. Dr. Bang?”

Oh.

Felix is wearing make-up.

Nari thinks it noteworthy, that Chan can tell when she does and when she doesn’t; she used to joke that men couldn’t do that. But he’s always been able to, ever since his sisters started doing it. And he can tell now; Felix has a sparkly brown eyeshadow on, and eyeliner, and he thinks some mascara too, because his lashes look very long and lush.

He has freckles. Chan missed this when they did the needle decompression together, even though they stood so close, he didn’t realize—

“H-hi.”

Something twists in Chan’s chest—twists so far it snaps, possibly.

“Um. I’m so sorry to bother you—"

“H-hi. Hi Felix!”

He leaps to his feet, not unlike the way he did before, awkward and only slightly less violent, his heartbeat skyrocketing.

“It’s so good to see you again!” Is he yelling? Is this a normal tone of voice to employ in a crowded banquet hall? “How are you? You are not a bother.”

“Oh, um thanks.” Felix smiles. He dusted something shiny under his lower eyelids that sparkles silver when his eyes scrunch up in the gesture. His freckles are everywhere; over the bridge of his nose, his cheeks, his temples, his beautif—big eyes, God just—everywhere, are they—"I just wanted to thank you. For the other day. For letting me do the procedure.”

“Oh.” Chan smiles back at him. “Oh my goodness, of course.” And then, because he heard something in that accent that made him ache. “Are you… from Australia, by any chance?”

Felix’s mouth drops open in surprise, and Chan—"Yes. How did you…?”

“I am too!”

“No way!”

They grin at each other, and the temptation to switch to English is there, but they have a little audience in Changbin, San, and Wooyoung, not to mention it appears Felix’s co-interns are staring at them from their table.

Chan claps him on the shoulder and immediately regrets it. “We should talk sometime.” No. No, they shouldn’t. “I have to hear your life story! Congratulations on making it to residency at SNUH, that can’t have been an easy journey.”

Felix’s eyes warm at the acknowledgement and he nods. “Thank you. It, uh, was hard. I am very grateful to be here. And grateful to you,” he brings it back around, bowing at Chan. “Uh, so yeah. That’s all I wanted to say.”

“Well, you are very welcome, but you did all the hard work. That patient is still alive, by the way.”

“Oh I am so glad to hear that!”

A huge, blinding smile, and Felix leaves.

Chan watches him walk away (his hair is half-up in a messy bun-braid, the waist of his suit is cinched) and then sits back down hard, as if Changbin had shoved him again although he didn’t.

There’s a beat of silence, and then Wooyoung coughs delicately.

He can sense Changbin looking at him.

“What. In the fuck was tha—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Seungmin

The fact that there is free-flowing alcohol at these things seems a little ill-advised to Seungmin.

He was already being careful to keep up his water intake but then Felix gets back from talking to Dr. Bang and he gets distracted preventing Felix from gulping down the contents of not only his, but also Seungmin’s and Hyunjin’s glasses all in one go.

“Okay, okay, take it easy, Felix,” Jisung says when Felix starts reaching for his own.

But something seems to have happened during Felix’s little expedition that their eavesdropping and blatant staring did not make immediately apparent.

“He’s Australian, Jisung,” Felix groans in explanation to Jisung, as Jisung tugs his own glass away. Seungmin fails to see how this is as devastating a piece of information as it sounds. “He’s Australian.”

“…Okay.” Hyunjin exchanges a look with Seungmin. “And so are you?”

“Exactly!” Felix sighs, and calms down, but now he just looks sad. “And his nose.” He sighs again, absolutely miserable-looking.

“His nose is… big?” Jeongin asks, like he’s next up in a pub trivia contest.

Felix looks at him and smiles. He seems a bit intoxicated already, his freckled cheeks pink with more than blush. “Exactly,” he says again. “You’re so adorable, Jeongin-ah. Can I call you Ien-ah?”

“Sure, hyung.” Jeongin smiles, his big smile, the dimpled one. He seems pleased to have gotten it right, and also pleased by the nickname. “You think I’m adorable?”

It’s an objective fact, that Jeongin is adorable. And cute. And beautiful. Seungmin doesn’t feel any particular way about it, but those are the facts. Before he can inform Jeongin of this, Jisung and Hyunjin are rushing to support Felix’s statement.

“The cutest!”

“The sweetest smile!”

“You’re soooo cute Ien-ah!”

Seungmin looks down at his own chest. He’s a bit concerned to note that the dizziness and palpitations from the other day have come back. He’s eaten, so it can’t be a hypoglycemic episode after all. Is he anemic? Should he get his thyroid checked?

The night goes on, however, and he keeps getting random bouts of similar symptoms but it never amounts to more. The almost-passing-out feeling he had at the sim lab doesn’t return either, so Seungmin decides that this is not unbearable and he can probably just push past it—there’s a reason doctors make the worst patients, he supposes.

He puts in effort to make conversation with the rest of the intern class; he hates making conversation but it seems premature to divide their class into two social groups of four, so he talks to Jiwoo, Sooah and Harin, the women in the group. They are all very nice and so is the tall guy, Jung. They talk about their respective medical schools for a while and about how apparently Jiwoo is from Busan too; she keeps looping Jeongin on their conversation. She puts a hand on his shoulder to do it, which seems unnecessary because she is sitting next to him. Sometimes it’s hard for Seungmin to tell when someone is being kind versus when they are flirting, but he’s pretty sure Jiwoo is flirting with Jeongin. And if Seungmin can tell, then it must be pretty heavy flirting.

“Seungmin.”

His stomach rumbles; the food isn’t sitting too well with him. He can’t leave yet though, he understands the importance of the rite of passage that is tonight. Dynamics will be established here that will likely continue throughout their residency.

“Seungmin.”

He turns to look at Hyunjin, who is looking at Felix.

Seungmin looks at Felix too, and realizes his mistake. In focusing on the other interns and Jeongin, he neglected Felix for too long.

Turns out that while silently sad, Felix somehow managed to sneak quite a few drinks, by the looks of him. He’s blinking slowly, humming a little to himself, and his face is very red, particularly high on his cheekbones.

“I…” Seungmin glances at the table with their director and Dr. Kim. This is not a good look; they can’t let the higher ups see Felix like this. “He… someone has to take him home.”

Hyunjin nods. They exchange looks, and then Hyunjin sighs. “I’ll do it. I know his address, I can—”

“Hey guys!”

They both startle at a booming greeting from none other than Chief Seo, who has popped up by their table as if by magic, right behind Hyunjin.

“Sunbaeee,” Felix slurs, smiley and clearly tipsy. “You were sitting next to Dr. Bang.” His accent sounds so thick when he’s drunk. “Dr. Bang’s’sssooo nice… d’you know we named our groupchat after h—mph?”

Seungmin has put a hand over his mouth.

“Hello sunbae. How is it going over by your table?” he asks, since Hyunjin seems to have frozen and lost his ability to speak.

“It’s good.” Chief Seo’s sharp eyes are on Felix, who became sweetly mute after Sungmin put his hand on him, and is sitting still and pliant in his grip. “Just wanted to check in.”

Jisung, returning from the bathroom, takes in the scene.

“Sunbaenim, hi.” He eases himself into the empty chair next to Hyunjin, smiling up at the chief. “Uh, what’s up?”

“You tell me.”

He’s all but saying it. Someone has to acknowledge this, since Hyunjin is suddenly mute for some reason.

“Hyunjin’s going to take him home,” Seungmin says. “We’ve, uh, got it covered.”

The Chief looks down at Hyunjin, frowning. “You’re going to miss the pre-residency event of the year? That doesn’t seem fair.”

Hyunjin doesn’t even look up at him in acknowledgement, just nods.

“Nah, I’ll take him,” Chief Seo says. “Tell me his address, I’m sober. I’ll borrow Chan’s car.”

At the mention of ‘Chan’, Felix makes a small noise.

“Someone needs to stay with him,” Seungmin says. He’s pretty sure Felix just kissed his palm a little, and also people are starting to notice that he has his hand on his co-intern’s mouth. This is going to end badly if it doesn’t end soon. “You can’t just drop him off. He lives alone.”

“I wasn’t going to do that, Seungmin,” Chief Seo says kindly. “I’ll stay with him tonight. It’s okay.”

“Isn’t the after-party happening at your house?” Jisung asks.

The chief shrugs. “My co-chiefs are my roommates. They’ve hosted without me before.”

Seungmin thinks about it for a beat, but there’s no one here that he trusts more than Chief Seo. He can tell, in an instinctive way that he doesn’t feel often, that that is a good man and he means what he says.

When he does feel them, his instincts are never wrong.

Changbin

“Bin!”

It’s not that Changbin expected their departure to fly under Chan’s radar (he needs to borrow his car keys, for one); it’s the alacrity with which Chan rushes to catch up to them the second they’ve left the banquet hall, almost ruining their quiet exit and drawing more attention to poor Felix.

“Bin, what’s happening? Is he okay?”

Changbin doesn’t slow in his steps in order to not slow Felix in his, which he is taking carefully and one at a time and only tripping every three or four and falling onto Changbin’s side with a sweet low “Ssssorry, sorryyyy…”

Chan is at their side in seconds, and he’s looking at Felix with big worried eyes.

Changbin hasn’t seen him irradiate this kind of energy quite so intensely ever before. It’s really fucking weird.

“He drank too much, Chan. It’s a classic, nothing terrible.”

“Dr. Baaaang,” Felix says, smiling and waving cutely.

“Hiii.” Chan smiles, so fond that Changbin has to look away, because seriously, what the fuck. “You going home, Felix?”

“Yeah,” Felix responds in English. “Home to sleep. Nighty night.”

“Yeah?” And then Chan says something else in English that Changbin doesn’t understand, but it makes Felix giggle happily and lean heavily on Changbin. He weighs next to nothing, so that’s hardly the issue, but Changbin rights him again anyway.

“What happened to his co-interns?”

“Oh, they were going to take him, I intervened.”

“Changbin, the party is at your place.”

“I know.” He shrugs, careful not to dislodge Felix. “It’s fine. I can miss one party. It’s orientation week, he’s just starting out, he—they deserve to experience this. Them. The interns.”

They’ve made it out of the venue and a judge-y valet leads them towards the waiting area of the parking lot. Felix is not in a place to notice that he is being disapproved of.

“Oh right, can I borrow your car?” Changbin remembers to ask.

Chan hands his keys to the valet right away, but he turns to Changbin. “I should take him.”

Changbin… should have seen this coming.

“No. It’s fine.”

“Changbin. It’s your last year, the event is happening at your apartment, and I’m going to skip it anyway.”

Changbin looks at Chan. He is, of course, stone cold sober, and sounds wonderfully sincere. The truth is that Changbin wouldn’t even be thinking twice about dumping the drunk intern on his beloved friend if he hadn’t picked up on the extremely weird energy between them. Or, more accurately, the extremely weird, extremely intense energy coming from Chan.

He knows Chan is unhappy in his relationship, and Nari is a fantastic surgeon but not a very kind or considerate partner, yet Chan still bends over backwards every day to try to salvage something that Changbin, personally, thinks should have ended years ago. But. A lapful of drunk intern that had him looking like… like…

And then his train of thought hits him, and Changbin is the worst person in the world, actually.

Because Felix is very drunk; so drunk that they had to secret him out of the dinner, he’s not even making it to the afterparty he’s so drunk, and Chan would never. Chan would never, ever. Chan is a good person, the best. Him having a bit of a crush-at-first-sight does not mean he isn’t still a perfectly safe person for Felix to be around in this state.

“Sorry.” He means it, even if Chan looks confused and doesn’t understand why. “You’re right.”

Chan smiles. “I know. You go have fun, text me his address. We confirmed he has his keys with him?”

“In his jacket pocket.”

Chan nods, and Changbin transfers Felix to him. Felix, who was quietly swaying in place during their convo, goes to him so easily, so gently, that for a moment he doesn’t seem drunk at all, he just looks like someone returning to the embrace of their lover whom they’ve missed, and now they get to rest their head on their shoulder again.

That’s the part that’s a bit unnerving, Changbin supposes. He knows Felix and Chan met a few days ago, but how can it be normal, for his head to fit there in such a grossly natural way? Like he belongs in Chan’s arms.

Then again—

“Text me updates?” Changbin asks him, worrying for the kid regardless. Chan will treat him well, but that hangover tomorrow won’t, and if he remembers correctly Felix’s first block on the schedule is the surgical rotation.

“Yeah.” Chan’s voice is soft. “We’ll be okay.”

“Yeah.”

Changbin starts to walk inside, head full. He can’t get the look on Chan’s face out of his mind; he looks like a man who finally woke up after years of sleepwalking through his life. He looks like he just came up for air after drowning, and Changbin knew he was unhappy, but he hadn’t realized he was drowning.

How did Lee Felix rescue him without knowing, without even trying?

Jisung

The chief’s apartment is not as large as the size of the party it contains. The residents are packed in there, and when the group of nurses arrives the space gets ludicrously tight.

Lucky for Jisung, he’s pretty compact. Hyunjin is darting his eyes around cataloguing the space as if someone is going to quiz him on it later, and Seungmin is trying to avoid excessive physical contact with other people and not succeeding much. Jeongin got taken to a dark corner by Jiwoo within five minutes of arrival and is being aggressively made out with, which he seems not to mind.

It's definitely a much sloppier situation than the banquet hall was. Ties are loosened, suit buttons untied, and between the karaoke machine clashing terribly with the pop playing on a set of overhead speakers it’s got the makings of an excellent trashy time.

“I should get us more drinks?” he asks Hyunjin and Seungmin. “Felix drank most of ours at the dinner.”

Hyunjin nods, so Jisung embarks on the quest to the kitchen. He squeezes past his new coworkers at a slow pace, grateful for his little waist as he manages to make his way there by the time the song that started playing when he left is over. The kitchen is really a U-shaped area with a foot of counter space and a half-island, but thankfully there’s only one other person in it.

“Hey, can you pass me three cups?” he prods the broad back of a guy leaning over the sink into a cabinet, and then it hits him, before the guy even turns around, somehow just because of the shape of his shoulders, and his hair; Jisung remembers dark blue scrubs and chest compressions.

“O-oh.” He lets out a gust of air. “Uh.”

The man turns, and Jisung was right.

He’s not wearing a mask anymore, and Jisung was… Jisung is…

“What?”

Jisung exhales again—did he forget to inhale twice?

“I-I was hoping you could pass me some cups,” he says. The man is wearing a dark green collared shirt with two buttons undone and no suit jacket to be seen. His pants are black. He is insanely attractive. He is the most attractive man Jisung has ever seen. His eyes are so piercing—he has bags under them which makes sense, he’s a resident, probably a senior, he must be chronically tired, but somehow even those seem attractive? Jisung is staring.

“Sure.” The resident turns and reaches back up, his ass sticking out just a bit as he reaches, and Jisung stares at it in those pants, stares at the thighs that come after, stares at—the glasses that are thrust in his hands.

He snaps back up, but that was… an in flagrante moment. That was unmissable, and the small smirk on the man’s face confirms that he caught it.

“I’m.” Jisung gulps, because he was drooling. He should say sorry. Say ‘I’m sorry’, Jisung. “I’m Han Jisung.” Fuck.

“Hi, Han Jisung. I’m Lee Minho.”

Minho is still smirking. He leans back against the lip of the sink, appraising Jisung with those eyes under that fringe. Jisung feels like he’s being dissected.

“N-nice to meet you, Dr. Lee,” he stammers, and it gets him an arched brow for his troubles.

“I’m a nurse.”

Oh.

“Ah.” He flushes, wishing a black hole would open up and swallow him. “Shit, sorry. I mean—sorry.”

“Why?”

“I.” He can’t speak. “I. Shouldn’t assume—”

“That a man in the medical field can’t be a nurse? That’s true, you shouldn’t.” Minho’s smirk never quite left his mouth. “But I forgive you.”

“Th-thank you.” He has never sounded stupider. “Um. You were there, when I—when we did the tour. Of the ER. There was a cardiac arrest.”

Minho waits him out, perhaps waiting for him to get to the point.

Jisung does not have one. Jisung is the stupidest person on planet Earth.

“I…” have been thinking about you? That’s insane, right? But he has. He thought about those eyes, the way the mask lightly puffed into his mouth as he breathed, only a little hard after all that physical exertion. He can’t say that though, that’s deranged. But what can he say? What was he going to say?

Minho continues to wait, blinking at him. No mercies for Jisung tonight.

“I-I have a lot of back-to-back ER months at the beginning of the year. You will see me a lot.”

He sounds apologetic. He feels apologetic. Sorry for my existence, Jisung wants to add.

Still, Minho gives him nothing. Jisung’s pulse would get him defibrillated if he was hooked up to a monitor right now, he’s pretty sure (‘clear!’ they’d shout, and the shock would fix him). The glasses in his hands are audibly clinking against each other because his hands are shaking. He needs to say something to distract Minho from the fact that he is trembling so hard that it has a soundtrack.

“H-how long have you been at SNUH?”

“Three years. I was a trainee for the first one, though.”

He doesn’t elaborate further, and Jisung casts his mind desperately around for something else to say, another question maybe, something that isn’t ‘will you just choke me please, so I can stop talking?’ Clink clink clink clink go the three glasses, a cheery musical tune that gives away Jisung’s completely disproportionate, insane reaction to the current scene—

Minho cocks his head to the side. “Are you nervous, Han Jisung?”

Jisung stops breathing.

Clink clink clink clink clink—

Minho stands up straight and then takes a step towards him. The space was already small, and now Minho is right there, right in front of him, so very close.

“Am I making you nervous?”

Clink clink clink clink CRASH.

Chapter Text

Chan

Felix falls asleep in the passenger seat, which is convenient because Chan has a lot of thinking to do.

He had genuinely pointed to him because he was standing at the forefront of the group. He’s so sure that was the reason, and not because—he stood out. He stands out. The long blonde hair, those eyes, his features—

Felix was just the first person his eyes gravitated towards, that was it. Right? Because he was at the front. He would have asked the pretty kid with the cheeks if he had been standing a foot forward. Or the tall girl with the ponytail, if she’d been—

“Dr. Bang?”

Chan goes from holding the steering wheel to clinging to it.

“Hey, Felix. You can call me—” Chan-hyung? The mere idea makes it hard for him to breathe. “Sunbae. Uh, how are you feeling?”

He will not look. He will not look over at the sleepy, droopy-eyed intern next to him.

“Mm. Good.” Felix’s voice is so deep, almost a purr. “A lil’ dizzy. Not bad.”

Chan notes movement out of the corner of his eye so then he has no choice but to look, and he sees Felix is tipped to the side and looking back at him. His eyes glitter in the shuttershock yellows and oranges of passing streetlights. His cheeks are flushed.

“Is your wife going to be mad? That you’ll be home late tonight?”

She always says ‘wife’ so that you can correct her and say ‘not yet’.

But that’s not why he—"I’m not married yet, Felix. And no, she’s at the hospital.” Saving lives. Opening people up to fix their insides, leading a team, working so hard. He was going to bring her leftovers from the dinner, if this new task hadn’t come up. “Don’t worry about me.” Nari certainly doesn’t.

Felix makes a little noise and Chan almost echoes it, something lodging in his chest, halfway out.

“Is this it?”

They are pulling into a street on the less savory part of town, and an ugly apartment building comes into view. Chan frowns.

“Yeah.”

Chan frowns harder.

“You live here?” His commute to the hospital must be well over an hour. What happens after a twenty-four hour call shift, if he falls asleep on the bus? What if he crosses the street a little early, too tired to wait for the light to turn green, and gets hit by a car?

“Mhmm. S’fine. It’s… not pretty, but s’fine.”

Chan almost turns the car around.

Of course he can’t do that, but the worst case scenarios keep coming (what if Felix trips on the sidewalk and falls into the bike lane? What if he can’t afford a taxi and tries to hitchhike?) and Chan resolves to make inquiries about resident housing. He could apply on Felix’s behalf, maybe—if he moved here from Australia it seems likely that he simply missed the deadline, but he deserves a place that’s just as cheap and much safer.

“Are we… going home?” Felix asks, jolting Chan out of his head.

“Sorry, sorry!” He rushes to his side of the car and watches Felix successfully unbuckle himself after only three attempts, small hands prodding and fumbling with the seatbelt. “Here, let’s go.”

Felix stumbles out of the car and into his arms.

Chan takes the weight and rights him, inhaling at the worst possible moment.

“You have your keys?” he mutters, tipping his head away from the strands of hair tickling his chin.

“Mhmm.” Felix is clutching at Chan’s lapel. They start walking and indeed once they get to the front door Felix touches the key sensor to the screen and types in the right code on the first try.

“Great job. What floor do you live in?”

“The ground floor.”

God, that’s terrible.

“Lead the way.”

Felix does, dragging his feet but moving them forward, leaning on Chan before he’s about to fall.

Chan is led to a door with a keycode that Felix taps in, also succeeding on the first go.

The inside of the apartment is worse—if it can even be called that. It’s dank, and tiny, more of a room with a hot plate than an apartment, really.

The urge strikes Chan again, to not let Felix go in, to spin them around and go back to the car, to put him up in his guest room instead.

“S’not… pretty.” Felix sounds resigned. “Sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?” Chan will look into the resident housing as soon as Felix falls asleep. He will do it tonight. “Let’s get you to bed, come on.”

Felix trips his way to a small bunk in the corner of the room, and passes his couch and several moving boxes to get there, dropping his keys and phone as he goes. Chan searches for the light switch and eventually finds it, then starts opening cabinets in the kitchenette to find a glass to fill with water.

“Mmm.”

Chan’s hairs stand on end, but he doesn’t turn around yet.

“Mmmm.”

Water is flowing over his hand—the glass is full.

He shuts the sink off and makes his way to Felix, who is stretching and wriggling languorously on top of the sheets, shoes still on, hair a messy, tangled halo around him as the braid slips out of the half-knot it was in earlier.

“Dr. Baaang,” Felix says, smiling, glittering, shining.

Chan drops to his knees.

He helps Felix sit up in bed so he can drink the full glass, and Felix cups it with both hands, which is relevant to Chan for some reason. Then Chan shuffles down to the foot of the bed so he can take Felix’s shoes off. The floor is hard under his knees but nothing is harder than keeping his mind blank while he undoes the laces, then gently cups Felix’s ankle to tug it out of the shoe on his left, then the right.

“Dr. Bang.”

Chan. Call me Chan-hyung.

He can’t say that. He won’t say that.

“Sunbae.”

Chan looks up at him. He’s still at the foot of the bed, and Felix is still sitting up.

“Thank you.” His voice is a rumble. His face is… the most beautiful fucking thing Chan has ever seen in his goddamn miserable life.

Chan closes his eyes the second he allows that thought to finally materialize and decides that he needs to stop thinking, actually. He can’t think about what they look like right now, from the outside; him kneeling at Felix’s feet with his eyes closed, Felix regarding him from above.

“Sunbae?”

“Time to sleep, Felix. I’ll be here, don’t worry. Let me know if you feel nauseous or have to vomit, okay?”

“Hm. Okay.”

He hears the shuffle of bedsheets and the tumble of clothing falling on the floor; Felix’s suit jacket, it turns out, when he finally checks.

Felix is under the sheets, face peeking out. Chan should have maybe instructed him to take off his pants, or his make-up, but that’s not—he’s not going to do that now. It’ll be a bit uncomfortable in the morning, but Felix didn’t ask to do it so Chan isn’t going to bring it up.

“Goodnight, sunbae.”

“Goodnight, Felix.”

He gets up to turn the lights off and settles on the couch, thumbing his phone open to immediately start researching the resident housing application process.

Minho

The glass shards rattle into the trashcan and Minho takes care to not spill them. Behind him, Jisung is still making apologetic little noises; sweet sweet music to Minho’s ears.

“S-seriously, I am so sorry, I-I didn’t mean to, God I-I’m s-so sorry—”

Minho suppresses a pleased shudder and schools his features into nonchalance before he turns back around to face the kid (Jisung is probably just a couple of years younger than him at most; he is a doctor, after all).

“Done.” He smiles at him, and tracks the helpless trajectory of Jisung’s gaze at it goes to his mouth, down to his chest, then back up to his eyes… and back to his mouth.

“Th-thank you. Sorry.”

He’s extremely pretty, Minho’s little intern is. He’s blushing and his eyes are shiny, not just because he put some beautiful make-up on them but because they look filmy, and his hair is sticking to his temples with sweat that’s gathering, or has been gathering, and causes it to curl at the ends.

Minho wants to eat him up.

“You came here to get your friends some drinks, right?”

Jisung nods miserably. Two of the glasses had broken, and he had set the remaining one on the counter and someone already took it. He’s zero for three.

Minho knows he is pushing this, but he can’t help himself—“You’re not doing a very good job so far, are you?” he asks him lightly.

Jisung goes very still.

“They’ve probably been waiting for a while.”

Minho has a problem, but then again he knows that. He knows he’s a little fucked up.

“Hope you’re better at taking care of your patients than you are at taking care of your friends.” Jisung’s mouth drops open, and Minho soothes the sting immediately, adding: “Guess you wouldn’t have made it into SNUH if you weren’t good at something.”

Jisung shifts his weight from foot to foot and Minho wonders if he’s finally getting angry or just a little hotter under the collar than the ambient temperature can account for.

Hm. A collar would look so good on—

“Min! Are you scaring the new interns already?”

Changbin barrels into the kitchen, knocking into Jisung a little bit, which causes him to blink as though waking up from a trance.

“Me? Scary?” Minho gasps. “I’m like a fluffy little bunny, aren’t I Jisung-ah?”

Jisung went from not blinking to blinking a lot, but he doesn’t look like he’s about to cry anymore. “Y-yeah. Yeah, sure.”

Changbin snorts. “I like this one, Minho, be nice to him.”

Minho rolls his eyes and drops the fluffy bunny act; he’s always felt more like a tiger inside, anyway.

“Jisung, want a drink?”

“Y-yes please, I was going to get…” his gaze flickers to Minho. “I was trying to get some for Seungmin and Hyunjin too, can you help me?”

“Of course.” Changbin immediately hands him three plastic cups and fills them. “Here, for you… for Seungmin…” Then he keeps the last one and says, with a funny shadow across his face for a moment. “And I’ll give this one to Hyunjin.”

Jisung nods, and they leave the kitchen; Changbin parting the crowd and little Jisung and his tiny little waist following behind him. How does he have such a fucking unreal waist and still have a perfect, plump ass? Was he made in a lab?

“Minho, come take a shot with us!”

Seri is waving him over—she’s among the nurses’ favorite residents, and sure enough is the only doctor hanging out in a little crew of nurses by the window. Her and Minho both thought the one was hitting on the other when she was intern, and accidentally simultaneously came out to each other in trying to turn each other down. It became a hilarious, memorable first of many hangouts.

“Coming, coming.”

He makes his way to them, tragically far away from Jisung and his waist, and Seri shoots him a tipsy grin.

“Were you playing with your food again?” she croons, gaze pointedly going to the intern’s corner and back to Minho.

“Again? You’re acting like I’m some sort of player.” He never plays them—only with them. With their full consent and only as much or as little as they ask of him, as long as they understand that playing is all it’s ever going to be.

“I don’t hear you denying that you’re hungry.”

Minho smiles, but something about this conversation feels off, even though they’ve had it before, in different iterations: about the visiting nurse from last year, about the nephrologist who kept finding excuses to come down to the ER, the chief resident who just graduated, the X-Ray technician with the biceps…

“…No. I can’t deny that.”

Across the room, Jisung tucks some of his hair behind his ear and the lock untucks itself again almost immediately.

Minho is starving, actually.

Hyunjin

Changbin has a fanclub. Hyunjin met him when Changbin was a third-year resident and he was already a favorite among the staff back then. In the time since they’ve been apart, Changbin’s celebrity status has only escalated, and he has cemented his place as the beating heart of the residency. Now, a gaggle of onlookers hang onto his every word at all times, and laugh at his loud jokes, and Hyunjin’s teeth hurt from all the grinding. Because he walked over to them with Jisung, Changbin’s court currently also includes all the interns except for Jiwoo and Felix.

Hyunjin is going to have to start galvanizing Changbin’s antis because he is furious at him right now, and he is literally the only one not fawning all over him.

Changbin makes some joke about Wooyoung’s drunken singing by the karaoke machine that has everyone laughing, and Hyunjin scoffs.

Changbin tells the story of getting hit on by a patient right after he informed them that they had chlamydia and everyone guffaws, and Hyunjin rolls his eyes.

Changbin gets coerced into doing a TikTok dance challenge in the barely-there floorspace created by the group within this tiny fucking living room and people clap and shout as he shakes his ass along with San, and Hyunjin rolls his eyes even harder and leans over to Seungmin.

“This is the pre-residency event of the year?” he says, mean and not not intending to be overheard.

Changbin flinches, a quick flash of something (hurt? As if Hyunjin had the power to hurt him) before meeting Hyunjin’s gaze.

Hyunjin goes still. The dance challenge is over.

“Hyunjin, you were asking me about the bathroom earlier and I forgot to show you, I’m sorry! Come with me.”

And just like that he’s pulling Hyunjin away from the crowd by the wrist, and Hyunjin is simultaneously on fire and still really fucking pissed and it is so packed in this stupid apartment that he still remembers so perfectly and suddenly they are in Changbin’s room.

They… Changbin’s room.

The… the room. This room.

This room that Hyunjin has been in before, and thought about so many times since.

“I can see that you’re upset with me.”

Changbin seems to really care about that. He is running a hand through his hair, looking at Hyunjin with those eyes of his.

“Can you tell me what I did wrong, so that I can fix it? Since the banquet dinner ended, you’ve been—” glaring at him. Meaner than usual. A bitch. “Visibly upset.”

“You gave Felix to Dr. Bang.” Hyunjin scowls.

Changbin looks… surprised.

“That’s what you’re upset about?”

“Yes.” The bed is in the same place but the dresser is new. He can’t believe he’s back here. He can’t believe it’s only been one week and he’s here.

“Chan is a good person, Hyunjin, he would never—”

“Oh I know that.”

He has no idea what Hyunjin is upset about, and Hyunjin can’t tell him without giving away Felix’s love-at-first-pneumothorax with Dr. Bang. If he was shitfaced and someone left him in the care of the reason he got shitfaced, he would hate it. Felix must be so stressed right now—or he will be tomorrow, if he fucks up and confesses something he shouldn’t. Hyunjin never would have allowed it, if he’d been let in on the decision. He would have insisted he take Felix home himself.

“Then I don’t understand.”

“I can’t tell you the details,” he grits out.

Changbin sighs. “I wish you would, so that I could fix it.”

“You can’t fix it, it’s already done.” Are those the same sheets? No way. But that shade of blue, that specific shade of midnight blue that Hyunjin remembers rustling against his skin, he remembers—

A considering stare. “Is it… Felix?”

Hyunjin bites his lower lip, and there’s a second where he thinks Changbin noticed but his face just remains pensive. Unaffected. No one else in the world would look that calm if Hyunjin bit his lip in front of them, Hyunjin knows what he looks like when he does that.

“You’re worried about Felix because he likes Chan?” Changbin guesses.

Hyunjin curses hotly under his breath.

“I’m right?!”

Dammit.

“You can’t tell anyone!”

Two hands go up like he’s under arrest. “Hey, who would I tell? Not Chan, obviously!” he adds when Hyunjin makes a face at him. “Hyunjin, Chan won’t pay attention to Felix’s drunken ramblings even if he does let something slip on accident. And that’s an if! I think you’re worrying about nothing.”

“Well I think you’re wrong, and I can’t believe you just handed him over without asking me.”

“Chan offered! And I—I didn’t know, about Felix, I—”

Hyunjin hates that he’s right and that of course Changbin did nothing wrong. Any reasonable person can come to the conclusion that Changbin was just missing crucial information about Felix’s point of view and Hyunjin did it again, was a piece of shit to him again. Just like last time.

We’re never going to see each other again.

Suddenly, he is hit with a memory so intense that his vision blurs; of him, in this goddamn room, between those sheets, oh fuck hyung yes hyung faster please hyung harder yes yes yes—of the way Changbin held his hips down, then up, then tossed him around like he weighed nothing, the way he made Hyunjin gasp and the hand clamping over his mouth when he moaned—

“Hyunjin?”

I have a roommate sweet thing you gotta be quiet okay? Shh shh you feel so fucking good shh I know I know you like it too but you gotta shh that’s it nice and quiet for me Hyunjin come on—the amount of times they fucked that night, Christ, so glad you had to wear a mask at work can’t think with that mouth around Hyunjin, you’re so beautiful Hyunjin, I can’t believe you’re real you’re so perfect oh fuck, love your mouth, love your mouth, love it oh fu-uck—

And then the way it ended. So close to where he’s standing, actually; by the bedroom door.

We’re never going to see each other again.

“…Hyunjin?”

“You’re right, I’m sorry.” He touches the backs of his fingers to his cheek without thinking, the way his mother would check to see if he had a fever. He feels septic from it, from the memories. “I’m… you didn’t know.”

He walks out of the room before Changbin can say anything else, shutting the door brusquely behind him, just like last time.

Felix

The sight of Dr. Bang on his shitty couch in his shitty apartment is too much to bear for Felix’s dehydrated brain in the morning.

He’s asleep, features slack and so attractive that Felix sighs, very quietly to himself. Last night had been a disaster of epic proportions, and on multiple levels, but all he can think about during his first few seconds of consciousness is how it felt to get his first glimpse of Dr. Bang’s unmasked face at the banquet hall; that unexpected, unexpectedly perfect nose, those lips, that jawline. It’s a face Felix wants to kiss, and lick all over, and sit on.

He sits up as silently as he can manage, feeling gross in yesterday’s clothes, eyes crusted with sleep and make-up. He desperately needs a shower.

Thankfully, Dr. Bang remains asleep during Felix’s quick hunt for a comfortable outfit to lounge around in (it’s his last day to lounge before his surgery rotation starts), and doesn’t stir when Felix uses the sink to fill two successive glasses of water, taking an ibuprofen in between. He tucks himself into the miniscule bathroom and dabs at his face with makeup remover twice over before cleansing it, then detangling his hair, and then stepping into the shower to soap up fully.

His head is still throbbing but he feels leagues better under the spray of the water, and he tries hard not to let his thoughts crowd in like they’ve been waiting to since he woke up; a mix of memories and dreams and mortifying feelings.

Turns out that the only thing that dispels everything else from his mind is the thought of Dr. Bang.

Felix exhales harshly in relief; it’s so easy, actually, to only think of him, to think of his slack, sleeping face, those puffy lips, of how close those lips had been to Felix’s feet last night, of what would have happened if Dr. Bang had brought those lips to his ankle, had kissed up his leg the way Felix had imagined him doing while he took off Felix’s shoes.

If he’d taken off Felix’s pants, too, taken off his underwear and kept kissing upwards, would he have kissed Felix’s hip, his cock, down between his legs like Felix wanted? Would he have buried his face there, let Felix’s thighs settle on his shoulders, tippy toes on that broad back to lift up into it, let Felix ride his mouth and use him to feel good, grunt and groan into Felix’s hole and urge Felix’s hips with his hands—

Fuck, fuck wait, stop, he’s right outside.

Felix’s hand stills on his cock, the sudden absence of its soapy glide a torture as he stares down at himself and contemplates what he is doing only a thin, non-soundproof door away from his sleeping supervisor.

Dr. Bang would probably be really, really scandalized if he found out. He’d be sweet about it; embarrassed on Felix’s behalf, probably, and he’d be so forgiving, so kind, no Felix it’s okay, it’s natural, don’t worry—but he’d be shocked, deep down. Except, this is Felix’s fantasy, so instead of reporting him to the program for being a pervert the Dr. Bang in his imagination says: Did it feel good? You made yourself feel good? And Felix whispers: Yes, so good and then Dr. Bang drops to his knees again, like he did last night, like someone cut his tendons and he had no strength left, hitting the floor with a thud and so ready to worship Felix with his mouth. In Felix’s fantasy, Dr. Bang admits that he loved hearing Felix jerk off in the shower and he begs Felix to let him suck his cock, to please let him, and when Felix says yes he’s so grateful, he's so eager and happy to do it, so desperate, so into it that he’s riding his own hand down there, fucking his hips to his own palm on the floor just from how much he loves making Felix feel good, tears building at the corners of his eyes because he doesn’t even want to stop to breathe, so happy that Felix is letting him—

Felix comes with a gasp, and stuffs his fist in his mouth to cut off a guttural groan as it reverberates in the shower stall, eyes rolling back and breaths huffing around his own hand. The pulses hit his lower belly, his dick, warmth enveloping him and flushing his cheeks, aftershocks hitting for longer than they usually do when Felix jerks off, waves of them for several silent seconds, until a final, soft whimper is all he has left.

He stands under the spray, panting, and his headache eases a bit but his guilty conscience certainly does not.

*

“Good morning.”

He’s awake when Felix pads back out into the living area.

“Good morning.” Felix clutches at the overlong sleeves of his hoodie so tightly his knuckles go white. Before Dr. Bang can say anything more, he takes a deep breath: “I am so sorry, sunbae.”

“Felix—”

“I swear, I will never act this unprofessionally again. If you want to report me to Dr. Park I will understand, but please believe me when I say this is not who I am, I don’t know what I was thinking—”

“Felix!”

Dr. Bang stands up, hands outstretched, still in his dark suit and dark shirt from last night, still the most handsome man Felix has ever seen.

“Please. There is no need to apologize.” He looks so sincere. “We’ve all drunk a little more than we should at a work event. It’s fine.”

Felix tucks his hair behind his ears even though he tied most of it back in a ponytail. “You had to sleep on my couch,” he points out, agonized.

“It was fine! I was fine. I never sleep.” At his own words, Dr Bang seems to pause. “Well, usually I don’t. I got, like… almost six hours last night, that never happens.” He smiles, such a lovely smile.

“But won’t… your fiancée…?”

The smile wavers. “Uhm. Honestly? Probably not. Nari doesn’t really care where I am, as long as there’s food in the fridge and the apartment is clean.” If he was engaged to Dr. Bang Felix would care where he is every second of every day. “She’ll probably assume I left for work already, instead of never making it back home.”

It sounds so illicit, put like that.

“Oh.”

He sits back down on the couch, and Felix hesitates for a moment before going to sit next to him.

“I am deeply sorry for the inconvenience, Dr. Bang.” Halfway through the sentence Dr. Bang is shaking his head again. “Please. Please allow me to apologize.”

“No.” He gives Felix a warm once-over that travels from the roots of his blond hair to the dip of his small chin. “Felix, it was my pleasure. Don’t you remember? I asked Changbin to let me do this for you.”

“But—”

“I’m not going to let you feel badly about this, Felix.”

“But Dr. Bang—”

“Call me Chan, please.”

They both still.

Dr. B—Chan doesn’t take it back, though.

“Chan sunbae,” Felix tries out quietly.

“Yeah, like that,” says Chan.

Felix shivers.

“Chan sunbae… I don’t know how to thank you for taking care of me.”

Chan sighs. “You don’t need to, Felix. We all look out for each other here. The job is hard, we have to have each other’s backs in and out of the emergency department, you know?”

Right. Right. They are coworkers first, and nothing more second. Chan is engaged, and Felix is a lust-sick intern with a crush.

“Thank y—"

There’s a buzz by Chan’s hip, and they both look down at it.

“That’s not my phone,” Chan mutters, shifting in his seat to fish between the couch cushions, and after a bit of digging produces… Felix’s phone, which ended up in there somehow. He has a vague recollection of dropping things on his way to his bed last night, maybe he had the drunken wherewithal to drop the phone on the couch instead of the floor?

“Oh, you got a text message,” Chan says, and Felix’s stomach drops.

He lunges forward, grabbing the phone to cover the screen.

“Ah!”

He wrestles the phone from Chan’s grip even though Chan puts up no resistance, and then—finds himself halfway into Chan’s lap, panting from panic.

“S-sorry,” he gasps, locking the phone to make the screen go dark.

He looks up at Chan, who is looking down at him with unfocused eyes.

Felix looks down too, at where his hand is on Chan’s left thigh, and his knee is digging into the right, half bent into him. His thumb is almost in Chan’s crotch.

He scrambles upright, shuffling backwards to sit on his heels at the other end of the couch, breathing hard.

“S-so sorry,” he mumbles. His pulse is pounding in his ears, roaring, and abruptly Chan stands up. Felix winces. “Sunbae, I—"

“I should let you get some rest,” Chan says quickly. “Goodbye, Felix.”

He’s striding towards the door.

“Dr—Chan sunbae, don’t you want a coffee at least, before you—”

“Nope, that’s okay! I should go. You have your first shift tomorrow, it’s going to be a big day!” He’s smiling, shoving his feet into his dress shoes, but he is not meeting Felix’s gaze. Oh God. Oh God Felix fucked up so bad. “You deserve rest, and peace and quiet.”

“Chan sunbae—”

He opens the door and Felix almost cries out ‘Please, wait!’ but then he doesn’t have to, because the urgency that had seemed to suddenly overtake him relents, for a moment.

Chan (finally) looks back at him from the doorframe, presumably taking in Felix on his knees leaning against the back of the couch, how he’s clutching the back cushions in the paws of the giant hoodie he is swimming in; the anxious expression on his bare face.

“Get some more sleep today, okay Felix? You are going to be amazing.” He fist-pumps the air with a dorky little gesture. "Fighting."

Felix swallows, gets lost in those kind, earnest eyes, and his response time lags so much that before he knows it Chan has already shut the door behind him.

Fuck.

He slowly sinks back into the couch and lays down on it, turning his head into the pillow Chan had slept on. He inhales from it slowly, deeply, and is devastated to realize that it does smell like him, the musk and cologne traces of him linger, and as he lies there sniffing the fabric Felix wonders how on Earth he is expected not to fall for him.

He eventually checks his text messages and sees that the notification that led to all this was indeed from ‘I wish Dr. Bang would bang me’. The only mercy of the morning seems to be that Chan did not find out what the title of their group-chat was.

guys can u believe we start rotations tomorrow, Jisung had sent.

Seungmin

The first day of his first rotation starts off well.

Seungmin is working a day shift, from 7am until 7pm, and he’s been paired with a co-intern so that, together, they do the work of one person, and try to learn something in the process. He arrives on time, gets to listen in on the overnight team’s sign-out while he sips on his coffee, and he is greeted by none other than Dr. Kim, who will be their attending for the day.

Then he finds out that his co-intern of the day is Jiwoo.

Their medical student is Jeongin, of course—he’s the only student rotator in the department this month.

The day is busy; there are constantly lots of patients waiting to be seen, and learning on the job was never going to be easy, but Seungmin is focused; he interviews the patients, goes through his mental algorithm for why they might be having the symptoms that they are having, presents the case to Dr. Kim and inputs orders into his computer (for bloodwork, for X-Rays, for pain medications, for CT scans…). Rinse, repeat, except no case is the same, and it’s… a little bit exhilarating, actually, and he always imagined he would be good at it but it is gratifying to confirm that he is.

“Dr. Kim—sorry, not supervising Dr. Kim, I meant Dr. Kim Seungmin—”

Seungmin looks up; Jeongin is standing right by his computer station, holding his stethoscope in his hands.

“There’s a pediatric patient in room ten, can I go see them and present the case to you?”

“You can present directly to supervising Dr. Kim, Jeongin,” Jiwoo cuts in before Seungmin can answer, and at that point Seungmin sees no reason to contradict her, so he just nods and then gets up to go see his next patient.

The hours fly, he eats an energy bar around lunchtime, and overhears Jiwoo tell Jeongin that he should take a proper lunch break and go outside or to the cafeteria.

“It’s, like, a running joke in our department that we will never find out where it is in the hospital,” she giggles at him. “ER doctors don’t take lunch breaks.”

Jeongin is wearing a mask but Seungmin can tell that he is smiling that big smile of his again, and Seungmin finds himself thinking that it would be nice to see it properly; on a face that perfect a smile looks particularly good. Seungmin has never wanted to tug a mask down from a face before, in fact he considered it a boon of his profession that most of his coworkers (and himself) are masked all shift, but…

“Thank you, sunbae,” Jeongin says to her, and Seungmin remembers their dimly lit kisses in Changbin’s apartment and wonders if it feels awkward, to call her ‘sunbae’ knowing what her tongue feels like down his throat, or if it adds some sort of illicit thrill to their interactions.

A wave of his now-familiar palpitations takes him over, but this time it’s paired with a stomach-roiling nausea that feels less like he might pass out and more like he might fully vomit up the contents of his energy bar.

“Please take a proper break,” Dr. Kim says to Jeongin with a nod. “We will be here when you return, and so will the patients. Don’t worry.”

Jeongin gives her a little bow and then bows in gratitude to Jiwoo as well, and his dark hair flops forward a bit when he does it which means it’s probably very soft, and then Jeongin rights himself and his eyes go to Seungmin and lock with him, and Seungmin is discomfited—this isn’t new, he doesn’t enjoy looking into people’s eyes, but the palpitations are reaching a fever-pitch at almost the same time, and when that gets paired with the nausea and unease the combination is bad, it feels bad, he feels sick; truly physically ill.

“I’m… so sorry to ask, but could I excuse myself for five minutes?”

Dr. Kim looks mildly taken aback at his murmured question, but moreso at the fact that he asked than at the nature of the request. “Absolutely, Seungmin. Take ten, if you need. You’ve been working very hard.”

Seungmin takes off towards the triage rooms, where he saw an EKG machine sitting unattended. He learned how to operate one in medical school, this is not the same brand but it can’t be all that different.

Even as he’s locking the door behind himself and quickly plastering stickers under his scrub shirt, he is starting to feel better, and by the time he has laid down and clicked ‘record’ on the correct button to capture his heart rhythm his symptoms have all but resolved.

He stares at the paper that auto-prints when he is done, eyes tracking all the patterns, and finds himself disappointed not to spot any abnormalities. At least an abnormality would be an explanation.

He has none, for now.

Jeongin

Jiwoo is, uh, subtly trying to go home with him for the night, but Jeongin isn’t really feeling it, and he doesn’t want to be known as the intern class’ bicycle by the end of his rotation. He doesn’t mind getting passed around (the girls in his medical school can attest to that), but these people are his seniors and he has a specific target in mind, anyway.

“Seungmin, want to get dumplings with me?”

Seungmin has been amazing all shift; seeing way more patients than is expected for his level of training, impressing his senior, impressing his attending Dr. Kim, impressing the nurses, the greatest feat of all—and impressing Jeongin so much that he doesn’t want to say goodbye. The day flew by, and he wants a bit more time, or… well, if he’s honest with himself what he wants is Seungmin’s attention. Because while Seungmin was excelling in every possible way, he was very much not paying any particular attention to Jeongin, other than to inform Dr. Kim if any of his patients had a physical exam finding that would be educational for Jeongin, so that Jeongin could go ask the patient if they didn’t mind a repeat exam. And then he'd move on to his next task, and Jeongin’s fantasies of their stethoscopes tangling behind a patient’s back while they listened to breath sounds evaporated.

“I liked that place. Yes.”

Shock drops Jeongin’s jaw, but he quickly recovers (and hopes his mask hid it). “O-okay. Great!”

“Let’s go after we sign out.”

“Yeah!”

And so, Seungmin tells Jisung about his patients who are still awaiting test results, and then wishes him luck on his first shift, and then they leave. Together.

Should he have suggested a more romantic dinner spot? But maybe if he hadn’t mentioned a place that he knew Seungmin approved of Seungmin might have turned him down.

Will Seungmin let him bite his neck tonight?

But no; they are going to work together for a month, if anything Jeongin should wait until the end of his rotation before he tries to make something happen. He has time. Four weeks of building anticipation and waiting to scratch the itch under his skin; he’ll make it. Probably.

“How are you feeling?” Jeongin asks him while they wait for their order, genuinely curious. He finds it challenging to interpret Seungmin’s facial expressions because they are so subtle, and the mask today made it even harder to tell on shift so he really wants to know. Today was so momentous; Seungmin’s first full work day as an emergency doctor.

Seungmin seems to be considering the question carefully. “…I feel good.” He nods to himself. “I found the computer system cumbersome, but electronic health record systems are notoriously poorly programmed, so that was expected. I enjoyed Dr. Kim’s practice style, she puts the patient’s decision-making first. I learned a lot from her today. I also found it challenging to diagnose the rash that the patient in room fourteen had, it helped me realize what my next topic of study should be.”

It's the most Seugmin has ever said to him. Jeongin is enamored with the subtle little cadences of his voice.

And also with his gorgeous eyes. They so rarely meet Jeongin’s own, but he doesn’t mind that; it means he can stare at them all the more.

“Wow.” He grins. “I hope my first day as a pediatrician is this productive.”

Their food arrives and Jeongin makes sure that Seungmin eats enough; he’s pretty sure all he had for lunch was an energy bar, and if they have another shift together Jeongin will bring him food from the cafeteria.

“You like it? It’s good?”

Seungmin nods, slurping his soup. His lips purse a little when he does and Jeongin is only human—he figures a kiss is a kiss, whether the person is a man or a woman, but the fact that Seungmin is a man is almost secondary to the roar of want Jeongin feels at the thought of kissing him specifically. It had felt nice to kiss Jiwoo the other night, Jeongin likes kissing people; he’s so sure kissing Seungmin would feel even better, because it would be Seungmin. Maybe Seungmin would be as subtle and hard to figure out in bed as he is in life and at work; Jeongin would have to be very focused, to make sure he pays attention to Seungmin’s reactions, his sounds. God, would he make a noise if Jeongin got on his knees for him? Or would it just be a soft intake of breath, something barely there that Jeongin almost missed? Could he get Seungmin to moan… to let go a little, to lose control a little, to come down his throat…?

“Do you like yours?”

Jeongin blinks. “Y-yeah. Wanna try?”

Wanna try, Seungmin?

Seungmin gives his bowl a considering look and then shrugs. “Sure.”

Which is how Jeongin ends up feeding him a mouthful of noodles, tracking the way Seungmin leans forward, the way he tilts his head and jaw.

They end up staying later than Jeongin thought they would; when asked about work, about medical school, Seungmin gives longer responses like he did at the start of the dinner, and Jeongin eats him—them up. It’s when he’s asked about his family, his upbringing, that Seungmin goes a bit quieter, and turns the conversation around to Jeongin.

“Oh, there aren’t any doctors in my family,” Jeongin smiles. “I’m the first. What about you?”

He’s not above redirecting either, though his only motivation is more information on the object of his attraction as opposed to any need for deflection about his lovely home.

“My father is a cardiologist and my mother is a plastic surgeon,” Seungmin says, and Jeongin gasps.

“They must be so proud of you!”

A micro-expression of… no, they aren’t. Jeongin picks it up as the precious kernel of knowledge that it is. He can’t imagine the pressure of that, and from two of the hardest specialties to get into. Emergency medicine is hardly easy, but the score cutoffs for plastics and cardiology are something else.

“When did you realize you wanted to be a pediatrician?” Seungmin asks him, and Jeongin launches into a longer explanation to give him a break. He will do this slowly, he will win Seungmin over so gently that Seungmin won’t even know it’s happening until it’s too late. Until he’s completely Jeongin’s, and ready to give Jeongin everything he wants, and willing to let Jeongin try him and savor him and, maybe, go back for seconds if he likes it.

He has a feeling he’s going to like it a lot.

*

“And they are treating you well, these interns?” his father’s face butts into the frame, in front of his mothers’ on the screen.

Jeongin thinks of his favorite one and gives them a huge smile. “Yes.” Seungmin hadn’t let him pay for the food, so he is calling that their first date in his head. He knows that Seungmin saw it as a purely mentor-mentee move, but Seungmin doesn’t need to know that Jeongin is counting down the days until he can fasten his teeth around his jugular and lightly bite down.

“Is the schedule okay? You’re away at that hospital for so long, darling. Do you even have time to explore the city?”

“It’s fine, the ER shifts aren’t bad. I’m also staying right by the hospital, don’t worry.” He doesn’t think the same will be true for surgery, but that’s a month away. “And I’ll have days off to walk around!”

“We are so proud of you, dearest,” his mother says after a pause, much as she has said a million times before: when Jeongin got into medical school, when he started acing his classes, when he won the coveted rotation spot at SNUH for his final year.

His father is nodding solemnly, and Jeongin remembers Seungmin’s moue of displeasure at the idea of his parents being proud of him and thinks: he could borrow my parents, my parents would tell him that they are proud of him, they would make him feel so loved.

He knows the chances of Seungmin meeting his parents are next to none, but Jeongin has so much love in his life, it’d only be fair to share it, he would be so happy to give some of it to Seungmin.

There are a lot of things he’d like to give to Seungmin.

Jisung

The first day of his first rotation starts off disastrously.

Jisung doesn’t get any sleep during the day; can’t even nap from nerves, and his first shift in the ER is a night shift, from 7pm until 7am the following day, but he is so nervous that caffeinating seems like courting a tachycardia, but he can’t go into a twelve-hour shift without caffeine if he woke up almost twenty-four hours before it’s set to end, right?

He arrives jittery and right on time for Seungmin to sign out to him.

He is paired with Hyunjin, at least, and their attending is a Dr. Cha whom they haven’t met yet. She is older, and seems no-nonsense, which Jisung appreciates. Their senior resident for the shift is—

“Oh my gosh, Changbin! Yay!”

Oh thank goodness.

Changbin smiles genially, waving at him and Hyunjin before sitting down at his computer.

Jisung assigns himself to his first patient, someone with abdominal pain, and gets to work.

*

Of course. Of course nurse Minho is working.

“H-hi.”

He looks up at Jisung from where he’s placing an IV in a patient.

“Can I help you, Dr. Han?”

It’s a completely professional tone and such a different address from their time in Changbin’s kitchen that Jisung has a bit of whiplash, but he appreciates it immensely.

“Uh, sorry to bother you but I was wondering if you’ve seen the patient in room five? I can’t find her.”

Minho nods. “I saw her, and I put in her IV and started fluids. She went to the bathroom a couple of minutes ago; she’ll be back.”

“Oh. That’s great, thanks!”

He turns to leave, but Minho finished taping down the newly placed IV and he walks off with him, navigating the hallway back to Red Pod.

Without a patient there to lend them an air of professionalism, Jisung feels his bumbling embarrassment swiftly returning.

“Do you work night shifts often?” he asks, desperate to break the ice. He wants Minho to like him, or at least not to think of him only as the intern who stared at his ass and then dropped two glasses at his feet from nerves.

“Sometimes,” Minho says.

“Do you like it?”

“It’s usually less busy, which is nice.”

“Do you like being an ER nurse?”

“Yes.”

They get back to the Red Pod too quickly, and pause in the divide between the nursing and the doctor’s areas. Jisung needs to turn and walk away from him, but Minho is staring and hasn’t dismissed him yet, so he doesn’t. Should he ask another question? Minho’s tone is a bit short but he didn’t seem displeased; it doesn’t seem like he actively dislikes Jisung’s fumbling conversation.

He stares at Jisung for a moment that almost becomes awkwardly long.

Then: “Your scrub pants don’t fit,” he says flatly.

Jisung. Wants. To die.

“You can request a smaller size if you go down to the basement, you know.”

“Oh.”

He needed a medium because his chest and shoulders felt tight in a small, but he is swimming in the waistline.

“Um. Thank you?”

He can’t tell if that’s a little smile behind his mask. “You’re welcome, doctor.” And he coolly spins and leaves before Jisung can embarrass himself any further.

*

Around 1am, Jisung’s patient who fell off their bike turns out to have a shoulder dislocation.

He sees it on the X-Ray and Dr. Cha confirms it, and then asks him if he’s ever fixed a shoulder dislocation before.

“Uhm, no.”

He figured that meant Dr. Cha would go on to do it herself, or assign it to Changbin who is surely an expert at it by now, but instead Dr. Cha gathers everyone to the doctor’s charting area and asks Changbin to demonstrate so that Jisung can learn to do it.

“Dr. Hwang, would you mind assisting in the demonstration? As the patient?” Dr. Cha asks Hyunjin.

Jisung looks at Hyunjin and then Changbin looks at Hyunjin, and Hyunjin looks at the floor for a few beats and then ignores them both to nod at Dr. Cha. He rolls up the sleeve of his scrub top and stands up, offering his perfectly defined, slim shoulder to Changbin. He really is ridiculously good-looking, Jisung thinks—if he looked like that he would be lounging poolside getting fed grapes by a billionaire with a foot fetish for the rest of his life, not working in an ER.

“Good. Now Jisung, watch how Changbin rotates Hyunjin’s arm here.”

Jisung watches as Changbin tucks one hand into the crook of Hyunjin’s elbow and his other grabs Hyunjin’s hand by the thumb, turning Hyunjin’s arm out and away from his body, causing his shoulder to rotate externally.

Hyunjin

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck—

Jisung

“Think you got it?” Dr. Cha asks.

He nods.

“Okay, now you try.”

Jisung walks up to Hyunjin and takes over Changbin’s position, smiling up at Hyunjin, trying to exchange a conspiratorial look. But Hyunjin looks like he’s not quite there and in any case doesn’t even deign to meet his eyes.

By the time it’s the patient’s turn, Jisung feels fairly confident, and he lets out a little delighted squeal when he succeeds—he can feel a ‘thunk’, he sees the shoulder look normal right away.

“Nice job, Jisung!” Changbin cries out, clapping in front of the patient (who looks drowsy from the pain meds but very happy, too). Then they quickly place her in a sling so it doesn’t happen again.

After the shoulder patient, Jisung feels like he’s floating on air, and the remaining hours pass by in a blur. He sees more patients, keeps working hard on learning the clicks of the computer system, and suddenly 7am rolls around and it’s time for him to go back to the resident dorm.

“Hyunjin, wanna walk together?” he asks, donning his backpack. Hyunjin is two floors up from him in the same building, less than ten minutes away from the hospital campus.

Hyunjin is glaring at the computer. “I have to finish two more charts; you go ahead.” He waves him away and Jisung salutes and leaves him to it, walking out of the hospital into the morning sunlight, brain a mush—but a happy mush.

He can do this. He will do this. He will be a good doctor.

“Morning, doctor.”

“Aah!”

He whirls around.

Minho

He is too damn cute for his own good.

“M-Minho!”

Minho feels his eyebrows shoot up. “I’m older than you, aren’t I?

“Oh. Right, s-sorry, I’m so sorry sunbae—”

Mmmm. “You can call me hyung, Jisung.”

Jisung goes scarlet.

Minho’s stomach growls.

“O-okay. Um. Sorry, hyung. Thank you, hyung. And… thanks for everything today.”

Minho allows this with a head tilt, and decides to push a little. Just a little. “Headed home?” He asks.

“Yeah. I haven’t slept in…” Jisung checks his phone. “Twenty-three hours.”

They are standing right outside the doors of the main entrance to the hospital, so Minho takes a step to the side to let a pregnant woman in and Jisung shuffles forward, following him so they aren’t blocking the way.

“Hm, that’s a long time. You must be so tired.”

Jisung shakes his head. “I have so much adrenalin going right now,” he admits. “My brain is tired but my body is super awake!”

Oh.

“Is it, now?” Minho allows himself to look at Jisung’s body. Jisung’s scrubs are the hospital-issued light green that most residents wear, and they make for a rather ridiculous fit. His lovely shoulders fill out the top nicely, even hinting at the curve of a pair of prominent pecs, but the pants are terrible. No one with a body that pretty should be experiencing saggage like that. Minho needs to get him out of those pants as soon as humanly possible. “Awake enough to go on a little journey with me?”

The scarlet had started to fade from Jisung’s cheeks. It comes back.

“A.” He gulps. “A… journey?”

“Yeah.” Minho smiles at him. “You wanna?”

“Yes,” Jisung says immediately. Then: “A journey… to where?”

*

The basement level of the hospital is like its own underground city, akin to the subway system the way the ER is like Seoul during rush-hour, except the basement is completely devoid of people.

Once in a while there will be a maintenance worker taking a break, or a lost transportation technician, but it’s a largely deserted maze of dimly lit tunnels and storage areas.

It’s also where the massive scrub laundry is.

“The machine won’t let you order different sizes, but if you come ask for them in person they will definitely do it,” Minho tells Jisung, leading him to the window of the laundry department. It took them an elevator ride and several twists and turns to get there, but he has taken the trip enough times that he doesn’t get them lost on the way.

The greenish, barely there lighting of this hallway is cut through by the fluorescent glow coming from the open window, where a worker is just starting their day.

“Good morning,” Minho greets them. “My intern needs five pairs of pants, size small please.”

He gets an undercaffeinated grunt and a nod from the worker, and it’s all he needs from them so Minho pays them no more mind.

Jisung is watching the person walk into the bowels of the massive, low-ceilinged room revealed within; a gigantic space where multiple people tirelessly ensure hospital staff have scrubs to wear and the patients have clean gowns, sheets and towels.

“Wow.” He turns to Minho. “Thanks for bringing me here.”

Minho wants to ruffle his hair, so he does.

It’s silky under his fingers, a little wavy, and Jisung—freezes, like he did in Changbin’s kitchen when Minho asked him that rhetorical little barb meant to embarrass him, and to test said reaction to his embarrassment.

You’re not doing a very good job so far, are you?

Jisung did an amazing job tonight, Minho knows. He heard the senior nurses muttering about it, pleased, and he could tell, too. A hard-working little spitfire, Minho’s intern is. Fixed a shoulder dislocation on his first day.

“Uh.”

His hand is still in Jisung’s hair. He gathers some of it between his fingers, and Jisung remains still but he makes a noise, something that Minho can’t miss; something embarrassing.

Minho’s stomach clenches with pleasure, a vicious pulse of it.

“Am I hurting you?” he asks, even though his grip is very soft and he knows that noise wasn’t pain.

“N-no.” Jisung’s gaze flickers to the window, perhaps checking to see if they are being watched, if the worker has come back with his pants. Minho doesn’t really care who sees what. “No.”

“Oh, sorry, I thought I was. You made a noise.” He points it out, tracks the way Jisung’s eyes swing back to him when he does. There, better. Jisung’s eyes should always be on him. “How about now?”

He tugs a little tighter, still nowhere near what should be painful (and he knows those limits pretty well, even though they vary person to person), and eats up Jisung’s expressions.

Jisung’s mouth has dropped open; Minho is glad they took off their masks earlier so he can see it.

“Jisung…” he prompts, mean. “I asked you a question.”

He uses the grip he has on Jisung’s hair to move his head a little bit, this way and that, still on the side of gentle.

“Ngh,” Jisung says, mouth opening wider. “N-no. Doesn’t… doesn’t hurt.”

A shadow starts to approach them from inside and Minho lets go in order to innocently greet the laundry worker, a different one than the one who first greeted them, holding several pairs of size small pants in their arms. He shows them his badge and they nod after the most cursory of checks.

Jisung’s eyes are still glazed over so Minho takes the clothes and thanks the person, and then he leads Jisung down the hallway with a hand at the small of his back, his other hand carrying the scrub pants.

“Jisung?” he prompts, a bit more gently. He gets the sense that Jisung is not particularly experienced in this arena—Minho’s brand of it, anyway. He wants him if he is willing, of course, but he does not want to frighten him in any real way, or to make him uncomfortable.

Jisung doesn’t answer, and they round another corner and find themselves in another empty hallway, something that wouldn’t be out of place in a horror movie because the bulb above is flickering, making a buzzing noise; broken.

“Jisung.” Minho stops them, and Jisung looks at him and he’s breathing hard.

He’s so pretty, so perfect, his chest rising and falling like that just from some light teasing and a short walk, his tired eyes so wide and desperate, his cute mouth so pliant.

He hasn’t slept in twenty-three hours, Minho reminds himself. That is the equivalent of a blood alcohol concentration that isn’t zero.

“I think it’s time for you to go to bed, hmm?” Minho says, kinder than he thought came naturally to him. “You’re gonna go home and go to bed?”

Jisung is nodding, but it’s an automated gesture, nodding because Minho is asking him questions, not nodding as an answer to the content of said question.

“Do you have another night shift tonight?” Minho prompts.

“…Yeah. At seven pm.”

“So you gotta get some sleep before then. Gotta rest up, come on.” They aren’t far from the elevator, and Minho starts moving again, Jisung following behind eventually.

“Are. Do you?”

Minho looks over his shoulder at the question.

“Do I what.”

“Do you have another night shift tonight?” Jisung asks him, eyes rising up to meet Minho’s from where they’d been checking out his ass again. Well that’s flattering.

“I do,” Minho admits. “I’m in Blue Pod tonight, though, I won’t be working with you.”

Jisung looks visibly disappointed. “Oh.” Minho looks away from him; they reached the elevators. He’s about to tap the call button when Jisung steps in front of it, preventing him from doing so.

Oh?

“Do you want to get breakfast together? Not now, um. Tomorrow, after our shifts.”

Minho blinks at him.

He doesn’t really socialize with his playthings. It’s not because of any rule but because, frankly, he is not particularly interested in them that way. That is not why he became interested in them in the first place, so he keeps his mealtimes to himself or to his friends, and he has never courted his conquests with food or trinkets before they fell into bed with him; that’s just not his style.

“Sure, Jisung-ah. Let’s get breakfast tomorrow.”

Jisung smiles, falling back against the button in relief and pushing it with a soft chime. Minho watches the arrow above his head light up in the ‘down’ direction, so that it looks like it’s pointing right at him.

That probably doesn’t mean anything.

Chapter Text

Felix

The first day of his first rotation starts off terrifying.

Unlike his fellow interns, Felix’s first month of residency is spent in the department of surgery, not in the ER. He knows that to be a good emergency medicine doctor he has to know a bit of everything: it’s why they spend chunks of their first year in other areas of the hospital, like surgery and ICU and anesthesia, but it feels insanely intimidating to begin his residency in a different department than his own.

And then he meets his team.

“All right everyone, we’re going to go around the room and introduce ourselves. I’m doctor Choi Nari, the attending general surgeon.” Dr. Choi smiles and motions to the person next to her, who describes himself as the senior surgical resident and turns to the next person, and Felix immediately forgets everyone else’s names.

She must be a couple of years older than Chan, because surgical training takes a long time and she’s already an attending, but her early thirties suit her to perfection. She’s so beautiful it hurts to look at her, even bare faced and in the same dark green scrubs that Felix is wearing, the ones given to the surgeons.

“I’m Lee Felix, d-doctor Lee Felix, the emergency medicine intern, rotating here for a month. Thank you for being patient with me.”

Dr. Choi nods at him and moves on without additional acknowledgement. They are in a conference room on the fifth floor of the hospital, at the horrible hour of 5am because surgeons, unlike ER doctors, have to go on rounds. Today is one of Felix’s shorter days, because he is not on call, so if he’s lucky he’ll get out of the hospital in about twelve to fourteen hours.

“Great. Everyone ready? Let’s start running the list.”

But right before they can do that there’s a strident beeping noise and a collective groan, as the surgery pager goes off.

It’s held by the senior resident, a big guy with curly hair.

“Ugh, it’s the ER,” says the guy, and Felix winces with hurt at the dismissive tone. “They are so lazy, they consult us for everything.” He seems to remember which department Felix belongs to at the last minute. “Uh, no offense.”

Offense taken, Felix thinks to himself.

Dr. Choi smirks a little but doesn’t tell him off, and Felix’s heart sinks.

“I’d like to see you down there doing what they do, treating everything from rashes to patients in cardiac arrest.”

A different doctor (the other surgery senior? Felix should have paid attention during the introductions) glares at the curly haired guy whose name is Chul, according to his ID badge. Thank goodness for ID badges; Felix’s defender is named Mingyu.

“Plus if you had to deal with a pregnant patient you’d have a panic attack,” Mingyu goes on, and winks at Felix.

Felix smiles gratefully at him.

At least it seems like he’ll have one ally on the team.

*

Days on the surgical service are spent running all over the hospital. As chaotic as the ER is, Felix misses the comfort of spending the day in one space, and wishes he was down there with his new friends instead of in the cardiac ICU, then the seventh floor, then the neurosurgical ICU, then the third floor, and so on. They don’t send him to the operating room; that is reserved for the surgery intern and seniors, but Felix is tasked with helping the team see consults, i.e. patients being taken care of by other departments who need the surgeons’ input on how to manage certain issues.

He does his best to keep up and work hard at the consults, constantly checking the group-chat (soberly titled ‘Surgical Team Block 1’) for updates.

The surgeons do get lunch breaks though, which is a bonus.

“Well, the lunch break only happens if no urgent cases come in,” Mingyu explains as they walk to the cafeteria. Felix immediately took a liking to him and his friendly energy, and discovered that Mingyu is indeed the other general surgery senior on the team. “Sometimes, if a trauma alert goes off, we have to literally get up mid-bite and leave our stuff at the table, to run.” He grins.

“It actually happens pretty often,” Chul butts in, but he makes it sound pedantic and like he thinks he is very important. “Today is a rarity, intern, so make sure you appreciate it.”

Dr. Choi walks ahead of them and says nothing.

They all sit at a table together, Mingyu snagging the spot next to Felix and asking him questions about his orientation week.

“I heard there’s a rager at the end of the week, before July rotations start,” he says, grinning. “Heard the ER residents throw the biggest party in the hospital.”

Felix flushes and hopes Dr. Choi is as engrossed in her salad as she appears.

“I, uh, didn’t make it to the afterparty.”

To his mortification, Mingyu looks delighted and leans closer to him, perhaps sensing that the others shouldn’t overhear this part of the conversation. “Really? Wow, Felix, can’t say I was expecting that. You went so hard you had to tap out early, huh?”

“N-no, it wasn’t like that, I—”

“Felix?”

Chan.

It’s… it’s Chan. Chan is here.

Felix sits up ramrod straight, almost knocking Mingyu’s chin with his shoulder from how quickly he moves.

“S-sunbaenim!” he blurts, flushing.

Chan is wearing jeans and a T-shirt, not scrubs; today must be a day off for him. He is holding a bag with two Tupperware containers, and for several seconds Felix exists in a world where he is deeply confused by the fact that Chan 1) came to see him on his day off and 2) knew to come find him in the cafeteria somehow.

Then Dr. Choi stands up and takes the bag, patting Chan on the shoulder.

Oh. Right.

“Your first rotation is in surgery?” Chan asks him, eyes going from Felix, to his fiancée, to Mingyu for some reason.

Mingyu leans away from Felix.

“Yeah.” Felix curls his toes inside his sneakers. Having seen him in either scrubs and a white coat or a full suit, this outfit is making Chan look naked. “Um. Dr. Choi is taking great care of me.”

Dr. Choi smiles at him, a small one but a smile nonetheless. “He has not screwed up yet all morning, I am taking the win.” The backhanded compliment makes Felix preen, but Chan frowns.

“Nari, you’re being kind to the interns we send to your department, right?”

“Of course dear.” She sits back down to keep eating, and Chan looks at Felix again.

“I hadn’t realized you were starting surgery on your first month,” he reiterates. There’s something troubled in his tone, and Felix isn’t sure why. “When is your first call shift?”

Dr. Choi reaches back to pat Chan’s flat stomach before Felix can answer the question. “Thank you for bringing snacks Channie, see you at home tomorrow?” and even to Felix that sounds like a dismissal.

“I’m working tomorrow,” Chan says. “But I’ll leave lunch out.”

“Okay, thank you.”

He looks at Felix one last time before taking off, appearing conflicted.

“Dr. Bang is a favorite among the surgery residents,” Mingyu says to Felix as they both watch Chan exit the cafeteria. “He’s really good at what he does, always calls us with legit consults.”

Felix sighs. “He’s a favorite among the ER residents, too.”

*

Felix’s first call shift is actually on the second day on his surgical rotation, meaning he enters the hospital around 5 in the morning and is expected to leave it around 6 or 7am the following day, more than twenty-four hours later.

“You too? Then we’re paired together!” Mingyu says happily after Felix tells him this sotto voce in the conference room. “I’ll be your go-to guy for any questions tonight, okay? And we should get breakfast together tomorrow morning.”

“Is ‘let’s get breakfast after shift’ the new ‘meet me in the call room’?” Chul asks, waggling his eyebrows. He’s been a lot nicer this morning after he got some sleep, and Felix is actually starting to warm up to him.

“Shut up, Chul,” Mingyu mutters. “Felix is gonna go back to the ER and tell everyone the surgeons are a bunch of perverts.”

Felix giggles softly and decides to let it go, especially when Chul later brings him a canned latte in silent apology.

*

There’s a lull around 2pm that finds Felix in the surgery charting offices with Dr. Choi, catching up on his documentation. Mingyu and Chul are operating on a patient with a different attending, and the general surgery intern is on the ninth floor seeing a consult, so it’s just them. They don’t really speak to each other, but it’s not entirely uncomfortable.

Until there’s a knock at the door and then Chan walks in.

Felix flinches, not having expected it at all, and notes that Chan is in scrubs this time. And that makes sense; if he’s about to start a shift, that he’d want to swing by the surgery office and greet his fiancée, they must miss each other. Felix missed him, and they met a little over a week ago—which incidentally is why he needs to go splash some cool water on his face or something.

“Hi Nari, hi Felix.”

“H-hi.” Felix stands up. “I can step out.” He starts to do just that without further explanation but Chan moves into his way, preventing him from leaving.

“Oh, uh, Felix, I wanted to talk to you, actually.”

Alarm bells go off in Felix’s head. Why? What did he do?

“Can I borrow him for a few minutes, Nari?”

Dr. Choi nods, not looking up from her computer where she’s typing away. She does not seem to find it strange that her fiancé came to the surgery department to seek out an intern from the ER.

“Come with me?” Chan smiles, and the alarm bells in Felix dim. It’s a reassuring, lovely smile; surely nothing bad can happen ever if Chan is smiling.

Felix is led out and into a small family room by the nursing station, which is empty.

“W-what’s up?”

“It’s nothing bad,” Chan says immediately, like he knows. The alarm bells vanish, and in their place a sweet, romantic melody starts to play, because Felix is fucked. “I just… wanted to talk to you about something, and my shift starts in thirty minutes so I figured I’d swing by. I’m glad I caught you in the office, hopefully today continues to be a slow day, uh… anyway, I wanted to talk to you about housing?”

The melody gets interrupted by a record-scratch noise.

Felix blinks. “…Housing.”

“Yes. I… your place is so far away from the hospital, Felix. It’s… dangerous, to have a commute like that as a resident, if no one is driving you back and forth, caring for y—you could get into trouble.”

This is not, at all, what Felix thought Chan was going to say.

He’s also a bit weary of what this is implying. Does Chan get that a resident salary is too low for Felix to afford a closer apartment if he wants to live by himself? Attendings make a lot of money but Felix missed out on the resident dorm application deadline and he can’t ask his parents for help. He could probably have found a similarly-priced space nearby if he shared with multiple roommates, but with an intern’s hours and crazy sleep schedule that seemed like the worse end of the deal. He didn’t chose this out of ignorance, he simply had no other options.

“I’m sorry, what exactly—”

“I looked into it,” Chan barrels on, and his smile is just a bit strained. “The resident housing was surprisingly strict about their application periods, but, but I found something just a couple of blocks away from the hospital…” he pulls out his phone, and goes into his email (his email? He already made inquiries on Felix’s behalf?). “This place, for example, the rate is super reasonable, here.”

He shows Felix a picture of a very nice, small but neat and well-lit one-bedroom.

“I spoke to the management company, and they said they’d be willing to make an exception for a new hospital employee, all I had to do was vouch for you and look, look this would be the rate…” It's almost exactly the same as Felix’s current rent. “So if you liked it, I could sign the papers as your guarantor, and it’s available now so we could move you in before the end of this week.”

He blinks down at the phone screen, and then Chan takes it back and pulls up some more apartment pictures, swiping for him so that he can see.

“What do you think? Would… would you like it? Would that be okay with you?”

Felix looks up to meet his eyes, and the music that starts up this time swells until he can’t hear anything else; it’s dramatic, movie-climax-worthy music, some grand-finale stuff.

“You… did all this for me?”

Chan doesn’t answer for a beat, they just stare at each other as if someone pressed ‘pause’ on the moment and they got trapped in it.

Then Chan grins, abrupt like someone pressed ‘play’. “Of course!” He nudges Felix’s shoulder, making Felix stumble back a step. “Us fellow Aussies, we gotta stick together!”

“Hah, right.” Felix chuckles, hoping his blush isn’t too apparent. “Right. Go team Australia!”

Hyunjin

“I thought you made the schedule,” Hyunjin mutters, taking his stethoscope out of his bag.

“San was in charge of block one, actually; the three of us rotate roles,” says Changbin, matching his quiet tone.

It’s them on the overnight shift together. Again.

Jisung is there too, thankfully, and their attending is Dr. Xu, who has an interesting perspective because he did his training in Taiwan where he grew up. Dr. Bang is in Blue Pod (Hyunjin passed him when he walked in) but he’s working the evening shift, from 3pm to midnight. Hyunjin wishes he could have stopped to ask him covert questions about Felix because all he got from the source was a couple of vague texts on Sunday about the fact that Dr. Bang was a perfect gentleman (unfortunately, Felix had sent, and tragic, Hyunjin had responded) and that he left as soon as he woke up in the morning.

“All right team, let’s have a great shift together!” Changbin says cheerfully, and Jisung does a cute fist-bump in the air.

Hyunjin sighs and gets to work.

*

He’s been at it for a couple of hours when he almost runs into someone standing by the triage rooms on his way back from the supply closet.

It's… “Seungmin?”

He’s still in scrubs from leaving his day shift earlier, and Hyunjin is confused. “What are you doing back here? Did you forget something?”

Seungmin hesitates for a moment, then takes a step towards him.

“I… don’t want to check myself in as a patient, but I think something is wrong. I-I think I’m sick.”

Hyunjin feels his eyes widen, and the confusion gets replaced with concern.

“What happened? Are you okay?”

Seungmin looks around them; there’s no one in the immediate vicinity but it’s still the ER, people are walking by, patients are talking, it’s busy. It’s never not busy.

They shuffle towards an empty triage room without having to discuss it, and Hyunjin does his best to swap his concerned-friend hat for a doctor hat (metaphorically, though hats do look great on him).

“What symptoms are you having?” Hyunjin asks, once he’s shut the door behind them.

Seungmin sits in the provider chair, not the patient stretcher, leaving Hyunjin standing.

“I think I might have hyperthyroidism?” Seungmin frowns. “I am getting bouts of random severe palpitations and flushing, and there is associated shortness of breath during the episodes.”

Hyunjin ponders this. “I guess those symptoms could be consistent with that, yeah. Anything else? Any chest pain, fevers, unexplained weight loss, tremors…?”

“Some tremors, yes. But intermittently.”

“Hmm. Gastrointestinal symptoms? Diarrhea, vomiting, anything like that?”

“No. Sometimes I get stomach pain, but it passes.”

“Hm.” He reaches for Seungmin’s wrist and then remembers to ask permission before grabbing it. “Can I take your pulse?”

“Yeah.” Seungmin extends his arm and Hyunjin uses the timer on his phone to calculate the rate, which is on the higher end of normal, but technically normal.

“Have you done an EKG?”

“Yes. It was normal.”

“Hmm. What were you doing when it started?”

“It’s been on and off for a few days now… tonight I was just having dinner after my shift. Nothing particular, no exertion.”

“Okay. Want me to draw your blood and send off some tests? I could drop it off at the lab directly, ask one of the techs to run it for us so you don’t have to check in.”

Seungmin hesitates again, then gives him a grateful nod. “Thank you, Hyunjin.”

“Don’t thank me yet, not until I get your vein on the first try.”

Seungmin doesn’t laugh, but his lips do twitch up at the corners and he finally moves over to the patient stretcher. Hyunjin grabs the equipment he needs to draw blood and rolls the provider chair up to him.

He does, thankfully, get Seungmin’s vein immediately, and then he connects the tubing to fill a handful of vials.

“So I guess… tell me more about tonight?”

Seungmin is looking down at his own blood sluggishly filling the tubing, and he shrugs. “I went back to the dumpling place with Jeongin. It was really crowded today, so we sat in the back, you know that little table before the hall that turns into the bathrooms?”

“…I know that hall, yeah.”

“We had to share a bench, because it was so crowded. And we both tried each other’s food so I don’t think it’s food poisoning because he doesn’t have symptoms—and anyway this was happening last week too, it’s not new from tonight.”

Hyunjin nods along, thinking it over. He imagines Seungmin and Jeongin squeezed into a small bench, sharing dumplings. Cute.

“Did you overheat?” he asks. “The place is small, you said there were lots of people…”

“I felt hot, but I don’t think that was it; we were right by the fan.” Seungmin frowns in recollection. “Jeongin was sweating at one point, but he said it was because the food was spicy.”

“Was it?”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Isn’t he from Busan?”

Seungmin shrugs again, and Hyunjin takes out the needle and packs up his stuff, handing his co-intern a strip of gauze.

“I guess he could just be a southerner with a low spice tolerance. We’ll know more once these come back, in the meantime try to pay attention to what’s happening when the symptoms appear? And if you develop chest pain or anything you’ll have to check in so we can take this seriously, you know that right?”

Seungmin nods, then after a moment’s pause his arm jerks forward and he grabs Hyunjin’s bicep. He squeezes it much more gently than Hyunjin expected.

“I… really appreciate this, Hyunjin. Thank you for helping me.”

Hyunjin smiles at him, allowing the fully sincere expression to show, for once. He really, really hopes Seungmin is going to be okay.

“We’re in this together, man. I’ve got your back.”

“And I’ve got yours, if you need anything. I mean it.”

Can you make me act normal around Changbin?

“Thanks. I’ll let you know if I think of something.”

Chan

“Chan you have to go home,” Minho says, frowning.

Chan can’t go home. The eighty-year-old in room three is septic and the patient with the kidney transplant needs a lumbar puncture before they can be admitted to the hospital, not to mention the waiting room is still full and the overnight attending staffing Blue Pod is not one of their fastest at assessing patients. The wait-times are only going to get worse.

It’s the third time he has ignored Minho’s words, and it gets him a frustrated huff which hopefully means Minho is about to give up.

“Okay well, then we need a surgical consult for the patient in eleven; you were right, they have a bowel obstruction.” Minho hands him the consult pager, glaring, and walks away.

Chan feels a pang for the poor patient, though he is not surprised because he had suspected it the moment he saw them.

Then a second, much more confusing pang hits when he picks up his phone and realizes who is calling him back.

“Hello, this is Felix with the surgery team? I was paged?”

“Felix, hi! It’s Chan, down in the ER.” He tucks the phone between his ear and his shoulder, typing into his computer while he talks. “I have a consult for your team, do you have something to write on?”

He hears a shuffle, and then Felix’s deep voice comes back, slightly breathier. “Y-yeah, I’m ready. What is it?”

He gives him the patient’s information and they hang up after Felix promises to ‘be right down’, and then he gets swept up in tasks again for a little while. Chan checks on the eighty-year-old, pleased to note they are improving, then preps his lumbar puncture equipment, then quickly evaluates and discharges a patient with ear pain who just needed an antibiotic prescription.

“Dr. Bang, hi!”

He ignores his disappointment at being addressed as Dr. Bang given the setting; he figures Felix is conscious of it as well.

“Felix! Did you see the patient?”

Felix looks surprisingly well for two-thirty in the morning on a day that started at 5am for him, and he is holding a sheaf of papers in his right hand.

“Yes, and my surgery senior is also evaluating them now. They are probably going to take them to the operating room in about an hour, I have some consent forms.” He waves the papers around. “Is there anything else we can help you with?”

Chan shakes his head, grateful, and figures the interaction is done but Felix is looking at the empty seat in front of the computer next to Chan’s.

“Wanna sit?”

“…I have to place some medication orders for my patients upstairs, is that okay?”

Suppressing a thrill, Chan pulls out the chair for him and tucks it under him when he sits, and then they settle in to work next to each other for a while. After a few quiet minutes (between them, not around them), Felix shifts and a waft of flowery scent drifts under Chan’s nose.

His ears go hot as he remembers how he accidentally inhaled the smell directly from Felix’s hair that night. Did Felix reapply his perfume today, or is that just the smell of his shampoo? If it’s the latter, Felix must have washed his hair right before his shift started, how else could one explain the scent still being so strong so many hours later? He’s not thinking about Felix in the shower while they are both at work, right? He’s not thinking of Felix washing his own hair. He’s certainly not thinking of what it would be like to wash Felix’s hair for him—

“Chan sunbae?” Felix says, low.

Chan tenses, hoping his ears aren’t giving him away. At least he’s wearing a mask, so Felix might not see his flushed cheeks.

“What time was your shift supposed to end?”

Ah.

“Um. A little bit ago,” Chan admits. He could see a couple more patients. There’s a sixty-two-year-old with back pain who has been waiting for almost two hours to be evaluated, he could probably—

Felix puts his hand over Chan’s.

Felix. Puts his dainty hand. Right over Chan’s bigger one.

“Shouldn’t you go home?” Felix asks him gently.

Chan stares at this hard-working precious soul who, almost twenty-two hours into his shift, found space to worry about Chan’s wellbeing.

“Felix! My muse, the light of my life, my rockstar intern, where are you?”

They both jump and, in Felix’s case, he gets to his feet, waving at his surgery senior sheepishly so that he can see him behind the partition. “Here, Mingyu-hyung.”

Hyung?

“There you are, my prince!”

Chan is standing up.

He isn’t conscious of deciding to do it this time either.

He recognizes this particular surgery senior; he’s very classically handsome, for one, and Nari has mentioned him once or twice. He’s good at his job and Chan has never had issues with his consults before. In fact, Chan is pretty sure they graduated medical school around the same year, but because surgical training takes longer, Mingyu is still a resident while Chan is an attending.

Mingyu comes around the chest-high divider to the computer area, grinning at Felix.

“You did a great job placing that nasogastric tube, Felix,” he says, and Felix smiles at him. “The patient was already feeling better when I talked to her.”

Chan was going to—Chan could have shown him how to—

“Dr. Bang, so good to see you again! I thought ER doctors didn’t work twenty-four-hour shifts but I feel like I see you down here every day!”

“I’m going to go home soon,” Chan says, watching Mingyu lean into Felix’s space to take some of the papers from him. It’s not necessary, to stand over him like that; Mingyu is taller than Felix (taller than Chan, too). Chan wants to say something, to point it out: step away, resident, you’re being inappropriate. This is a professional environment, why are you calling your junior ‘my prince’ and ‘my muse’ and why, why is he calling you ‘hyung’?

“Doctor? Dr. Bang?”

“Yes,” he snaps, blinking out of his thoughts. “What is it?”

Mingyu finally steps away from Felix to discuss the specifics of the case with Chan, and the fuzziness in his vision subsides for a while. But only for a while.

“Great, okay, so we have a plan. Felix, are you ready to go back upstairs? You should try to take a nap in the call room, I’ll deal with this bowel obstruction.”

Typical surgeon, referring to the patient as their condition and not as ‘the patient with the bowel obstruction’. Chan’s jaw clenches, even as Felix shakes his head. “No no, I want to make sure the patients on the floors are okay, I’ll go pre-round on them.”

Mingyu’s eyes go fond. “You’re so good,” he says, and one of his gloved hands is reaching out to—pet Felix, pat him on the head, what?

“Hey.” Chan snatches his wrist in the air, fingers locked around it.

Mingyu’s eyebrows go up in surprise, and for a moment him and Chan just stand there, in the middle of the circular doctor’s area where they are certainly not the only people; Chan holding Mingyu’s arm, Mingyu blinking at him.

It hits Chan belatedly, what he just did.

“I. You.”

Chan drops the wrist, shocked and tense and above all feeling an irrational anger that he can’t explain. Even more inexplicable is how he feels when Mingyu doesn’t try to touch Felix again: not regretful but relieved. Just so, so relieved that he stopped him.

“Sorry, it’s… late. I thought you didn’t realize you were going to—” touch my intern. “—put dirty gloves in his hair.”

Mingyu blinks again. “Uh, no. These are clean.”

“…Oh.”

There’s a pause.

They both look at Felix, whose hair is up in a flattering half-bun with a couple of strands framing his face. Felix is wearing a mask but his big eyes flit from Chan, to Mingyu, then back to Chan again (thank God) before he turns his back on Mingyu in order to face Chan fully.

And yeah, it is late, it must be so fucking late because Chan finds the focus of those pretty eyes to be blinding in the way that staring into the sun is harmful; the kind of light source that damages one’s vision permanently.

“Thank you, Chan sunbaenim,” he says softly. “I hope you can go home soon, but let us know if any more surgical consults come up. I’ll be by the pager.”

And then they leave, and Chan springs back into action before a single other thought can take shape in his brain.

He decides to go assess the patient with back pain after all.

*

He drives home around four-thirty in the morning, mentally planning how he’s going to put Felix up in the apartment by the end of the week now that he has his permission. He had already reached out to the realtor and asked for discretion after he told him the truth, even though he knows that that man thinks Chan is having an affair and came up with a very elaborate cover story to justify keeping the financial details shrouded. Together, him and the realtor were able to drum out how to divide monthly payments into the ‘base’ and the ‘subletter portion’ (what they will call Felix’s part of the rent), in order to allow for an arrangement where Chan covers a little under half of the total monthly cost. He’ll probably also have to send a tiny bit of bribe money to the rental company, to keep certain details quiet… but really, that’s pocket change to Chan, especially with how much overtime pay he is making.

Once he’s home, he stays awake for a few hours more, sending emails, making sure everything is set for Felix to move in as soon as possible.

He stays awake and looks up 24-hour truck rental companies to send to Felix later.

He stays awake and logs into the hospital’s electronic health record remotely so he can check up on the bowel-obstruction patient, scouring the chart for surgical progress notes.

He stays awake and doesn’t think, doesn’t think, doesn’t think.

Jisung

Jisung is so wired at the end of his second night shift (particularly after sleeping for ten hours during the day prior) that he almost runs to Blue Pod to see Minho in the morning.

He’s been thinking about this breakfast for an unhealthy percentage of his free time, which he hasn’t had much of to begin with. The remaining percentage has been replaying the feeling of Minho’s hand in his hair in an endless reel of sexual momentum.

He wants Minho so bad. He almost got hard in the basement yesterday, he was halfway there, good God he wants this.

“Ready to go?” he asks him, practically bouncing on his feet.

Five nurses turn to look at him, and Minho’s eyebrow quirks. Jisung… may have just informed the entire nurse’s station in Blue Pod about their plans.

“Sure, Jisung-ah. Let’s go have breakfast.”

They walk out together, Minho stretching his arms up above his head with a light grunt.

“Tired?” Jisung asks.

“Nah, I’m okay. I was in the pediatric pod last week, and had to toss a four-year-old in the air ten times before he’d let me try to give him his medication. Little bastard was laughing like he knew what that did to my back.”

The mental image makes Jisung wish he had ovaries.

“So… where did you want to eat?”

This is it. This is the moment.

Jisung just has to be brave.

“Um, up to you, but… I’m happy to cook us something at my place, if you want. It’s close.”

Minho stops walking, so Jisung does too. “Oh,” he says. Jisung must imagine the flash of—what? Not hurt, not disappointment, but something in between? “I thought.” Minho’s eyes flicker, but maybe he’s just surprised, and anyway then that weird expression goes away because he smiles.

The smile lights Jisung up inside.

“Sung-ah, you’re asking me to come to your place?”

He blushes, and it starts again, that twisty, horrible, perfect feeling.

“N-no, I-I mean, only if you want—”

“Two shifts in, and you’re already inviting one of the nurses over.” Minho’s delighted smile becomes an evil, evil smirk. He tuts in disapproval, mocking. “You’re a walking cliché, aren’t you? Hotshot new doctor, just started work and already—”

“Please,” Jisung breathes, ready to beg on the street. “I’m sorry, Minho-hyung I-I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean it like—”

“I think you did.” Minho takes a step towards him. “I think you want me to come to your place and do bad things to you.”

“I.” Jisung can’t speak.

“Are you going to deny it?” Another step. People walking past them on the street are just starting their days, walking into the hospital for shifts, or just passing by on their way to work elsewhere in the city. Can they tell that Jisung is having a religious experience? “Jisung-ah, do you not want me to come over and do really terrible things?”

Jisung swallows. “I don’t. I d-do.”

His expression is not hard to parse out right now: Minho looks triumphant. “Say again?” Sweetly.

“I want you.” That part comes out so easy, so true. “To.” There’s a fuzzy ringing in his ears. “C-come over.”

Minho is nodding. “And…?”

“A-and…” Oh God, he can’t look into those eyes when he says this: Jisung closes his. “And.”

He takes too long, because Minho prompts him again after a few moments. “And…?”

He can’t.

He can’t. It’s too much, to be outside, with people, hearing cars honking, feeling like someone is reaching right into his core and reading what’s written there out loud to him, forcing him to hear it.

Suddenly Minho’s voice is by his ear. “Come over and eat breakfast—” he whispers. “Or eat Jisung?”

Jisung’s eyes fly open.

*

He had tidied the apartment in a flurry before his shift the night before, thinking, hoping that maybe he’d have reason to put away his dirty laundry.

He can’t believe he was right. He can’t believe Minho is here, in Jisung’s neat (for once), functional one-bedroom in resident housing, taking off his jacket and surveying the space.

“It’s nice,” Minho says, and pushes Jisung up against the fridge.

Jisung yelps, and then they are kissing—Minho’s lips are perfectly soft and his kisses go deep from the start, jaw working with Jisung’s to open their lips to each other, tongue thrusting dirty into Jisung’s mouth soon after, a knee getting shoved between Jisung’s thighs.

“Mmph.” Jisung clutches at his shoulders, clinging on for dear life.

Minho’s body is firm, and his touch is greedy. He gropes Jisung’s chest, his arms, his waist, his ass. He kisses like he’s been chomping at the bit to do it and finally got told he could have free rein, and his energy would suggest that he’d been waiting for years, instead of a handful of days.

Jisung is getting hard, was already feeling full and sensitive on their quick walk to the apartment building but now his hips are feebly rocking into thin air, not quite able to rub up against Minho’s leg from his position.

“This is what you wanted.” It’s not a question. Minho pulls away a moment to mutter it against Jisung’s lips. “You’ve been dreaming of this since the party at the chief’s place, hm?”

Jisung shudders, so flushed, so embarrassed when the truth is that he’s been dreaming of some version of this since before then. He lets out a helpless moan when Minho’s hand finds its way into his hair and tugs, hard.

“You want me to fuck you,” Minho pants into his cheek, still not a question, but even through the fog Jisung recognizes the undercurrent, the fact that this is a check-in.

He manages: “Please, yes,” in a mortified whisper, and Minho makes an approving noise in return, goes back to kissing him, pinning him to the fridge with the hot line of his entire body. The hand stays in his hair, turning Jisung’s head how Minho wants it, scratching and massaging his scalp, digging his nails into the space behind his ear in a way that makes Jisung’s eyes roll back.

An unknown amount of time passes while they furiously make out until Jisung, fully hard and aching, widens his stance to try to grind into Minho’s thigh, chasing the firm pressure against his dick, but—

“’Tsh, you’re being so desperate,” Minho chides him, chuckling, and moves his thigh away.

Jisung whimpers, turning his face to the side to hide from those eyes—but Minho won’t let him, tugging it back by the hair so he’s staring straight ahead.

He waits until he’s sure Jisung is looking at him, following Jisung’s skittery gaze until their eyes lock.

“Aren’t you a little ashamed? To be so obvious?”

His hips still have nothing to rock against but a different kind of sensation makes Jisung twitch in his underwear, a floaty static noise filling his ears. He doesn’t understand what happens to him around Minho. He’s always liked it a little rough in bed, but he’s never been ‘vibrate-out-of-his-skin’ on the edge like this before, especially not this quickly.

“Aish, Jisung-ah. I was kinda hoping you’d last a little bit…” Minho noses at his jaw, voice quiet like a confession. “Now I’m thinking I’ll be lucky if I get ten more minutes with you before you lose it.”

The static gets louder, and the air Jisung is breathing is thin; he’s gasping.

“Or is it five more minutes?” Minho amends, kissing down to his neck. Jisung’s dick is leaking into his boxer-briefs like a faucet that wasn’t shut off all the way, and he’s so hard it hurts. The combination of neglect where he needs touch and words of derision where he’s used to praise has him shaking, and he makes a pained, confused noise.

Minho’s free hand slides down his side, to his waist, grabbing his hip. “I thought you wanted me to fuck you, Jisung-ah. Why do you already look like you’re about to come in your pants?”

Jisung… is. This is crazy, he can’t explain it, but… he’s swallowing, trying to say something, anything, and he can’t, all he can do is moan in distress. And he’s throbbing, pulse pounding in his ears and neck and gut and especially in his dick. And he’s about to come in his pants, just like Minho said.

The more the thought persists the closer it materializes. He gets trapped in a loop where the very real possibility of him having an orgasm untouched the way he hasn’t since he was a teenager makes him flustered, and then feeling ashamed gets him one step closer to doing the thing that caused his embarrassment in the first place, and the sound in his ears is loud as a roar—

“Jisung-ah.” The hand on Jisung’s hip slides back to his ass, grabbing a generous handful. “Look at me.”

Jisung does, and when he blinks he finds that he has tears in his eyes. Oh, he’s crying.

“Are you about to come just from this?” Minho asks him, eyebrows raised, on the verge of mocking.

He’s so—this is so—this happened so fast—

“Wow.” He scoffs. “I can’t believe you’re so worked up, you’re pathetic.”

Jisung sobs and comes, crumpling where he stands.

Minho catches him immediately, pinning him by the hips and holding him up in his arms, and Jisung cries out at the sudden pressure and stimulus against his dick, the orgasm cresting even higher, coming from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. He buries his face in Minho’s shoulder, humping his hips forward helplessly, riding out the pleasure on Minho’s lower abdomen, crying like something broke open inside of him, tears and snot into Minho’s shirt.

“Shh, shh, that’s it, that’s so good,” Minho croons, holding him. “That was so good, you’re so good, good boy, well done.”

He’s shaking and shivering by the time he comes back to himself, still crying into Minho’s neck, body twitching every few seconds as the aftershocks fade away.

“Oh my God…” he breathes. “Oh my God…”

Minho cradles his head in his hand, softly stroking his hair, shushing him and intermittently calling him ‘good’. “You’re so good, so good, shh…”

Jisung eventually stops crying, and a feeling of profound exhaustion sets in. He feels like he weighs a ton, like Minho is holding up a leaden outline in the shape of him.

“…You okay?” Minho asks eventually. His voice doesn’t sound mocking at all anymore, it sounds sweet and gentle and warm. “Was that okay?”

Jisung exhales, still into his shoulder. “That was…” He doesn’t really have words for how good that was. For how undone he feels. How… seen, and known.

“Jisung.” Minho’s hands pull his head away and hold it up (Jisung’s neck certainly doesn’t have the strength to do it), so that they are looking at each other again. He looks worried. “I didn’t—I’m sorry, I didn’t ask, we should’ve talked, before I—”

Oh. “N-no, n-no it was… it was perfect, it was so good.” Jisung sounds like he took something. His voice is so shot, he has never heard himself sound so low and throaty, in contrast to Minho’s voice going high with concern. “It was amazing.”

Jisung has no idea what his face is doing right now but it eventually makes Minho’s lips curve into a pleased smile, so that’s good. That makes Jisung happy. Minho smiling is amazing.

“It was really amazing,” Jisung repeats, breathy with honesty. “I’ve never… Sorry that it was. Um.” He winces. “Fast.”

Minho chuckles and lets go of Jisung’s head, which makes it loll and thunk backwards into the fridge. He still can’t quite believe he just did that. He did not know he had that button, how did Minho find it just moments into meeting him? How did he know this about Jisung before Jisung did?

“You were great,” Minho says, and he sounds sincere. “I love that you got so overwhelmed.”

Jisung looks at him again. He’s looking at Jisung’s cheek, and he reaches for it with his fingers. “I love that you cried.” Minho’s voice grows more absent as he becomes absorbed in what he’s doing: he puts the pad of his thumb to the dry tear-tracks, tracing them reverently. “I love that you came so quick. Moaning like that… I could tell you loved it so much. I love that you loved it.” His thumb curves around Jisung’s jaw and then his hand is cupping his chin.

Jisung swallows.

“Hmm.” Minho inspects his face some more, then his eyes drop to Jisung’s lips. “You’re so pretty when you cry,” he murmurs, and leans in to kiss him.

Jisung opens for it, wanting it, suddenly needing it, and he gets flattened to the fridge again, this time with Minho flush against him, so that he can feel the hard length of him insistently against his hip. He’s too sensitive for the pressure to feel wholly good; there’s a part of him that wants to squirm away, but it’s definitely a smaller part compared to the need to be touching Minho everywhere, feeling him everywhere. He wants to drown in him, sink to the very bottom, anchor there.

They make out sloppily, feverishly, until Minho is softly moaning too, into the kiss, rolling his hips into Jisung’s to ride the cut of his hipbone.

“W-wait,” Jisung gasps, and Minho immediately freezes, pulling back. “You’ll still fuck me, right?” he asks, anxiously. The fear that he might miss out on that because of his humiliating display spikes. “Y-you said you would. You will, right?”

Minho groans and steps back, unwelcome air invading the spaces between them.

“All that and you want me to fuck you, too?” He sounds strained, and not at all displeased. “You’re such a greedy boy, Jisung.”

Jisung nods, conceding this. “Please. Please, you said—”

“Yes, yes, don’t you worry.” Minho runs a hand through his own hair, and the dark circles under his eyes have never looked so prominent, or so attractive. “I’m going to fuck you really, really hard, okay?”

Minho

True to his word, Minho has Jisung on his hands and knees in his own bed after making him finger himself while he watched, not letting him stop until three fingers are easily sliding in and out of his hole, and he knows he’s torturing them both by making him wait but he can’t help himself.

“Are you going to cry again?” he asks, and he’s trying to sound condescending but can tell he sounds too frantic, too eager to know the answer. “When I give this to you, are you going to cry?”

He’s so fucking hard, so desperate to fuck in, but Jisung buried his face into the mattress and that’s not—he can’t tell what’s going on just by watching the back of his head or the cute curling hairs at the nape of his neck, so he needs Jisung to talk to him.

“Ah, Minho-hyung, please—” he sounds choked, but Minho can’t tell if there are actual tears involved yet. He wants to see, wants to admit that he changed his mind and wants to turn him over, but Jisung is begging. “Please, Minho-hyung, please, I was… I did what you asked, please, please—won’t you please…?”

The hand that’s not inside himself is blindly reaching back, trying to pull Minho to him, and Minho feels something swell in his chest.

He captures that hand in one of his own and interlaces their fingers, thinks: how romantic, we’re holding hands as he avidly watches Jisung fucking himself down to the knuckle a while longer, until Jisung’s moans have a true edge of frustration, of displeasure.

He’s clearly unable to be satisfied if Minho isn’t inside him. He’s so delicious. Minho should let go of his hand to give him what he wants.

He eventually does, to roll on the condom. Jisung’s arm drops to the bed like dead weight, and Minho carefully takes Jisung’s other hand out of his own hole, positioning himself between Jisung’s legs. Before Jisung can draw enough air to beg him Minho lines himself up, and fucks in.

It’s not slow. Jisung’s noises go low and guttural, and then he just starts moaning uninterrupted, rocking back onto Minho’s dick without waiting for permission or for Minho to adjust, and it’s—it’s been a while since Minho felt so close so quickly, since he had to breathe deeply through the perfect tight pressure that squeezes his dick like Jisung is trying to milk an orgasm out of him right away.

“Ahhh yess,” Jisung groans. “You’re so fucking big, ahhhh…”

Minho takes a final deep breath, braces himself on Jisung’s shoulder and on his waist, and he gives him the fucking he promised.

It feels so damn good to finally let go, to let his hips move at the punishing pace they so crave, to hear Jisung clearly loving it and to go faster and harder and only get thanked for his troubles.

Because at some point that’s what Jisung’s noises become: grateful moans and whimpers and half-formed words like: “Thank… ah, nggghhh, ah, ah y-yes, yes fuck, fuck mmh… th-thank y-you y-yes fuck…!”

Made for him. He was made for him; Minho didn’t even have to ask.

He’s sweating; the sweat and lube slicking his movements and making the slap of their skin all the more obscene, but he feels so powerful that he could keep going for another hour—maybe he could keep going for ever. This is what he was made for, after all, he knows this now; he was created to fuck Jisung, to give him pleasure, they fit too well.

“Ah, M-Min… hyung…”

Jisung’s shoulders hitch, and Minho is so focused on him that he catches it the second it happens. He doesn’t slow his pace, but he leans forward and Jisung’s knee slides open on the bed.

“Are you?” He demands. “Are you crying?”

Jisung doesn’t respond, so Minho pulls out, and that gets a wail.

Minho tosses him onto his back, clumsy in his eagerness.

“M-Minho-hyung—"

“Let me, let me see—” Minho pants, shoving his legs apart and positioning Jisung how he wants him, grabbing his hips to frantically sink into him again with a grunt of relief. “Fuck, oh fuck let me see you…”

It’s everything he wanted; the glittery shine of tears in Jisung’s eyes, running down his temples to the sheets, clumping his eyelashes together. He’s so fucking pretty. The prettiest thing always, but especially now. Like this, Jisung is a thing of fantasy.

Jisung moans as soon as he’s stuffed full again, and his ankles dig into Minho’s lower back, locking to prevent him from pulling out again. How he loves being full, Minho’s pretty thing.

He starts fucking him again, back to the punishing rhythm Jisung liked, and like this he can see how it makes his pecs bounce, fuck—but then he sees Jisung put an arm over his face to hide the tears. No. “Stop that.” He flings the arm aside, furious at the idea. “That’s for me,” he explains, and Jisung’s face crumples.

“H-hyung…”

“Yeah,” Minho groans, watching him cry harder. “Yeah, like that, fuck that’s it. That’s all for me, fuck.”

Soon Jisung is a weeping mess, snotty and wet and perfect, and he’s drooling too, all of his best features slick and shining with spit or tears or lube, and Minho is losing his damn mind.

“H-hyung…” He’s so fucked out, so garbled it’s hard to understand him. “This is… s’yours…”

Minho’s pleasure spikes at that, suddenly almost overtaking him in a way he wasn’t expecting, and he goes rigid as a hot pulse of warning floods his lower belly.

He stills, blinking rapidly and trying to force himself off the edge, and watches Jisung squirm on his dick for a few moments. Jisung is not pleased with the sudden change of pace; it seems as though Minho’s perfect little baby already wants that brutal, punishing rhythm back. He’s still so hard, though; red and flushed, pretty dick curving up towards his stomach. Minho grabs the base and Jisung seizes, gasping.

“Hyung!” He arches his back, and his hand reaches up to—

“Stop that,” Minho snaps, strident with it. “Stop trying to hide your face.”

He starts jerking Jisung off, slowly speeding up again in his thrusting. It feels too good, Minho won’t last.

“I asked you for one thing—” He’s gasping for air himself, at this point, it’s so hard to keep his voice even. “I was nice about you coming in your pants in two seconds, wasn’t I? I’m fucking you like you begged me to, aren’t I?”

Jisung’s body is racked with shivers, making for a particularly lovely fuck.

“All I’m asking is that you let me see your face, can you do that for me Jisung? Can you at least manage that?”

Jisung is nodding, sweat-slick hair flopping with it and with Minho’s thrusting. His dick is leaking precome in blurts all over his own stomach. He’s getting even harder in Minho’s grip, flexing, clearly about to—

“Are you about to come even though I’m upset with you?”

The shivers get stronger. “Yes,” Jisung sobs, a hoarse confession.

“Pathetic. That’s so embarrassing, Jisung-ah.”

“Y-yes, yes it’s…” Jisung is a mess, he’s so perfect, fuck he’s so—"I’m… hyung, m’gonna—”

Minho leans down to hover right over his face. “You’d come even if I told you not to, wouldn’t you? You love this that much.”

“I can’t…!”

“You should be ashamed.”

“I’m gonna… I’m, oh, oh I’m—"

“God, Jisung, you can’t do anything right—" Minho moans, and Jisung was already coming, dick shooting all the way up to his chest, painting his stomach in ropes and ropes even though it’s his second orgasm of the morning, and then Minho is coming too, coming so good that his vision whites out while he groans and pounds his hips into that tiny perfect body, thinking of Jisung’s wrecked, beautiful face while he does, thinking that he meant: God, Jisung, everything you do is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

He regains awareness with his hips still churning into Jisung’s shuddering frame, both of them making low noises, Jisung’s deep and hoarse and Minho’s high and husky, catching their breaths as they slow down together. The instinct to keep grinding into him dulls at the first hint of discomfort in the twitch between Jisung’s eyebrows, and Minho pulls out.

Jisung sighs a big, deep, lovely sigh. Minho knows a satisfied partner when he sees one. He’s so pleased he could purr; he put that look there.

He ties off the condom and tosses it vaguely in the direction of a trash can, then curls around Jisung’s body.

“You were so good, good job Jisung-ah, you were so perfect…” he whispers a steady stream of praise into Jisung’s ear, his voice at its most soothing, most comforting, most caring, knowing how crucial this part is.

Jisung hums happily and turns so that he is being spooned, and Minho puts a pillow behind his own head so he can lift it enough to monitor Jisung’s facial expressions from behind.

“Such a good boy, so perfect, you did so good…”

He keeps going for a while, feeling warm and content with Jisung’s body in his arms, until Jisung half-turns to him, clearly indicating he’s going to speak. Minho trails off, waiting.

“I’ve never felt that good,” Jisung says finally, quiet.

The rumble in Minho’s chest is as close to a purr as he can manage. He wants to find a rooftop to shout from, so everyone knows what Jisung just said about how Minho made him feel.

He knows what it actually means, though: Jisung hasn’t been with a partner who shared this trait in such a complementary way before. Jisung probably wasn’t entirely aware he had this kink, and this is his first time having it brought to light and explored.

“We should talk about it,” Minho makes himself say. It’s important, he wants to.

“Yes. Later. Sleep now, though.”

Minho never stays overnight—overday, whatever. He never stays to sleep with his partners. Once the aftercare is over, and the partner is feeling good, he leaves. He knows some people interpret sleeping over in ways he wouldn’t mean, so it’s another one of his… not rules, but behaviors. He prefers his own bed anyway, and likes his privacy before the domestic starts to creep in to these encounters.

“Okay, Jisung-ah. Sleep now.”

“Hmm.” Jisung closes his eyes, small smile curving his mouth, and Minho watches him for a very long time before sleep finally takes him as well.

Changbin

“Well, the good thing is you hadn’t unpacked fully,” Changbin says, hefting the box into the moving truck.

“Moving at 8pm on a weekday is still crazy,” says Hyunjin, walking away to go grab another box.

“If I was living in that hovel—no offense, Felix, but I would have simply quit residency to become a stripper, so that I could trap a rich guy and move in with him,” Wooyoung says from inside the truck. Felix hands him a lamp and chuckles, clearly not offended.

San frowns. “Stripping is hard work, Woo, one does not simply walk into a club and get hired.”

“Aren’t the three of you about to make a lot of money when you become attendings?” Jeongin asks with a grin. He is carrying a side table and making it look easy. “I think it’d take time to get good enough at stripping to trap someone.”

“Also, what are the logistics here?” Felix asks, giggling. “Are you asking for their cash withdrawal limits before every dance…?”

As soon as they found out that he was moving (and on the first week of his surgery rotation! Like a crazy person! Wooyoung had exclaimed) all three chiefs had volunteered to help, and had swapped shifts with their classmates so that they could be there for Felix’s move on Thursday evening. Seungmin, Hyunjin, and Jeongin also joined, and Jisung had offered to come after his shift, too, but by that point Changbin was worried that they would have more people than things to move, and they wouldn’t all fit in the truck, so he’d turned Jisung down.

It's definitely overkill, for all of them to be here, but it is making the late evening move happen in record time so Changbin supposes that is for the best.

“Is that everything?” Changbin interrupts the chaotic discussion, which has now veered to the topic of how best to ‘trap rich men’, including methods other than dancing. But he knows that’s not everything, because they are missing—

“Hyunjin had the last box,” Seungmin says. “It looked heavy.”

Changbin was already walking towards the building. He finds him in the hallway, slowly and stubbornly carrying a box labeled in English.

“What is it?” Changbin asks, reaching for it without asking.

“I got it,” Hyunjin grits. He stops in front of Changbin, and his arms are trembling.

“I can see that, but I’d like to help you.”

Hyunjin looks down at him. He’s breathing unsteadily.

Changbin lifts the box from his grip; it’s pretty heavy, nothing he can’t handle but probably uncomfortable for Hyunjin’s lithe frame. Changbin takes it, easy.

“It’s kitchenware,” Hyunjin says, and yeah, he’s panting, sweat beading at his neck. He puts his hand on top of the box, stays like that for a moment. Changbin adjusts his grip, but he’s still fine just standing there holding it up.

At his total lack of a reaction, Hyunjin shifts slightly so that it’s his arm that’s resting on the box, and then Changbin feels him start to lean his weight into it. He doesn’t acknowledge Changbin at all as he does it, nor does he acknowledge the fact that he’s doing it; he just slowly sags to the left, letting Changbin take the weight of the box as well as some of his own.

Changbin takes all of it, feels it in his biceps and thighs, a satisfying burn. He doesn’t even grunt in effort; Hyunjin does not weigh very much, and Changbin regularly deadlifts a lot more than him plus a few plates, pots and pans.

They stand there like that a few moments, Hyunjin catching his breath, flushed, and Changbin with his feet planted and his arms flexed, watching him.

“Guys! Everything okay?”

Hyunjin straightens with a hiss, and walks to San immediately.

“That was the last box, right Hyunjin?”

“Yup,” Changbin hears him tell San, and then he’s out of sight.

Only then does Changbin feel winded.

“Bin, let’s go; you’re driving and it’s over an hour away.”

*

The building they are pulling up to is nice. Really nice.

…Too nice.

“This is it?” he asks Felix, who nods with happy anticipation.

“Wow,” Jeongin says, and yeah, ‘wow’ is right. While not technically a luxury high-rise, this is a big step up from the resident housing, and it’s several floors up from Felix’s prior place, both literally and figuratively. There’s a doorman and a place for them to pull up with the moving truck so as not to block the driveway or the entrance to the parking garage, and Changbin feels uneasy. It reminds him of the feeling he had when he watched Felix float into Chan’s arms the night of the welcome dinner.

He doesn’t know much about real estate but he has no idea how a person with Felix’s budget could suddenly afford an apartment in this building just by adding a ‘guarantor’ to the lease. That shouldn’t drop the rent by that much, surely?

In the rearview mirror he sees Hyunjin frowning suspiciously, as though he is having similar thoughts. Their eyes meet and instead of swiftly looking away Hyunjin allows it for once, his facial expression clearly communicating: something is off about this and we both know it, right?

Changbin shoots him a look of agreement: we have some investigating to do.

After a beat, Hyunjin breaks the eye-contact first as is their new normal. Then he bites his lower lip, clearly deep in thought. The pink give of it slowly unfurls from under the white of Hyunjin’s teeth, coming back looking even plusher, shinier with saliva.

“Bin, stop! Stop the car!”

The truck breaks abruptly, jolting all of them and almost crashing into the barrier.

“Yah! Eyes on the road Binnie!” San calls.

“Sorry guys,” Changbin pants, heart racing. It seems as though they avoided any injury. “My bad.”

“Klutz,” Wooyoung says fondly, and pats his shoulder before unbuckling his seatbelt.

Hyunjin is looking at him in the rearview mirror again, when Changbin checks.

This time the look in his eye is impossible to decipher. It could be I caught you. It could be I’ve never cared less about anything. It could also be I still remember what you said the second time you came that night.

*

Chan meets them there, with the keys, and Felix goes to him first with the biggest smile.

Changbin watches his best friend melt, and knows in his heart of hearts that Chan has done something epically, irrevocably stupid.

Between them and the fast-moving elevators of the building, the move is quick and easy; everything sorted by 10pm. The place isn’t huge but Felix still has a lot less stuff than the apartment has capacity for, plus some of the furniture was already there.

“You need to get more stuff, Felix,” Hyunjin says, echoing Changbin’s thoughts. “Wanna online shop with me sometime?”

“Sure!”

Felix thanks them all profusely, and eventually Seungmin points out that they need to leave because out of all of them Felix is the one with the 5am start-time the next morning.

The group filters out of the apartment complex, and Changbin makes a point of walking next to Chan.

“Come return the truck with me?” he says to him, and knows Chan will understand what that’s code for. We need to talk.

“Sure, Binnie.” Chan sounds tired, but Changbin isn’t letting this go. Not tonight.

*

“And your genius plan here,” Changbin says, fingers pressed to the bridge of his nose. “Is to hope that Felix is too busy being an intern to notice?”

“No! I… also sent the rental company a small bribe. He won’t know.”

“Hyung!” Changbin stands up from the couch, gaping. “That’s insane! This whole thing is deranged!”

They ended up at Changbin’s place; San and Wooyoung are out with some of the other senior residents, so at least there’s some privacy to talk here. Changbin made them mixed drinks, but now he’s thinking this is a ‘straight out of the bottle’ level conversation.

“You met him last week. Literally like, twelve days ago. What…?” He doesn’t know how to ask this. Did you forget that you’re engaged to someone else? Have you completely lost your mind? “What is going on here?”

He knows Chan is like this—caring to a fault, prone to excessive effort even for people he just met, so this is isn’t exactly a huge deviation for him. But it is certainly the most extreme version of that effort that Changbin has ever seen him display. On a monthly basis Chan’s portion of the rent will amount to less than half of a fairly modest sum, but it becomes an exorbitant expense to lavish on a coworker when Changbin thinks of the payments accumulating over time. It will add up to an amount that doesn’t bear thinking about over the course of the next four years.

“What is going on, hyung?”

“I.” Chan looks… unwell. “I don’t know.”

And then his eyes fill with tears.

Oh God.

“Fuck, Channie-hyung…” Changbin sits back down and pulls him into a hug, feeling guilty for missing how bad things had gotten. Chan is too good at putting on a smiley façade and working through pain. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Chan shivers in his arms, desperately clutching Changbin’s waist.

“I can’t sleep,” he muffles into Changbin’s shoulder. “I just… can’t.”

“Shh, shh…”

He knows Chan is an insomniac, but ever since him and Nari moved in together two years ago Changbin had assumed that she’d be taking over the Chan-sleepwatch and Chan-overworking duties. Someone has to save him from himself sometimes; overworking is Chan’s default, and when he was a resident it used to be a team of Chan’s co-residents and attendings who did it, Changbin included. It helped that Chan wasn’t allowed to work past a certain number of hours a week, because residents have work-hour restrictions.

“Chan. How much overtime are you logging?”

Attendings don’t have hour restrictions. No one is keeping an eye on Chan’s overtime other than the people cutting his checks for said extra hours.

Chan doesn’t respond, and of course Changbin phrased that incorrectly.

“Okay, I’m sure you’re not logging all of it, but… how much overtime are you working?”

“…I’ve lost track,” Chan mutters.

Fuck.

Oh fuck.

“Chan.” The guilt is clawing up Changbin’s insides. “I’m going to need you to send me your schedule every week from now on, okay?”

Chan sighs.

“I am so serious right now.” He can’t believe Nari missed this. He knows she’s busy, she works crazy hours too, but she usually gets a bit of sleep on her call nights, and anyway they live together, how did she miss this? Does she even care? “Chan. You’ll do it?”

Chan nods into his shoulder. “Yeah. Okay.”

They sit in silence like that for a long while, until Chan eventually stops crying. Changbin tries not to be furious at Nari and fails, even though he knows this is an issue of Chan’s, not hers. But it should become hers if she wants to marry him, he thinks. It’s mine, and I’m his friend.

Then Chan takes a shaky breath in.

“I can’t stop thinking about Felix.”

And… Changbin can’t come up with a response to that. He wishes he could say ‘You can fight this, I believe in you’ to Chan, but he doesn’t think Chan should be trying to fight this for the sake of his relationship with Nari. And if he’s being honest, he’s not sure he believes in Chan’s ability to win that fight, anyway.

Seungmin

Seungmin’s apartment is in an actual luxury high rise because his parents turned their noses up at the idea of resident housing, but today, Seungmin wishes he was in Hyunjin and Jisung’s building for the comfort of finding company just a few doors down.

Because his bloodwork came back normal.

Something is wrong but his bloodwork is normal, and he’s at a loss as to what to do next. He knows there are specialists, people with more training than him and people more senior than him who might have better ideas, other tests (does he need a cardiac stress test? A 48-hour heart-rate monitor?) but he also knows that he is very, very smart and the depth and breadth of physiopathology covered in medical school is still fresh in his mind: he should be able to figure this out.

“Seungmin?”

He might not be able to show up and knock on their door, but a videocall might be the next best thing. He understands that he may be lacking perspective due to being in the role of the patient himself.

“Hey, Jisung.”

Jisung seems surprised that Seungmin called, but then he smiles at him. He looks incredibly well-rested for someone who had to switch to day shifts right after working two nights, and Seungmin knows he worked from 7am to 7pm today too because he checked the Friday schedule.

“You’re eating dinner?”

Evidently. Seungmin angles the camera to better show off his soup.

“Oh, nice, so am I.” Jisung shows him his own bowl of noodles. He’s on his couch, whereas Seungmin sat at his too-large kitchen table. “I’m happy you called; what’s up?”

“Do you have a moment to discuss a medical case?” Seungmin asks. “I know you were top of your class in medical school.”

Jisung blushes like Seungmin paid him a compliment instead of stating a fact, but takes it in stride.

“Oh, uhm, sure! One of the patients you saw this week…?”

“No. It’s me.”

“Oh.” The blush disappears, and Jisung’s eyebrows pull in with worry. “Hey, are you okay? Do you want me to come over?”

Seungmin shakes his head; he has an early shift in the morning. “It’s okay, we can talk like this. I’m okay right now, but I’ve been having some intermittent symptoms and I was hoping to get your perspective on next steps.”

He tells him about what’s been happening, including the part about Hyunjin drawing his blood.

Jisung looks shocked. “He did that for you? Really?”

“…Yeah.”

“That’s… so nice of him.” He takes a thoughtful pause. "Hyunjin blows very hot and cold, don't you think?" he asks.

Seungmin thinks on it, then says: "More like even-tempered and cold, I think." But that doesn’t feel right either. When Hyunjin is cold it’s in a way that suggests a thin, melting crust of ice is concealing a boiling pit of lava that's about to erupt. But Seungmin doesn’t like speaking in metaphors so he keeps that particular one to himself.

“Anyway, so then you guys snuck those into the lab…?”

Seungmin finishes his story by sending Jisung screenshots of the results, and by the time he’s done Jisung has stopped eating and is tapping his chin, deep in thought.

“I mean, I agree with all the different diagnoses you thought about; hypoglycemia made sense at first, but then it happened again in the context of food, plus your blood sugar was normal on your labs…” He puts a finger down. “Thyroid and anemia are reasonable thoughts, but not with those stone cold normal results…” Another two fingers. “Hm. A normal EKG rules out some things, but an intermittent tachycardia is still possible I guess; you could be going in and out of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation or some other rapid heart rhythm and just not know it because your symptoms had gone away by the time you did your EKG.”

Seungmin nods. It’s as he’d suspected, but he feels validated by Jisung’s words. A 48-hour monitor may be the next step, but that’s much harder to coordinate than a brief self-performed EKG, and he’d need to see a cardiologist to get it.

Which would mean speaking to his father.

“I guess something else to think about is, like, anxiety? Or something else psychological?” Jisung looks at him consideringly. “That should be at the bottom of the list of conditions to work up though; a diagnosis of exclusion. Obviously.”

“Obviously.”

It's not that he’s forgotten the fact that he feels things somatically sometimes, and that they can have an emotional trigger which can take him time to sort out.

… He does want to figure this out as quickly as possible.

“I… don’t think I’m anxious about starting residency,” he starts, tentative. Jisung waits him out, patient and kind. “I understand most people are, and I am nervous to a degree, but I don’t sense a correlation between the symptom onset and work.”

And that’s true, but not entirely; the symptoms haven’t really happened to him at home, only at work-related events. Or at least in settings where people from his work were present.

“Okay. When was, like, the worst episode?”

Seungmin thinks on it. “I think the first one, when I thought I was going to lose consciousness. We were at the simulation lab.”

“Oh, when you confronted JYP?”

“No, no, later during the sterile gown practice.”

Jisung ‘hmms’. “Okay. Were you feeling overheated, with the gown on? I think I remember the air conditioning going full blast…”

Seungmin thinks back to the scene. Immediately Jeongin’s beautiful face comes to mind.

“Jeongin was tying the gown for me,” he says, slowly. He remembers feeling him close, behind him, and the brush of fingers against his neck. The memory is incredibly vivid, more than he thought it would be. He hasn’t thought back to it much, only a couple of times a day since it happened.

Is it… normal, that he’s thought about it every day?

“What?” Jisung prompts, something about Seungmin’s expression making him ask.

“I.” He has thought about Jeongin’s face a lot, too. He had wanted to see it; at work, it had bothered him that his mask concealed that smile. A first, for Seungmin.

The feelings he’s been having, they haven’t all been bad.

“Seungmin?”

“I think.” The nausea had happened when Jiwoo and Jeongin were interacting. And then, out of nowhere, at the memory of them together it happens again. Right now, while he’s sitting here in his apartment, by himself. He pictures their embrace, their lips locked together, remembers checking in on that dark corner they occupied the whole night, and the nausea worsens the more he thinks about it. “I think I’m…”

He switches to thinking of squeezing into that bench next to Jeongin to eat dumplings, feeling the surprisingly defined curve of his shoulder and bicep press up against him, noticing it the way he hadn’t when it was Chief Seo’s. He remembers noticing Jeongin’s body heat, noticing the arch of his cheekbone, the fan of his lashes, the dimple by his mouth so close, noticing his mouth, watching his mouth—

The nausea fades and is replaced by a thumping in his chest, a warm, flushed feeling creeping up his neck to his face, to his ears, and oh.

“Seungmin, what is it?”

Oh.

Oh.

Chapter Text

Hyunjin

He has a day off on Saturday and he informs Felix that he will be showing up at his new apartment after Felix gets back from work to have dinner together. He does so on ‘I wish Dr. Bang would bang me’ to include the others, but Seungmin is working and Jisung responds with a thumbs down and an ‘already made plans :/’. Felix’s response is: <3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

So it’s just them two, and Hyunjin doesn’t mind that at all, actually. They haven’t had a chance to hang out one-to-one, but he’s felt a connection to Felix ever since he invited Hyunjin to join the rest of the sim team that morning on the very first day. Felix didn’t know this, but Hyunjin at that time was shaken and reeling from unexpectedly running into Changbin on the tour of the ER, and the company had been extremely welcome. He was so grateful.

“—and then Mingyu said that it was probably their gallbladder like I suggested, and then Chul said—"

“Mingyu is the hot one, right?”

Felix grins, looking up from the batter he is stirring. “Yes. The very hot one.”

Hyunjin grins back. “I consulted him on a patient with a post-operative complication the other day; he’s hot and nice. You should get on that.”

But Felix looks back down at the batter, and Hyunjin knows why.

“Uh. Maybe. I’m not even sure he likes guys.”

“Felix, you are so pretty that that honestly doesn’t matter.” Felix snorts with a look that says ‘you’re one to talk’, and Hyunjin smirks. “You should do it. He is crazy-hot and Dr. Bang is taken, Felix, you deserve to get railed by available dick.”

At the mention of Dr. Bang, Felix’s face shutters.

Hyunjin figures it’s time to talk this out. “I… I get that Dr. Bang is very… crush-worthy.” He starts off, as gentle as he knows how to be. “But that situation seems… fraught.”

“I mean, it’s not, really.” But Felix isn’t meeting his gaze anymore; he’s sorting batter into cupcake tins. “Nothing about it is complicated: he’s unavailable. He’s straight. He’s our attending. He has been amazingly kind to me, but that’s it. The rest of it is on me, for feeling… you know.” A sad little smile. “So crushed.”

Hyunjin sighs.

The vulnerable hunch of Felix’s shoulders feels unearned, to him, in that moment. And pushing Felix to talk about Dr. Bang when he looks extra waif-ish in his giant New York Knicks hoodie, so pale and tired, so obviously pining after Bang Chan… well, that doesn’t seem fair. At least, Hyunjin owes him some vulnerability of his own.

He swallows, steeling himself.

He can do this. He should… he went nine months without telling a single soul about it; he needs to do this.

“I slept with Changbin on the last day of my rotation when I was a medical student.”

The bowl splatters to the floor.

*

“You… okay, please start from the beginning,” Felix rasps, once they’ve cleaned up the worst of the spill and what’s left of the cupcakes is safely in the oven. He led Hyunjin to the much nicer couch he now has; something blue that’s easy to sink into, except it’s the same shade of midnight blue as the bedsheets that are apparently the only fucking set Changbin owns.

“It was. Last year.” Hyunjin’s throat is dry.

He volunteered this information. He put himself in this position, like an idiot.

“I just. I was nervous, and he was so kind. You see how he is—he was already like that as a third-year resident, before they voted him chief. Everyone was obsessed with him.” So I just joined the queue, he doesn’t say. “We got along.”

Felix purses his mouth. “That’s… kind of hard to imagine right now, to be honest.”

Hyunjin snorts. “Yeah no shit.” But they had. Hyunjin had still been a bit prickly with nerves, but Changbin’s genuine earnestness and affability had smoothed it over, and made him a balm for Hyunjin to be around. It wasn’t like now; Hyunjin all sharpness and edges, blades instead of thorns, no purchase points for all that niceness to take hold so he’s dealing fatal wounds instead of superficial punctures.

“And then…?”

“Then… I don’t know, they threw a party on the last day, to celebrate the end of the block. It was just Changbin and Wooyoung’s apartment, then. San was still in his puppy-eyes pining era.”

Felix nods, clearly waiting for the good stuff.

“I wasn’t even drunk,” Hyunjin admits. He’d had a single drink. One. “And I was trying to get into Asan Medical. I was going to go there. I was so sure that I was going to go there.”

“…Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“So did he…?”

“Oh, no, it was me.” He laughs without humor. “It was one-hundred percent me coming onto him, I was… not subtle. I waited until everyone left, you know, because I’m classy like that, and then I took him to his room.”

What had followed had been hours of the most earth-shattering orgasms he’d ever had, but it feels uncouth to get into specifics.

“It was the best sex of my life,” he admits, with a shrug that is a lie, because if there’s one thing Hyunjin feels the opposite of nonchalant about, it’s that night.

“…Damn.” Felix’s eyes have gone unfocused, like he’s—

“Don’t picture it!” Hyunjin shrieks, hitting him with a pillow.

“Why not?” Felix bursts into laughter, rocking back into the cushions. “He’s so hot, Hyunjin, and you’re you!”

“Shut up!”

“To be clear, I am not surprised it was so good,” Felix says, still laughing. “Like, not even a little. I could have told you sex with Changbin is probably the best sex of your life just by looking at him, I mean Jesus—”

“Stop it! Stop!” Hyunjin hits him again, and then he’s beating him with the pillow, but not too hard because he loves Felix a lot, actually, he adores him.

Felix giggles beneath him, breathless, beautiful, weakly batting away the strikes until Hyunjin is satisfied that he’s learned his lesson, and will never bring up the possibility of anyone (else) having sex with Changbin again.

“And how did you leave off?” Felix asks finally.

“Uh.”

We’re never going to see each other again.

“We didn’t really…”

So, Hyunjin… do you think we could—

We’re never going to see each other again.

He’d interrupted him. He’ll never know what Changbin had been about to say. And then, afterwards—

“We didn’t plan for what happened. We thought we’d never meet again. I thought I was going to do my residency at Asan, and I had told him that.”

“Hm.” Felix doesn’t push for anything more, and Hyunjin shoots him a grateful look.

“Now you have to tell me about the events after the welcome dinner, when Dr. Bang took you home,” he says, done with his share of vulnerability for the foreseeable future. “And I need you to go into painstaking detail.”

*

The number is at the bottom of his email signature, right under where it says Seo Changbin, MD, Emergency Medicine SNUH, Chief Resident, Class 2021-2025.

Hyunjin types it into his phone and declines the option to add it to his contacts. He hits the call button.

“Hey, this is Bin. Who’s calling?”

“You need to get your little friend under control,” Hyunjin says, without preamble. “Felix has a chance to move on from this disaster situation and bag himself a surgeon and Dr. Bang is fucking ruining it.”

“…Hello to you too, Hyunjin.” 

His voice is tinny. Maybe he caught him at the gym, and he’s got those shitty inner ear headphones on. Changbin’s Instagram is public, Hyunjin has seen every story of him in his muscle shirts, his compression shirts, his slutty little tank-tops… and always with those headphones.

“Hi.” He knows he sounds impatient. He pushes past the mental image of Changbin working out, for Felix. “I am calling to tell you to put a leash on Dr. Bang.”

“Whoa, he and I are best friends, we don’t do each other like that.”

Hyunjin growls. “You’re not funny. Pay attention to what I’m saying.”

“I am!” Changbin sighs, static-y. “Sorry, I know he’s acting a little crazy right now.”

“We both know he bought that apartment for Felix, or has done something shady with the rental company and is paying the difference. ‘A little crazy’ doesn’t begin to cover it.”

“I… yeah. He’s. Not well.”

“Felix isn’t well!” Hyunjin can’t see Changbin’s face; was he too brusque, did Changbin flinch? Or is he just nodding calmly, as he is wont to do even when Hyunjin is being annoying? Is he sitting at a bench press machine, sweat making his biceps shine, bare shoulders glowing with—wait, dammit. “Dr. Bang is engaged. I don’t know what sort of mystical soul connection happened between them when he met Felix, but until Bang breaks up with Choi Nari this is not fair to Felix. Felix is the aggrieved party here.”

“No argument there,” Changbin is quick to agree.

“I know I’m right! That’s why I called you!”

Silence from the other line, and Hyunjin wonders if he finally pushed it too far.

Then Changbin chuckles. “What… exactly would you have me do?”

"Talk to him!”

“I already did, Hyunjin. He needs a little time to sort himself out. He’s… overworking himself to a really bad burnout, and he’s making crazy decisions like this apartment thing. We’re talking extra shifts every week and staying four to five hours late, like, routinely.”

“That’s…” Hyunjin doesn’t want to feel sorry for Chan, but staying five hours late is wild. “That sucks.”

“He’s a chronic insomniac too, so he’s running on coffee and fumes.”

“It can’t be that bad; Felix said he spent the night on his couch and slept for, like, six hours.”

They both go silent, processing the implication, and then Hyunjin groans.

“You’re telling me he was able to sleep around Felix?!” Changbin shouts.

“What kind of stupid star-crossed bullshit is this?” Hyunjin says simultaneously, and he almost starts laughing hysterically, because it’s so absurd, this situation is crazy, but Changbin is right there in it with him, and it feels… good, to be in this together, to be on the same side for once. They had been like this for the majority of his rotation, albeit on a more tentative level, and it had been so nice, he misses—

“…What are we going to do?”

A sigh, more static. “I don’t think we can do much right now, other than support each of them as much as we can. I am trying to get Chan there, but he’s… he needs time. This is going to be a process.”

“I don’t see how we prevent it from getting messy. I think the surgery senior is about to ask Felix out.”

“Oh, shit. The hot one?”

Hyunjin feels a wave of disgust wash over him. “Excuse me?”

Changbin coughs. “I-I mean, the. Um. Mingyu, right? He’s, I mean, most people would say—”

Hyunjin almost hangs up on him.

“But it’s not like I think that, and—I haven’t—I mean I’ve barely even talked to him outside of consults, I’ve never even—”

Changbin is still going, stuttering and apologetic and Hyunjin thinks that’s right, he’d better be damn sorry, calling another man hot in my presence and then he thinks what.

What are they doing? Why is Hyunjin acting like… and why is Changbin playing along, as though he also…?

“Doesn’t matter,” Hyunjin cuts in, effectively shutting Changbin up. “Mingyu is going to ask Felix out and I have a feeling Chan is going to be extremely pathetic about it.”

“Oh, yeah, he’s probably going to lose it.” There’s a pause as Changbin seems to contemplate this prospect. “Oh God, he’s going to buy Felix a car or something.”

And Hyunjin, who never claimed to be the best person in the world, has to smother his laughter into his hand so that Changbin doesn’t hear.

Minho

Minho overslept in Jisung’s bed on Wednesday and had to sprint out of there so he could swing by his own place before a night shift, so after a rushed exchange of phone numbers they had promised each other a proper conversation.

Jisung’s schedule switches to days while Minho works his fourth and final night of the week, so they see each other from across the ER at 7am on Friday but the next time they are both off on the same day is on Saturday.

Jisung suggests his apartment and Minho, after doing some mental mathematics regarding the importance of privacy for a conversation such as this one versus the likelihood that he is going to pounce on Jisung the second they are left alone, agrees. He can behave for an evening. Probably.

“Hey.”

Jisung opens the door in a casual outfit; a T-shirt with wide arm holes and black sweatpants. He looks really good, as always, but he looked better naked and covered in come, in Minho’s humble opinion.

“Hey, come in.” He motions and Minho steps inside, the place already feeling familiar.

Minho’s initial impression of Jisung, though spot on regarding what Jisung needed from him sexually, had turned out to be way off in other respects, it seems. He thought Jisung would want to date and be courted and that when Jisung said he wanted to have breakfast with him after the night shift he actually meant go to a café and have breakfast with him after the night shift. He’d been—taken aback, at the invitation to his apartment, and the realization that Jisung actually wants what Minho wants. Which is a good thing, obviously. It’s great. Jisung is clearly looking for a no-strings-attached good time, and that’s perfect. That’s what Minho wants too. It’s a relief, that Jisung doesn’t have romantic designs on Minho. Minho is an inherently unromantic creature. This is ideal. Minho feels good about it.

He’s not nervous, because he doesn’t do nervous. He makes other people nervous, that’s his whole thing.

“Did you eat? I ordered some food.”

An array of takeout containers is displayed on the rickety kitchen table, threatening to topple it. Minho takes a studied survey and is pleasantly surprised to note at least two of his favorite local restaurants, and a third that’s on his list of places to try. There is japchae, a Malaysian kari ayam, dumplings from the Chinese place near the hospital, and many, many others, plus Jisung got them bubble teas. Cute.

“That’s a lot of food for two people, Jisung.”

“Y-yeah, I know, but I didn’t know what you liked, and I figured I’ll just eat the leftovers throughout the week.” Jisung shrugs. His shoulders are twice the ratio of his hips. It’s crazy. “I realized that I’m usually way too drained to cook after shift.”

“Fair.”

They sit, carefully opening containers and passing food to each other in amicable silence—or as amicable as the silence between two people who had pretty intense sex recently can be.

“So. You’re into humiliation,” Minho says casually, and grins when Jisung chokes on his tea, as intended.

“Uhm.” He clears his throat, but he’s grinning back. Aw, he finds Minho funny? “Y-yes. It turns out the evidence is, uh, in favor of that.”

“Hm. So the name-calling was okay? All that stuff I said…?”

“Y-yeah, oh yeah. More than okay.” Jisung is blushing. “I. Can I. Clarify something?”

Minho motions with his chopsticks for him to do so.

“This… conversation. Is it. Is it to talk about what happened, or about… what will happen?”

Not a bad way to ask if they are going to have sex again.

“Both, I guess. If you want it again.”

“I want it.”

It’s so immediate, so eager, that Minho has to laugh. “O-kay, Jisung-ah. I’ll give it to you again, if you want it again.”

Jisung nods, cheeks bright red, but he’s looking down at the table. His expression is pinched in an attempt at appearing casual. “Hm. Good. Okay, thanks for clarifying.”

“My. Pleasure.”

“So we can… make this a regular thing?” Jisung asks the table. “It was fun, right?”

“It was very, very fun.” This is the part where Minho spells out the lack of romantic feelings on his part. The fact that it’s purely physical. The boundaries they each need to set, and the fact that they aren’t exclusive. It’s been implied, but they do need to verbalize it. “We probably can’t have, like, a standing date every week because of how much our schedules change, but—"

“Wait, only once a week?” Jisung interrupts.

Minho’s chest puffs, and a current of unbridled delight zings up his spine. “That was a manner of speaking. We can try to meet more often if you want, but you’re an intern, you’re probably busy with—”

“I’ll make the time,” Jisung interrupts again. “I’ll… we can play it by ear? But. Yeah. I'll make it work.”

“…Okay.”

He has to bring up the lack of feelings. No emotional entanglements, no romance. He has to say it, now is the moment.

“So… I’m assuming you’re seeing other people?” Jisung asks, and before Minho can answer he goes on. “You don’t have to answer that! I meant to say, I’m assuming this isn’t exclusive. I just want you to know that that’s fine.”

That’s. Fine.

That’s… fine.

Minho opens his mouth to agree (he can’t believe he didn’t even have to mention it first, precocious little Jisung did so himself, he’s so smart) but nothing comes out. Jisung takes the silence as agreement anyway, nodding like Minho just confirmed what he said. “We’ll tell each other if one of us wants out, yeah?”

That’s fine.

“Minho-hyung?”

“Y-yeah, yeah. We’ll. Communicate. It’s important to communicate, so neither of us gets hurt feelings.”

“Right.”

Minho stares into the bag he was just eating out of and wonders why the taste suddenly became sour. Did he bite into something?

“Great. Glad we’re on the same page.”

“Mhmm.” He’s glad too, of course. He’s pretty sure this is what he feels like when he’s feeling glad. “Me too.” With effort, he gets back on track. “So, name-calling. Insults? You want that?”

“Uh, yes. But I’m not sure… I think nothing too heavy, probably?” Jisung hums. “Like, what you said on Wednesday was so good but I’m not sure I’d like it if it got meaner. And nothing like, about my physical appearance, for example. I’m too insecure about that.” He makes a cute self-conscious face, and Minho isn’t sure he could come up with something negative to say about his appearance even if Jisung asked for it; he finds him too perfect. He’s grateful that’s off the table.

“Got it. Before we talk about other things, you need a safe word. So I know to stop.”

“Can’t it just be ‘stop’?”

Minho shrugs. “Sure, if that’s what you want.”

“I don’t think I want to, like, ask you to stop and… for you to keep… going.” But he sounds uncertain about this part, and Minho knows why. Jisung doesn’t know yet, but Minho does—he can sense it. But he can wait. “If that makes sense.”

“Of course it does. No problem. Mine will be stop, too, then.”

Jisung nods again. “Okay. Do you… have something you like the way I like the humiliation thing?”

Minho has several things that he likes, but he doesn’t have something that will set him off untouched like Jisung does. What he says is: “Making pretty things like you nervous and excited feels nice.” He allows himself a smile. “Mocking someone feels nice, teasing them… especially when they get off on it the way you do. Making someone feel so good that they cry is my favorite.”

“…Oh.”

“Yeah. I like being thanked, too,” he adds. Jisung had done that on his own, bless him. “I like it when I fuck someone roughly and they say thank you, or slap them, or… do something else conventionally painful, and they thank me.”

“Oh.” Jisung’s eyes went a bit glassy there. He gulps. “Then can I. Um. Can I ask for something?”

“Of course, Jisung.”

“Can. Can you slap me next time?”

Minho was waiting for this one. “Where?” he asks, polite as you please.

“A-anywhere. Everywhere.”

“Even your face?”

“Fuck, yes.”

Minho smiles, gut clenching with delight. They are so perfectly matched it’s ridiculous.

“The part I also liked was. Um. After?” Jisung’s eyes dart to him and then away again. “I really loved the, um. After, when you... said. All that nice stuff, that was really good. It helped... sort of come down from it, and helped it feel good."

"Hm. Aftercare is non-negotiable," Minho says. "For both of us."

"Right. Is there—should I have done anything? Was there something you needed?"

"No, no, if you just let me hold you like that, that was good. I liked it too."

Jisung nods. “Okay. Do you want to ask me for anything, hyung?”

Oh Jisung, let him count the ways… “Not for now. I think this stuff is newer for you, right?”

Jisung hesitates before shrugging and nodding. Minho is glad there’s no room for bravado between them.

“The hair pulling was okay too?” Minho clarifies. It seemed like it was, but—

“D-definitely, yeah.”

“Would biting be okay?”

“Yes.”

“Spitting?”

Jisung’s eyes go wide. “Um. I’m not—sure?”

“No worries then, we definitely don’t have to—”

“Actually wait, no. I. Yes. I. I’m changing that to yes.”

Minho eyes him up and down. “You’re sure?”

“Y-yes. Very.”

“…Okay. After we get tested, would you want me to come on your face?”

“Fuck yes, oh my God.”

And round and round they go, until Minho is half-hard against his thigh and he’s watching Jisung’s chest rise and fall, noticeably. They are both squirming in their seats.

“Work stays work,” Minho throws in, because that’s the final important item on his mental agenda.

“For sure. Yes, totally.” Jisung sounds serious about it, too. Good.

…Good.

“So are you free the rest of the night, or—”

“Let’s go fuck in your room, Jisung.”

“Oh thank God.”

Chan

It’s rare, that Chan and Nari will both be off on a weekend day, yet Sunday finds them both at home together.

It’s so rare that it’s almost awkward between them, Chan thinks as he works from the couch, and watches Nari sitting at the kitchen table, scrolling on her phone while she drinks her morning coffee. She didn’t comment on the fact that he spent the night here instead of coming to bed with her, so he didn’t feel the need to tell her that he once again got an hour or two of sleep at most.

Chan is not sure when it happened, him falling out of love with her.

He's not even sure he was ever in love with her in the first place, though he did love her in a way, he thinks. They started out so classic: met during his surgery rotation on the last year of medical school, and he was so flattered by her pursuit of him. She was a second-year resident then, but the things he admired about her remain to this day: her intelligence, the work that she does, her drive. It might not be love but there’s still an affection there, and a sense of duty. He doesn’t leave her because he would never humiliate her like that, and because it’s not her fault that his feelings faded.

This is their sixth year as a couple, but their cumulative time together feels a lot less because of how much time they both spend at work, away from each other. Chan knows that people judge female surgeons much more harshly than they judge men; everything Nari does reflects on a small percentage of people like her in her profession, and her dedication to her job is seen as neglect of him by his friends. Chan doesn’t feel neglected, he is an inherent caregiver, he likes supporting her like this, and it's not like he's sitting around the apartment missing her when she's gone.

This arrangement was supposed to work. It was going to work. It would have worked, it would have been fine—maybe not a romance-movie life, but a good life nonetheless, and he was planning on living it, on eventually picking a date, on buying an outfit, on inviting their families—until.

Hi! What’s your name?

I’m Felix, in that sweet accent, and Chan’s plan went boom.

“Nari-ah, can I ask you something?”

The words come out without him deciding to let them.

She doesn’t look up. “Yeah, Channie, what’s up?”

“It’s about one of your senior residents. Mingyu.”

They talk about work a lot (they don’t talk a lot, but when they do talk), but they almost never discuss their coworkers; it’s always the medicine, the surgeries, the pathology.

Nari looks up at him, surprise obvious on her face. It’s almost funny; she hasn’t looked this interested in something Chan has to say in a while. “Mingyu?”

“Yes.”

“What about him?”

“He’s, uh.” Is he actually doing this? Is he going to say it? “He’s trying to date one of my interns.”

“Oh.” Nari smiles. “Good for them; Mingyu is so hot it’s crazy.”

It doesn’t bother him anymore when she does this, but somewhere down the line Nari’s comments on other men’s attractiveness went from a mutual activity that acknowledged Chan’s bisexuality to something a bit less considerate.

“Who’s the intern?”

Of course that was going to be the next question.

And, before Chan can answer (and because Nari isn’t dumb): “The pretty one that’s rotating with us? The Australian?”

“…Yeah.”

She considers this. Are they so off that it’s strange for Chan to see her so engaged in a conversation with him? “I can see it. Mingyu sent me an email saying Felix did a good job on his first call shift. From what I’ve seen he’s got some knowledge gaps because of his training abroad, but he makes up for that by working hard.” She smirks. “For an ER doctor.” It’s meant to be a joke.

Chan can’t joke about Felix, it turns out. He stays silent, in order to not implode his entire life and hers.

“So what was your question? Was it, is Mingyu a good one?”

“…Yes.”

She shrugs. “I don’t really spend time with the residents outside of the hospital, but from what I’ve heard Mingyu is popular.” She smirks again. “He’s definitely run through a good chunk of the surgery department. And the ICUs, I think. But there hasn’t been any overlap as far as I’m aware, so he gets credit for that, right? No drama either… I guess overall I would say he’s probably harmless, if a bit of an ethical slut. Does that answer your question?”

“It does, thanks Nari.”

She nods and goes back to her phone.

*

He has to tell Felix. Nari’s insight came from an avenue that Felix doesn’t have access to otherwise; his co-residents won’t know all that stuff about Mingyu sleeping around with half the hospital, so it’s down to Chan to warn him. Just so Felix can make an informed decision, when Mingyu decides to act on all that ‘my prince’ stuff. He needs to do it soon, though—what if Felix has started to fall for him already? What if Mingyu puts his ungloved hands in Felix’s hair when Chan isn’t around?

There’s a voice in his head that says he could tell Changbin, who could then pass on the knowledge to Felix (the voice sounds suspiciously like Changbin). But it gets drowned out by his sense of urgency, and by the other thing that Chan isn’t thinking about.

He has Felix’s number because of the apartment, and they’d texted a couple of times about logistics, so he pulls it up with trembling fingers and stares at the screen. Felix isn’t on call; Chan has Nari’s login to the surgery schedule and he checked. He shouldn’t bother Felix on his only day off this week, but then this is hardly the thing to bother him about when Felix is at work.

Hi Felix, how is the apartment?

He follows up the first text with a second one before his better angels can put up a unified front.

Was wondering if I could drop off a housewarming present?

It does occur to Chan that checking Felix’s schedule is not very many degrees removed from stalking, and that he is asking to go see him at the apartment that Chan lied to Felix about, and that Chan is, in fact, the worst human being on the planet. He is aware of those things, he just… can’t think past his headache to stop himself, he feels trapped by his own brain, bogged down by all this horrible wanting of something that he can’t have—maybe not letting himself want anything for so long has consequences, and they are all battering him now. Changbin’s voice in his head is shouting at him to stop and take a nap instead of doing any of this, but then his phone lights up with Felix’s replies:

omg chansunbae! ya I slept the day away so am free, did u mean now?

you didnt have to get me anything!!!! <3<3<3<3<3

*

Chan shows up with a plant in his arms and his heart in this throat. He told Nari he was going to dinner with a friend, another lie, because he knows one thing for certain and that is that he can never be Felix’s friend.

“Hi!” Felix waves the greeting at him, and Chan’s legs go weak. He feels the urge to kneel in front of him again, the way he did the night Felix was drunk; he could crumple onto the doormat right now, raise the terracotta pot like an unworthy offering, or maybe just offer himself—not even sexually, he could be a stool for Felix to rest his feet on, a table for Felix to eat off of. He’d be so content to do that. “You got me a plant!”

Felix is wearing an oversized boat-necked white sweater and his hair is loose. He invites Chan in with a trusting smile, unaware of Chan’s horrible deceptions, Chan’s shameful feelings, unaware that… Chan shouldn’t be here.

He stops in his tracks in the doorway, everything sort of hitting him at once. Is he really about to walk into an intern’s apartment just to discuss something that pertains to said intern’s personal life, which he could have passed on via an intermediary?

And then Felix turns, gentle confusion in his gaze at Chan’s hesitation. “Sunbae?” he calls, that trusting smile still lingering at the corner of his mouth, and what if he looks at Mingyu like that and Mingyu hurts him?

“Sorry, right, coming.”

Chan inelegantly lurches into the place, noting the partial unpacking Felix has managed in four days while working so hard. His new couch has a comfy blanket and multiple pillows piled in a way that suggest the outline of Felix’s body was there not long ago. Chan is glad to see the evidence of Felix getting rest. Chan, for a moment, can’t imagine a greater pleasure than being allowed to sit on the floor at Felix’s feet while he sleeps.

“I’m going to put this here,” Chan tells him, propping the Ficus on a shelf that is half bare. “It’s a very low maintenance plant, I kept one alive during my residency somehow.”

Felix looks up at it appreciatively. “You already found me the apartment and co-signed the lease Chan sunbae, you really didn’t have to.”

Guilt churns in his gut. “I know, I-I wanted to.” It’s the truth. Some of it, anyway. “And it’s a congratulations on surviving the first week of your surgical block!” He adds, maybe a bit loud. “That’s huge, Felix.”

“Thank you.” He seems proud, as he should be. “I have a great team, and my surgery seniors have been so supportive.”

Ah. There it is, unexpectedly early. Chan’s cue.

“Your call nights are paired, right?” he asks, easing in slow.

“Yup. I’m with Mingyu like you saw, we do a twenty-four-hour shift together every four days. I’ve done two so far.” Felix wanders over to the couch. Chan follows him and does his best not to recall what happened the last time they both sat on a couch together—the lapful of Felix he ended up with so unexpectedly. “He’s great. Oh, and he really likes you, by the way. He told me you’re a favorite among the surgery residents.”

“Oh. That’s… nice.”

Chan winces, and sits. He imagines Felix can sense that he’s building up to saying something. He knows he needs to say it.

“I actually. I heard some stuff about him recently that. I wanted to talk to you about.”

He’d rehearsed some of this in the car over. Thought about his wording carefully. Now he can barely remember what he decided to say.

“Stuff about Mingyu?”

Felix leans into him, and Chan stays still as a statue as his nostrils pick up that smell again; floral, soft, something he wants to inhale until he chokes on it.

“Stuff that… you should know.” He knows he had a coherent argument, he knows he found some words that made him sound less insane. “I don’t mean to make assumptions about your personal life, Felix, but it seems like Mingyu is interested in you and has made that clear. And if. If you were interested in him as well, I thought you should know…” But he trails off when he catches sight of the look on Felix’s face.

Since Chan arrived Felix has been anywhere from smiling, to trusting, to attentive and calm. Now, he’s looking at Chan like he’s worried Chan is having a psychotic break.

“Um.” He gulps. “Sunbae, what are you talking about?”

Chan is in agony. “I just. I know this topic is awkward, please forgive me for overstepping, but… I wanted to warn—"

“Mingyu hasn’t expressed any interest in me,” Felix interrupts, still staring like Chan is speaking in gibberish. “He hasn’t asked me out. Or said he likes me. Or… done anything to indicate that he likes me like that.”

He tucks his hair behind his ears, a nervous gesture of his.

“Chan sunbae, what… is going on?”

But they can’t move forward without accepting the initial premise that Mingyu likes Felix, and if Felix can’t see that (all because Mingyu hasn’t technically said it) then he must be deliberately ignoring the signs. He has to be made to see.

“Felix, you’re not… naïve,” Chan says gently. “You must know the effect you have on people.”

Felix blinks.

“Huh?”

God, this conversation is a mess.

“Felix. Mingyu may not have asked you out yet, but all it took was five minutes with you two for me to see he’s interested.” Who wouldn’t be? He bites back the words, and swallows the misery he feels when he remembers how Mingyu had acted around Felix, the closeness between them, the way Felix said ‘Mingyu-hyung’. “The reason I wanted to talk to you about him was that, when he expresses that interest, and if you… decide to reciprocate it, that there are some things I thought you should know before—”

Felix gets up.

Chan watches him from the couch, for a moment blanking on any thoughts that aren’t yes, this is how it should be, I should be worshipping him like this—and then he gets that Felix is agitated, and that he, Chan, caused it. Is causing it.

“Sunbaenim,” Felix croaks. And then in English: “I don’t like Mingyu!”

And that.

Hearing that is…

Chan is pretty ashamed of what he’s been doing and feeling for the past couple of weeks, but he is the least proud of how hearing that makes him feel.

“I’m… so sorry,” he manages, then switches back to Korean. “Felix, I… I just wanted you to know everything so that you can make an informed decision—”

“About a confession that hasn’t even happened?” Felix finishes, and he looks so lost.

“About a confession that is going to happen soon,” Chan corrects. Who wouldn’t confess to Felix as soon as they met him? Who wouldn’t want to be with him forever after spending only a little bit of time with him? “I found out some sordid details today that made me want to warn you so that you could answer Mingyu’s confession after you knew all the facts. That’s all.”

He can tell by the expression on his face that Felix is still stuck on his belief that Chan’s premise is flawed.

“I didn’t know you didn’t like Mingyu back,” he adds, voice as even as he can make it. “I thought you might like him, so that was why I wanted you to know. Because he definitely likes you, please trust me on this.”

Felix hasn’t asked him about the content of his warning yet, and now Chan wonders if he will at all. Maybe this is all a moot point, because of Felix’s total lack of feelings for Mingyu. Chan is relieved. He’s embarrassing and a loser and engaged to someone else but he is relieved.

“So you were… worried about me,” Felix finally says.

“Yes.”

“I see.” He doesn’t, though. He only sees some of it. He is clearly still not convinced about Mingyu’s feelings, and he has no idea that the stray dog he let into his apartment tonight is actually a malnourished, ravenous wolf.

Felix sits back down, and then he breaks Chan’s heart all over again by shooting him a shy smile.

“You’re so nice to me, sunbae,” he murmurs. “Thanks for worrying about me.”

Chan is dirt. “Sorry if it’s… a bit weird,” he finishes the sentence in English.

Felix puts his small, delicate hand on Chan’s jean-clad knee.

His small. Delicate. Hand.

Chan is having a psychotic break after all—

“It’s not weird,” Felix responds. The English seems to naturally draw an even lower register from his throat. When he goes back to Korean, that is highlighted. “Thank you for taking such good care of me, sunbae.”

His hand slips away already.

“Y-you can call me hyung, when it’s just. When we’re alone.”

No no no fuck.

“I mean. You don’t have to, but you—can. When we’re not at work. If we’re… together, outside of work.” He’s blushing, he can feel it. He needs to leave. He has hit his limit of unacceptable actions. This is—he apparently cannot be on a couch with Felix for longer than five minutes without something catastrophic happening, he needs to leave now. “A-anyway, you can think on it, it’s not—a big deal, I’m going to go—”

He stands up and feels a tug.

Felix has a fold of Chan’s hoodie sleeve between his thumb and index finger, holding him in place. It might as well be an iron chain around Chan’s wrist.

“Hyung,” he says, looking up at Chan with those eyes, and Chan almost—Chan almost collapses to the floor and begs. He can’t live like this, his heart is so big in his chest that there is no room for his lungs in there, he can’t breathe, he can’t think, he’s so dizzy from his sleep deprivation that he shouldn’t have driven here, what is he doing here, he—stumbles, almost actually falls.

“Oh—hyung, careful—”

Felix grabs his wrist properly, pulling to help right him, and Chan breaks the contact as soon as he is steady on his feet. Or as steady as he can aspire to be in Felix’s presence.

“I gotta go, okay Felix?” he says, hoarse. He almost wishes Felix could hear what he’s not saying, so that he might show him some mercy. But he can tell Felix doesn’t.

“…Okay.”

Felix walks him out, and leans against the doorframe while Chan slides his shoes on.

“Thank you,” Felix says again. “For the plant, and the apartment, and the… kindness. I really appreciate everything you’re doing for me, hyung, I—”

“Please don’t,” Chan interrupts, desperate to get out. “Please, Felix. Don’t thank me. It’s not…” Pure, or good, or uncomplicated, and it certainly isn’t kind. “It’s not any trouble,” he ends up settling for, defeated.

But of course, trouble is exactly what it is.

Jeongin

The Red Pod is bustling on Monday. Jeongin doesn’t understand why Mondays are so much busier than other weekdays, but Seungmin had explained that a big factor is the difference in how someone feels while ill on their couch at home on Sunday versus when it’s time for them to go into work the following day, which can push a lot of people into coming in later than they would have.

It's Seungmin, Hyunjin and Chief Seo making up the resident team and Chan as the attending staffing the 7am to 7pm day shift. Jeongin has watched them all run around all morning but Chief Seo still had the consideration to send Jeongin away for lunch to the cafeteria.

He is going to bring Seungmin food today, with the excuse that he overheard Hyunjin saying he brought leftovers and Seungmin responded ‘I got this energy bar’. It’s decided.

“Ien-ah?”

Jeongin spins, already smiling at the recognizable voice.

“Felix-hyung! I’m so happy to see you!”

Felix is with a very handsome surgeon in the same cafeteria queue Jeongin just joined. “Did they send you on a lunch break?” Felix asks.

“Yeah, Chief Seo is so kind.”

Felix nods. “He’s the best, I’m so glad. You should join us!”

“I’m Mingyu, by the way,” says the surgeon, and Jeongin bobs more than bows at him before grabbing a tray and starting to put food on it. “Med student?”

He’s asking Felix, who says: “Yes, the best. He’s in the ER all month, before he comes to you.”

“Ooh, better get your sleep in now Ien-ah, we make the med students adopt the same schedule as the rotating ER intern, so you’re in for a lot of twenty-four hour call shifts.”

“I’ll be ready,” Jeongin shrugs, not bothering to refute Mingyu’s nickname privileges even though he’s not one of Jeongin’s four special intern hyungs. “Which intern is it?”

“I think Seungmin?” Felix responds, and nods at the woman serving rice when she asks if that was enough. “I’ll double-check.”

“…Oh.”

No way. Jeongin was going to wait a month (three weeks as of today, he’s been counting down) until he made a move on Seungmin precisely because they were going to part ways professionally. Now he’s in for two months of uninterrupted Seungmin time? And what, expected to keep his fantasies to himself throughout all of it? Oh this is torture.

They are done with the line, and all three turn to face the crowded expanse of tables lining the large hall.

“Hm, wanna sit by the window over to the—"

A loud beeping cuts him off, and Jeongin and Felix turn to Mingyu, who is quickly trying to balance his tray on one arm while reaching for the pager at his waist.

“Sorry, sorry, just gotta—"

He untucks it from his scrubs and silences it, looking at the little screen.

“Oh, shit,” Mingyu says, eyes going wide.

“What’s—”

“Felix, we gotta run.” He tosses the tray on a nearby table, eliciting a yell from a radiologist. “Come on let’s go; it’s a trauma.”

*

Jeongin stuck a ppang for Seungmin in his pocket that bounces against his chest as he runs behind Felix and Mingyu, all the way to the trauma bay where people from the ER, surgery and anesthesia have started to congregate.

The bay is located behind Red Pod and it is huge, meant for patients who need resuscitation by a lot of providers at once and with a lot of complex equipment, so each of the four beds is surrounded by different monitors and devices to insert breathing tubes, give blood, shock a heart rhythm and so on. Jeongin had been here a few times last week for trauma patients, but those patients had been stabilized quickly and by the ER team alone; they hadn’t needed to page surgery or anesthesia. This must mean the person is gravely injured.

“What’ve we got?” Mingyu calls out, loud and temporarily quieting the chaos.

“Car accident,” Dr. Bang calls back, from where he is helping Seungmin with the ultrasound machine by the patient’s (bruised, bloody-looking) chest. “Two victims—” his face is grim. “One didn’t make it.”

“What do we know far?” Mingyu is putting a gown on and gives one to Felix, who follows suit. Jeongin knows better than to interrupt the scene to ask questions, so he just watches them approach Seungmin and Dr. Bang and quietly follows behind.

“Fifties male, unknown identity, unknown medical history because he was unresponsive when he arrived, we already intubated him—” Dr. Bang motions to the breathing tube coming from the patient’s mouth, connected to a ventilator that Chief Seo is manning. “No free fluid in the abdomen to suggest an obvious abdominal injury yet, but he has a large hemothorax on the left, as you can see.” He motions to the screen of the ultrasound machine, where Jeongin is pretty sure a small amount of the patient’s lung can be seen floating in fluid. Is all of that fluid blood?

“We’re giving him a stat blood transfusion and we’re going to put in a chest tube but it looks like he’s going to need the operating room, he’s not stable enough for the CT scanner,” says Dr. Bang. “He’s gotten two units already and we are rapidly infusing the third, but his blood pressure remains low.”

Mingyu nods. “I’ll start making calls to prep the OR, coordinate with the thoracic surgeons.”

Dr. Bang gives him a grateful nod in return, then turns to Seungmin. “Seungmin, you have the kit ready?”

“Yes, here.”

Jeongin inches closer to them, wanting to see—

“Jeongin, come stand by Seungmin so you can see what he’s doing,” Dr. Bang says, motioning for him to squeeze into the corner created by the ultrasound machine and Seungmin’s body. “Felix, come over to this side so you can see better.” Felix walks over to where Dr. Bang is standing, facing Seungmin and Jeongin.

Dr. Bang quickly goes over the steps while Seungmin finishes setting up and exposes the patient’s ribs, then cleans the area, so all that’s left is…

“Jeongin, would you mind assisting Seungmin with his gown? We should try to make this procedure as sterile as possible even though it needs to happen quickly.”

Jeongin does his best to lean out of the way in order to not touch the parts of the sterile gown he isn’t supposed to touch, but it’s hard in the small space, and then Seungmin turns and Jeongin’s fingers accidentally touch the back of his neck and he can feel how tense Seungmin is. His face is so cool and calm but his muscles back there feel contracted, and Jeongin wishes he could offer to give him a massage—but of course now is hardly the time.

“All right everyone, who can tell me why we’re going straight to a chest tube and not doing a needle decompression right now?”

Jeongin is surprised, but not shocked, that Dr. Bang is making the effort to teach them even in the midst of an urgent situation like this one. He has been super helpful all shift, making sure Jeongin gets as much learning in as possible.

“The lung collapsed because of blood, not air,” Felix says right away, and Dr. Bang nods at him.

“Yes, exactly Felix. Seungmin, what intercostal space are you making your incision in?”

“Between the fourth and fifth ribs.”

“Good, and you’re ready to start?”

“I’m ready.”

“Okay.” Dr. Bang pushes his mask up the bridge of his nose; the masks in the trauma bay have a plastic visor to protect their eyes from splashes. “I’m here to back you up if you run into any issues, okay? Scalpel, go.”

If Jeongin already didn’t have a crush on him, watching Seungmin rapidly and competently cut into someone’s chest to insert a tube between their ribs and save their life would have done it.

The dramatic gush of blood that rushes out of the first incision splatters Seungmin’s gown and Jeongin has to jump out of way to preserve his sneakers, but then Seungmin quickly plugs the flow by putting his finger in there, making space for the plastic tube to go in.

Jeongin hopes Pediatrics has a lot less gore in store for him in the future, but he has to admit that that was cool. The best part is when the patient’s vital signs get better, and then Mingyu is back telling them that the operating room will be ready any moment so they can start preparing to transport the patient upstairs. Jeongin knows that’s its own process and can take up to several minutes.

“Felix, you’ll be okay handling consults by yourself for a while?” Mingyu asks him, leaning towards him slightly. Jeongin notices Dr. Bang watching them from the charting computer, and then he seems to lose some internal battle and walks over to the pair.

“Yeah, I’ll call you if another emergency comes up, but you need to go help this person,” Felix says firmly.

“Isn’t there another senior?” Dr. Bang makes it to Felix’s other side, and he is frowning. “He shouldn’t be covering consults alone, surely—”

“I will call for help if I need it,” Felix tells them both. “And my attending, Dr. Choi, is around too,” he adds, pointedly to Dr. Bang.

“Where’s the other surgical senior?” Dr. Bang asks Mingyu.

“Chul is in the operating room with another patient,” Mingyu responds. “Felix, you’re sure—”

“I’ll be fine,” Felix says, but he seems to be speaking more to Dr. Bang than to Mingyu. They are both standing over him while he turns from one to the other, perhaps a touch closer than is proper. “I will page Chul if I need to, or I will ask Dr. Choi if I have questions. Go,” he reiterates to Mingyu, even more firmly.

Mingyu sighs. “You’re too good.” And Jeongin smiles to hear that because it’s true, but Dr. Bang is still frowning. “There’s still time for you to switch specialties, you know that right? We’d love to have you in general surgery.”

Felix’s eyes go warm. “Awh, that’s sweet, but I—"

“He’s ours,” Dr. Bang says.

It’s so abrupt that even the respiratory technician (currently performing the complex task of connecting the patient to a portable ventilator) does a double-take. Chief Seo sighs and walks out of the room.

Mingyu’s hands go up. “Can’t blame me for trying to take him,” he says, still full of humor.

Dr. Bang looks at Felix again. Jeongin almost covers his eyes, feeling shy.

“No, I can’t blame you,” Dr. Bang says, and that’s worse, Jeongin thinks, than if he’d said something rude again.

Thankfully Mingyu leaves with the patient soon after, and that eases the tension in the room on multiple fronts.

It’s only then that Jeongin realizes Seungmin is covered in blood.

No one is paying attention to him at the moment: the nurses are helping the technicians clean up and Dr. Bang and Felix are quietly talking in the corner, completely absorbed in each other. The anesthesiologists left with Mingyu and the patient, so only Jeongin is paying attention.

Seungmin is in the same spot by the patient’s bed, except of course now the bed is gone and so is the patient so Seungmin is just kind of standing there, in an empty area. The entire front of his gown is drenched in red; his scrubs and sneakers somehow survived the worst of it but there’s even blood on his mask and visor.

“Oh, hyung,” Jeonging murmurs quietly, making his way to him.

He feels guilty for his thoughts earlier. This isn’t cool. Seungmin looks pale and he was probably terrified to do anything wrong, to hurt the patient, and all the blood—will that person be okay? Will they survive the emergent surgery?

When Seungmin still doesn’t move, Jeongin steps even closer to him and makes a decision.

“I’m going to take this off you, okay?” he tells him, still quiet. “Just stay still.”

Seungmin was already very still.

Jeongin walks around him to get the mask first, so that the protective visor can fall away and Seungmin’s field of vision stops being blood-spattered. Then he goes for the gown, careful, unlacing the part at the back of Seungmin’s neck then peeling it off his nice shoulders, his arms, then unlacing the knot by Seungmin’s waist. A rhomboid-shaped sweat stain decorates the back of Seungmin’s light green scrubs, but Jeongin pretends not to see it.

Because Seungmin has gloves on over the gown sleeves those have to come off last; Jeongin takes the gown all the way off him down to the wrists, where it’s trapped in the fold of the gloves, and then pulls it off there, one hand at a time, careful as he can be.

He watches Seungmin’s beautiful eyes throughout the process, tracking how he slowly comes back to himself, appears to re-center himself, appears more present in the room. Some of the tension seems to shudder out of his shoulders, and he’s moving a bit more, too; small subtle things like blinking and sighing and turning his head to ease the crick in his neck.

“All done,” Jeongin says once he’s discarded the bloody remains of Seungmin’s gown in the biohazard trash. His own mask goes in, too; it had a small drop of blood on it. “Better?”

Seungmin’s eyes examine him as though Jeongin’s exposed face is a map that leads to something really valuable, and he needs to memorize the route to get there.

“Thank you, Ien-ah,” he says.

It’s the first time he’s called Jeongin that.

“You’re welcome hyung.”

Jeongin smiles at him, feeling so proud of him he could burst, and then Dr. Bang is there, congratulating Seungmin on his technique and giving him feedback on everything that went well during the resuscitation. The nurses give him kudos too, and the technicians, and so does Felix before he leaves to go back up to the surgical floors.

Watching him, Jeongin feels more than the need to dig his teeth into Seungmin’s neck, or to kiss him stupid or even to have sex with him. He wonders if he can have that, too, or if his list of desires is getting greedy for wanting some of Seungmin’s brain, and some of Seungmin’s heart, and maybe some small part of his soul.

Either way, he can’t wait. Not as in he’s looking forward to it, though he is—but as in he cannot, will not wait two months to tell him.

Changbin

Chan has been so tragic lately that Changbin is surprised that he still functions on shift, but he does.

It’s been a good day; they all work hard and fast, and while there’s never any downtime in the ER they are almost keeping up with the waiting room so that patients aren’t having to wait too long to be seen. No one has died yet, and rumor has it the trauma patient made it out of the operating room. The only moment that made Changbin want to spoon his eyeballs out involved Mingyu and Felix, unsurprisingly, but they haven’t seen anyone from the surgery department for hours since. Obviously Seungmin was great during the chest tube, and Hyunjin managed to hold down the fort in Red Pod all by himself while the whole team was away in the trauma bay, which is a senior-resident level task.

Changbin is not a superstitious person, but later, when he reflects on the events of the evening, he does think that they kind of had it coming, for having such a good shift up until that moment.

Around 6pm, Hyunjin assigns himself to see a patient that has been triaged as ‘intoxicated’, which is hardly a remarkable reason for someone to end up in the ER. The patient is in room 14, which is tucked away on the furthest end of Red Pod, the farthest from the doctor’s station, but it isn’t rare for their drunk, boozy-smelling guests to get placed there in consideration for the other patients.

Hyunjin goes to see him (a forty-two-year-old male, six feet tall, a hundred kilograms) and Changbin doesn’t think much of it. He’s checking a chart, he’s answering Seungmin’s question about a blood test, he’s answering a nurse’s question about a medication dosage, he is placing computer orders for a CT scan, he is telling Chan that he wants to admit the patient in bed 2.

And then the shouting begins.

Changbin gets up from his computer to look, and his body catches up to the location of the noise before his brain does because next thing he knows he’s sprinting the length of Red Pod towards room 14 before anyone else has even looked up, and certainly before security has been called.

It means he’s the first person there, the first to see—

A large man in a gown has Hyunjin up against the wall.

Changbin is once again saved by his physical reaction before a mental one can occur; he runs up to the patient and grabs his shoulder, wrenching him backwards so he stumbles, and the man easily loses his balance—he is intoxicated from more than just alcohol, going by the size of his pupils.

“Hyung!” Hyunjin gasps, staring at Changbin like he’s an apparition.

The man falls backwards, hitting his head (whoops, that’s a CT scan he might not have needed) and shouting, screaming.

“Hey!” Changbin tries, putting himself between the man and Hyunjin. “Sir! Calm down, we are here to help y—”

“Little whore won’t put out even after I paid him! I paid him!” The man is scrambling back up to his feet and he’s tall, thank God he’s out of it or even Changbin probably couldn’t have toppled him over. “Look!” He’s pointing to a credit card on the floor at Hyunjin’s feet.

“That is a doctor,” Changbin tries, but he can tell it’s falling on deaf ears.

“Pretty whore,” the man grunts, shaking his head, breathing like a bull. There’s white powder around his left nostril, and he’s still looking over Changbin’s shoulder at Hyunjin. “Come here, pretty! Give me what I paid for!”

“Sir, don’t—”

But it’s useless, and the man lurches forward, trying to grab Hyunjin, which is not happening on Changbin’s watch—which means the man collides with Changbin’s bulk, and they both fall, Changbin hitting his head on the edge of the empty stretcher on the way down.

“Hyung!” Hyunjin cries, louder than the ringing in Changbin’s ears, and the man lands one square punch on Changbin’s cheek before Changbin wrestles him off of himself and can hold him to the ground, panting, shoving a knee to the man’s back.

“Stop! Stop moving!” he tells him, as if that will make any difference. The man thrashes, the cocaine in his system making Changbin buck and have to exert himself to his limits to hold him down, but he has his own stimulant fueling his muscles, and it’s wide-eyed and shivering by the wall.

“Changbin-hyung—”

Security bursts into the room then, four large men who quickly remove Changbin from his position and take over holding the man down.

He doesn’t even glance back at the patient; Changbin beelines directly towards Hyunjin, gaze intent on him.

“Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?” he checks without waiting for a response, angling Hyunjin’s jaw up and to the left, then looking into his hair, then at the back of his neck, his shoulders—

“I’m fine, you got here so fast, I’m fine,” Hyunjin is panting. “You, you—”

He’s staring at Changbin’s cheek where he got punched, but before he says anything else Chan’s voice (thank goodness) cuts into the rucks outside.

“All right, seems like we need to sedate this man for our safety and his own, who can get some midazolam please…?”

And that means Changbin and Hyunjin can leave this damn room. Changbin grabs Hyunjin’s hand and pulls him up, and they stumble out, squeezing through the large group of people crowding right outside the door, passing Chan who is making his way to the forefront.

“Bin!” Chan gasps, and Changbin wonders what he and Hyunjin are seeing that’s so dramatic. “Are you okay? Oh my god, did the patient do this?”

“It was Hyunjin,” Changbin says, sighing, but neither of the other two seem to find that funny.

“What are you—”

“I’ll stitch him up,” says Hyunjin to Chan. “I’ll take care of h—it.”

“Okay, okay, I’ve got this, you two go take a break, that’s a direct order from your attending. I’ll check on you later.”

They emerge down the hall and Hyunjin takes his hand out of Changbin’s grip; he hadn’t realized he was still holding it. Shit.

When they pass a reflective surface Changbin sees that he sustained a small bruise with a laceration to his cheekbone from the punch, but it’s hardly worth gasping about. His mask did fall off, but the look on Hyunjin’s face had suggested something life-altering.

“Dr Seo!”

“Are you guys okay?”

“Oh my god, did Dr. Seo just wrestle a patient?”

“Dr. Seo! Are you okay?”

“Dr. Hwang!”

Nurses, techs, clerks and other personnel all rush them as they approach the main computer area, and Changbin puts out his arms in a soothing gesture and tries his best to answer all the questions and reassure everyone, though he does have a mild headache and the noise is making it worse.

“I’m fine, we’re fine, the patient was on cocaine and he got agitated, security is in there now."

The decibel level is at an all-time high even for the ER; shouts of indignation, expressions of concern, everyone converging from their respective work areas, even some of the other patients peering around their beds to get a look...

“Yes, they are sedating him now—no, I’m really okay, I promise the situation is over…"

“Okay!” Hyunjin cuts in, loudly. “Sorry everyone, I have to take him to fix the laceration. Our local hero will be back later, okay? Say goodbye now,” the latter is said firmly to Changbin, who can do no more than obey.

“Sorry guys, gotta go get stitched up, see you later—”

Hyunjin tugs him towards the triage rooms, wordless and brusque, making Changbin stumble after him.

*

The thing about how Changbin feels about Hyunjin, is that it started out very normal.

Hyunjin looks like an insolent young God, and Changbin noticed (oh he noticed) but that was it; Hyunjin was a visiting medical student, in a vulnerable position because of it, and Changbin was never going to act on his attraction. They got to know each other over the course of the month and Changbin had developed a little crush in spite of himself, but he still wasn’t going to do anything about it, even after the rotation ended.

Until Hyunjin did. And for one night he and Hyunjin did a lot of things to each other. And Changbin… had an unforgettable time that ended with swift, total rejection.

He accepted said rejection and worked hard on moving forward from the most beautiful person he had ever seen; he figured he’d peaked, life went on, he’d find someone else who was beautiful in his eyes and that would be that. He would certainly never see Hyunjin again, Hyunjin had made that very clear.

And now here they are.

Here, specifically, being the small triage room where Hyunjin is ordering Changbin around and about to stick a needle with lidocaine into his face.

Changbin had thought he’d done a pretty good job moving on. He had actually congratulated himself a couple of times on how well he was doing, even after the shock of Hyunjin’s name appearing on the new intern class list. Changbin, as chief resident, was sent that list two months before the start of the new academic year, so he’d had time to prepare, time to process, and he knew Hyunjin certainly was aware that Changbin was going to be there as well. He had figured they’d be friendly, maybe, or at least cordial if a bit awkward, but he finds Hyunjin’s temperament a bit thornier than he remembers. It’s not sharp enough to cause any lasting damage, if anything it invites Changbin to poke around, figure out where the softness is hiding—because he knows it’s there. He knows this about Hyunjin for certain.

“Please just… be still. I don’t think I’m asking for too much.”

Changbin does his best, and doesn’t flinch when the needle goes in. He counts to five as the numbing medication burns his cheek.

“Okay, that should be enough.” Hyunjin takes it out and changes his gloves to grab the suture kit. “Just look straight ahead.”

“Okay.”

“And don’t talk,” Hyunjin huffs, taking his own mask off. “If you need something, tap me like this.” He takes Changbin’s hand and moves it to his upper arm, mimicking a tap with two fingers.

“You got it, Dr. Hwang.”

“Changbin, what did I just—” And then Hyunjin sees him smirking, and he looks very unimpressed. “You think you’re so funny.” He glares. “No smiling is allowed, either.”

He loads the suture on the needle driver but before he can get started Changbin taps him as instructed.

“Hyunjin, wait. Are you… okay?”

The image of that man crowding him against the wall will haunt him.

Hyunjin pauses. “I’m fine.” He sighs. “He just yelled a lot and then tried to—you know, get on me. It was literally a second and then you were there, nothing happened. You saw it, nothing else happened.” His voice is assured and steady, and he seems genuinely all right. “A bit of assault comes with the job, right?”

Changbin shakes his head. “No, it doesn’t. It shouldn’t. It is not okay that this happened.”

“I-I know, I’m sorry.” Hyunjin’s eyes are like twin black pearls. Or like tapioca. “I don’t mean to make light of it, I’m just trying to make you feel better.” He smiles a tiny bit, the barest twitch of his mouth, and that more than his flippant comment does help Changbin relax.

“Okay.”

“And… thank you,” Hyunjin adds. “For saving me. It was very stupid; that man was twice your size, you could have gotten seriously hurt.”

“Hey, I’m big!”

“Oh, I know.”

Their eyes meet and Changbin feels himself blush violently, and sees Hyunjin’s mouth drop open as though he’s shocked at his own words.

That’s it nice and quiet for me come on, I know, I know it’s big but shh Hyunjin you have to be quiet please Hyunjin, oh, fuck, f-fuck

They stare at each other, and Hyunjin’s cheeks are pink, his mouth is red, his face is—angelic but devilish, Changbin can’t explain it, it looks heavenly but sinful, and Changbin had meant it back then, his fucked out rush of words about being thankful that Hyunjin had to wear a mask on shift.

“I.” Hyunjin closes his mouth, which isn’t much better. “Just—don’t move, okay?”

Changbin twists his hands in his lap but stays otherwise perfectly still, stunned into silence, and Hyunjin rolls his stool forward until their thighs are slotted together. They don’t acknowledge it, and then Hyunjin leans forward, breathing quietly, so close that his warm exhales are fanning over Changbin’s face because he forgot to put his mask back on.

The needle goes in for the first stitch and Changbin barely feels it, but he’s not entirely sure that’s due to the anesthetic. As Hyunjin quietly works on him, Changbin gets lost in thoughts of thorns and sharpness sometimes protecting beauty and goodness and it all gets jumbled up with the idea of Hyunjin fixing his wound with the prick of a needle.

He would bleed again to protect Hyunjin, he thinks. He would also bleed again to get closer to him.

Chapter Text

Jeongin

Coming on to his senior is not the smartest thing Jeongin has ever done, nor is it the easiest to accomplish. He is pretty sure Seungmin will require a direct approach, and that is a risky thing to take on midway through his rotation.

Jeongin is resolute, however.

The entire cadre of emergency medicine residents at SNUH are expected to attend four hours of lectures for a weekly educational teaching conference every Wednesday morning. Unless they are rotating on another service (such as Felix, currently on surgery or Jung, currently on ICU) all the residents show up at one of the hospital auditoriums at 8am and remain there until noon. It’s different than their morning at the simulation center was because the lectures are in a more traditional format; a senior resident or an attending will prepare slides and present on a topic. Sometimes this is a broad subject like the different causes of chest pain, or a specific case that happened at the hospital that can be learned from, in the Morbidity and Mortality format. A morning can fit anywhere from four to eight lectures, depending on their duration or on if they have a guest speaker from another department (or even another hospital).

They’ve had two of these conference days so far, today being the third, and Jeongin doesn’t mind them. Time on his ER rotation is going by fairly painlessly, he suspects because he has plenty of distractions, Seungmin and his gorgeous eyes being among them. By week three, Jeongin has decided that his best moment to make a declaration is probably the post-conference day off, which both him and Seungmin have coming up this afternoon.

Up on the stage Dr. Xu is talking about cervical injuries but Jeongin is wholly distracted by Seungmin’s breathing next to him. It’s been a long two weeks and three days, plus the week of orientation. He has been behaving for close to a month.

“Guys,” Jisung whispers, craning his neck to look at the back of the room. “Is that Felix?”

The entire row of interns turns around.

“Felix!”

“Ohmygosh, yay!”

It is him; he’s in the darker green surgery scrubs. Felix grins, shushing them as he sneaks into their row with his head down.

“How did you—”

“My senior sent me,” he whispers, voice growly and beautiful. Jeongin likes him so much. “Our census is kinda low this week, so he let me sneak out of rounds so I could join you guys for a bit. Probably can’t stay all morning, but I missed you.” He’s smiling happily, and he hugs Jisung and Sooah who are closest to him and then waves down the row at the rest of the class.

“Please, some quiet from the interns!” Director Park calls from the front, and all eight of them (seven interns plus Jeongin, minus Jung) go still in their seats. “Show Dr. Xu some respect.”

A chorus of ‘sorry Dr. Xu’s floats towards the stage, but Dr. Xu looks like he didn’t even notice they’d been whispering and the senior residents don’t seem too upset. Jeongin sees Chief Seo shoot them a wink on the side of his mostly-healed scar.

The lecture concludes, and then they get a five minute break which everyone uses to refill their coffee cups from the machine outside the lecture hall. The line is long; between the four residency classes and all the attendings who showed up, more than fifty people dressed in a mix of scrubs, white coats and casual clothing are waiting to caffeinate.

“Ohmygosh, Felix I love your nails,” Harin is saying to Felix, and Sooah and Jisung exclaim right along with her while Felix blushes and gives them his hands to ogle. Jeongin looks at his manicure too and admires the pearly sheen.

“It’s called a mermaid glitter coating,” Felix explains.

“Did you just get them done? Where?” Sooah asks.

“There’s a place right by my new apartment! It’s open until ten, so last night after shift I really needed a pick-me-up and figured I could treat myself.” Felix looks extra pretty today, Jeongin thinks; he put some light make-up on and between that and the nails the effect is super cute. “I’ll send you the info. Now I just have to find a hairdresser before my roots grow in…”

Someone knocks into Jeongin’s elbow, and he turns to see Dr. Park making his way towards Dr. Kim at the front of the line. Apparently a medical student is too far below his notice, and Jeongin gets no apology or even acknowledgement.

“Did I hear you put a chest tube in last week?”

On the other side of Felix’s group, further down the line, Jiwoo has approached Seungmin. She sounds so awed, and Jeongin totally gets the awe (of the chest tube and of Seungmin) but he figures he’d better make his way over there just in case.

“Yes, there was a trauma patient with a hemothorax.”

“Wow, what happened to them?”

“A car accident at the intersection near the hospital.”

“Ugh, that area is so dangerous, I’ve already seen a couple of patients get injured there—is the patient okay?”

“I heard he did well in the operating room, so he was lucky.”

“That’s amazing Seungmin, can you teach me—"

“Hey Seungmin, want to get lunch with me after conference?” Jeongin interrupts, aiming his brightest smile at him.

Seungmin has been agreeing to meals with him less and less lately, but Jeongin knows he’s not working today and he can also tell that Seungmin isn’t Jiwoo’s biggest fan for some reason, so he’s hoping the double incentive will serve him well.

Sure enough, Seungmin nods at him. Jeongin’s pulse jumps with joy and nerves, and he decides to back away and take the win. On his way back to the lecture hall he passes Chief Seo, surrounded by his usual group of friends and admirers, who are making him retell the story of wrestling the aggressive patient yet again. Jeongin joins the audience even though he was on shift that day and heard about it in the immediate aftermath; he finds it interesting how Hyunjin’s retelling of the events sounded way different from the humble chief’s modesty.

“I heard the guy was almost two meters tall!” someone says.

“Wow, you’re so strong Changbin,” someone else comments.

Chief Seo chuckles, embarrassed, and shakes his head. “No no, the four security guards were the ones who held him down—"

“You were doing that by yourself before they got there,” a voice snaps, sounding exasperated.

It’s Hyunjin, passing by with a coffee cup in his hand. He doesn’t look back when the group starts asking follow-up questions, asking the chief how he did something it took four men to accomplish, and Chief Seo blushes charmingly and doesn’t answer any of them.

*

Jeongin proposes a sushi place that’s a ten minute walk from the hospital but half a block from his apartment, even though he knows that realistically he will not end the day today by having hot romantic sex with Seungmin on his bed. Alas—he has been doing research, and there’s a lot of stuff he’d love to try out.

Seungmin is quieter than usual, which Jeongin doesn’t mind, but he does wonder if he did something to anger or irritate him. He feels that there was a shift from their first week of the block to the second, and now into the third. Around the time that Jeongin took off Seungmin’s bloody gown there was a slight dimming of Seungmin around him, subtle but there. He wonders if he should ask Seungmin about that before diving into his confession, in case Seungmin needs to reject him pre-emptively? Or in case he did something he needs to apologize for, or correct?

And then the universe hands Jeongin a win.

“We’re only doing takeaway today,” the woman at the counter informs Jeongin. “Our indoor space is getting refurbished. Would you still like to order?”

Jeongin could not have orchestrated it better himself.

“Seungmin,” he says, pointing to his building. “I’m staying right there, want to just grab the food and come eat at my place?”

Seungmin blinks a few times before responding, but then he ends up nodding. “Okay. It’s too hot outside, do you have a fan?”

“Even better,” Jeongin says with a grin. “I have air conditioning.”

So they order their food to take away and then, unbelievably, Jeongin takes Seungmin to his apartment.

Seungmin

Jeongin’s sublet is a nice cozy third-floor walk-up above a bookstore. It’s a studio attic but it’s fairly spacious, and has been decorated tastefully by whoever runs the rental business.

Jeongin’s suitcase is still open and half lived out of, but there is closet space that he’s occupying as well, and more clothes than seem capable of fitting in the suitcase, which Jeongin admits he bought out shopping in the city. “I like clothes,” he says happily.

Seungmin has been keeping a closer gage on his physical responses to Jeongin’s presence and how they tie to his emotional triggers lately. Both Jisung and Hyunjin covertly checked on him and he was able to tell them honestly that, while not much has changed regarding how intense the symptoms are, he does feel reassured to know that the cause is a somatic one, and that helps a lot. The most puzzling reaction to Jeongin he has had so far was related to last week’s events in the trauma bay, when Seungmin had felt so unwell after the chest tube, stuck in his own brain, mentally running through everything he’d done hoping he had done it correctly, worried about the patient, worried about his technique, until Jeongin had come to help him out of his gown with such care and delicacy. That moment has been confusing him the most, because he understands the palpitations and temperature changes now, attraction agitates the system—but back in the bay, it had been calming, soothing to have Jeongin around.

Seungmin is more comfortable with the idea of being attracted to Jeongin than he is with the idea of being soothed by him, or helped by him. He’s not sure what that would mean, and attraction seems complicated enough.

He didn’t end up telling Jisung (or Hyunjin) about the source of his revelation for a reason, which is that obviously nothing can come of it. If it were someone else Seungmin would initiate a physical relationship with them just so he could figure out what that’s like, and if he likes that—he’s thought about sex with Jeongin a lot since he figured out that all his physical responses amount to an intense desire, and he’s pretty sure he’d enjoy it. It would have been nice to learn more things about himself; he had wondered if he was asexual in the past, then wondered if he was demisexual, and the latter might be the case but regardless the terminology is less relevant to Seungmin than the applicability of it. If it were anyone other than Jeongin he’d be asking them if they could help him explore these feelings more because their presence has elicited a curiosity that he didn’t feel back when he thought himself ‘too busy’.

But it is Jeongin. He’s a medical student, and his grades are directly affected by Seungmin’s opinion of him. A mentor-mentee relationship is possible, a friendship within the bounds of professionalism is as well, but there is no way something physical can or should happen. Not for the next three months, and ideally not until Jeongin graduates. He tries not to think too harshly of Jiwoo for ignoring these principles, since it's possible that she might be able to confidently keep the emotional and the sexual separate, and anyway it seems as though she and Jeongin have not continued any physical relationship since the block officially started.

“Is this okay?” Jeongin asks him after turning the window air conditioning motor to full blast. It makes for a background rumble-rattling noise but it does help instill some cool air.

“Yes, thank you.”

They settle on the floor at his low table, Jeongin with his back resting on the couch, each with their own sushi container. Jeongin has been wearing a thin sweater all day, which Seungmin chalks up to him being from the south because it is decidedly not sweater weather in Seoul mid-July.

“Thanks for coming with me hyung,” Jeongin says, smiling.

Seungmin catalogues the slight flush of his own cheeks without much surprise. He finds Jeongin’s smile very beautiful; thoughts of it bring forth all sorts of reactions, and being in Jeongin’s presence is a stronger hit of all of them. Two days ago, Seungmin had found himself in bed warping memories of Jeongin’s perfect face in a bunch of different scenarios… increasingly agitating scenarios, some of which hadn’t even happened: Jeongin licking cream off a spoon, Jeongin sucking cappuccino foam off his own finger, Jeongin sucking Seungmin’s finger, sucking Seungmin’s—he’d gotten so hard so fast that he’d jerked off to completion, unable to control the urge.

These thoughts are not those of a mentor.

“Are you going to apply to do your residency at SNUH? Or stay in Busan?” he asks. He genuinely wants to know, and he also needs a distraction.

“Oh, I’d like to move to Seoul I think? SNUH is great, but Asan Med has a good pediatric program too, and there’s plenty of other hospitals… I just have to convince my parents; they are very protective and I think they’ll miss me, but it’s pretty much decided on my end.” Jeongin chews a piece of sashimi thoughtfully. “How about you? Was SNUH your first choice?”

“It was. Both my parents trained here; it’s how they met.”

“Oh wow!”

In spite of himself, Seungmin smiles a little. It’s the one topic his parents get a bit sappy about, so it makes him happy to remember them telling the story. “Yeah, she consulted him on one of her patients for cardiac clearance before surgery, and he was really annoyed because the patient was seventy with a heart valve.”

“Your mother is a plastic surgeon, right?”

Seungmin nods. “The patient wanted an abdominoplasty at seventy…”

He tells Jeongin the story, feeling warm and full despite barely having eaten because he keeps talking while Jeongin ‘ooh’s and ‘aah’s, listening so attentively, so cutely. Time passes and he doesn’t forget how Jeongin makes him feel, but it does help to dull the desire enough to have a coherent conversation. At some point he is even able to turn the talk back around to Jeongin and his family, and so as the AC rattles on Jeongin chats and Seungmin gets a few pieces of sushi in.

In fact, their back and forth goes on very pleasantly for quite some time, before disaster strikes.

“—and my sister, who was two years old at the time, I think—actually, it’s still kind of hot isn’t it?” Jeongin interrupts himself, pouting at the window unit. It rumbles back at him.

“It’s fine, much better than out—”

Jeongin takes his sweater off over his head, and his T-shirt underneath nearly comes off with it.

He does it without any warning, and Seungmin goes very still.

“Oh, that’s better.”

Heart thumping in his chest, stomach flipping uncomfortably, Seungmin looks at the six-pack unveiled by the fabric, and the faint trail of hair leading down, and the waistline. Hell, he can see up to Jeongin’s lower sternal notch, almost up to his chest, the dusky hint of a nipple—

The symptoms hit all at once. He feels short of breath, faint, and it’s as bad as it was when Jeongin touched his neck that first time, as bad as that day on shift where he had to take a break and get himself an EKG: he feels sick.

“Oops, sorry,” Jeongin says innocently. He makes no immediate effort to return the shirt back to its original (its intended) position, instead stretching back to place the sweater on the couch behind him. His body forms one long backwards curve, arching—

Seungmin lunges forward and tugs the shirt down.

He’s panting, the effort of that small move coursing through him the way the adrenalin is, the arousal that he recognizes now, the want raging in his system.

Jeongin is looking right in his eyes.

“Wh…”

He looks caught out, a bit surprised. He’s flushed too—the heat, Seungmin supposes. Hence why he had to take his sweater off.

“Sorry,” Seungmin forces out. “I.”

He’s still clutching the bottom of Jeongin’s shirt, now back to a modest level by his hip. He should let it go. He’s breathing so hard, shaking with it.

Jeongin licks his lips. “Hyung,” he says, and then he doesn’t saying anything more.

At the window, the unit rattles on, thunderously loud.

Jeongin leans towards Seungmin, and Seungmin—needs to unclench his hand, let go, lean away, let go—he’s having a stroke, he’s having an absence seizure, he has tetanic paralysis—his limbs won’t obey the commands of his brain. Jeongin’s face is all he can see. Now Jeongin’s hand is on his neck. It’s not just the brush of fingers; his entire palm is wrapped around the back of it, and he’s grabbing Seungmin to pull him forward, and Seungmin tips into him because of gravity.

Their lips meet.

Seungmin feels the press of that beautiful mouth against his own and hears himself groan, short and deep and completely involuntary, completely bypassing the higher brain function he so prides himself on, and then Jeongin makes a soft little noise in return and nudges his face in closer, and kisses him with more pressure. The brush of their lips gets slicker, wet, and Jeongin lightly sucks at Seungmin’s lower lip before nudging further in, licking into his mouth. When Seungmin feels the brush of their tongues together a warm current shoots from his tongue down to his lower abdomen, and he groans again, surprised it feels so good—surprised anything feels this good.

Jeongin presses even closer, carefully opening his mouth and Seungmin’s with it, and now that he’s tilted his head to the side there’s more space for his tongue, and Seungmin is trembling, the warm currents are shooting down to his gut and converging there, fueling a building need. Jeongin’s hand on the back of his neck is adding to everything, scratching the sensitive skin there, and then he puts his other hand on Seungmin’s waist, and he’s pulling there too, tugging him down, tugging him closer.

Seungmin goes because Jeongin is still leaning against the couch, ends up hovering over him with his knees at either side of Jeongin’s hips and his hand is still wrapped around the bottom of Jeongin’s shirt. He lifts the shirt up without making the conscious decision to do it, and it’s wrong, everything about this is the opposite of what Seungmin was trying to accomplish, but then the pads of his fingers brush the satiny skin of Jeongin’s waist and Jeongin makes a higher pitched version of that soft noise from earlier.

That noise is—Seungmin needs it, the way an addiction happens, he needs it again and immediately and more of it. He rests his hand on Jeongin’s waist and his other hand goes to Jeongin’s shoulder and when he presses his fingers into the flesh Jeongin whimpers again, and it sounds needy, the word ‘please’ in nonverbal form, and it shoots directly to Seungmin’s gut and makes all the embers there spark and spit with fire. They are still kissing deeply, and breathing fast, and it’s speeding up, getting—messy, normally Seungmin doesn’t like things to be sloppy but this feels so good, so necessary. He’s moaning into Jeongin’s mouth and then Jeongin’s hand around his neck clenches tight and Seungmin’s hips jerk, involuntary.

Which is when he registers that he is hard.

Fuck.

Seungmin rips away from the kiss and falls backwards, landing on his butt on Jeongin’s carpet.

“No. This can’t—no.”

He’s gasping for air, he’s so hard, he’s never been this turned on before, his heart is racing and it hurts how hard he is, but fuck, how did he let things get to this point, how did he lose control like that? How was the switch on his sanity flipped the second Jeongin’s lips touched his?

“Jeongin, we can’t. Do this.”

Jeongin is also breathing unsteadily. “Why?” But even his tone says he knows the answer to his own question. Seungmin doesn’t dignify that with a response for several beats, and then Jeongin sighs. “I’m sorry, I do know why. I should have… I should’ve figured.”

Seungmin runs the back of his hand over his mouth. It feels sensitive.

“I’m sorry, hyung,” Jeongin says again. “I just… really wanted to kiss you.”

Oh. The evidence of Jeongin’s want is still making Seungmin’s lips tingle, but it feels like a revelation to hear those words anyway, to imagine Jeongin feeling ill over him the past few weeks, too.

“Oh,” he says, eloquently.

Jeongin’s face takes on an adorable sheepish expression. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you since I met you,” he admits. “I haven’t kissed a boy before; it’s nice.”

“I haven’t kissed anyone before,” Seungmin says.

The sheepish expression fades, and is replaced by something Seungmin has slightly more trouble qualifying. Jeongin just ate, so it can’t be hunger, but—

“Can we still be friends?” Jeongin asks. He didn’t wipe his own mouth, it’s still shiny with spit. He’s so beautiful. He’s so perfect.

Seungmin nods. “Of course, yes. We can be friends.”

“And you forgive me for kissing you?”

Seungmin nods again. “Yes, Jeongin, of course.”

But his neck twinges with the ghost of Jeongin’s grip when he does, and he’s not sure he forgives Jeongin for that, just yet.

Felix

On Friday morning, more than halfway into his surgery rotation, Felix is starting a 24-hour call day when he gets asked to meet with director Park.

The phone call interrupts rounds and gets him a disapproving stare from Dr. King, the American attending surgeon who is on service this week instead of Dr. Choi. Felix apologizes profusely in English to her before explaining that it’s from his program director.

To his credit, JYP is to the point about it: “Dr. Lee, good morning, please come to my office. Let your attending know so you may be excused from rounding.” And he hangs up.

Felix is summarily excused, and after exchanging a slightly tense look with Chul and Mingyu he rushes to the elevators to ascend up to the 20th floor.

The ever-kind executive assistant waves him into Dr. Park’s office as soon as he arrives, and Felix’s nerves go from rattled to astronomically high, as he wonders whether he’s about to get kicked out of the program for not being good enough, for the differences in Australian and Korean medical school teaching, for not working as hard as the surgeons—

“Dr. Lee, please take a seat.”

JYP is dressed in a suit, not scrubs, as he has been most times Felix has seen him. According to the senior residents he very rarely works shifts down in the ER anymore due to his high position in the department, and they sounded relieved about this.

Felix sits in the chair in front of his desk. The office has a spectacular view of not just the hospital campus but the city, even the river and the War Memorial are visible through the glass wall on the right. It’s nice and bright outside today, the sun filters in beautifully.

“There are certain hygiene standards expected of SNUH residents, Dr. Lee, that I am concerned may not have been enforced in the Australian system you are used to. I would like to discuss them with you today.”

Felix looks at the director. Dr. Park is as severe as Felix has ever seen him.

“H-hygiene?” he echoes.

“Yes, Dr. Lee. Sterility during procedures and patient safety are our utmost concern, you understand.”

“O-of course, sir.” Felix is so confused he’s not even sure how else to feel. He is fastidious about hand-washing, always changes his gloves, Mingyu actually commented on his ‘surgery-worthy’ technique the other day, what is JYP talking about?

“Nail polish is a patient safety hazard and cannot be worn by a resident doctor of SNUH.”

And oh.

Okay.

Felix gets what this is now.

“It has been brought to my attention that you are wearing gel on your nails. I’m afraid you have to remove them before the end of the day or an infraction will go on your record.”

Felix swallows, and tries not to shake. “S-sir, I am not wearing fake nails. And nail polish and gel are two different—”

“Just remove the gel before the end of the day, Dr. Lee,” JYP cuts in. “This is not just a hospital policy but a WHO regulation, you cannot wear—”

“The WHO regulation is about artificial nails, sir—”

“Dr. Lee,” he raises his voice, and Felix flinches. “Remove the gel. Today.”

Felix knows it’s pointless to try to explain that nail polish and nail gel are not the same things, and that he is just wearing nail polish, which is not an issue even in the strictest of hospital nail policies. He’s not a surgeon, he’s only rotating there for a month; technically none of the ER procedures require the level of sterility that an operating room has, and none of what he has done goes against the WHO guidelines.

To his horror, he feels the prickle of tears at the corners of his eyes.

“Y-yes, sir.”

“I expect you to return to my office to show me your clean hands at the end of the day.”

“I am on a 24-hour shift, sir, I—”

“Then by next week.” Dr. Park noticed the impending tears, Felix is sure of it—the additional layers of scorn and disapproval on his face tells him so. “This needs to be corrected today, and I want to see the evidence of it next week.”

He can’t help it; the tears fall on his next blink, and all Felix can do is bow apologetically and agree.

He walks out of the office feeling humiliated, feeling furious, crying from the frustration, and Dr. Park’s sweet assistant gives him her Japanese melonpan as soon as she sees him.

He’d been wearing makeup and nail polish during his original residency interview with Dr. Park, too, but it had happened over videocall, and sometimes those things aren’t apparent on a computer screen. He’s long past the point where he wishes he was different than who he is, but he is not above childish wishing; wishing Dr. Park and his like-minded ilk were extinct, wishing there was room for reason in a conversation like that one, wishing a fifty-something doctor could understand the difference between polish, gel and a fake nail, or was tolerant enough to listen.

*

The rest of Felix’s call shift is the most unpleasant one he’s had so far; Mingyu can tell that the meeting went badly but doesn’t push him on it, which he appreciates, but then they get busy and Felix has to find within him the energy to run around the hospital again, struggling to see the overnight consults that will not stop coming. He can’t even call his mom and cry on the phone to her because he’s too busy.

Around midnight, they get a new consult from the ER for a patient that didn’t come in as a trauma alert but was found to have broken their hip and their humerus, which involves both the general surgeons and the orthopedists. Felix knows he looks like crap when he finds himself down in the ER sorting through the patient’s paperwork and Jiwoo comes up to him with a look of concern on her face.

“Hey Felix, are you okay sweetie?” She puts a hand on his arm, brushing up and down as though soothing an injured animal.

“Just tired, Jiwoo,” he sighs. He gives her the best attempt at a smile he can manage, which does not seem to work.

“Okay. I know this is probably, like, hour nineteen of your shift or something, but I have night snacks! Would you like one? Or a Malaysian kopi? These canned ones are so good…” before he can respond, she’s fishing around in her bag and fetching him a snack packet and giving him her kopi can.

Felix feels the tears threaten again, this time from gratitude. Everyone from his intern class is so sweet. He got so lucky, he can’t believe how lucky he is.

“Jiwoo…” he starts, voice a croak.

She shakes her head, tucking the snack packet into his scrubs breast pocket. “Don’t talk about it now, whatever it is. Get through the shift and then reach out to someone, okay? It can be me! Or any friend. But tell someone. You’re not alone, Felix.”

It hits him like a ton of bricks, how right she is. Dr. Park may be a relic, a dinosaur, but Felix isn’t and he is not alone.

“Can I give you a kiss?” she adds, smiling. “For courage! Fighting!” And then she does a cute bicep flex that is meant to represent strength, and Felix giggles and lowers his mask to present his cheek, which she proceeds to lower her mask and peck. She’s much taller than him, so she has to lean down to do it.

Dr. Cha, the overnight ER attending, notices the exchange and says nothing, and the senior resident snorts fondly and does the same.

Felix leaves the ER feeling much, much lighter, and Mingyu says: “Oh thank God, I was missing my prince’s proper smile!” And ruffles his hair.

In the morning, Felix calls his mom and tells her a version of the events that won’t have her swimming all the way here from Australia—he just tells her that someone made a rude comment about his painted nails (not untrue) and gratefully listens to her threaten all sorts of bodily harm to the person, which is jarring coming his peace-loving, sweet eomma, but makes him feel warm and cared for. Then he takes Jiwoo’s advice and sends a text to ‘I wish Dr. Bang would bang me’.

anyone free for dinner after I wake up tonight? could use company <3<3

Jisung

Jisung rushes to Felix’s new place after his shift. It’s been a weird day; he could tell something had upset Felix via text (only two heart emojis? From Felix?) and then, during the shift, Jeongin of all people was all droopy and quiet. The two cutest, sweetest people in Jisung’s periphery are both sad, and that is unacceptable, so he asks Minho to push their meet-up to later in the night so he can go eat with Felix first. He will sneak the truth out of Jeongin another day.

Hyunjin and Seungmin turn out to be free as well, so it’s the sim team four that meet up at Felix’s place. Hyunjin was off the whole day so he brings the food; a solid assortment of Vietnamese banh mi that Jisung can’t help but approve of, because sandwiches are a staple comfort food in his book.

“Okay,” Hyunjin says, once they are all sat on the living room floor. He’s looking at Felix with worry. “Talk.”

Seeing Felix with the light drained from his eyes is something Jisung never wanted or expected to witness. He has been feeling aimlessly furious at the cause since he walked in to the apartment and noticed, not knowing who to be angry at, and then—then Felix tells them.

“…so I took them off.” He shows off his clear nails to them in a sad flourish. “And then I slept for eleven hours. And now we’re here.”

“I’m going to kill him.” It’s Hyunjin again who speaks first.

“Yes, and I will help you,” Jisung says. “We’ll probably still be allowed to graduate from the program, right?”

Seungmin is quiet for a moment, but when they all look at him his eyes are stormy (Jisung has to admit it makes him extra attractive). “Felix. This is unacceptable,” he says firmly.

“I. I know. But what can I do?”

“I’m happy to print out the WHO guidelines and tape them to his desk.” Seungmin is clearly dead serious about it.

“I don’t think he is actually concerned with patient safety, Seungmin,” Hyunjin mutters with an eyeroll. “He’s being a prejudiced piece of shit.” But then he looks back at Felix seriously. “You have to tell Changbin. This is exactly the kind of thing he’d want to know.”

“I-I don’t want to bother—”

“Oh, yes! Changbin will know what to do, he’ll help.” Jisung nods. “He’s so great. And so dreamy.”

Hyunjin glares at him.

“What? He is. Definitely tell him, Felix.”

“I agree; that’s a great idea.” Seungmin is nodding, too. “Do you want us to come with you? We’ll come with you.”

Felix looks from one to the other of them, banh mi uneaten in his hand, big eyes bigger than ever, and then he bursts into tears.

“Oh, Felix!”

“Felix! Don’t cry!”

Jisung and Hyunjin immediately drop their food to shuffle over to him and hug him, and Felix lets himself be hugged on either side. Jisung looks over at Seungmin and notes how he carefully puts his own sandwich on the table before he stands up and walks all the way around and over to Felix’s back, at which point he folds down to the floor and joins the group hug with an indulgent sigh.

Felix leans his weight back against him and Seungmin brushes soothing hands over his shoulders and upper back, meaning that at times he gets some of Jisung or Hyunjin, who are wrapped around Felix much more tightly.

“It’s going to be okay, Felix,” he tells him, and he sounds so assured that Jisung believes him too. “Changbin will know what to do.”

Jisung looks at Hyunjin before he adds: “And even if he doesn’t; at least he can hold you up against his dreamy, buff body.”

Felix snorts but Hyunjin flicks Jisung on the arm so hard that it’s going to bruise, and Jisung makes a triumphant mental note.

*

“—and freaking JYP called him into his office about it! Can you believe that?”

Jisung glares at Minho, who looks upset on Felix’s behalf but also a bit confused, maybe.

“What?”

“N-nothing, I just—when you asked me to come over, this is not what I thought you had in mind.”

Jisung flushes, feeling embarrassed in the not-good way. He doesn’t want Minho to think he’s trying to overstep their relationship or like, rely on him for emotional support or something. But he’s so angry.

“Oh. Sorry, I definitely—uh, had the other thing in mind too.”

Minho smiles. “I’m in no rush. You can rant about how JYP is an asshole some more, if you want. You have my attention, either way.”

Jisung takes Minho in; the way he’s lounging in sweats on Jisung’s small couch, the breadth of him, the body he is learning his way around. Minho always has his attention, too. It's been a whirlwind few weeks; Jisung has seen Minho basically every time they are both free, which was twice the first week, three times the second, and today is the second night they are hanging out on the third week of the block. They've had sex so many times he's lost track already, because his refractory period is apparently nonexistent when Minho is involved. He's gotten spanked, spit on, insulted with that perfect amount of meanness that goes just far enough… there's been talk of tying him up even though they haven't done that yet, but everything Minho has done to him so far has been toe-curling, so he’s sure he’ll like it too.

He also feels like he's known Minho for longer than three weeks. He's had casual sex before but never so regularly with someone (and it was never this good). He knows a false sense of intimacy can develop between two people who barely know each other, but he's collecting kernels of information on Minho like they are precious stones, and he does feel like he's getting to know him. He picks up quirks of his fairly quirky personality, scraps of detail about his family, his cats, his hobbies, slivers of insight into his passion for his job, his affinity for pediatric emergencies and his thoughts on taking on additional specialized training. It's all built on little moments before taking their clothes off or after putting them back on; they don’t eat meals together again after that first discussion, and they make an effort to stay very professional at work, so it’s not like Jisung has other opportunities to gather this knowledge. But it’s building up to something; to a sum total that Jisung really admires, and enjoys being around, and kind of wishes he could be friends with.

“Jisung?”

One of the nurses warned Jisung not to get ‘addicted’ the other day (and it’s super great, that she assumed correctly after overhearing Jisung pick up Minho for their first breakfast date that didn’t involve breakfast). It doesn’t bother Jisung at all that Minho has been with a lot of people before, but the warning did get to him. Strange, that she chose that word instead of the more traditional ‘don’t get attached’ or even ‘don’t get your heart broken’. It’s hard not to imagine himself becoming addicted to the dopamine and oxytocin hits, because time with Minho is already the highlight of his weeks, and he can’t contemplate the thought of going without.

“…Jisung?”

“Hm?”

Minho’s amusement fades a bit. “Hey, we don’t have to have sex, you know that right? It’s okay if you changed your mi—”

“No!” Jisung flings himself onto the couch and consequently onto Minho, grabbing his shoulders. “No, no, I didn’t change my mind, I-I was just… thinking. Please have sex with me.”

Minho chuckles, a high breathy noise that Jisung is hooked on. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry I even suggested it.”

And then he flips them, easy as you please, so that Jisung’s back lands on the cushions with a thump and Minho is arched over him. His body language is almost predatory, and Jisung squirms, pulse thumping in his ears.

“So… now? That was you saying you want to have sex now?” It’s a tone Jisung is learning to recognize; mocking but with the undercurrent of an actual question. Minho meant it, about giving Jisung an out, and he is genuinely asking if ‘now’ is okay.

“Please. Please, yes, please.”

Those eyes narrow with happiness. “Little Jisung can’t go one night without this, hm?” Minho asks lightly. “Feels too good, huh?”

“Y-yeah. Yeah, feels so—”

“Oh, you don’t need to tell me.” He puts his hand over Jisung’s mouth, not a slap but not gentle, either. “I can tell.”

Jisung muffles a noise against his palm, body spasming. Minho hasn’t done that to him before.

“Sh. We’re going to play a game today, to see if you can be quiet.” Minho sits down on him, sudden pressure on his lap, against his already hardening dick, and Jisung can’t trap the moan in his mouth before it comes out, audible despite the hand keeping it shut. Minho huffs when he hears it. “Sounds like you’re going to lose.”

He shifts his hips, a movement that’s deceptively purposeless but in reality feels like Minho is drawing a figure 8 on Jisung’s groin.

Jisung’s eyes roll back and his dick throbs, almost all the way hard already.

“You really can’t be helped, can you Jisung,” Minho goes on, sighing. “So desperate for me all the time. You’d have me every day if you could, wouldn’t you?”

Jisung nods, squirming with the truth. Minho clamps his hand down harder to prevent the movement, but he looks pleased.

“You’re going to do so badly at this game, aren’t you,” Minho asks near his face, low and mean in the way that riles Jisung up so bad. “Because you like it too much.”

Jisung does his best to stay silent and just give a single affirmative head shake.

Minho nods with him, and removes his hand carefully. “…Okay. Now keep quiet.” He slides backwards down Jisung’s legs and takes him out of his sweat shorts, and Jisung immediately gasps and only just manages not to make a sound.

Minho looks up at him, assessing, and seems satisfied with that, because then he licks around the head of Jisung’s dick and takes him into his mouth.

Jisung inhales, loudly, and arches his neck as though that will prevent any noise from escaping his vocal cords. The warm wet glide of Minho’s mouth on him is heaven, he feels so good, he wants to fuck into that mouth so badly, he wants to shout, to beg, to cry, but he—can’t, and the rule is messing with him, making that static feeling come back.

“Mmmh.” Minho audibly moans around his mouthful and Jisung gasps again, exhales harshly, so desperate so quickly, so frantic with it. He knows better than to let his hips thrust up the way they want to, but not being able to move and not being able to speak is—it’s—

Minho’s tongue traces the underside of his dick and Jisung’s mouth is open, breaths coming quick. He feels trapped yet floating, forced to endure this much pleasure, he feels unreal. Minho, whether to tease him or because he’s genuinely that into it, is making more noise than usual; groaning and humming while he takes Jisung whole, then grips him at the base and laves over the head, then sucks him down again, and Jisung’s thighs are shaking, his abs contracting with pleasure, and he feels—anticipates, what’s coming next, what tends to happen when he starts getting close, especially the first orgasm of the night because he can never make himself last too long at the beginning—

“Jisung-ah,” Minho slurs, chin dripping with spit and precome. “You’re kidding, right?” he sounds annoyed, but his eyes are glittery and his cheeks are bright pink. “You’re already close?”

Jisung can’t speak, still trying to play by the rules, so he just nods apologetically. His hands curl into fists at his sides.

Minho sneers, rolling his eyes. “You’re hopeless. This is too easy—you’re too easy.”

Jisung’s sob lodges in his throat, and he finally does move his hips up, one aborted fuck into thin air, the static in his ears growing louder.

“Look at you; all this from a five-minute blowjob. Sheesh.” Minho grabs one hipbone in each hand and pins him down, and Jisung almost breaks his silence to scream, or at least to plead with him, but Minho is staring at him with his hair in his eyes and it’s enough to keep him still, for now. “Stay put or I won’t let you come.”

Jisung shudders, feels more precome dribbling down his shaft, and knows he’s going to come either way.

“My desperate little addict,” Minho sighs. “Hooked on this. Such a slut for this. You were about to drop to your knees and beg me to fuck you if I didn’t say yes right away, hm? Ready to cry if I didn’t give it to you tonight, weren’t you?”

Jisung gasps again, or his every breath is a gasp now, he’s lost track. The worst of it is that every word out of Minho’s mouth is true, it’s a painfully accurate echo of his earlier thoughts, and he feels the tears coming, feels himself harden even more, wants to fuck something, Minho’s mouth, his fist, anything—

“Bet you’d settle for fucking a pillow at this point,” Minho says, once again jarringly similar to where Jisung’s brain was going, and God, yes, honestly yes a pillow would mean pressure, it would be something.

His breaths are hitching as he silently cries, and he nods frantically, tears streaming down, hips still pinned by Minho’s hands, chest heaving under his shirt—hell his shorts and underwear are still on, just shoved down past his balls. He probably looks pathetic; wanton, desperate like Minho says. He feels it; the burning, sludgy shame, curling in his gut. He knows he is desperate. He is everything Minho is saying.

“Hm. I suppose you’ve been surprisingly well-behaved so far.”

Minho shoves a pillow over Jisung’s groin, and the sudden engulfing pressure makes Jisung cry out.

The pillow gets removed immediately, and then Minho slaps him.

Jisung cries out again, game lost, some inner dam breaking.

“Please!” he gasps. “Please, oh Minho please, please I need—”

Minho laughs at him, and Jisung’s dick twitches at the sound, oh he’s so—he’s so close—

“Lost already! Poor little Jisung, you were doing so well.” He holds the pillow away from Jisung, mocking, taunting. “All that begging just for a pillow. Wow.”

“P-please,” Jisung sobs, and he doesn’t understand the ear-ringing pleasure he gets from this form of begging but there is a bone-deep satisfaction that takes him over when he’s reduced to this, when Minho breaks him down to this. “Please, Minho-hyung, I’ll be good, I’ll—”

Minho is sitting on his legs so he can’t bend his knees. He can’t lift his hips because Minho’s left hand is still pinning him. He’s flying but he can’t move, he can’t move, he can’t move—

“H-hyung—” he chokes. Now that he’s started talking he can’t stop, he’s too far gone. He lost, he failed, he couldn’t stay quiet, like Minho said he would. He’s so pathetic, he’s so pathetic. “H-yung, I n-need it… please, I… please…”

Minho looks viciously happy, and he watches him squirm and unfold for several moments more. Then he lets go of Jisung’s hip to reach up and grab his face in one hand, leaning forward to kiss him, to shove his tongue into Jisung’s mouth, moaning into him, making Jisung moan in return, and then, then—Jisung feels the sudden plushness of the pillow on him.

He keens into Minho’s mouth and starts humping it without thinking, hips fucking up so gratefully, and he comes just like that, almost bucking off the couch, almost shouting with how good it feels. He wordlessly takes hold of the pillow with his hands and squeezes his thighs around it, shouts becoming cries becoming whimpers, Minho devouring his mouth still and using his newly free hand to grab him by the hair. Jisung comes until he knows he’ll have to throw the pillow out, riding it with burning thighs and churning his hips restlessly.

“Fuck, you’re so hot,” Minho muffles into his mouth, still kissing him, and Jisung tosses the pillow aside so there’s nothing between them.

“Here, c’mere,” he mumbles, pulling Minho to him, and Minho is so tense, so hard against his thigh when he lowers himself down so they are finally lying together, but he still cradles Jisung right away and lets Jisung lock his ankles around him, finish riding out his aftershocks on his lower belly.

“You’re amazing, you’re so good, Jisung…” he says, starting up his reassuring litany. “What a good boy, you did so good with that, you were so good for me, you tried so hard to be quiet it was so hot watching you try, you’re such a good boy…”

Distantly, Jisung thinks that of course aftercare is important, but that it always sounds like Minho means it, when he says these things, and Jisung isn’t sure how much he means it, but he doesn’t want to ask. Something to ponder another time, though, when his brain isn’t liquid.

“Came so pretty, came so good hm? My good boy.” Minho noses down to his ear. “Felt good? Do you feel good?”

“Fuck yes, oh my God,” Jisung whispers, and squirms just at the memory. He has never humped a pillow and had it feel like that. “Felt so good. Thank you for slapping me, wow.”

“Mmmm, love that I got you sounding like that just from some pillow-humping,” Minho sighs, adjusting his position over Jisung, which makes his dick rub against Jisung’s thigh. “Fuck, why is that so hot. You’re so fucking hot, fuck.” He adjusts himself again, a bit more deliberately this time. “Fuck, Jisung.”

He sounds really, really affected. Jisung’s nerves zing with pleasure at the tremble in Minho’s voice.

“You like that I’m so… sensitive?”

Minho groans softly, and now he’s grinding his erection against Jisung’s thigh, no more adjustments; it’s purposeful and continuous. “Yeah. Yeah it’s really… it’s really hot. You’re really hot.”

He said that so many times. Knowing that someone as hot as Minho thinks that about Jisung is exhilarating.

“It turns you on?” Jisung asks. He’s not as good at all that talking as Minho is, but he likes asking these questions. He feels a twisty mix of flattered and spurred on to hear Minho’s answers, more of Minho’s voice.

“Y-yeah, yeah, you…” Minho’s breath hitches. His voice is so airy. “Y—it really turns me on, Jisung.”

“Are you…?” He’s so hard, damn. Is Minho close already? “Are you still going to fuck me?”

Minho makes a sound between a chuckle and an exhale. His thrusting against Jisung’s thigh isn’t slowing—it’s speeding up. “You want it, huh? You, ah, you came ten seconds ago and you already want it.”

“Yes. Yes, I always—want it,” Jisung huffs.

Minho groans, louder.

“Always want you,” Jisung adds, and Minho comes.

Jisung feels him stiffen and then warmth is spreading against his leg, and Minho looks—surprised, choking on a moan as he loses it, lashes fluttering, cheeks flushing even brighter red.

Jisung is surprised, too, but he stares hungrily at Minho’s face as his body twitches with the shocks. He’s so beautiful. His eyes, his cheekbones, the way his front teeth are slightly prominent, the shape of his lips, fuck—Jisung is so fucking dependent on these hits, there’s no way he can go without them—the first step is recognizing there’s a problem, right? Because he's already thinking of getting Minho hard again so they can have sex, and Minho has barely even finished coming, so Jisung probably has a pretty terrible, pretty devastating problem.

If only the sex was the only thing he was addicted to.

Minho

He hasn’t come in his pants like that in years.

It doesn’t mean anything, though. It can’t. He really, really needs it not to mean anything.

Changbin

He got a text from the number he has now saved as ‘Dr Hwang Hyunjin - SNUH’ over the weekend requesting a meeting with half the intern class, which he schedules for Wednesday after their conference lectures. Hyunjin confirms on behalf of all four of them, stating that Felix’s surgery senior has granted him a half hour of time away from rounds at noon, and asking if they can meet in the resident lounge.

The resident lounge is a generously named room on the second floor of the hospital, only one flight of stairs up from the ER, where the emergency medicine residents can store their belongings and access assorted snacks, as well as use a mini-fridge. There is a single computer for charting wedged into a corner and a couch on one side, taking up almost half the floorspace. No attendings are allowed.

For their meeting, the four interns sit on the couch, and Changbin takes the chair meant for the charting computer.

“So… what’s up, guys?”

It’s Felix who tells him; quietly but assuredly, recounting the conversation he had with JYP at the end of last week and making Changbin angrier and angrier and angrier.

“He is the fucking worst,” Changbin growls when Felix is done, and he tries not to swear that often.

“Yes. Now what are you going to do about it?” Hyunjin asks defiantly.

It’s only then that Changbin registers something interesting; Hyunjin has painted every other one of his fingernails red, and three of Seungmin’s fingers have dark purple polish on them. Jisung’s nails look the same, but he’s wearing earrings, which Changbin doesn’t think he’s seen him do before.

He’s so proud of them already, and they’ve barely been here a month.

“I am going to need you to trust me,” he starts, and Hyunjin frowns, but Changbin continues. “A few of us have been compiling a list of the offenses JYP has been committing so we can present them to the hospital board and remove him from his position as Program Director.”

He can tell the interns weren’t expecting that.

“We’ve been in talks with some of the other attendings, too, it’s not just residents. We are working on it, and I think, with this—we’re getting very close.”

Seungmin reaches into his scrub pocket and takes out a piece of paper. “I printed out the WHO guidelines on the use of nail extenders and artificial nails.”

“Thank you, Seungmin. Can you please text me the link because I’m going to lose this for sure.”

“You got it.”

Jisung snorts. “We could also ask Jiwoo and Sooah to testify; they wear nail polish all the time and they never got reprimanded.”

“Harin does too,” Felix points out.

“It’s not, like, a trial Jisung,” Changbin says.

“Pfft, it should be.” Hyunjin crosses his arms over his chest and leans back. “So we’re expected to what? Just… wait, in the meantime? Wait for him to insult Felix again, or do something worse—"

“I didn’t say that.” Changbin motions to Jisung’s earrings. “Little things like that? I’m all for them. They are sure to get under his skin, and he can’t fire all of us.”

“Us?” Felix asks quietly.

“Yeah, Felix. This residency is an ‘us’. I’m going to spread the word to the seniors, too, I’m sure everyone will want to help.” Changbin smiles at him, and tries not to think about the fact that he’s going to have to prevent Chan from committing a full-on homicide before the block is over. “You’re not alone in this; we’ve got your back.”

*

In addition to the afterparties after big events, like the intern welcome dinner or the hospital-wide celebration for Chuseok in the fall, it is tradition that Changbin, San and Wooyoung host an end-of-the-block party every month. Block one ends on the last weekend of July, and Changbin has a shift during the day, so he leaves the prep to San and Woo (most of the prep involves hiding their valuables and breakables, of which they have less and less the more parties they throw). He’s with Harin and Sooah under the supervision of attending Dr. Oh, and both interns do a great job but it’s a very busy shift and he sends them home to change while he stays to wrap things up in the ER, meaning he is very late to his own party at his own apartment.

Things are well underway when Changbin arrives, and the alcohol is flowing. There is no way to sneak into his room from the front door undetected, so he gets dragged into the fray the second he steps foot into the place, despite his protests and despite the fact that he left the hospital still in his ER scrubs.

“Guys! This is gross, I didn’t have time to change! I could have MRSA!”

“I’d get MRSA for you Changbin!” Seri cries, laughing and hugging him. Changbin laughs back, wiggling out from under her arms, and slowly makes his way out of the spotlight so he can go to his bedroom. It’s time-consuming; people are drunk and chatty, San thrusts a cup in his hand, Harin and Sooah want to thank him for his help during the shift they just worked, someone brings up Changbin wrestling the patient again and then everyone wants to hear the story first-hand… but Changbin has a goal, and he keeps working towards his bedroom door. He spots Hyunjin on his way there, just a mental note of his presence that he can’t help taking, and then he finally makes it.

He shuts the door behind him with a sigh of relief. There’s a definite improvement in the amount of noise filtering in.

“Oh.”

Chan is sitting on his bed.

“…Chan. You came?”

They invite Chan to the resident parties every time, but he never comes to them. Ever.

Chan’s eyes are unfocused, his cheeks blotchy. There’s an empty bottle of soju on the floor; a large one.

Changbin feels a pit of dread open up in his stomach. Did Chan already find out about the meeting between JYP and Felix…?

“Mingyu is here,” Chan says hollowly. “He came with Felix.” He’s sitting, but swaying. This is the drunkest Changbin has ever seen him; Chan usually doesn’t drink at all. “Felix invited him.”

“Oh, Chan—come here—"

“Noooo I don’t want your MRSA,” Chan pushes him away before Changbin can hug him, and he looks pitiful, he really does, but that makes Changbin chuckle.

“Okay, okay sorry, let me take these scrubs off…”

He does, and quickly tugs jeans and a random muscle shirt on. Chan is hiccupping, like a caricature of a drunk person.

“Felix said he didn’t like Mingyu but then he invited him here. A surgeon. At an ER party. That means something, right?”

Changbin sits down next to him and puts his arm around him. “Chan. What are you doing right now.”

“I am telling you—”

“You’re upset that an intern invited his surgery senior to our end-of-the-block party?” Changbin interrupts. He loves his friend, he really does, but this is not sustainable. “You, Dr. Bang Chan, engaged to someone who is not this intern, are upset about that?”

Chan groans, putting his head in his hands.

“Yes!” he says, dislodging the word like he’s been holding it back for an age. “Yes I am! I know I don’t—get to be, I know it’s sooooo fucked up, I know that Bin! Binnie! Binnie I know, but I…” He hiccups. “I’m so fucked up. I can’t stop thinking ‘bout him. I… am so fucking. Upset about it.” The next hiccup sounds like a sob. “I feel like I’m going to die.”

“You’re not going to die, you dramatic dumbass,” Changbin sighs, rubbing his shoulder.

“I hate it so much. The idea of… if he hurts Felix. If he doesn’t make him happy. Will anyone. Treat Felix the way he…” Chan is definitely crying. This is a great party, Changbin is glad he came here after working for more than twelve straight hours. “He deserves to be so happy. He deserves the world.”

“And you want to give it to him.”

“The world,” Chan clarifies.

“And also the other thing,” Changbin says.

“God, yes. Fuck.” He wipes at his cheeks. “I’ve been hiding here for an hour. I don’t think Felix even knows I came.”

“Is Felix the reason you showed up?”

Chan sighs, a big one, like he emptied his lungs on it. “…Yeah. He’s why I do a lot of things lately.”

Changbin is a bit horrified by that. “Chan. You need to make a decision.”

“There is no decision. He doesn’t see me that way, he wants Mingyu, and I can’t—betray Nari like that, plus our parents would—”

“You are literally crying over someone else right now, Chan, I’m not sure Nari would find that totally chill.”

It’s a bit harsher than this drunk version of Chan probably deserves, Changbin knows. But he has this weird suspicion that Chan and Felix are actually perfect for each other, and that this is more than Chan just idealizing and romanticizing a beautiful person, this could be something real. If Chan would get out of his own damn way—

“You’re right. I’m the worst. Hence the crying and hiding back here,” he makes a vague motion in the air. “And the drunkenness, which was stupid, obviously.”

“Obviously. Why don’t we go back outside and get you some water, huh? And then you can talk to some nice people who really like you. I think I saw Minho out there, he’s safe, right? And he’s not a resident you supervise or someone who is trying to fuck one of our interns, what do you say? Come on, let’s go out there and find Minho.”

“I do like Minho,” Chan nods. “Yeah. Okay. I can talk to Minho, that’s true.”

“Good. Come on, buddy, let’s go.”

He helps Chan stand, surprised by how steady Chan is on his feet. He even walks on his own, and makes it all the way to the bedroom door.

“Bin,” Chan says, small, pausing with his hand on the knob. “I wish I just wanted him to be happy, but it’s worse than that. I only want him to be with me.”

“…I know, Channie. I know that, buddy. Come on, let’s go outside.”

He figures he probably knew that before Chan did.

*

Minho, who is usually a bit weird but otherwise chill to have around, seems uncharacteristically bothered to be interrupted in his conversation so that Changbin can foist a drunk Chan onto him, but that is tough luck, Changbin thinks. He needs to help San and Wooyoung host, and to keep an eye on the revelry levels so things don’t get too out of hand. This is the second time he’s interrupted Minho with Jisung at a party, but there was no need for the jaw-clenched death-glare Minho leveled his way.

He's puttering about the kitchen, putting out more snacks so that people have access to food to soak up some of the alcohol, when someone comes in behind him.

“Hey. How’s my handiwork looking?”

A hand grabs his chin and tips it up, and suddenly Hyunjin’s face is very close to his in the brighter lighting.

Changbin’s brain was not ready—he intakes a sharp, shocked breath. Hyunjin is wearing more noticeable make-up than usual today, and he looks like he belongs on a higher plane of existence than the mortals around him, Changbin included. Changbin has never felt more like a mortal. He hasn’t seen Hyunjin outside of a group setting on Wednesdays since the day he put the stitches in, and Hyunjin’s beauty requires some build up to be tolerated up close like this.

“Hm. Not bad.” Hyunjin presses a finger to Changbin’s cheek and tugs at the skin, testing the barely-there scar which is healing very nicely thanks to Hyunjin’s excellent stitch-work. “Not bad at all. You’ve been putting sunscreen on it, right?”

“Yes.” Changbin just noticed that Hyunjin’s shirt bares his arms, and what’s covered up of his chest has mesh cut-outs. His brain is struggling to keep up, here. “Y-yes, I’ve been good.”

“Hm.” His chin is released and Hyunjin steps away. He’s a bit pink, and the cup in his hand seems empty; probably has been drinking for a while, though he doesn’t seem too out of it.

Just as Hyunjin opens his mouth to say something else, the song that starts playing elicits a round of cheering and then someone turns the volume up with a whoop.

Hyunjin leans into him, yelling over the music to be heard. “You didn’t ask me to take the stitches off.”

“Why would I do that?” Changbin asks, confused and also yelling. They had been due to come off last week, so he just did it himself in the mirror.

Hyunjin’s eyes narrow and he doesn’t elaborate. His gaze, as it often is when directed at Changbin, is on its way to a glare. Changbin could die happy under that glare, he thinks. Hyunjin’s face looks so good with his eyes slightly narrowed, his lips pressed together in disapproval, those cheekbones highlighted by his expression and the, well, highlighter… Changbin was literally just making fun of Chan for a similarly dramatic proclamation, but really, he could die a happy man.

“You look beautiful,” Changbin says, loudly, at exactly the moment when the music pauses before the beat drop.

Shit.

Hyunjin’s jaw clenches as the song restarts, and people cheer as the rhythm surges, and Changbin could kick himself for being so stupid. He did so great after Hyunjin’s rejection, he does not want to make him uncomfortable in the slightest—

Hyunjin definitely looks uncomfortable. He is flushed with fury, and his eyes are unfocused, perhaps reaching for some inner calm so that he doesn’t punch Changbin in the face. Changbin wants to apologize, but he’s not sure how to do it. The song is reaching its zenith, Changbin doesn’t understand the lyrics because they are in English, but he suspects hands are being requested to go up in the air, and Hyunjin looks like he’s not entirely here right now, even his breathing seems tight and irregular.

“I’m sorry,” he ends up saying, timing it with the beat drop on purpose that time, to be sure Hyunjin heard him.

He watches Hyunjin inhale, then exhale, and his eyes refocus. After a moment he leans in again, possibly to tell Changbin to back off or to never speak to him ever.

“Was Chan being tragic in your room?”

Oh. A topic change onto safer territory, smart Hyunjin. Changbin is so grateful for the continued conversation that he almost says it: ‘Thank you for continuing to talk to me’.

“Yeah.” He nods in Chan’s vague direction. “I know he doesn’t look it from here, but he’s wasted.”

“Felix invited Mingyu,” is Hyunjin’s shrugged response to that, and yes, well. That is the reason. “You weren’t, like… making out in there to make him feel better, were you?”

“What?” Changbin snorts, then laughs. “What? No! I told you, we’re not like that!”

Hyunjin’s shoulders hunch. “You two were in there a while,” he mutters. He’s very close, for Changbin to hear. Changbin can smell his minty deodorant.

“Hyunjin, Chan was angsting up a storm over Felix in there, and I don’t usually kiss my buddies as a pick-me-up. Least of all the ones who are engaged to other people.”

This seems to mollify Hyunjin a little bit.

“Okay, if you say so.”

“I’m actually fairly judicious about who I make out with,” Changbin adds, like an idiot. “It’s not just anyone.”

An image assaults him of them on his bed—kissing furiously while Changbin fingered him and Hyunjin rode his fingers at a frustrated gallop, interrupting the make-out session to growl at him to add another, add another come on hyung, I want it—and at one point he’d also said are we going to make out or are you going to fuck me? And then Changbin had curled his fingers inside him and Hyunjin had made this noise—

Did Chan infect him with drunkenness? Or lovelorn stupidity? What is he doing?

But Hyunjin, bless him, just rolls his eyes and walks away at that point, and honestly it’s more than Changbin deserves.

Chan

He’s quite drunk, obviously, but he can still tell that between him and Minho there are two people who would rather be doing something other than talking to each other. Minho keeps shooting intense looks at the back of Jisung’s head over where Jisung wandered to chat with some of his co-residents, and of course Chan keeps looking over at Mingyu and Felix. Mostly Felix. But Mingyu is right there next to him, so also Mingyu.

“Is Jisung your plaything of the month?” Chan asks finally, desperate for a distraction. Mingyu just said something so hilarious that Felix leaned into him when he laughed.

Minho drags his eyes away from the back of Jisung’s head with apparent effort. “…No,” he says curtly, but his ears are pink. It doesn’t sound like he is lying, exactly, but there is obviously more to it. Unfortunately, Chan knows Minho won’t confide in him until he’s in extremis and Chan is too sad to push him right now.

Felix hasn’t even noticed he’s here. Almost all of the other residents came over to say hi at some point (like he’s some sort of party mascot) and he’s passing for fairly sober by not speaking much, but not Felix. Felix is sitting on the arm of a couch where Mingyu is, and he’s laughing at his jokes, and he’s wearing make-up and earrings and his hair in a half-plaited style that suits him so well, and his pants are high-waisted and baggy but he’s in a graphic print crop top.

“Is there a reason you’re looking at that intern like that?” Minho asks.

“…No.”

Even as he watches, Mingyu puts his hand on Felix’s knee, and that is it. The final straw.

Chan has to leave.

He can’t drive in this state, so he’ll call a ride. He’s still the only attending at the party and he feels old, awkward, out of place—his late-twenties to their mid-ones particularly noticeable. It was a mistake to come here, he just couldn’t help himself—he hasn’t seen Felix all that much in the past couple of weeks, partly by his own design, choosing to put some space between them since that disastrous Sunday when he showed up at Felix’s apartment, followed by Monday in the trauma bay when he was so obvious in front of Mingyu (and Felix, and everybody). He’d found himself driving to the chief’s apartment tonight without making the conscious decision to do so.

People he passes express concern that he’s leaving ‘already’ (it’s almost midnight) but Chan lies and says he’s just going to the kitchen, which gets him a clear path to the exit.

“Dr. Bang!”

He slips his shoes on unnoticed; the music is off now because the karaoke machine took center stage and Changbin is singing a heartfelt solo to Wooyoung, with a lot of gyrating that Chan isn’t sure is meant for a dramatic love song. Makes for a great distraction though.

“Chan sunbae!”

He shuts the door and breathes in the cooler air of the hallway. He’s very impressed with the insulation in this building; he’d wondered if the chiefs’ neighbors were all saints but maybe they just can’t hear the noise despite the frequency of the events hosted here. It probably helps that the apartment is at the end of a long corridor, and the nearest doors to adjacent units are pretty far down the hall—

“Hyung!”

The door slams into his back and Chan stumbles forward, tripping and falling on the floor.

“Oh, shit—sorry!”

Felix. Felix is… here.

Chan cradles his head in one hand and looks up, disoriented, vision swimming in alcohol and the head trauma. Seems as though he ended up half-slumped against the wall of the corridor.

“Let me see, let me see.” A blurry double-Felix is crouched in front of him, reaching for him, running his hands through Chan’s hair to feel for a hematoma or laceration.

Chan’s stomach swoops. “N-no, it’s fine—Felix, I’m fine, stop,” he pants, and hits the back of his head against the wall again in his haste to lean away. “Ow. I’m—m’good. I’m okay.”

His eyes finally focus, and he sees that Felix is squatting on the floor in front of him, even more beautiful up close than he was across the room all night. He looks concerned but, as Chan watches, the concern is being slowly replaced by an incredulous sort of fondness.

“Hyung, are you… drunk?”

His fingers are still in Chan’s hair, but Chan can’t bring himself to physically push them out.

“A bit. Yeah.” This is a new low for Chan, surely.

Felix smiles, delighted, and must finish his inspection because his hands drop away, and Chan was just trying to get him to do that but now he feels devastated by the loss.

“So I finally get to turn the tables on you, huh?” He laughs softly. “I wish I’d known you were here earlier, how long did you stay? I just saw you. You were leaving without saying goodbye to me?”

“Sorry.” Felix’s question was teasing, but Chan still wants to grovel at his feet. “M’so sorry, I just… you seemed like you were having fun, I didn’t want to bother you.”

“You couldn’t bother me, hyung.” Chan curses his past self for suggesting that term to Felix, even as his gut clenches with pleasure at hearing it. “I always like seeing you.”

Felix is still smiling; subtle glittery eyeshadow and a tiny diamond sticker under each of his lower eyelids, and his smile is the prettiest in the world. So beautiful it hurts. So pretty. God, his freckles. Pretty. So pretty.

“Pretty.”

“Hm?” Felix’s questioning noise says he didn’t understand.

Thank goodness, Chan almost gave himself away.

“You’re really pretty.”

Fuck. Fuck.

Felix blinks.

Then he sits on the floor with a thump.

“…What?”

They stare at each other, and Chan wants to slump the rest of the way to the floor and then be buried there. Maybe Felix would be kind enough to bring a candle to his gravesite sometime. Here lies doctor Bang Chan, at the site of his utter humiliation. He passed away from excessive cringe, and he is gone but he will definitely not be forgotten because that was seriously the most embarrassing thing anyone has ever done. Felix will remember it for years.

“Uh. Sorry. Please forget I said that.”

He keeps thinking he’s hit rock bottom and then finding new and exciting ways to crawl further down.

“Um.” Felix seems… pleased. “I’d rather not. Forget you said that.”

Chan’s heart is beating so violently that he’s choking on it.

“Oh.” I meant it, he thinks, miserable. I’ve never meant anything more. “Okay.”

He’s not going to kiss him. He’s not going to lunge forward and put his hands on either side of Felix’s face and kiss the glossy lipstick off him, he is not allowed to do that, the ring on his finger says he cannot do that, so he needs to stop thinking about doing it because it can’t happen—

In looking away from Felix’s gorgeous face to focus on something else, Chan’s gaze lands on Felix’s hands. They are small, and so pretty like the rest of him, but his fingernails are devoid of colors or patterns.

“I thought polish lasted longer than a week,” he says, desperate to move on from his fuck-up. “Ten days?” He counts in his head again, finding math impossible with how nervous he is, let alone the alcohol in his system. “Eleven days? Today is Saturday, right?”

“Yes, it’s Saturday—hyung. What are you talking about?” Felix still sounds fond, humoring his drunk, blundering attending.

“Your nails. You’re not wearing nail polish, didn’t you get your nails done eleven days ago?”

Felix blinks. “…How do you know that I got my nails done eleven days ago?” he asks.

“Oh, I um.” He did it again, he gave too much away again. “Harin and Jiwoo worked a shift with me after conference last week, they were talking about trying out a new nail place?” He gave too much away and now he is continuing to do so. “They said your nails were so pretty, they wanted to go to the same place you got your new manicure. I just… remembered.”

He’d been curious, had tried to imagine what design Felix picked, had wondered what his dainty hands would look like. Later that night he’d imagined other things too—he’d sat in his study and fantasized about paying for Felix to get his nails done every month, every two weeks even, if that made him happy; and he’d imagined Felix coming home to him after the appointment, pleased with the gift, pleased enough to let Chan bury his face between his thighs, maybe, and sink his freshly manicured fingers into Chan’s hair—he hadn’t even jerked off to those thoughts, he’d just thought them, hard and delirious for hours, while he was supposed to be editing a research paper instead of sleeping.

“Oh. Well, I was, uh. Advised to remove them. Because of sterility concerns.”

The tone of Felix’s voice cuts through the memories of his fantasies like a knife. Felix sounds… small. Dulled. Hurt?

“By who?” Chan sits up straighter. “You’re only rotating with the surgeons for consults, it’s not like you’re going to the operating room, right?”

“…Right.”

Felix’s gaze is shuttered, and now Chan is on high alert. He was not expecting this topic to lead to Felix looking sad.

“Who said this, Felix?” He’s getting angry, but he tries to modulate his voice. “A lot of the women in our department wear nail polish; it’s really just gel or artificial nails that can theoretically cause problems.”

Felix nods. “Right,” he says again, and he definitely looks hurt. Chan is… Chan needs to be pointed in a direction so he can charge towards it, he needs to be weaponized, he needs to pulverize whoever put that look there, he is so fucking furious—

“Felix.” His voice comes out very even. He doesn’t want to scare Felix, and similar to last time, the thought of enacting violence anywhere in Felix’s vicinity is repugnant enough to him that he is able to tone it down. “Was it Dr. Park?”

Felix seems surprised at Chan’s educated guess, but he doesn’t try to deny it, just nods quietly.

Chan nods back, and mentally tables his reaction for later so he can be present for Felix, and support him like he deserves.

“Okay. And you’ve spoken to your peers about this? To the chiefs?”

Felix nods again.

“Okay. Okay, good. I am very sorry to hear this happened Felix, you can’t imagine how sorry I am. But we will make this right. I am going to make it right. You did nothing wrong and I am going to make sure this gets addressed and fixed, I promise you.” Chan slides a palm over his face, thinking. Plotting. The List is going to have to be reviewed in depth and the timeline for JYP’s expulsion needs to be moved up significantly. This cannot stand. They have to make this a safe environment for Felix, and for everyone who—

Felix takes his hand.

Felix. Takes. Chan’s hand.

He uses both of his for Chan’s one, and he cradles it in his grip and holds on to it.

“Hyung.” He looks teary, but he’s not crying yet. “Thank you.”

And Chan feels every inch the dramatic dumbass Changbin dubbed him, but really, this is too much to bear… surely death comes next, after one is visited by an angel.

Chapter Text

Jeongin

Jeongin loves parties, and he loves the chief’s apartment, and he loves looking cute at parties in the chief’s apartment. He put on his favorite red T-shirt, he dabbed on a bit of lip gloss, and Jisung has pinched his cheeks so many times that it looks like he put on blush, too.

He doesn’t love pining for things he can’t have, namely because there isn’t a lot in life that he’s wanted and was not able to get eventually, either through hard work or asking his parents or because the universe simply gave it to him, so he supposes his current situation is good practice.

He cannot have Seungmin, he understands this, and he will not fight Seungmin on it because he knows this is probably a matter of principle for him. But that doesn’t mean he is happy about it.

Kissing Seungmin was so good. Jeongin had loved it, just like he’d suspected he would. He wants so much more of it, and he definitely wants to have sex with Seungmin, and also probably to marry him one day—and he didn’t even get to bite his neck, he thinks mournfully.

“Ien-ah. Cutie pie. Baby. Sweetie. What has got you frowning like that?”

Jeongin looks at Jisung, who is looking extra pretty today with his dangly earrings and black choker and British rock-band shirt.

“All week, my baby has been upset, hm?” Jisung croons, arms reaching out as though he’s going to hug Jeongin.

Jeongin holds him off, but it does make him smile a bit. Seungmin went to the kitchen to get Jeongin a drink a minute ago, so it’s just him and Jisung by the couch corner Felix recently vacated to chase Dr. Bang out the door. Everyone else is absorbed in the karaoke; even Hyunjin who initially claimed no interest in it, and Mingyu got convinced to sing a song by Chief Seo.

“Talk to papa.”

Jeongin snorts. “Aren’t you twenty-four? That’s only a year older than me,” he says, but he loves Jisung a lot and he appreciates him checking on him. Maybe he can tell him a version of the truth? “I have a crush on someone and they rejected me.”

Predictably, Jisung drops his act to frown and address Jeongin a bit more seriously. “Oh. Sweetie oh no, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe anyone in the world would reject our perfect baby Ien-ah. That sucks.”

“…Yeah.” Jeongin pouts into his empty cup. In the background, Mingyu concludes his surprisingly heartfelt rendition of a power ballad to raucous applause. “I really wanna kiss them again,” he sighs.

“Who do you want to kiss?”

Oh no.

Jeongin’s head snaps up and he sees Seungmin is back already.

“Uh.” Now what? “I.”

He sees the realization dawn on Jisung in real time. His eyes widen and go from Jeongin, to Seungmin, then back to Jeongin, and then, because he is the best, he grabs Jeongin’s arm.

“Ien-ah! Let’s go to the bathroom, quick!”

And he pulls him away, Jeongin stumbling after him and throwing an apologetic: “We’ll be right back!” to Seungmin over his shoulder.

There is someone in the bathroom already, so they wedge themselves into the corner behind the door and half under the coatrack, standing on people’s shoes while they wait. Thankfully no one else is here.

“You like Seungmin?!” Jisung hisses, looking delighted. “And you said kiss again! Does that mean you’ve kissed him? What is it like? I bet it’s good, the quiet ones always—”

“Jisung, oh my God,” Jeongin interrupts, also whispering. “I’d really like to keep this between us!”

“You and me?”

“Me and Seungmin!”

“Right.” Jisung winces. “I mean, I guess I know too, now, but I promise to keep it to myself. Oh my God, did Seungmin reject you because he is still ‘undecided’?”

“Undecided? On what?”

“On whether he’s interested in other people like that.”

Jeongin is pretty sure Seungmin’s responses during their short make-out session were not those of someone who is uninterested in the proceedings, but he didn’t think to ask Seungmin to confirm that. He didn’t know he was supposed to.

“Oh. Well, the reason is that I’m a medical student and he’s a resident, I think.” They didn’t verbalize it, technically. But that exchange of looks, and Jeongin had assumed—he’d been so sure. Should he ask? “I guess he said ‘we can’t do this’ and I just figured that was the reason.” He should ask.

“…That’s kind of hot.”

“Jisung!”

“Do you think jealousy would work on him? You could make out with Jiwoo again. Or me! I’d make out with you.”

Jeongin doesn’t mean to visibly grimace at the idea, but he does, and Jisung’s face falls comically. Whoever was in the bathroom comes out, enclosing them in their corner and remaining out of sight while the door is open.

“Hey! Don’t you think I’m cute? Why did you make that face at the thought of making out with me?”

The door to the bathroom swings shut again, revealing that mean-looking hot nurse, Nurse Lee, on the other side.

Jisung’s face goes from theatrical disappointment to a kind of shy joy that Jeongin has never seen him display. “Oh! Hyung!” he lets go of Jeongin immediately to turn towards Nurse Lee fully. “Chan left, right? I was wondering if you—”

“Are you two gonna make out?” Nurse Lee asks, crossing his arms over his chest. The tone is diverted, expectant, but something is off about his eyes, and the scary dark bags under them. Jeongin is frightened. “Can I watch?”

“Absolutely—”

“Not,” Jeongin finishes, emphatically. “As in there will be nothing to watch, because we are not making out.” He turns to Jisung, hoping he will catch on to his double meaning when he adds: “I am not into the whole jealousy thing.”

He can tell that the fact that he isn’t solely referencing Seungmin clearly flies over Jisung’s head.

He sighs and leaves him there, because he didn’t actually need the bathroom but judging by the way the hot nurse is looking at Jisung it seems like those two might.

Seungmin is exactly where they left him, only the cup he had brought for Jeongin is empty, and his cheeks are just that much pinker. Hyunjin is still sitting by Changbin and Wooyoung in the karaoke audience, and Felix hasn’t come back. Mingyu is on Changbin’s other side, but he is chatting with Harin and Sooah.

“Hyung, can I… talk to you? For a second?”

Seungmin nods, but looks around them as if to indicate the opposite-of-private environment. “Here?”

“Um, no. Outside?”

A round of applause for Jung’s rendition of a Blackpink song makes for good cover and Jeongin ends up leading Seungmin out of the apartment altogether. They shut the front door, walk down the empty hallway beyond, and inspiration strikes Jeongin last minute, as he decides to lead Seungmin into the stairwell next to the elevator.

It’s not a very large space, but it’s private and unlikely to be intruded into; the chiefs live on the eighth floor so no one will be taking the stairs, especially at this hour. The lights are motion-operated, so they are bathed in an unflattering halogen as soon as they step inside and walk down one flight, but it’s quiet.

They pause at the next landing, between the seventh and eighth levels.

“Is everything okay?” Seungmin asks. He’s a bit flushed; he’d had a couple of drinks before finishing this latest one. But he seems perfectly with it, and Jeongin gages him sober enough to have a serious conversation with, in addition to definitely sober enough to remember it.

“Yeah. I think? I wanted to clarify something with you. About… us.”

Seungmin blinks. “Okay.”

The way he looks at Jeongin sometimes feels so studious, like he’s literally studying his face for a test. It’s unnerving, but in a good way.

“I’m… so sorry, but Jisung figured out that I liked you, and then he said something that made me think… I should talk to you about it.”

“Okay. What… is it?”

“Well. I guess…” He steels himself. “I understand that you don’t want to kiss me again. But Jisung said, at some point you’d felt… undecided. On like. Kissing in general? I think that’s what he meant? And I-I had assumed the reason you rejected me was that I am a student, but we didn’t really talk about it so if it’s that you didn’t like the kissing, I just wanted to tell you that I like you anyway, I don’t need the kissing, so if you didn’t want—”

“Jeongin.” Seungmin puts a hand up, halting him. “Hold on. I used the word ‘undecided’ in a conversation with Jisung about my sexuality, yes, but I have since… decided.” The tips of his ears are tinged red. “The kissing was… it felt good. I liked it.” His eyes flicker to Jeongin’s mouth when he says it. Hm. “A lack of interest in physical contact was not the reason I told you we can’t… engage in more physical contact.”

“…Oh.”

“You understood me correctly; I meant our relative academic positions.”

Jeongin wishes Seungmin looked a bit less attractive in a tight grey shirt, while saying the word ‘positions’ to him.

“Oh. Okay.”

He didn’t imagine it, then; the groaning, the moans, that jerk when Jeongin tightened his hold on Seungmin’s neck.

There’s a pause, and they must stay so still that the sensor stops detecting movement and shuts the lights down, enveloping them in darkness. Both Jeongin and Seungmin move their hands towards the ceiling, and the bulb flickers back on.

“I didn’t apologize for my actions, that day,” Seungmin says into the silence. “I should have. I’m sorry. I let it go on longer than I meant to.”

“Please don’t, hyung I really, really wanted you to—”

“I lose control around you sometimes.”

Jeongin stares.

“…What?”

Seungmin always seems controlled. And in control. He always seems cool and calm; even when he was being so brave talking back to JYP, even during the chest tube though he had a significant reaction to it later—and maybe that’s it, isn’t it? He seems those things, but he isn’t. Even now, a couple of drinks in at a rowdy party with his co-residents, he seems fully in control.

What if he isn’t?

“My… reactions to you. I can’t control them. And that affects… my actions, sometimes.”

Jeongin’s heart-rate speeds up, thump-thump-thumping until it’s almost a thrum.

“Right now—" Seungmin starts to say, and then cuts off like he hadn't meant to speak, like he planned this perfect illustration of his lack of self-mastery, and oh God, is he drunker than Jeongin assumed?

“What’s… what are you feeling, right now?” Jeongin whispers.

For a long moment, he thinks he isn’t going to get a response.

Then the lights turn off again, and in the darkness Jeongin hears:

“I really want to… I’m trying to think of an excuse to kiss you again. Even though I know I shouldn’t.”

No way.

Jeongin swallows, and takes a step forward. The lights show him Seungmin standing in the exact same place. “How much did you have to drink, Seungmin?”

“I. Three.”

Three drinks is not as much as Jeongin thought it would take for Seungmin to say something like that to him.

“You can kiss me,” Jeongin says. “If you want to. You don’t need an excuse, you can just—”

Seungmin shakes his head. “It’s… wrong. And I might get emotionally attached.”

“Are you? We kissed already. Do you feel emotionally attached?”

“I.” Seungmin seems hesitant. “I… don’t think so.”

It hurts to hear, more than he thought it would. He knew it already, but God, it hurts.

“Great! So we can kiss again, if you’d like.” He’ll take kissing Seungmin as an analgesic for not being able to be with Seungmin. “Just for a little while.”

“I don’t know if I want…” Seungmin takes a step forward. He’s looking at Jeongin’s mouth again.

Please, thinks Jeongin. Let me have this, please. If nothing else—

“If you want to kiss me?”

“If I want to do it for just a little while.”

The thrum of Jeongin’s heart becomes a hum, something so fast it feels continuous, and he wants—he needs—

Seungmin takes another half-step, bringing them closer. They are very close now.

“I really… I really want it,” he says, hoarse. Jeongin can taste his breath, tinged with the taste of alcohol. They are standing so close. “Jeongin.”

“Hyung—”

They close the distance, and it’s different than their first kiss; Seungmin is less hesitant, more insistent, putting both hands on Jeongin’s waist right away and bringing him flush against him. He dives into the kiss, inhaling through his nose as Jeongin moans, opens for him, their tongues touching and sliding and Seungmin tilts his head like he learned to do last time. Jeongin circles his tongue in Seungmin’s mouth and Seungmin grunts, hands clenching where he’s holding Jeongin, and they stumble back until Jeongin is pushed up against the wall.

Jeongin whimpers, arms coming up around Seungmin’s shoulders. He sucks on Seungmin’s tongue, noting the surprised groan that elicits, and then he grabs the back of Seungmin’s neck, gripping it in his hand.

“Jeongin,” Seungmin pants, breaking the kiss already. “Don’t—don’t—”

Jeongin lets go immediately, gasping out a: “Sorry, I’m so—”

“No, don’t stop—”

Jeongin’s stomach flips violently, and he quickly puts his hand back, fingers digging in, and Seungmin shudders in his arms, hips punching forward instinctively.

“Jeongin,” he pants, then kisses him again, his tongue deep in Jeongin’s mouth. Jeongin whimpers, hooking a leg around the back of Seungmin’s knee. He’s going to get all the way hard if they keep going at this pace, he’s already starting to. Seungmin hisses when their groins connect and then Jeongin—feels him. He’s getting hard, too.

This could be his last chance. Jeongin breaks their deep kiss to trail smaller kisses down Seungmin’s cheek, to his jaw, and then—finally, finally down to his neck.

Seungmin shudders.

Jeongin opens his mouth and tongues the skin, pantomiming a bite without putting any actual pressure behind his teeth, just laving Seungmin’s jugular with saliva, sucking lightly, wanting so badly to suck harder. He tastes so good.

“Oh. That feels.” Seungmin shoves his hips forward again, letting out a low moan. “Jeongin, I’m… this is…”

He’s fully hard, suddenly. He thrusts against Jeongin again. “Jeongin.” He thrusts again, then again, picking up a rhythm. “Jeongin.” He’s saying it with urgency, saying it just to say it, Jeongin is delirious with the sound. “Jeongin. Jeongin-ah. Ien-ah—”

Jeongin lets his teeth scrape the skin and gives it another wet kiss, sucking just a little bit more—

“Ien-ah, ah, ah, I’m gonna—I’m—no. No.”

Jeongin stops, instantly, and Seungmin stumbles away from him. He goes as far as the opposite wall in the little landing, which he leans against for support.

“I’m.”

“Seungmin—”

“I told you, I don’t want.” He’s breathing so heavily, his eyes are unfocused, he looks… like he was about to… “Please don’t—”

“I won’t. I’m sorry, did I—”

“No, no not… your fault. I just can’t.” His hand is on his chest. “I was going to say please don’t apologize. It’s just… me. I was right. I was right, I can’t just kiss you for a little while. I want.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “I want more than that.”

Jeongin knows he means sex, orgasms, not ‘more’ emotionally, and despite his current physical state wishes he could trade one for the other, because he’d rather be with Seungmin than sleep with Seungmin—and he wants to sleep with Seungmin a lot, so he really, badly wants to be with him.

“I’m sorry,” he says, throat tight. He’s going to cry. He doesn’t want Seungmin to see him cry. “I’m so sorry, hyung.”

“Don’t… Jeongin.” Seungmin shakes his head, opening his eyes. “Don’t apologize, please. I started this. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I will—from now on I will stick to my word. We can be friends, but just—just friends.”

Just friends.

“…Okay.”

“I’m going to go home.”

“Okay.”

“Jeongin.” Seungmin’s chest is still heaving, but it’s subtler now, and his breathing is less affected. “Are you okay?”

Jeongin loves Seungmin’s caring nature, and he loves Seungmin’s capacity for empathy and concern—unfortunately, he also loves Seungmin, so he is very much not okay.

“Mh-hm, I’ll be fine. Good night, hyung.”

“I’ll see you on surgery rounds on Monday.”

“Yeah. Yeah, see you Monday.”

Seungmin leaves through the door to the seventh floor, and Jeongin blindly makes his way back upstairs, trying not to contemplate the month of twenty-four hour close-contact they have coming up.

Felix

They take the elevator and leave the building together, initially with the plan that Felix will walk Chan to the curb and make sure a car comes to pick him up safely.

But then something occurs to him.

“Would you let me drive you?” he asks. “I’m a good driver. I could take you home; that way your car isn’t stuck here tomorrow.”

That suggestion is objectively good, he thinks. Nothing wrong with it. Nothing untoward.

“Or would you… do you want to crash on my couch again? If you’d rather.” He swallows. This part is harder to justify to himself. “So that your wife doesn’t see you. Like this.”

Chan could pass for sober if only spoken to without speaking, and in the right lighting that disguised the red splotches on his face and extra red of his lips, nose and ears. But Dr. Choi is smart, and won’t miss those things—Felix certainly doesn’t, watching Chan’s gorgeous face bathed in lamplight.

“Not my wife,” he mumbles.

“Oh. Right.” He didn’t forget, exactly. “Either way, I think that’s better than you calling a car.”

They made it all the way to the silent parking lot, but Chan hasn’t even taken his phone out yet, let alone called for the ride. It’s warm out, a balmy summer night.

“Would you give me your car keys?” Felix pushes. “Come on. I owe you for when you did it for me. Let me drive you.”

Chan isn’t swaying, but there’s something loose in his stance regardless. His eyes are very… intense, tonight. “Drive me where,” he says, low.

Felix shivers. “Wherever you want.” He forces a smile. “Up to you. Your place or mine.” Yikes.

“Yours,” Chan says, without pausing to think about it.

Then he seems to take a beat and reconsider.

“I mean.” He winces. “I mean, it’s late, it’s… what, past midnight? Nari has a call day tomorrow, I can’t risk waking her up from sleep, she has to be up in four hours, it’d be…”

“…inconsiderate,” Felix tries, and Chan nods, pointing at him.

“Yes, yes, inconsiderate. She needs to rest.”

“Rest is so important,” Felix nods back. “So…” He puts his hand out, and sees Chan look at it uncomprehendingly. He is so cute when he’s drunk, so endearing. He looks so hot in that black tank top that Felix will have to avoid looking at him so as not to swerve off the road. “Keys?”

“Oh, right, right.” He puts the keys in Felix’s palm, and then docilely leads him to his car.

Felix drives them to his apartment, and they spend the short ten-minute journey in silence. He can’t tell if he’s imagining the tension between them or if he is just feeling so much tension on his end that it’s bleeding into the air. He thought, until an hour ago, that Chan was straight, but the way he said ‘You’re really pretty’ sounded… not straight. It sounded like Chan thinks Felix is really pretty and wants to do something about it. He has certainly been very… attentive, the past few weeks, but Felix didn’t think—or at least, hadn’t let himself think—

He shifts in his seat as he finally allows the idea to bloom, but it’s a pointless, aimless notion. Even if Chan is into men and thinks he’s pretty, that doesn’t mean anything can or will or should happen. Especially should.

“We’re here.”

Chan nods. Of course, he knows the building. They make it up to Felix’s place without running into a single soul other than the night doorman, and Felix lets Chan inside.

“Make yourself at home,” he says as his shoes come off.

“Hm, I wish,” Chan mumbles, but Felix must have misheard.

He gets Chan a glass of water and gets one for himself even though he is perfectly sober, and then he joins Chan on the couch he already dropped himself down to sit on.

“Here, hyung.” He gives him the glass, and their fingers brush. Their eyes meet in the dim light, and Felix can’t help looking down at Chan’s mouth, noting again how full his lips are, watching as Chan brings the glass up to drink from. The rim presses into his bottom lip, emphasizing how plush it is, how good it would probably feel against Felix’s neck, or chest or stomach or thigh—

“Uh,” Felix braces himself to get back up. “I-I should go change, and wash my face and—”

“Wait.” Chan puts the glass down hastily on the coffee table, wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist. “W-wait, before you go to your room, I-I wanted to thank you.” Felix stays. “You’ve been so kind to me, you’re letting me use your couch, you drove my car… you even left the party early because of me. You’re so good, I. I don’t know how to thank you for being so good.”

Before he can list the R-rated ways in which he’d like to be thanked, Felix is hit with a realization. “Oh, shit.”

“What?”

“Mingyu. I forgot about him; I left him all alone.”

Chan’s earnest features become clouded. “He will hardly be alone Felix, the place was still packed when we left.”

But Felix feels guilty. Mingyu knows some of the other residents but he’d made Felix promise he would be around for him to rely on in case he felt shy. He didn’t even text him to tell him he was spontaneously leaving—he didn’t text anyone. What if his co-interns are worried about him right now?

“Felix. What’s wrong?” The storm-clouds disperse as quickly as they gathered, and now Chan just looks concerned and maybe sad. “Are you. Do you want to go back for him?” Not sad; defeated. “Did… things change for you, since we last spoke? You like him now, don’t you?”

Felix sighs. The fact that Chan can’t tell how stupidly head-over-heels Felix is for him is so impressive that it’s almost concerning.

“No, I don’t. He still hasn’t made a move, by the way.” He fishes his phone out of his pocket as he says this, and sees the where u? CB did the smart le sserafim ass-shaking dance I need emotional support text from Hyunjin and the ?????? from Jisung with a pang of guilt.

“He would have tonight,” Chan says darkly.

Felix texts his friends back and reflects on Chan’s words. He might be right, Mingyu has been very affectionate all month, but that’s all it’s been. Maybe he’d been waiting until Felix’s time with the surgeons was over, and was going to make his move tonight—or maybe he’s just an affectionate person. Either way it doesn’t matter. He texts Mingyu so sorry I left something came up!! I believe in u and hopes they can remain friends, because he honestly likes the guy.

“It doesn’t matter if I still don’t like him like that, hyung.”

Chan’s shoulders sag. “Oh.” He lets out a long breath. “…Okay, and you don’t, right? You still don’t like him.”

Felix grins, switches to English. “For the last time: I do not like Mingyu.”

“Okay!” Chan says, grinning back helplessly. “Okay, I’m sorry.”

“You’re so worried about me,” Felix teases. “I can take care of myself, you know? I can handle guys like Mingyu.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” Chan replies. “You should be taken care of—you should be waited on hand and foot.” And then, he adds: “Guys like Mingyu don’t know how to do that. He wouldn’t do it right.”

Felix’s grin falls off his face.

“He wouldn’t?”

“No.” Chan shakes his head. “He wouldn’t take care of you properly.” His voice got quieter.

Felix’s does too. “Properly, like… waiting on me hand and foot.”

“Yes.” Chan is looking at him and Felix can’t breathe. “Yeah, like that. He keeps calling you ‘prince’, but you deserve…” He searches for the words, switches to English again. “You’ve heard of princess treatment? You deserve princess treatment.”

Princess. Pretty. All these words that make Felix shake and shiver inside, and Chan doles them out so freely, like it costs him nothing.

“Princess treatment,” he echoes.

“Yeah.” Back to Korean. “Gifts, compliments, someone whose purpose is your happiness. He should cook for you and get you nice clothes and jewelry if you’d like that. He should take care of you in every way, really… dote on you, you know? I want that for you.”

Felix gives a slow nod. “Me… too.” He feels exposed, hearing desires he has barely let himself think about being spoken out loud like this. It doesn’t seem fair, that Chan would understand his most tremulous wants on instinct. “Thanks, hyung.”

Chan shrugs. “It’s the truth. You’re too precious, it’s the least of what you deserve.”

Princess. Pretty. Precious. He’s really—this is really—

“I-I should go to bed.”

Chan watches Felix stand up, head bobbing in surprise like the drunkenness can’t keep up with a sudden turn of events. “Oh. Oh right, yes you… you need to get that beauty sleep.”

Beauty. It’s an idiom, he can’t mean—but he said pretty, ‘You’re really pretty’, he said—

“Will you be comfortable, here?” Felix asks him. “On the couch?”

He’s standing over him, looking down at Chan from a devastating angle, and Chan’s lips slowly part as he considers the question. Or… maybe he doesn’t, actually; nothing in his eyes portrays active thought, he looks like he’s zoned out for a second.

Neither of them says it, what the alternative is. It’s implied. It would be terrible to say it, it would get them one step closer to putting it into action.

“I-I’ll be fine. Of course I’ll be fine,” Chan says finally. He’s still looking up at Felix, his gaze refocused, and there’s something… pleading there, now.

“Are you sure?”

Chan nods, and that pleading expression isn’t new, Felix realizes. He’s seen this look on his face before, a version of it last time Chan was in this apartment. It’s something subservient that begs of Felix the way a vassal begs their ruler, fearful of the consequences but having to ask anyway.

Mercy, Chan’s gaze is asking. Please. Please, have some mercy.

“…Okay.”

Felix steps away, shaking, and Chan lays down sideways on the couch but doesn’t break eye contact while he does it. “Good night, Felix. Thank you for saving me.”

“You saved me first,” Felix reminds him, the words coming from the deepest register in his throat. “Good night, hyung.”

And then he makes himself walk to his room, alone.

*

The next morning, Felix wakes up to Chan gone.

He left a cupcake on a plate with a post-it note next to it simply saying ‘Thanks again! Got you an iced Americano in the fridge’ and Felix feels stupid for imagining them spending the morning together, or even part of the day together. The fragile tension of the night is gone; the imploring look on Chan’s face is meaningless now, in an empty apartment full of bright morning sun.

Chan has a fiancée. Chan might think he’s pretty and precious and he said that thing about ‘princess treatment’ but he is engaged to be married, and nothing can ever happen between them. Felix feels, abruptly, so sad that his eyes fill with tears, and he eats the whole cupcake standing up in his kitchen, crying, just like that.

When he checks his phone he finds no additional messages from Chan, but Mingyu responded to him last night by saying: no worries my prince hope u get some sleep, your friends are awesome and covering for u no one noticed who you left the party with

And he cries harder.

“Dearest, I don’t understand,” his mom says, as he sputters and confesses an abridged version of the events yet again. She has always been a confidante for him, but he barely had a love life in medical school so at most he would admit to a hookup here or there, and not go into detail. He hasn’t been heartbroken like this before. “This person you have a crush on works with you?”

“He’s my attending,” Felix cries, and doesn’t correct her regarding how much more than a crush this has become. “He’s also Australian, you’d—you’d like him, he’s so kind…”

“And it’s against the rules?”

“There’s no actual policy eomma, but it’s implied, that an attending and a resident should never… especially an intern… but that doesn’t even matter because he’s with someone else. He’s with someone else, he doesn’t… we can never...”

“Oh, Felix…” she sounds worried. “My love, you’ve never talked about any boy like this. What is it about this one?”

What, indeed? Every new thing he learns about Chan has him falling deeper, every cute expression or gesture, and now his clumsy drunken demeanor, so sweet and earnest. ‘You’re really pretty’. It was better, to think Chan was straight; it placed him further away. This feeling—to be close, to be far, it’s to be nowhere, and Felix wants so badly to be somewhere with Chan. Anywhere with Chan.

Mercy, Chan’s eyes had begged, and Felix thinks: What about me? Who will have mercy on me?  

Seungmin

The first day of his second rotation has him waking up at 4am, so Seungmin is two hot coffees and a canned latte deep by noon. He picks up the surgeons’ style quickly, and adapts to the flow of the day without issue, but he does not enjoy it. He does not enjoy the consults, or the longer hours, or Jeongin’s subdued presence. He especially does not enjoy Jeongin’s unobtrusiveness—he seems determined to be quiet and stay out of Seungmin’s way or indeed eyesight, and Seungmin does not want that. Never wanted that. He misses Jeongin’s enthusiasm, his interest in patient presentations, his eagerness. That’s all gone. He still works very hard but as soon as he is given the choice between doing a task with Seungmin or going to the operating room for six hours, he chooses the OR.

It's hard not to take that personally, from a future pediatrician.

Seungmin has been wracked with guilt over his drunken faux pas at the party, and he hoped to make it up to Jeongin by being a good resident to him this month, but he will only be able to do that if Jeongin stays in a room with him long enough to allow it. He got an email request on Sunday to fill out an evaluation for Jeongin from his ER block, and already sent it with a carefully neutral but overall positive review, realizing as he did that he’d been making a point of not working too closely with Jeongin on shift, as he didn’t have much specific feedback regarding Jeongin’s presentations or his clinical skills.

Their surgery seniors this month are Chul and Hongjoong. Chul takes some warming up to according to Felix, but Hongjoong proves himself to be something of a spitfire immediately, and a friendly one to boot. He is the one paired with Seungmin for call, in addition to Jeongin of course.

Their first day goes by in a busy rush, and then their second day is their call day, and it goes by in an endless, exhausting rush too. Jeongin mostly sticks to Hongjoong and barely interacts with Seungmin at all.

That’s how it is most of the first week, in fact; Jeongin following Hongjoong around and Seungmin off to see consults, down in the ER for patients (and to briefly greet his friends), then back up to the surgery floors by himself. On Friday Hongjoong tells Jeongin to take the weekend call day off, so Seungmin is in the hospital for 24 hours from Saturday morning into Sunday, while Jeongin enjoys his weekend, which is a good thing, of course, but his total absence is even worse than his quiet.

*

“Week two!” Hongjoong says, with an impossible amount of enthusiasm at six in the morning on an August Monday. “We’ve got this, team.”

Jeongin gives one of his big smiles away to him, and Seungmin slurps his coffee and ponders developing indigestion, acid reflux, or gastritis versus having another reason to be upset.

“Jeongin, are you ready to be on call again?”

“Yes, sunbae!” his smile gets even bigger, and he high fives Hongjoong. Those two seem to get on like a house on fire, as Jeongin’s avoidance of Seungmin has pushed him right into Hongjoong’s orbit. It seems fairly tame; a mixture of the friendly and professional without anything else unsavory between them, but there are moments when Jeongin is laughing or giggling with the senior where Seungmin remembers his words at the party: Jisung figured out that I liked you and shortly afterwards, I like you anyway. He said that he likes Seungmin. He wants to kiss Seungmin and he likes him. Why smile at Hongjoong so much, then?

His irritation persists all day, as Hongjoong takes Jeongin to the operating room to watch an urgent gallbladder case and Seungmin continues to run around the hospital alone until it’s time for the day team to leave, and the night consults begin.

It is, blessedly, very slow in the evening; the first time Seungmin’s call shift has not been busy.

“Okay so only one consult so far, and that patient is stable for admission…” Hongjoong scrolls through their patient list on the computer screen in the surgery charting office. “I think it’s nap time? We might not get a chance later. I’ll go to the senior on-call room; you two can duke it out over the intern one.”

Seungmin looks at the chair Jeongin had curled up in next to him, and his stomach flips when he realizes Jeongin’s eyes were drooping shut. He opens them, startled, once he notices Seungmin’s gaze. Seungmin is so unnerved by the eye contact that he looks away.

“Oh. Yes, okay—I-I’m fine,” Jeongin says. “Dr. Kim should get the nap, I don’t matter.”

Seungmin shakes his head. “You matter the most. I have charting to finish.” The charting part is not technically true. “Go, Jeongin. I’ll come wake you if a new consult comes in.”

“The bed is pretty small or I’d suggest you share,” Hongjoong says with an suggestive eyebrow raise, already on his way out of the room.

“Absolutely not,” Seungmin says flatly. “Ien-ah. Go to bed.”

Jeongin slowly gets up and follows Hongjoong outside. By the time the door shuts Hongjoong has him giggling at some joke that was delivered too quietly for Seungmin to hear.

Their overnight attending is Dr. Choi, who makes herself readily available when needed, but is not expected to get involved in person unless the consult patients need emergent surgery. Seungmin sends a message in the ‘Surgical Team Block 2’ chat about the single consult they have, tagging her so she knows to round on the patient in the morning, and then tries to scrunch his limbs into the office chair he’s in, resting his head on his knees.

The pager wakes him about thirty minutes later.

“This is Dr. Kim with surgery, I was paged?”

“Seungmin! It’s Sooah, I’m working the next couple of overnights in Red Pod with Hyunjin. He says hi.”

“Hi Sooah.” Despite his exhaustion, he is pleased to hear her voice. “How can I help?”

“We have a patient with appendicitis down here—can you and your senior come assess them? No rush, the patient is stable and their pain is controlled, but I think they need to be admitted to your department.”

“Sounds good, I’ll be down there soon.”

“Yay! See you soon. We have latte cans from the lounge, I’ll save you one.”

He calls Hongjoong to let him know while on his way to the intern on-call room. None of his shifts have had enough downtime for him to attempt to sleep there, but he was shown its location and function on his first day just in case. It’s only a few hallway turns from the surgery charting office, past the quiet, dimly lit night-nurses station, past the family room.

The room itself is small, and all it has is a bed, a pillow, a blanket, and a stool. It’s not even a suite with a bathroom, the bathrooms have to be accessed from the hallway.

Jeongin is asleep, and doesn’t rouse when Seungmin walks in.

He’s lying on his side facing the door, and thus facing Seungmin. He has a sweater on over his baby-blue medical student scrubs and the blanket on over those; the AC in the room is cranked really high for some reason, Seungmin would be cold too. The cold is, unfortunately, probably not the reason Seungmin starts having palpitations.

“Jeongin,” he says softly.

Jeongin’s slack features are relaxed in sleep, his beauty so singular and never more apparent. His soft hair is falling over his forehead and spilling onto the pillow. Seungmin tries to remember how it felt to touch it because he must have, during one of their fevered kisses he must have reached up and touched—but no, that didn’t happen, he grabbed Jeongin’s hips or his waist instead. So many parts of his body he wanted to touch, and he barely covered any ground.

“Ien-ah.”

Still, no response. The palpitations are at their worst right now—his heart is truly racing, galloping at nothing, at Jeongin peacefully sleeping and looking beautiful while doing it. Jisung had suggested paroxysmal atrial fibrillation to him way back when… if only it were that, if only Seungmin’s heart had created a bunch of new electrical pathways that led to irregular beats, instead of this. 

It’s funny; it only occurs to Seungmin in that moment that he probably should have worried about emotional attachment sooner.

He has proven that he requires lots of time and study (and even consulting his friends) to interpret his own reactions to things; why did he assume that if he started to develop feelings more complex than attraction he would just know? Inherently?

He imagines himself waking Jeongin with a kiss; something soft, to his forehead or his cheek, something that’s not a prelude for sex at all. Something like affection. His heart beats faster, and he wants it. He wants that.

He’s too late to his own signals, again.

“Hyung?” Jeongin murmurs, blearily opening his eyes. “Oh, sorry, is—everything okay?”

Seungmin sighs, furious at himself for letting this, too, take him by surprise. “We have a consult in the ER, want to come down with me?”

Jeongin quickly gets up, nodding and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah thanks hyung.” He slips his shoes on and stands up, stretching his hands up above his head.

Seungmin looks away before the sight of Jeongin’s stomach pushes him to some other insane action, and then they head to the elevators in silence.

Changbin

Not many people use the resident’s lounge, because it is tiny and most of the resident’s laptops are equipped with remote log-ins to the electronic health record so the charting computer’s purpose has become sort of moot. Snack retrieval is the most common reason to go there; a quick task, and even the couch doesn’t get much action, since ER shifts don’t have downtime that might allow for covert sleeping.

So Changbin is surprised to walk inside before conference lectures start on Wednesday and see Hyunjin there.

“Hey.”

Hyunjin seems startled. He is sitting on the couch wearing scrubs, and either just finished an overnight shift or is scheduled to go straight to working after conference. The bags under his eyes suggest the former.

“Oh. Hey.” He blinks a few times, runs a hand through his hair. It’s stringy, needs a wash probably. He’s still the most beautiful person on the planet, and Changbin wonders how he got over Hyunjin a few months ago, and how he is expected not to fall again with him around now. “Sorry, I was… deciding on whether a nap before conference was a good idea. What time is it?”

“Uh. A quarter to eight, I think. You could nap for… ten minutes.”

“Shit.”

The more Changbin looks at him the more he decides Hyunjin doesn’t just look tired, he looks wan and sad.

“Did something happen?” he asks, making his way to the couch to sit next to him.

Hyunjin’s eyes flit to him and away. He exhales, slow. He looks awful, for Hyunjin.

“A patient died last night.”

Shit.

Changbin knows this pain well. He also knows this isn’t the first time Hyunjin has seen someone die over the past six weeks, but Hyunjin, contrary to how people perceive him, feels things more deeply than most. The thorns are there for a reason. He waits to see if Hyunjin will share more.

“They were only forty-nine years old. Dr. Yoon said I should be the one to tell the family, that it’s good practice. It’s one of the skills of an ER doctor.” That last part sounds like a quote. “I had to…” his voice thins. “I had to tell their spouse, and their kid. A fourteen-year-old kid.”

Changbin puts his arm around his shoulders, and Hyunjin melts into him—he rests his head on Changbin’s chest and drapes himself over his side, so he is being completely held up by him.

“I’m so sorry, Hyunjin,” Changbin murmurs. “I am so sorry, that is awful.”

“It’s not fair. They had end-stage cancer, I know why we couldn’t save them, I understand it clinically, but it’s not…” Hyunjin turns his face into Changbin’s shirt. Moisture quickly seeps through the thin material. “I know it’s part of the job too, but I hated it. I hate it. I can’t get that kid’s face out of my head.”

Changbin nods, squeezing him tighter. “I know. I know, it’s the worst thing we do.”

Hyunjin hiccups. “And then. Then I had to.” One of his hands reaches up to wrap around Changbin’s shirt fabric. “Then I had to keep working. My patient with an ankle sprain was upset that there was a delay, and then I had to keep seeing new patients, for hours, talking to them like nothing had happened, like I was fine…” he trails off when his voice starts to sound too wet, clinging to Changbin and openly crying now, and Changbin holds him and mutters soothing nonsense that won’t fix what happened to Hyunjin tonight, knowing intimately how that particular kind of pain feels and why there is nothing that can be done to take it away.

They stay like that for an unknown amount of time, wrapped up in each other, long enough that Changbin knows they might miss the first lecture, and will be lucky to not be late for the second.

Eventually he pauses in his stroking of Hyunjin’s hair, and he leaves his hand there, cupping his head in his palm.

“You should skip conference this morning, Hyunjin. Go home and sleep.”

“I don’t have another shift tonight,” Hyunjin muffles into him. “Plus attendance is mandatory. You know this.”

“I do, but I’m a chief and I’m telling you that you should go. There are extenuating circumstances—”

“I don’t want to be the intern with extenuating circumstances,” Hyunjin rebuts immediately, which is how Changbin knows he’s starting to come back to himself. “We’re expected to attend at 8am even if we worked until 7am that morning. I will go.”

Changbin sighs, and is about to continue the argument when Hyunjin adds:

“And I don’t want to be alone right now.”

And the sentence dies in his throat. What he starts to say instead, is: “I could come home with y—”

“That’s not a good idea.” Hyunjin starts to draw away from their embrace, and Changbin reluctantly lets him. They face each other, sitting close as they are. Hyunjin is red and puffy and his hair had felt a bit greasy under Changbin’s fingers; he’s so amazing. He did something so horrible and difficult tonight, Changbin is so proud of him. “But thank you. For offering.”

Changbin nods.

“I should go wash my face,” Hyunjin says.

“Okay.”

“Thank you. For…” he motions to Changbin’s chest in a way that looks like’s pointing to his pecs, specifically, even though Changbin knows what he’s trying to indicate.

“My great rack?”

“Oh shut up.” Hyunjin hits the left pec with an open hand and no effort behind it. “I meant the emotional support, but I take that back now.”

“Sorry, so you’re saying you did not feel supported enough by my chest?”

“I hate you.” But he’s fighting a curling smile by his mouth, Changbin can tell. “Go be chief, I’ll see you in the auditorium in a few.”

Changbin gets up, smiling and flexing his arms to show his pecs off even more. “But I worked so hard for these at the gym, are you sure—"

“Yah! Go away!”

*

Hyunjin does indeed appear in the auditorium shortly after Changbin sits down in the first row next to Wooyoung. He looks better and he tied some of his hair back. He is greeted with a hug by Felix, who moves so Hyunjin can have the seat between him and Jiwoo; after a few whispers into each other’s ears, Felix gasps and hugs Hyunjin again, and then the hug turns into a sort of sideways cuddle while they sit next to each other and attend the lecture. Changbin’s heart swells with affection for them both, and gratitude for Felix specifically, for taking care of Hyunjin like that.

“Hey.”

Wooyoung taps Changbin’s knee subtly with a pink fingernail. He has been a long-term JYP hater and took to the suggestion that seniors wear nail polish with more gusto than most.

“What?” Changbin murmurs back. They are in the very front, and the lecturer is their co-senior Eun who won’t care that they aren’t paying attention, but if any of the attendings notice they could get a scolding.

“Look at JYP.”

Wooyoung looks angry. Changbin quickly glances down their row at JYP, and notes that… he is looking at Hyunjin and Felix, too. They are still cuddling, arms around each other and Felix is cradling Hyunjin’s head on his shoulder; so sweet. JYP does not look happy about it.

“He has a problem with Felix,” Wooyoung whispers.

“He has a problem with toxic masculinity,” Changbin hisses back. If JYP tries to break up Hyunjin’s current source comfort Changbin is going to create some very real problems for him. He won’t let that happen.

“Has he said anything to you about your nails?” Wooyoung asks. “I haven’t heard anything since we all started doing it, and it’s been a couple of weeks.”

“Nope.” Changbin can’t look away from JYP. He’s at the edge of his seat, ready to intervene if JYP gets up, or tries to say anything, he is ready to fight—

Oh God, he can’t be turning into Chan.

“… any questions? If not, then I’m going to turn it over to my co-senior Dr. Seo, who has an M&M case to tell us about!”

There’s a round of applause that is more generous and louder than Changbin deserves (especially at 8:30am) as he stands and walks up to the stage, fishing his USB out of his pocket. Eun claps him on the shoulder as they pass each other, and Changbin grins.

“Sorry guys, bear with me a second, I didn’t have time to email myself the final draft of this today.” He chances another look at Hyunjin while he plugs in the device, and sees that Hyunjin sat up, head no longer on Felix so that he can stare at Changbin.

Changbin figured he’d get busted as soon as Hyunjin insisted on attending lectures today, but he wasn’t expecting such a reaction. Oops.

“All right. Let’s kick off. This was a case of a sixty-two-year-old woman with a history of diabetes, hypertension, and an umbilical hernia repair…”

He launches into his lecture, quizzing the interns sporadically (purposefully not picking on Hyunjin or Sooah to answer, because the post-night interns always get a pass) and turning to his co-seniors and the attendings for more complex input into the case. It’s painless, one of the many lectures Changbin has given, and he wraps up his teaching points with a couple of minutes to spare before the 9:30am coffee break.

As soon as he’s done the excessive applause starts up again, and he scoffs and blushes, letting himself check on Hyunjin again.

Hyunjin is glaring at him with an intensity that makes Changbin flinch.

Oh, well. He supposes their tentative camaraderie of the morning was too much to ask for. Back to square one, it is. At least Hyunjin glaring at him is comfortingly familiar.

Minho

On Thursday, Seri asks him out to lunch to vent about her unrequited love for Choi Nari, and Minho is all too happy to eat in silence and listen. This happens periodically, especially if Seri has to consult the surgeons for one of her patients and Dr. Choi is on call. Minho has had a lot on his mind since the end of block party, and he appreciates the distraction, so they meet up at a salad place that’s midway between their apartments and pick a booth that will facilitate the level of privacy their conversations tend to require.

They are both in athleisure as is their staple during these meals, and bare faced because there will be facials in their near future. Minho is seeing Jisung in the evening, but there are a lot of hours to fill before then. It’s a great way to pass the time on his day off even if Seri has told him the story before.

“And then she said that she remembered me because I was the best ER intern she’d ever worked with, and I just can’t get over how crazy that is, it’s such amazing praise, I don’t think she says it to many people—”

“I think I’m falling for Jisung.”

Seri drops her fork.

Minho stares at her, blinking.

He had not planned on saying that.

“…What?” she says. Her eyes are wide. “Minho. What?”

“I.” He can feel his ears burning. “I-I’m sorry, I interrupted you, we don’t have to talk about—”

“We are absolutely talking about this!” She picks her fork back up and stuffs a large amount of salad into her mouth, like she’s gathering energy for the shift in the conversation. “I need us to talk about this in detail. Now.”

Ugh.

“You’ve been sleeping with him for about a month, right?”

“Yes.”

“That’s already a bit longer than average for your pets, but nothing crazy. I thought it was just sex, you’re not hanging out outside of that, right?” He shakes his head. “What… makes you think you’re falling for him?”

“I don’t.” He coughs. “I don’t know. At first I thought it was just that the sex is so good, but. Some other stuff happened recently.”

“Elaborate.”

“I felt really weird at the party last weekend. Like… I only wanted to talk to him. Or at least be around him and hear him talk.”

Seri chews another forkful, listening intently.

“And I.” He shifts uncomfortably. They talk about sex plenty, he’s not sure why this feels awkward to say. “I think I get off on… him being into me.”

“Okay. We’ll revisit that first thing, but that second thing is pretty normal, Minho.”

Minho shakes his head. “No, I mean like… the idea of him being into me. Gets me off like nothing else ever has. Like.” He grits his teeth. “Like I came in my pants, the other day.”

Seri almost chokes on her next forkful of salad. “The fuck? Mr. Stamina himself?”

“Shut up.”

“No, no, I just… this is all so… new, for you.” She looks thoughtful. She’s still chewing. “Let’s go back to the party. You’re there, and…?”

Minho thinks back to the events of that night. He hovered around Jisung the whole night; commandeering his attention the first couple of hours by talking to him about nonsense and happily listening to him chatter away about music, about the procedures he’s done so far, about the hobbies he hopes to have time for when his schedule improves… and then freaking Changbin had interrupted them and made him babysit Chan. Minho had been furious, and Jisung had left, and he… hated that. He missed him? They were in the same damn room, and he missed him.

And then he overheard that convo outside of the bathroom. He is never possessive of his flings, but the thought of Jisung kissing that med student had made him want to vomit and cry, possibly at the same time. The med student is so cute, normally Minho would have found that hot, might have even tested the waters to see if the student was interested in joining them for a night… but as soon as the idea had crossed his mind he’d crossed it out, violently. He didn’t want someone else to get close to Jisung like that. He had spent the subsequent hours of the party glued to Jisung’s side, grateful that Chan left, grateful that the med student came back only to sulk in a corner by himself. And it had been fun; Minho had laughed at all of Jisung’s silly jokes, even the unfunny ones because they sounded funny in his voice, or it was the delivery, he’s not sure but Jisung just made everything so sweet and hilarious, and then Jisung went up to karaoke…

“He sang a ballad. And I.”

He’d felt—he’s not sure how to describe it, even to himself. Jisung’s friends had all left by the end of the night, the party had been winding down, and the chiefs had cajoled the only remaining intern into singing. And Jisung’s voice had sounded… so damn beautiful. He’d looked so perfect, standing there, performing with a twinkle in his eye and a shy grin on his face, blowing exaggerated kisses to his audience of a handful of drunk, delighted seniors, and Minho had imagined himself running around the room with a butterfly-catcher keeping all of them, trapping all the air kisses, hoarding them for himself.

“I just had this… feeling. Of… wanting him. Not just for sex, not just his body, wanting… his focus.” It’s so hard to explain. “Wanting him for myself.”

Seri leans across the table.

“Have you ever felt this way before?”

Minho shakes his head.

“Do you want to date him?”

“I.” He’s not a romantic. He doesn’t date, it’s just not his thing—but would dating Jisung mean spending more time with him? Getting to listen to his adorable rambling stories, and his thoughts on the newest blood-thinner medications, and his rants about his favorite romantic comedies…? “I want to be around him all the time,” he says finally. “Does that… mean I want to date him?”

Seri looks like he just revealed to her that he has a terminal illness. “Oh, God,” she chokes. “You do have feelings for him.”

“That’s what I said—”

“Yeah but like… you really do!”

“I know!”

“What are you going to do? You have feelings for the person you’re having sex with!” Then she seems to realize what she just said. “Wait, isn’t that a good thing? Just tell him?”

Minho shakes his head even more vehemently. “Absolutely not. He made it clear it was just sex from the beginning, and he might be seeing other people for all I know.” The thought alone is nauseating. “I can’t tell him, that means our arrangement ends.”

“You have to tell him.”

“I can’t stop seeing him. I don’t want to.”

“Minho, you’ll be torturing yourself.”

“…Yeah.”

He was always the sadist in his prior sexual dynamics, but maybe he’s an emotional masochist, and he’s only just finding out.

“Doesn’t it seem like he’s into you too? He’s the one asking to see you multiple times a week, right?”

“No.” That he’s sure of. Why else would Jisung have been the one to bring up that they were free to see other people? “He’s just new to kink exploration, so I’m his gateway into that world. I make him feel good, but he’s not into me…” the word tastes sour in his mouth. “…romantically.”

Seri ‘aah’s. “You’re his kinky sex Yoda.”

“…Not how I would have phrased that, but sure.”

She finished her salad, so she pushes her bowl aside and reaches for his hand. Minho is not typically one to draw comfort from hand-holding like this, but he finds himself making an exception this time.

“Minho. I really think you should talk to him.” She tightens her grip on him for a moment. “I know you’re not going to, but I just want it on record so I can say ‘I told you so’ later.”

“You want the credit.”

“I do. I want the credit.” She grins. “And I want speech time at your wedding. At least five minutes, with power-point slides.”

Minho chuckles under his breath, and is grateful for her despite the way his heart clenches at the thought of her being right.

*

“All I’m asking for…” Minho grunts, fucking in deeper, gripping the crop in his right hand and Jisung’s hip in his left. “Is five.” Slap. “Goddamn.” Slap. “Minutes.” Slap. “You can’t last five minutes?”

Jisung moans, even as Minho caresses the red welts as they bloom his ass, his upper thighs.

“I’m…” his voice is wrecked already. “I-I’m… sorry…”

Minho watches him, hungrily tracking Jisung’s side profile, his hunched, vulnerable shoulders. He watches the span of his back tapering to his waist, then back up to his mostly-hidden face where what he can see of Jisung’s expression is tight, pinched, tense. His neck is snugly decorated with the black choker he wore to the party, as per Minho’s request, and it looks so fucking good but Minho wants to get him a collar, so that it’s something he gave to Jisung.

“You’re so pathetic. You’re lucky you’re so pretty or I wouldn’t bother with you.”

Jisung fists the sheets tight, gasping. “Th-thank you, hyung, I-I’m so sorry, I—”

“That’s right,” Minho fucks in again, deliberately angling his hips to hit Jisung’s prostate, making him spasm. “You should be thanking me.”

“Ah, hyung please—”

“You’d better be grateful,” Minho fucks in harder, rough. “I barely get in you and you’re already close.” He does it again, flesh hitting flesh so it sounds like he’s slapping Jisung again. “You’re lucky I’m so generous.” 

“I-I am, hyung you’re so… so good, make me feel so good… thank—ah, thank you, hyung thank you thank you—"

Minho spits on Jisung’s lower back, making him flinch.

“You’re lucky I have nothing better to do,” Minho snarls, stomach cramping with pleasure. His free hand spreads the saliva along Jisung’s skin, down to the cleft of his perfect ass, until his fingers are touching the delicate skin of his rim where he’s stretched around Minho’s cock. “Than fuck sniveling little interns in my spare time.”

Jisung starts crying, rocking back into his thrusting, head turning fully sideways on the mattress so Minho can see at least half of his face properly as the tears flow. He knows better than to cry if Minho can’t see it. “I’m, yes, yes, I’m so… ahh, nghhh yes—"

He’s trembling, shuddering, about to come, and Minho loves when he gets like this.

“Hyung, I’m, I’m, so sorry but I’m gonna—oh, I’m, so close, I—nghh sorry, fuck—”

He slaps him with the crop again, and Jisung squeals, sobs out a: “Th-thank you…”

“You can’t even make it one more minute? One more minute for your generous hyung who felt sorry for you? I’m fucking you out of pity, Jisung.”

“N-no I—” Jisung’s hands are by his head, still gripping the sheets so tight his knuckles are white; he’s going to come untouched. “Oh, oh, oh—" He spasms around Minho’s cock. “I’m—s-sorry, sorry sorry sorry sorry—"

Minho speeds up even more, making sure to hit his prostate relentlessly while Jisung comes, and Jisung is crying out apologies, sobbing so gratefully, and Minho almost—he’s so close too, if he wasn’t hellbent on making sure Jisung feels good first and is taken care of after, he’d let go now.

“Oh God,” Jisung whimpers. “Oh God that was so fucking good.”

Minho needs to pull out or he’s going to come, too.

“D-Don’t pull out, please.”

Can Jisung read his mind?

He reaches back with a clumsy hand and grab’s Minho’s hip, pushing him in flush.

“Can you… keep going?” he mumbles, panting into the mattress because he turned his head away after his orgasm. Minho allows this, for now.

“You want me to?” Minho asks. He’s had partners fuck him before and the feeling of getting fucked again after coming was too overstimulating for him, he never liked it.

“Yeah. Want you to come inside me,” Jisung says, muffled.

Minho is wearing a condom, but he will definitely come while fucking Jisung if Jisung is asking.

He drops the crop and starts up a gentle rhythm again, shallow thrusts that are a form of teasing torture for him, but he doesn’t want to make Jisung too uncomfortable.

“Mmmmm yes, like that,” Jisung sighs, dreamy. His breathing is evening out. “Love. That.” Timed with Minho’s thrusting.

“I know you love it,” Minho mutters. “You can’t get enough of it, can you?”

“Nope.” Jisung sounds almost sleepy, but he turns his head and he’s smiling. Minho is just glad he let him see again so quickly. “You can go harder.”

Minho groans softly, speeding up as permitted. He feels amazing, muscles burning and aching, Jisung squeezing around his dick so tight.

“Harder, hyung.”

He moans and goes harder, Jisung a limp, boneless pile under him.

“You still love it? Even now?” Minho gasps.

“Yeah,” Jisung slurs. “So good.”

“Love making you feel good,” Minho hears himself whisper, sweat dripping into his eyes. “Fuck.”

“Hmm,” Jisung sighs back. His ass bounces with Minho’s thrusting, his whole frame is getting pushed around, really, and he looks drugged and somnolent, totally at peace. “This is the best I’ve ever felt.”

“Fuck.”

“Are you close, hyung?” Jisung closes his eyes. “You made me come so hard, I want you to go harder, go as hard as you want, love it when you let go—”

“Yeah, close, yeah,” Minho pants, so close, slamming into him at a brutal pace. “Tell me. Tell me how it felt, to—"

“It felt amazing, you… you always know what I like, you make me feel amazing, I loved it when you hit me.” Jisung shudders. “You always know.”

“Yes, yes I knew from the moment I saw you, I knew you’d be perfect for me, you’re so perfect Jisung—” Minho barely recognizes his own voice, the reedy earnestness of it. “Knew you’d love this but I didn’t know how much, fuck, I love fucking you, I love it, I think about it all the time, I love fucking you so much—"

Shut up shut up shut up what the fuck is he saying—he’s going to give it away, the words will unscramble and he’s going to say it, even though he’s just barely acknowledged to himself that he’s starting to fall—

“Fuck, ah, ah, Jisung, Jisung—"

Jisung hums happily as Minho’s hips stutter in rhythm as his dick tenses, grip tightening on Jisung’s hips. He doesn’t say it but he thinks it, he thinks I love fucking you in a different order, with the words rearranged and is terrified, horrified to realize that they ring true.

“Jisung, Jisung, Jisung—”

He hurtles over the edge, moaning Jisung’s name.

*

Jisung falls asleep in his arms, later, and Minho watches him and remembers Seri’s words with a heavy feeling in his chest.

Minho, you’ll be torturing yourself.

But he can’t let this go. He can’t let time with Jisung go. Not yet.

Hyunjin

He is so furious at Changbin that he spends his post-overnight post-lectures day in bed, sleeping fitfully and writing various drafts of an angry text to the number he still refuses to save on his phone (but now knows by heart). Then he spends his day off on Thursday plotting a confrontation of some sort while he works out, cooks, cleans his apartment and rage-paints like people do in the movies. The rage-painting is not as satisfying as he was hoping (it never is).

By Friday, he has still not calmed down about the fact that Changbin was going to skip his own lecture to help Hyunjin, even though it could have gotten him in serious trouble with JYP and Dr. Kim. It was stupidly selfless and heroic, and Hyunjin can’t forgive him.

He's thinking this while in the elevator on his way out of the resident housing building when a figure that he recognizes steps inside.

“…Minho?”

Minho is one of the best nurses at SNUH, but he is not a resident, and there is no way he lives here.

“Hey, Hyunjin.” He gives him a curt smile. “Headed to shift?”

“No, I just really enjoy waking up before 6am.”

“Got it.” He doesn’t acknowledge Hyunjin’s sarcasm. Did he not pick it up? Is he okay?

“Uh, I was kidding. I’m working at seven. You?”

The elevator deposits them on the ground floor and they both head out together. Minho seems troubled.

“Yeah, I’m working, too. Blue pod today, though, with the second and third-years.”

He scratches the back of his neck. The bags under his eyes are very dark; more so than usual.

“Hey man, are you… okay?”

Minho looks up at him, then almost trips over an uneven bit of sidewalk. Hyunjin catches his arm, but that was answer enough; Minho has an inner grace of movement that Hyunjin noticed right away when they met, something must be really wrong.

“Uh, sorry, shit. I’m fine, I just… have someone on my mind.”

“Oh.”

He was not expecting such blunt honesty.

They start walking again, and Hyunjin wonders if Minho actually wants to talk about it. Maybe this is Minho’s version of a cry for help, even if it’s help from his emotionally maladjusted coworker who he’s never hung out with alone. “Is it the person who lives in my building?”

Minho smirks, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “It’d be funny if I said ‘no’, right?” But the smirk drops. “But yeah, it’s him. Have you ever realized you like someone after having no-strings-attached sex with them?”

Okay, what the fuck. It is too fucking early for Hyunjin to answer that.

Thankfully, Minho proceeds as though the question was rhetorical. “Anyway, it fucking sucks. I don’t recommend it.”

“You don’t say.” Hyunjin manages a shaky chuckle. “I’ll keep that in mind going forward, I guess.”

“Please do.”

They spend the rest of the walk in companiable silence, with Hyunjin’s mind awhirl, wondering how he got to the point where he has something in common with Lee Minho, who has always seemed sort of an enigma to him: a notoriously scary-looking nurse who is somehow adored by their pediatric patients. This new information about the particular brand of pain Minho is feeling does make Hyunjin feel closer to him. Maybe they should start a support group for guys who can’t get over their situationships, even though Hyunjin doesn’t have the excuse of still being in it, like Minho does.

“Have a good shift, Dr. Hwang,” Minho says when it’s time for them to go to different pods.

“Good luck, Nurse Lee,” says Hyunjin, and means it. He hopes Minho gets what he wants from his person in the end; at least one of them should.

*

He gets home that night and heats up his food in the microwave, too tired to do it in a proper pan.

The email notification pops up as he’s scrolling on YouTube for a mindless video-essay to watch while he eats, and he accidentally clicks it open. It’s to his work email account, and it’s from Dr. Park Jin-young.

JYP sent an email to the entire residency and attending staff titled: ‘Rules for conference attire and accessories on shift.’

Hyunjin straightens with a start, frantically thumbing his way to it and reading, reading…

Two minutes later, he is calling that number that he didn’t save and putting it on speaker.

“The fact!” he shouts. “That it starts by separating the rules by gender!”

“Hyunjin, I just saw it—”

“Did you know he was going to send this? Did you—”

“Of course not. I’m—we’re meeting in five minutes in the living room to talk about it, the chiefs—”

“Can I come?” he asks, and knows it’s pushy, but he’s so mad he can’t think past how mad he is.

“Of course you can come, I’ll—actually, I’m going to text the residency-wide group chat and invite everyone who is free and wants to talk about it. You know where to go, just come meet us at the apartment.”

The residency-wide group chat is titled ‘SNUHER I barely know her 2025’ which Felix assured Hyunjin is a hilarious group-chat name in English. Changbin sends a message to all thirty-two residents within a few moments of hanging up the phone, alerting them about the content of the email and inviting them to join an emergency discussion at the chief’s apartment in thirty minutes. And then the likes start piling in.

*

Every single resident who isn’t currently working comes to the impromptu late night meeting, which means almost thirty people are spread out amongst the couch, chairs, tiny stretch of kitchen counter, and floors. Hyunjin and Felix are sandwiched in an old armchair together by the window, Jisung next to them. Seungmin is on a twenty-four-hour call shift, which Hyunjin finds unfortunate since he is their little group’s MVP when it comes to JYP bullshit.

Changbin, San and Wooyoung are standing in front of the TV, where someone cast the screenshot of the stupid new ‘rules’.

“I assume we are all here because we do not agree with the spirit of the guidelines in this email and we are interested in a plan of action to stop the hospital, and our program, from enforcing them.”

“And to kick out JYP!” Seri calls, and several people pick it up, shouting: “Yeah just fire him!” and: “He’s the worst!”

Changbin puts his arms out in a calming gesture, and the noise quiets immediately. He has every resident eating out of the palm of his hand, Hyunjin thinks. “Okay. Is everyone here interested in a leadership change within the program? We’ll vote anonymously on the chat, so as not to peer pressure anyone.”

The poll results, a minute later, are unanimous.

Changbin nods at his phone, smiling grimly. “Great, that’s great. I agree, obviously, so many better people could do a great job in that role—”

“Dr. Kim!”

“Dr. Cha!”

“Dr. Bang!” says Eun, and everyone cheers.

“Love Dr. Bang!”

“Oh my gosh, yes, Dr. Bang is the best!”

“Okay, one step at a time, guys,” San calls. “We have to decide on a plan of action. How are we planning to make our opinions known?”

After a good amount of brainstorming the decision to write and sign a letter on behalf of one-hundred-percent of the residents denouncing the gendered rules about hairstyles, accessories and the use of nail polish is made. They also plan a much bigger meeting with the attendings who are in the know about general displeasure with JYP’s stance on resident matters, and will hold the release of the letter until that meeting can take place. In the meantime, continued defiance of the dress code is encouraged among all who feel comfortable directly going against JYP’s orders.

Hyunjin holds Felix’s hand throughout the conversation, but to his credit Felix is not acting as though this is all on him. And it’s not; Seri’s hair is cropped shorter than is acceptable per the section on women’s hairstyles, and Jisung wants to be able to wear stud earrings on shift, which is allowed for the women but not for the men. Hyunjin likes wearing nail polish sometimes, too, for goodness sake.

Throughout the forum, Changbin is the ultimate authority, and the ultimate mediator. He’s keeping the topics moving, he’s keeping order, he’s throwing in a joke when they need the tension to break, he is available to listen to their venting. San and Wooyoung are great but Changbin is the chief’s chief, in Hyunjin’s eyes: if they elected residency presidents Changbin would win by a landslide. He’s so respected, in addition to being loved. He’s in his element here.

It's past midnight by the time they call the meeting to an end, and start sending people home. Most are yawning with exhaustion and many have shifts at 7am tomorrow, though Hyunjin is neither.

Hyunjin… is in a mood.

It’s not a bad mood, but it’s not good either, and he can’t look at it too closely or something is going to snap. He knows what he needs to do to fix it, though: he needs to talk to Changbin. Alone.

He lingers. There’s no polite way to frame it; he purposefully stalls, tells Felix he wants to use the bathroom before heading out so to please leave before him, and then lets everyone else in line go ahead of him. Of the two bathrooms in the chiefs apartment, one is directly accessible from the living room and the other is in Changbin’s bedroom, but most people don’t know that, and the line forms outside. When it’s finally his turn, he spends way too long touching up his make-up, adjusting his hair, until he’s sure the last few farewells were said.

He’s a pro at this, after all.

He comes out expecting all three chiefs to still be in the living room, but it appears San and Wooyoung went into their room and Changbin is alone in the kitchen, which is too perfect.

“Oh hey, Hyunjin. I didn’t see you leave.”

Hyunjin shrugs. “Now you know why,” he says. “Never left.”

“Ah.”

He walks into the little corner created by the half-island, and tries not to feel like he’s literally cornering Changbin, though he sort of is.

“Did you forget.” Changbin cuts himself off, and Hyunjin knows why.

It’s almost exactly the same scene, is the problem.

Oh, Hyunjin. Did you forget something?

No. Can we talk in your room?

Uh… why not out here?

Because some of the things I want to say to you can’t be said out here.

And this feeling, this… itching, scratching feeling, this mood, the memories make it worse.

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“About JYP?”

“About Wednesday.”

Changbin ‘ah’s in understanding again. “My lecture—”

“You could have gotten into real trouble for that,” Hyunjin cuts in. “You didn’t tell me; what if I’d said yes? What if I had said ‘Changbin, I need you to hold me all day while I cry in your arms’, huh? Would you have just done it?”

And Changbin—selfless, strong, beloved leader Changbin, says: “Well… yeah.”

“Why?” Hyunjin bursts, and Changbin winces, looks over at San and Wooyoung’s door, motions for Hyunjin to follow him to his room.

“I-I was just…” he closes the door behind himself, and this is too much, really, Hyunjin will not move on from this. At least the bedsheets are a different color; purple, with pink pillows. “I was trying to help,” Changbin finishes, in a more measured tone. “Helping you was more important.”

“That’s idiotic. What if they kicked you out?”

“I’m a chief resident, Hyunjin, I don’t think they’d kick me out of the program, even for missing an M&M—”

“You don’t know that! It would have definitely gone on your record, it could affect your career, it was so stupid, hyung!"

“Why are you so mad at me?” Changbin asks.

Hyunjin wonders if he means now or the grander scheme of things. Why is he, Hyunjin, so mad at him all the time? Why can’t he, Hyunjin, process feelings like a healthy, well-adjusted person and why does everything about Changbin make him, Hyunjin, feel like he’s choking on how many damn feelings are building up—

He grabs Changbin’s tank top straps, one in each hand, and pulls him abruptly close.

Their faces are an inch apart.

Changbin gapes up at him, shocked, confused. Understandably.

“I am furious,” Hyunjin pants. Because you are too good to me, he doesn’t say. Because I can tell you moved on from us and I can’t, he doesn’t add. “Because I was really fucking close to asking you to hold me all day while I cried in your arms, and I would have hated you when I found out you got in trouble afterwards.”

Changbin’s breath gusts over his chin. It smells good, like he already brushed his teeth.

“Hyunjin, it’s okay to need that. You went through something traumatic, asking for help would have been okay.”

Hyunjin trembles. Changbin is too good. Too good.

“You know, I spoke to Dr. Yoon about the case, after you told me what happened. He said you were amazing. I know SNUH wasn’t your first choice for residency, but you know you’re still amazing, right?”

And Hyunjin drops his forehead onto Changbin’s shoulder, a puppet with his strings cut. The words completely paralyze him; he’s too weak to hold on to the anger that was never really anger anyway, and he lets himself be gathered in Changbin’s huge, strong arms, and feels his heart thumping harder than ever, like it can sense what lies on the other side of Hyunjin’s ribcage and wants to press up against it, or at least get closer.

“Do you…” Changbin’s voice is so soft. “Do you want to stay here and let me hold you all night while you cry in my arms?”

And all Hyunjin can do is nod, defeated.

Chan

Chan gets home after his Friday shift with a headache. The Blue Pod had been busy and then he caught a glimpse of Felix leaving Red Pod but Felix didn’t see him, and he’d chickened out of going to greet him or asking to walk out of the hospital together. He has been avoiding Wednesday lectures in order not to see Felix there (thankfully attendings are not required to attend), and he has been resisting the urge to text Felix a four-paragraph apology about how insanely inappropriate his drunken behavior was at the end-of-block party, but in the absence of that he didn’t text him at all. For over a week.

Instead of texting Felix, Chan has been seriously working on ways to professionally murder JYP for what he said to him, and has a pile of emails in his inbox waiting to be read. He has barely been sleeping because his nights are taken up by research into prior cases of program director censure, and even trying to find instances of someone being fired. Changbin has been aggressively monitoring his work schedule and trying to get him to give away more shifts, but that has translated into more time on the couch and in his study, not necessarily more time sleeping. If it’s not work and it’s not research, it’s the guilt that keeps him up.

And now, a headache. A bad one; temples throbbing and vision blurred, he should really try to sleep for at least a handful of hours tonight if he can manage it—

“Hey, Channie.”

Nari is in the living room when he walks in, which is already unusual, but the way she stands up when he shuts the door behind him makes it seem as though she was waiting for him there. Nari never waits for him.

“…Hey, Nari.”

And then he sees her expression properly, and his hackles raise. Something is really wrong. He fucked up, and she knows it.

“The statement for your rental of unit 602 was in the mail,” she says, and Chan gets to watch as the piece of paper that is about to bring their fragile arrangement crashing down around them is waved in the air.

Unit 602 is Felix’s apartment, of course.

“Apparently selecting the ‘paperless’ option only kicks in after the second month. We’re so shit at checking our physical mail that there were, like, forty envelopes in there; the doorman asked me to please empty it this afternoon. It was mostly publicity, granted, so I might have missed this. You almost got away with it.”

Her tone is quiet but victorious, like she’s relishing holding his fuck-up over him and telling him about it. But Chan knows it won’t be as uncomplicated as that.

“Who’s the lucky lady?” she cocks her head. “Or guy. Or person who doesn’t subscribe to gender like that.”

Chan drops his backpack on the floor. He feels awful, but he also feels protective of Felix before he feels anything else, and he’s glad his name wasn’t on that bill.

“It’s not—it’s not like that. With me and him.”

“Him. Hm.” She looks down at the envelope again. “Am I reading this correctly; you’re making him pay half? That’s so unlike you Channie, you’re such a gentleman usually. I figured if you were fucking someone you’d at least pay for the place you do it in in full.”

“I’m not fucking him. I promise you, Nari, I’m not—”

She snorts, and then she seems to take in his face.

"Wait, you really aren’t?”

Chan shakes his head. “Really. I promise, I’m—I really fucked this up, I know that, and I’m so sorry—"

“You put a pretty young thing up at an apartment in town and you're not even sleeping with him?" She looks so shocked... and then she bursts out laughing. "Chan! That is so fucking embarrassing!"

“Nari, please—”

“No, no this is priceless!” She’s still laughing. “It’s so you, Channie! Let me guess.” And there it is; a mean glint in her eye, not real humor, not real relish. Nari is only truly mean when she’s hurting. “You like this person. You have a crush on him, maybe convinced yourself that because you didn’t actually sleep with him then you weren’t doing anything wrong.”

“Nari—”

“No, sorry, I know you’ve probably been killing yourself about it regardless. You’re too noble to cheat by fucking someone, and too noble to think that not fucking them absolves you of anything. You’ve probably been feeling really badly about all this; sorry if I’m contributing to your self-flagellation right now.”

She puts the letter down on the table like she didn’t just dissect him organ by organ, reading him with terrifying accuracy, reminding him that he once thought she knew him very well.

“Are you going to explain it to me? Or should I keep guessing?”

And so, after everything… here they are.

It happened.

Chan swallows. Steels himself, because he owes her the truth.

“I think I’m in love with him,” he says.

He doesn’t care how insane it sounds, even to him. He knows it’s true. It’s ridiculous and impossible and true.

Nari, for once, seems speechless. She looks tired; she probably sat around processing the letter by herself all afternoon. She never looks this tired after a 24-hour call, she always has an energy about her, always tucks fatigue away easily within her body; in front of patients and their families and in front of residents and in front of Chan. But now she looks tired, and small; she’s swimming in a large hoodie of Chan’s. He used to like it when she took his clothes.

“I’m so sorry, Nari.”

She nods.

“I’m. I really am so sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen, I never wanted this. I am helping him with the rent but he doesn’t even know I’m doing it; I was concerned about his previous living situation, so I… arranged this behind his back.” The ‘and yours’ is so loud between them that it’s almost like he said it, too. “I do love him, though. He doesn’t know that either.”

“Were you going to marry me anyway?” she asks. Her voice is tight, and Chan knows she is his fiancée but he still can’t believe that something he did brought her this close to tears. He got so used to feeling like she didn’t really care what he did, one way or another. But of course that couldn’t be entirely true, if she agreed to marry him.

“Yes.”

She nods again, looking at the floor in front of his feet.

“Okay.” She sniffs. “Okay, well. That’s very noble of you, Channie. But I don’t want to marry you anymore.”

Chan holds himself very still, trying not to let the relief in because that would be too awful, to feel good about what’s happening, even with how horrible he has been lately. It would be too cruel.

“Nari—”

“Can you stay with this guy? Or… or someone else?” She looks back up at him. “I promise I’m going to be incredibly professional about your consults but I’d prefer to not see you outside of work for a while.”

“I. Yes, I can leave, but—”

“Thank you. I have to call my parents now, so I’d rather be alone when I do that. Sorry to ask you when you just got off work, but can you please leave tonight? Now?”

Chan just nods.

“Grab a bag, I guess? Grab some clothes and your laptop and stuff.” She motions towards their room. “Take a few minutes, I mean. You don’t have to leave this second. But like… definitely leave as soon as you’re done.”

“…Okay. Yes, I can. I will do that.” He looks at her again. She still hasn’t cried, technically. “I’m really, really sorry, Nari-ah.”

“Yeah, I know.” She sounds exhausted. And then she gives him a little smile. “It’s funny, I know you’re a good man, Channie, I do believe you about not meaning to hurt me. I know you’d never do that on purpose.” She makes a face, and the implication is there, that he hurt her anyway; she’s admitting it, even though they’ve been so distant. Chan is more shocked by that than he is by her lack of a screaming reaction, or lack of shouting. It’s very like Nari, actually, to go straight for the practicals once the break-up has been established. Him leaving. Him packing. Calling her parents. Work staying the same. Admitting to hurt is not like her at all.

“I. I’ll go pack.”

“You do that.”

But as soon as he turns away she calls his name.

He turns back, and notes that she’s not holding back tears anymore. Her eyes are dry.

“I think I should be sadder.”

She looks at him like she asked him a question and is expecting an answer.

When he doesn’t speak, she adds: “I should be devastated, right? If I loved you.”

A look passes between them, of… Chan’s not sure. Understanding? Maybe this is the most they have ever understood each other.

“…Yeah,” he says. “Maybe.”

And then he can’t think of anything else to say, so he leaves.

*

Way past midnight that same night, Chan knocks on the door of a familiar apartment with a gym bag full of clothes slung over his shoulder and a suitcase at his feet.

Changbin opens it for him, in a pink hoodie and sleep-mussed hair. “Hyung,” he says in greeting, eyes huge. “You did it?”

Chan’s text had only said: can I crash with you tonight Nari and I are over

“She did. But… yeah.” The relief has started to creep in despite his best efforts. He walks inside as silently as he can, and should have braced himself for the sudden firm backwards hug Changbin gives him. It almost knocks him off his feet; Changbin is so strong, it definitely knocks the breath out of him.

“I’m. So proud of you,” Changbin says into his ear. “This is good, Channie. This had to happen, and things will be better for you now.”

Chan gives himself a moment to enjoy it before squirming out of Changbin’s grip, and he can feel the ghost of a smile on his mouth, something looser than he's felt in a while.

“Thanks, Bin.” His eyes land on the couch, where Changbin prepared a couple of blankets and an extra pillow. “You have company or something?” he asks, because he used to sleep in the same bed as Changbin all the time when they were co-residents.

“Uh. Yeah.” Changbin is wincing when Chan whirls on him, and then he makes a dismissive gesture. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Just… be cool in the morning, okay? Don’t say anything.”

Chan gapes at him. Changbin usually tells him about his partners within minutes—hell, he’s still convinced he got a call during, once. Plus he’s been celibate for almost a year, or so Chan thought.

“Who?” he whispers, glancing at Changbin’s bedroom door.

Changbin cringes. “You have to be cool.” And for an insane, breathless second Chan is convinced that he is about to say it’s Felix, but of course that’s not—“Uh, Hyunjin. But it’s not like that tonight—shit, this is a way longer conversation.”

Chan sits down with a thump, landing on the couch purely by coincidence.

“Nari found out about the apartment I got for Felix, and I told her that I was in love with him, and I am,” he says, staring up at Changbin. He pats the space next to him. “I need a distraction. Start talking.”

Chapter Text

Changbin

The second time Changbin wakes with Hyunjin in his arms, he is a chief resident, it’s halfway through the second block, Hyunjin is his intern, and they didn’t have six orgasms between them the night before.

They had zero orgasms, to be clear. Mostly Hyunjin cried himself to sleep while Changbin held him and then he got that text from Chan and his night got a lot longer and even more complicated.

After he finished telling Chan the truth about him and Hyunjin, up to and including the heartbreaking events of Hyunjin’s recent night shift, Changbin slid back into bed behind him and spooned him (or backpacked him—is it called something else if Changbin is much bigger but still shorter than Hyunjin?), falling asleep immediately.

Now, he finds himself not wanting to let go. He also doesn’t really want to wake up.

“Hyung.”

He can’t see Hyunjin’s face, only the back of his head, and even that is a partially obstructed view because Changbin’s face is tucked into the back of Hyunjin’s neck, so his hair is in the way. He closes his eyes again.

“Hm.” He tightens his hold on Hyunjin’s waist, slightly.

“Changbin-hyung.” Hyunjin’s voice is sleepy-soft, devoid of its biting edge. “Are you awake?”

“No.”

Hyunjin shifts a bit in Changbin’s arms, but makes no move to break out of his hold. Changbin takes that as tacit acceptance, and tightens them a bit more. He also shifts his leg a little so that his thigh is half-draped over Hyunjin’s hip.

“I feel better,” Hyunjin says quietly.

“Good.” He’s almost speaking into his skin. He’s so warm, they fit so well, he doesn’t want to let him go. He let go so quickly last time. “M’glad.”

“Thank you.”

“Mh-hm.” He’s so exhausted. Maybe Hyunjin will let him fall back asleep a while longer, and consent to be cuddled just a little more? The light outside was so faint, it must be extremely early.

Changbin feels Hyunjin’s head turning towards him, but he doesn’t open his eyes. He doesn’t want reality to intrude just yet.

“…Did you stay up late?”

“Mm. Chan came really late.” He takes his chances sliding his leg a little further, around the side of Hyunjin’s thigh.

“Chan is here?” Hyunjin sounds more awake. Ugh.

“Yeah,” Changbin sighs. “Him and Nari ended things last night—”

“He what?”

Hyunjin goes rigid, and then he twists his whole body in Changbin’s grip—he can’t break the hold, he’s not strong enough, but he rotates 180 degrees within the circle of Changbin’s arms so that he’s facing Changbin fully: face to face, chest flush against his chest, stomachs touching, and other… other areas, also.

Changbin is now more awake.

“Chan and Nari ended things?” Hyunjin hisses, eyes wide. Changbin’s eyes are open too, that’s how he sees it. He wasn’t—he didn’t have morning wood, per se, but he was feeling sensitive, on his way to half-hard maybe, and now the awareness of Hyunjin pressed up against him is, uh. A lot. “Changbin. Talk.”

He opens his mouth and Hyunjin puts his hand on Changbin’s chest, over his left pec, actually, the heel of his palm pressing into his nipple. He does so as a gesture of attention, as a way to brace himself; his gaze is intent on what Changbin is about to say next, eyes roving Changbin’s face as though his features will reveal the information before he even speaks.

What comes out, at first, is not a word.

Hyunjin looks down at his hand, and then back up at Changbin’s face.

“H-he texted me,” Changbin manages, choosing to pretend nothing happened. “Last night, after you fell asleep. Apparently she found out about Felix’s apartment, and assumed… I guess she assumed correctly. Chan might not be having sex with him but—” Hyunjin’s hand slides a tiny bit, a tiny, unintentional rub against Changbin’s nipple, through his shirt. “—but he wants to, and he’s so… into him, I mean. He loves him.”

“Yet,” says Hyunjin, shifting. His hand moves a tiny distance again; less than a centimeter, a nothing movement, really. It seems accidental. “They aren’t having sex yet.”

“Right, y-yeah.” It happens again. His palm moves, but Hyunjin is still looking at Changbin with his head on the pink pillow, with his beautiful, innocent doe eyes, paying close attention to him. “Yeah, I’m sure that’ll change soon. I mean, Chan is… dying to.”

“I can tell,” Hyunjin says quietly. “I’d be surprised if he wasn’t on Felix by the end of the week.” He does it again. Rubs his hand up, and Changbin’s body is becoming… very interested in the proceedings. Too interested. Hyunjin has to know what this is doing to him. “What day is it today, Saturday? I suppose the week ends tomorrow, but that still wouldn’t shock me.”

“Mh-hm.” Changbin tries to subtly, slowly pull his hips back a bit, but Hyunjin follows him, and his hand moves yet again, an upward rub, and it has to be on purpose, this torture—

“You don’t think so, hyung?” he asks. “You don’t think Chan is gonna be barking at his door by the end of the day?”

“I.” Changbin is losing red blood cells to power his brain by the minute. “Probably, yeah, but. But he’s on our couch right now.”

“Hm.” Hyunjin shifts, and that’s—okay, that’s definitely on purpose, he’s almost—kneading, and Changbin is trying very, very hard (so damn hard) not to shift his hips or arch his back or moan, but he can’t control the blushing or the build-up of sweat in his armpits and neck and hairline. “Wanna go wake him up, hyung?” Hyunjin asks.

“Right… now?”

Hyunjin shrugs. His eyes are so wide and sweet, looking at Changbin from where he lies.

“Yeah. Any reason you can’t get up right now?”

He pinches Changbin’s nipple, and Changbin—jolts, gasping.

“You got a morning problem to take care of first?” Hyunjin says, pinching harder, and Changbin’s dick is so stiff against Hyunjin’s stomach that it’s funny, the fact that he’s even asking. “Do you need to jerk off before you go let Chan out of his pen?”

Changbin is panting right into Hyunjin’s guileless expression, and he knows it’s a bad idea; it was a bad idea when Hyunjin put his hand on his chest, and earlier, when Hyunjin turned around, or maybe the worst idea was the initial offer to share a bed all night, given their history.

“Hyunjin—”

“Want me to do it for you?” Hyunjin asks, and his hand moves away from Changbin’s chest to slide down, slowly past his stomach, to cup him in his palm.

“W-wh…” Changbin has one, maybe two working neurons left. It’s been almost a year of nothing but his own hand; the fact that the offer isn’t just someone else’s hand, but Hyunjin’s… “Hyunjin, you don’t have to—”

Hyunjin’s virtuous look fades, and is replaced by something more familiar, and equally hot: he looks impatient. “I caused it, I should take care of it, no?” he says.

Changbin lets out a shaky breath and no objection, and Hyunjin slides his hand into his pants.

The feel of him has Changbin grunting, such a relief after that teasing that even Hyunjin’s dry touch is the best thing he could imagine. Hyunjin adjusts his grip and jerks him slowly, sitting up on his side to watch himself do it while Changbin can only lie there, trembling, shivering.

“You’re so hard,” Hyunjin mutters.

Changbin stares up at him. “Yeah.”

Hyunjin speeds up, twisting his hand, making Changbin moan softly, and he’s looking down at his own actions but Changbin can only look at him. Hyunjin’s mouth is slightly parted, his face, that face Changbin thinks about so much, is flushed; his beauty in the morning is disheveled but not for that less absorbing.

“Hyunjin,” he gasps, wanting those eyes on him, needing—

Hyunjin switches his rhythm and Changbin’s hips punch up, once, and Hyunjin still won’t look at him; he’s almost shuttered, but not unaffected, that blush is too telling, he must be feeling something—

Changbin groans again, warmth tightening his lower stomach, dick jerking in Hyunjin’s grip, and he hasn’t looked away from that face for a single moment, only to blink, which is why he sees Hyunjin lick his lips the second he does it. He blurts: “Ohmygod your mouth—” before he can stop himself, and Hyunjin bites his lower lip. Changbin groans louder, but suddenly remembers not only his roommates but Chan sleeping right outside and cuts himself off, stuffing a fist into his mouth.

Hyunjin’s hand is holding him so tight and he looks so good doing it and his mouth is right there, right in front of him, and Changbin uses his free hand to pinch the same nipple Hyunjin did earlier. “Oh fuck, Hyunjin—”

Hyunjin finally snaps his gaze back up to him, and their eyes meet.

“Is it my hand or my mouth that’s doing more for you right now?” he murmurs, and Changbin’s hips kick up again.

“Your. All of it. You’re so beautiful, everything about you… does it for me, everything—” he pinches himself harder, writhing on the mattress, so close. “Love looking at you you’re so hot you’re so pretty Hyunjin, you’re so beautiful—”

The rhythm of Hyunjin’s arm stutters and he makes a startled, hurt noise. The color on his cheeks is now a high rouge, something feverish.

“You like that sweet thing? You like hearing that?” Changbin remembers. How twitchy and sensitive Hyunjin got from praise, but one night wasn’t enough to explore that. “You’re beautiful, Hyunjin, you’re so perfect, fuck, m’gonna—you’re so amazing, gonna make me—”

Hyunjin’s thumb rubs the head of his dick and his nail catches on a corner, a pinprick of pain that Changbin’s body misinterprets as pleasure as he seizes and comes, stuffing his fist back in his mouth to groan into it. It feels so good his abs cramp with it, the shocks ricocheting around his lower stomach. He paints himself in streaks of white up to his chest, pulses and pulses of come as the orgasm surges out of him, Hyunjin’s perfect hand getting splattered in it, too, both of them breathing hard as he slows down.

“F-fuck.” Changbin’s chest heaves. “Fuck, fuck. Fuck.”

Hyunjin takes his hand back and—

Slides it into his own pants.

“Hyun—”

“I just, I need—” The wet slapping sounds of him immediately jerking off with Changbin’s come to slick the way make Changbin’s post-orgasmic haze clear way faster than anticipated. He gapes, incredulous, as Hyunjin’s eyes scrunch shut and he slumps back down on the bed, furiously fucking his own fist.

“Hyunjin—”

“Ah, ah, I—”

Changbin puts a hand over his mouth, that mouth, as Hyunjin’s moaning kicks off at a volume that is much louder than his speaking voice.

“Shh, shh, remember to be quiet—”

“Mmmmph,” Hyunjin moans, bucking under him.

“I…” Changbin is so shocked and Hyunjin is so frantic that he feels pleasure-stupid and like he can’t keep up. But he knows at least one thing that Hyunjin likes to hear. “You’re so fucking hot like this Hyunjin, you look so pretty like this, bet you’re gonna look so pretty when you come—"

Hyunjin’s eyes roll back, and then his legs kick out and he’s coming, back tensing and hips jutting up, moaning, gasping into Changbin’s palm.

Changbin’s dick twitches and he can feel himself there, knows that if he hadn’t just come he’d be hard as nails at the sight right now.

“Fuck,” Hyunjin swears, as soon as Changbin’s palm moves away. He’s sweating, a small pool of it at his throat. Changbin wants to slurp it up, then lick him head to toe.

“We. That was.”

“You should go shower before everyone else wakes up,” Hyunjin cuts in, still breathing shallowly, but already sitting up.

“Hyunjin, shouldn’t we talk about—”

“No more talking.” Hyunjin’s whole face is red. “I’m—I’ll try to sneak out, if Chan, uh, slept through that, and shower at home. I’m gonna leave.”

Please don’t, not again, Changbin thinks, heart sinking. But they are on such shaky ground, and he doesn't want to push Hyunjin past what he can handle—he’s just so confused by this turn of events. Hyunjin had rejected him so brutally after last time, why would he do this now?

Hyunjin leaves without looking back, his signature move.

At least Changbin’s bedroom is a suite.

Felix

SOS 911 EMERGENCY STAT

Felix wakes up to a text from Hyunjin that has him jolting up in bed, and then he sees it’s one of twelve messages received forty-two minutes ago. He sent them privately, not via ‘I wish Dr. Bang would bang me’. He opens them immediately.

multiple updates

bang. is. DIVORCED

as in never gonna get married, him and nari are over

FELIX CHAN IS SINGLE

he slept on the chiefs’ couch last night

reason for this is I slept in cb’s bed

I need to talk to u

stat

urgent

emergent

FELIX WAKE UP

He stares at his phone screen in total and utter confusion for a long, long time.

him and nari are over

He can’t… it can’t be true. He wants it too much, it can’t be real. His first reaction, when he eventually starts to feel something that isn’t mind-numbing shock, is fear. He’s afraid of how much he wants it to mean something, for it to mean he has a chance. And then after the fear he cycles through more shock, and a violent sort of joy, and he re-reads the second half of Hyunjin’s texts and reason for this is I slept in cb’s bed sinks in.

He sends a straight to the point message: CAN U COME OVER IMMEDIATELY

Hyunjin calls him within fifteen seconds of the text being delivered, saying: “I was literally having coffee waiting in your lobby, this is not a joke, let me up.”

Felix rushes out of bed, trips over to his door to hit the buzzer code and alert the doorman that he can let Hyunjin up, and then he runs to the bathroom to wash his face and tucks his hair into a ponytail. His toothbrush is still in his mouth when there’s a knock at the door.

He throws it open, mouth full of toothpaste, and stares at Hyunjin. He looks great, hair combed back from his bare face and something about him today is even more strikingly handsome than usual.

They hug, quickly. “You smell good,” Felix says.

“I just showered.” He waves an impatient hand in the air. “Felix. Oh my God.”

“I can’t believe it.” He really can’t. “He really. They really… you’re sure?”

“He was on the couch with two suitcases,” Hyunjin says. They both make their way to Felix’s kitchen, because Felix needs the sink. “It’s official. It happened.”

“I can’t believe it,” he says again after rinsing his mouth. The fear is still there, but with beautiful Hyunjin here and the excitement of it all, the possibility of it all—the joy is winning out. “He’s—did he seem okay? Was he… sad, or upset?” He absolutely does not want Chan to be in pain.

“He was asleep, so I’m not sure. Changbin and I… didn’t get into that. Wow, I’m a terrible person, I didn’t even ask him how Chan was doing.” Hyunjin does not seem all that regretful. “To be honest I just assumed he’d be fine; it clearly needed to happen ages ago.”

reason for this is I slept in cb’s bed

“Hyunjin, what the fuck happened between you and Changbin last night.”

He had noticed how Hyunjin was staying behind on purpose, but he didn’t imagine that would lead to Hyunjin still being there this morning.

“Um.” He runs a hand through his hair. He looks… wired. “He… that situation I told you about, at conference the other day? That horrible—”

“I remember. I should’ve asked about that first, I’m sorry, how are you—”

“Better, really I’m doing a lot better. But I was… okay, so remember I said I told Changbin first, because I ran into him? Well, I didn’t tell you that he offered to take me home and like, stay with me all day, basically. And I found out later that he did that even though he was scheduled to give the M&M lecture literally thirty minutes after he said it.”

Felix feels his eyes go wide. Changbin is a chill guy but he also takes his job as chief, and work tasks in general, very seriously.

“Right, exactly. And so then I was mad at him about that—”

“Wait, you were mad at him for trying to help you?”

“It’s… complicated. I’m dumb, never mind that—” Hyunjin waves his arm about again. “So then I stayed behind last night to yell at him about it, and I did, except he sort of… ended up holding me all night while I cried a bunch. And then this morning he was still holding me. And.” Here, Hyunjin goes red. His ears and cheeks especially. “We fooled around a bit. He let me jerk him off, basically. I kinda teased him for a while first, got him all… hot and bothered.” He shivers. “He’s so hot. Fuck. He’s so hot, I’m so into him it’s crazy.”

“Hyunjin.” Felix wants to shake him. “And then what?”

“Then I left!”

Felix gapes at him. “But what does that mean? You jerked him off, and? Are you going to do it again? Are you going to become fuckbuddies? Is sex all you want? Is sex all he wants?”

“Oh my God, are you Seo Changbin? You sound just like him! He also wanted to talk!”

Dismay makes Felix’s shoulders drop. “And you didn’t?”

Hyunjin curls his hands into fists, defensiveness taking him over. “I-I don’t… I get insane around him, okay? I feel unstable. I can’t have a conversation with him, I’m going to say something psycho.”

“Like what?” But Felix has had a feeling about ‘what’ regarding Changbin and Hyunjin for a while. At least from Hyunjin towards Changbin.

“I-I—” Hyunjin’s eyes are getting panicky, so Felix decides to cut him some slack.

“Okay, okay, forget I asked that. Let’s go sit down, and then I want you to recount that handjob stroke by stroke.”

And that, at least, makes Hyunjin laugh.

*

On Monday, literally no one is talking about anything other than Bang Chan and Choi Nari’s break-up.

The ER staff is abuzz with the gossip; somehow the news spread like wildfire from the surgery side of things and Felix overhears the clerks talk about it, the nurses, the techs, the other doctors… the rumor mill is churning, people declaring all sorts of wild things like Nari having a secret double family, their parents not getting along and breaking them up, Chan putting a young lover up at an apartment in town and Nari finding out… it’s crazy.

He tries to focus on patient care and nothing else, but he can’t help a sense of creeping disappointment.

Felix doesn’t know why he expected a call or a message, as though Chan owes him that information, as if they are such close friends that he’d be the first person Chan thought to tell, or go to. But he’s realizing now that two days have gone by and he’s been checking his phone nonstop, and that he thought himself different. He saw himself as closer to Chan than these people, some of whom have known Chan for years. One of the clerks mentions how she remembers Chan’s first day as an intern, and how anxious he was, and Felix is forcibly reminded that he has no right to anything. He’s not anything to Chan.

“Dr. Han, none of us could get an IV in the patient in six. We called one of our nurses who is really good at them to try, he’s coming over from the pediatric Pod now so I’m hoping he’ll be able to.”

“Oh, thanks! I’ll go check on the patient in a bit.”

At least his co-intern today is Jisung. Felix loves Jisung, and he feels like they connected with each other from day one, but it’s been hard to pin him down for a hangout since residency started. Granted, for a large chunk of that time Felix was rotating on the surgical service and thus away from the department, plus working an even crazier schedule, but still. Jisung has been consistently sending a lot of ‘awh have plans :(‘ and ‘sorryyyy meeting a friend :/’ in their group-chat.

“Jisungie, are you free after shift tonight?” he asks him. They are both sitting at their computers in the doctor’s area, but neither their attending nor their senior is around. “We should hang out, you’re welcome to come to my place and re-watch Spider-Verse if you’d—”

“Dude, yes! Totally.” Jisung lowers his mask so Felix can see his big smile. “I have to be home by eleven-thirty, but we should be done here at seven so that leaves us plenty of time to hang out. Let’s do it.”

“Why do you have to be home by eleven-thirty?” Felix asks, quirking an eyebrow. That was oddly specific.

“Oh, uhm.” He hesitates. “I’m…”

Has Felix been so engrossed in his own stuff that he missed Jisung’s?

“Do you have eleven-thirty plans, Jisung?” Felix asks, aghast. “Do you have a midnight sex date?”

“Oh my god, n-no, I just—“ but he’s blushing, and Felix totally caught him. “I-I just—”

And then Jisung’s gaze lands on something behind Felix, and his voice dies in his throat.

He actually looks like he, himself, died a little.

Felix turns around to see what caused his lovely co-intern’s untimely demise, and his gaze lands on one of his favorite nurses: Minho.

Minho is wearing the hospital-issued pink pediatric nursing scrubs that indicate he is stationed at the one area of the ER where the interns aren’t working shifts yet. He looks really good in them—Minho is hot as hell but in the pink his thighs look a little thicker, his ass more defined, and the color really suits his complexion.

And suddenly, sitting there, Felix has a strangely intense flashback to the end-of-block party, and of noticing that Jisung and Minho talked to each other for a really long time. Even when they weren’t talking, Minho had… hovered.

“Don’t,” Jisung hisses desperately as Minho starts walking towards the doctor’s area. “Don’t say anything, I promise I’ll tell you but please please don’t s—hey, Nurse Lee! I heard you came to save us all the way from pediatrics!”

Minho’s eyes are smiley crescent moons, which Felix is not used to seeing. He’s always nice to Felix, and is incredibly good at his job, but he’s never quite so fond.

“The patient in six? I got the IV line, Dr. Han, it wasn’t any trouble.”

“Wait, really? Already?” Jisung’s face is—Felix is fascinated. Jisung’s energy tends to be on the anxious side of more, but he looks so at ease right now. So happy, and admiring of Minho’s skills, clearly. “Um. Wow. Thanks so much, you saved me from trying to find a vein with the ultrasound machine.”

Minho cocks his head to the side. “I know how to find a vein with the ultrasound machine. Want me to show you? Pediatrics isn’t too busy, I have five minutes.”

And Felix gets to watch as Jisung leaps to his feet, almost tripping over his own chair to do so, and thinks; okay, not entirely at ease. But there’s something obvious there. He hopes Jisung is going to keep his promise later, and confide in him. He hopes Jisung wants to.

“Excuse me, Dr. Lee? I have a consult for you.”

Felix turns around with a jolt, pulled from his musings. He stands to look over the doctor’s partition, seeking out the face he associates with that familiar voice... and grins when he sees that he was right. Mingyu is on the other side.

“Hey! Mingyu-hyung, how are you?” He walks over to him, and Mingyu is smiling back, uncomplicated joy in his eyes. “I haven’t seen you since the party! What rotation are you on?”

“I’m on transplant surgery,” Mingyu says. The general surgeons, like the emergency medicine doctors, also spend time learning from other specialists. “One of our patients came in to the ER so I am here to check on them.”

“Oh, I hope they are okay.”

Mingyu nods. “Looks like they will be.” He reaches towards Felix’s head but his hand pauses mid-air, and Felix remembers what happened the last time he did this in the doctor’s area they are in—how Chan had snapped and grabbed Mingyu’s wrist. Did Chan already think him pretty back then? Is that why he did it? Does it even matter, if he’s finally single and doing nothing about it? “My hands are clean,” Mingyu says, clearly remembering too.

Felix snorts and Mingyu ends up patting him briefly before dropping his arm. A conspiratorial look passes between them, though neither says Chan’s name, and Felix thinks again that Mingyu is a flirt but he has no real intent behind it. His instincts were right.

“I hear they miss you up in the surgery floors, even though your co-intern is just as smart and just as good-looking.”

Felix laughs. “There is no way Chul admitted that,” he says.

“I promise you! He really liked you, he’s just a piece of shit when he’s tired.” Mingyu chuckles. “You must be glad to be back in your department, though.”

“I am.” He wants to say something to acknowledge what happened at the party, how he left Mingyu behind, who he abandoned him for, but amidst the loud environment and with so many staff-members and patients around, he knows he can’t. “Hyung, I. Uhm.”

Something about Mingyu’s face turns understanding, like he can tell. Like he knows what Felix is failing to say.

“It suits you, being here,” he says. “It’s clear that you belong with the ER.”

Felix blushes. It doesn’t escape him that you belong in a place, you belong with a person.

He’s ours.

“I like the ER a lot,” he mumbles, cheeks hot.

Mingyu smiles. “I know, my prince. Good luck, okay?” And with one last hair-ruffle, he leaves.

Jisung

Jisung and Minho haven’t worked a lot of shifts in Red Pod together, but when they do things have stayed entirely professional. It was part of their initial agreement, and frankly the stress of doing a good job, being a good doctor to his patients, worrying about their illnesses, worrying about their pain is enough to banish any fantasies Jisung may have had about him and Minho ever breaching said agreement. He does not want to do that. His job is important.

However.

The pink scrubs are not okay. The pink scrubs need to be burned, or banished, or dyed another, less appealing color in a hospital-wide laundry incident. Jisung is focusing so hard on what Minho is saying, he really is, but he is suffering.

The fact that Minho is taking care of children in this getup is the worst of it; because he looks hot, yes, he looks delectable and a bit thicker and perfect, but he also looks cute. And him looking that cute while taking care of little kids is too much; Jisung remembers wishing he had ovaries two months ago, now he wishes he had a uterus and the ability to bear children, Minho’s children specifically, who Minho would be a great and caring father to, surely—

“…and that’s it. Wanna try?”

Jisung looks up at Minho, startled. He was mostly following that, actually, but he doesn’t want to practice a procedure on a patient, not until he feels more comfortable trying it out on a simulator.

“Try on what?” he asks, confused. “Try how?”

“Try on me,” Minho says. He puts his forearm out, veins already so prominent on it that Jisung definitely doesn’t need the ultrasound machine to find them. “It’s better to practice on an easy target first.”

“You want me to practice placing an IV using the ultrasound machine… on you.”

“Yeah.”

Jisung snorts and leans in closer. “Is this an excuse for me to pre-lube up your arm before tonight?” he says in an undertone, and Minho meets his gaze and grins, Jisung can tell because of his eyes.

“My arm, huh? Didn’t think we were going to be so ambitious yet, Jis—"

“Dr. Han, Dr. Han!”

Jisung’s flirty mood abruptly ends as one of the Red Pod nurses waves him over, and he shoots Minho an apologetic look and rushes to her. “Thank you for your help, Nurse Lee!” he calls over his shoulder, and then gets completely focused on his patient in room 9, who just started vomiting blood. Fuck.

*

“—it was so crazy, I’m so glad Wooyoung and Dr. Kim were there, that poor woman,” Jisung recounts, slurping noodles on Felix’s couch as he does so. “She’s in the endoscopy suite now, hopefully the team there can fix her ulcer.”

Felix nods, looking worried too. “Dr. Kim is so calm in those situations, don’t you think? I had a patient with a major stroke last week, and she was so cool, so in control, telling the whole room what needed to happen next.”

“Yeah. Hard to believe that’ll be us one day—remember Dr. Bang during that cardiac arrest on our tour? He was amazing.”

Felix’s ears tinge with blush, and Jisung seizes the chance to move the conversation onto less heavy topics; his heart already took a lot today.

“Which reminds me… Nurse Jang said he broke up with his fiancée?” he asks.

Felix’s ears get redder. “Uh. Yeah, that’s what… everyone is saying,” he says lamely.

His tone suggests there’s more to it than that. “Dude.” Jisung pokes his thigh. “What do you know?”

“He’s staying at the chiefs’ apartment,” Felix says. “They broke up on Friday. That’s it, that’s all I know. I haven’t talked to him about it or anything,” he adds, and he seems kinda down about that.

Jisung knows Felix has had a crush on Dr. Bang since day one, but he wonders how far things have gone between them if not talking about recent events is something that Felix finds notable, or even disappointing.

“Do you guys, like, hang out?” he asks, confused. He didn’t believe the theories about Dr. Bang cheating for one second, but…

“No! No no, nothing like that. He helped me find my apartment, obviously, and he brought me a housewarming present, once. Oh, and I took him home after the block one party. But. That’s it.”

Right, Jisung almost forgot about Felix and Dr. Bang disappearing at the same time that night, but he’d figured nothing happened, given Felix’s radio silence on the matter.

“We don’t… text, or. Talk.” Felix puts his half-eaten bowl of food down on the table. “Do you hang out with Minho?” he says, and Jisung knows a counter-attack when he sees one.

“Hey!”

“You said you’d tell me. At work, you said—”

He totally did. He’s aware that among the nurses it’s a known thing, that him and Minho are sleeping together, despite neither of them confirming this to anyone. Apparently Jisung’s very first fuck-up at the nursing area was enough to make Minho’s peers identify Jisung as the current flavor of the month. Months, whatever. The doctors, on the other hand…

He hasn’t really talked to anyone about it, is the thing; not his hometown friends, not his co-interns, and certainly not his family.

“Uh. Okay, so.” He actually really wants to talk about it, he realizes. He is dying to talk about it. “So, um. We met at the welcome afterparty that you didn’t attend due to your delicate disposition.”

Felix laughs, groaning at the memory, and motions for him to continue.

“And then after my first shift he took me to the laundry department to get better scrubs—oh, did you know there’s a way to do that in the basement? Anyway, there was a vibe, and so I took my chances and asked him out for breakfast, but I wasn’t thinking about just breakfast, exactly…”

And as Felix ‘ooh’s and gasps and giggles and pretends not to notice when Jisung carefully skirts the topic of his own emotional involvement, Jisung can only feel grateful. So, so, so so grateful.

*

“And how did that patient do?” Minho asks, breathy, in between kisses. “The—the one with the—”

“She, oh, she made it to endoscopy,” Jisung responds, stumbling with him to his room. “I think she’ll be okay.”

He sucks on Minho’s upper lip and then they can’t talk for a while because Minho pins him against the bedroom door and devours his mouth, tongues tangling, wet suction and a sloppy exchange as they start undoing each other’s pants. Jisung is in sweats so he feels that Minho, in his button-up jeans, has an unfair advantage.

“Are you, hmm, you’re sure you’re okay? We can just sleep, if you’re tired—” he mumbles into Minho’s mouth. Minho is the one who got off work at eleven and then went to his place to change and then came over.

“Sleep later. Sex now,” Minho snarls. “Want you. Now.”

“Hmm, you looked so hot today,” Jisung pants, unable to get those pink scrubs out of his head. “We should’ve—you should never wear those pediatric scrubs in public. It was too much.”

“Too much, hm?” Minho sounds pleased. He got rid of Jisung’s pants and underwear and now he yanks his shirt off, which Jisung allows but then does to him as well.

They fall into the bed, still kissing, Jisung squirming in delight under the weight of Minho’s deliciously naked body, groaning when their dicks rub up against each other.

“You look hot every day,” Minho mutters into his neck. “The green suits you. You looked… you always look…”

Jisung smiles into their next kiss, but there are far away alarm bells ringing in his head. This isn’t the kind of sex talk that usually precedes their getting to the actual fucking. Minho has consistently been jamming his fingers into Jisung’s humiliation button (as well as other places), and they usually fall into their specific sexual dynamic by now. This feels more… raw, more honest than he is used to. He supposes he started it, but he was expecting Minho to turn it around, make it a little mean, maybe make it about how embarrassing Jisung is for being so obviously attracted to him.

What’s weirder is that he doesn’t mind it. At all. They can just have sex without entering into that kind of play, right? That’s normal too. That’s fine, too. Good, even—a change-up, something new.

“Is this new?” Minho asks, when his blind fumbling of Jisung’s bedside drawer produces a fresh bottle of lube.

“We finished the first one,” Jisung admits with a breathy giggle. “So yeah.”

Minho snorts, also smiling, and then he coats his fingers and circles Jisung’s rim before sliding the first one in, slow but assured.

He does not seem to have noticed that things feel a bit… different. Jisung considers and discards the idea of pointing it out, for fear that it’ll break this beautiful, soft environment they’ve created tonight.

Then Minho crooks his finger and Jisung stops considering anything, including thinking, for a while.

“That’s right,” Minho murmurs, an unknown amount of time later, when the third finger goes in. Jisung wants to look away or hide but Minho doesn’t like when he does that at all, so he doesn’t. “That’s my good boy, look at you.” He kisses Jisung again, soft, close-mouthed. “Taking three like that, so good… you could probably take four, right? I’ve never made you take four.”

Jisung’s breathing hitches. “I was… kidding about your arm today, you know that, right?” he says, laughing shakily, and Minho chuckles.

“Not trying to be wrist deep in you just yet, my dear,” he says. “Just love how your little hole feels, wanted to feel it even tighter around my hand.”

Jisung’s dick twitches, and he exhales in a rush. “Uh, okay, yes you can—I can take four, you can give me… give it to me? Please?”

Minho rumbles in contentment and immediately adds his pinky; Jisung feels it, a stretch that’s as big as Minho’s dick, different because of it’s not as deep but Minho is crooking his fingers and moving them in different directions, and it’s, it’s—

“Oh that’s so good,” Jisung gasps. “Oh, that feels so, I’m so… Minho-hyung, I—”

“You got so wet from that,” Minho says, not in response to Jisung at all, moreso to himself. “Fuck, Jisung, you’re… so wet, what the fuck—”

Jisung’s back arches. He can feel it, rivulets down his stomach on either side, he’s dripping on himself, feels so sticky and gross and amazing.

“Fuck. Jisung I need to fuck you,” Minho says in a rush. “Can I? I-I’ll do more of that later, or next time, I promise, but please, can I—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jisung nods, head lolling on the mattress. “Do it, please do it.”

He braces himself for the feeling of Minho’s fingers (most of Minho’s hand) sliding out of him and knows he won’t have to wait long, Minho wouldn’t make him wait too long, not past what he could bear—but it’s seconds. Minho moves quickly like he, too, felt the loss of that pressure, and he gathers Jisung’s legs up for him, scrambling to line himself up and then pushing in with a grunt of satisfaction, of relief.

Jisung groans with relief too, and when Minho starts moving, slow and deep at first, he tugs him down to messily kiss him, kiss his ear, kiss his neck, and Minho’s grip on his hips tightens and tightens.

“Hyung…” he smears into Minho’s jaw. “Fuck me harder?”

Minho’s eyes scrunch shut and then he does, going faster, going harder, mouth hanging open as he finds his own pleasure in it.

Jisung shudders, and sneaks his hand down his belly to give his dick a squeeze. He’s surprised by how wet he is, even though he already made note of it; his hand practically glides down his shaft, and it’s hard to stop once he starts. He’d been planning on a quick touch and release, just to relieve some of the ache there, but he finds himself tightening his grip and moaning, all that sticky slickness making for the perfect frictionless slide.

Minho notices, of course, and huffs. “You like that, huh?”

Jisung can only keen, his nerves sparking, on fire. He jerks himself faster, still leaking, dribbles of precome getting him slicker, and he’s—oh, wait, he’s going to come, he’s going to—

“Hyung—” he gasps, but that’s as much warning as he gets out before he’s coming, adding to the mess on his stomach, feeling so good he’s shouting, brain awash in endorphins, high on Minho, so utterly, pathetically addicted to Minho—

“Fuuuuck,” Minho groans, and Jisung can tell he’s looking at his face, and he dimly remembers what Minho had asked for last time, when he said: Tell me. Tell me how it felt.

“You feel so good inside me hyung,” he breathes, chest heaving as he comes down from it. His favorite sport of late is making Minho lose it right after he does. “Want you inside me all the time, your—your hand, your cock, want all of you, want you to train me until I can take your fist—”

“Fuck.”

The arm Minho was bracing on the mattress by Jisung’s head buckles at the elbow, dropping him down to hover right on top of Jisung. He’s still fucking Jisung through it and he’s still staring, eyes half-lidded with pleasure but roving Jisung’s face so as not to miss anything.

“You feel so good, I want you all the time, the way you make me feel, I love it—”

“Jisung, fuck—"

“I love this, love it so much…”

Jisung moves both hands back to put them on Minho’s ass and grabs one cheek in each palm, encouraging his movements.

Minho is not saying words anymore, just noises, high pitched ‘ah, ah’ sounds from the back of his throat as he moves his hips at a gallop, so fast, so urgent, the best thing Jisung has ever felt.

“Love… love you fucking me like this—”

By the start of it (by ‘love you’) Minho’s jaw drops open and he tenses, shuddering, his eyes going unfocused with pleasure. He looks so incredible when he comes, it is devastating to see up close, and Jisung looks up at him with the awful knowledge that he wishes he could say something else. Something much, much worse, but equally true.

Hyunjin

On Monday of the third week of block two, three days after JYP’s stupid email about the gendered attire rules, and two days after they fooled around in his bed, Hyunjin receives a text from Changbin that says: Hyunjin I would like to talk if you’re willing

It’s basically his worst nightmare come to life, second only to Changbin literally following him into a bathroom at a dumpling restaurant to have a heart-to-heart conversation behind a locked door.

He knows that texting back something immature like ‘who is this’ or ‘talk about what?’ is beneath him, in theory, but the urge is there, so he ends up sitting on the text for twenty-four hours until he can come up with something else. Multiple iterations of a neutral answer get written, then deleted, comma placement consumes his entire brainpower for hours, and he eventually responds with: okay, where and when?

Changbin texts him five minutes after that. Tomorrow after morning lectures? I see you’re not working wednesday, we can grab a coffee and walk around?

A coffee. Ugh. walk around to my apartment, he sends with trembling fingers. I don’t want to do this in public. And then, because he feels bad: if that’s okay w you

That’s fine with me, thank you Hyunjin

See you tomorrow

*

The first lecture of the morning is being delivered by Dr. Bang.

Hyunjin feels Felix spasm in his seat the second Chan walks into the auditorium and suddenly the room erupts in whispers, as though this isn’t a group of thirty resident doctors and about twenty attendings who are here to participate in a structured educational conference. Gossip rules supreme, apparently.

“Felix, are you okay?”

Felix is frozen and mute, staring ahead and not blinking. Thankfully he is sitting on Hyunjin’s right side, at the end of the row, and they are in the back of the room so no one else saw his reaction to what just happened.

Jisung leans toward him from Hyunjin’s left, thus leaning entirely across Hyunjin’s lap. “Yo. Felix, have you seen him since the break-up?”

Felix shakes his head. He looks very pale, to Hyunjin. If Hyunjin has ever looked so obviously affected around Changbin he would prefer, simply, to drop dead.

“Hi everyone!” Dr. Bang says, with a cheerful wave and a deep bow to his audience. He looks hot because he is, but there’s something else about him that catches the eye this morning. His shoulders are more relaxed, maybe, thus appearing broader? Or the stress and frown lines around his face seem smoother, so he’s even more handsome? “Today, we are going to talk about delivering babies and complications during childbirth! It’s a pretty rare event in the ER, but it is an absolutely essential skill for us all to have so that we can serve people with uteruses as best as we can. If you’ll take a look at my first slide over here, the anatomy…”

The lecture is so good that Hyunjin is almost mad about it. He wants to raise his hand and ask ‘Hey, why have you spent the past couple of days making such a great power-point instead of calling my hot friend up to finally consummate your undying love?’

Unfortunately the hour concludes with Felix still completely nonverbal, and Hyunjin having learned a ton about the scariest procedure he can imagine performing in his career. The applause is noticeably louder and more raucous than it usually is for their Wednesday conference lecturers—rivaled only by the cheers Changbin got before and after his Morbidity and Mortality presentation the previous week.

“He’s so good,” Jisung says, clapping enthusiastically. “Felix, you need to tap that for the sake of, like, the future of medical education.”

Hyunjin rolls his eyes. He is not clapping out of principle, and out of loyalty to Felix. “I wish Seungmin was here,” he mutters.

“Aww, I miss him. And I miss Jeongin, too,” Jisung says. “We should check in on him, ask him to get dinner with us or something. Are you guys working tonight?”

“I’m off, but I can’t tonight,” Hyunjin says. Felix still doesn’t speak, so he speaks for him. “Felix is in scrubs because he has a shift that starts right after the lectures, so he can’t come. You should, though. Maybe ask both of them? Do you have Jeongin’s number?”

Jisung nods and takes out his phone. “I do. He and I have a special relationship.”

“Ew.”

“Not like that, unfortunately. He looked totally grossed out when I suggested that we make out to make his crush jealous, even though I would have done it selflessly out of the goodness of my heart—”

Hyunjin tunes him out, though he knows that Jisung is probably being extra rambly and silly to distract Felix and make him feel better, and he appreciates that a lot.

All three of them watch as Dr. Bang leaves the stage and walks over to sit with the other attendings, several rows down from where the interns are. It doesn’t escape Hyunjin’s notice that Chan picks one of the seats furthest from JYP.

“You could go say something,” Hyunjin suggests, but Felix shakes his head immediately and he totally gets why.

The rest of the morning passes uneventfully; Felix refuses to get up to get coffee during the break so Hyunjin and Jisung stay with him, and Chan doesn’t look their way even once, either walking out or back into the auditorium. Then noon arrives, and it’s Hyunjin’s turn to pale, though he didn’t tell his co-interns why he was busy tonight. He knows him and Changbin will realistically talk for an hour at most and then he’ll be free, but he will need the night to emotionally recover.

JYP stands up to announce conference is over and dismiss them, and all the residents start filing out of the auditorium. No one mentioned the attire rules, either on the resident’s behalf or on JYP’s, but Hyunjin is certain that their lack of compliance was noted, and is sure there will be follow-up.

Chan is talking animatedly to Dr. Kim down by the attending seats, so Felix walks out with Hyunjin and Jisung, having not exchanged a single look with him, let alone a word.

“I have to wait for someone,” Hyunjin says, when they get to the hospital lobby.

He’s kind of honored; he gets Felix to speak for the first time in four hours. “Huh?” Felix says. “I thought we were your residency friends.”

“Yeah, what the hell dude?” says Jisung, pouting. Hyunjin almost has a cuteness-aggression attack at the sight of his puffy cheeks. “Who are you waiting for?”

“Changbin.” He gives Felix a threatening pinch behind his back so that Jisung won’t see.

Felix yelps, which unfortunately defeats the stealthy purpose of the pinch.

“Changbin? Are you in trouble with the chiefs?” Jisung looks concerned, but he also didn’t miss Felix’s exclamation. “Or are you… not in trouble with the chiefs?”

Changbin has entered the lobby, and Hyunjin is done with this conversation. He walks away from Felix and Jisung, ignoring Jisung’s cry of “Yah! Hyunjin-ah!”

“Ready?” Changbin asks. He’s wearing slacks and a dress shirt, technically in compliance with JYP’s stupid email—but his nails are all pained rainbow colors.

Hyunjin inwardly approves, but outwardly sighs. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

*

They skip the coffees in favor of walking directly to Hyunjin’s apartment, which is closer to the hospital campus than the chief’s place. He also lives alone, of course, which is better because there will be no risk of San and Wooyoung overhearing him have a panic attack at the prospect of talking about his feelings. Thankfully they do not run into Jisung, or any of the residents from other departments that Hyunjin knows live in their building.

“Oh my... Hyunjin. Holy shit.”

Changbin’s face, when Hyunjin lets him into his studio, is quickly overtaken by an expression of pure awe. Hyunjin tries to look at it from an outside perspective: the amount of art hanging around (and strewn around) is a little excessive, he supposes. It’s also messy; he didn’t stage his drawings and paintings in any particular way in preparation for this visit, all he did was some editing and took the incriminating ones down. He is extra glad of this now because Changbin is flitting from one corner to the other in the room, making sure to look at every single one of them. There’s no way he wouldn’t have seen.

“I remember you mentioned you liked drawing during your rotation, I just didn’t realize…” He sifts through the sketches on the desk, and stares at the current project on Hyunjin’s easel (an anatomically loose interpretation of the cranial nerves and the brainstem in oil, which is stalled in progress). “I didn’t realize… you’re so… good. Wow.”

He is too kind. Hyunjin shudders at hearing himself be called ‘good’ but Changbin is too distracted to see him do it, which is lucky. Changbin doesn’t need to know how much power over him he has.

“What.” Hyunjin clears his throat, makes his voice nicer. Kinder, like Changbin. “What did you. Want to talk about,” he manages.

That gets Changbin to finally look at him.

“Do you want water or something?” He has to look away, so he goes to the little kitchen area and fills two glasses with water even though Changbin didn’t respond. “I also have snacks, I’m assuming you didn’t eat lunch yet. We can—”

“Hyunjin.”

He can’t feel his fingertips. He is going to collapse from the anxiety.

“I just wanted to know why you did that. On Saturday.”

Again, he fights the urge to be childish. Did what? He knows what he did.

He turns around, and finds Changbin closer than he thought. His place is not large, but if things went Hyunjin’s way Changbin would be standing at the literal opposite end of the room (if things went Hyunjin’s way Changbin wouldn’t be here to talk).

“I.” He wants to give Changbin a good answer, something that’s true without revealing too much of his affliction. Changbin deserves that. “I wanted to. I was… turned on, I wanted to make you feel good.”

Changbin keeps looking at him, as though he expects more.

When more doesn’t come, he gives Hyunjin a slow nod. “Okay.” He swallows. “Okay, so it was a—a spur of the moment thing.”

Yes and no. How to explain? But he can’t tell him that Hyunjin is, at every moment, seconds away from pouncing on Changbin and his perfect fucking muscles. That would go against his resolution to keep his psycho side to himself.

"You didn't do it out of some... misplaced... gratitude, right?"

Oh please, Hyunjin was so grateful to jerk Changbin off he should have thanked him for allowing it, after.

“No. Are you asking because you’re afraid I’ll do it again?” he says.

Changbin blushes. “Um. I wouldn’t say ‘afraid’, exactly.”

Oh.

Hyunjin pushes off the kitchen counter, walking up to Changbin so they are standing right in front of each other. Changbin’s shirt buttons are straining at his chest, Hyunjin can see how tense the fabric is from up close. The urge to cup one of those pecs in his hand again makes his palm tingle—the thought of cupping both of them, pushing them together—

“Do you want me to do it again?”

Changbin gulps. “We. Regardless of what I want, it wouldn’t be a good idea. For us to… do anything like that. Going forward.”

“Because I’m your intern.”

“Right.”

Hyunjin is amazed at those buttons, actually. They must have been reinforced with surgical knots or something; when Changbin breathes it makes a little gap appear in the shirt. “It’s frowned upon.”

“Yes. For good reason.” Changbin scratches his neck. “I’m in charge of your schedule. I evaluate your performance on shift. I’m your senior.”

“My chief,” Hyunjin corrects, soft.

“Right.” Changbin lowers his hand. “Okay, I. I guess I was confused about how you felt, so I wanted to clarify things. So now I… understand.”

His tone seems to imply the conversation is already over, and he’ll leave. It does not, however, imply clear understanding, no matter what he said.

Hyunjin was dreading this afternoon so much, but now—

“I’m obviously really attracted to you Hyunjin, but it’d probably be best for us not to—”

“Do you ever think about that night?”

Then he catches up to what Changbin said, but it’s at the same time as Changbin hears him.

“I do, I think about it a lot.”

“Wait, best for us not to what?”

He tries to think past the compliment, the admission, it’s not like he didn’t know Changbin is attracted to him, they did have a lot of sex that one time, and he has seen Changbin look at him, everyone looks at Hwang Hyunjin. It still lights him up inside to hear Changbin say it, except he follows that up with—

“Not to. Uh. Have sex again.” Changbin says.

The lights in Hyunjin go out.

“Oh.”

Changbin is looking at his face with an uncertain expression.

“Did you… want to?” he asks.

Hyunjin’s hackles raise, the thought of vulnerability, of admitting to something like that even if it’s the tip of the damn iceberg of things he wants from Changbin, is horrifying.

“Did you?” he counters, his tone cold.

And then Changbin—gorgeous, kind, residency president Changbin, says: “Well… yeah.” And coughs. “Doesn’t mean we should, but. I thought that was pretty clear.”

“Oh.”

Again, it’s not technically new knowledge. Which doesn’t explain why Hyunjin’s reaction is so excruciatingly intense: the lights inside him turn on again but they get so supercharged that the system overloads, causing a short-circuit that burns the fuses.

“I guess…” Changbin gives him a once-over. “I guess I’ll go back to how things were. Like we said when you, uh, first started. Pretend like nothing happened. That’s… what you want, right?”

No. No no no no no.

But Hyunjin can’t have what he wants.

“Okay,” he says. “Yeah, okay.”

And just like that, a mere fifteen minutes after he arrived, Changbin leaves. Hyunjin was right, about needing the evening to recover, but he should have known it would take more than that. At this rate he isn’t going to recover from Changbin until residency graduation.

*

He gets an email from a random administrative person a few hours later regarding his violation of the new guidelines put out by the program director, and the fact that it will be noted in his record. JYP is cc’d on it, and amidst his angst Hyunjin feels a curl of satisfaction at the thought of that asshole having to send dozens of these all afternoon.

Jeongin

hiiii this is jisung u free for dins after your shift today?

wanna get dumplings? a return to tradition?

also I texted seungmin abt it fyi hope you are basically over him by now! or had steamy callroom sex and didn’t get MRSA—you owe me an update we haven’t caught up!!!

Jisung is so sweet, but Jeongin has not made it to either scenario, much as he wishes that wasn’t the case. He did respond affirmatively that he’s interested in dinner, though, which is why he is getting ready to head to the dumpling place now that they have finished evening sign-out. Everyone in the surgical conference room is packing up to go home except the overnight call team. Seungmin is off tonight too, obviously; him and Jeongin have identical schedules for another week and a half.

He didn’t have a chance to mention his joining the dinner to Seungmin; the day got too busy and Jeongin spent a lot of it in the operating room, but he hopes Jisung did. He hopes Seungmin won’t be too displeased to find him there, also. He doesn’t want to be the annoying medical student with a crush on his resident, the pining trainee who follows him around everywhere; he has been working really hard the whole rotation to stay out of Seugmin’s way and not be a bother.

“Jeongin, you look so cute—got big plans?” Hongjoong asks. He’s been the saving grace of August, Jeongin thinks; he feels so awkward around Seungmin since the party, so it’s been nice to hang out with someone as fun and cool as Hongjoong.

“Awh, thanks.” He did take a bit of extra care with his hair in the bathroom earlier, and added a smudge of eyeliner to his waterline. “I have dinner plans with my friends.”

“Yay, have fun!”

He grins, and then feels a hand on his shoulder.

“Shall we head out?” Seungmin asks, and drops his hand.

Jeongin blinks, heat creeping up his face at the sudden uncharacteristic touch. He wasn’t expecting it from Seungmin at all.

“Uh. Yeah. Jisung-hyung told you I was coming?”

Seungmin nods. “Of course.” He seems cool, unaffected, in control.

Jeongin hopes this is one of those times where Seungmin is projecting those emotions more than feeling them, but he honestly can’t tell right now. He’s feeling too far from calm himself.

*

“So what’s your next rotation, Ien-ah?” Jisung asks.

“I'm in the medical ICU. I’m kind of nervous, those are the sickest patients, I want to do well.” He dares a look at Seungmin, who is eating his soup dumplings in silence. “I really like my resident team on surgery, so I hope the ICU team is also nice.”

It’s pretty subdued at the dumpling place tonight—the staff warned the trio that they’d be closing early, so they had to get their orders in quick. The owner, a sweet woman from Beijing who knows Jeongin by name at this point, said she was only making an exception because of his special cuteness today.

“Hm. I heard the ICU team is much bigger during the day; sometimes rounds can include up to twenty staff, according to Jung. But… aren’t you on ICU next, Seungmin?”

Seungmin nods, and Jeongin thinks, for a moment, that they are joking.

“So you’ll have an ally!” Jisung is smiling, but it’s apologetic; he can clearly tell Jeongin and Seungmin haven’t sublimated their love on the occasionally-clean sheets of the call room, nor has Jeongin found the warm embrace of a rebound during his time in the surgery department. “That’s great!”

Wow. The universe giveth to Jeongin (say, a sushi restaurant closing indoor seating) and then it taketh away (say, yet another month of close proximity with the object of his affections who rejected him).

“Jung made it sound as though the schedule is a bit better than surgery,” Seungmin tells him, reassuring. He doesn’t meet his eyes but it’s in the usual Seungmin way, not in a way that denotes he’s uncomfortable. “When I rotated in the ICU as a medical student they actually didn’t assign any twenty-four-hour call shifts to me; I think the critical care team might let you go home with the day staff.”

“Where did you do your ICU rotation as a med student, hyung?” Jeongin asks him.

“I did it here.” Seungmin smiles. “I did my ICU, neurology, internal medicine and psychiatry rotations at SNUH. My parents were pleased.”

Pleased. Not proud. Well… it’s something. Jeongin has missed asking Seungmin questions; he should have asked what his parents thought of him heroically placing that chest tube, or whether he’s told them.

Wait. He still can. “Did you ever tell them about the chest tube?”

Seungmin does dart a gaze up at Jeongin’s face, then, so their eyes meet. “I did.” He smiles again, while looking into Jeongin’s eyes. Oh. “Neither of them has much experience doing that procedure, so I think they were impressed.”

Jeongin smiles; a huge grin he can feel splitting his face, but he’s just so awed, so proud. “That’s amazing. Hyung, I bet you they were proud, even if they didn’t say it.”

Seungmin ducks his head, but he seems happy. “Thanks. I hope so.” He coughs. “How are your folks doing? Are you still calling them every other day?”

“Oh, they understand I can’t always do that on surgery, I’m trying to get them more into voice notes…”

They catch up, essentially, for a little bit, as though they haven’t been in the same department for over two weeks. It’s nice. It reminds Jeongin that even though Seungmin doesn’t like him back, and doesn’t want to more-than-kiss-him enough to overlook their relative academic positions (sigh) he is still Jeongin’s favorite, and part of what’s been feeling shitty recently is the fact that Jeongin has been missing him. Maybe Seungmin really doesn’t mind if Jeongin chats with him once in a while again, instead of avoiding him all the time? Maybe he meant the ‘friends’ part of his ‘just friends’ request?

Jisung goes to and comes back from the bathroom to them still chatting, and Seungmin trails off when he notices. Then he scratches the back of his neck and stands, pointing to the back of the restaurant. “I’ll use the bathroom too, be right back. We should head out soon.”

He steps away and Jeongin watches him go, heart full.

“Wow.” Jisung blinks. “He really talks to you.”

“Hm?” Jeongin turns to him. “What do you mean?”

“No, I mean—he talks to me too, obviously; to all of us. But he’s different with you. Sometimes I feel like getting Seungmin’s life story is like he’s at a job interview? Nothing wrong with him being a bit more private, but he doesn’t really open up easily, does he?”

Jeongin had felt that a little bit initially, he supposes. But he had figured ways around Seungmin’s natural reticence; ways to make him comfortable enough to speak more freely by offering up some of this own insights.

“Oh.” He’s not sure how to respond.

Jisung puts a hand on his arm. “How are you doing? About… you know.”

Jeongin sighs. “I talked to him at the block one party. He’s not… undecided. At least not about wanting me.”

Jisung’s jaw drops, and then he starts to grin—

“But he still said no. I mean, I think the hierarchy thing is really important to him. Not the age difference, obviously—” They are literally one year apart. “—but the fact that I’m his med student. We are in rotations together for three months, how unfair is that?”

“What about after rotations?” Jisung says. “Can’t you get together after that? And then, you know, get married in a few sensible years?”

“I’m—no, I don’t think so.” Trust Jisung to spell out exactly what Jeongin has dreamed of for weeks. “He said he wants more, but he meant, like… more physically. I don’t think he likes me like that. Plus I’m going back to Busan for six months after my ICU block, to study for the residency entry exam and finish up med school classes.”

“Hmm… I’m not sure I agree about him not liking you, Ien-ah, I really—oh! Seungmin!” He waves him back, and then shoots Jeongin a ‘this isn’t over’ look, but they do need to leave the restaurant, so it’s over for that particular night.

*

After a weekend of chores and clothes-shopping with Jiwoo (who picked up Jeongin’s vibe on keeping things platonic and rolled with it) Jeongin embarks on his last week of the surgery rotation. His last call shift is on Wednesday, and it is incredibly busy. Seungmin misses the morning lectures with his classmates again, and he never complains about it but Jeongin can tell that it affects him—he seems the kind of person who needs quality time with selected others, and Felix, Hyunjin and Jisung are part of those others, for Seungmin.

They don’t get any sleep, and there are no breaks to go to the call room, but Jeongin feels freed by his own internal decision to stop holding back from spending time with Seungmin. He has decided to take the ‘just friends’ at face value, and figures Seungmin will tell him if he’d rather avoid him, and so far Seungmin hasn’t. In fact, he has seemed very pleased to spend more time together the past few days, ever since their dinner with Jisung when Jeongin changed his mindset.

It's been really nice. Less sexy than Jeongin had hoped back when they first met, but nice.

When the twenty-four-hour shift finally, finally ends on Thursday morning, he feels so good about it that he actually walks up to Seungmin in the corner of the surgery offices. This time, they are the only two (in addition to Hongjoong) packing up to go home after morning sign-out, while everyone else is starting their work day.

“Want to go to breakfast, hyung?” he asks, smiling. “We deserve a treat after all that, right? We could get pancakes.”

Seungmin’s eyes focus on him after a slow blink. He looks adorably tired; Jeongin would love to feed him a bunch of pillowy dough and then make sure he gets to bed safely for a long, deep sleep.

“I… want to.” He leans in a little, so they aren’t overheard. He looks down at the floor. “But I’m not sure.”

Jeongin’s heart falls. “Oh. Why?”

Seungmin puts a hand on his shoulder, another uncharacteristic initiation of physical contact. He’s been doing the hand on the shoulder intermittently all week. It still startles Jeongin a little.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “But we’ve both been awake for over twenty-four hours, which is the equivalent of a significant blood alcohol concentration.”

“…Oh.” It’s bad, probably, that Jeongin finds that flattering. But he likes the implication that Seungmin worries about being alone with him when he’s the equivalent of drunk. He did say he couldn’t control his reactions around Jeongin.

“Do you feel drunk?” he asks him, just as quietly. “Do you feel altered?”

And Seungmin says: “I always feel altered around you,” with a shrug.

Jeongin blinks.

The last person (Hongjoong) just left the office, so they are suddenly alone, and Jeongin’s ears are ringing. He can’t… he can’t believe Seungmin just said that?

“You…”

“I’m not trying to imply that I can’t control my actions,” Seungmin adds. “It just seems like we’d be courting physical discomfort.”

Jeongin blinks again. “Physical. Discomfort.”

Seungmin, squirming in a chair, wanting to kiss him but knowing he can’t, shouldn’t. Seungmin, flushed from the urge to reach out and touch Jeongin but forcing himself to make regular, friendly conversation as though they have a platonic mentor-mentee relationship and nothing more. Seungmin, wanting Jeongin to bite his neck again, wanting that touch he so clearly enjoyed, wanting and knowing he can’t have it, so opting to avoid a situation in which he knows he’ll be turned on just because he’s near Jeongin. The way he’d said Jeongin’s name in that stairwell was so hot, the clipped, breathy Jeongin. Jeongin-ah. Ien-ah, ah…

Jeongin is going to be in physical discomfort soon.

“Yes. Does that.” Seungmin’s hand is still on his shoulder. “Do you understand?”

“Uh. Yeah, I think so.”

“Do you still want to have breakfast together?”

Jeongin looks at him, confused. He’d thought that explanation was a rejection.

“Do you… want to do it despite the discomfort?” Seungmin clarifies.

Something about his voice is… vulnerable? Softer than Jeongin is used to hearing. He’s not sure what it is about the way Seungmin asks that question, but it makes him feel all gooey and sweet.

“I don’t mind discomfort to spend time with you,” he says.

Seungmin’s hand shifts to his upper arm, the move inelegant, almost jerky. Almost like he’s holding on to Jeongin, instead of providing reassurance the other way around.

“…Okay. Let’s… go, then.”

Jeongin smiles, and feels the fingers on his bicep tighten.

Seungmin

It’s worth it. The discomfort, the way exhaustion and arousal make him clumsy so that he fumbles his words and drops his chopsticks twice, it’s all worth it to prolong the already endless day. To be in Jeongin’s presence for just an hour more, because twenty-four wasn’t enough.

Chan

A little under two weeks after his break-up with Nari (or Nari’s break-up with him, really), Chan speaks to Felix for the first time.

He knew it was coming, because he checked the schedule. They are assigned to work together on Red Pod for the day on Thursday: from 7am to 7pm, Chan, San, Felix and Jiwoo are staffing the main area of the ER.

It’s the last week of the second block, and time is flying. Despite an improvement in his work hours brought about by the chiefs’ overbearing scrutiny now that he’s staying with them, Chan got absolutely no wink of sleep the night before. Instead, he spent the entire time sending texts and emails attempting to finalize the arrangements for the big resident-attending forum that will be happening covertly from JYP, in order to discuss the unreasonable, prejudiced ‘guidelines’ and JYP’s general awfulness as PD. The date is set for two weeks from now, which is too far away but was still the closest day where they could guarantee maximal attendance along with JYP’s absence, since rumor has it he’ll be away at a conference. At this point most of the residents, chiefs included, have gotten emails about violating the dress code, and Changbin forwarded Chan both of his; received on Wednesdays after the morning lectures. They seem increasingly serious, and there is mention of it going on his record, which Changbin scoffed at, but Chan doesn’t want it to affect his job prospects, or anyone else’s.

He has booked the large auditorium under a guise and he has confirmed almost everyone necessary. He has also put feelers out to the hospital board to secure a meeting without telling them what the subject is yet, which is a difficult and frustratingly subtle process to undertake and which, again, has been slow.

By the time he finished sorting everything it was 5am, and he had to get ready in an hour, so he used the time to paint his nails with Wooyoung’s black polish in support of the resident’s cause. JYP is not his direct supervisor, and he can badmouth him to the chairman or to board but he can’t directly influence Chan’s career anymore.

He arrives to his shift with a pounding headache, and he expects—no, he knows that putting on a professional face around Felix and pretending he can’t hear the gossip about his break-up from everyone else will make it worse.

What actually happens is that the sight of that blond head with his hair in a ponytail makes him so lightheaded with nerves that the headache vanishes, and then everything gets replaced with how good it feels to be around Felix.

“Hi team,” he greets them, smiling at Jiwoo, at San, and then—at Felix, who gives him a smile back.

Chan has missed him so much.

“Is the overnight team ready for signout?”

Dr. Yoon nods, and they all go over the active patients on the ER board, discussing pending tasks, assigning residents to take over the care of each of them (and assigning everything under Chan as the supervisor). After making sure everyone has a plan in place, they dismiss the others and start seeing the new patients that have come in.

Chan gets busy enough evaluating people, discussing things with San, getting pulled in to answer questions from the nurses, making his own calls to consult services, but inevitably the moment comes when Felix has to come talk to him about his assigned patients, and present the new one he’s seen.

“Hi Dr. Bang, do you have a moment?” he asks.

It’s them and Jiwoo at the doctor’s station; San is seeing a patient but the clerks are sitting a few feet behind them, and it’s the opposite of privacy, really. So Chan just nods encouragingly and keeps his professional mode on.

“Absolutely Felix, go ahead.”

Felix’s presentation is good, his plan for the patient is well-thought out, and he impresses Chan by saying: “And I already started giving her magnesium through the IV, I hope that’s okay but it seemed risky to delay it…”

“It was the right thing to do, Felix, pre-eclampsia is incredibly dangerous so you never want to delay treatment. Thank you for doing that.”

Felix’s eyes flicker to Chan’s right hand as he types into the chart, and Chan knows he’s noticing the nails, but he doesn’t say anything, and so Chan doesn’t either.

It’s surprisingly easy, to keep said professional mode on the entire time. They maintain it for hours, in fact; Chan gets pulled in so many different directions, the volume of people coming in keeps rising, San takes care of a very sick elderly person who needs the ICU, a trauma comes in from the intersection near the hospital and thankfully gets stabilized, and on and on they go.

Around mid-afternoon, Chan is discussing one of Jiwoo’s patients with her when Felix quickly walks up to them.

“Dr. Bang, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’m worried about the patient in bed twelve,” he says, eyes full of concern.

Chan stands up immediately, motioning apologetically to Jiwoo and following Felix to the room. The patient in bed 12 likely has a kidney stone, but they also spiked a temperature recently, so the kidney stone might be infected. If that’s the case, they can become sick with sepsis very quickly.

“What is it?”

“Their blood pressure dropped suddenly, I think they are in septic shock—”

“You started antibiotics?”

“Yes, but this all just happened…”

The patient is indeed in septic shock, and in addition to calling the urology team immediately Felix asks Chan if they should place a central line. A central line is no ordinary IV; it’s placed with sterile technique and it goes into the patient’s internal jugular vein.

“Yes. We’ll start norepinephrine though the IV in their arm, but I think we should. Have you done a central line before?”

Felix looks nervous, but just as he did when they very first time met, he pushes past it and speaks with resolve. “Only in simulations, but I think I know what to do.”

“Good. I’ll be with you the entire time, don’t worry.”

They set up, talk to the poor patient despite his drowsiness and confusion, and then Chan helps Felix put his sterile gown on, and watches as Felix smoothy puts on his sterile gloves.

“Dr. Bang,” the nurse motions to Felix’s head. “Your intern isn’t wearing a cap.”

Both Chan and Felix do a double take.

“Oh.” Felix frowns, staring down at his gloved hands. He can’t touch his own hair without breaking sterility and restarting the whole process. “I’m sorry, I—I forgot about—”

Chan makes a dismissive motion with his hand. “Felix, it’s okay, it happens to all of us. Me included, to this day.” He means it, too, he did this last week; it’s hardly the medical error of the century. “I’ll put it on for you, okay?”

He walks up behind him with one of the hats that came in the procedure kit; a translucent green material that fastens with a rubber band lining, much like a shower cap.

The patient is sick and this procedure needs to happen right away, so he doesn’t let himself hesitate or pause to think about the fact that he is gathering Felix’s hair in his hands, piling the soft ponytail up towards the crown of his head and placing the cap over it. He can’t hold his breath the entire time, so he does at one point inhale a lungful of that scent that he—remembers. But he exhales right after and keeps going.

“Let me see?” He murmurs, and Felix turns a little, not looking at him.

The strands that frame his face are still out, so Chan gently tucks them into the hat as well, lifting the lining. He’s not wearing gloves so he can feel the skin of Felix’s temples as he slides one, then the other safely into place, repositioning the cap after he’s done. Felix’s freckles stare back at him. His fingers don’t tremble, and his breathing is even when he’s done, but if his jaw is clenched behind his mask while he’s working no one needs to know.

“Okay. All set. You’re ready to start.”

Felix nods. “Thank you, hyu—doctor. Dr. Bang.”

The nurse is still in the room. She is hanging up another bag of fluids for the patient, and doesn’t say anything.

“You’re welcome.” He can’t pat Felix on the shoulder because he’s in the sterile gown, so he gently touches the back of his head in the cap before moving away. “You’ve got this, Felix.”

Felix, after holding still for a frozen second, gets started.

*

Their sign-out at the end of the shift is fairly quick and painless, and Jiwoo takes off right after, happily citing a date.

San looks from Felix to Chan and says, after a pause: “I’m gonna head home, I was gonna cook for Wooyoung.” He’s still watching Chan. “Should we… expect you later, Chan-hyung?”

He does a good job with the emphasis on ‘later’, not on ‘expect’, so that Chan doesn’t have a coronary spasm right then and there, in the middle of the doctor’s station in front of everybody.

The implication, of course, is that San and Wooyoung would like to be alone for a while and Chan can come back to the apartment later in the night, as opposed to San asking whether they should expect Chan to come back at all. For any reason.

Chan’s reason for most things is staring at his computer, midway through typing up a patient history, but his fingers aren’t moving on the keyboard.

“O-of course, I can come later. That’s… not a problem.”

“Great. I’ll put the leftovers in the fridge for you if you want.”

“That’s nice of you, San, thanks.”

San leaves.

Felix starts typing again, and Chan is standing over him awkwardly; the night team is still around them, and then there’s everybody else, too; the bustle of the ER never stops, never sleeps, the beeps, the alarms, the multiple overlapping voices. He should leave and go find a bar to linger in for a few hours while he waits for San and Wooyoung to do… whatever it is that San and Wooyoung do.

“You found an apartment for me faster than you found one for yourself?” Felix asks quietly, still looking at his screen. He finished the chart, and clicks ‘sign’. He looks up at Chan over his shoulder, and gives him a small smile. Chan dissolves to the floor in every way but the literal one.

“I’ve had other stuff on my mind.”

Felix nods, understanding, still with those warm eyes. Chan doesn’t know how to tell him that he didn’t mean Nari; he actually meant him, and that he’s been leading the effort to make this hospital a better more inclusive place for everyone, but that he’s been doing it for Felix, specifically.

“Sounds like that stuff has rendered you temporarily unhoused.” Felix turns fully in his seat. He’s still speaking at the exact pitch that will prevent them from being overheard. “Want to get dinner with me?”

*

They decide to grab take-out and eat at Felix’s. It’s not Chan’s idea, but he lets it happen; he had brought a change of clothes, not with this in mind but… he has jeans and a T-shirt in his bag. So he quickly sheds his scrubs in the locker room and him and Felix leave together.

They chat about their patients, about the August weather, about how it’s been for Chan to live with the chiefs, carefully skirting why he is there. The conversation is easy; bits of English sprinkled in, references to home. Felix finally points out that he painted his nails and Chan asks for his honest opinion on his technique, and ends up belly-laughing at the polite way in which Felix smiles and blinks in response.

He feels… giddy, in truth. He can’t pursue this thing with Felix yet, he gets that; it’s way too early, for one, and Felix doesn’t even like him like that, for another. He is also still very much Felix’s attending. But there is a future, now, that exists, and is possible, where… eventually, they do end up together. He might be able to make Felix like him someday, and in four years Felix will graduate from the program and a relationship between them won’t even be frowned upon, it’ll be—allowed, and he would wait ten years, fifteen, for Felix, but he might not have to. Four years is nothing in the face of such a bright, blinding light at the end of that tunnel.

Once at the apartment, Felix suggests they eat on the couch, and he places the containers on the table in front of him and invites Chan to sit while he goes into his room to quickly change. Chan wonders whether another catastrophe will happen here tonight, but hopes they might survive unscathed, for once.

Then Felix emerges in a giant New York Knicks hoodie and his hair in a looser ponytail, the front strands almost brushing his exposed collarbones because the neck of the hoodie is huge—and Chan stops wondering whether a crisis will occur, and starts worrying what it will be.

His brain-to-mouth filter malfunctions around Felix all the time; right now, on no sleep for over a day, jittery and nervous and single, he is liable to fuck things up beyond repair. The sober black hair-tie Felix wore at work has been replaced by a fluffy pink scrunchie. He is in shorts.

Chan has to keep it together. He has to.

“You look lovely, Felix.” Okay. That’s… not the worst thing he could have said, he has to take the win.

Felix blushes lightly and sits down next to him, grabbing the nearest takeout container. “Thanks, hyung. I like being comfy.”

“You look it.” Chan smiles, not looking at his bare knees. Despite his renewed stress over his own ability to not fuck up, he does so love getting to be near Felix, and he feels so lucky to sit next to him like this. He feels so lucky that he’s gotten to have all this time with him tonight; he wishes San and Wooyoung eternal happiness.

“Shall we?” Felix asks, gesturing with the food container.

Chan grabs his own and grabs a pair of chopsticks, and they bump the containers together like champagne glasses before starting in on the soups. They stayed nice and warm, and it’s not the best soup Chan’s ever had, but he’s eating it next to Felix, so… it’s the best soup he’s ever had.

They eat quietly for a bit, both starving after barely getting by on snacks during the busy shift.

“So… do you want to talk about it?” Felix asks finally, carefully spearing a fish ball with his chopsticks. “You don’t have to. Only… only if you want to.”

Right.

“You heard about me and Nari?”

Felix snorts delicately. “The patients on the twenty-third floor heard about you and Nari, hyung.” But then his face falls, and he turns to look at Chan with worried eyes. “Sorry, that was so insensitive—how are you doing? How… how are you holding up? Are you okay? I’m so sorry.”

Chan nods, smiling to show that he’s fine. Because about that, he really is.

“I’m holding up okay, Felix. She ended it, but it was… for the best.”

“Oh.” Felix still looks worried. In fact, he looks more worried. “She did?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re okay with that? You’re sure.”

Chan’s smile broadens. “I’m sure, Felix, I promise you.”

“What happened?”

“She found a paper bill in the mail, if you can believe it.”

“A paper bill! How is that a thing these days?” Felix snorts, less delicately. “A bill for what?”

“For this pl—” fuck fuck fuck fuck. “Oh. For.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

He had worried it was coming, the inevitable fuck-up, but he did that so fast. He… he can’t believe he just did that.

Felix looks confused.

“A bill for this…” His gaze breaks away from Chan’s (surely panicked) stare and he looks around the apartment. “A bill for this place?”

He looks pleasantly confused, still, but it seems to be dawning on him that Chan is—Chan looks—Chan doesn’t know what he looks like but he can’t get his brain to work, he can’t—

“Hyung? Why did you get a bill for this place? I thought you just co-signed the lease, but I didn’t think they were sending you the bills. Was there a mix-up? I’m listed as the bill-payer, right?”

And the thing is, is he can’t bring himself to lie to Felix again. Even with the excuse served up to him on a platter like this: yes, there was a mix-up, Nari misinterpreted things, she thought I had a kept lover in a secret apartment because they sent one of your bills to me by mistake. It would all be true, except for the last two words.

He can’t do it.

“Hyung?”

“I.” He swallows. “I might have. Listed myself as the bill-payer and you as a subletter.”

Felix frowns. “Why?”

“So that.” Will they recover from this? “So that you didn’t… have to… pay the full—"

Felix starts breathing faster.

“The full amount?” he finishes, his accent thicker than ever. He looks horrified. His lower lip wobbles. “The full rent?”

“Felix—"

“Oh my God,” Felix breathes, and gets up. He walks a few steps, aimless around the nicely decorated living area, so quaint and cute, so welcoming with its big windows compared to that awful place he was in. “I-I knew it was… I had a feeling, I, it’s too nice, I should have—but I was so tired and I believed you.”

Chan feels his own eyes burn with impending tears. “I’m sorry, Felix it was—I’m so sorry, I went a little crazy. I fucked up. I just—I was so worried about you, and—”

“How much? How much more?”

“N-not that much, you’re paying a little over half—”

“So you’re paying a little under? Half the rent?” Felix looks around the apartment again. “Oh God, I’m so stupid. I’m such an idiot, why didn’t I question—”

No. Chan is actually going to cry. “Felix you’re not stupid, I’m the idiot, I should have told you from the start. I’m so sorry—"

“But why…? Why would you do that? Hyung, I—how am I supposed to—I can’t repay—”

“I don’t want you to!” Chan puts his arms out, waves them in denial. The only reason he hasn’t stood up as well is that he feels like he doesn’t deserve to; he should be lower, he should be kneeling on the ground, in fact. “I don’t want anything in return!”

“I don’t understand.” Felix sounds so hurt, so confused. Chan did this. “I don’t understand, why would you…?”

“Felix, I-I like you, okay?”

Fuck it. There.

There, he said it.

“…What?”

He can’t lie to Felix anymore.

“I like you. A lot, I-I… really, really like you. And I did this crazy thing. Because I was worried about you and I can get a little… extreme, for the people I…” There’s honest and then there’s frightening. “…like.”

Felix is staring at him, eyes shining but still no tears falling down. His mouth is open in a sweet ‘o’ of utter shock.

“You…”

“Like you. Yes.” The urge to slump to the ground is so strong; if the table wasn’t in the way he would do it. He would crawl to Felix’s feet from there. “I’m so sorry. I know that doesn’t justify what I did—I know that might make it worse, actually, but I want you to know the truth. And to maybe… understand—”

“You like me.”

Chan nods again.

Felix takes a couple of slow steps back towards the couch, towards Chan, then stops again.

“You like me?” he says.

“Yes.” Chan would crack his chest open and show him, if he could.

Felix takes another step; he’s closer, now. One more step and their knees will touch.

His beautiful features are slack with the revelation. In his agitation, one of the loose locks of hair went into his face and it’s partially caught there; strands of it in his eyelashes, cheek, and stuck to the side of his mouth. When he exhales the hairs puff out.

“I’m sorry,” Chan says, and he’s too sad to cry, actually. His brief giddy hopes are gone, his dreams of courting Felix in time, of flirting with him outside the context of work, of slowly getting him to see that maybe Chan could be good for him, or at least strive to be for the rest of his life…

Felix takes the final step, and then one more; he’s standing between Chan’s knees.

Chan stares up at him with unhealthy adoration, lips parted, heart thundering in his chest, blood rushing in his ears. Felix is breathing hard, still.

Their eyes meet, and then Felix cups Chan’s cheek in his palm, lifting up his face a little. His other hand tucks the strand of his own blond hair back behind his ear.

Then he leans down and kisses Chan on the lips.

Chapter Text

Felix

Chan makes a noise like he’s dying and kisses back immediately; there’s no lag time where he processes what’s happening—it’s as if his body knows it was made to kiss Felix and has been waiting to do it since before they met.

Felix opens his mouth to deepen the kiss and Chan reaches up to hold Felix’s face in his hands and press them closer together, inhaling sharply through his nose, lips parting to match him, meeting his tongue hungrily. Felix knees onto him, bare shins to Chan’s jean-clad thighs, their mouths never separating, and then he has to wrap his arms around Chan’s neck to steady himself as they keep kissing, such good, deep, frantic kissing, he never wants to stop. He feels one of Chan’s hands sink into his hair, the loose ponytail loosening further for Chan’s fingers as Felix groans softly, sucking on Chan’s tongue. Chan moans, and then his other hand leaves Felix’s face to wrap around Felix’s waist and pull him all the way into his lap.

Felix’s shins slide from Chan’s thighs down to the couch, thighs spreading as he’s seated on the space between Chan’s legs, and he can’t stop kissing him, the words I like you ringing in his ears along with Chan’s quiet, eager noises, little moans and cut-off whimpers that catch at his throat, and he’s so—delirious, so happy, he is kissing Chan, finally—

“Oh my God, Felix,” Chan pants, parting their lips by pushing their foreheads together. “Felix, I like you so much, but we can’t—”

Felix whimpers and dips in to kiss him again, and Chan reacts immediately again, opening for him, groaning as his arm tightens around Felix’s waist, pushing them flush together. They are both pawing at each other, urgent touches, Felix digging his fingers into Chan’s scalp and tugging at Chan’s hair, and Chan is cupping his head very delicately but the arm pulling Felix to him is not gentle; it feels like the desperate hold a man uses on a lifeboat.

“Felix,” Chan gasps again, and Felix leans down to his neck, needing the closeness, needing the taste. “F-Felix, oh my God, we shouldn’t—”

Felix rolls their hips together and Chan’s breath hitches, and then he moans, and moves him forward on the next roll to pull him in harder.

“Ah. Felix.” It’s not a protest—none of the times he’s said Felix’s name have been. Felix is sucking on the skin under his ear, riding the stiff length of Chan through their pants, turned on out of his mind because Chan is hard under him, and Chan said I like you a lot, he said You’re really pretty, he said Felix with the devotion a priest reserves for the deity they have chosen to spend their life serving. “Oh, Felix, Felix, baby, sweet baby you’re gonna—you’re gonna kill me—”

The endearments make Felix flush all over, his own dick twitching in his shorts. He goes back to kissing Chan on the mouth, those plush lips, that clever tongue, the pace of his desire far ahead of the thoughts in his brain, the high of it driving reason to a deep dark corner he can easily ignore. He’s keening, grinding his hips on Chan, and Chan seems to have given up on getting Felix to engage in conversation because he is letting Felix use him, helping Felix use him while he rambles in the moments between kisses, when Felix breaks for air.

“Baby, perfect baby,” he breathes. “You’re so perfect, oh my God Felix I want you so much, I like you so much, you’re an angel, you’re perfect, you’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen…” Felix growls, rolling his hips with the encouragement of Chan’s big hands on his little waist, bunching up the fabric of the giant hoodie. “I’ve been thinking about you since I met you,” Chan goes on, looking up at Felix still. “I’m so—into you, fuck, I keep thinking about—that night I knelt at your feet, and how I wish I could do that all the time, I—" Felix stops before interrupting him to kiss him again, needing to hear what comes next. "I-I think about you every night. I dream of—of—"

But Chan cuts himself off, something fearful in his eyes, and Felix is so turned on, so hard, but Chan stopped talking, and if he's not talking and they're not kissing then something must be done about that.

“You…” his voice is guttural, so deep with arousal. He stops grinding on Chan, breaths ragged. “You… think about me… every night?”

Chan hasn’t looked away from Felix’s eyes. He still looks a little bit afraid; the priest made an offering, he is waiting to see if his God will accept it. “Felix. I think about you all the time.”

Fuck. The joy in Felix’s stomach is going to bubble over.

“I…” it occurs to him that he hasn’t said anything back. That Chan is happily letting him get off on his body without even knowing he is corresponded, while Felix was too busy kissing him to utter a word. “Chan-hyung.”

A tremble. “Hm?”

“I think about you too.”

Felix sits down more fully, blinking past his fog of want. He looks directly at Chan’s face, and cups it in his sweater paws. He lets himself finally look his fill; this face he adores, this face that he… loves.

“I really like you too,” he says.

Chan looks stunned.

“You… you do?” His chest rises and falls. “Felix.” His fingers dig into Felix’s waist, sharp even through all that fabric. “Felix. You do?”

Felix nods, smiling.

“But I-I’m so…” Chan stutters. “I’m nothing. I-I’m nothing, and you’re so perfect, so precious, and I—”

“Hush, don’t say that.” Felix leans in to kiss him, close-mouthed, intending to peck him quiet, but Chan responds with such force that Felix is pushed backwards, a hand coming up to brace him between the shoulder-blades so Chan can devour his mouth without him losing his balance.

“Fuck, sorry,” Chan slurs into his lips. “Fuck. Oh my God, Felix, I can’t… I can’t believe this.” He kisses his cheek, the tip of Felix’s nose, then leans up to kiss his forehead. “I can’t. I don’t deserve this. Fuck.”

He kisses his mouth again, and Felix lets him, but only for a little bit before he pushes Chan back. Chan has tears gathering in his lashes.

“Hyung,” he murmurs. “Why would you say that? Why would you say those things?”

Chan looks strained, a wretched apology in his gaze.

“I—I’ve been awful,” he says. “I don’t deserve… your forgiveness, or your kindness, but I… I was just so worried about you. Felix I-I’m so sorry I lied to you.”

“Hyung.” Felix shakes his head. “I am upset that you lied, and I am… upset about what you did, about the apartment, but I forgive you.” In truth, he’s too happy to feel upset at all. He understands he should be, that Chan shouldn’t have lied to him, that he can’t let Chan keep paying half his rent so he might have to move again, but Chan… likes him. Chan said he thinks about him all the time, the way Felix thinks about Chan.

Chan’s forehead falls onto Felix’s chest, and he takes a deep inhale through his nose. Felix cradles his head in his hands, letting him rest there.

“I don’t deserve this,” Chan says into his sternum. “I don’t deserve to… touch you.”

“That’s for me to decide,” Felix says. “And I want you to touch me.”

Chan’s shoulders hunch, and he turns his head slightly to smush his face into Felix’s chest even more. He’s still breathing deeply, and Felix waits him out, his heart-rate coming down a little bit from where it shot up to at Chan’s first I like you, okay?

After a couple of quiet minutes pass, however, he becomes aware of the fact that Chan’s breathing sounds more like Chan is… sniffing him.

He looks down at the crown of his head.

“I love the way you smell,” Chan mumbles, perhaps sensing the unasked question. “I wanna suffocate in it.”

It’s so painfully blunt, spoken as a fact. Felix feels his dick twitch, because he may have calmed down a little but he never entirely lost interest in the proceedings as they related to him being in Chan’s lap.

“You… wanna suffocate?” he echoes helplessly, and yeah, having been caught out Chan is now doing it openly. He tips up to smell the neck of the hoodie, at the skin its oversized collar exposes, nosing into the sensitive hollow at the base of Felix’s throat.

“Yeah, Felix, I wanna be smothered in you,” he breathes, an honest exhalation. “I’ve been dreaming about it.”

“Dreaming. About me… smothering you.” Felix recalls his own recurring dreams about the ways in which he’d like to cut off Chan’s air supply, and he’s suddenly back to being so turned on it’s clouding his vision. Could it really be that Chan has been wanting the same things he does?

“I know I shouldn’t be—I know we shouldn’t, it’s so soon, and you’re… an intern, I know I shouldn’t…”

Felix’s response to that is to push at Chan’s shoulder until Chan tips sideways, not from the brute force of Felix’s shove but because he becomes instantly malleable to what Felix clearly wants him to do. Chan goes from sitting on the couch to lying down on it, with Felix still on top of him.

“I don’t care about ‘should’,” Felix says. “Do you?”

Chan’s ears are bright red, his lips parted. “I only care about what you want,” he says in a rush.

“I want what you want,” Felix says, wrestling his massive hoodie off. He’s shirtless underneath.

The way Chan looks up at him is enough to make him lightheaded, drunk with power. He feels like he could ask for anything, and Chan would find a way to do it—like he could ask for the moon and Chan would quit his job as an ER attending tomorrow to enlist in the KASA space program immediately.

“Felix,” Chan breathes, enraptured. “You’re so pretty, how. How are you so pretty, I… can’t…” He leans up a little, his own shirt bunching, abs tensing under Felix. “You want to smother me, too? H-how…? Do you want me to use my mouth on you? Because I want to use my mouth on you, I-I want to taste you so bad—"

Felix can feel his cheeks flaming red, and he is temporarily at a loss for words as he remembers his specific fantasy in the shower while Chan slept on his old couch, remembers dreaming of Chan begging to put his mouth on him while Chan actually begs to put his mouth on him in reality. Here. Now. Fuck.

He holds the waistband of his loose shorts and tugs it down over his hipbone, just an inch to expose the cut line of his pelvis.

He finds some words. “You want to taste me… here?”

Chan is staring at the exposed skin like it holds the secrets of the universe, and then—he surges upwards, moving so that it’s suddenly Felix landing flat on his back with a huff, and Chan is pulling the shorts the rest of the way down. Felix didn’t have underwear on with them, he’s exposed completely, and Chan squeezes his legs, one in each grip. He shoulders his way in closer, between them. He’s staring at Felix’s flushed, pink cock as it curves up onto his stomach.

“You’re so pretty,” he breathes, reverent. “So, so pretty Felix. The most beautiful thing. The most perfect.”

He bends down to brush his nose against Felix’s abs. Felix lets out an overwhelmed sound and then Chan kisses the taut skin under his belly button.

“My pretty baby,” Chan murmurs, kissing down to Felix’s thigh on the right, then travelling to the left, lips dragging against soft skin but skipping Felix’s dick in favor of giving the crease of his groin a wet, suckling kiss. “Felix. Fuck.”

But Felix can’t take it anymore; he feels like he’s been waiting since that day in the shower, he feels like he’s been hard for weeks, and he needs it. He puts his hand in Chan’s hair and tugs him to where he wants him, trying to direct his face and that perfect mouth to where Felix desperately needs them.

Chan dives in before Felix has to pull him all the way there, once again quick to comply as soon as he senses Felix wants something—and he goes right down between Felix’s legs, tongue swiping over his hole.

Felix cries out, and Chan grabs his legs and puts them over his shoulders without moving his face from where it’s buried inside Felix, greedily kissing, licking, lightly sucking on the skin there, making Felix spasm.

“Ah, h-hyung oh my God—”

His dick is leaking on his own stomach, so hard, and he feels so good he wants to close his eyes but he can’t look away from the dark mop of Chan’s head under him, the wide berth of his perfect shoulders in the thin black tee. His heels dig into Chan’s mid back like he’d also imagined before, and he’s moaning, shaking, he can’t believe this is happening, Chan squeezing his tongue into the tight ring of muscle there, pushing through.

Felix tightens his grip on Chan’s hair at a particular jab, feeling himself open to him, wanting so much more.

Chan pulls away for a second, panting. “You can—ride me, if you… You can drive—” he says, and his voice sounds so strained too, like this is doing to him what it’s doing to Felix. He goes back in right away, doing something with a corkscrew motion that makes Felix’s thighs shake, and Felix wants to sob from good it feels. He bends a leg to push his ankle into the back of Chan’s head, tentatively rocking his hips into that glorious tongue while he tugs Chan closer with the hand in his hair.

Chan shudders under him, and Felix pushes his hips down again just to check—and Chan whimpers, redoubling his already impressive efforts. A scrape of his teeth to Felix’s rim makes Felix yelp, and he shoves his hips down a little harder and notes the way Chan groans and reaches down to press a palm to his own groin, where a sizeable tent is apparent even though he still has his jeans on. So Felix takes him at his word and lets go, riding his face like he asked. His heel digs into the back of Chan’s head, leverage for Felix to grind his hips down, and Chan’s noises take on a grateful, plaintive quality that makes Felix’s gut clench with desire—he’s so close to coming he knows all it’d take is a pump of his own hand on his dick, but at the same time he doesn’t want this to ever end, not when Chan sounds like he’s in heaven, so eager and so happy, whining and groaning in encouragement.

“Hyung,” Felix gasps, tilting his chin up in the air. Things have gotten to the point where if he keeps watching himself fuck Chan’s face while Chan digs the heel of his hand into himself that alone might undo him, too. He drops his leg from behind Chan’s head. “Chan-hyung, I-I—I’m so—I need—"

Chan is fitting most of his tongue in there by now, and he replaces himself with two fingers without issue. “What do you need?” he asks. Felix makes the mistake of looking down again and sees the flushed, swollen lips, the wet chin, the half-lidded eyes, and he can’t wait anymore.

“I need you to fuck me,” Felix breathes. “Please, please I want it so—”

He hasn’t even finished asking, but Chan pulls his fingers out to sit backwards and get off the couch, and then before Felix can try sitting up he finds himself being gathered in Chan’s arms.

“I’ll give you whatever you want,” Chan murmurs, lifting him up in the air in a bridal carry, like Felix weighs nothing.

Felix looks up at him and feels that his heart will burst while Chan walks them to his room. “I want you,” he says, and Chan sets him down on his own bed. “Now, please, Chan.”

He points to his dresser and Chan goes right away, opening the first drawer when Felix nods. He comes back with a condom and lube, but before he can join him in bed Felix puts a hand up to stop him, and Chan stops, standing at the foot of it. He’s panting but he patiently waits to be told what to do next.

“Take off your clothes? Please,” Felix asks, and Chan immediately obeys, stepping away to take his shirt off, and his pants and underwear, and Felix—stares.

He knew Chan was fit, he could see the muscles suggested by his clothing, even under the scrubs and white coat. But… “Oh my God,” he murmurs, watching as Chan climbs in with him, and he brushes his fingers down Chan’s washboard abs, feeling the ridges and bumps of muscle there, trailing his palms all over that skin, down to his hard dick. The heft of it is… impressive. “You’re so—wow. Fuck. Oh my God, hyung, you look…”

Chan is watching him with a flushed, embarrassed smile. “Oh, that’s not—baby you’re so sweet, you’re so sweet to me.” He takes the lube bottle and coats his fingers in a generous amount, bringing one to Felix’s hole, and Felix brings his hands from Chan’s front to his lower back—then lower, to the generous curve of his ass. He wants to map out everything. Chan’s body is incredible.

“Not sweet, just… honest,” he says hoarsely. “You’re so hot. Fuck, hyung, you’re so—” Chan shakes his head. “Your body is amazing,” Felix insists.

“Felix—” Chan is squirming while fingering him, somehow, shoulders hunched up to his ears. “I-I… I don’t…”

Okay, they’ll have to come back this—he hopes they can.

“Okay, it’s okay, hyung.” Felix kisses the top of his head. “I want you inside me now, okay? I’m ready, please.”

“Yes baby, just—" Chan adds a third finger, the stretch made easier because of how open Felix was from his tongue already, and Felix is ready, he knows it, he can feel it.

“Now, hyung,” he pleads, wrapping his legs around Chan’s hips, trying to nudge him forward with his heels. “I’ve been thinking about this for so long, please I want it, I want you.”

Chan huffs and, like he seems to always, does as Felix asks.

He sinks into Felix slowly, both of them staring at each other while it happens, the joy and the pleasure of it almost too much, Felix thinks again that if he touches himself he is going to come, but he holds off still because he doesn’t want to miss it—the way Chan’s jaw hangs open, the way he pulls almost all the way out just as slow and then goes back in, making sure to ask Felix: “Is this okay? This feels good, baby? Are you okay?”

And Felix can only nod and urge him closer, faster, harder, the endearments making him blush so happily, and he looks up at Chan and can tell that Chan is happy too. It’s amazing, it’s so amazing, Chan is inside him, Chan is not straight, Chan is not taken anymore, Felix is going to take him, Felix is going to keep him for himself—

Soon Chan is sweating from the effort, but his pace is not flagging even for a second. He’s angling his hips for what feels good to Felix, holding Felix’s pelvis up so the angle is best for Felix, everything for Felix, and Felix has never felt so good in his life, but…

“Can I ride you?” he asks, wanting Chan to take a rest, remembering the obvious exhaustion he walked into shift with all those hours ago.

Chan blinks sweat from his eyes and slows, closing his mouth and inhaling through his nose. Something about his posture shifts, other than him literally shifting sideways so they can slowly switch positions without him pulling out of Felix. It has to do with the way his jaw tenses, maybe, or the strain around his eyes.

Felix remembers the noises Chan made earlier, when Felix used his face, and stores the question away for another time. He hopes beyond hope there will be many other times to address all these things, forever.

“Like… this?” Chan asks, a tremor in his tone. Felix settles over him and knows he’s right when he sees the way Chan is looking up at him. “You wanna… use me like this?”

At ‘use’ his voice actually cracks, and Felix braces his hands behind himself on Chan’s perfectly cut thighs. “Yeah. Is that okay?”

Chan trembles under him, and nods.

Felix lifts and lowers himself up a few times, speeding up, and he can tell Chan is fighting his own orgasm by the way he’s tensing, the way he seems to be almost holding his breath. The knowledge is heady—Chan is clearly trying to make sure Felix comes first, but he is visibly struggling; thighs clenching under Felix’s hands, abs contracting, and his entire frame shudders every now and then. His facial expressions alternate between a grimace of tension and the throes of ecstasy, but tension is increasingly taking over.

Felix ignores the burn in his legs and chases his own ending, finally unable to hold off anymore, feeling his hair stick to his face and his neck as the scrunchie falls off when he bounces up and down.

“Felix,” Chan gasps, reverent. “Felix, oh. You look. Are you… close? You look so happy, so—so good, are you feeling good? Does that feel good, baby?”

“Yes, yes, you feel so good hyung you’re so good so good to me fuck—"

The strain around Chan’s eyes escalates to panic, his hands fisted in the sheets by his sides, but Felix isn’t going to make him hold out any longer—he finally allows himself to grab his own dick and pumps it, just once, and comes all over Chan’s perfect abs, crying out and shaking, spasming with how good it feels. He moans at the feeling of fullness and the white-hot, bone-shaking relief that courses through him; it feels like he’s been building up to it for so long that the release takes an age, too—so much pent-up pleasure that his body needs time to process it, suspending Felix in the climax for an eternity. He closes his eyes and his head falls back, lolling while he jerks himself off until he’s so sensitive it’s uncomfortable, and has to let go, an unknown amount of time later.

Distantly he can hear Chan’s shallow breathing. Felix opens his eyes and looks down, and as he shivers with aftershocks he notices that Chan’s chest got splotchy and flushed, and his face is bright red, his eyes unfocused.

“Hyung?” he croaks.

Chan’s jaw is hanging open. His mouth looks obscene.

“Did you…?”

Chan looks like he did, in fact, just come. “Y-you looked so pretty,” he whispers in explanation. He sounds wrecked.

Felix folds over him and leans down to smile into his chest, huge and bright.

“I like you so much,” he whispers, grinning. And then he starts to giggle. “So so much. Oh my God, Chan.”

Chan brings his arms up to half-hug him, the angle a bit complicated with him still inside Felix, and they should pull out and adjust themselves so they can lie together, but there is no rush.

No rush at all.

Chan

Chan wakes up with a mild headache and the feeling of sorrow one gets after having the most perfect dream. He’s caught in mourning for several long moments, the realization that his wildest hopes sublimating was all in his imagination almost too horrible to bear.

Then Felix says: “Is seven hours a new record?”

And Chan opens his eyes to find him in his arms, not a dream, not his imagination: real. Felix likes him too. They slept together—not just had sex (though there was nothing ‘just’ about it) but slept, all night in the same bed.

“Oh my God,” he croaks, gazing at Felix with all the unfettered adoration he had been fighting before.

Felix smiles, freckled and beautiful in the morning, sunlight in his blond hair.

“You slept for seven and a half hours,” he says.

Chan kisses him. He’s never had bad morning breath, Nari used to point it out—anyway, neither does Felix, or Chan’s brain can’t register anything about Felix as bad, it doesn’t matter because Felix is kissing him back, arching into him, embracing him just as tightly.

“I thought I dreamt it,” Chan admits, mumbled. He kisses Felix again, just to reinforce the knowledge in his brain that he didn’t. “I thought…”

“I’m here.” Felix smiles and kisses his nose, then puts their foreheads together. “I’m so happy you’re here.”

‘Happy’ is insufficient, to Chan. He can’t remember when the last time he slept for seven hours was, but now he knows where the headache is coming from, and he never wants to leave this bed.

“Felix.” They are so close that Felix’s face is blurred. Maybe that’s how he finds the courage to say what he needs to say next, because they didn’t talk properly last night, and they need to now. “…I don’t want to stop seeing you.”

He should. He needs to. This night should remain a magical, perfect memory that sustains him for the next four years, but they shouldn’t do it again. Felix should choose something better, someone better—and if not that then he should at least wait until they are at a more even training level, until Felix is an attending, too.

Felix stills. “…I don’t want you to either.” He blinks slowly. “Don’t. Please.”

Chan pulls away slightly, so they can look into each other’s eyes. “Sweet baby. You know we shouldn’t be doing this.”

It’s dizzying, to see Felix’s coffee-colored freckles this close.

“I do. But.” His lower lip wobbles, and he doesn’t say anything more. He’s searching Chan’s face, beseeching.

Chan forces himself to get the words out: “I’m your teacher. When we’re on shift, I’m your boss. I might not be your direct supervisor within the program, but this is not okay.”

Felix blinks. “I. I know. But. I still want to be with you.”

“I’m turning thirty next year.”

“We’re only… five years apart. I don’t care about that, at our age.”

“We’d have to hide,” Chan forges on. It’s killing him, but he has to. For Felix, he has to. “For years. And it’ll put your career at risk, especially if I can’t get JYP fired.”

“Okay.” Felix takes one of Chan’s hands in both of his own, holding tight. “We can hide. I don’t care about that.”

Chan’s heart is pounding. “Felix.” What did he do to earn this? How is he entitled to this perfect creature’s attention and affection? He’s out of things to say, out of roadblocks he wants Felix to carefully consider, but they still exist. They are still there.

Felix puts their joined hands on his own chest, so that Chan can feel his heartbeat.

“If…” Felix swallows. “If this was a bit fast, for you, and you need time to… get over Choi Nari, I-I would understand—”

“Oh, no.” Chan shakes his head, firm. “No baby, I… haven’t had feelings for Nari for a long time. Since before I met you. I just… didn’t plan on meeting you. I didn’t realize I could feel this way for someone.” He kisses Felix for good measure; chaste, this time. “I promise.”

Felix’s anxiety seems to ease at that, and he smiles. He whispers his next words like a secret: “I… really thought you were straight until last month.” Chan feels his jaw drop. “I owe Jisung an apology, he literally suggested you could be bisexual on the first day, but I figured… I don’t know. I never thought…”

“Felix. I’ve been into you this whole time.”

Felix giggles. “I’m sorry!” He’s so pretty.

“You’re so pretty,” Chan tells him. “I’m… really crazy about you, Felix.” The emphasis, here, being on ‘crazy’. “I feel… uh. Like I’m out of my mind. With how much. I.” He can’t say it. It’s still insanely early to say it. “Like you.”

Felix doesn’t look scared. In fact, his smile hasn’t dimmed at all. “I’m crazy about you too,” he says, tucking his hair behind his ear.

He said ‘we’re only five years apart’ and ‘we can hide’ and ‘please’. He said ‘I still want to be with you’. Being with Chan could get him fired, it could get him expelled from SNUH, it would, at the very least, be the talk of the department for months if anyone found out, without even going into the tanking of Chan’s career in medical education. They shouldn’t be doing this. They shouldn’t do this.

“Felix.”

“Please, hyung,” Felix says softly, voice extra deep. “Please let me have this.”

And Chan… folds.

He feels it happen; something inside of him, some innate part of his programming that immediately caves to Felix’s every whim, Felix’s every demand. His body, his mind, in perfect synchronization, say: ‘yes’. Felix wants something; Felix gets to have it. It’s in Chan’s power to provide, of course Felix gets to have it.

“…Okay baby. Yes. I. I want this so much, too, yes—"

Felix gasps happily and throws his arms around him, hugging him tightly. He kisses Chan’s ear, his cheek, his neck, squirming against him and sighing. “I like you so much, Chan, I really like you—”

Chan can’t fight the urge any more: he nuzzles into Felix’s hair, taking a hearty sniff of it, the flowery scent that’s been driving him mad for weeks. Months. “Gah, been wanting to do this for ever. I can’t believe you couldn’t see it—the morning after I took you home, when you—took your phone from me, on the couch. I almost got hard from just—” he sniffs again. “The way you smell, and having you so close, I was. So overwhelmed.”

He'd bolted out of there within seconds, after feeling a pulse of hot want he wasn’t allowed to feel. It wasn’t entirely unlike the heat he’s feeling stir now, with his nose buried in Felix’s hair, with Felix naked in bed with him. With Felix wanting him back.

“I jerked off in the shower while you slept right outside,” Felix mutters in his ear, and Chan’s spine tenses like he got a shock.

“You—what?” The image is arresting. Felix, wet, touching himself, trying to keep quiet—Chan pictures it, coloring in all the details from what he knows of Felix’s body now, the constellations of freckles he can’t wait to memorize, and the way Felix sounds when he moans, and Chan was just a few feet away? He missed it?

He pulls away from Felix’s hair to ogle his face again. Felix is blushing, but he’s also smiling. “Sorry?”

“That’s so fucking hot,” Chan breathes, and kisses him, rocking their bodies together like a wave, and Felix makes a noise of approval and gets on top of him. “Felix. Fuck, what did you…? What were you thinking about?” He wants to know what Felix wants, what Felix likes to picture in his head, if Felix ever uses toys, if Felix would consider, one day, just… just letting him watch…

“I thought about you,” Felix says, moving his hips over Chan’s, sliding their dicks together. Chan is already most of the way hard. “I thought about you on your knees for me.”

Chan’s hips jut up without his permission, and he lets out a breathy noise he didn’t intend either.

Felix’s eyes light up at that. He reaches down to fist Chan’s cock and slowly pumps while he keeps talking. “I thought about fucking your mouth, and I—came so hard, thinking about—if you heard me, if you found out, would you still have done it—”

Chan bites his lip and sees it, superimposed with the glorious view he has of Felix hovering above him; he would have been so shocked, to find out, and he knows that in reality Felix would never have asked but in the fantasy that doesn’t matter, Chan would have dropped to his knees in a second, he would do anything to make Felix feel good.

“Would you get off on it?” Felix asks, hair falling forward around his face. “Would you like that?”

A blurt of precome from his dick answers the question for him, but Chan gasps anyway. “Y-yeah, baby I’d… the idea of you making yourself feel good is so… fucking hot, I-I would… if you could u-use me to… make yourself feel good…”

His legs move restlessly on the sheets, his hips itching to hump and rut into something, Felix’s hand feels so good wrapped around him, but—Felix lets him go.

Chan gasps and Felix moans, which is when Chan realizes Felix switched his grip from Chan to himself. He jerks himself off, faster than he was doing to Chan, his mouth prettily open, his lashes fanning over his cheeks.

“Felix,” Chan groans. “Oh my God, you gorgeous thing, you…”

“Ah.” Felix moves into his own grip, but he’s holding his weight over Chan with one arm for leverage, and that’s not—

“Let me,” Chan rasps, the idea blooming fully-formed. “Let me eat you out while you do that. Please. Please.” Oh God just the thought of it has him twitching, dick dripping on his own belly. “Please, Felix, if you want—” Chan wants it. Chan wants it more than anything. “Do you want…?”

“Yes, yes—"

He slides down so that Felix doesn’t have to move, doesn’t have to do anything but touch himself, until Chan is right under him with his legs hanging off the edge of the bed, but that doesn’t matter, nothing matters other than Felix’s pleasure. He pulls Felix’s hips down by the wings of his hipbones, ready, eager to suffocate, tremulous at the thought of burying his face in there again—

“H-yung,” Felix pants, thighs clenching to prevent Chan from taking him fully. “I—won’t I crush—"

“I want you to,” Chan pulls a little harder. He’s a lot stronger than Felix, if he pulls hard enough he’ll fall on top of him, and isn’t that a thought. “I want to eat you out, please let me. Pretty things like you deserve to get eaten out.”

Felix still hovers, but something changed. He sinks his free hand into Chan’s hair.

“Is this.” His voice is a bit higher than usual. “Is this like… princess treatment?”

Chan smiles, leaning up to kiss the strip of skin leading to his hole. “Yes, baby, you’re my princess and I want my pretty princess to sit on my face.”

Felix makes a whining sound Chan hadn’t heard from him yet and finally lowers himself down, most of his weight on Chan’s mouth and jaw, and it’s everything Chan has ever wanted.

He sucks into Felix’s hole, gentle with the puffy skin, noses his way forward to nudge behind his balls, then back to licking inside Felix, silent as he can be so he can hear Felix’s noises.

He is generously rewarded for his service; Felix whines and keens and sighs out these little high moans that make Chan’s hips buck up into the air, dick as hard as he’s ever been. “Hhhng, oh hyung, Chan-hyung, oh s-so good, yes, yes, yes, yes…”

A contentment that comes from somewhere in his core resonates deep within him, vibrating like a gong, the satisfaction of knowing he is making Felix sound like that, that Felix is feeling so good thanks to him. He swirls his tongue around Felix’s hole and Felix’s grip on his hair tightens and he twitches his hips down, and—the deep vibration increases, Chan has to muffle a whimper into Felix’s skin, feeling out of his mind. Yes, he wants to beg, yes please use me, please I’m yours please I want to be yours, your property, your toy, you can discard me after if you want, just—right now, use me use me use me—

Felix does it again, rocking down rhythmically, moans rising even more in pitch, and Chan’s world is pink and hot and slick with spit and all he can smell is Felix and he can’t see and Felix is all he can hear and he’s going to—he can feel the coil of orgasm coming, the clench of heat is overwhelming, the gong at the base of his spine rings and rings, he’s never felt more aware of his nerve endings, he’s never felt less like he’s contained by his body, he doesn’t know his own name, all he knows is Felix—

“Hyung I’m—ah, ah I’m gonna, fuck, fuck—”

Felix shudders above him and Chan spears his tongue inside of him, feeling him clench, and then Felix lifts up, pulling Chan’s head back by the hair. His chest is heaving, the hand on his dick stopped and is gripping himself at the base. “Can I, can I fuck your face, Chan please,” he gasps, and Chan moans “Yes,” and tips his head up, moaning again when he feels Felix slide past his lips, hard and silky and straight down to this throat.

He can’t breathe and he’s never been happier, Felix grips his hair and fucks Chan’s mouth without delicacy, without the tentative gentleness with which he lowered himself down on Chan’s face earlier, Chan is in paradise.

“Hyung-ah, ah, I’m—you feel too good I’m gonna come, can I, can I come inside you hyung, oh hyung please can I—”

Chan sucks harder and hollows his cheeks in response, and Felix whines and clenches around him, thighs snapping shut over Chan’s ears as he comes, and Chan can’t help it, the hand that reaches down to palm himself, the way the warmth overflows for him, too, because he did it, he was good for Felix, Felix got what he needed, and Chan can now—Chan’s mind goes blank as the satisfaction of his success fills up all the space taken up by his thoughts. He made Felix feel good. He made Felix come. He made Felix whine like that.

Eventually he feels Felix slip out of his mouth and pet his face, or paw at his face, really, his hands too clumsy for organized motion just yet. Chan’s eyes are still closed, brain empty of anything that isn’t pleasure and Felix and the echo of reverberation in his spine fading slowly.

“Thank you, ohmygod hyung… you…” Felix trails off. “Wait. Again?”

The mattress dips above Chan’s head as Felix falls onto the bed in a heap, panting, and Chan opens his eyes. He arches his neck back to look at him, unable to move more than that just yet.

“I missed it again?” Felix pouts, and Chan understands then that he means he wanted to see Chan come.

“Next time, baby,” he pants, grinning. God, he’s happy.

“Hm. Okay.” Felix motions for him to come back up to him, and Chan had thought himself too wiped out to do so much as twitch, but Felix is asking, so he forces himself to climb to the head of the bed, lying next to Felix, both of them sweating and close to each other, having ruined the sheets completely. Chan uses a corner to wipe his come off his abs and makes a mental note to do Felix’s laundry for him later. Or maybe just buy him new sheets. Oh, he should research what the best thread-count is and buy him the nicest, top-of-the-line bedding…

Gods, he’s going to spoil him rotten.

Felix is as debauched-looking and messy-haired as Chan has ever seen him. Chan tucks some hair behind his ear with clumsy fingers, and presses a close-mouthed kiss to his forehead. Then they just rest for a few moments, looking at each other, catching their breaths.

“Felix,” Chan says, once his respirations have come down to a manageable rate.

Felix tips his chin at him, prompting him to speak in response to Chan’s switch back to a serious tone.

“I really, genuinely thought you had a crush on Mingyu.”

Felix groans and punches him in the shoulder. “Oh my God, stop it!” he shouts in English. “I’ve had a crush on you since the day we met! Mingyu was never in the picture!”

Chan giggles, a sound he hasn’t heard himself make in years, and takes another sniff off the crown of Felix’s sweaty head. He is swatted away, Felix making a growl of faux-annoyance, and then they play-fight with exhausted, orgasm heavy limbs, ending tangled up together in a hug, Felix laughing breathlessly into Chan’s chest, and Chan is a contained implosion of joy, and he didn’t even know he had the capacity for such contentment within him.

Minho

Minho has several problems.

He has fallen for the guy he’s supposed to be having casual sex with, and he is discovering the pains of heartbreak for the very first time, and that fucking sucks. But the problem he is currently facing has to do with a text he received from Jisung when he was about to head out of his apartment to meet him for another night of fun. He has the crop in his tote bag, and a freshly purchased collar he was going to gift to Jisung, something pink and leathery and pretty and expensive, with a circlet that’s supposed to sit right under Jisung’s Adam’s apple. He also packed a paddle in case Jisung was interested in getting hit a little harder tonight, and a small part of him wants to re-establish their sexual dynamic because last time was… different, he got so carried away in Jisung that he forgot what Jisung wants him for.

But then: hey I think maybe Im not gonna be a good lay tn im so sorry hyung

can we raincheck?

Jisung has never canceled. Ever. If anything he will often try to see Minho more, not less. And now Minho is worried, and knows it’s outside of his well-delineated, well-negotiated purview to worry. But he is. It’s choking him. He’s so fucking worried—is Jisung okay? Why would he say that? Is he ill, does he have a fever? Doctors are the worst patients, is he in some sort of critical condition on his couch hoping it’ll pass on its own? Has he even told anyone other than Minho that he’s on the brink of death?

In the end, it’s the concern that wins out. For all Minho knows Jisung is suffering in silence, and that cannot stand.

that’s okay

see you at 10 anyway

*

Jisung opens the door for him with an expression that is very hard to read.

“Hey, hyung,” he says, and his tone makes Minho’s skin crawl.

He looks awful, which for Jisung means his eyes are puffy from what are obviously recent tears, and his face is pale.

“I’m not here for sex,” Minho clarifies, and walks inside. He doesn’t miss the flash of relief that passes Jisung’s features.

“Okay.”

Jisung shuts the door and slowly follows him, and Minho is glad he came. This isn’t right; Jisung looking quiet, looking tired.

"I can either drop this off and leave or drop this off and stay. Either is totally fine by me, okay?" He starts setting containers of food on the kitchen table, and maybe today will be the day when it finally collapses in a heap. Minho cooked a lot of food—he remembered Jisung mentioning how he tends to be too tired to cook for himself after shifts, and knows Jisung worked today because that was the reason they’d scheduled a later meet-up.

"Thank you. Please, stay, I… thank you so much, hyung." Jisung’s voice is thready.

“What’s wrong?” Minho asks before he can help himself. He’s not looking at Jisung for the answer, in case that makes it easier for him. Or in case Jisung is about to say he never wants to see Minho again, and that makes it easier for Minho.

“We couldn’t bring a patient back today,” Jisung says. “We tried everything, but it didn’t...”

Minho listens, understanding. It’s fucked up but he’s also a bit relieved; not just for himself but for Jisung, that his pain isn’t borne of something that happened in his own family, or a physical ailment that affects him. Of course Jisung, so passionate and hard-working, is sad because of a patient.

“They came in in cardiac arrest, so it’s not like I ever spoke to them or anything. They were old and they didn’t have a family; the only person I was able to contact was a neighbor. To… to tell them, you know? To tell someone.”

When Minho looks up he sees that Jisung is holding his own shoulders as he speaks. He’s finished setting up the meal, so he walks up to him and opens his arms, offering a hug.

Jisung nods and steps into it, humming gratefully when Minho tightens his hold to something near-painful.

“I’m sorry,” Jisung says with a sigh. “I told you I wasn’t going to be any fun tonight.”

“You’re sad. That’s okay, Jisung. That is so understandable, don’t apologize.”

“I did the intubation, and I think it went okay, but it didn’t even… matter, in the end. Nothing we did mattered.”

In spite of himself, Minho is impressed. For an intern to do an intubation in a situation like that is almost unheard of; Jisung’s supervising attending must have really trusted his skills if he let him insert a breathing tube in a cardiac arrest patient just two months into his residency. Jisung is incredible.

“It mattered because you tried, Jisung-ah. It did matter. It always does, that we try.”

Jisung sighs, and nods into Minho’s shoulder. “…Yeah.”

They pull apart, and Minho pushes Jisung down to the chair. “You have to eat. Come on.”

Jisung does. He makes impressed, appreciative noises at the food, but doesn’t say much more during the meal. Minho wishes he had a way to take the sadness away, or banish the fatigue, but he gets it. He feels it sometimes too. They are both largely silent for a while, Minho refilling Jisung’s cup with water and picking out the best bits of food to put on his plate when he finishes something, dipping the juiciest cuts of meat in sauce for him.

After multiple servings, Jisung gestures for Minho not to add to his plate anymore. “That was so good hyung, thank you. But I can’t eat another bite, I’ll explode.”

“That’s fine.” Minho isn’t leaving him like this unless Jisung says or does anything to indicate he wants to be alone. He has a feeling Jisung is not the kind of person who enjoys processing this type of feeling by himself. “Want me to go or wanna watch a movie?”

Jisung opens his mouth, and then seems to consider it. “Movie,” he says, starting to smile a little. “Definitely movie.”

Minho nods. “Great. Sit down, I’m picking.”

And so that’s what they do next. Minho lets Jisung pick the movie, of course.

It’s peaceful, and mostly quiet too, but not entirely. Minho nudges Jisung with his feet to make a handful of stupid comments, dumb jokes that he can’t make funny the way Jisung makes things funny to him, but Jisung softly laughs a couple of times anyway. And then towards the second half of the movie Jisung falls asleep on his end of the couch, and Minho figures it’d be rude to wake him up but also rude to leave without saying goodbye. So he settles in to sleep on the other side.

*

Jisung is already awake when Minho wakes up—in fact it’s a clang in the kitchen that rouses him.

“Jisungie?” he drools, wiping his mouth. He sits up, back aching from the sleeping position.

Jisung is holding a pan and looking sheepish.

“I’m so sorry to wake you, hyung,” he says. “I wanted to make you breakfast.”

Minho gets up from the couch and walks to him, blinking the sleep from his eyes. They don’t usually eat breakfast together—at most Jisung will make Minho a coffee before he leaves, and on the rare occasions where they meet up at Minho’s place the reverse is the same. Breakfast feels like a time commitment, and Minho, who has already broken so many not-rules when it comes to Jisung, has been holding off on this particular one. He thought that, until this morning, Jisung had too, but he supposes he started it by bringing dinner last night.

“What were you making?” he asks, choosing to just go with it. He can’t deny Jisung anything, anyway.

“Eggs?” Jisung asks.

“Eggs sounds good.”

He sits at the kitchen table and watches Jisung as he gets back to it. He seems a bit more energized; lighter around the shoulders.

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

“Better,” Jisung says, and pauses his chopsticks to look over at Minho with a small smile. “Thank you, Minho-hyung.”

Minho nods, thinking he should be the one who is grateful. He likes being around Jisung so much, he wants to be around him if Jisung is sad, too. He wants—

“I’m glad to hear that.” He checks his phone for the time; it’s almost nine in the morning. “Are you working today?”

“Overnight,” Jisung says. “But only for one night, tomorrow is the end-of-block-two party at the chief’s place. Are you coming?”

“Ah, I can’t tomorrow. I’m off tonight but working then.”

Jisung seems disappointed, and Minho tries not to read into it. He knows Jisung enjoys their time together, that is obvious, and last night proved that they can hang out with each other without having sex, fine—but not romantically. He shouldn’t forget what Jisung approached him for in the first place; what Jisung wanted from him from day one. It’s the kinky sex and the multiple orgasms that keep him coming back to Minho; it was never romantic for Jisung, and it never will be. Minho would do well not to forget his place.

“What about the Chuseok gala next month? That’s a hospital-wide thing, right? Did you RSVP to that?”

“I did.” He hopes that Jisung asking means he did, too. “It’s one of the biggest events of the year, all the nurses are invited. Everyone is.”

“You were the only nurse that came to the last block party,” Jisung says, pouring the egg into the pan. “Is it because the nurses don’t typically join resident-only parties?”

“We don’t join as a group, but a couple of us are friends with the residents, same as how Seri will sometimes come to the nursing parties. I’ve been friends with Changbin since he and I had a complicated patient that we bonded over last year, and he keeps inviting me.”

“So you get special privileges,” Jisung says with an eyebrow wiggle.

Minho snorts. “Sure. The privilege of watching a bunch of twenty-somethings try to get drunk enough to de-stress from their very stressful jobs.”

“Hey, you’re a twenty-something with a stressful job.” Then Jisung says: “What about Chan? You spent a lot of time with him at the block one party. You guys are friends too?”

The memory still makes Minho scowl. “Chan was a chief resident when I started as a trainee. He helped me a lot when I didn’t know what I was doing—he’s good like that. I guess you could say we’ve been friends since then, but he works too much to hang out with outside of work. That last block party was the first one I’ve ever seen him attend.” Their alleged friendship is the reason Minho didn’t dump Chan’s drunk ass on the chief’s couch and chase after Jisung right away, after Changbin transferred custody.

“Oh. Yeah I guess he does work more shifts than most of the other attendings.”

They chit-chat about Chan’s workaholic ways for a while, then that leads to Minho asking if there’s something going on between Chan and Felix, which Jisung gets adorably excited about, and time passes without lightning striking Minho for his disgusting, sappy, gushy mushy thoughts about this boy he likes so damn much, and all the ways in which he doesn’t get to have him. There’s a voice in his head (it sounds like Seri) that is shouting out warnings, but it’s faint enough that he can ignore it.

Jisung’s omelet isn’t even that good; it’s too salty. It’s the best breakfast Minho has ever had.

“Oh by the way, I washed the tupperware containers that we finished,” Jisung says with a start, standing to grab the clean ones and then grabbing Minho’s tote. He upends it on the kitchen table to make space at the bottom for the containers: Minho’s keys, wallet, lip balm and gift-box all spilling out.

Oh no.

“What’s that?”

Minho had taken the crop and the paddle out of his bag, but he forgot about the collar.

He stares down at the gift-box, embarrassed, even as Jisung picks it up. He hadn’t planned on giving it to Jisung now, it feels wrong and presumptuous to remind him of their games when Jisung explicitly told him he didn’t want to play last night.

“Is it a present?” he asks. The wrapping paper is pretty, because Minho had wanted everything to be pretty for him; pink and mauve flowers interspersed with reds, a delicate silver bow. “Is it for me?”

He looks up at Minho, expectant and a touch fearful, as though he only just considered that it might be for someone else.

“…Yes. I forgot I brought it, I’m… sorry.”

Jisung’s fear is replaced by a smile. “Don’t be sorry, hyung. I love presents.”

He tears into it without further ado, and his eyes go very, very big when they land on the expensive leather.

“…Oh.”

He takes it out, examining the silver circlet, a pink tinge dotting his cute cheeks to match the pink of the collar.

“This is for me?” Even though he already asked, and Minho already answered. “Hyung.” He smiles with wonder. “Thank you. This is… so pretty, thank you so much.” And he leans forward, across the table, and gives Minho a kiss.

Minho has kissed Jisung dozens of times before, probably hundreds depending on how one quantifies them, and he has also had his tongue inside Jisung’s ass, has licked and bitten a significant percentage of Jisung’s body surface area and he’s had Jisung’s dick down his throat and he has never, not once, blushed as hard as he does at the light peck on the lips they just exchanged.

Jisung happily turns the collar over in his hands, puts it up against the skin of his neck to see how it feels, and Minho sits there with his ears on fire and contemplates how on Earth he got to this point. The voice in his head sounds scolding, and is harder to ignore in this moment. It doesn’t sound like Seri anymore; it’s a lot less kind.

Don’t forget your place, Lee Minho.

He can’t. He won’t.

Changbin

Something is up with Chan.

Not only did he not come home on Thursday night, he seemed suspiciously well-rested on Friday, and now he’s saying he doesn’t mind sticking around for the end-of-block-two party that the chiefs are hosting on Saturday. Again. Despite his drunken messiness last month.

“What? I had fun.”

“No you didn’t? You told me you ran into Felix and accidentally complimented him and then you angsted about what you said to him when he took you home. For weeks, you angsted about it.”

Chan shrugs, and Changbin knows something must have happened, he is so sure of it, but the bastard will not admit to it.

He resolves to wait and see how they interact when Felix arrives, but he misses Felix’s literal moment of arrival to the party because Seri has control of the aux and she puts Pink Venom on, so naturally Changbin has to go dance and loses track of things for a bit. Unfortunately Harin and Sooah both get a little closer to him than is appropriate, giggling and tipsy and commenting on his bare biceps a lot until San rescues him.

“Gonna have to put those away if you don’t want to rile up your adoring fans,” San mutters with a grin, poking Changbin’s arm. “We could put you in a mu’umu’u or something.”

“They were harmless,” Changbin chuckles, though he’s glad for the personal space. "Just make sure they drink some water."

“Oh, one of the interns said he’d do it—Hyunjin, I think.”

By the time the song ends, Felix is walking away from Seungmin and Jisung to go greet Chan on the other side of the party. As Changbin watches, the two bow respectfully to each other and start up a seemingly casual conversation behind the armchair in the back of the room. The lighting is dim in that corner, and their positioning within the space is such that beyond them is the window to the night sky. Unless someone was really, really looking for it, it’d seem like an innocent enough conversation. Maybe. If the blinding joy on their faces could be overlooked, or chalked up to alcohol.

But Changbin is really, really looking for it, and he sees their reflection.

The tall back of the armchair cuts off a view of their lower bodies around mid-chest, but after a few minutes of silent scrutiny, and when he stands in a particular spot diagonally to them and on his tiptoes, Changbin realizes that he can see a blurry outline of most of what is happening in the window behind them.

They are holding hands.

Felix has angled his arm such that it does not appear outstretched towards Chan, but his forearm is, and Chan is doing the same. Felix’s free hand is trailing above Chan’s belt.

Changbin watches as those dainty fingers trace a nonsense pattern on Chan’s cut lower stomach, which his tight shirt is really emphasizing tonight, and actually dip briefly under the shirt before trailing up again. Chan is flushed, not a drop of alcohol in him but looking stuporous out of his mind, and Felix is… teasing him. His smile is angelic, so joyful and sweet, but his fingers are—fuck, even as Changbin watches his fingers are skimming under the waistband, for a second.

Chan makes a tiny aborted twitch, muscles locking. His expression is still so fond, so indulgent, but there’s a heat there that’s going to get him in trouble. Felix laughs lightly at something Chan says, dropping Chan’s hold to cover his mouth. Chan’s newly freed hand hovers over Felix’s like he doesn’t know what to do, whether to stop him or just grab the wrist and shove it all the way into his pants.

Changbin feels a twinge of sympathetic arousal on Chan’s behalf. Changbin… feels kind of turned on, if he’s being honest with himself.

“Can I talk to you a second?” a voice says by his ear, and Changbin yelps.

It’s Hyunjin, who proceeds to grab Changbin’s arm without waiting for a response and drags him to his own room, much like Changbin had done to him way back at the welcome afterparty. He sees Jisung note their exit but most people just started cheering at the opening chords of a Girls Generation throwback.

The door shuts behind Changbin and the noise is dulled, but they can still clearly hear the bass of the music, the chatter, the occasional yells and cheers.

“You saw that, right?” Hyunjin asks in a whisper, eyes wide. “You saw that.”

“Oh!” Changbin gasps. “You saw it too?”

“They are being stupid.”

“Yes, and they are definitely together.”

Hyunjin makes a punching gesture in the air. “I knew it, I freaking knew it, who the fuck do they think they are? That was the least stealthy shit I’ve ever seen. That was embarrassing.” He scoffs, but keeps his voice low. “They have a lot to learn from us,” he adds, and Changbin giggles, meeting his eyes with a smirk.

There are a few beats of loose, conspiratorial silence, which isn’t silence at all with the party happening literally just a door outside. But it’s nice, Hyunjin is almost smiling back, they are on the same side again.

“I can’t believe Felix was about to grope him in public,” Hyunjin adds, a mix of disbelief and pride in his voice.

“Yeah.” Changbin nods, thinking back to the scene. He keeps his voice quiet, too. “And Chan was about to let him.”

The heat in Chan’s eyes had felt heavy. Changbin knows that kind of want intimately; he has felt it for the person standing three feet away from him. He feels it.

“…Yeah,” Hyunjin echoes.

Seconds tick by as they look at each other, and then the camaraderie between them starts to feel more complicated, unsustainable as always. Changbin isn’t sure how to stop it, but despite his best efforts his brain starts replacing the memory of Felix’s hand flirting with Chan’s waistband with the memory of what happened in this room just two weeks ago; Hyunjin’s hand wrapped around him—and then he remembers how Hyunjin felt wrapped around him all those months ago, and he can feel the sense of ease between them vanish.

“You and I have been pretty good at hiding it,” he says, but his voice comes out faint and scratchy, not jovial anymore. “But in their defense, we’re not having sex.”

Hyunjin’s smile is gone, too. His eyes look lethal tonight.

“Anymore,” he says.

Changbin had figured that was implied. “Uh. Right.”

Hyunjin steps towards him.

“Even though you want to,” Hyunjin murmurs. He sounds so cold when he talks like that, especially with that implacable gaze, even though Changbin knows how hotly he burns inside. “You said it last week.”

This interaction just took a turn Changbin isn’t sure he can find his way out of.

He gulps. “Uh. Yeah.” He’s lost. They should go back outside. “Yeah, I. I really.” He really needs to shut up, so he does.

Hyunjin takes another step and looks down at himself, as though inviting Changbin to look, too. “You said you were really attracted to me,” he prompts.

He’s in a white tank top tucked into low-slung baggy jeans, two silver necklaces, the kind of outfit that takes a body like Hyunjin’s to make pornographic, but he does it effortlessly. Sometimes Hyunjin drips so much sex-appeal that he transcends the outfit he’s in, and this is one of those times.

“Yeah.” Changbin is staring. He can feel himself doing it but he doesn’t know how to stop. He’s so turned around. “Yeah, I did.”

Hyunjin inhales.

“I-I am.”

Hyunjin bites his lower lip.

“Fuck,” Changbin says, and Hyunjin lunges at him.

His lips crash onto Changbin’s and are met with equal ferocity. They kiss sloppily, several frenzied seconds of Hyunjin pressed up against him due to the sheer momentum of his body before Changbin has the wherewithal to pull away.

“Whoa, Hyunjin what—”

Hyunjin makes an impatient noise and kisses him again, and Changbin gets caught up in the feel of those plush lips, so much so that he steps forward, making Hyunjin stumble backwards, and then both of them are moving towards the bed, with Hyunjin literally tripping as he walks without looking behind him, too busy kissing and being kissed. Changbin catches him before he falls and easily lifts him by the hips instead, gently lowering him to the mattress once they get there.

Hyunjin whimpers into Changbin’s mouth when that happens; a pained little noise.

“Hyunjin,” Changbin pants, propping himself up over him. What are they doing? They didn’t even lock the door. “What are we—”

“No,” Hyunjin snaps, clawing at his shirt. “Shut up. Just… please fuck me, oh my God—please.”

White noise fills Changbin’s ears and he feels himself hardening immediately. Hyunjin has managed to wrestle the shirt up to his armpits but he is not strong enough to move Changbin’s arms without Changbin’s cooperation.

“Please,” he gasps. “Changbin-hyung. Come on. I-I’m…” he’s hyperventilating, so frantic under Changbin, his feet rubbing the back of Changbin’s thighs. “Please. Please. Please please please—”

Changbin sits up and Hyunjin cries out, like the sudden space between them hurts, but Changbin did it to take the shirt off.

Hyunjin goes quiet and his eyes widen, taking the naked expanse of Changbin’s chest in. He’s breathing so hard, wheezing almost. His hand cups one of Changbin’s pecs with a religious reverence, eyes glued to the way the flesh yields to his fingers. He circles a thumb around his nipple, and then he sits up too, and latches his mouth onto it.

Changbin is not proud of the noise he makes at that, or of the way his hips kick forward in the air. Hyunjin is making wet suckling slurping noises and his hands are clawing at Changbin’s back, and Changbin’s head spins from the pleasure, he’s so—there’s a thump at the door.

Hyunjin didn’t notice, or doesn’t care because he continues making throaty moans and huffing breaths in through his nose, and Changbin has to grip him by the hair and forcefully pull him off to get him to stop.

“Wh—why did you—” Hyunjin tries to lean forward again, eyes zeroed on Changbin’s chest, mouth half open with his tongue peeking out, and Changbin’s dick flexes, to the point where the tent in his pants visibly moves.

“W-wait, Hyunjin wait, I have to—the door.”

Hyunjin scowls, but he can’t stop Changbin from scrambling off him to go lock his door, ignoring the source of the thump, whether it was something accidental or an actual knock, someone looking for the second bathroom who didn’t realize it’s inside Changbin’s room and thus off limits for party guests. When Changbin goes back to the bed Hyunjin is lying prone, shirtless, jeans-less, and fishing in the bedside drawer for the lube.

“Hyunjin—”

“Don’t,” Hyunjin warns, but Changbin wasn’t going to try to talk anymore, he’s too turned around, he’s so turned on, he wants this so badly that he’s willing to deal with the consequences.

“It’s the second drawer.”

Hyunjin glares at him over his shoulder and Changbin lays down on top of him, crushing him to the mattress.

“Oh,” Hyunjin huffs, his slender frame entirely pinned at Changbin’s mercy, and Changbin easily reaches up over him and retrieves the bottle. He uncaps it by Hyunjin’s head, moving it to where he estimates Hyunjin’s line of sight is right now despite the low lighting from the single window.

Hyunjin makes no move to take it, and that’s when Changbin realizes that he is trembling under him—almost shaking.

“Hyunjin?” Changbin lifts himself up to check on him, worried he caused pain, and Hyunjin rolls onto his back under him with a pinched expression. “Hyunjin, I-I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

But then he sees the way Hyunjin isn’t just biting but chewing on his lower lip, his eyes glassy and unfocused.

“Are you okay?”

Instead of doing something as helpful as answering him, or explaining anything, Hyunjin reaches down to palm himself through his white boxer-briefs, back arching at his own touch. He puts his other hand on Changbin’s lower back and pushes, as though he’s trying to get him to lie back down on top of him.

Changbin resists at first, too caught up staring.

“C’mon,” Hyunjin hisses. “Cover me. Crush me.”

Changbin’s head spins, but he doesn’t immediately obey; he reaches down and gently but firmly takes Hyunjin’s arm by the wrist to stop him from touching himself. Hyunjin makes a low noise of protest and tenses, trying to put it back, but Changbin doesn’t let him. Steadily, unyielding, he pulls Hyunjin’s hand away, letting himself stare at the outline of his cock under the white fabric, the place where he’s wet it through at the tip, making it pearly translucent.

Hyunjin’s breathing gets choppy, and when Changbin checks on him he sees that Hyunjin is staring off to the side at his bicep, which is slightly flexed due to their little arm-wrestling match which isn’t a match at all, because it is embarrassingly easy for Changbin to overpower him.

“Do you really want me to let go?” Changbin asks him, low.

“…No,” Hyunjin grits out, though he sounds like it bothers him to admit it. “N-no, fuck.”

Changbin knew that, but it’s good that Hyunjin confirms it. “Good. That’s good.” He puts Hyunjin’s arm down against the mattress, pinning it easily by his head. Hyunjin’s mouth drops open.

Changbin pulls Hyunjin’s underwear off by the waistband with his other hand, sliding it past his narrow hips and down his mile-long legs, avidly watching, cataloguing, remembering. He takes it all the way off and lightly touches the exposed skin at the tops of his thighs, sees Hyunjin’s dick straining, twitching at the caress.

“Y-you,” Hyunjin murmurs. “You. Off.”

Changbin is still in his pants and underwear, so he has a point. He lets go of Hyunjin’s wrist and shuffles off the bed for a second, stepping back to unbutton his jeans. Hyunjin’s hand flies back to his dick, stroking and pumping his fist as he watches Changbin get undressed, still with that glassy-eyed quality to his gaze. He’s tracing Changbin’s shoulders, his arms, his chest, his stomach, his thighs, then going back to staring at his chest. His eyes go blatantly to his dick when Changbin takes the underwear off.

They watch each other for a few moments, fully naked, Hyunjin still jerking himself but slowly, almost secondarily to the way he is staring at Changbin’s body.

“Come. Come lie on me,” Hyunjin whispers, so faint that the partygoers outside almost drown him out. His breaths are visibly hitching as he twists his own wrist. “I. Please.” He’s gnawing on his lips and they look puffier than ever. His body in the dim lighting is an ethereal sight, the planes and divots of it something that’s not of this Earth. He has a grace that this frenetic energy can’t strip from him, and Changbin can’t believe he’s back in his bed.

“Hyunjin,” he rasps, naked in more ways than one. “You’re so—”

“Don’t.” Hyunjin’s rhythm speeds up for a moment before he stops altogether, squeezing the base of his dick. His chest is heaving, and Changbin gets closer, crawling back on top of him, staring at that face as it scrunches up in concentration. “Don’t,” Hyunjin pants. “Say. Anything.”

Changbin has to kiss him, so he does, and Hyunjin grunts and responds, the tension in him eventually loosening by a fraction.

“I need you to fuck me now. Now,” Hyunjin mutters, and he somehow got a hold of the bottle of lube Changbin left on the mattress because he’s reaching down to finger himself, starting with two fingers and a sharp inhale.

“Hyunjin, take it slo—”

“No,” he says. “No, no, I need you to, I want—” He moans quietly, fucking his fingers in and out, quickly stretching his own rim. Changbin lets his hands roam Hyunjin’s chest, shoulders, wishing Hyunjin would let him do it, wishing he’d let him open him up slowly, tortuously while he lavished compliments on him. But he stays silent, like he was asked to. Part of him is still processing that they are about to do this in the middle of the damn party, but maybe he shouldn’t be surprised that they found themselves here. Maybe they’ve been building back up to this since Hyunjin’s name appeared on the list of new interns at SNUH. Maybe he is so clueless as to what Hyunjin wants that all he can do is what Hyunjin is asking of him from moment to moment. And, in this moment, Hyunjin is being crystal clear.

He peppers gentle, soft kisses to his favorite spots on Hyunjin; doting on his moles, on the sharp jut of his jaw, on the ridge of his clavicle, the hollow of his throat where sweat has started to gather, so grateful to be licking it off—

“Hyung,” Hyunjin gasps, back arching when Changbin starts worshipping the curve of his earlobe. “I need it, please will you…” He sounds distressed, desperate. “Please, won’t you give it to me, please, come on—”

What is Changbin to do?

He hasn’t touched the condoms in his drawer since the last time Hyunjin was here, a lifetime ago. He rolls one on and adds plenty of lube, and Hyunjin turns onto his stomach, taking his fingers out of himself to grasp the sheets instead. Changbin knows what he’s asking for by doing that, too.

He drops his entire weight onto Hyunjin’s back again, pressing, pushing him down into the mattress like the heaviest blanket, and Hyunjin starts trembling again.

“Are you sure—”

“Yes,” he chokes. “Yes, please…”

Changbin reaches down to line himself up and push in, and it’s—“Fuck, Hyunjin what the fuck—”

He’s so tight it’s almost painful for Changbin, he can’t imagine this isn’t burning for Hyunjin, he doesn’t want to hurt him, and he’s so worried that he manages not to come in two seconds because his worry won’t let him focus on how good it feels to be back here not just metaphorically but literally, to be inside Hyunjin again.

“Are you okay? Is this…?”

Hyunjin moans softly, throwing his head back a little, enough that Changbin can see the utterly blissed out expression on his face.

“Hyunjin,” he breathes, hooking his chin to Hyunjin’s shoulder. The hairs by Hyunjin’s ear get disturbed by his breath. “Hyunjin, you feel so tight, fuck.”

Hyunjin moans again, barely audible, and tries to move or rock or do something under Changbin, it’s unclear what because he is so completely pinned that he is unsuccessful. He’s chewing that bottom lip raw.

Changbin bottoms out, his concern fading since Hyunjin is obviously in no discomfort, but as a consequence starting to process the full extent of how fucking incredible Hyunjin feels stretched around him. And it is a stretch; Changbin has been told this enough times, including by Hyunjin. He’s thick in every way and he knows that; at least last time Hyunjin had reluctantly let him prep him properly.

“Fuck,” he pants, trailing his hands down Hyunjin’s arms until their fingers interlace on both sides, and Hyunjin grips him tightly there, too. He pulls out an inch and experimentally pushes back in, and Hyunjin makes a breathy noise that sounds like it was wrenched from his chest.

“More,” he gasps, gathering their hands in front of him and straightening his arms. It pulls Changbin’s biceps more fully onto his shoulders, covering him, blanketing him even further. “Harder.”

Changbin gives him more, but slowly. “You feel incredible,” he murmurs, and Hyunjin whimpers. He pulls out and pushes in again, slow. “You take me so well Hyunjin.” Hyunjin tries to arch his back but he’s still impeded by Changbin’s bulk, and when all that does is demonstrate how trapped he is he makes a helpless noise and shudders. “Do you like that you can’t move? Hm?”

He won’t last. He can’t last, this was so sudden, he’s wanted it too much. They have both lost their entire minds, doing this while everyone is right outside. Another song starts playing, he’s lost track of how many songs have gone by already. People are going to notice he’s gone, he can only hope they assume he went on an ice run, or a snacks run to the convenience store.

“You asked me to, do you like it?”

“Oh my God,” Hyunjin rasps, voice thin, and turns his head into the meat of Changbin’s arm, lips parting to half-kiss, half-breathe into it.

Changbin speeds up, the slide marginally easier, and he’s having to be so careful not to rock the bedframe and give them away. He’s sweating, and something is building in his spine already, the liquid warmth of it swirling, ready for a release that’s going to wreck him.

He thrusts in with a bit more force and Hyunjin moans again, loud this time, pushing his face into Changbin’s bicep but it does not stifle the sound nearly enough.

The sudden volume makes Changbin tense. “Shh, shh,” he gasps, and lets go of Hyunijn’s hands to bend his arm and cover Hyunjin’s face, so that his mouth is smushed in the crook of Chanbin’s elbow. “Shh sweetheart you can’t—can’t be shouting like that—”

Hyunjin tries to buck under him again and can’t, but it pushes Changbin inside him at an angle that has Hyunjin moaning into the quasi-headlock Changbin has him in. Then he does it again, again, pitching his noises higher and higher, but he’s been effectively muffled now so Changbin can focus on fucking in harder, lifting his hips to angle the brunt of his force right at Hyunjin’s prostate, and as he feels himself get closer he starts whispering nonsense into the back of Hyunjin’s head.

“Fuck, Hyunjin, I lose my mind around you, look what you have me doing, all those people outside and I’m here with you.” He goes faster, faster as Hyunjin’s moans start to sound like muffled sobs. The words completely bypass the filter of his brain, coming directly from his guts. “I can’t think when you’re around Hyunjin, I can’t stop thinking about how good it feels to fuck you, I can’t stop remembering how good it was, how good we were together, how is this better than what I remember—” He’s speaking fast and hurried but perfectly intelligible so that Hyunjin doesn't miss a word, thoughts a heady rush, he’s so close. “You are so goddamn beautiful how can I—how am I supposed to think, you are so fucking gorgeous—"

Hyunjin seizes under him, writhing as he comes. He bites into the meat of Changbin’s arm to presumably keep from screaming, and Changbin finally lets go, unable to hold on for another second. He drops his forehead on Hyunjin’s shoulder and holds back a guttural groan, molten heat spilling from his spine all the way to his fingertips, stomach pulsing, orgasm rocking him from head to toe.

He loses time and regains consciousness with his body still moving rhythmically into Hyunjin’s, though much slower and gentler, barely pulling out, just grinding them together.

“You okay?” he asks, moving his arm away. There are significant indents in the flesh from Hyunjin’s bite, but no blood. He turns Hyunjin’s head from where he was lying face-down on the mattress, pulling his hair back from his cheek to check on him. Hyunjin looks beautiful and flushed and… for lack of a better way to put it: completely fucked out. “Hyunjin, are you okay?”

“Mm,” Hyunjin says, eyes closed.

Changbin slowly pulls out of him and gets up on numb legs to go throw away the condom in his bathroom trashcan.

He knees back onto the bed to sit next to Hyunjin’s prone form, watching the rapid flutter of his ribs as he catches his breath, watching the exposed side of his face, which hasn’t moved at all. His features are slack with pleasure. He looks fast asleep, though Changbin knows he isn’t.

“You can…” Changbin swallows. “You can stay. Tonight, if you… want to stay here.”

The song playing outside switches over yet again, and Changbin is faced with the reality of what needs to happen next. He can’t hide out in here, he’s going to need to put in another appearance, especially if Hyunjin still wants to try to keep them (whatever ‘them’ is now… at the very least, them having ill-advised mid-party-sex) a secret. That means a quick clean-up, putting the same clothes he had back on, and not lingering the way is body is telling him to.

It feels awful, to think of leaving Hyunjin now, but if he could look forward to coming back to him in his bed…

“Do you… want to stay?” he asks, fingers itching to touch Hyunjin’s hair again, tuck it behind his ear maybe, just… to touch him in some way that is tender.

Hyunjin opens his eye. Changbin stays put.

“I can’t,” he whispers.

Changbin was expecting that. Dreading it, at least.

“Okay. Do you want to wait, before going back out there?”

Hyunjin gives him a languorous blink. “…Yeah.”

Changbin nods. “Okay. I’m going to… uh, clean up a bit. And go back outside.” He doesn’t want to. His entire being is screaming at him that this is wrong. That he should stay, and cuddle Hyunjin until they fall asleep together.

But of course that can’t happen, so he slowly slides out of the bed and picks his clothes up off the floor, and goes into the bathroom.

Hyunjin

Hyunjin eventually cleans himself with a damp towel and some soap, and he read a derogatory term for this kind of non-shower somewhere—it rattles around his head while he does it.

He is miraculously not noticed when he emerges from Changbin’s room. The party has started to dwindle at this point; Hyunjin had needed some time to recover his ability to walk (emotional recovery will happen after he retires, maybe). Changbin’s door is a short hallway around from the living room, and one has to cross the area in front of the little kitchen half-island to get to the front door, so he just looks down at the floor and weaves his way there, hoping that whoever is left is too drunk or too immersed in the music video playing on the TV to notice him. He doesn’t even see Changbin before he tugs his shoes on and ducks out.

When the door closes behind him, he leans against it and breathes silently for several minutes, looking up at the hallway ceiling and pondering what the fuck is wrong with him. He used to scoff when characters in movies did this, but now he gets it. He gets it.

*

He has a text from Changbin’s number when he wakes up on Sunday morning that says: do you want to talk about it?

From following him into a bathroom to texting his request for a debrief to finally just asking Hyunjin if he even wants to talk. That’s how apparent Hyunjin’s reluctance to be a well-adjusted person about their situation has been, he has driven Changbin to wording it like this.

It’s normal, to discuss what it means to suddenly jump each other just a few days after they established that they were not going to jump each other. It’s understandable, that Changbin must want to address it, he has been the more rational, reasoned individual here since day one, but at some point Hyunjin had assumed they would reach the limits of his seemingly endless well of patience. He must be so confused about what the hell is going on in Hyunjin’s head.

So is Hyunjin, so he can join the club.

He has no fucking clue what possessed him to jump Changbin like that; he just remembers watching Harin and Sooah touch what was his and seeing red. He sent San over to put a stop to the situation but it wasn’t enough, he couldn’t bear—he wasn’t drunk, he doesn’t get high, it was some greater toxidrome, a force that went beyond the drug-induced and which made him feel like he was going to collapse if he couldn’t have Changbin again, have him in a way that made him Hyunjin's.

In the end, Hyunjin just stares and stares and stares at the text and can’t bring himself to say ‘yes’. He can’t bring himself to say anything other than: do you?

Changbin responds two minutes later: yes. but it’s okay if you don’t

And Hyunjin, who was already curled up on his couch eating a massive bag of seaweed chips for lunch, starts crying right around then, and doesn’t text back.

He starts a new oil painting that evening; a warped take on the pulmonary tree, its branches colored in the sickly blues and dark maroons of blood without oxygen.

*

It’s Hyunijn’s turn to be on surgery for block three.

His seniors are Hongjoong and Mingyu, both of whom he’s met through consults in the ER (and has heard plenty about from Felix and Seungmin). He knows he is lucky to have kind seniors and he is grateful. He is also grateful to be in a different department than usual, thus decreasing his chances of running into Changbin for at least a month. He feels like he’s carrying an infection around with him; fevered, nauseous, the memories making him tremulous and sicker. Withdrawal presents with similar symptoms, he supposes—maybe what he assumed was sepsis has been withdrawal all along.

He gets by, on general surgery. He impresses the surgeons with his knot-tying and suturing skills, even making one of the older attendings declare that ‘we surgeons are all artists, at heart’ when he reveals his hobby, and overall finds the first couple of days to be mostly what he expected. It’s fast paced in a different way than the ER is, but it still has that element of teamwork that he enjoys, although Mingyu wants him to switch to plastics.

“I don’t want to do plastics.”

“But your face alone… my dear, you’re leaving money on the table,” Mingyu says, smirking.

Hyunjin rolls his eyes, wondering why it affects him so much when Changbin says something even half as flattering.

A strident beep interrupts their lunch and everyone groans, but Mingyu makes a noise of relief when he checks it.

“It’s a consult from the ER, not a trauma, we have a few minutes,” he says.

Dr. King, the American attending, looks at Hyunjin. “Do you want to take it, intern?” She has been kind but she has not learned Hyunjin’s name, which Hyunjin does not take personally. “Do you miss your department already?”

Hyunjin checked the ER schedule before coming in today.

“I’m okay, it’s only been three days so I don’t miss them yet.”

There’s a collective chuckle, but Mingyu is looking at him curiously. Hyunjin is certain that Felix and Seungmin both jumped at the chance to see the ER consults, for any excuse to be down there among their peers. Mingyu must think him cold, or heartless, but Hyunjin is used to that. No one needs to know what lurks under the cold.

Seungmin

The medical ICU at SNUH is not new territory for Seungmin, who did his rotation as a student here after all, but it is still intimidating. It takes up the entire fifth floor of the hospital, and even a single room up here is crammed with more equipment than he has ever worked with. Everything in the ICU is complex: the patients, the procedures, the family interactions, the medication drips, the consults, and the rounds. Especially the rounds.

Up to twenty people listen to the presenting resident on rounds; a group made up of ICU attendings, internal medicine residents, medical students, nurses, social workers, and more. Sometimes even the patient’s family members will join. Seungmin knows his presentations are well-structured, succinct but comprehensive, and he always got top marks on them as a student. At the end of his first day the internal medicine residents pull him aside to congratulate him on his thoroughness, and he could tell that the attending was impressed.

He is not nervous for himself, today, but Jeongin is presenting his first patient.

They had given him a couple of days to integrate into the department, and learn the flow of things (something the rotating intern, Seungmin, was not granted), but on Wednesday the ICU senior says: “Jeongin, why don’t you take care of the patient in room two today? You can present her on rounds.”

So here they are, two hours later, and Jeongin is in the middle of a large crowd of experts, most of whom have been in the medical field longer than him, telling the team about the patient in room 2.

Seungmin has a horrible stomachache.

“The patient is a fifty-four-year-old woman with a history of multiple sclerosis…” Jeongin reads off his notes, where he jotted down the most relevant lab values and test results, but he intermittently looks up towards the attending, and eyes the rest of the group.

Seungmin watches him talk through a good summary of what brought the patient into the hospital and, eventually, to the ICU. His nerves slowly ease; Jeongin is doing great.

“…We transitioned her ventilator settings to the PRVC modality to assess her ability to take spontaneous breaths…”

Jeongin checks his paper less and less as the presentation goes on, growing in confidence. Seungmin’s stomachache is replaced by a lightness, a feeling that is more pleasant but also more volatile. Jeongin isn’t just doing great, he’s doing… a better job than Seungmin did as a student.

“… and, most importantly, her blood cultures showed growth of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus…”

It’s not just that he’s structured and thorough; his delivery is better. Seungmin knows he may have been a touch robotic, despite his attention to detail, he didn’t have Jeongin’s ability to engage his audience back then. He has developed it more now, but it has taken months of practice, and Jeongin just seems to have come to that skill naturally.

He knew Jeongin was a good student; he had to be, to qualify for the SNUH rotation, but he didn’t realize he was this talented. Shameful, that it’s hitting him after working with Jeongin for over two months, but the kid is exceptional. Maybe if Seungmin hadn’t ignored him on shift during the ER block, and hadn’t driven Jeongin to avoiding him during most of the surgery block, he’d have noticed sooner.

“…and for those reasons, we will obtain a cardiology consult.”

Jeongin bows when he’s done, hair flopping forward and back, and a spontaneous round of applause breaks out.

Seungmin starts it.

He’s not sure what comes over him, but suddenly he’s clapping, and then everyone else follows suit, whether to avoid the embarrassment of leaving one person clapping alone or because they are genuinely overtaken with the urge after Jeongin’s stellar job. At the very least it’s a mixture of both, going by the little ‘whoop’ the ICU senior Iseul lets out, and Jeongin is grinning hugely, Seungmin can tell despite his mask.

He feels the palpitations hammer in his chest, as he expected.

*

“Hey Seungmin, do you know this guy covering cardiology consults? He’s also a Dr. Kim.”

“Kim is a super common surname, Iseul, come on,” one of the internal medicine residents says, but Seungmin stills.

He caught sight of the full name listed on the cardiology consult schedule, and… Dr. Kim Kyubok is definitely his father.

They are in the ICU charting offices, a much larger space than the surgery charting office; twelve computer terminals sit on the row of desks and all the walls are windows, making the space a kind of rectangular glass bowl—hence its nickname ‘the fishbowl’. A whiteboard with formulas, room numbers and patient names hangs on one side. The team of residents is dividing their tasks of the day amongst each other, one of the tasks being to call the cardiologist and ask them to come assess the patient in room 2.

Seungmin’s mother opened a private practice clinic a few years into her career and never turned back, but his father occasionally takes shifts at SNUH as a cardiology consultant. His parents both live on the outskirts of Seoul, and he hasn’t seen them since he started residency; all three have been too busy for that, but they communicate via text on occasion. Seungmin didn’t know his father was in town for a shift today. He does not have access to his father’s schedule, and his father did not see fit to tell him.

He feels a gentle tap to his shoulder, and turns around to look at Jeongin’s now-unmasked face. A gentle current of relief passes through him; the thought of seeing his father may not be pleasant, but Jeongin’s face is the most pleasant thing he can think of.

“Sunbae,” Jeongin says quietly, reverting to that in this more formal setting. He doesn’t ask the question, but it’s clear what he’s thinking.

Seungmin nods, but figures there’s no need to tell the whole team; his father doesn’t address him with any particular warmth even in non-professional settings, so it’s likely the team won’t be able to tell they are related. He gets his looks from his mother, anyway.

Jeongin must read something in the nod that goes beyond what Seungmin meant to convey, because he turns to the ICU senior and raises his hand like they are in class.

“Can I call the consult?” he requests.

Iseul seems surprised to be asked, but he smiles. “We don’t usually let medical students call consults, but… you did such a good job on rounds today, Jeongin. I’m going to make an exception.”

Jeongin gives him a sitting bow, and Seungmin stares at him. He doesn’t understand how Jeongin knew that he felt uncomfortable at the idea of calling his father, that he doesn’t want the team to be able to tell that they are related, and more than that, how Jeongin managed to take that knowledge an extra step to spare Seungmin from the situation—at least until his father physically comes to the ICU to see the patient.

Jeongin does a great job with the call, unsurprisingly, and the whole room cheers when he hangs up, started by Iseul this time, half in jest but half not. Jeongin laughs, standing up from his chair and bowing deeply at everybody over and over again.

Seungmin’s chest aches even worse, watching him, wanting him. Wanting him to be Seungmin’s.

He is truly grateful that Jeongin reverted back to being friendly, and wants them to be friends like he suggested, but he is slightly worried about what this month will do to his cardiovascular system. If that charged post-call breakfast set the standard for how affected he is going to feel around Jeongin things are bound to get worse.

Thinking through his feelings for Jeongin actually distracts him from the dread of running into his father for most of the morning, and around lunchtime he has almost forgotten that it’s going to happen. That is, until someone knocks on the charting office and Seungmin recognizes the man in the white coat on the other side; the glass walls of the fishbowl revealing who it is before he even steps inside.

“Hello, Dr. Kim Kyubok, cardiology attending,” he introduces himself, causing all six residents and Jeongin to swivel around in their chairs.

Most of them were eating the lunch sandwiches Iseul got them from the cafeteria, so it’s not their most dignified moment as they scramble to their feet to bow respectfully at him.

“Who is taking care of the patient in bed two?” he asks.

Seungmin, Jeongin and Iseul raise their hands.

Dr. Kim’s eyes are cold. Seungmin has wondered sometimes if he appears as detached as his father does when he’s upset. He can tell Dr. Kim is upset.

“The patient is in sepsis, her tachycardia is a result of the infection, not a primary cardiac issue,” he says flatly, to Seungmin. It’s the only acknowledgement Seungmin expects to get. “Her heart is not damaged.”

Seungmin nods; he had suspected as much, too, but the patient is receiving large volumes of intravenous fluids for her infection; in someone with a damaged heart that is a risky thing to do. They wanted to be sure they weren’t missing anything, so that the patient is safe.

He steels himself.

“There was a concern that her tachycardia was disproportionate to her fevers,” he says, to be completely certain they have advocated for the patient. “You don’t think it’s a possibility?”

An old fear stirs somewhere deep down in his gut—but he has stopped giving in to it. Becoming an adult meant that he has accepted how he already disappointed his father, and trying to outperform the impossible expectations set by his parents has always brought him nothing but disappointment of his own.

Dr. Kim crosses his arms over his chest. “You can perform an ultrasound to assess the function, but I am sure it will be normal.” Without saying it, his tone conveys that this is a waste of his time.

And with that, he leaves.

Iseul makes a face after the door shuts. “I feel like he just called us idiots to our faces.”

Jeongin doesn’t say anything, but he does prompt Seungmin to finish his sandwich a few minutes later, and brings him a canned milk tea from the vending machine along with a dorayaki around mid-afternoon. Seungmin doesn’t even remember telling him that he liked Japanese snacks.

He eats the sweet red bean filling and watches Jeongin out of the corner of his eye, craving something much sweeter to soothe him.

*

hey sg I miss u

we should hang tonight come over to mine after your shift

Jisung texts him around a quarter to 7pm, and then follows it up with: gonna come up there myself if you try to ghost me, im in the ER

working not like as a patient

Seungmin was not going to ghost him; he has missed his co-interns too, particularly his half of the class, and he’s actually very grateful for the chance to spend time with Jisung tonight. Jisung stopped asking about his symptoms weeks ago, after Seungmin’s third or fourth reassurance, but Seungmin is still grateful to him for helping him figure out where they were coming from in the first place—even if Jisung doesn’t know.

He also remembers Hyunjin kindly drawing his blood, and texts back: I’ll be there, is Hyunjin free? He lives in your building right?

!!!!!!! says Jisung. wait yes let’s try to get the whole Bang gang together. After a few seconds, he also sends: heh. gangbang

The next text that pops up is in ‘I wish Dr. Bang would bang me’, simply stating: everyone is expected at my place in an hour for dinner bring etoh if you want

sounds good, says Hyunjin just a few moments later. I need etoh stat

I’ll be there!!! <3<3<3<3<3 sends Felix a minute after that.

Seungmin is done with ‘etoh’ after his actions at the block one party while only minimally intoxicated, but he figures the others can bring alcohol if they want.

perfect! Jisung responds in the group. also fyi we shall henceforth be known as the Bang gang

we will NOT, sends Seungmin, at the exact same time as Hyunjin responds: yeah that’s not happening and Felix sends a simultaneous um?? no?????

“Something funny, Seungmin?” Iseul asks, smiling. “Or is it just that our shift is almost over?”

Seungmin smiles, too. He hadn’t realized his snort of amusement was audible. “Yeah. Just… excited to get off work, I guess.”

*

He’s the first to arrive, and Jisung greets him in an oversized sweater and shorts. He opens his arms in offering.

“Seungmin, you look so extra handsome,” Jisung says happily. “Hug me?”

Seungmin had changed out of his scrubs back into black jeans and a loose gray sweater, and it’s his plainest outfit. “You’re exaggerating,” he responds, but briefly allows the contact while toeing off his shoes.

He surveys the inside of Jisung’s apartment approvingly; it’s not neat, but it’s clean. A sort of organized chaos of fresh-smelling laundry in a hamper, Christmas lights up on two walls even though it’s the beginning of September, and a pile of washed dishes in the drying rack by the kitchen sink.

The smell of pizza hits his nostrils soon after.

“I figured we all deserved a treat,” Jisung says, motioning to the four cardboard boxes on a rickety kitchen table in the western style, at waist-height. “You… had to consult your dad today?”

Seungmin blinks at him.

He quickly runs through the possible scenarios, and arrives at the logical conclusion just as Jisung says: “Jeongin texted me.”

“Hm.” He presses his lips together, heart pounding at this silent intervention on Jeongin’s part. Was that why Jisung thought to text him to meet up in the first place? Is Jeongin to thank for the fact that Seungmin is spending an evening with his friends that is sure to make him feel better?

“You don’t have to tell me about it, if you don’t want,” Jisung says.

“No, I should…” It’s high time he was honest with Jisung, of all people. “Jeongin is the reason I developed all those symptoms at the beginning of July.”

Jisung’s jaw drops.

Seungmin realizes he meant to tell him about his relationship with his father, after.

“You like Jeongin?!”

“Jisung—”

“He said you rejected him!”

Seungmin’s planned response dies in his throat. “You. Talked to Jeongin about me?”

Jisung clasps his hands in front of him. “Yes. At the end-of-block party. The first one.” He looks way too excited for how turned around Seungmin feels. “He told me he confessed to you and you rejected him. And then later he told me you’re not undecided anymore—” he mimics air-quotes at ‘undecided’. “—but that you still said no. Because of the hierarchy. And because he thinks you don’t have feelings for him, you just want to fuck him, but I said I wasn’t so sure, and I was right!”

Seungmin gulps.

“He thinks I don’t have feelings for him?”

In Jeongin’s defense, Seungmin thought that too until a couple of weeks ago.

“Oh my God, why do you care about the hierarchy so much? No one batted an eye at him and Jiwoo at the welcome party.”

But Seungmin knows Jisung isn’t stupid; in fact he is incredibly smart. “Jisung. You know why it’s a bad idea to pursue him, especially now. I don’t… just want a make-out session at a party with him.” Which he has already done, not that Jisung needs to know that.

“But you could at least tell him that you like him.” Jisung doesn’t even try to argue the other thing.

“To what purpose? He’s leaving at the end of this block, back to Busan for six months.” He hasn’t let himself think too hard about that. “He’ll get over me faster, if he doesn’t know.”

Jisung opens his mouth to refute this when there’s a knock on the door.

Hyunjin and Felix apparently ran into each other in the hallway, and arrive at the same time.

“Guys!”

Jisung throws his arms around both of them but Seungmin stays a comfortable distance away, which makes the stark difference between Hyunjin and Felix all the more apparent. Seungmin missed his friends, so he does glance at their faces to check on them, and what he sees there is jarring: Felix is radiating a sort of contained joy that makes his golden, round features even more luminous than usual, whereas Hyunjin looks… drained. Seungmin can’t think of another word for it. His cheekbones are sharper than ever, he is pale, and the way he holds himself is as though he sustained a visceral internal injury but is trying not to let it show.

The other two clearly notice this too.

“There’s pizza, Hyunjin,” Jisung tells him, and it sounds like he’s talking to a child. The real alarm bells start ringing when Hyunjin doesn’t even lash out at him for it, just accepting Jisung’s tone and walking over to the boxes.

Felix and Jisung exchange a look and Seungmin didn’t need Jisung to nudge him in the side with his index finger, though he does.

“Let’s sit on the floor, we have to catch up!” Felix says, brushing Seungmin’s shoulders as he passes him and giving him a brief smile. Even that small smile on Felix makes Seungmin do a double take; he thinks something must have happened to Felix, too. Something really good. He remembers briefly noting that Felix was in a very good mood at the end-of-block-two party, but Felix had barely stayed there for an hour, and him and Seungmin didn’t really interact much during. Seungmin had left early, too; Jeongin’s absence made the party seem boring, despite Jisung’s best efforts.

Jisung ordered way too much pizza, but there are four different flavors so they open all the boxes to share among them.

“Seungmin, congrats on surviving surgery,” Felix starts. “How is ICU going?”

Seungmin shrugs. “It’s fine.” He doesn’t want to get into the whole thing with his father; he's honestly not even bothered by it anymore, not with thoughts of Jeongin to focus on and especially not with Hyunjin looking like that. “Jeongin is doing a really great job.”

“Ugh, I miss him. The student rotating in the ER this block is not as good,” says Jisung. “Why didn’t you bring him to the end-of-block-two party? He’s basically an honorary ER intern at this point, we all love him—"

“Wait, he didn’t come?” Felix asks, aghast with disappointment.

“Would you have even noticed?” Hyunjin cuts in.

All three of them look at him.

Hyunjin winces and bites his pizza. Jisung and Seungmin look to Felix.

“…Uh.” Felix gulps. “What. What do you mean, Hyunjin?”

But Hyunjin shakes his head apologetically and points to his full mouth.

“You. Um.” Jisung looks like he’s trying very hard not to laugh. “You did seem… busy.”

Thinking back to the couple of times he glanced at Felix, Seungmin recalls him mostly chatting with Dr. Bang.

Something is being implied here. Heavily enough that Seungmin picks it up.

“Are you sleeping with Dr. Bang?” he asks Felix. It would certainly explain why Felix has been so glowy.

“Oh my God,” Jisung gasps, and even Hyunjin slants his gaze to Felix’s face.

Felix looks panicked, but too happy to make that worrisome. “I. I’m.” He mouths blankly for a few moments. “I. Uh. We.” Then he sort of crumples, putting his head in his hands, and shouts: “You guys can’t tell anyone!”

“OH MY GOD!” Jisung screeches, and Seungmin drops his pizza slice back in its box.

“I knew it!” Hyunjin crows, looking the most animated he has since he walked in tonight.

Felix takes his hands away from his face and reveals an expression that is giddy.

“I’m so in love with him it’s, like, not even funny,” he says, and Jisung screeches again, nonverbally this time, and Hyunjin punches Felix on the shoulder, but he’s finally smiling, and Seungmin… is smiling too. He is concerned about the wisdom of an intern sleeping with an attending, no matter how reasonable the age difference, but Felix looks so happy. Felix deserves to look this happy. Maybe they can figure something out.

“I literally need all the details,” Jisung says. “How did it happen? Is the thing about him staying at the chiefs’ a lie and he just came right to your doorstep the night of his divorce? Break-up, whatever,” he adds before Felix can correct him on his word choice. “Was it raining? Did he not have an umbrella so you dramatically opened the door and he was wet from the—"

“He actually didn’t talk to me for almost two weeks after it happened,” Felix says, and launches into a (likely heavily edited, PG-13) recap of the past few days.

Seungmin listens, pleased for him despite his reservations, and knows to keep those to himself for now.

“So we’re just… figuring this out. I told my mom, who is already designing our spring wedding, I think, but—we have to keep it a secret, obviously. Especially with all this stuff with JYP going on.”

“Oh my God that’s right, you could get kicked out of the program,” Jisung says, looking serious for the first time since Felix’s revelation. “He would use it as the perfect excuse to fire you, for sure.” He sounds scared. “Felix. Shit.”

“I know,” Felix says. “I know, we’ll be careful. Uh, more careful, going forward.”

Hyunjin puts a hand around his shoulders and Felix tips into his side for a few moments, the unfettered joy of his situation briefly fraught by the potential consequences. Seungmin is surprised he wasn’t the one to bring the mood back down to reality, in the end.

As the silence goes on for a few beats, both Jisung and Seungmin slowly turn their focus on Hyunjin, with Felix looking sideways at him as well, as though to suggest they talk about him, next.

“So Jisung, what’s up with you?” Hyunjin says, glaring at them.

To Seungmin’s surprise, Jisung blushes. “Me? N-nothing.”

Felix clears his throat pointedly, and Hyunjin, obviously relieved at having discovered an avenue forward, sits up without dislodging Felix from his shoulder. “Nothing? Are you sure? Felix just bared his soul to us even though it could cost him his career, here.”

Jisung’s panicked eyes flit between the other three, and he starts breathing a little fast.

“Um.”

Hyunjin’s eyes are intent. “You’ve been very busy the past couple of months,” he pushes. “Always making plans without us, even though your friends don’t live in town… who are you making plans with?”

Jisung, cornered and tremulous, stares at him with the fear of a trapped animal, and finally closes his eyes and points directly at him.

“What did you and Changbin do in his room for forty-five minutes during the party?!”

Hyunjin pales.

Seungmin had already thought he seemed pale, but he looks like he’s actually going to pass out, now.

Even Jisung seems to instantly regret bringing it up, clamping a hand over his mouth and shaking his head. “U-um, I’m sorry, I’m s-sorry Hyunjin, let’s not talk about it, we don’t have to talk about it.”

“Hyunjin?” Felix says, transitioning his grip so that instead of him leaning on Hyunjin’s shoulder he is hugging Hyunjin from the side, holding him upright. Hyunjin is white as a sheet. “Hey. Hey.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I-I promise I covered for you, I told everyone you were puking your guts out in Changbin’s bathroom and he totally went along with it when he came out…” Jisung is staring at Hyunjin with big pleading eyes. “Hyunjin, hey Hyunjin, I’m sleeping with Minho. Nurse Lee. I-I’ve been sleeping with him since the start of the first block, that’s what I was doing with all my free time.”

It works; Hyunjin seems to come back to himself, and then his mouth drops open.

“Minho?”

A second, even bigger revelation seems to hit him as he connects some inner dots the others aren’t privy to.

“You’re the resident having casual, no-strings-attached sex with Minho?”

Jisung nods, at this point seeming just relieved that Hyunjin is talking again.

“Yeah! I-I know he’s, like, a player, but he’s actually really nice, and I really… like him.”

Seungmin, who is still processing information from two revelations ago, squeezes the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Is there anyone here who isn’t sleeping with someone else in the department other than me?” he asks.

He opens his eyes to three guilty stares and no hands raised.

“…Great.”

“I’m not sleeping with Changbin,” Hyunjin mutters.

The others wait him out.

“I have slept with him. Twice. Or… eight times, depending on how you count it. But not anymore.”

Two and eight are very different numbers—Seungmin feels a mild course of his Jeongin-related palpitations arise at the possibilities.

“Uh,” says Felix, wide-eyed.

Thankfully, Jisung asks the question. “Can… can you clarify that for us, Hyunjin?”

Hyunjin rolls his eyes, and sounds like every word was wrenched out of him by force. “Actual sleeping is twice. For sex, the first night we had sex a lot of different—ways, but if we count that as one then the night of the party was the second time.”

“So you did have sex in his room at the party—”

“If we’re only counting his dick in my ass it would be three times the first night then once at the party, four total. If we count blowjobs and handjobs then it’d be six times the first night, plus a handjob the morning after the JYP email meeting, plus the party sex, eight.”

There is a stunned, impressed silence after that.

“I don’t want to talk about it any further,” Hyunjin says, and his voice is tight. He looks not unlike a cornered animal himself.

“That’s okay. We don’t have to,” says Felix.

“Not even to, like… describe it a little?” Jisung says, and before Hyunjin can threaten to disembowel him he raises his hands. “No, no, of course not, that would be an invasion of privacy, I get it.”

“You talk,” Hyunjin commands.

Jisung blushes again. “Oh, um. That’s… there’s not that much more to it, I guess.” He glances at Felix. “I told Felix a couple of weeks ago. We’re not, like, together. It’s not…” his shoulders slump. “…exclusive, or anything.”

Hyunjin makes a strangled noise, but doesn’t say anything.

“So the person having a secret affair with an attending is the one among us who is doing the best, right now,” Seungmin clarifies.

Felix blushes, but then makes an ‘eh’ noise. “You could argue you’re doing the best, Seungmin; less messy than any of us. I’d say you’re winning.”

Jisung stays quiet, and Seungmin doesn’t contradict Felix, but he is wrong. Seungmin’s heart is a mess, his nervous system is a mess, and the way he longs for Jeongin makes him feel like a total loser.

Hyunjin

After spending time with the gang on Wednesday evening, Hyunjin feels slightly better, if not more sane (he can’t be sane about Changbin, he has accepted this). He thumbs his phone open to Changbin’s unanswered text several times the following couple of days, wondering if he should just respond late. Changbin wouldn’t judge him for it; he’d probably be devastatingly kind, like always.

He makes it to Saturday without figuring out how to word the response yet, but having made the decision that he will. Tomorrow morning after his twenty-four-hour call, bolstered by insomnia-induced bravery, he will take Changbin up on his offer and sit through whatever agony the conversation puts him through. He will do this for Changbin, much in the way in which he would take a bullet for Changbin, though this will be harder and more painful.

Beep beep beep beep.

The strident alarm cuts through his thoughts, and Hyunjin turns to look at Mingyu. The pager has quickly become the bane of Hyunjin’s existence, but at least he’s not forcibly attached at the hip to it, like Mingyu is.

“Don’t tell me—” Hyunjin starts, even though it’s 8pm on a Saturday night, and he knows what it’s likely to be. The day was already busy and a trauma alert is the last thing they need, but sure enough Mingyu takes one look at it and abruptly stands up, motioning for him to follow.

“Come on, Mr. Artist, we gotta run!”

They encounter several snags on the way to the ER; the nearest elevators are temporarily shut-down, and according to the repairman they can either take the stairs or walk to the next set of elevators which is too far away. It’s ten stories because they were seeing a consult on the neurology floor, so they decide to just run downstairs, but then the sensor to the exit door on the ground floor doesn’t work with their badges, so they have to go back up a level and find another stairwell.

Hyunjin isn’t sure at what point he starts to develop a sense of building unease, but he feels anxious. More than his usual.

“This was our workout for the day, huh?” Mingyu comments, panting, when they finally make it to the ER. It’s busy, Hyunjin spots Felix and Jisung in Red Pod in the distance, but they are already late for the alert so he can’t stop and greet them, and neither of them even sees him rush by because they are busy with patients, too. “Wanna bet it’s another damn car accident from the intersection?”

Hyunjin doesn’t answer. They just burst into the trauma bay and—it’s packed.

There are more people here than Hyunjin has ever seen, and it’s almost… a confirmation. Something is off about this particular trauma, something he was right to feel anxious about.

People are craning their necks to see what’s happening. These are professionals who do this for a living, but the noise level is unlike what it’s ever been in here; Hyunjin even notices a nurse who has been at SNUH for three decades standing on her tiptoes to get a look at the patient on the stretcher. It doesn’t make sense.

It’s loud despite the shouting Dr. Cha is doing from the patient’s bedside for: “Some quiet, please! We are trying to finish our assessment!”, and staff that are clearly not stationed to work here are in here, Hyunjin spots several people in pink pediatric scrubs, and something is—wrong, something is very wrong. Even in a cardiac arrest or multiple simultaneous traumas, it has never felt like this in the bay before.

“What is it?” Mingyu yells, and Dr. Cha doesn’t hear him at first, nor does the ER resident—Hyunjin can’t even see which resident is in charge of the trauma, his view is blocked by too many people. “ER team! What’ve we got?”

“QUIET!” Dr. Cha calls, and finally some quiet descends, though it’s still not total silence. Through the mass of bodies, Hyunjin catches a flash of Seri standing at the head of the bed.

She’s crying.

Hyunjin feels a pit of dread open up in his stomach.

“We have a pedestrian s-struck!” She chokes out. “The p-patient is a twenty-six-year-old male—"

Hyunjin almost stops walking. His anxiety spikes so high that it’s not anxiety anymore; it’s fear. It’s terror.

“Paramedics said he was h-helping s-someone who fell off their b-bike—"

“Take a breath, Seri,” Dr. Cha snaps, but even her unflappable nature is clearly altered.

“He was h-hit by a d-drunk driver.” Seri goes on, voice wet. “Vitals are n-notable for tachycardia, normal blood pressure, normal oxygen saturation...”

“How’s the airway?” Mingyu has made his way through the crowd, but Hyunjin is still fighting his way there, even though part of him already knows—can sense what is coming. Can sense that it’s going to break him in two, but he needs to see it for himself, needs to confirm that the worst thing he can imagine happening is in fact happening—

“The patient is unconscious,” Seri responds, and Dr. Cha steps aside just as Hyunjin finally reaches the foot of the bed.

It’s Changbin.

Chapter Text

Jisung

“Oh my God, did you hear?” Nurse Jang says, tapping Jisung’s shoulder with urgency.

Jisung twists around in his seat at the computers. Nurse Jang is a bit of a gossip but she’s usually pretty unflappable, and she sounds really agitated. “What? What happened?”

“The trauma that just came in, it’s one of ours,” she whispers. “The Blue Pod team is taking care of him, but I just heard—one of the chiefs, Dr. Seo, he was in an accident—"

Jisung springs to his feet, heart pounding. “Chief Seo?” he echoes, staring at her. She nods, eyes shiny, and suddenly he is running before he knows better. He almost crashes into Felix on his way to the trauma bay, they are both working the Red Pod overnight shift together, and he yanks Felix by the sleeve mid-conversation with a patient’s family member.

“It’s Changbin!” he says, feeling—panicked, he doesn’t even know. “Felix! The trauma patient, it’s Changbin!”

Felix pales and stumbles after him, and then they are both bursting into the Bay, which is—empty.

Not empty of people, there are plenty of staff lingering around, the mood a blanket of horrible somber worry. But empty of patients; all the stretchers are clear.

“Wh…” Jisung’s voice isn’t working. “Where’s Changbin?” he chokes out, loud in the large space.

Every person turns to look at him, and one of them is Minho.

Jisung fastens his eyes on him, a focal point, an anchor even as his eyes burn, his throat tightens. “Where’s Changbin?” he repeats, to Minho.

“They took him to the CT scanner,” Minho says. He, too, sounds strained. “He was starting to wake up by the end of the trauma team’s assessment, he didn’t need a breathing tube.”

Jisung can’t feel relieved yet. “What about his—”

“FAST exam was negative,” Minho finishes, knowing what Jisung was going to ask next. “No obvious internal bleeding.”

They need the CT scan to confirm that, but it’s something, that the ultrasound didn’t show internal bleeding. It’s something.

“The trauma team,” breathes Felix. He grabs Jisung’s wrist, and Jisung doesn’t get it at first. “Jisung, the intern on the trauma team tonight is Hyunjin.”

Shit. Shit.

Minho walks over to them both, and the urge to jump into his arms for a comforting hug is so strong that Jisung has to pinch his own thigh so as not to do it.

“I think he’s going to be okay,” he says, low, to both of them. “He might have some rib fractures, he seemed to have pain over the right side, and I guess a concussion since he was unconscious for a few minutes, but the accident happened at the intersection right by here, probably right after he left his shift. They got him in right away.” His hand twitches towards Jisung but he doesn’t touch him. “Dr. Cha and Seri went to the CT scanner with Mingyu and Hyunjin. We’ll know more very soon.”

Jisung nods, and grabs Felix’s hand in lieu of being able to grab Minho’s. Felix clings to him, face full of worry, and Jisung thinks of Hyunjin. He must be in the booth of the CT scanner right now, behind the protective glass, watching Changbin get a bunch of radiation so they can figure out what is wrong.

Hyunjin

Hyunjin is trapped inside a nightmare he can’t wake from.

Changbin

Everything hurts, and there’s a voice telling him to ‘take a deep breath and hold it’, he’s inside a CT scanner. The voice is Hyunjin? Or he wants it to be. “Is the bicyclist okay?” he calls out. “Did they get hit?”

“Oh my God—” says the voice, and yeah. That exasperation is all Hyunjin.

Seungmin

He finds out because Jisung calls him to say: “If you check the ER board and see Changbin’s name in as a patient, he’s stable, he’s getting CT scans.” And he stands up abruptly, clutching his phone to his ear, causing Jeongin to pause on his way out of the door of the ICU fishbowl.

“Hyung?”

Felix

He has to keep working. It’s so busy tonight, there are other patients, he has to keep working.

His next patient is a man who fell of his bicycle.

“There was a guy, handsome guy, he was helping me and got hit by a car, is he okay?”

Hyunjin

Three broken ribs. A partial spleen rupture. A concussion. Multiple lacerations. Muscle contusions.

Jisung

It’s so hard to concentrate on his shift. Dr. Kim is being really understanding, but none of the residents are doing a very good job. Wooyoung looks hollow, the least animated Jisung has ever seen him.

Seungmin

Hyunjin and Seri send the updates to the residency-wide group-chat, because by this point everyone is frantically spamming it with questions.

looks like he wont need surgery, Hyunjin says, and Seungmin breathes his first sigh of relief and shows his phone screen to Jeongin, who stayed behind to follow along with him. getting admitted but just for monitoring

Shoutout to Hyunjin who was great in the trauma bay btw, Seri sends. He took over for me as soon as he got there, crushed it

Felix

He wants to check on Hyunjin, or go see Changbin in person, but for the first time ever feels trapped in the ER; not having the ability to take a break, to leave and go upstairs to the surgery floors is so frustrating that he wants to cry.

Chan is on his way to the hospital, though. Chan will do it for him.

Hyunjin

Mingyu lets him stay in Changbin’s room on the seventh floor while the anesthesia team injects the nerves in Changbin’s chest with ropivacaine, to numb the pain from his fractures. Hyunjin is pretty sure that Mingyu understands that if he tried to remove him from Changbin’s bedside he would find that he can’t.

Jeongin

It’s midnight and Jeongin still hasn’t left, and at this point he has decided that he is not going to until the morning. Seungmin looked so shaken by the news about Changbin, but just as Felix and Jisung are trapped in the ER, Seungmin is trapped up here in the ICU—his patients are too sick to leave unattended, even for a few minutes, even though Changbin is only two floors away. The overnight ICU senior isn’t Iseul today, it’s some tired-looking guy named Dr. Sun who told them not to call and wake him up “unless someone is dying”, so Seungmin is expected to manage everything by himself up until that point.

Jeongin is not going to leave him here alone.

“Hyung,” he says softly.

Seungmin’s mouse is hovering over Changbin’s chart on the surgery patients list, but it is illegal for him to click into it. They both know that. Changbin is not his patient—Changbin, thank goodness, did not need the ICU. Jeongin doesn’t think Seungmin is going to break the law, but he knows that the fact that Seungmin got to the point where he is doing this means that he is not well.

“Jeongin.” He blinks, and exits out of the surgery department charts altogether. He turns to look at Jeongin, and seems to realize what time it is only now. “It’s so late. I. I’m so sorry.” He runs a hand through his hair. “You’re not supposed to stay for the full twenty-four hours. You’re… you should have left with the day team. I’m sorry.”

“No, n-no I wanted to—”

“You should go. Go home.” His eyes are pained, there is no way Jeongin is going home. “I should have sent you home.”

“No,” Jeongin says firmly, and to demonstrate the strength of his conviction he grasps Seungmin’s hand. Seungmin doesn’t pull away, but he doesn’t look comfortable, there’s a slight tremble in his hand that transmits to Jeongin’s.

Jeongin wants to fix it, but he doesn’t know how. He is so worried about Changbin too. “He doesn’t need surgery, that’s good, right? And he’s not here.” He points outside of the fishbowl, to their very sick, complicated patients, most of whom have breathing tubes and are sedated. He wishes they weren’t here either, that they were awake like Changbin is. “He’s going to be okay.”

Seungmin doesn’t move, staring blankly at a spot above Jeongin’s shoulder. The hallway lights get dimmed overnight, to create a pseudo-circadian effect of nighttime for patients and their family members, but it means that their little fishbowl feels more like a display case right now, and not in a good way.

Jeongin lets go of Seungmin to go turn off the lights inside the fishbowl, too; a couple of desk lamps remain on but they don’t need the bright overheads, and the nurses know where to come find them if there is any issue with a patient.

In the relative darkness, he dares to sit closer to Seungmin, bringing the rolling chair all the way up to him so their knees touch.

“Hyung,” he says, quietly. He can still see Seungmin’s face at this distance, and knows he will be seen in turn. “Can I hug you? Would you like me to do that?”

Seungmin takes a beat to answer, but then he leans forward and puts his arms around Jeongin.

He’s more slender, but his arms are firm around Jeongin’s frame, and when he pulls him forward Jeongin almost falls out of his chair before half-standing to put his arms around Seungmin in turn, awkwardly bent over until Seungmin inhales and stands up. They both get to their feet at the same time, still holding each other, and Jeongin hears and feels Seungmin exhale into him, a true sigh of relief once they are pressed tightly together, in each other’s arms. His face is in Jeongin’s shoulder, and Jeongin is resting his chin on Seungmin’s.

The significance of Seungmin initiating physical touch for comfort is not lost on him. He is hit by a pang of sadness at the idea, though—he knows Seungmin has good friends who will support him after Jeongin is gone, but he has the selfish thought that he wants to be the one to do it. He got close enough, far enough into Seungmin’s comfort zone that he is able to do this; he doesn’t want to delegate, he just wants to be there for Seungmin for ever, and wants the reverse to be the same.

“Thank you,” Seungmin mumbles.

Jeongin just nods, holding him tighter.

They stay like that for a long time, just breathing, before an alarm starts to ring in the distance, signaling that one of their patients is getting sicker, and Seungmin has to go check on them.

Jeongin goes with him.

Changbin

The morning after his accident, Changbin wakes up in a haze. His chest doesn’t hurt too badly, but the right side feels strange and numb and he feels nauseous, like his very thoughts are blurred.

“You’re awake.”

Hyunjin.

That’s Hyunjin, talking to him.

Changbin tries to blink a few times to center the spinning room in his vision, and it helps. The ceiling is gray with some air vents, he’s attached to a monitor, and he has an IV in each forearm. He sees two figures at either side of him; Hyunjin first, sitting on a chair. The other is Chan, standing over him.

“Bin,” Chan says, with a sigh of relief. “How are you feeling?”

Changbin’s nausea is flirting with the edge of his consciousness; the more awake and aware he becomes, the stronger it gets.

“I…” He doesn’t want to vomit in front of Hyunjin. That wouldn’t be tough and hot and attractive, like he wants Hyunjin to think he is. “You’re here,” he ends up saying to Hyunjin, quieter than he intended. It’s a question, even though his inflection didn’t necessarily give that away: why are you here?

Hyunjin is in the dark green surgery scrubs, not the light ER ones. Right, he’s on surgery and he was there in the trauma bay when Changbin first woke up, barking orders while Seri cried on Changbin’s face. He stepped in as though he was a senior, telling the nurses (telling Minho) what to do, kicking people out of the room who didn’t need to be there, and, with Dr. Cha’s guidance, finishing Changbin’s assessment so they could take him to the CT scanner.

“He insisted,” Chan says, when Hyunjin just stares at him and doesn’t say anything. “Mingyu pre-rounded for him so that he could stay here with you. His call shift ended two hours ago, the morning rounds are probably about to start with the day team.”

Changbin does not look away from Hyunjin while Chan speaks, and it’s not just because shifting his gaze makes the nausea worse. He is having some trouble processing all these words that Chan is saying, while Hyunjin looks back at him with eyes that are burning holes into Changbin, an intensity that is centering, in a way, because it pins him in place so that Changbin doesn’t float away.

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” Changbin asks, knowing the answer. “How long have you been awake?”

A beat of imperious silence, and then Hyunjin’s eyes narrow. “You. Got run over,” he grits out, and oops, he’s angry. “And you’re worried about me?”

“Uh…”

“You ruptured your spleen.”

“It’s only grade one,” Chan interjects, and then cowers at the look Hyunjin levels at him. They aren’t an attending and an intern right now; Hyunjin is a furious, mythical entity and Chan is powerless.

“You also fractured three ribs,” Hyunjin goes on. “Which you are going to feel when the nerve block wears off, by the way. Oh, and you have a concussion. I had to fix two lacerations on your arms and one on your back. I picked glass out of your hair for hours.”

Changbin stares and stares and stares at him. Hyunjin sounds so angry, but what he is saying… the words he is saying, when Changbin eventually starts to process them…

“You… picked glass out of my hair?”

Before Hyunjin can yell at him any more there’s a knock at the door, and the surgical team comes in.

“Chief Seo!” Hongjoong exclaims. He went to the same med school as Wooyoung and San, and has been to the chief’s apartment a bunch of times. “So glad you’re awake. Everyone, this is our twenty-six-year-old male who was a pedestrian struck by a car, admitted overnight for observation.”

A group of five—no, six people walk in, and Changbin’s head throbs. He wants to hold Hyunjin’s hand for comfort, but he knows Hyunjin would be horrified if he asked, and anyway Hyunjin stood up to bow to the surgeons. He might have asked Chan, but Chan tensed a little and Changbin, belatedly, notices why.

Dr. Choi Nari is the surgery attending on today.

“His hemoglobin levels were stable,” Hongjoong tells her, in answer to a question Changbin didn’t pay attention to. “And his oxygen has been normal on room air. The nerve block that anesthesia did worked great all night.”

“Who did his laceration repairs?”

“That’d be Dr. Hwang.” Hongjoong points to Hyunjin, shooting him a kind smile. “Who should be at home sleeping, no?”

“Seems like Chief Seo is my most popular patient to date,” Dr. Choi sighs, finally glancing at her ex-fiancé. “The family room is full to bursting with visitors, Dr. Bang, are you going to take responsibility for half the emergency department hanging out on my surgical floor?” but her tone is only mildly exasperated, and it’s not unkind. “From what I hear, half the intern class has been staying in the hospital past their allowed hours. I’m going to get written up for violating resident protected time at this rate.”

“Oh.” Chan winces. “Sorry, uh, everyone is very worried about the chief.”

“Wooyoung cried,” Hongjoong tells Changbin, grinning. “Please tell him I told you, he’s gonna hate that.”

“Wow. When he hears my spleen rupture is only grade one he’s going to feel so stupid,” Changbin says, and the whole room laughs except for Hyunjin.

“Wooyoung also stayed after his overnight. So many people are worried about you, Bin,” Chan says softly.

Dr. Choi looks from him to Changbin. Then she looks at Changbin’s monitor, where his vital signs are displayed. He has a feeling looking at a screen will make him dizzier right now, so he trusts her to assess him.

“I think letting everybody in at once will be a bit overwhelming, and our patient is concussed,” she says. “How about…” and her eyes flicker to Chan again, almost checking in with him for approval. “We can have Dr. Hwang’s co-interns take him home, and we can let three of Chief Seo’s classmates in? You’d have to leave too, Cha—Dr. Bang.”

Chan nods. “I’ll take the interns home,” he says to her. “Thank you so much, Dr. Choi.”

She nods to him, and the surgery team as a whole starts leaving.

Hyunjin hasn’t moved.

“Hyunjin?” Chan prompts.

Hyunjin seems—stuck. He’s looking at Changbin, and he’s not glaring anymore, and he’s not burning with anger either. Instead he seems… lost. Like he won’t be able to find his way home if left to his own devices.

His eyes are so beautiful, shiny and such a rich deep brown, Changbin has had the thought before. In his current state, head aching and dizzy and a little nauseous still, he lets himself think that he selfishly doesn’t want Hyunjin to leave, actually. He knows Hyunjin deserves to, but Changbin’s battered brain thinks: he could sleep next to me, we sleep well together, I could still spoon him, my arms work just fine—

He sees Chan quickly move out of the corner of his eye, and he pushes two buttons on the monitor screen—Changbin has the awful feeling Chan silenced the heart rate alarm seconds before it would have been set off by abnormal parameters.

“Hyunjin,” Chan says again, more firmly this time. His attending voice. “It’s time to go.”

Hyunjin finally looks away from Changbin to look at the floor, but he still doesn’t move.

“I’m going to get Felix to drag you out if you don’t,” Chan adds.

And at that, finally, Hyunjin lurches into walking, and makes it all the way to the door before turning around and looking back. It’s the first time he’s ever looked back at Changbin when exiting a room, and Changbin knows he would have set off the monitor by now, for sure.

“Focus on your healing,” Hyunjin threatens. “Be selfish, or I’ll kick your ass during rounds tomorrow.”

Changbin nods feebly and gives him a thumbs up. Just this once, Hyunjin might be able to take him in a fight—not that Changbin wouldn’t immediately surrender anyway, rib fractures or no. Hyunjin holds every other kind of power over him.

Seungmin

Seungmin is the equivalent of drunk again.

He has been awake for twenty-six hours by the time Hyunjin and Chan come to tell them that they can’t see Changbin today, and that they need to go home. Himself, Jeongin, Felix, Jisung and Minho all waited in the family room along with many of Changbin’s co-residents and fellow seniors, but in the end the surgical team is only allowing three visitors and San, Wooyoung and Seri are it.

“I’m going to take you home,” Chan says firmly, and none of them argue. They make their way to the elevators and Jeongin touches the back of his hand to the back of Seungmin’s during the ride, a point of contact and comfort, and Seungmin lets himself enjoy it. Everyone gets off on the ground floor except for their little intern group along with Jeongin, Chan and Minho, who spill out into the parking lot. None of them lives further than a ten-minute walk from the hospital, but in their current state there is no questioning of the fact that Chan is going to drive them.

“Hyung,” Jeongin mutters, right before they get in the car. Felix took the front passenger seat, so the other five will have to squeeze in the back. Jisung is already crawling onto Minho’s lap.

“Hm?”

“Can I stay with you this morning? For a bit.”

Seungmin nods without thinking it through. “Sure, Ien-ah.”

So when Chan drops him off first, Jeongin wordlessly gets off with him, and none of the others comment on it.

*

“Are you okay, Jeongin?” Seungmin asks when they are finally alone in his living room.

Jeongin is standing by the large windows looking out at the spectacular view from the thirty-second floor. It's the same spot where Seungmin left him fifteen minutes ago to go take a quick shower and change out of his scrubs.

Jeongin turns to him, the pale morning illuminating his face. It’s a dreary sort of day, but he seems to absorb all those rays and turn them into brightness.

“Yeah.” His gaze is calculating. “Are you?”

Seungmin attempts to answer truthfully, forcing himself to internally check. He’s so tired he’s almost past the concept of sleep as a whole, but his panic from the night has receded. Hearing that Changbin is awake, talking, that his vital signs are all normal, that he’s probably going to be discharged in a handful of days… his medical brain took over, risk-stratified Changbin’s condition, and found it to be good. He will recover in a few weeks, probably be ready to go back to work by the start of the next block so long as his physical therapy goes as well as Seungmin expects someone with Changbin’s amazing body composition to do.

“Yes,” he says. “I am okay.”

He still wants another hug from Jeongin, but the desire isn’t borne out of a need for comfort anymore, so he can’t ask for it.

“I was going to offer to hug you again,” Jeongin says with a bashful grin, like he just read Seungmin’s mind. “So you don’t want it?”

Seungmin finds himself walking over to him as though someone else is controlling his body. He only manages to stop when he’s standing right in front of Jeongin, the floor-to-ceiling window beyond them, the scenic view of the city so uninteresting compared to the way Jeongin’s eyes subtly widen. “I want it,” he blurts, clumsy, too honest. “I.” He shouldn’t. They shouldn’t, this has been established over and over again. But.

Jeongin looks like he wants it, too.

“Then can I…?” Jeoning asks quietly. “Please?”

Seungmin nods, and next thing he knows Jeongin is leaning into him and they are holding each other tightly. Seungmin’s hands lock around Jeongin’s waist this time, Jeongin’s arms around his neck. Jeongin is still in his baby-blue scrubs, the worn material soft against Seungmin’s skin.

It’s so good. It’s so… so good, he’s so tired, he doesn’t want to let go, he doesn’t want Jeongin to leave for Busan in just three weeks, he doesn’t want Jeongin to meet someone else, someone less awkward and better for him who is sexually and emotionally experienced and ends up receiving Jeongin’s big smiles without treasuring them properly—

Jeongin sighs softly, barely audible. His face is smushed into Seungmin’s neck, and Seungmin is having hypersensitive anaphylaxis, either that or he is completely lost to his wants. His tired brain is trying to come up with excuses, with reasons to escalate this contact, with ‘just once couldn’t hurt’ arguments even though the mere thought of it happening only once hurts. But the thought of losing—

“Was there… a reason you didn’t feel like being alone?” he asks Jeongin, because he has been wondering. They don’t separate yet.

“Um.” Jeongin exhales onto his skin, and goosebumps erupt all over Seungmin’s body. “I just. I was worried about you.”

“Oh.” He stares blindly ahead.

“Felix has Dr. Bang and Jisung has Nurse Lee, and Hyunjin would probably punch me if I offered to help him, but… I thought you might want company, but you might not ask.”

“…Oh.”

No one has ever… known him this much.

He pulls away from the hug, slowly, gently, and puts his hands on either side of Jeongin’s precious face. He looks directly into his eyes, gut churning with the intensity of it, but forcing himself to maintain the contact.

“Ien-ah.”

Jeongin’s lovely tired eyes watch him back, and Seungmin holds out for as long as he can until he needs a break. He leans up to kiss Jeoning’s forehead, to make up for it.

“Thank you,” he says, sincerely.

And to his utter disarmament, Jeongin’s eyes fill with tears that quickly spill over his cheeks, down to Seungmin’s thumbs. He gives Seungmin a wet smile, makes an apologetic expression and brings his own hands up to wipe the tears, dislodging Seungmin’s hold.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, looking down. “Sorry I just… I love you. A lot.”

Seungmin freezes.

“I’m sorry.” Jeongin wipes and wipes but his tears keep flowing. “I’m sorry, I’m tired. I’m gonna leave, I-I’m sorry, hyung—"

“No.”

Seungmin gathers him back in his arms before Jeongin can step back, and even though Jeongin is broader than him he hunches into a vulnerable whorl and tucks his face into Seungmin’s chest, this time, crying quietly.

“You don’t have to leave, Jeongin,” he says firmly, but underneath that conviction he feels completely disoriented. He doesn’t know anything beyond the fact that Jeongin shouldn’t leave like this.

“I’m sorry,” Jeongin whispers. “I think I asked to come here for me, too. I just love you, I… I love you so much, I love you…”

Seungmin’s heart breaks, loses its shape, thunders wildly in his chest while Jeongin cries, and he doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know what the right thing to do is anymore. The clouded sky holds no answers, and the warmth of their embrace doesn’t either, but both remain, for a long while, immutable: the weather and the feel of Jeongin in his arms, two equally powerful forces, neither within his control.

*

They sleep together.

Just sleep. But Jeongin is so weak after crying out his feelings on Seungmin’s chest and Seungmin doesn’t have the strength to let him go, so he lends him a pair of loose shorts and a T-shirt and they curl up in bed together. After so many hours awake, and so many emotions to sort through, Seungmin is able to sleep deeply, and wakes just as the sun begins to set.

He only realizes it upon waking, but he hadn’t even pulled his blackout curtains shut before falling into bed, so he is treated to the sight of the deep orange and red light of sunset spilling over the city and, much more importantly, bathing Jeongin’s body. That includes Jeongin’s bare calves and thighs, his arms, the strip of waist revealed by his loose shirt bunching, and of course, as always, his face.

Seungmin feels achy, and starving, and he feels… Jeongin.

Jeongin fell asleep pressed up against him and he still is both of those things; unconscious and plastered to Seungmin’s front. His face is squished into Seungmin’s chest, his leg is actually draped over Seungmin’s hip, and his dick is hard against Seungmin’s stomach. In the handful of seconds it takes Seungmin to unscramble his thoughts and attempt any action, Jeongin’s hips roll lazily into his, dragging his dick along Seungmin’s flesh in a searing hot motion.

“Jeongin,” he gasps, and Jeongin sucks some of Seungmin’s shirt into his mouth and does it again, moaning softly.

He’s still asleep.

“J-Jeongin, hey, hey.” Seungmin’s body is reacting in spite of himself but this is not okay, Jeongin is asleep, this is not—“Hey. Hey. Wake up, Ien-ah.”

Jeongin blinks his eyes open amidst his next roll, still chewing on Seungmin’s shirt, the quiet moan in his throat turning up inquiringly halfway through. He looks disoriented for a few moments, cheeks ruddy red even in the red sunlight, and he actually—starts another aborted thrust into Seungmin before he finally registers what he’s doing.

“Oh.”

He wrenches away, untangling his limbs from around Seungmin, unlatching his mouth from the spit-wet fabric at Seungmin’s chest. He scrambles backwards on the mattress, panting, until he almost falls off the other side.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” he gasps. “Seungmin-hyung. I’m sorry. I’m so—”

Seungmin has had enough apologies. “No, no, it’s… it’s okay.” He’s hard, too. He couldn’t help it, he can never help himself when it comes to Jeongin, he’s helpless. “Ien-ah, it’s okay.”

Jeongin looks like he might cry again, and Seungmin shuffles forward so that they are closer, if not quite stuck together like they were. He ducks his head to make Jeongin meet his eyes, the effort worth it for the comfort he wishes to provide.

“Hey. Are you okay? Because I’m fine.” He almost reaches out to touch Jeongin, but then decides that might be counterproductive. “Ien-ah. Are you okay?”

Jeongin nods but he still looks very upset. “Are… you?”

“Of course I am. It’s okay, we are… attracted to each other, it’s not… unexpected. I just… didn’t want that with you unconscious.”

Jeongin makes another questioning sound, and as they both look at each other Seungmin hears the implication. It’s not… untrue, but he didn’t mean to say it. He gets to watch front row as Jeongin processes what he said and then reacts to what he didn’t say. The distress melts from his features, to be replaced by slack surprise.

And then Jeongin says: “So if. If I’d been awake…?”

Seungmin doesn’t know what the best way to respond is. The truth and what’s best are different concepts, but he doesn’t like lying to Jeongin, even if he’s already doing it by omission because he hasn’t told him that he likes him back.

Sorry I just… I love you. A lot.

“We’ve talked about this.”

“…I know.” Jeongin blinks. “I… sorry, I forget sometimes. That you want me.”

Three weeks. He has three more weeks of holding out until… nothing happens, because Jeongin leaves.

“I don’t.” I don’t forget.

Jeongin said I love you. A lot. Seungmin thinks, pulse quickening: I won’t forget you. What does that mean?

“Oh.”

He slept. He’s sober. He has no excuses. It will be worse, if he does this; he’s not so naïve that he thinks he can get Jeongin out of his system somehow, because he knows he’s going to want more. So he can’t justify getting closer to Jeongin right now, but… he’s already emotionally attached. What else is there? What’s left?

And just like that, it comes to him, at long last: his loophole. His excuse. That it’s too late. That giving in won’t change anything, because he’s already in too deep, because thinking of loss last night made him want to cling to Jeongin all the more before he loses him. So he might as well... they might as well... it won’t change anything for Jeongin, either, right? Jeongin wants to; it’s been Seungmin stopping them every time. The look in Jeongin’s eyes right now is obvious even to Seungmin; a desire that Jeongin is making no effort to conceal.

He reaches out, it’s inelegant—his hand was meant to rest on Jeongin’s chest, but instead clasps the fabric of Jeongin’s shirt, which is actually Seungmin’s shirt that Jeongin is wearing, something oversized that his mother gave him years ago with the logo of her private practice offices.

Jeongin scoots closer even though Seungmin didn’t tug him forward, but that doesn’t matter because he wanted him to, wants him to, wants him—

“Is this okay?” Seungmin asks, and Jeongin shuffles close enough that their faces are almost touching. He nods, once, firm.

Seungmin leans in and brushes their lips together, and Jeongin makes a small hurt noise and kisses back. It’s tentative at the start, but only at the start; Jeongin’s tongue flicks at Seungmin’s and Seungmin opens his mouth to let him in, already anticipating what happens next, the way the embers in his gut spark and spit heat, fueled by the taste of Jeongin, every lick a new flame.

He presses forward and moves his hand from the front of the shirt to Jeongin’s flank, slides it up his back—the hand and the shirt, moving up together, baring even more skin. He goes by feel, unable to stop kissing Jeongin long enough to look.

“Hyung,” Jeongin mumbles, but it’s not a prelude to anything, he’s just saying it before kissing Seungmin again, harder and deeper, and Seungmin wraps his arm all the way around Jeongin’s waist to pull him in, wanting him back where he was earlier but this time wanting him to know.

Jeongin makes Seungmin’s favorite pleading sound at the move, and when their hips come together he is quick to sling his leg over Seungmin’s waist like he had before, pushing them against each other, and Seungmin is hard, and Jeongin is too, and it feels so good that he groans with it. He tries different touches with his hand on Jeongin’s back to elicit more noises, scratching and rubbing and trailing his fingers up and down his spine, ears tuned to the gasps and soft moans Jeongin lets out. Jeongin is incredibly responsive, writhing against him and letting a whole array of needy sounds spill out, his movements soon becoming uncoordinated. His tongue tangles and twirls around Seungmin’s with increasingly sloppy technique, but that feels good, that evidence that he’s so affected, and Seungmin’s breathing grows distressed, and he’s leaking into his shorts, he’s never—that’s never happened before, he doesn’t get wet when he’s jerking off.

“Ah, hyung,” Jeongin breaks their kiss, then latches onto Seungmin’s neck and opens his mouth to tongue at it.

Seungmin jerks, and makes a noise he doesn’t recognize.

Jeongin moans in response, hips punching forward with such force that Seungmin is pushed onto his back, and Jeongin ends up sprawled on top of him, still kissing his neck, sucking on it, and Seungmin’s dick lets out a stream of warm fluid that for a delirious moment makes him think he came, but he definitely didn’t because he’s aching to the point of pain, interspersed with a pleasure that has his spine liquefying. He’s just never—he’s so wet, that doesn’t usually—

“Jeongin,” he gasps, because he’s close to—breaking, he’s going to shatter.

The light outside is fading from red to maroon, purple, darkening but it doesn’t matter because between them there is something that is glowing blindingly bright. Jeongin’s tongue is so hot, lapping at his carotid pulse; Seungmin is ablaze.

“That’s... when you do that, I. I.” He’s not sure what he needs to say, if he’s trying to warn him of something, if he’s asking for something. “Jeongin-ah. Jeongin-ah, p-please.” He’s shivering, his skin is all goosebumps, his nipples are hard points and even the friction of Jeongin’s chest against his feels overly sensitive. “Ien-ah. I’m. Please. I.”

Jeongin is grinding his dick into the cut of Seungmin’s hip, and he feels rock-hard. They didn’t even take their clothes off, Seungmin has spit drying on his chin and on his clavicle, Jeongin’s teeth are teasing the skin under his jaw, the weight of him on top of Seungmin feels amazing, every second of this messy rutting is the most pleasure Seungmin has ever felt in his life.

“Ien-ah. Ah. You’re so. I’m.” Coherency is beyond him. He feels pinned in place, it feels so good. “Please. Oh please—"

Jeongin’s movements speed up, he’s moaning non-stop, so needy, so cute, so desperate, so hot, Seungmin slides a hand into his hair and grips it, vindicated in his assumption that it would feel silk-soft, and his other hand grips Jeongin’s waist hard, harder than he knew he wanted to. He feels Jeongin’s moans directly against his throat, both of them panting, sweating, and he’s—this is going to—

The flat of Jeongin’s teeth press against him again, and it hits Seungmin like a bolt of lightning, rattling his bones and burning him from the inside: what he’s asking for, what he needs—

“Jeongin, please, will you—” he gasps, uses the hand in Jeongin’s hair to push his face more forcefully into his neck. He needs more, he wants more. “Will you—bite me—"

Jeongin yelps and stiffens, his frantic movement suddenly stopping and Seungmin feels wet heat bloom over his hip as Jeongin comes. He fastens his teeth around Seungmin’s neck and clamps down even as his body is twitching with release, moaning into the bite, sounding ecstatic.

Seungmin’s jaw drops open and his hips jut up. “H-harder,” he hears himself plead, delirious, and Jeongin keens and bites down harder, and it’s—yes. Yes yes yes yes—"Yes yes yes oh—"

The explosion rends him apart, racking him in molten heat, making him cry out and hold Jeongin firm against him to thrust up into, the starburst pain from the bite translating into electric pleasure that travels all through his body.

Jeongin makes pleased hiccoughing noises and soothes the sting with his tongue and lips, gently sucking on the skin the way he sucked on Seungmin’s shirt fabric earlier, like he’s trying to bring it into his mouth.

Seungmin is still breathing harshly when Jeongin eventually stops his ministrations, but he keeps his face by Seungmin’s neck still.

“Oh my God.”

He stares at his ceiling, but quickly loses interest and looks down at Jeongin instead. He’s still mostly on top of Seungmin, hair a mess because it was already a sleep-mussed tangle before the work Seungmin’s fingers did.

“Are you okay?” He asks him, the most important question.

“Um.” Jeongin lifts his head up and graces him with the sight of his droopy eyes with their big pupils, his parted mouth still puffing shallow breaths, and the flush of his cheeks in the purple light. Seungmin’s spent dick twitches; he almost groans. “M’yeah,” he slurs, sounding dazed. With apparent effort, he asks: “You?”

Seungmin wants to answer truthfully, but he’s stuck on the fact that he’s an idiot.

He thought this wouldn’t change anything? That was his reasoning? That he already liked Jeongin and so having sex with him—even fast, frantic, clumsy frottage counts as sex—was fine?

“Uh.” He will withhold the truth from Jeongin by omission, but he won’t fabricate an active falsehood. “I’m… processing.”

Jeongin carefully brings his head back down. “Oh. Okay.” He’s not resting the full weight of his head on Seungmin’s shoulder anymore, he’s too cautious. Seungmin misses it. “…Should I leave?”

No. “If… if you want to. But I was going to order food, and you can… stay. For the food. If you want.” It’s easier and not, to do this without seeing Jeongin’s face. “Whatever you want, Jeongin-ah.”

“Mm.” Jeongin exhales slowly. “Can I take a shower first?”

“Of course.” The image of a wet, naked Jeongin slams to the forefront of his mind and Seungmin’s dick twitches again in the mess of his pajama pants. “Will you stay to eat, after?”

“I need to call my parents, and we have work in the morning.”

“Okay.” The flash of arousal passes as the prospect of a quiet dinner at his big empty table awaits. He’s pretty sure that was Jeongin hinting at leaving, but technically he just listed a task and a fact about tomorrow, he didn’t say a direct ‘no’. “You could… call them from here. I can wash your scrubs, and we could—”

“I think.” Jeongin’s voice is thin, quiet. “I think I’ll go home.” He starts to pull away, and the ‘no’ Seungmin was waiting for is here. “Thank you, hyung.”

He scoots to the end of the bed and wanders over to the bathroom, calling back an affirmative when Seungmin asks if he found the guest towel. He shuts the door, and Seungmin lies there where Jeongin left him, unable to move, unable to process.

Sorry I just… I love you. A lot.

Jeongin loves him, and Seungmin’s heart has a new shape, and he is so confused.

*

He’s awake again by 4 in the morning even though he’s not due in the ICU until 7am, but sleeping the day away has that effect on him sometimes so that’s not remarkable. What is remarkable is the state of his neck when he looks in the mirror.

A massive, purple-and-red bruise and some dark, evident teeth-marks decorate the area Jeongin so enthusiastically paid attention to last night.

Seungmin feels the stirrings of panic. He cannot show up at work like this; even the high necked thermal shirt he puts on under his scrub top doesn’t fully obscure the area under his jaw, but he doesn’t own make-up and he doesn’t know what to do.

He checks the schedule for his co-intern’s hours and sees that Felix is currently working an overnight in Red Pod, then he remotely logs into the health record and checks the state of the ER board: if there is ever a lull in the ER it tends to happen between 4 and 5am, and this is it. There aren’t too many patients, barely anyone waiting to be seen. Jung is Felix’s co-intern, and their attending is the assistant program director, Dr. Kim. Eun is the fourth-year senior. If Seungmin can get in and out quickly, he might just get away with it.

Felix if I come in to work early can you help me with something before my ICU shift

Felix texts back immediately: of course!!!! it’s pretty calm here right now <3<3<3<3<3 what do u need?

Do you have concealer with you?

*

And so it is that Felix becomes the third of his co-interns to help Seungmin with a medical issue; this time being an actual, tangible medical condition otherwise known as ‘ecchymosis’. Bruising.

At 5:30am Felix brings them into an empty patient room and pulls the curtains, then takes two small tubes out of his scrub pocket and turns to Seungmin. “What are we concealing?” he says, an edge of concern in his tone. “Are you okay?”

Seungmin is not okay, but not because of the marks on his neck. “I…” he has to rip the band-aid off. Literally. He takes the strip of gauze he had taped to his jaw off and rolls down the high collar of his undershirt, exposing the extent of Jeongin’s work.

Felix’s mouth drops open, and his eyes go comically wide.

“Is that…?” He looks up at Seungmin’s eyes, then back down to his neck, then back up at him. “How did that…?”

“A kiss,” Seungmin says, because he does not want Felix to worry that he was punched or hurt in any way.

Felix makes an incredulous scoffing noise, and then shakes his head. Then he seems to take a few seconds to cycle through a multitude of emotions as he processes what his eyes are seeing. Seungmin can’t interpret all of them.

“Seungmin,” he settles for finally, and there is an echo of—maybe humor, a sparkle of something amused in his eyes or the quirk of his mouth, but there is also awe. “That is to a kiss what a puddle is to the sea. Did someone maul you? It looks like you came close to needing antibiotics and a tetanus shot!”

Seungmin forces his facial features to keep his expression neutral, but he knows he is blushing.

“Who… who gave you that?” Felix asks, still with that awe.

“Uh.” He shouldn’t tell him. “Jeongin.”

Felix’s jaw drops again, even more noticeably this time. He stares at Seungmin in shock for a long moment. “…Jeongin,” he rasps. “Our sweet baby Ien-ah did this?”

Seungmin nods, glad that he ignored reason for once because he feels a flood of relief in the aftermath of his admission. It had not felt good, to keep his increasingly intense and confusing feelings to himself, but he had thought it necessary—having now reached a peak in his confusion, that is no longer the case. He could use the help. He needs another emotional consult.

“Are you two together?”

“…No.” He swallows, and Felix seems to interpret something there because he moves closer to him, pulling one of the concealer tubes out of its sheath. Perhaps he is giving Seungmin metaphorical space (not physical, because he’s actually getting closer). “He’s a student. And. He’s leaving back for Busan,” Seungmin explains.

Felix tips his head to the side and gets to work, letting Seungmin’s words float in silence for a minute or so while he dabs the wet brush onto his skin. Seungmin finds himself speaking again, figuring Felix will let him know if the motion of his throat and Adam’s apple make his task more difficult.

“He... said he loves me, yesterday.”

Felix’s movements stutter, but then he resumes his dabbing. He alternates the tube brush with the pads of his fingers. “Was that... before or after this?” He asks.

“Before.” Seungmin’s chest hurts. He remembers Hyunjin telling him sternly that if he developed chest pains he’d have to take this seriously and check into the ER, forever ago. “I like him a lot. I...”

I just love you.

“...I don’t know what love feels like. I don’t know what the distinction is... at which point like transitions to love.” Felix continues his work. “He said he liked me a month ago. Now he says he loves me.”

“Can I ask you something?” Felix murmurs.

“Of course.”

“Why does it matter?” Felix leans back to look at Seungmin’s face. His eyes are too huge, and the question is disquieting; Seungmin has to look down at his own lap. “Why does it matter to you, whether Jeongin likes you or loves you? Why is the distinction relevant?”

Seungmin mulls over the question. He hadn’t been confused about Jeongin’s feelings; Jeongin’s distinction.

“It matters because I might love him, too.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Felix’s mouth form an ‘o’ of surprise. Again.

“...And you’re still set on not being with him?”

His medical student.

His...

“He’s leaving in three weeks.”

It’s a fact, but it’s not an answer. Seungmin doesn’t have a clear answer yet.

Minho

Jisung is incredibly shaken after Changbin’s injury, so of course when they get to his place there is no sex. Minho kind of hates that Jisung even starts to say it: “Uh, hyung, can we not—”

“Of course. You need sleep, I’m just… here if you need me, okay?” And Jisung sends him a slightly confused but grateful look, and Minho knows he’s overstepping the boundaries of their relationship (again) but in that particular moment, he doesn’t care. He settles into the bed next to Jisung and cuddles him to sleep, and he’ll deal with the consequences later, he thinks.

Alas, the consequences arrive in just two days.

Minho is back at work, at the Red Pod this time, and one of his patients is sick. Like, needs the ICU level of sick; Dr. Xu has barely left the patient’s room and neither has the resident taking care of him—the resident being doctor Han Jisung, of course. This means Minho has also been in and out nonstop, gathering medications, sending off labs and repeat labs and urine tests and performing all sorts of critical tasks to prevent a cardiac arrest. The patient had some sort of massive heart attack and their blood pressure keeps dropping, so Jisung has to place a central IV catheter, which he does flawlessly under the supervision of Dr. Xu, who can’t quite keep the admiration out of his voice at Jisung’s perfect technique.

When they are done, Minho leaves the patient’s room again to go get another round of medications from the ER pharmacy, and overhears Nurse Jang walk in right after him. She’s with a trainee nurse because her experience and skills are unparalleled, so they assign her a lot of the new staff to teach. Minho trained under her too, years ago.

“He’s one of the best in his class,” Nurse Jang is saying. “I think it’s between him and that Kim kid, though I haven’t seen Seungmin in a while…”

“I saw him a minute ago! I think he’s part of the ICU team this month, and he came down to assess the patient in room one,” the trainee responds.

“Oh, good. Well, Dr. Han is one of my favorites. He’s going to make a great attending.”

Minho wants to scream, a possessive sort of pride swelling in his chest. He’s mine and I’m his, isn’t he so amazing? Isn’t he incredible? Isn’t my little baby just the best? But Jisung isn’t his, of course. Minho has no claim to him. Minho has an armful of medication drips and two vials held between his fingers that he needs to bring back to room 1, and he has to shut up and leave without comment.

“Nurse Lee,” Nurse Jang says, even though she’d call him Minho or even Minnie if the trainee wasn’t here. “Don’t you think Dr. Han is wonderful?”

Minho pauses on his way out the door, looking back at her. She knows him and Jisung are sleeping together, all the nurses do. The trainee looks from him to Nurse Jang, blinking in confusion.

“I do,” he concedes with a nod. “He’s a really good baby doctor, best in his class. Better than Kim Seungmin, in my opinion.”

And he leaves the room.

“Minho, thank goodness you’re back—you have the epinephrine? And the dobutamine?” Jisung is still by the patient’s bedside, and more people are here now, too; Seungmin, who Minho actually thinks is excellent, and two seniors that Minho presumes are from the ICU team as well, along with that pretty medical student that the ER interns are all so fond of. Ugh.

“Yup, going to start the drips now,” Minho tells Jisung, who moves aside so that Minho can squeeze in next to the patient and access the IVs he needs.

“You’re the best,” Jisung says earnestly, and Minho feels his ears heat. No, you’re the best, he thinks. You’re the best thing that ever happened to this place, to this city, to me, I’m so lucky to exist in a world that has you in it—and then he simply has to cut himself off, because even in his own mind that was nauseating.

“See what Minho is doing?” Seungmin asks the med student, who nods. “The reason we are starting dobutamine is because the patient is in cardiogenic shock.”

“Oh, got it.”

“I’ll show you the heart with the ultrasound, Ien-ah,” says Jisung, pushing the ultrasound machine closer. Minho is pretty sure Ien-ah is just the kid’s nickname. “Look here.”

They both crowd around the screen of the ultrasound machine while Jisung glides the probe over the patient’s naked chest, pointing it right at his heart. In Minho’s opinion, there is no need to stand that close. He can see the screen just fine from the other side of the bed.

“See how the mitral valve is barely moving?” Jisung says to the student, who nods, frowning at the images in motion. “The left ventricle looks enlarged, too.”

Minho has finished setting up the drips, so he figures he might as well learn something, too. He walks over there and nudges the student to the side, so that he can see what Jisung is showing them at all the better.

“Is that the left ventricle, Dr. Han?” he asks, pointing.

“Yes!” Jisung smiles at him, eyes wide with delighted surprise above his mask. If Minho leaned forward just a tiny bit more, he could tuck his chin over Jisung’s shoulder. If he took just one step forward he would push up against Jisung, back to front, so he could drape behind him. “And that’s the left atrium, you see it? With the mitral valve between them.”

Minho nods, and sees the student nod out of the corner of his vision. The urge to shove that cute kid further away is almost as strong as the urge to crowd Jisung against the ultrasound machine, so he’s leaving the people in this room without a doubt as to how intimately close they are, how well-acquainted and familiar with that perfect body Minho is. He feels his hands ball into fists as an uncharacteristic thrum of anger runs through him—none of the violence he enacts to others in bed comes from a place of anger, it’s always about control and pleasure and the other person’s desire for it, but here, now, he feels… sad and furious at the universe for dangling something as perfect as Jisung in front of him, pushing him into Minho’s arms, and then not letting him have him in all the ways that he wants.

He eventually, reluctantly steps away, of course. Seungmin and Jisung start discussing the transportation of the patient up to the ICU and Minho leaves to go call the ICU nurses upstairs and give them a full report. He also wants to make sure nobody loses the patient’s dentures; they are expensive and Minho tucked them into the patient’s bag of belongings.

Minho, you’ll be torturing yourself.

It certainly is fucking torture, this feeling.

The thing is that Jisung is so incredibly competent. His patients love him, he’s fast and hard-working, he’s good at procedures, and for the rest of his shift Minho tracks him from across the room with a lump in his throat. He knows what he’s good for, he knows what keeps Jisung coming back, but… he would try so hard at the other stuff. He’s never done it before, but he would try. Picnics in the park, more presents, more homecooked meals, commitment, support, red roses, lavish words, big words, terrifying words, he would do it all. It’s not just that he didn’t mind cuddling Jisung without sex, it’s that he wants that too, and he would do his best, if—

His head is still full of stormy thoughts when his shift ends, and he doesn’t want to bring that kind of bad energy home to the babies, so he goes up to the seventh floor to see Changbin. Changbin doesn’t know about his feelings for Jisung, and Minho is absolutely not up to telling him right now, but being in his presence is comfort enough. He is grateful to find that no one else is there, and knows he got lucky because Mr. Popular had a rotating roster of visitors all day.

They eat the jajangmyeon Minho made for him (the hospital food is shit, Changbin deserves better) and half-heartedly flirt with each other, but Changbin can obviously tell Minho’s heart isn’t in it. He doesn’t push him, though; that’s what Minho appreciates about his friend.

“And my nerve block officially wore off,” Changbin says, mid-bite. “Rib fractures hurt a fuckton, man. Gives me new perspective on the patients we discharge home straight from the ER if they only have one.”

“You look fine now.”

“I’m trying to tough it out so you think I’m cool,” Changbin says with an eyebrow wiggle.

Minho snorts. “You’re not trying to impress the surgical team? Isn’t that hot senior on this month?”

Changbin looks confused. “D’you mean hot intern?”

“No, he’s a senior for sure. Mingyu, I think?”

“Oh!” Changbin blushes. Interesting. “Right, right yeah. Mingyu and Hongjoong are the seniors this month. Hongjoong is hot, too.”

“Which hot intern did you think I was talking about?”

But Changbin refuses to engage in that discussion, so Minho files away his reaction and waits to be let in in the future. It better not be Jisung—anyone else is fair game.

Hyunijn

They don’t assign him Changbin’s case on rounds until the day of his expected discharge, four days into his hospitalization. Hyunjin doesn’t know if that is on purpose or not, but he adds Changbin to his list of patients to present and saves his pre-rounding for last, not thinking about why—it’s not like he’s planning on spending any extra time in Changbin’s room.

Being in charge of his case means that it’s Hyunjin’s job to check on him before the surgery team discusses the patient list at 5am, in order to make sure he has the most up to date information about Changbin’s vital signs, his lab results, and his physical exam.

It is currently 4:30am.

He's seen Changbin every morning since the accident, of course; other residents got assigned to pre-round on him but Hyunjin was still one of the team of people who piled into his room later in the morning, when it came time to actually go on rounds with the attending. It’s mostly been Hongjoong presenting Changbin’s case to everyone, and he takes special delight in emphasizing Changbin’s normal urine output, to Changbin’s chagrin and Dr. Choi’s many eyerolls.

They haven’t been alone in a room together, though. Until now.

Changbin is sleeping when Hyunjin walks inside. The only concession he agreed to regarding special treatment for being hospital staff was the allotment of a room all to himself, but even that he threatened to dispute if the surgery department needed space for a new patient.

He wakes immediately after Hyunjin walks to his bedside even though he didn’t turn on the lights, and Hyunjin snaps his gaze up to the monitor, taking out his pen and pretending to write down his vital signs.

“…Hey,” Changbin says quietly.

“Hey,” Hyunjin responds, also quiet. Everything is set to nighttime mode in the department right now, so the corridor beyond the glass wall of the room is dark and dim. “Go back to sleep, I’m just pre-rounding on you.”

Changbin blinks slowly at him and doesn’t do as Hyunjin asks. “I’m getting discharged today, right?” he whispers.

Hyunjin looks down at the nonsense scribbled on his paper, and tucks it into his scrub pants pocket with a sigh. “Probably, yeah. Your splenic hemorrhage has been completely stable, and I heard you are taking your breathing exercises very seriously.”

Changbin smiles a little. “Not trying to get pneumonia and die.”

“You’re not allowed to get pneumonia and die,” Hyunjin corrects. He sits down in the chair next to Changbin’s bed, bringing their faces closer to level. “How’s your head? The concussion.”

“Fine. I still get dizzy at times, and some headaches, but… it’s not bad. Walking around has been fine. I can probably go back to work in a week, honestly, I don’t have to wait the whole block—”

“Oh shut up.” Hyunjin rolls his eyes. “You’re not doing that. I forbid it.”

“You forbid it?” Changbin sounds diverted. Hyunjin wants to smack him, but he can’t, so he flicks the mattress under him instead.

“Yes. I am the doctor in charge of your care today, Mr. Seo.”

“Hey, I’m still Dr. Seo—”

“You are whatever I say you are, and as your doctor I say you are a ‘mister’ for now. I am temporarily revoking your medical license while your spleen heals.”

“I don’t even have internal bleeding anymore!”

“Yeah! Anymore!” Hyunjin is—smiling. Fuck. Of course he’s going to linger here until he has to go run the list. “God, you’re such a terrible patient.”

Changbin is smiling too. “Well you’re a great doctor, your bedside manner is ace.”

Hyunjin flushes, violently at that. It’s not even—Changbin clearly says it as a joke, it’s ironic, and he still—

“Hey.” Changbin shifts closer to the edge of the bed, closer to him. “But seriously Hyunjin, I really. Want to thank you, for what you did. Not just stitching up the lacerations, those are healing great, I’m barely going to have scars. But also the… that night, how you. Stayed with me.” He puts his hand on the mattress, shifting as though to transfer his weight there. “How you picked the glass out of my hair.” He starts to sit up, winces, and Hyunijn snaps out of it and scrambles to his feet.

“Don’t do that,” he rasps, putting his hands on Changbin’s shoulders to prevent him from leaning further—but either Hyunjin is very weak or Changbin’s recovery is going amazingly because he can’t; Changbin is too strong, despite the pain in his ribs he finishes sitting up fully, and suddenly their faces are very close, and Hyunjin’s hands are still on his shoulders, those big, broad shoulders he’s never not thinking about, and—

The monitor starts beeping.

Hyunjin looks up at it and sees that Changbin’s heart-rate went up to 102, setting off the ‘tachycardia’ alarm.

Changbin puts a hand over his face and doesn’t move, while Hyunjin goes to silence it before a nurse comes in to check on the patient.

His cheeks are burning. He can’t think of a way to acknowledge it that won’t give him away. He can’t say if I was on a monitor when I’m around you you’d think I was dying all the time.

“Are you in pain?” he asks. Changbin already uncovered his face, but he’s looking down at his own hands in his lap, and his wonderful shoulders are slumped.

“…Not really. The ribs are sore, for sure, but I’m fine.” He smiles awkwardly. “Uh. I don’t… mean to keep you. If you have more pre-rounding to do.”

“You were last on my list.”

“Oh.” Changbin nods. “Okay.” He glances at his own monitor, and Hyunjin does too. The heart rate came down to 92. “Uh, how is your rotation going otherwise? Are the surgeons treating you okay?”

Hyunjin hesitates a moment, then sits back down. “…Yeah. I’m with Mingyu, he’s really nice. He wants me to go into plastics,” he adds, snorting when he remembers.

Changbin’s eyebrows twitch into a frown. “That’d be a waste of your intellect,” he says.

Hyunjin looks up at him.

The thing about being as conventionally beautiful as Hyunjin is, is that the compliments he receives are always about his appearance. At most, his neat, delicate stitch-work gets mentioned in a professional context, but everyone seems to find it a huge fucking mystery, why someone as pretty as Hyunjin wants to do what he does. No one assumes he has any passion for taking care of people, no one seems to understand why he’d choose a profession that allows him to use his hands and his brain. He gets asked about it over and over: by his coworkers, by his patients, ‘you should be modelling’, ‘you could be acting’, ‘why are you here?’ and it’s flattering, of course, it’s such an obvious form of genetic privilege, but it’s also so frustrating, to not be seen. He is obnoxiously guarded about his art partially for that reason. For Changbin to… how does Changbin do this to him?

“What?” Changbin sounds worried. “Did I… say something wrong?”

“…No. No, nothing’s wrong.”

The monitor shows Changbin’s heart-rate went back up to 98. He’s about to set the alarm off again. Hyunjin wonders if his own pulse has been under 150 at any point since he walked into this room. Probably not. He feels like there’s an alarm going off inside him at all times; an insistent, harsh beeping that muddles his thoughts when he gets close to Changbin, always.

“Anyway, I… have to examine you,” he admits, standing up to grab a pair of gloves from the box on the wall, suddenly unable to chit chat with Changbin any longer. “Stay still.”

Changbin presses his lips together and—

Beep beep beep beep beep…

He shot up to 116.

Hyunjin leans over him to access the monitor this time, and numbly watches the numbers go all the way up to 125 even though he doesn’t get anywhere close to touching Changbin again. He hits a two-minute silencing button, which should buy them enough time, and pulls his stethoscope from around his neck.

“Take a deep breath,” he mutters, listening to Changbin’s lungs from the front, not wanting to jostle him any more than he has to. They can sit him up later, when they examine him again for rounds. “Okay now stop, I’m gonna listen to your heart.” He doesn’t need the monitor to tell him that Changbin is still tachycardic, the thump-thump-thump of his heart going at a speed that doesn’t make sense with him just lying there fill his ears. He closes his eyes, a habit he picked up from his Cardiology professor and which helps keep him focused so he’s not distracted by the swell of Changbin’s pecs. He listens as intently as he can, even with the faster speed, trying to catch a murmur that might indicate something is wrong, but he doesn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. He’s so fucking grateful to this heart for keeping Changbin alive, for still beating so powerfully after Hyunjin thought, for a few moments, that it had stopped—

He straightens, putting the stethoscope back around his shoulders.

“Okay now lift up your gown.”

Changbin hesitates a second, then raises the gown on the right side, baring his ribcage. The purpling bruises have faded significantly, and it’s not swollen anymore.

Hyunjin palpates the area gently, wishing he didn’t have gloves on for this part. Changbin’s heart-rate is hovering around 100, but goes up by a few beats during the palpation, this time actually indicating pain. Hyunjin stops, and lowers Changbin’s gown back down for him. He finishes off with a quick, gentle abdominal exam, notes the lack of tenderness there, and then throws his gloves in the trash.

“Okay. Looks like things are… in order.”

“Great.” Changbin’s voice is a bit high. Hyunjin finds himself eyeing Changbin’s chest again, memories of the ear-ringing satisfaction of sucking on it popping up unhelpfully. He can’t believe the last time he was alone in a room with Changbin was in Changbin’s bedroom at the party. He can’t believe he doesn’t get to lift up Changbin’s gown again and push his tits together and bury his face between them and listen to his heart pumping directly with his ear pressed to that chest—

He grasps for a change of topic. “So… is Chan still staying with you guys? He’s going to help nurse you at home, right?”

“Hah, yeah. He actually dropped some shifts for once, to stay and take care of me.” Then Changbin gasps, like he just remembered. “Wait, I’ve been meaning to ask you! Did he or Felix confirm...?”

“Felix did!” Hyunjin stomps his foot on the floor, reluctantly smiling again. Thank God, something to safely chat about. “Hyung, they are totally secretly together—"

“I freaking knew it! Chan looks so happy—"

“Felix does too, and I’ve barely seen him, I think they are literally having sex every second they are not at work—"

They gossip and speculate until Hyunjin has to leave to run the list, feeling jittery and tremulous and overcaffeinated even though he only had one cup, and he knows his heart-rate is through the roof, he doesn’t need a monitor to tell him that.

He’s already counting down the minutes until he returns to Changbin’s room.

*

It’s a hundred and twenty-three minutes later.

“This is our twenty-six-year-old male with three rib fractures, a splenic laceration and a concussion who is on hospital day four. Vital signs this morning were normal, oxygen saturation of one-hundred-percent on room air, and patient reported a pain score of five out of ten.”

Changbin’s eyebrows go up. “No I didn’t, you didn’t even ask me.”

Hyunjin, completely undeterred, ignores him. “The patient has been known to downplay his symptoms Dr. Choi, so I extrapolated based on my physical exam.”

On the chair by Changbin’s bed, Seri snorts and chuckles. She is his visitor this morning, not here in any clinical capacity, and she’s dressed in street clothes; a cute crop top and ripped jeans along with a puffy yellow jacket. She’s also wearing a touch of make-up, and Hyunjin doesn’t need to be attracted to women to see that she looks hot as hell. He wonders if the rumors about her having a crush on one of the surgeons are true.

“And the plan for today, Dr. Hwang?” Dr. Choi prompts.

“Discharge,” responds Hyunjin. “The patient’s roommates are ER physicians and will assist him at home, he will continue outpatient physical therapy and work hard at incentive spirometry to keep his lung capacity as optimized as possible. His pain control regimen will be strictly followed,” he adds, threateningly. Changbin makes a faux-indignant expression, but his eyes are fond.

“Don’t you worry, Dr. Hwang, there’s a lot of us who are very invested in that being the case,” Seri says, grinning at Changbin. “We made a sign-up sheet in the residency shared drive so that whoever wants to gets a chance to work a ‘Chief Seo’ shift for the next couple of days. It will involve several hours of close monitoring and shoving pills down his throat if we must.”

“Creative,” Dr. Choi says under her breath, smirking. Seri’s grin falters as she overhears, and she... blushes.

Oh-ho.

“Thanks. I-I came up with it,” she says.

Dr. Choi nods, eyeing Seri properly for the first time since the whole team walked in. “You’re Seri, right? You did your surgery rotation with us two years ago?”

Seri’s blush gets bad.

“Uhm. Yeah. You... remember me?”

Dr. Choi shrugs, pulling her stethoscope out of her white coat pocket and walking to Changbin’s other side, motioning for him to sit up so she can listen to his lungs.

“Of course. We’ve seen each other since then, for consults,” she reminds Seri. Seri looks like she did not need reminding. “Sorry I didn’t recognize you at first. You were one of the best ER interns I ever worked with, it’s a shame you didn’t want to switch to surgery.” She puts the in-ear part of the stethoscope on, likely missing Seri’s little intake of air. “Take a deep breath, Dr. Seo.”

And Changbin does, his chest rising and falling and momentarily distracting Hyunjin from his glee about Seri and Nari’s interaction.

Seri’s blush persists until they all walk out, but she manages a clumsy bow to the team (and to Dr. Choi) that makes Changbin snort with laughter right before the door shuts behind them.

Chan

Two days after Changbin’s discharge from the hospital is when the secret department-wide meeting to discuss JYP’s unethical policies is set to take place.

Part of the reason for this specific timing is that the day of the meeting coincides with JYP being out of town for a conference in Incheon, so they could be sure a plan of action would be delineated before he found out about it. The action item at Chan’s bottom line is a concrete, unified complaint to bring to the hospital board.

It’s a Friday, not a day when the department is supposed to have educational conference, but because Chan had put so much work into planning and coordinating, including booking the auditorium, their attendance is almost complete. The entire department of emergency medicine, only excepting the people actively working in the ER, are here.

The residents have prepared a reading of the statement they had drafted a few weeks ago, which was unanimously signed by every single one of them, and in the absence of Changbin it’s Wooyoung who walks up to the stage to read it off his phone. He hasn’t started yet when there’s a shout in the back of the room.

Chan twists around in his seat, and sees—

“Changbin!”

The room erupts.

“Chief Seo!”

“Oh my God!”

“It’s the chief!”

“Chief Seo is back!”

“Changbin-sunbae!”

Thunderous applause, cheers, yelling—it’s chaos as Changbin walks down the auditorium stands, his care and slowness with every step the only signs that give away the fact that he’s not fully back to his old self, because he looks great otherwise. Minho is with him, walking next to and a little behind him, clearly ready to step in and help if Changbin has any issues.

Changbin waves and smiles at his classmates and attendings, the latter group having joined in a slightly more sedate version of the residents reaction—Changbin is beloved by his attendings too, of course.

“Everyone, please, this meeting is supposed to be a secret! It’s unofficial! We’re making a lot of noise!” Wooyoung calls from the stage, but he’s smiling at Changbin, who has made it down to where the interns are sitting and seems to be joining them at Minho’s urging.

Chan is glad Minho stopped him there and didn’t walk him all the way to the front of the auditorium, because it’s a lot of steps—but Changbin seems to be arguing about it, actually, and not sitting down.

“Guys! Secret meeting!” Wooyoung shouts again, and the cheers finally start to die down. “Okay, Binnie, I love you buddy but we’re on a time crunch, so we’ve got to get started. I’ll start reading.”

Chan makes his way to the row of interns as the hall goes quiet again. He’s read the resident statement multiple times, practically knows it by heart, so he isn’t paying attention to Wooyoung so much as he focuses on Changbin.

“... that I feel perfectly fine, my entire class is down there, it’s just a few more steps—"

“Will you just shut up and sit?” Minho cuts in. He spots Chan. “Oh good, an actual authority figure—tell him to sit the fuck down.”

Chan points to the vacant spot next to Jiwoo. “Sit.”

Changbin glares at him, but in this context he won’t talk back to an attending (if Chan tried this at the apartment he knows it'd be a different story). Changbin makes a point of sitting down without Minho’s assistance, which makes Minho huff with irritation and walk all the way around the row, to sit next to... oh, that medical student from the July block, the one from Busan. Jeongin, Chan thinks, though Felix calls him Ien-ah. Felix is so cute. Jeongin is too, he supposes, but no one is as cute as Felix.

Jisung is sitting on Jeongin’s other side, and next to him is Seungmin, who got special dispensation from the ICU team to be here, according to Felix.

Chan can’t sit next to Felix, and not just because he is flanked by Hyunjin and Harin. Plus, he is needed to moderate and run the meeting anyway, so he walks back down to sit at the very first row of the auditorium, ready to take over his duties. When Wooyoung concludes his reading, another round of cheers breaks out, though this one is more angry and indignant than rejoiceful.

“We are asking for the support of our faculty in this,” Wooyoung says, addressing the nearly forty attendings present. “Training for such an intense field is already stressful, we cannot do it fairly when our director is putting forth discriminatory practices that are not evidence-based.”

Chan stands up and adjusts his tie, then straightens the white coat he’s wearing. He purposefully dressed formally to appease some of the older attendings, who are not going to be comfortable during this meeting no matter how it is framed, and who still put stock in attire in this way. He is the youngest faculty member, he knows he’s pushing them, but he also knows, from his exhaustive communication with everyone who came, that he has a lot of support.

He walks up to the stage and takes the microphone from Wooyoung, who shoots him a flirty wink. Ass. “I would like to propose a formal motion to the hospital board to remove Dr. Park from his role as program director, and to consider censoring him for his discriminatory practices.” He clears his throat, standing firm. “If the board sees fit to terminate his hospital contract as a result of our extensive list of well documented complaints and infractions, that is their purview. I wouldn’t argue against that.”

The residents break into raucous applause after he speaks.

The attendings are a mix; some are quiet, some are also clapping. Some appear deep in thought.

Chan watches Dr. Kim, who is nodding. She’s younger than Dr. Park but still about ten years older than Chan; they have always gotten along, and he knows she doesn’t see eye-to-eye with JYP when it comes to his outdated prejudices even though she has to work with him to run the residency. She is a good person.

“If anyone wishes to speak up, this is an open forum, I welcome your input. If anyone wishes to speak anonymously they can inform me, and I can share their comments with the attendees today without identifying them.”

He opens it to the floor, helping pass the microphone around and letting individual residents vent, express themselves, make their case to the attendings. Felix already told him that he didn’t want to talk in this context, but Seungmin delivers a cool, brutal, evidence-based takedown, including citations and specific paragraphs of the WHO guidelines on nail polish use by healthcare workers, and why JYP’s email was wrong on so many levels.

This goes on for a while, and some of the attendings end up speaking as well, expressing some unfortunately outdated views (mentioning JYP’s prior medical accomplishments and publications as though the outward prestige he brings to SNUH cancels out his awfulness), and Chan appreciates his residents for their restrained responses, the lack of ‘boos’ and instead how many of them quickly raise excellent counter-arguments.

Eventually, they have cycled through all the infractions on the list and the rules in the email, and they are coming close to running out of time. Chan needs to call it. He stands up again, microphone in hand.

“In order to preserve anonymity, I will not request an open vote now, but I would like to hear back from every faculty person here today regarding whether I can count on their support. This would mean your name is added to the list of attendings who are for the removal of Dr. Park from his current position, and support the formal motion to censor him for what he has done. I will share that list with the board when I present our case to them next week.”

Once again, the applause that rings out is incredibly loud, and Chan bows deeply and respectfully to his colleagues before leaving the stage. The cheers from the residents follow him for a while, and he is pleased to note a good number of the attendings have joined in by the end.

He walks all the way back up to the row of interns, glad he has the excuse of checking on Changbin but also actually wanting to check on Changbin.

“That was so good, Dr. Bang!” Jiwoo says, leaping to her feet. Sooah nods enthusiastically, and Changbin can’t even maintain his fake-anger for longer than a couple of seconds.

“Well done Channie-hyung, that was fucking awesome.” He stands up without help and claps Chan on the arm, wincing slightly when the motion likely jars his six-day-old rib fractures.

“Bin,” Chan says sternly. “Behave.”

Down the line, Felix breaks out in a coughing fit and Hyunjin and Harin reach around to pat his back. Chan wishes he could do the same, but he has to pretend not to notice.

What he is allowed to do is walk behind their row to Minho, who ended up staying for the whole meeting. He’s dressed in flattering athleisure with a pink shirt on, so he must not have a shift coming up today. As Chan approaches him, he sees Eun, the senior resident, come up to them also.

Chan initially assumed Eun was coming to speak to him, perhaps to express some private concern about this JYP situation, but he walks directly up to Minho and leans against the chair in front of his instead. “Hey, Nurse Lee. So cool to see you here, how are you?”

Minho blinks at him, and Chan is hit with a memory—of Minho telling him about rejecting poor Eun at last year’s Chuseok event, because he could tell Eun ‘was the type to get attached’.

“Fine.” Minho looks two seats to his left at Jisung, for some reason, and then back at Eun. “I was just here to help out Binnie.”

“Aw, you call Chief Seo Binnie? That’s so cute, you’re so cute.”

Interestingly, Jisung has gone very still and is clearly listening to the exchange. Another memory—this one more recent, but also drunker, surfaces: Is Jisung your plaything of the month? And unflappable, unruffled Minho, turning away with his ears uncharacteristically red.

Jeongin, sitting in the middle of all this, is looking from Minho to Eun to Jisung with a worried expression. Eun reaches out to brush Minho’s shoulder with his fingertips.

“So Minho, I was thinking—"

“Ien-aaaaah,” Jisung says, loudly and enthusiastically, all aegyo. “Wanna come get lunch with me?” He clasps Jeongin’s hand, taking it in both of his and bringing it up to his face. Minho’s neck snapped to the side to stare at them, and he is ignoring Eun completely. “We could finally make out like we talked about.”

“What,” says Seungmin from Jisung’s other side, and Jeongin looks panicked.

“We are not making out!” he says to Jisung, who pouts exaggeratedly and doesn’t let go of his hand. “Hyung! That was a joke, that you came up with,” he adds, leaning forward to look at Seungmin, apparently desperate to clarify the situation.

Chan decides to take the loss and beat a hasty retreat, returning to Changbin’s side even as Minho says: “Don’t worry kid, I’ll help you,” and reaches across Jeongin’s body to firmly detangle his and Jisung’s hands, grabbing Jisung’s wrists to pull the other two apart.

Chan is very confused by the dynamics here. Maybe Felix can explain it to him at home—at his home, at Felix’s home. Later.

Jisung

He needs to stop seeing Minho.

The realization hits him like a ton of bricks while he’s walking out of the auditorium, feeling a profound and unfair hatred for Eun, who has done nothing wrong ever, other than wanting to sleep with Minho, which is something he is totally allowed to do. They explicitly discussed this exact scenario, Jisung brought it up. And he told Minho it was fine, so the fact that Eun has either already slept with him and wants seconds or is about to get his first taste soon is none of Jisung’s goddamn business.

Except for how he feels like crying, and he knows this is going to get worse. He did the thing; the developing feelings for the hot emotionally unavailable guy thing, it’s too late and he couldn’t keep up his end of the deal with Minho. He failed at being cool and detached, he… really fucked it up, he knew this, but now that the consequences are finally starting to hit he is realizing that he can’t fathom feeling any worse, so he has to quit now, or it’s going to wreck him completely.

“Hey. Hyung?”

Jeongin catches up to him as Jisung exits through the main hospital double-doors. Most people lingered behind to chat with Changbin, but not Jisung—Jisung had to duck out of there before he started crying in public.

“Hey, Ien-ah.” They fall in step together. “Are you off today?”

“Yeah. The senior found out I stayed for a twenty-four hour call shift last weekend and felt guilty, so he told me not to come in to the ICU today.” Makes sense; Jeongin is in a striped cable-knit sweater and stylish slacks, hardly his baby-blue medical student scrubs for work. He looks hot, and Jisung still kind of wishes he would kiss him, at least out of pity, but—no he doesn’t, he wants Minho to kiss him, forever, and he wants them to never stop seeing each other but to stop seeing other people, like freaking Eun.

“Finally changed your mind about that makeout sesh?”

Jeongin rolls his eyes, but then looks around to make sure no one overheard Jisung. He should probably quit it with that joke, he knows Jeongin feels some kind of way about the Seungmin of it all and doesn’t want Seungmin to misinterpret things.

“Sorry, sorry, I’ll shut up about that.” He sighs. “Wanna eat with me? As long as you don’t mind that I’m in a shitty mood?”

“It’s because of Nurse Lee, isn’t it?” Jeongin asks, as they both wordlessly head towards dumplings.

Jisung doesn’t bother denying it, or asking Jeongin how he knows. “…Yeah. We have a relationship that is supposed to function under very strict parameters, and… I fucked up. Uh, I accidentally messed with the… parameters on my end, I guess.”

Jeongin doesn’t say anything, but he puts his hand on Jisung’s shoulder for a moment.

“Thanks. It’s.” A wave of sadness passes through him, tightening his throat. “I think I have to end it?” Ugh, his eyes are burning. “And I don’t want to, but. This… in-between state makes me feel like shit. And it’s only going to get worse.”

Jeongin remains silent until they reach the restaurant, and then he charms Ms. Shang into giving them her best booth, and when they are finally sat down he pats Jisung’s arm in sympathy. “Hyung. Nurse Lee always looks like he wants to eat you.”

Jisung snorts wetly, trying not to let the tears fall. “He only wants me in that one way,” he mumbles. “I want him in… all the ways.”

Jeongin’s eyes are full of understanding—not just pity, but empathy. Like he gets it; like he’s in a similar spot.

“Is that. What’s going on with you and Seungmin?” It is killing him to not be able to tell Jeongin the truth about that, but Seungmin clearly didn’t, and it’s not Jisung’s secret to tell.

“…Yeah. I told him I loved him last week.”

“You what?”

Oh God.

“Um.” Jeongin blushes. “We also. Fooled around a bit.”

Jisung grabs his arm, wanting to scream. “Oh my God? And? How was it? That was your first time with a guy, right?” He should probably have been a better bisexual mentor to Jeongin. “Do you have questions? I’m too late, aren’t I—who topped? Do you want me to draw you some—”

“Hyung!” Jeongin hisses, face bright red. “We didn’t—we just fooled around. Um. No one topped, I-I mean I was on top but—"

Jeongin’s phone rings, a cheery anime OST that draws his attention.

“Oh—sorry, hyung, it’s my parents.” He makes an apologetic face, still blushing. “I have to pick up, I’m sorry.”

“Go ahead, of course!” Jisung’s mood lightens at the prospect of seeing Jeongin’s mom and dad, and he makes a mental note to call his parents tonight when he gets home. He owes them an update.

“Yang Jeongin! We miss you!”

“Hiiii!” Jeongin says, beaming and waving at the screen.

“Sweetheart! You’re not at home? I thought you said you had off work today!”

Jeongin glances at Jisung, smiling. “I’m having lunch with someone, look.” He angles the camera towards him, and Jisung is treated to the completely delightful sight of not one, not two, but three older vaguely Jeongin-looking people who appear to be his mother, father, and grandmother, all vying for screentime, faces overlapping.

“Is that… him?” Jeongin’s mother’s tone emphasizes ‘him’ so much that Jisung is truly glad that Seungmin isn’t here, or he would not have missed that.

“O-oh my God, no!” Jeongin hastily shakes his head, hair flopping about. He’s so cute it’s crazy. “No, this is my friend, one of my other intern-hyungs, Han Jisung.” He turns the screen towards Jisung again, who waves and gives them a thumbs up that he hopes conveys purely platonic, friendship vibes (no matter how much he would make out with Jeongin platonically, if Jeongin asked).

He is distantly surprised that Jeongin told his family about Seungmin, or what he presumes is a version of what is going on with Seungmin that includes the fact that Jeongin is interested in him beyond the platonic. He’s still pretty sure that Jeongin hadn’t acted on his interest in men before.

It’s sweet, listening to Jeongin update his family on life in Seoul and admit that yes, he did buy the sweater he is wearing recently, but September in the city is starting to get chilly, not like back home. They chit-chat for a few minutes while Jisung picks at his food, and when the time comes to hang up Jisung is treated to a close-up of Jeongin’s adorable grandmother saying goodbye to him, too.

“You came out to your parents?” he asks him the second the screen goes dark. He’s out to his family too, but he knows their chill reaction makes him lucky—or maybe he was a bit prejudiced towards southerners, to have assumed they wouldn’t be chill.

“Yeah, I guess. I initially only told my mom, but she tells my dad everything, and my dad always tells my grandma, even if she doesn’t always understand,” Jeongin scoffs affectionately. “I was… really sad about Seungmin, and I didn’t have anyone to talk to, and my mom could tell something was going on… so I told her. That I had a crush on my intern-hyung.”

Jisung’s heart falls. “Hey. I thought I’d made it clear you could always text me? Or talk to me?” He puts his hand back on Jeongin’s arm, less forcefully this time. “I’m sorry if I’ve been an absentee hyung.”

“No, no, this was… in the middle of my surgery rotation, right before you reached out. Things got so much better after that, but I was really… heartbroken.” He sighs. “I’m sorry hyung, we were talking about you and Nurse Lee and got distracted. I didn’t mean to make this about me and Seungmin.”

Jisung shakes his head. “I wanna hear about you and Seungmin. And I don’t want you to be heartbroken.”

“Okay, well, that’s not totally within my control?” But Jeongin is smiling a bit, if sadly. “I just… love him, and I’m gonna miss him so much, and I kinda wish he’d just give in to what he wants so we could at least have two happy sexy weeks before I leave and we never see each other again. Even if he only wants me for sex, I’d still prefer that to nothing, you know?”

Jisung sighs. “I have full faith in your ability to successfully seduce whoever you want, Ien-ah, but the problem with the happy sexy weeks is that the idea of them ending is.” He suddenly loses his voice. He has to clear his throat. “It’s… horrible. It might be worse.”

Jeongin’s gaze is steady. “I’d rather know the happiness and then remember it.”

Jisung feels much more than a year older than him. “The pain of knowing it and losing it is unlike anything,” he tells him. “Ignorance can be bliss, Jeongin.”

They watch each other in contemplative silence.

Then Jeongin says: “And you’re sure Nurse Lee doesn’t feel the same way?”

Maybe if Minho’s reputation wasn’t what it is, Jisung would contemplate the possibility. But Minho looks like a God, he moves like a dancer, he’s confident, he’s hot, he’s so assured, so experienced, and Jisung is a pile of want so bad it leaves him shaken every time Minho is near him.

Jisung can’t do this anymore.

“Yeah. I just have to… find the courage to end it. Soon.” He sighs. “As soon as I can.”

Chan

“Everyone wants it to be you,” Felix murmurs, reading off his phone.

He has his head in Chan’s lap, and kindly let Chan pet his hair. They are on the couch in Felix’s apartment.

“When JYP gets fired.”

He shows Chan his screen, where the residency group-chat is lighting up with comments that make Chan feel so flattered it’s almost overwhelming—people calling him their favorite attending, sharing specific instances where he taught them something or helped them in some way. Chan has to look away after a moment, preferring to look down at Felix’s face, anyway.

“Would.” Felix isn’t looking back up at him, he’s looking at his phone. “Would you? Become program director?”

Chan watches him. He knows what Felix is asking, or at least he thinks he knows why.

They’d have to break up if he did. What they are doing is already morally questionable, but there is some room to justify it—beyond Chan’s certain death if someone made him give up his newfound happiness. He’s only Felix’s supervisor when they are on shift, which happens once every other month at most, less if Chan continues to decrease his overtime hours like Felix is asking him to. He is only required to evaluate Felix in those instances, and otherwise the teacher-student context happens when Chan gives a conference lecture, which is just a biannual requirement for him. He has no hand in Felix’s schedule, that’s done by the chiefs. It could get either of them fired, but that’s contingent on anyone finding out, and technically there is no fraternization rule described in the SNUH hospital policies so they’d have room to argue those types of repercussions if they were discovered.

But if he became program director... he would be Felix’s direct boss. It would be morally unconscionable for him to continue seeing him. He would oversee Felix’s evaluations, be in charge of remediating him if there are issues with his progress in residency, his recommendation letter for Felix would be expected for every future job application Felix submits for the rest of his career… the list goes on and on.

“I’m only two years out from residency, Felix. In attending years that is incredibly inexperienced—it takes a long time to become a program director.”

Felix does look up at him, then. “But they love you.” He blinks those pretty eyes at Chan. “You’ve won the teaching award twice already. And you would... be so good at it.”

Chan shakes his head, automatically, and Felix reaches up to tap under his chin.

“Hey. Stop that.” He caresses Chan’s neck. “You would. You are amazing.”

He ignores the shudder such kind words from such a special source cause. “The board will take resident preferences into account, but ultimately decide themselves.” He doesn’t want to think about the possibility of breaking up with Felix, even in a far-fetched hypothetical. He’s too happy, he loves him too much, and he hasn’t even told him that last part. He can’t give that up.

“Hyung.” Felix is watching him. He’s in his New York Knicks hoodie again, a personal favorite look of Chan’s. His hair is loose, a golden halo spilling over Chan’s thighs. “Kiss me?”

Chan obeys instantly, bending down to kiss Felix on the lips.

Felix twines a hand into his hair, holding him down there to deepen the kiss at his leisure. Chan is so happy to exist in a world where he can be something at Felix’s leisure.

“Don’t go, tonight,” Felix mumbles against his mouth. “Stay with me.”

Chan won’t, of course he’ll do as Felix is asking. But there is something they should discuss.

“...I found an apartment, to move into once Changbin has recovered.” He says quietly. “Until I move there, it’s. Harder to justify not coming home, to the chiefs.” He’s actually certain that Changbin knows, and San and Wooyoung probably suspect it too, but there are no three people Chan would trust more with the information. “I know we haven’t really talked about—I know you said you didn’t want me to continue paying for this place, but—"

Felix drops his hand from his hair.

“Where?” He asks, voice small. “Where are you moving to?”

“I haven’t signed the lease yet, but it’s close—"

“Oh,” Felix breathes, relief widening his eyes. “Then don’t.”

Chan stills. Felix drops his phone on the couch and sits up, twisting to sit on his shins and then, after a moment’s hesitation, sitting on Chan’s lap.

Chan’s arms automatically wrap around his waist, but it takes his brain some time to catch up with the circumstances. He’s not sure he’ll ever get used to this much joy happening to him at once.

“Stay. Here.” Felix’s hands rest on his chest. Maybe that’s why Chan’s heart is still contained within it, and didn’t burst out just yet. He can’t... have heard that right. “Stay with me, here. That fixes everything, right? We can split the rent, then.”

He stops breathing.

Felix is flushed, and he looks... adorably nervous. His eyes flicker between Chan’s own. “Hyung?” He slides his hands up to Chan’s shoulders. “Is it. Is that... too much?”

“Baby,” Chan breathes. “That’s...” Of course it’s too much; they confessed to each other two weeks ago, they met less than three months ago, Chan was engaged to someone else for a large chunk of that time, and they’ve only just started dating in secret.

“Y-you could still have another place,” Felix blurts. “You could have some of your things there, this isn’t that big, I-I get that, and people might—we need to stay secret, so it’d be better for you to officially list your address elsewhere, but. But I. Want you here. I want you with me all the time.”

He had Chan at that first request, the first ‘don’t’, the first order of ‘stay’. How does he not get the power he holds?

“Okay, baby. I’ll do whatever you want.” He tightens his hold on Felix’s waist to pull him closer, and Felix’s hands sink into the back of his hair again, both this time, tightening with satisfying force. He leans forward to claim Felix’s mouth, but Felix’s grip prevents it.

“What do you want?” Felix asks, before letting Chan kiss him.

Insultingly easy question. “You.” He tests Felix’s grip, trying to get closer. Felix is not having it yet. “My baby, you’re all I want. My princess. My perfect, beautiful—"

“Hyung, what about the apartm—"

“Fuck the apartment,” Chan says with feeling, daring to close another centimeter between them, wanting Felix’s mouth so much. He spent so many weeks not having it, he wants it. “I want you. I want to be with you all the time, I want to be where you are, if you—if you want me too then I will stay here as long as you want me. I’ll still take the place nearby so I can list it in the hospital directory, but I’ll be here. We’ll splint the rent, half and half.”

Felix makes a pleased sound and finally lets Chan kiss him, rewarding him for his patience with a deep, tonguing kiss and a roll of his hips. Chan is so grateful—he’s just so unbelievably grateful to be wanted like this.

“You were so hot today,” Felix mutters, then goes in for another nice, long kiss. Chan is the one to rock his hips up this time, feeling himself harden. “Bossing everyone around, even telling Changbin what to do.” Felix leans back when Chan tries to kiss him again, apparently not done talking. “And he did it. They all did.” He hums, tapping Chan’s nose with his index finger. “None of them knew that you’re mine, to do with as I please.”

Chan groans, the idea going straight to his gut.

“I was so turned on, watching you,” Felix murmurs. “Couldn’t wait to get home and remind you who owns you.”

Something breaks in Chan’s brain. He grips Felix under the thighs and surges up, suddenly done with this foreplay, done not being inside of Felix in some capacity. He’s been so good, he hasn’t been inside Felix since the morning when they woke up before going to the meeting about JYP, and that was only his fingers, he needs—

“Hyung.” Felix clings to him as Chan walks them to the bedroom. “Can we. Can you. Not use a condom today, can you—"

Chan almost drops him.

He stumbles to the bed and sets him down, suddenly weak in the knees. He’d gotten tested even though it had been a long time since he and Nari had done more than peck each other on the cheek, and Felix had mentioned tests last week too, but he hadn’t—he hadn’t thought as far as—

“Please, hyung?” Felix asks, as though there is any universe where he asks Chan for something and is not immediately obliged.

Chan grabs the lube and is seized by a sense of urgency he was not familiar with prior to sleeping with Felix.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, ripping Felix’s shorts down to his ankles, pulling up his sweater but not even bothering to take it off, just exposing him enough to bare his stomach, his hardening dick, his pretty hole. “C’mere beautiful, come to me—"

Felix moans when Chan’s fingers go in, and his spine undulates on the bed, tipping his hips up.

“That’s it, baby, that’s good.” Chan kisses the wing of a hipbone, but sits back up to focus on Felix’s face and his expressions. He’s desperate to fuck in but he doesn’t want to rush this part, he wants Felix to be more than ready to take him because he feels—a bit out of it, since Felix said he owns him, and the idea of fucking Felix bare has him desperate to get as deep as he can, to come inside and pump Felix full—

“M-more, another...” Felix says, high and breathy.

Chan gives him a third finger, marveling at how gorgeous Felix’s hole is, at how well it fits him.

“So good, Felix, so good my baby…”

Felix whimpers, hips twitching. “Oppa... ah, more please...”

Chan’s fingers sink in deeper, crooking and spreading inside of him, teasing the space he’s about to enter. “That’s it, what a good girl you are,” he mutters, thoughtless. “That’s my princess, that’s my babygirl—"

Felix gasps and convulses, cries out—

Chan catches up to what he just said with a jolt, and then Felix is coming. He arches his back and comes untouched, gripping the sheets and rendered silent, his head thrown back and mouth open in a soundless scream. Chan is so taken aback he barely has time to curl his fingers and fuck Felix through his orgasm, watching reverently as Felix writhes under him. He had noticed Felix’s reaction to being called princess in the bedroom, and Felix had made it clear that that was a term he’d be happy to hear again, but they hadn’t talked about what just happened. He hadn’t planned that at all.

“Chan-hyung,” Felix pants, eyes glittering. “Oh my God, I.” He puts a hand over his mouth. “Oh my God. I didn’t mean to...”

“Baby, it’s okay that you—"

“—call you oppa, I’m sorry, that just... came out.” He leans his head up. “Is... is that why you called me...?”

Oh. Right. His response had been instinctive, maybe partially reactionary. “Did you like it? I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking, I didn’t mean to—"

“Did I like it?” Felix huffs, then starts giggling, laughing. “Isn’t it obvious?” He puts his arms up, stretching luxuriously, hoodie still on, bunched around his chest. Chan takes his fingers out of him, letting him straighten his legs for a moment. When Felix is done stretching, he tilts his head towards Chan again, a tinge of shyness returning “You don’t... mind? That I like that sometimes? In this context.”

Chan matches his disbelieving tone. “Do I mind,” he repeats, voice raw. “Felix, you are the hottest thing I’ve ever been near.” He crawls up his body to give him a kiss, keeping his hips up so his raging erection doesn’t bother Felix. “If you like it, I love it.”

“I love it.”

“Then I extra love it.” He kisses him again, grinning.

“Only in this context, okay?”

“Of course.” He kisses him again, a little deeper. His urgency can wait, his desperation is nothing in the face of Felix’s needs. “Whatever you prefer, baby.”

Felix smiles into his lips and Chan feels his heel slide up the back of his thigh. “I prefer that you fuck me raw until I come again,” he says lightly, and Chan almost loses it right then.

“Fuck,” he growls. “Yes, o-okay, y-yes.”

He gathers Felix’s legs for him with no finesse, but if Felix wants to get fucked before Chan comes then this has to happen fast, because Chan is... really, really turned on. He checks with his fingers one last time, but Felix makes an impatient whimper and reaches down, about to take Chan in hand himself, which—would be too much, Chan wouldn’t survive that.

He quickly situates his hips and pushes in, choking on a groan at the feel of Felix, tight and hot around him, their skin sliding together, lube squelching, and he starts giving it to him as much as his desperate muscles can, clenching his teeth trying not to come, trying to make it last, to make it feel good for Felix, because he’s so fucking close but Felix matters more, he can’t—Felix pants and moans and lies back happily, at one point reaching down to jerk himself off before Chan asks, breathlessly but respectfully, if he can do it instead please, oh my pretty princess please, and Felix nods.

“Ah, Chan-hyung, there, there, don’t—don’t stop okay? Don’t stop, m’gonna—”

Chan is on a razor’s edge, and hearing Felix sound like that is so—he’s so—but he has to be good for Felix, make it good for Felix, wait until Felix feels good.

“Oh hyung, that feels… ahh, ah ah ah ah—” Felix tips his head back, coming so beautifully, so addicting as he clenches around Chan and Chan gratefully lets go, hips thrusting at a punishing, desperate pace as he starts to come too. He’s not expecting Felix to shove his thumb into his mouth but Chan groans and takes it, moans gratefully as Felix thrusts the finger in and out as Chan thrusts in and out of him. He sucks on the skin as he fucks all the aftershocks out of his system, hollowing his cheeks around it, eventually feeling his eyes droop closed of their own volition at the pacifier.

“You’re so hot,” Felix growls when Chan is down to his last few grinding thrusts, slow and worn out. The thumb in his mouth pushes down onto Chan’s tongue, and Chan whimpers. “I never want you to leave my bed.”

Chan forces his eyes open once more, stilling on top of Felix.

Felix takes his thumb out, and Chan only just restrains himself form chasing after it. “I mean it, hyung. You’ll move in, right? You’ll never leave?”

Chan’s breathing is still uneven, and Felix’s words aren’t helping. “Of course, baby. Never.” He’s still inside Felix. He should move. “As long as you want me here.”

“I’m going to want you here forever,” Felix warns. He slides his hands up to cup Chan’s face, and brings him down towards him, close enough to kiss.

But he doesn’t kiss him.

“I love you, Chan.”

Chan stops breathing.

It’s—too much. Too much happiness, a level of euphoria that his serotonin-deprived brain can’t even process, he can’t have heard that right, there’s no way this much goodness is in his life now—

“Felix.”

Felix stares up at him.

“Felix I love you—so much, I love you too, I—” He kisses him, pecks him, really, and then kisses each of his freckled cheeks. “I love you. I love you, I love you,” he kisses the tip of his little nose, his lips again, then his forehead. “I love you.”

Felix grins. “I love you,” he repeats, and Chan’s mind is breaking, buckling under the implacable weight of so much joy. “Chan-hyung, I-I love you—”

He drops his forehead onto the mattress next to Felix’s head, getting a lungful of the scent of his hair and smiling. “This is crazy,” he mumbles, ears and neck heating with it. “I love you so much, Felix, this is—"

“I know,” Felix agrees, sounding delighted. “I know. But I. I do too.”

Chan grins into the bed, repeating himself again, asking Felix to repeat it, trying to process even an ounce of it, knowing it will take some time.

He has time. For Felix, he has as much time as they need.

Minho

“Hi Nurse Jang, sorry to bother you—who is taking care of the patient in bed three?”

“Oh, that’s Nurse Lee. You’ve met Minho, right?”

Minho stands up from his station in Blue Pod, where he was failing at catching up on his documentation, and sees Hyunjin. He’s in dark green scrubs, the ones they put the ER interns in when they rotate with surgery, like he was in the trauma bay the other day.

Jisung is gonna look so good in them when it’s his turn, Minho thinks with an internal sigh.

“Hey, what do you need?”

“Oh, hey, sorry didn’t see you. The surgeons are taking bed three to the operating room very soon, would you mind sending some pre-operative labs?”

“Coagulation studies and a type-and-screen for blood type?”

“Exactly. Thanks so much, I really appreciate it.”

Minho nods—it should be a given but he doesn't always get thanked for what he does, and he likes how this class of interns is appropriately respectful of the nurses in the department. Even Hyunjin, shouting commands in the trauma bay the other week, had done so with urgency but respect.

He makes his way to the patient room, and Hyunjin falls in step with him. The patient is very sick; the ER team just put in a breathing tube for them and they are on sedation. They suffered a bowel perforation, so will need surgery very soon.

“I figured you’d need them, I already drew the tubes I just need to send them to the lab.” He takes the two vials of blood he’d set aside next to the patient, and sticks the appropriate labels on them.

Hyunjin looks impressed. “Oh wow, awesome.”

Minho smirks. These baby doctors went through a lot of training, but there are some things he’s been doing way longer than they have.

“Are you busy or do you wanna walk them up with me? Our automatic shoot is down.”

Hyunjin takes one last look at the patient’s vital signs and shrugs, then nods. “Yeah sounds good, I have to go back up to the surgical floors anyway.”

So they both head to the elevators, the silence between them comfortable. Minho figures they are both remembering the last time they spent one-to-one time together, when he was leaving Jisung’s (and Hyunjin’s) resident housing building.

“How is it going?” Hyunjin asks him, proving him right. “The thing with the guy in resident dorms?”

Minho feels his jaw clench. It’s probably a bit weird that Hyunjin is the only person other than Seri who knows he has feelings for someone, even if he doesn’t know who. He still hasn’t told Chan or Changbin, arguably his other close friends at work, but after last week he is glad he kept his pathetic fucking crush to himself.

The elevator arrives, and they both step in.

“It’s Jisung, right?” Hyunjin asks, so quiet Minho almost misses it. “The person on your mind. The… one you fell for.”

Oh. Minho’s chest twinges, a pain he wasn’t expecting to feel just at the sound of Jisung’s name. How did Hyunjin...?

“Did he tell you we’re sleeping together?”

“Yes.”

He actually appreciates Hyunjin’s bluntness. He knows he can’t ask the million questions that come up as a result—if Hyunjin and Jisung talked about him that must mean Hyunjin knows if Jisung is actually interested in that cute medical student, if Jisung is having casual sex with anyone else, if Jisung would ever consider dating a guy who has never dated anyone before but who would try so hard to get good at it, for him—

Hyunjin’s eyes are intent, above his mask. “You guys should talk,” he says mysteriously.

He’s kind of an enigma, to Minho. An intern who looks like a runway model practicing the gritty kind of medicine they do in the ER, instead of dermatology or plastic surgery... Hyunjin puzzles him, but in a good way. He likes the guy, and he’s smart; Minho feels like they get each other even though Hyunjin didn’t come out and explicitly say that he’s in a similar spot, or has been in a similar spot before. Minho saw the understanding on his face, he didn’t need to vocalize it.

“Uh. Okay. If you say so.”

The doors ding open, they are at the lab level.

“I do say so. I give great advice, just always do as I say, never as I do.”

Minho snorts, and gets the feeling that Hyunjin is smiling under his mask.

“What happens when you try to take your own advice?” He asks.

“Wouldn’t know, never tried it,” Hyunjin says lightly, and Minho laughs.

*

Jisung comes to his place that evening, instead of their usual other way around. Minho works less hours between the two of them, so he is happy to adjust to Jisung’s schedule and go to him more often to make his life easier, but Jisung had the Saturday off whereas Minho worked a full shift, so he doesn’t refuse Jisung’s offer to switch. The babies have seen him enough times that they don’t hiss at him or act outwardly hostile against him anymore; they have promoted him to ‘large thing they can ignore’.

Minho feels sick with nerves. He is aware that he owes Jisung an apology for his possessive behavior this past week, but he’s not sure how to deliver it without giving away his stupid, massive, unwieldy feelings. He’s also not sure how to deliver it without asking him to please explain, to put him out of his misery and just tell him if that med student… if he and that med student…

“Hey.”

The door opens and.

Minho’s brain.

Shuts down.

Jisung is wearing the pink collar he gave him. In… in the entryway. He’s wearing it like he didn’t just put it on, he’s wearing it like he wore it all the way here, like he put it on before leaving his apartment and wore it outside, on his commute, and then stood on the street to hit the house code in it, and walked up the steps in it. Everyone he passed to get here will have seen him in it, and it’s been Minho’s gift to him the whole time.

He has a new British rock band shirt on; an album cover with an artistic rendition of a brain in neon blues, greens, purples and the shade of pink that matches the collar over a black background. Minho makes out the letters M, U, S and E, a nice short name he can actually read even though it’s in English, and the shirt is tight and cropped on him, and his pants are baggy but low rise; there’s a belt of tan skin on display out in the open, the emphasis on Jisung’s tiny little waist never more apparent. He looks so fucking hot Minho has forgotten every word in the Korean language. And the English one, not that he knew many to being with. Except for ‘muse’ right now, he supposes.

“Kirei,” he blurts. In Japanese.

Jisung jumps into his arms, kissing him without preamble, without saying anything in response. Minho’s apology gets rescheduled in favor of what’s happening right now, which is Jisung, his for now, his for this, in this moment.

He kisses him with bite, deep and mean and brutal, kissing like he actually wants to eat him, and Jisung whimpers and just takes it, molds to it, lets him have it, even when Minho starts to walk him to his room without parting their mouths, his greedy hands pinching and gripping and grabbing him, Jisung just moans.

He shuts the door behind them to prevent the cats from wandering in, but his room still gets good light from the large bay windows, one of them in each wall because it’s a corner apartment. At this hour, it’s moonlight that they let in, and moonlight that Minho wants to see Jisung wearing. Only the promise of more of Jisung’s beautiful skin motivates him to divest him of his killer ensemble, but it’s a good motivator, and when he finally has him naked in bed he realizes they haven’t said a word to each other, but he can’t—he can’t be mocking right now, he can’t be mean, he’s too—full of what happened the other day, the longing insecurity, the feeling of being pathetic himself, of being clumsy and obvious and embarrassing, when Jisung was so obviously happy, flirting with that kid—

“Fuck,” he grunts when he slides in, having prepped Jisung in heady silence, and he feels—his eyes prickle with tears, a burn he is not used to, especially not during sex, he’s never been a crier, but the idea of losing this, of losing his time with Jisung because of his stupid inability to be content with just this—

Jisung cries out when Minho is fully sheathed, so pretty on his back with the collar on and his cheeks high with matching pink blush. He’s got tears in his eyes too, but that’s normal for him, it happens enough, Minho’s precious little crybaby, always so quick to sobbing in bed, always so good to Minho.

“Hyung,” he moans, strangled. “Oh hyung.”

“Jisung.” He starts thrusting, the want building despite his sadness, this sharp bitter melancholy that is almost fear. “Jisung, Jisung, I love fucking you, is this—is this what you—”

“Yeah,” Jisung sobs. “This is what I always want.”

“Fuck, Jisung, tell me—"

“I want you.” Jisung squeezes his eyes shut, more fat, wet tears spilling out, trickling down his temples to mix into his hair. “I always want you.”

Minho’s tears start falling too, and he hopes Jisung thinks it’s sweat because they dot his cheeks, his neck, his chest as Minho speeds up and fucks Jisung at the pace he enjoys, wanting to give Jisung what he likes and how he likes it, always, the one thing he’s good for.

“Nghh th-thank you…” Jisung sobs harder. “Hyung, ah, thank you, this is so, want this so…”

“How. How much do you want me?” Minho groans. “Tell me. Tell me, Jisung—”

“Want you so bad,” Jisung gasps. “Want… so bad, oh my God—”

“Say… say you want it all the time.” Minho speeds up to something unsustainable, suddenly frantic, chasing something or maybe running away from it. “Say it.”

“I want you all day, all night, all the fucking time when you’re not inside me I feel empty, I feel—incomplete, I want—"

“Fuck.” His fingertips dig into Jisung’s flesh hard. “Say you want me forever, say—"

And he regrets it immediately, but he can’t take it back before Jisung chokes; “I do, I want you forever, I w-want—” And Minho’s eyes roll back in his head and he comes with a low cry, shoulders hunching vulnerably, spine curving like it hurts, and it does, in a way, and Jisung started coming even before Minho put his hand on his dick but he does it anyway, jerking him off until Jisung gasps and pushes his wrist away, both of them crumpling onto the bed together, Minho falling slumped over Jisung, half on him and half on the mattress.

As his braincells slowly flicker back online, Minho starts to become aware of what he just did.

His arms feel gelatinous, too weak to lift him up, but he has to see Jisung’s face, he has to—he pushes up from him, pulls out and takes the condom off, throwing it into his trash can with practiced aim.

Jisung’s eyes are closed, and he’s still crying.

There have been times where he comes out of his space more slowly, and Minho will spend as long as he needs soothing and complimenting him, caressing him and cuddling him until he feels more like himself. But tonight isn’t that, and Minho can tell. If he couldn’t, what Jisung says next would have let him know anyway.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

Minho goes cold.

“I-I’m…” Jisung’s breaths are hitching as he continues to sob, and it’s… this isn’t the good kind of crying. Minho feels sick, he feels numb, he feels—“I’m sorry to do it like this. I-I’m sorry to. Say it like this.” He wipes at his eyes, but the tears continue. They are still closed, he’s not looking at Minho. “But I can’t… do this.”

Minho had stopped crying for a moment there around his orgasm, but now his eyes sting again. He doesn’t sob like Jisung does; he has a steady stream of tears fall instead, all the way down his cheeks to his jaw, then free-falling to his stomach and his thighs where he sits cross-legged on the bed.

“Minho-hyung?”

Minho shivers, even though his apartment’s room temperature tends to run warm. He feels frozen, suddenly plunged into ice-water like the spas his father likes to take him to.

“Wh.” Jisung opened his eyes. “Are you crying?”

Minho doesn’t bother denying the truth. “You.” He forces himself to speak. “You don’t. Want this anymore,” he chokes. “That’s.” Fine. He has to say it. Say ‘that’s fine’, Minho. “That’s.”

He can’t fucking say it. Jisung is waiting, watching him cry the way he hasn’t cried in years, and he can’t bring himself to throw out a vague platitude to show Jisung that he supports his decision and will respect it, and be cool about it, and not have a complete meltdown.

He is clearly having a complete meltdown.

“Hyung?”

Jisung sits up, his own tears halted in the face of this incongruous spectacle Minho is putting on.

“Sorry,” Minho grits out. “You can. Go. If you.” Oh God, the prospect of only seeing him at work, of seeing him at the Chuseok celebration, of being relegated to watching Jisung across rooms and not—never—

“Hyung.” Jisung sounds confused. “What’s… going on?”

“N-nothing.” Minho sniffs. “It’s okay, y-you want out, I un-understand.” It must have been what he said, that pushed Jisung to do this now, to do it like this. Say you want me forever. He cringes, remembering. He wishes he could have stopped running his mouth during sex, that he could have shut the fuck up and not given away his every feeling.

Jisung is sitting there, naked, watching him. Not leaving.

Minho can’t stop crying. “I-I’m sorry,” he manages. “I’m.”

Jisung looked confused before, now he seems flabbergasted. “Why are you sorry?”

“For. What I said.” He’s not going to repeat himself, that’s too far.

Jisung scoots closer to him. “What you said?”

Minho shakes his head, kneading one of his eyes with his knuckle like that will stop it from watering. He’s not going to say it again. And anyway it doesn’t matter, Jisung was probably going to end it at some point, for some other reason; the med student, or someone else would capture his heart, this was always going to be temporary. Minho just helped jump-start it.

“What you said tonight?” Jisung insists.

Minho nods. Jisung ducks his head to meet his gaze. He looks… not confused, not shocked anymore. He looks… terrified. Exhilarated. Breathless.

“Minho-hyung, I wanted to end it because the thought of you with Eun made me so jealous I couldn’t think straight.”

Minho stops crying.

He drops his hand from his face.

“…What.”

Jisung is so fucking smart. Thank God for that—who knows what might have happened otherwise, how this conversation would have gone. What happens in reality is that Jisung, increasingly less afraid and more invigorated, puts his hands on Minho’s knees. “I. Was. Jealous,” he says, right in Minho’s face.

Minho stares at him.

“What about the. The stuff with the med student?” he asks, hating himself.

“Trying to make you jealous,” Jisung says, and his eyes are wide. “Hyung.” He tightens his grip on Minho’s legs. “I like you, that’s why I couldn’t… do this… no strings attached, non-exclusive stuff anymore. Because I have feelings for you.”

Minho opens his mouth without any clue what he’s about to say in response.

“I fucking love you.”

And then he says that.

Hyunjin

He doesn’t think about why he does it, but he signs up for a ‘Chief Seo’ shift, a couple of days after Changbin’s discharge. On surgery, he has a single day off a week at most, and on some weeks the ‘day off’ is just the day of sleep they get after working twenty-four hours—this Saturday being one of them. But it’s a no-brainer how he’s going to spend that precious time, hence why he does not engage his brain function when he makes the decision.

San and Wooyoung are both working overnights that start at 7pm, which is why someone is needed for the evening (Felix admitted to Hyunjin that Chan was going to be at his place). Hyunjin sleeps until 5pm after his call shift and then spends an hour and a half getting ready so that it doesn’t look like he took any time getting ready.

He’s at the chiefs apartment at a quarter to 7, five minutes after San and Wooyoung left. So it’s just them. Just… Hyunjin and Changbin, hanging out in the apartment. Alone. Hyunjin was last here for the block two party, of course, during which he had the hottest sex of his life, again, in the same bed even. That bed (and one of the walls and also the floor) are the only places where Hyunjin has had sex that good. Ugh.

At least they are in the living room right now.

“We don’t have to,” he says, stubbornly.

“But you wanted to. I could get into it, let me try,” Changbin cajoles. “Come on. Which one do you want to start with?”

Hyunjin made the mistake of mentioning that he likes anime, when Changbin asked what he wanted to watch on TV. Like it makes sense to cater the activity to the person coming to help out, instead of the injured party.

He reluctantly picks one before Changbin makes the wrong decision at random, since Changbin has no idea about that sort of artform.

And then… they have a nice evening.

Hyunjin makes them dinner, a simple stir-fry with some steamed rice, and they watch episode after episode, only they aren’t watching in silence because Changbin will interrupt to ask questions but not pause the episodes, and they will occasionally get caught up in random tangents and have to rewatch certain parts. By episode six Changbin is fully invested in the main quest and getting frustrated with what he calls a ‘filler’ episode, even though Hyunjin explains the ways in which it’s not, and they are arguing about storylines but it’s not really arguing, it’s bantering, and Hyunjin keeps having to hide his snort-giggles behind the back of his hand. And it’s so easy, it’s so… good. The hours fly by, both of them on opposite ends of the couch again after Hyunjin does the dishes, episode seven, episode eight, episode nine.

It's midnight before they know it; the time Hyunjin was set to leave. The end of the ‘Chief Seo’ shift.

It went by so fast.

“You can go home, I’m totally fine to stay by myself on nights,” Changbin says, as they both watch the loading screen for episode ten. “It’s been fine overall, honestly; I’m feeling great.”

Hyunjin doesn’t want to leave, even though he’s due back at the hospital in five hours. “Did you do all your chest PT stuff today?”

“Twice,” Changbin says smugly.

He pounces on that; a reason to scold Changbin. “Twice is too many times, hyung. You’re supposed to rest your chest muscles, too.”

“My chest muscles are a lot stronger than the average rib fracture patient’s, Hyunjin.”

Hyunjin rolls his eyes, thinking about the odes he would write to those muscles if his artistic skills trended in the lyrical direction. “You’re impossible.”

“I’m making such good progress! Everyone but you is impressed.”

“Well, I am not easily impressed,” Hyunjin scoffs.

“You don’t say,” Changbin responds.

“You’re right, I wouldn’t.” He throws him a sideways smirk, to soften it a little, but looks back down at his lap. “Even if I was, you’d never find out about it. I’d take it to my grave.”

“So you’d ghost me again.”

And ah.

There it is.

The elephant in the room makes a loud, trumpeting noise, calling attention to itself. Finally.

Hyunjin looks at Changbin again, and finds him already looking back.

do you want to talk about it?

do you?

yes. but it’s okay if you don’t

His smirk dissolves.

“…You want to talk about what happened at the block two party,” he says, tone completely different.

Changbin shrugs, composed and understanding as always. “You never texted me back. I assumed that meant you didn’t want to.”

“I was going to,” Hyunjin mutters. “On Sunday morning, I was going to. But then you got yourself run over.”

“Oh. Sorry about that.”

“We can.” God, this is agony. “We can talk now, if you. You said you wanted to.”

Changbin stays still for a moment, and then he turns to sit facing Hyunjin, his movements taking on the caution and slowness of a person dealing with a skittish, traumatized horse. Or a terrified woodland creature that might bolt at any sudden gesture. Hyunjin isn’t sure which simile he finds more offensive.

“I… do. I just want to understand you better.”

There’s nothing to understand. I don’t make sense, about you. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t understand why… you initiated something. Between us. Those two times.” He swallows, but continues speaking, measured and calm, all chief. All leader. “I don’t understand what you want. From me. When we were together, the first time, I had asked…”

So, Hyunjin… do you think we could—

We’re never going to see each other again.

“I had thought, I mean Asan is across town, but. It’s still… in Seoul. We could have still… been together. Or… or explored whether that. Was. Something y—we wanted. It might have been easier, even, with us in different programs, but when I asked you. You said.”

We’re never going to see each other again.

Hyunjin is trembling.

“You said no, you shut me down. Which is fine!” Changbin is quick to say. “That’s fine, that’s totally understandable, but I just… I took that at face value. So I’ve just been confused about how you feel, now. About me.”

For the first time, listening to him, Hyunjin detects a hint of hurt under the composure. He knew he wasn’t being fair to Changbin, he has known it this whole time, but Changbin seemed so mythical, so indestructible until now. Three broken ribs and a ruptured spleen later, he’s somehow stronger yet more vulnerable than ever, and in causing confusion, Hyunjin caused him pain.

Hyunjin is hurting him. Hyunjin’s horrible coping skills are hurting the man that he—

He grasps one hand in the other, hoping that will help, but it doesn’t. Now he’s just an idiot who is shivering with his hands clasped together, like he’s praying. To what? Who will save him from this situation?

When he doesn’t speak, Changbin adds: “I’m sorry to bring up Asan, by the way. I know you wanted to go to there and I’m sorry that didn’t work out, they are idiots for letting you—"

“I didn’t fail to get into Asan Medical,” Hyunjin says.

He stands up, suddenly unable to sit on that comfortable couch anymore, to sit beside Changbin like this. He looks down at him instead, hands fisted by his sides. He’s still trembling, his breathing is shallow, he might faint, he’s so—full of—something, the thing that overwhelms him when Changbin is around. He’s always felt too much, that flaw is at the core of him; too much for his patients, too much for his art, and nothing has made him feel more than Changbin does. He hates this feeling, but he hates hurting Changbin more, so maybe that’s how he finally, finally finds the courage to do it.

To just… tell the truth.

All of it.

In order to not cause Changbin any more pain.

“They offered me a spot,” he tells him, voice shaking. “I chose to come to SNUH.”

Changbin stares up at him. He is, for once, seemingly at a loss. Hyunjin takes a horrible satisfaction in it. He’s got plenty more revelations where that came from, stuff that will really render Changbin speechless. They are just getting started.

“Ask me why,” he commands.

Changbin’s mouth forms the word before he seems to gather the vocal force to expel it, on the second try. “Why?”

“Because I couldn’t get you out of my head.”

He was right, Changbin looks—shocked. Stunned stupid. Hyunjin’s brilliant, beloved chief, undone. But he will not be confused anymore. After Hyunjin is done talking he will probably be disgusted, and repulsed, and he will avoid Hyunjin forever, but he will not be confused, or in pain. He will finally understand.

“I’d never.” He swallows. “I’d never felt like that before. Not—I don’t mean the sex.” This is the part he’s bad at, God, the talking. “I mean the… other stuff. The feelings, the way I felt about you. Throughout the month, it was building, and building, and because I’d never felt it before, I didn’t realize. Until.” Until then. Until after. That morning, after waking up in Changbin’s perfect, strong arms in the early light of dawn, he had discovered that he was in so deep for Changbin that it was—impaled, inside of him, a gaping chest wound through-and-through. It had been terrifying, wanting something that much, wanting anything as much as he realized he craved Changbin’s affection—it had been humiliating, for Hwang Hyunjin to turn out to be one more of those besotted idiots, another fan in line for Changbin’s generous time, his sincere goodness. It had been the worst thing that had ever happened to him, to have given Changbin that much power over him without meaning to, to do so unintentionally. He’d almost had a panic attack, after years of keeping those at bay thanks to his anxiety medication. “And I didn’t know how to deal with it. With how you made me feel.”

We’re never going to see each other again.

He had said it as statement of fact, not intent. He hadn’t meant it as a rejection, he just meant that because he was going to Asan their careers wouldn’t intersect, their paths wouldn’t cross, not unless… He had waited, he had been waiting for Changbin to say—something, to ask for it not to be true. To propose an alternative, or even to voice his opposition to the idea. But Changbin took Hyunjin’s prompt as a rejection, and immediately backed off. Unlike every single person who had pursued Hyunjin before, Changbin didn’t protest, didn’t push.

And what Hyunjin felt for him was different than the disdain he’d felt for every single person who had pursued him before. What Hyunjin felt for him was avid, feverish, fanatical devotion.

“I thought it would go away, but after I left, it got worse.”

He sounds like he’s taking about a disease. It had felt like a disease, though—he’s thought of it in those terms before, hasn’t he? Sepsis, withdrawal… this thing, this obsession with Changbin, growing bigger month by month, taking him over, so that the more time passed the more he was consumed by it, consumed by the encounter, by that night, replaying that night from every angle, replaying every tender caress until the mere memory of them was painful, until it came time to choose his residency program and Asan offered him the job.

“I. I know you moved on.” You’re normal. You’re not an obsessive psychopath, you’re a well-adjusted, sweet, normal guy. “But I didn’t. I never did.”

Drawing him from every angle he could remember, watching every single one of his Instagram stories, refreshing the SNUH residency website every day to see if they updated their news section, their resident highlight section, their event section, to get a glimpse of him, of how he was doing, of what he was doing. Thinking of him all the time, wondering how he reacted to the announcement that he was elected chief, wondering if he started dating anyone else, or had sex with someone else, or told a stranger who didn’t fucking deserve it that he loved them. Wondering if he forgot about Hyunjin already, or if he ever thought about him too.

“Hyunjin—”

“I came here for you.”

Changbin’s breathing is shallow. Hyunjin is going to throw up.

“I chose SNUH for you. I’m fucking obsessed with you.”

He did it. His guts finally outside of his body, for Changbin to see glisten in the moonlight.

“Do you understand, now?”

Do you see me, now?

“Do you understand why I don’t like talking?”

Chapter Text

Jisung

“I fucking love you.”

Jisung almost chokes on his own spit.

Minho looks a bit surprised, too, like he didn’t plan on saying that. It didn’t sound like he did.

“You.” Jisung blinks rapidly. “You…?”

“Love you. I’m. I.” Minho puts a hand on Jisung’s face, cupping his cheek, and he stopped crying but Jisung can still see the evidence of it in his clumped lashes, the tear-tracks on his cheekbones. He was crying for Jisung. He said—"Is that. Okay?”

No. No no no it can’t be this easy. It can’t be true, he can’t have gotten away with falling for his off-limits fuckbuddy and having Minho fall for him too.

“So you’re not sleeping with Eun?”

Minho scoffs, wet. “No. I’m not sleeping with anyone other than you.”

Jisung’s chest is tight. “Me neither. I mean you, I-I’m only sleeping with you.” He’s smiling. “Minho-hyung.” The hand on his face spasms. “I. Love you too. I was trying to downplay it, to sound less pathetic, just now. I don’t just like you. I mean I do like you, but I also—love—"

Minho mashes their mouths together, cutting him off with a brutal kiss that makes Jisung whimper with happiness.

“P-please can we—date each other and—” Minho keeps interrupting him to kiss him, then breaking away to hear what he has to say. “Not date other people, a-and—mph—” The force of Minho’s kisses flattens him to the mattress, pushing Minho half on top of him. “Be together for ever, a-and—”

Minho makes a low cry at that, spasming over Jisung. “Yes, yes yes yes be together just us,” he whispers in a vicious rush. “No one else just mine just you being mine,” he snarls, rocking into Jisung again. He’s hard—already. “Mine my Jisung mine—”

“Mmmm yes, yes, I love you—” Minho spasms again, whining softly. His hips jerk and stutter, lower body trying to position himself so he’s lined up to get inside Jisung again. Interesting—he doesn’t usually get whiny or whimper-y, that tends to be Jisung. “Love you Minho…”

“Oh God,” Minho pants, the bare tip of him catching at Jisung’s rim for a second.

Inspiration strikes Jisung. “Wait, if we haven’t been with other people that means we don’t need a condom right?” And Minho mewls, and suddenly he’s scrambling to line himself up and fuck into Jisung’s lube-slick hole, his dick nudging at Jisung but not pushing in.

“Can I, do you,” Minho grunts, frantic, inelegant the way he never is, something wild in his eyes as he waits for permission.

“Yes yes please hyung—” Jisung is getting hard too just watching him completely lose his shit, this is fascinating, it usually takes a while and only when he’s seconds away from coming does Minho get so out of control. “Give it to me, give me—"

“Ah, ah,” Minho slams into him, hips snapping immediately, at a brutal pace. “Jisung I love you, I love you, I l-love you so much fuck, my Jisung mine mine mine l-love my Jisung—”

He devolves into incoherent babbling, Jisung’s name and the word ‘love’ and ‘mine’ and the word ‘fuck’ all scrambled in there, his ears are so red, Jisung is so happy and so shocked to see this side of him. 

“Ah, ah, ah—” he’s set a rabbity frenzied rhythm, and Jisung tests his hypothesis one more time.

“I… love you, Minho-hyung,” he pants, and Minho collapses on top of him, coming with a pathetic whine. Proving Jisung right.

*

He texts his friends the next morning.

minho and I are together we are boYFRIENDS PREPARE TO BE SICK OF MEEE

Felix responds right away: omg jisung!!!!!!!! YAYYYYYYYYYY OMGGG <3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3 SO HAPPY FOR YOU!!!!!!!!

A few minutes later, Seungmin sends: That’s great Jisung!! That means you were only making jokes about kissing Jeongin to make Minho jealous, right?

He snorts and responds affirmatively, feeling a bit guilty. He needs those two to get their act together before Jeongin leaves, they are too cute not to weather the long-distance for a few months before Jeongin comes back from Busan.

Hyunjin takes a long time to text back.

Jisung has sex with Minho twice in the morning, and then him and Minho watch a movie, go grocery shopping together, and have sex again when they get back, so he’s not really thinking about it until he checks his phone in the late afternoon and sees that the group-chat has no new notifications. It’s another hour after that that Hyunjin finally says: congratulations, J. So great it worked out, tell Minho Im happy for him too

The brevity and tone of the text makes Jisung frown with concern, but holding on to any unpleasant emotion is hard when Minho is in his kitchen cooking them dinner, so he figures he’ll check on Hyunjin another time.

*

Another time turns out to be the following day at work.

It’s Monday, the start of their third week on the third block, well into September. So far the shift has been good; Jisung is aware of the fact that he is probably disgusting to be around right now, because he is so full of happiness that it must be obnoxious for other people to experience up close, but he can’t exactly help it, and it’s proving hard to temper. Several nurses have asked him about it (him and Minho decided there was no point in keeping a relationship a secret if everyone already knew they were having sex) and it has been his absolute pleasure to confirm the rumors that he is, in fact, the first person ever to date Lee Minho. And he also intends to be the last.

Unfettered happiness aside, he still notices that Hyunjin looks like a ghost when he comes down to see Jisung’s consult patient for cholecystitis. It is worrying to see, and Jisung was right to assume something was off.

“Oh, and did you start the patient on antibiotics?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’ll tell Mingyu, we’ll probably admit them to the surgery department, not sure about taking them to the operating room yet but I’ll let you know.”

Hyunjin’s mask doesn’t conceal the purple bruises under his eyes, only their extent, and even Jisung’s astronomical elation is dampened by them. He had thought Hyunjin looked unwell when he came to his place a couple of weeks ago, after the block two party and those mysterious forty-five minutes in Changbin’s room, but this is something else. This is ‘Changbin getting hit by a car’ levels of pallor and malaise, except from what Jisung hears Changbin’s recovery is going wonderfully, so something else must have happened.

“Hey, Hyunjin—" he starts, quiet.

“No,” Hyunjin says. The rejection is flat, final. Hyunjin starts to leave the doctor’s desk area, and Jisung gives him a couple of steps head-start before abruptly chasing after him, around the partition and over to the patient side.

“Dr. Hwang,” he calls, following Hyunjin between two stretchers. “A moment, please?”

“I’m busy,” Hyunjin snaps, ducking towards the hallway to the CT scanner that leads out of the department.

“Dr. Hwang!”

They both end up in the hallway, mercifully alone. Hyunjin is foiled by both elevators being multiple floors away, and thus trapped at Jisung’s mercy.

“Dude.”

Hyunjin’s eyes are dull. Blank. Jisung wants to nudge his shoulder or take his hand or shake him a little, but he suspects that would not go over well.

“What’s going on, Hyunjin?”

Hyunjin shakes his head.

“Are you on call today? Can we talk after your shift?”

“No.” Hyunjin sounds like his jaw is clenched. “Not on call, but. Don’t want to talk.”

Jisung sighs. “Okay, then can we, like, hang out? Grab dinner or something?” He had made plans with Minho but Minho will understand that this is an emergency. “Please, Hyunjin-ssi.”

Hyunjin just breathes for a few moments, and Jisung is seriously worried about him. If Hyunjin says no he might just have to show up at his place anyway; they live in the same building, after all.

But Hyunjin relents. “Okay. Just dinner. You’re cooking, and I’m leaving within an hour.”

“Deal.”

They nod at each other, and Jisung almost extends his hand for a business-like shake, but Hyunjin’s elevator arrives then and he leaves.

*

Minho joins them.

He doesn’t make a big deal out of Jisung canceling their plans, but he offers to cook and be a quiet support, and before Jisung can lovingly turn him down he says: “Hyunjin and I have… an understanding. I think.”

This is news to Jisung. “You do?” He blinks down at his phone, then puts it back to his ear. He keeps walking home. “What does that mean?”

“I ran into him in the elevator once, in your building.”

What that means, it turns out, is that Hyunjin looks relieved when he sees Minho there, and even though Jisung offers to kick him out he shakes his head and wanders over to stand next to Jisung’s boyfriend in the kitchen.

“What is happening right now? Since when do you two talk?”

“We don’t,” they both say simultaneously. Hyunjin looks at Minho, who has gone back to looking down at his frying pan.

“We’ve talked, like. Twice.”

“Hyunjin realized I was in love with you,” Minho says casually. “I told Seri first, but he was second.”

Jisung gapes. “…I have no words,” he says. “Hyunjin. You knew?”

“I, unlike you, don’t interfere in other people’s personal lives.”

Jisung stomps his foot, which makes Minho smile out of the corner of his mouth. “Hey! I’ve kept quiet about people you don’t even know about!”

“Oh, yeah? Who?”

He opens his mouth to answer, but then catches on to Hyunjin’s tricks. “Yah! You are evil.”

Hyunjin shrugs and leans against the kitchen counter. He still looks pale, but perhaps slightly less undead than he did earlier at work. Jisung wants to be true to his word and not push him to talk, but he really thinks it’s important. Turns out communication is key, apparently, as he has recently learned.

“Hyunjin-ah…”

“Dinner’s gonna be ready in five minutes, can you set the table jagiya?”

Minho started calling him that the same day they confessed to each other, like he’d been waiting to this whole time. It has been a surprise, to say the least, to discover that Minho turned out to be craving romance, domesticity and sappy emotional displays of affection this whole time.

Jisung isn’t dumb, though, he knows Minho timed that interruption on purpose. He knows Hyunjin is probably too skittish to approach successfully right now—Minho was reminding him.

They exchange a look while Hyunjin grabs the plates, and Jisung resolves to keep quiet, ceding Minho’s point; Hyunjin will open up to someone when he’s ready. He can’t be pushed.

“Grab the glasses for me? And try not to drop them this time, please,” Minho asks him, smirking.

“Hey, that was ages ago and you made me so nervous,” Jisung says, reaching up to the cupboard for the glasses. “Plus I’d just seen your ass up close for the first time, it was a totally understandable reaction.”

Minho laughs and sneaks a kiss to Jisung’s cheek (and a squeeze to his ass) while Hyunjin is turned away.

Changbin

I couldn’t get you out of my head.

Changbin can’t stop replaying it; the scene, the most Hyunjin has ever said to him in one go, maybe. Certainly the most Hyunjin has ever revealed to him, confession after confession, and then—

Do you understand, now? Do you understand why I don’t like talking?

And in his floundering, in the moments it took for him to gather himself back together and attempt some sort of response, Hyunjin stormed out.

I chose SNUH for you. I’m fucking obsessed with you.

It’s… a lot. A well-adjusted person would probably be weary, hearing that. They might even be slightly fearful, or at the very least taken aback by it. They probably wouldn’t feel their pulse quicken, and a warm, incredulous sense of flattery take over instead.

I know you moved on. But I didn’t.

He knows that Hyunjin’s intensity was meant to scare him; that that was meant to be Hyunjin lashing out, words like blows, truths like knives, driving Changbin away from that soft core, that vulnerable, exposed center.

I couldn’t get you out of my head.

He can’t either. He can’t do that either.

*

He tries texting him, but isn’t surprised when forty-eight hours have passed and he still gets no response. Changbin is not house-bound; with every day that passes his rib pain gets more manageable and the vague nausea and dizzy fogginess have pretty much gone away, plus he’s been eating fine, and working on his physical therapy. But he would never violate Hyunjin’s boundaries by showing up at the resident housing building without invitation in order to force continued conversation, and unfortunately, because he's not working, he has no excuse to go to the hospital and potentially run into Hyunjin on accident. With Hyunjin being on surgery, those odds are decreased even further, since at any point Hyunjin might be anywhere in the massive campus of buildings.

At this rate the Chuseok event will be the only time they will be in the same place at the same time until Changbin returns to the ER for block four.

“You know what you’re starting to sound like?” Chan says on Tuesday evening.

“If you say I’m acting like you before you got together with Felix I am going to punch you, rib fractures or no.” Changbin levels a Hyunjin-worthy glare at Chan. “I am so serious right now, Channie-hyung.”

Chan makes a zipper motion over his own pouty mouth. He looks so much better these days that it’s almost like he underwent a spa treatment, or just came back from a tropical vacation—being with Felix has made him handsomer to the point where it’s actually distracting. He came over from his ‘new place’ tonight because San and Wooyoung are out, but it’s not even to watch over Changbin since he doesn’t really need help much anymore, it’s just to hang out. Which Changbin was appreciating, until about two minutes ago.

“Felix hasn’t seen Hyunjin for the past two days, either,” Chan says after a pause. “So I don’t think he’s talked to anyone about it. I think Felix is the person he is closest to in his class.”

Changbin nods. He noticed that, too, though the four sim day interns are close overall.

“What are you going to do?” Chan asks him. “Hyunjin said he loves you, what will you—"

“Uh, no he didn’t.” Changbin sits up, raising a halting finger. “He said he’s obsessed with me. That’s not the same thing.”

Chan’s eyebrows go up.

“What? It’s not. And I-I—need to talk to him. Obviously. But I’m not sure he wants to talk to me ever again, and I’m also not sure he’s… willing to listen.”

He’s not sure Hyunjin would listen unless he was literally pinned down and made to listen.

“I’m obsessed with Felix,” Chan says, like it’s nothing. Like he said ‘the sky is blue’. “My love for him is a bit, uh. Obsessive. And probably not the healthiest, from an outside perspective, I do get that. But. I’m happy, so that’s worth it, I think? Hyunjin just has to let you make him happy?”

Changbin thinks again about Hyunjin redirecting his entire career, his future, after only knowing him for a month. I chose SNUH for you. It should make him hesitate. Objectively, it’s a huge deal. It should make him reject him, he understands why Hyunjin assumed he would.

And yet.

Felix

He sees Chan off on his way to present the case to the board on Wednesday. JYP is back from his travels and he was present at morning lectures, but Chan managed to arrange a covert meeting with hospital leadership for the afternoon. Felix can’t go with him, obviously—no one can, and certainly not a resident, but he is quivering with nerves on his behalf.

Chan looks so handsome in his tie, slacks and white coat. Felix walks a respectable distance from him in scrubs, because he has a shift in the ER after this, but the executive can be accessed from the same elevators that the ER can, just in different directions. One of them will go up, one of them will go down.

They are in public, plenty of other personnel passing them, so at a respectable distance is how they must remain.

“And who is your attending on shift, today?”

“Dr. Oh,” Felix responds, tone light and professional. “My senior is Sana, I’m sure it’ll be a good day.”

“Sounds like a great day.” Chan smiles, and the elevator that’s going up dings. Felix wishes he could take his hand for a moment, or hug him, or kiss his cheek.

“Good luck with your meeting, Dr. Bang,” he says, bowing.

“Have a great shift, Dr. Lee.” Chan bows back, slightly deeper than an older, higher-raking person should, but quickly rights himself. And that’s how they depart, after a beat of eye-contact Chan gets on an already crowded elevator and Felix watches the doors close between them until the last second, when Chan shoots him a tiny wink.

Felix is so in love.

*

His shift ends at 9pm, a shorter day due to how the schedule is modified around conference hours, and he didn’t hear from Chan after the meeting but sometimes Chan will hold off on messaging when Felix is on shift so as not to distract him, which Felix appreciates.

He lets him know his shift is over, and Chan sends him a surprising message back.

Im in the resident lounge

I know it’s no attendings allowed but I still remember the code from when I was a resident hehe don’t tell anyone

They should really meet at home, since that is just a few minutes away, but Felix can’t wait to hear what Chan has to tell him. see u in 5!!! <3<3<3<3<3<3 and he rushes up to the second floor, taking the stairs to get there.

“Hyung!”

Chan was at the charting computer, with his laptop open next to it, what looks like a research manuscript open there and a bunch of electronic charts open on the computer monitor. He whirls around when the door opens, and from the smile on his face Felix can tell it went well.

“Baby! How was your shift?”

“It was fine, it was busy—tell me! How was it? How was the meeting?”

They hold hands while Chan talks, loosely between them. In the unlikely event that someone actually wants to come in it’ll be easy to drop and separate; for now the tiny room is empty but for them.

“I think… good. I think they were responsive to the issues, we had a long list, baby, we’d been working on this for such a long time.” Chan nods. “And I have so much support from the other attendings, all the ones who came to the meeting emailed to tell me I could use their names in front of the board. The chair of the emergency department was there, too, and I think I was able to present our group as a unified front, with solid, evidenced arguments. They said there’s going to be an emergent deliberation tomorrow, and we’ll have an answer within forty-eight hours.”

Felix squeezes his hands, proud to bursting. “I’m sure you were brilliant, that’s… incredible.” He almost feels teary. “I’m… you’re so amazing, Chan.”

Chan, as always, has a knee-jerk head-shaking reaction to praise, or compliments. “N-no—”

“Yes,” Felix insists. He is so happy to argue this. “Yes, you are amazing. You coordinated all this, you made it happen. Of course Changbin and the chiefs were involved too, and I know there were other attendings helping, but you… you did it. You presented it. You.”

Chan is blushing, and his head-shaking gets more adamant.

“I didn’t fall for just anyone,” Felix pushes. “I fell for someone incredible. He’s so smart, and dedicated, and good to me…” Chan’s shoulders hunch, like it’s close to too much, so Felix relents. “And he’s so freaking hot,” he ends with. He kisses him, endeared to pieces, and Chan wraps his arms around him.

Hardly anyone ever comes here, surely they have a few moments. It feels so perfect, to slot into the empty space within Chan’s embrace, like it was designed for Felix to fit there. Felix deepens the kiss, threading his fingers through Chan’s hair, pulling him in. He arches into him a little, the plush give of his lips inviting more, inviting tongues and the nip of teeth, for Felix to take what he wants. Chan is so good, if only he could accept the praise, if only he could see himself the way Felix sees him.

“Oh, w-we—uh, we shouldn’t,” Chan pants, but dives right back in to kiss Felix just as deeply. He also pushes Felix closer by the waist, his arms spanning the narrow contour of it completely and shoving their hips together. “Felix,” he exhales. “You make me so crazy, baby.”

Felix thrills to hear it, rolling his pelvis into Chan’s. “Mmm love you,” he whispers. How to make Chan absorb all the goodness he deserves? How to make him swallow it down like medicine? “So proud to call you mine. You’re so amazing, Chan. Can’t wait to tell everyone.” He means it too, so much.

“Felix, we.” Chan kisses his neck, and he’s hardening against Felix’s stomach. “Fuck. What are we.”

It’s so late, the lounge is always empty anyway. Chan needs to understand—to feel how much Felix loves him, how proud he is—

“No one comes here,” Felix mutters. “You could—fuck me. Just. Really quickly, before—”

Chan makes a strangled noise and kicks his hips forward, but he breaks away from Felix’s neck, where Felix knows he was blatantly sniffing him.

“Baby, that’s—” he looks dizzy. “I w-want to, but we can’t do that here, we don’t have lube, and it’s—anyone could—let’s go home and, and I’ll fuck you as many times as you want—”

Felix’s thoughts are floating in a haze, leaving only the need behind. “Then can you.” He blushes, too, but the haze is not clearing. “Can I.” Even in his current mood, he can’t bring himself to say it out loud.

Chan, through some divine avenue that is inexplicable to Felix, understands what he’s asking.

He looks, if possible, even more turned on, and then—he drops to his knees.

He’s still in his white coat, his tie, and Felix is in scrubs, and they should just wait until they get to the apartment, but Felix is tenting the pale green fabric obscenely and he wants—he wants it so much, suddenly he needs it now—Chan even has his ID on him still, the one that says Dr. Bang Chan on it, with Department of Emergency Medicine, Attending written underneath. He’s never looked more put together and professional than today, and here he is, on his knees for Felix at last. He’s so amazing. He’s so amazing, and he’s all Felix’s.

“Hyung,” he croaks, sinking his hand back in Chan’s hair.

Chan looks overwhelmed, with unfocused eyes, mouth half-open with his tongue peeking out, waiting for Felix. He’s sporting his own huge tent in his slacks, and as he waits tremulously for Felix to feed him his cock he unconsciously puts his palm down there, pushing down.

“You…”

Felix undoes his scrub pants and pulls himself out, hard and aching, and Chan takes a shaky breath, a shiver running over him.

“Are you mine, Chan-hyung?” Felix breathes, and Chan whimpers, pitching forward to take him in his mouth.

Felix groans and slides past his lips, hips kicking hard. Chan keens, always loves it when Felix is selfish, taking what he wants. Felix takes care to pay close attention to Chan’s reactions still, but he lets himself thrust into his mouth and hunches over so he can watch the hump of Chan’s hips into the heel of his own hand. Chan’s eyes start watering, movements getting desperate, riding his palm, the white coat fanning around him on the floor, so hot that Felix has to give it to him a little rougher, just a little, to see—

“You’re so good, you’re so—nghh—ah, s-so good oppa, you did so good—"

Chan chokes and then his features go slack, lashes fluttering in delirium. Felix watches him come with incredulity, unable to believe his luck at finding this person in life, unable to take his eyes off Chan’s peaceful face even as Chan hollows his cheeks and Felix’s orgasm hits him deep in the gut, gasping silently as he comes down Chan’s grateful throat.

*

They get away with it, but they promise each other that was it, and Felix means it; can tell they both do. No more sex at the hospital, ever. They have sex at home.

*

On Friday, JYP is temporarily suspended as program director for the emergency medicine residency at SNUH.

The announcement comes in email form, from Dr. Kim herself. The entire board of the hospital is cc’d on it, as is the chair of the department of emergency medicine, and the email is addressed to the whole department, not just the doctors: the nurses, clerks, X-Ray technicians… every single staff member is on it.

It is framed as JYP ‘choosing to step down’ to ‘focus on his research’, and for now he’s still a faculty member of the ER, but Felix knows what it means. They all know what it means.

“Chan!” He bursts into the living room. “Oh my gosh, Chan-hyung, did you see—”

Chan looks up from his laptop, eyes wide. He’s grinning. “Yes.” He tosses his laptop on the couch, scrambling to his feet to hug Felix. “Oh my God, yes. We did it!”

“You did it!”

“It was a team effort!” He’s jumping, they both are, hugging and jumping and smiling so big. “We all did it!”

“Chan, please—"

“Listen baby,” Chan says, pulling away from the hug to put his hands up in a ‘halt’ gesture. “Whatever I did, the part that I played—no, listen,” he insists before Felix can argue. “I did it because it was the right thing to do, and I am so glad it worked, it’s important for so many people—but… I did it for you. You know that, right? I did it all for you.”

Felix’s heart swells, dangerously, to where it might be bad for his health. He feels the burn of unshed tears prick at his eyes.

“I love you,” he says, voice rough, and kisses Chan. “Chan. I love you.”

Chan kisses him back, clutching him by the waist. They soon get lost in it, Felix always gets lost in him, but despite the joy in that… he feels the far-away tendrils of fear start to reach for him.

The email doesn’t specify who will be taking over Dr. Park’s duties, and Felix knows the chair would be stupid not to at least consider Chan. Beloved, already-too-hard-working Chan, who would probably give two-hundred-percent of himself to the residency as PD if they promoted him as such. The fear is for Chan’s health and the fragility of his recently-improved sleep schedule, if someone puts him in that position… but it’s for himself, too.

They are already risking so much: if Chan is made program director they will definitely, indubitably have to break up.

Jeongin

A spontaneous party arises that same day, and for the first time this year the residency isn’t crowding into the chief’s apartment, but actually going out to a club. JYP’s dethroning apparently warrants a higher caliber of celebration.

Jeongin isn’t in the ‘SNUHER I barely know her 2025’ group chat but Seungmin walks over to him in the ICU fishbowl and shows him his phone screen, where the details of the event are displayed along with the address of the club. It’s a famous spot in Hongdae that Jeongin thought he wouldn’t get to check out before going back to Busan, by virtue of being too nervous to go alone and too shy to ask Jiwoo even though he’s sure she would have taken him.

“…And I’m invited?” he asks, eyeing Seungmin up from where he sits. They haven’t really talked since their evening together; or at least, not about them, they have talked about their ICU patients plenty.

“Of course, Jeongin. Everyone in the ER loved you.”

Jeongin quietly sighs to himself, thinking ‘I only care about this one guy from the ER loving me’. “Thank you. I’ll go home and change after the shift, will I see you there?”

Seungmin nods. “I don’t enjoy clubbing, but a celebration of JYP’s firing is something I can’t miss.”

Fondness makes Jeongin smile. That sounds like the Seungmin he’s gotten to know.

“That’s great, hyung. See you later then.”

*

The club was busy before thirty resident doctors showed up together requesting entry, and Jeongin is surprised they are all allowed in. It’s Friday night, and although an unlucky few are working, everyone who isn’t made the effort of coming out to celebrate their administrative victory, and by extension to celebrate Dr. Bang, though he himself declined the invitation.

There are two floors in the main room, with the third being a classic open balcony that wraps around. The lower level is the massive, crowded dance-floor, and the second level is the area under the balcony, just a meter above said dance floor with a silver railing running along it, housing multiple VIP booths and cordoned-off couch areas. The lighting is neon pink and purple, dark, which goes with Jeongin’s outfit, and the music is a thumping blend of house and EDM, not pop like they usually play at the chief’s apartment. It’s very loud, and Jeongin prefers pop music if he’s honest, but he’s still glad he came tonight.

Everyone he likes is here, and although he hasn’t spotted Seungmin yet he believes his promise to attend, so he’s sure it’s a matter of time. Amazingly, even Chief Seo made it out, though he is being strictly guarded by his co-chiefs to prevent any jostling or people bumping into him, and they plop him down on a VIP booth the second the group arrives in the club with strict instructions regarding no dancing, no moving around, and no drinking allowed.

Jeongin is still really happy to see him. He waits his turn (a lot of people are happy to see the chief out and about) and eventually gets to walk into the cordoned-off area they somehow secured, which Chief San is guarding like he’s a bouncer in charge of global celebrity Dr. Seo Changbin’s safety.

“Sunbaenim!”

“Jeongin-ah! You can call me hyung!” He reaches up to hug Jeongin and is swatted on the shoulder by Chief Wooyoung.

“No hugs! We talked about this, Binnie.” Chief Wooyoung huffs in disapproval. “You could hurt your ribs.”

“It’s been two weeks, they are healing fine.” Changbin motions for Jeongin to lean down a little, and Jeongin tentatively does, taking off his sweater and tossing it on the back of a couch. Changbin ends up patting him on the top of his head. “So good to see you, Jeongin. You were our best medical student of the past three months, don’t tell the others.” Then Changbin gives him a once-over and whistles. “Best-looking one, too. Wow. Didn’t realize you had all those muscles hiding under there!”

Jeongin picked a neon-pink mesh shirt to wear tonight—but in his defense, no one here outside of Seungmin has any say in his grades anymore, it’s all ER people. And Seungmin has seen a lot more of Jeongin than what is visible already.

He chuckles and leaves Changbin to his other admirers, searching for his intern-hyungs in the crowd outside the VIP area.

“Hi!”

Someone he doesn’t know catches his eye and walks up to him, standing close.

“Are you another one of these doctors?” the girl asks, wide-eyed. She’s very pretty, pale and almost as tall as Jiwoo, so Jeongin has to look up. “I heard a group of thirty doctors just came in!”

Jeongin leans in so she can hear him. “I’m a medical student!”

“Oh! You’re really cute, how old are you? I’m twenty-five.”

“Twenty-three.”

She smiles happily. “Oh, good, you are super cute—”

“Ien-ah.”

Jeongin jumps when a hand lands on his shoulder, which feels very bare under the netting, and he knows it’s Seungmin before even turning to confirm it.

“Felix and the others are asking for you,” Seungmin says, not meeting Jeongin’s eyes. His hand stays on Jeongin’s deltoid. “Sorry,” he adds to the girl, but his gaze is darting around—there are a lot of bodies around them, pressing and pushing and touching; this is definitely not the kind of environment Seungmin is comfortable in.

The girl’s smile hasn’t dimmed. “Are you single?” she asks Jeongin.

“No,” Seungmin says before Jeongin can answer, and the girl ‘ooh’s.

“Lucky you!” she says to Seungmin, and she leaves them to go to the dance-floor without another word, clearly unfazed.

Jeongin stares at Seungmin.

“’No’?” he quotes, planting his feet when Seungmin tries to move him in another direction.

Seungmin frowns. “I assumed.” He seems to be frowning at himself, not at Jeongin. “I’m… sorry. I assumed you weren’t interested in her.”

Unspoken, Jeongin’s multiple declarations of interest in Seungmin hang in the (smokey, glittery) air between them.

“That question was still for me to answer, hyung,” he says, projecting his voice across the space. And then, because he can tell that Seungmin is tense and likely spoke out of turn at least in part due to how on-edge he is, he forgives him. “But it’s okay. If you wanted to pretend to be my boyfriend you could have just asked.” He grins, and Seungmin—doesn’t smile back.

Seungmin’s eyes sweep him from head to toe, dark and hungry and—Jeongin watches him back, wonders who gave him a leather jacket to borrow or if it’s his, with its high collar that Jeongin could fold back to make room for his teeth. Seungmin is in all black tonight, black jeans and boots, tight black shirt. The memory surges, of how it felt to lie on top of him, of how it felt when he was rutting up into Jeongin with that arm clamped around Jeongin’s waist, the moans Jeongin could feel inside his mouth when he came—

“…Okay.”

Jeongin blinks. He can’t remember what Seungmin is answering him about.

“Okay…?” And then he does. “Okay, you’ll pretend to be my boyfriend?”

He steps forward, and Seungmin steps back in parallel, moving in sync.

“Yes.” Seungmin’s gaze has stopped flitting about, and he is… staring at Jeongin’s chest. Sometimes when Seungmin avoids eye contact he’ll fixate on a spot above Jeongin’s shoulder, or the floor, but this isn’t that. “Yes. Now let’s—we can go find the others. Jisung sent me to get you.”

Seungmin hesitates for a moment, then leans towards Jeongin and takes his hand. His eyes finally move up to Jeongin’s face. “Is this okay?”

“…Yeah.”

He leads him by the hand, navigating the crowd despite his discomfort, and Jeongin watches the back of his neck the whole time.

“Ien-ah!”

“Oh my gosh, Jeongin!”

The cheers when the other interns spot him are very flattering.

It’s Felix, Jisung and Hyunjin, but also Jiwoo, Sooah and Harin, with Jung quietly in the background. All eight of them are intermixed with some of the seniors, the group crowding a section of the bar behind Seri, who is apparently the designated person taking orders and communicating them to the bartender. Jiwoo hugs him, as do Jisung and Felix. Hyunjin looks drunk already and he’s standing very still, staring at the VIP booth. They are all wearing a smattering of face glitter in different patterns, and Jeongin soon discovers that Jiwoo brought it and has been sharing.

“Wow, Jeongin you look really sexy,” Felix says, eliciting nods from those gathered around them.

“Thanks, hyung.” Jeongin smiles, chin dipping down.

“That shirt is something,” says Jisung, blatantly staring, and Jeongin punches his arm. Seungmin hasn’t let go of his hand yet; in fact his grip tightens at that.

“Goodbye JYP!” someone from the front of group shouts, and there’s a chorus of happy: “Goodbye!”s in response that causes most of the others to face forward again, awaiting their turn at the bar so they can toast to JYP’s downfall properly. Jeongin’s four intern hyungs are still facing him though, and it quickly becomes apparent that… Seungmin still hasn’t let go of Jeongin’s hand.

Jisung clears his throat in a silent question.

“I was pretending to be his boyfriend,” Seungmin says, finally releasing Jeongin and stepping away, like maybe he had forgotten.

Jisung’s eyes go very round. “You were what now?”

Jeongin was not expecting him to admit that, especially not in front of a bunch of his coworkers. But then he hadn’t expected Seungmin to volunteer for the (unneeded) position.

“Someone was bothering him earlier,” Seungmin adds. The girl was very much not bothering Jeongin, but he keeps quiet. “So we were pretending.”

What happens next is kind of incredible, timing-wise. Sometimes the universe just does these things for Jeongin.

A new girl taps Jeongin’s back, and he turns around to look at her. She’s short, and very pretty—her hair is in colorful dreadlocks and her skin is very dark. Her accent is that of a native Korean: “Hi! Are you waiting for the bar?”

“Oh! Sorry, yes, we’ve got a big group—"

“Can I wait with you?” she interrupts, smiling. Wow, she is stunning—just a few months ago Jeongin would have definitely—

“He’s not single,” Seungmin tells her.

The girl falters, and then seems to blush. “Oh. Sorry.” She looks from Seungmin to Jeongin and then, when Seungmin grabs Jeongin’s hand again, she looks down at their twined fingers. “Oh! Sorry! You’re so cute.”

“You can still wait with us!” Jeongin says, feeling bad. Seungmin’s directness may have come off as rudeness, and he doesn’t want the girl to feel offended.

The girl smiles. “Aw, okay! Thanks!” She stands at Jeongin’s left, and from his other side Seungmin sneaks an arm around Jeongin’s waist and pulls him towards the right, to Jisung’s audible gasp.

Jeongin is very confused.

Felix looks like he has a million burning questions. Jisung, after gasping, defaults to alternating between facing the bar like the others and sneaking unsubtle wide-eyed looks at them over his shoulder. Hyunjin is the only one who doesn’t seem to have noticed what has happened because he’s still blinking slowly and staring above their heads at the booth that Chief Seo is in.

“Is this okay?” Seungmin whispers in Jeongin’s ear. His breath tickles, and Jeongin is thinking back to the context of the last time Seungmin’s arm was in this position again, and it’s. It’s not… entirely okay.

“Uh.”

“Do you want me to stop acting like your boyfriend?” Seungmin goes on, quiet enough for the girl not to overhear, which means he has to get very close because it’s still really loud in here. “Do you want her?”

Jeongin is pressed up against his side, their thighs, hips and flanks touching, his shoulder touching Seungmin’s arm, so close. If they were actually boyfriends this is how he’d want to stand, with Seungmin’s hand resting on his waist.

He shakes his head, ‘no’ to both questions even though Seungmin is acting so out of character, and they need to talk, or re-establish boundaries, or just… underline the edges of their relationship, this sort-of friendship that isn’t just that.

Eventually everybody manages to get drinks, and Jeongin waves goodbye to the cute girl and Seungmin’s arm drops from his waist. Felix and Hyunjin head to the dancefloor, but Jisung gets a text from Nurse Lee that he’s on his way and races out to meet him at the entrance.

Seungmin looks to Jeongin. “Do you want to go dance?” It’s clear he’s not offering to dance with him; he does not strike Jeongin as someone who enjoys that kind of thing.

“Jeongin!” Jiwoo picks that moment to grab Jeongin’s arm, grinning. “Let’s go sit by Chief Seo, come on! I’m going to glitter you, and then you owe me a dance when I finish my drink.”

“Why does he owe you a dance?” Seungmin asks her, but he follows them towards the VIP booth, along with Harin and Sooah, who always seem to do what Jiwoo wants to do. Jung stayed behind with some of the seniors.

“No reas—"

“I made him buy the top he’s wearing,” Jiwoo says with a smug smile. She clearly didn’t hear Jeongin start to deny it.

Seungmin abruptly stops walking, then resumes it at a faster pace, catching up with them just as they enter the cordoned off area where most of the fourth-year residents are hanging out, Chief Seo in the middle of them. “You two see each other outside the hospital?” he asks Jiwoo, again with that direct edge that might seem rude.

Jeongin winces, though Jiwoo seems unperturbed. “Yeah! We went shopping a few weeks ago, though we mostly browsed.” She winks at Jeongin. “This one said he didn’t know when he’d be able to wear the shirt, and now look at you! So hot.” Appreciative eyes trail over Jeongin’s chest, and he remembers the confident way Jiwoo had kissed him, mussing up his hair, back at the welcome party.

Seungmin grabs his hand again. Jeongin’s head snaps to the side, the confusion almost bubbling over into action—what is up with Seungmin tonight? If he were anyone else Jeongin would assume he was jealous.

Jiwoo notices, of course. “Did I overhear something about you two pretending to be boyfriends earlier?” she asks, diverted. “That would be really hot, too.”

“We. Uh.”

“Jeongin is drawing a lot of attention tonight,” Seungmin explains to her, and it’s so earnest that even though Jeongin is feeling baffled by a lot of what’s happening, he finds that endearing. “His physical appearance stands out normally, as you know, but I suspect his outfit is playing a part also. I figured that was a way to divert it.”

“The idea of you two together is diverting, all right,” Jiwoo says, waggling her eyebrows, and pulls out the tub of face glitter. “Now stay still.”

She dabs it high on his cheekbones and trails it up to his temples, then comes back to bop the tip of his nose. Seungmin does not let go of his hand the entire time.

“There!” Jiwoo grins. “You look so cute I could scream, oh my God.”

“Wait, do me next!” one of the seniors says, and she gets called over to a group of the senior women.

“Jeongin-ah!” Jiwoo calls, giggling. “Don’t forget you owe me a dance, okay?”

“Okay!”

When she’s turned away to work on the quickly-forming line of residents who want their own glitter highlights, Jeongin untangles his and Seungmin’s hands again.

“Is something going on, hyung?” he asks him, despairing. He notices an empty couch by the far corner of the VIP zone and makes his way there, Seungmin following him and sitting down next to him. The music feels even louder here, the bass thumping under the seat, making Jeongin’s teeth almost rattle—probably why no one was sitting there, but at least no one is in their immediate vicinity.

“What do you mean?” Seungmin responds, having to half-shout into Jeongin’s ear.

It’s hard to put into words. You’re acting like you want to be my boyfriend is not something that Jeongin can say.

“…Nothing.”

Seungmin stays close. Having established that Jeongin has nothing more to say, he leans in to talk in Jeongin’s ear again. “Are you interested in Jiwoo?”

Okay, wait a minute. “Why are you acting like you’re jealous?”

Seungmin rears back, blinking.

“Jiwoo and I text sometimes. We hung out once.” Jeongin notices Seungmin is breathing shallowly. “Why do you care?”

“I’m sorry,” Seungmin says. Jeongin barely hears him, only understands what he said thanks to reading his lips. If he wants to look at his face while he talks he won’t be able to hear him; he turns so his ear is to Seungmin, straining to listen. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m so… confused.”

“Confused about what?”

Seungmin takes a beat to answer. “About… my feelings. I.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know… what the right thing is anymore, and I know what I want, but I shouldn’t want it, and so—”

“Seungmin.” Jeongin puts his hand on Seungmin’s shoulder, and they trade off positions like tumblers clicking into place, Jeongin facing Seungmin, Seungmin tilting his head sideways towards him to hear. “It’s okay. You are attracted to me but you don’t love me back, I know that can feel… confusing, but a lot of people are attracted to others without having feelings for them. That’s normal.”

Seungmin huffs, and rolls his eyes. “That’s not it at all.”

Jeongin leans back, and Seungmin leans forward. It looks instinctive; thoughtless, like he didn’t plan to do it. “Jeongin-ah.” His eyes drop down to Jeongin’s chest again, and even further down, to his stomach. “I. I’m.” He shakes his head, like a dog trying to flick water off. His tone changes. “I-I find it really hard to concentrate with you wearing that.”

Jeongin feels his eyebrows shoot up.

“Fuck.” The swear makes him jolt; Seungmin so rarely swears. “Can we talk somewhere else? Can… we go outside, or…?”

Jeongin nods, but it takes him a few thumping beats to stand up. Eventually Seungmin stands up too, and they slink away from the booths and navigate the crowd towards the front entrance. The bouncers had put wristbands on each of them on the way in, so all it takes is waving their wrists to confirm they will be allowed re-entry, and the cool night air is suddenly filling Jeongin’s lungs. The AC had been cranked up high inside, but being near so many people had made it so that Jeongin wasn’t cold despite his choice of outfit. He left his sweater inside by Chief Seo, and now he’s freezing.

“Here.”

Seungmin immediately takes his jacket off, tossing it over Jeongin’s shoulders, and pulling him by the hand again, away from the entrance of the club, towards the lamppost on the street corner, past the line of people waiting to enter. There’s an alleyway at the end of the block, and after a moment’s hesitation Seungmin marches into it, Jeongin helplessly following him. So much has happened in the last few minutes that he is struggling to keep up with Seungmin on a metaphorical level, he might as well try to maintain the physical.

Seungmin lets go of his hand once they are hidden inside, tall brick ensconcing a space about two meters wide. It would probably feel claustrophobic if he wasn’t here with Seungmin, Jeongin thinks.

“I’m sorry,” Seungmin says immediately, once they are facing each other. “I-I’m sorry, I am. So confused, and I am being unkind to you, I think.”

Jeongin sighs. “Hyung. If you would just explain—”

“I think I am jealous.”

Jeongin freezes.

“I think… I get so nauseous, whenever you and Jiwoo—or, or any of those girls, the thought of you with those girls. I’m sorry. I wasn’t acting… rationally. I’m so sorry. And the. The.” He motions to Jeongin’s stomach, where his shirt is visible under the open leather jacket. “That’s making it all. Worse. I feel so.” He makes a frustrated noise. “I am being horrible. I didn’t even drink, I’m just. Awful. I’m sorry.”

He grabs the back of his own head by the hair, breathing harshly, gaze flickering from Jeongin’s face to his stomach and to the floor, and back, and forth. Waiting.

Jeongin is… processing. The black T-shirt Seungmin has on is tight, tighter than the clothing he usually wears. There’s a lot to process.

“Why?” he says finally. “Why are you jealous?”

Seungmin’s restlessness temporarily vanishes, as he seems to muster his resolve and manages to look Jeongin dead in the eyes. His hand stays in his hair.

“Because I like you too.”

Jeongin exhales like he got punched.

And then Seungmin adds: “Actually I think… I love you too.”

“What?”

“I’m not sure about. Distinctions yet.” Seungmin, bless him, tries to elaborate and explain. “I’ve never been in love, so I don’t know if that feels different than this… wanting to be near you and do things that are… sexual and also things that aren’t.” He grows more agitated again as he keeps talking. “I-I wasn’t going to tell you, because you’re leaving in ten days, and I thought it might be easier for you not to know. But obviously I haven’t been able to keep it from affecting our relationship, and. I.” He licks his lips, gaze sliding down to Jeongin’s stomach again. “God, Jeongin, if you could just, just close the jacket for a moment, please.”

Jeongin startles, and wraps the jacket around his waist more tightly, covering his stomach.

Seungmin scrunches his eyes shut, and the hand that was in his hair comes down to his chest, a fist pushing into the center of it.

“I’m.” Seungmin’s breathing is very fast. “I-I’m sorry to ask but do you still? Love me?”

A hysterical sound gusts past Jeongin’s vocal chords.

“Jeongin-ah.” Seungmin opens his eyes. His look is pleading. “Do you?”

“Y-yes, I do. I told you that two weeks ago, hyung. Nothing’s changed.”

“…Oh.”

A distant laugh reverberates into the tunnel-like alley, and they both snap their heads around to look; but it was just a passer-by, perhaps someone on their way to line up for the club.

“Should we talk… not here?” He feels like he might explode. He’s so full of… feelings. Questions. Seungmin likes him? Seungmin loves him? “Should we leave?”

Jisung

Seri kidnapped Minho and took him to the dance-floor just five minutes after he arrived. Jisung finds this a little unfair, since he likes dancing too, but he wanted another drink so by the time he starts making his way to joining them the two of them are close to the middle of the packed ground floor of the club.

Then he gets stuck watching Minho dancing, and he decides to put off joining at all. At least for now.

Minho’s physicality was the first thing that struck Jisung about him, in addition to his gorgeous eyes. In the time they have spent together, Jisung has experienced a wonderful gamut of Minho’s physical abilities, has gotten to watch how he moves from up close, to feel it, to have it used against him, but… he’d never seen him dance. It simply hadn’t come up, they just became a couple and haven’t even gone to a concert or a show together, let alone a club before—Minho spent the parties at the chiefs apartment chatting with people and, memorably, helping Jisung clean up a bunch of broken glass that one time, but he never joined the drunken bopping to various pop hits the way Changbin did, for example.

Minho dances like he fucks. Controlled but not. Passionate but commanding. Forceful but elegant. Jisung can’t stop staring—to the point where he walks all the way to the VIP booth where Changbin is, to get a better angle thanks to the elevation from there.

Seri matches him well; she doesn’t look like a professional the way Minho does, but she wraps around him joyously and he is clearly happy, Jisung knows they are good friends, he feels no jealousy here, just admiration. He stands on the edge of the booth and watches them, feeling horny but without the edge of urgency to it, content to just bask in the way Minho moves.

“He’s really good,” someone says next to him.

Changbin is standing by his side. Jisung startles, looking around them; Changbin’s guards lapsed in their watch.

“They are still back there, it’s fine. I’m allowed to walk within my enclosure,” he snickers, and Jisung finally spots San and Wooyoung heatedly making out on one of the couches. He’s not sure where Seungmin and Jeongin went, he thought they’d been hanging out back here too, but a lot of the other seniors are still scattered about the VIP area, chatting loudly and ineffectually above the music. Intermittent cheers for JYP’s downfall continue, and the end of his career is toasted happily. The vibes in here are nice.

“Minho is a great dancer, right?” Changbin prompts again. At some point Jiwoo got to him with the glitter too; it’s across the bridge of his nose and his cheeks.

“Yeah.” Jisung smiles. “The best.”

Changbin shakes his head, almost like a reflex. “He’s really good,” he grants Jisung, whose mouth drops open in indignation. “But he’s not the best.”

He points at another area of the dance-floor, not far from Minho and Seri. And then Jisung spots Hyunjin.

Hyunjin got very drunk very quickly the second they arrived in this place, and it made him all quiet and flushed and kind of dumb-looking, if Jisung’s honest. But now, Hyunjin is dancing with Felix, and he looks… not dumb at all. He’s wearing the shirt with cut-outs Jisung has seen on him before, and he looks stunning, like always. His dance style is different than Minho’s, and while Jisung disagrees with Changbin about who is better, Hyunjin is certainly very good, too. Whether it’s the alcohol loosening his limbs or that’s just how he moves, the way his hips twist and his spine undulates like a wave is kind of crazy. It’s not like Jisung doesn’t get the appeal.

Still, Jisung finds himself drawn back to Minho again. He wishes he could point a giant neon sign at him that said ‘THAT IS MY BOYFRIEND – SIGNED: HAN JISUNG, MD’ but he also doesn’t begrudge other people admiring Minho; they can look. Only Jisung can touch. And, well, Seri is touching him technically, but not in the ways Jisung can. Maybe he’ll join them down there in a few minutes.

He checks in on Changbin again, who is still watching Hyunjin and gripping the silver railing that prevents them both from falling onto the floor below. He planned to look at him and then look back at Minho, but he does a bit of a double-take.

Changbin is such a chill, cool guy; always easy-going, always in charge, so calm. But.

Right now, as he watches Hyunjin… there’s something a little wild in his eyes. Something a little out of control. His lips are lightly parted, his breathing looks ragged, bringing to mind the fact that three of his ribs are broken and it must hurt, to take a breath, even two weeks out, still it must be somewhat painful. Jisung feels like he’s intruding, getting to see it; to witness that much want personified, to have it stand so close to him. Holy shit. He never thought Changbin could look like that, never even thought Changbin had it in him to feel like that.

“Hyung.”

Changbin doesn’t hear him. He’s leaning forward slightly, the railing digging into his stomach. He’s… panting.

“Hyung.” Jisung’s brain sloshes in a confusing mix of horny from watching Minho dancing and horny from watching Changbin so blatantly lusting after Hyunjin, so obviously turned on and starving for him. Changbin is so hot, the idea of him and Hyunjin together is—uh. Damn. “Your spleen. Hyung, be careful. Changbin-hyung.”

Jisung grabs his arm and pushes him back, initially to no effect because Changbin cannot be budged if he doesn’t want to be—but the touch seems to get through to him, because he startles and leans back, then steps away from the railing altogether.

“Uh.” He scratches the nape of his neck. “Um.”

“Happens to the best of us,” says Jisung, wondering if he’s ever looked at Minho like that. Unfortunately he’s pretty sure the answer is yes; the pink scrubs incident alone.

Changbin chuckles, embarrassed. “Right. Fuck.” His eyes dart back to the dance-floor, and he makes himself look away with visible effort. “Fuck, I need to sit down.”

Jisung snorts. “I’ll sit with you,” he offers, motioning towards the couches, and they both walk in that direction. “You need some water or something?”

Changbin nods. “Thanks. With ice, please.”

Jisung didn’t need him to tell him that. Changbin needs ice, all right.

*

Unfortunately, Hyunjin gets drunker.

Jisung isn’t sure how it happens because he ends up hanging out with Changbin for a while, but by the time he makes his way to the dance floor to join his boyfriend, Minho has Hyunjin by the waist and Felix is cooing worriedly at him. Seri is trying to get him to drink some water.

Hyunjin is swaying into Minho, color high on his cheeks, sweat matting his hair and dripping down his chin. Jisung feels a pang of pity that he knows Hyunjin would hate, but he can’t help it—whatever is going on with Hyunjin, tonight exacerbated it. If it’s to do with Changbin, which Jisung is sure it is, then it seems as though Changbin’s presence alone is what did it. What the hell happened between them that even being in a massive, loud, crowded club together is apparently too much for Hyunjin to bear?

“We should take him home,” Felix says. Seri nods.

“I can take him.” Minho shifts to prop Hyunjin into him some more, and Jisung’s heart clenches with love. Minho got to the club an hour after they did, so he has been here the least amount of time out of all of them. “What’s his apartment number? He lives in Jisung’s building, I know how to get there. I’ll call a car—”

“I’ll come with you,” Jisung says firmly. “We should stay with him, make sure he’s okay.”

Minho doesn’t protest, and Seri smiles gratefully. “Thanks, guys.”

Felix is biting his lower lip. “I should have paid closer attention. People kept offering us drinks, I-I turned them away, but I think…” He looks guilty. “Hyunjin kept saying yes. I’m sorry, Hyunjin-ah,” he tells him, petting his arm.

Hyunjin pets him back. “S’okay. S’okay. M’fault.” He tries to take a step and almost stumbles, only saved by Minho’s quick reflexes.

“Let’s go,” Jisung declares, and is not surprised when Felix goes with them.

The three of them usher Hyunjin out of the club, and eventually are able to call a rideshare to take them home. Felix’s building is not far from the resident housing building, and Jisung convinces him to go home to sleep with the condition that Felix is allowed to come over in the morning to check on all of them. Both Jisung and Felix have night shifts tomorrow, but Hyunjin and Minho are off work which means that as a group everybody can safely sleep in.

Felix gives Hyunjin a teary hug goodbye and then kisses him on the cheek, like they are not going to see each other in a few hours.

Between Jisung and Minho, they take Hyunjin to Jisung’s apartment. He looks sad, and he starts silently crying by the time Jisung is wiping his face with a make-up remover sponge in the bathroom.

“Hyunjin, you’re gonna have to talk to someone about this at some point,” he tells him, using his baby-est baby voice. “Or you’re gonna explode like a gory piñata.”

“Then I’ll s’plode,” Hyunjin mumbles.

“That’s not—” Jisung realizes he’s done wiping as no more make-up is coming off; the sponge is coming up clean. “Wait, that’s just your face? Holy shit, Hyunjin, how are you real?”

And Hyunjin starts crying even harder, at which point Jisung realizes he fucked up and switches back to baby voice, patting Hyunjin’s head and shoulders and eventually settling for side-hugging him, whimpering apologetically.

“I can’t believe I thought you were a snob when we met, I’m so sorry Hyunjin-ah, you’re so full of feelings, I was wrong, you’re not an asshole…”

Minho finds them in the bathroom sitting on the lip of the tub, crying together.

“Okay. Time for bed, jagyia,” he murmurs to Jisung, smiling indulgently. “I’ll settle this one on the couch, come on.”

Once Hyunjin’s gangly limbs are curled up (safely sideways) on Jisung’s small couch, Jisung and Minho lie down in bed together.

Jisung turns to Minho with wide, watery eyes. “Never leave me, okay?” he says to him. “I never wanna feel what Hyunjin is feeling right now. I promise I’m not gonna repress shit and bottle it up and then avoid you in a club full of people and then drunkenly cry about it in my friend’s apartment.”

Minho kisses him, slow and assured, with that edge of hunger he always has for Jisung. “I will never, ever leave you,” he murmurs. “Ever. You could never avoid me in a club full of people because I’d find you wherever you were. You could never hide from me, Jisung. I’d track you down. I’d hunt you.”

Jisung smiles into the next kiss, buoyed by the conviction in Minho’s tone. “You’d hunt me? Promise?”

Minho smirks. “You’d be no match for me, dear. I would capture you and keep you all to myself.”

“You already have me all to yourself, jagi,” he whispers, and Minho’s smirk turns into dark satisfaction.

“Good. That’s how it’s gonna be,” he whispers back. “Forever, you understand?”

He says it like it’s a threat, but Jisung cuddles up to him and burrows into Minho’s arms, sighing with relief when Minho holds him tightly to his body. “I understand,” he says happily, and finally closes his eyes to sleep.

Seungmin

They clearly need to talk more, but they are both silent on the cab ride to Seungmin’s apartment, and even after they leave the driver behind, when it’s just the two of them in the elevator, Jeongin stays quiet, so Seungmin does too.

He keys in the code and steps aside to let Jeongin in, and Jeongin immediately sheds Seungmin’s leather jacket to return it, before Seungmin can say ‘please keep that on I need to talk to you’. The sight of Jeongin’s bare back (and then, when he turns around, his chest and abs) scrambles Seungmin’s brain as effectively as meningitis, a fever and inflammation growing inside his skull; he can’t think, he can’t speak at all. Jeongin is basically naked from the belt up, that thin layer of pink mesh concealing nothing and only serving to highlight the cut of his muscles. Knowing how those muscles feel pressed up against his own body is not helpful.

He is staring, he is aware.

Jeongin’s breathing is uneven, like Seungmin’s.

“This is better, right?” Jeongin pants. The glitter on his cheekbones sparkles. “To talk?”

He steps towards Seungmin, desire plain in his eyes. Seungmin probably matches him there, too.

“Yes. It was… so loud back there.”

Jeongin takes another step just as Seungmin does, mirror images of each other this time, reflecting; both moving forwards, towards each other.

“You like me?” Jeongin says, quiet. Behind him, the pointless panoramic view of the night sky is occasionally dotted with stars. They haven’t even turned the lights on in the apartment; all they did was take off their shoes. “Hyung. You’re sure?”

“I love you.” He’s still not sure about what marks the distinction, but he is sure about the enormity of what he’s feeling echoing Jeongin’s feelings, so if Jeongin calls it love then Seungmin wants to, too. He likes Japanese snacks, and crisp autumn days, and getting a diagnosis right. The degree of feeling evoked by the mere sight of the dimple by Jeongin’s cheek makes ‘like’ feel small, insufficient. Maybe that’s what love means. “I don’t want you to leave.”

The degree of sadness evoked by the thought of Jeongin’s upcoming departure is way too huge for a ‘dislike’. ‘Despair’ feels tragically closer.

“Hyung.” Jeongin stares at him, and then suddenly pulls him into a hug.

Seungmin flinches, not in displeasure but he wasn’t expecting it. The sudden warmth and weight of him is shocking, and he wraps his arms around Jeongin’s middle, the bare flesh under his hands aiming his desperation in a particular direction.

“Hyung, I love you so much. Even after I leave, I will love you.”

Seungmin clings to him tighter, face in Jeongin’s shoulder. The feeling returns; what he felt the night after Changbin’s accident, that panic at the thought of loss.

“Me too,” he manages.

Don’t leave. Don’t leave me.

“Can we.” Jeongin shivers. “Before I leave, can we. Be together.”

Seungmin can’t tell if he means sexually or romantically or both.

“Can we date and spend time together and have sex and stuff,” Jeongin clarifies, somehow knowing what Seungmin’s silence meant. “Even if it’s just for ten days, I want… I want you. As much of you as.”

“Yes.” He already failed at keeping himself separate, and he definitely bypassed objectivism around Jeongin weeks, maybe months ago. “Yes, we can. I want to, yes.”

He kisses Jeongin; it feels essential, like part of the dialogue. Jeongin kisses back, weaving his hands around Seungmin’s neck and angling his head just so, molding them together. Seungmin deepens the kiss and Jeongin muffles a pained noise into his lips, and then he makes his little—his soft begging sound, Seungmin’s aural catnip, and Seungmin finds his hand diving under Jeongin’s shirt like it’s been wanting to since he first laid eyes on him tonight.

Jeongin’s sound becomes a moan, high and surprised.

“Is. Is this oka—”

“Yes, yes,” Jeongin pants, arching into Seungmin, grabbing the back of his neck without warning.

Seungmin gasps into his mouth, almost buckling where he stands. “Oh.”

“Is. Do you… like that?”

His grip tightens a bit, and Seungmin actually sways, to the point where Jeongin’s other arm has to come up and support him by the waist. “Jeongin.” He can’t coordinate his limbs enough to kiss him and experience that sensation at the same time. He feels… inactivated. “Yes. I. I like it.”

“Hmm.” Jeongin rolls his hips into him, the press of his hardening dick digging into Seungmin’s stomach, corresponded in this also by an equal, insistent hardness. “I noticed you like it a lot.”

His fingers slowly slide around, creeping towards Seungmin’s Adam’s apple.

Seungmin stops breathing, the thought of what might. Of what Jeongin might be working towards.

“Your neck is very sensitive,” Jeongin mutters, and when Seungmin opens his eyes he sees that Jeongin is looking down at what his hand is doing. His hand is now grabbing Seungmin’s neck from the side, thumb digging into Seungmin’s thyroid. “You came when I bit you, last time.”

Seungmin feels a pulse of that unexpected fluid dampen his underwear, and he swallows. When he does, his larynx flirts with Jeongin’s thumb, nudging it.

“Hyung.” He tightens his grip, just a little more. Seungmin shudders, eyes sliding shut again, out of his control. “Can I bite you again?”

“Yes.” He’ll buy concealer. He doesn’t care. “Yes, Jeongin please yes—”

Jeongin’s lips fasten on his neck and Seungmin groans, and feels himself leak precome in a humiliating steady drip, and he’s suddenly so hard, hurting, aching, needing—he’s bucking his hips into Jeongin, right there where they stand in the middle of his kitchen area by the entrance, the large dining table behind him, and he takes a step backward—

Jeongin stumbles with him, and the edge of the table nudges the backs of Seungmin’s thighs, but in his delirium all he thinks is that it’s something to rest against, so he tips backwards, taking Jeongin with him, and Jeongin gets with the program quick. He’s so smart; he grabs under Seungmin’s thighs and hefts him up like it’s easy, propping him fully onto the table, and then getting on it himself even though something behind Seungmin’s head rattles, tumbling, if not yet sounding like it fell off the edge.

Jeongin knees on top of him, hand returning to the side of his neck except it’s closer to the middle now, more like grabbing it from the front, and in his haste he squeezes a bit harder than he was earlier, causing Seungmin to choke.

Seungmin’s eyes roll back in his head, and he bucks his hips up with a cry that comes out strangled, warped by Jeongin’s fingers.

“Hyung, I-I’m sorry—" Jeongin lets go, but Seungmin grabs his wrist and desperately puts it back, or tries to.

“P-please, please Jeongin-ah,” he wheezes, ankles skidding on the surface of the table, spine arching. Whatever it was rolls off the table and clangs to the floor; his centerpiece, probably. “P-please, d-don’t stop, please—"

Jeongin’s eyes go dark, his cheeks so flushed under the glitter. “You want me to choke you?” he says, voice low. He grinds down onto Seungmin’s hard dick, clearly painfully interested in this turn of events as well.

Seungmin tries to splay his fingers the way they were and put them on his neck, covering Jeongin’s hand with his own to demonstrate the force that had—driven him—

“Y-yes, Ien-ah. Ien-ah, I n-need. Need you to,” he manages, hoarse. “Please. Need. Please.”

He’s so close, he’s going to come, he just needs—this is almost beyond the desire for climax, he trusts Jeongin more than he trusts anybody in the world, he knows Jeongin knows him better than anyone, somehow, he wants Jeongin to—center him, to show him, to demonstrate how well he knows Seungmin, how much Seungmin can trust him—

“Okay,” Jeongin whispers, and his hand clenches down.

Seungmin comes with a strangled hitching breath, rutting into Jeongin’s erection, his vision whiting out from pleasure, limbs shuddering as the pulses of heat rock him to the tips of his toes, curling inside his socks.

Jeongin groans, and pulls the hand away as soon as Seungmin is done, loosening his grip while Seungmin trembles through his aftershocks.

“Hyung, can. Can I." He swallows, face hovering right above Seungmin's. "Can I fuck you?” He kisses Seungmin quickly, a peck. "Can I? Please?" He does it again, peppering him with shallow kisses in between his words. “Can I.” Kiss. “Please, please please hyung.” Kiss. “Please.” Kiss. “I want to I—I really want to.” Kiss. “I-I’ll make it good, I promise, can I—”

“Yes, yes, but I.” Seungmin halts Jeongin’s next kiss with a hand on his jaw. “I don’t have condoms, I-I didn’t… plan…”

“I’m, I have—I had to get a full check-up before my rotation, I can show you the results on my phone, if you—”

Seungmin huffs. “That’s—no, Jeongin-ah, I believe you.” He’s smiling. He feels liquid. “I’ve. Never had sex, so.”

Jeongin groans, sliding off him and to a stand. When Seungmin doesn’t manage the same degree of expeditious agility, he grabs under the backs of his knees and pulls, yanking Seungmin to the edge of the table until he’s about to fall off, but Jeongin helpfully catches him.

“You have lube in your room?”

Seungmin nods, blushing a bit at the implication despite everything that just happened, and Jeongin eagerly leads him to his own bedroom.

They exchange sloppy kisses on their way to the bed, Seungmin letting himself grope Jeongin’s back and chest and waist under the pink atrocity that is his netted shirt, and then Jeongin lifts his arms up and lets him take it off, finally, and a combination of fiery arousal and relief hits Seungmin in the gut at the sight of his fully, properly naked chest.

“Y-you, you take… this off…” Jeongin mumbles, tugging at Seungmin’s shirt, somewhat ineffectually because Seungmin started rubbing at his hard, peaked nipples and Jeongin’s eyes slid shut, mouthing soundlessly into the air. “Hyung, I…” Seungmin pinches him lightly, and Jeongin squirms, moaning. “Oh, that… that feels…”

He does eventually comply with Jeongin’s request and take his own shirt off, and then he guides Jeongin to sit and starts working on his belt, because Jeongin went a little tense after Seungmin played with his chest. He’s taking big, gulping breaths, presumably re-centering himself so he doesn’t come and can still fuck Seungmin like he wants to, like they both want him to, and that’s… that is really, really hot.

“Seungmin hyung,” he pants, at least cooperating by kicking his legs out and letting Seungmin pull both his pants and his underwear off, revealing his hard, leaking cock and burdening Seungmin with the knowledge that his mouth watered at the sight just then. “I’m. This might not be. Uh. Very long?”

Seungmin feels himself smile. “That’s fine. Don’t… don’t worry.” He kisses him, using his position over Jeongin to reach for the lube in the drawer of his nightstand. “Just give me a few moments, please.”

“Oh?” Jeongin sounds disappointed for the first time.

Seungmin, who was lying down next to him and kicking his own pants and underwear off to finger himself, slants a look at him. He figured they both knew the mechanics of this, even if neither of them has done it before; presumptuous of him, perhaps, to assume they had done research independently… Jeongin looks kind of heartbroken by the suggestion of a pause, but Seungmin can’t do this without stretching himself out at least a little.

He’s about to explain this to Jeongin when Jeongin says: “But I… I thought I got to do that?”

And Seungmin feels himself twitch, dick getting hard again.

“Oh. Y-you want to?”

Jeongin looks at him like he’s stupid. Maybe he is. “Of course?” He sits up and presents his hand for Seungmin to pass him the lube bottle, then squirts a bunch on his fingers and gently pushes Seungmin’s thighs open with his elbows. “Tell me if it hurts, or… if you’re uncomfortable?”

Seungmin nods, giving up on seeing what’s happening and letting his head fall back onto the mattress. He feels very exposed, vulnerable, but somehow not moreso than he did earlier with Jeongin’s fingers around his neck. Having his fingers inside seems… comparable, for some reason.

“Have you done this to yourself?” Jeongin asks, sounding distant, and when Seungmin looks at him he sees that Jeongin is singularly focused on what he is about to do. He feels the press of a wet finger to his hole, a gentle, slow push.

“Yeah. A few times, yeah.” Rarely, if he’s being honest. It’s a lot more work than he usually indulges in for something like self-pleasure, and messier than just jerking off would be, which is messy enough. It does feel exponentially better, but he’s not in the habit of putting so much effort into making himself feel that good on his own time.

“Is this okay?” Jeongin’s finger is fully inside of him, a steady pressure. It feels fine, it doesn’t hurt at all.

“Yes.”

Jeongin crooks the finger, and Seungmin moans. He moans loud, cutting it off abruptly when he hears himself and realizes.

“Was. Was that okay?” Jeongin asks, chest heaving.

Seungmin takes a moment to situate himself, finding himself fully hard already when he glances down. He did a perfunctory wipe of his groin and stomach with his underwear when he took it off, but he’s getting wet again, dripping on his lower abs.

“Yeah. Yeah. That was.” He swallows. “Y-you can add another finger.”

He braces himself this time, biting his lower lip to prevent that noise from coming out of his mouth again, and the stretch is definitely more noticeable when Jeongin’s second finger goes in, which helps because it’s distracting. He allows himself to watch Jeongin’s face while Jeongin scissors his fingers and slides them in and out, he watches the drip of sweat at his temples, the glow from the glitter on his cheekbones when it catches the moonlight, the way his mouth hangs open as he fixates on the task.

Jeongin crooks his fingers again and Seungmin—grunts. It feels like a tiny orgasm, a brush of the button that eventually, when pressed, will bring him release. He knows the anatomy, he knew where and how to push when he was doing it to himself, the few times he did, but this feels different. Better. The way some spots in his body are ticklish when someone else touches them but not when he touches himself.

“You… that was good, right?” Jeongin rasps. His eyes are shiny, still fixed on what his hand is doing. “You liked it?” He does it again, and another moan breaks free from Seungmin’s throat. “Yeah. You like it.”

Jeongin starts moving his fingers more rhythmically, easily now, a third digit intermittently nudging in also and with every thrust crooking them to make Seungmin groan, or grunt, or try to muffle a moan by clenching his jaw. Jeongin starts answering his noises after a bit, likely not noticing that he’s doing it, just soft responses from the back of his throat after Seungmin fails once again at staying silent.

“Hyung,” he pants after a while. His voice sounds so strained. “Hyung, you… are you…?”

He’s using three fingers consistently now, and Seungmin is… unravelling, spinal nerves unspooling from their tight weave and forming brand new patterns. “I’m ready,” he breathes. “I’m ready, you can—”

“Okay, o-okay...” Jeongin uses some additional lube on himself, wincing like it hurts even though all he does is slick his cock with one hand, and then he takes the backs of Seungmin’s knees in his grip and curls him up so his calves rest on Jeongin’s shoulders.

Seungmin doesn’t have a spine anymore, so that’s convenient, and when Jeongin finally pushes inside of him he stops having a brain, too. Everything turns off but the sensation; Jeongin inside him, now a part of him, and that feverish color on Jeongin’s glittering face a reflection of how it feels for him, too.

“Oh,” Jeongin pants, stopping when he’s flush to Seungmin. “Hyung. I.”

Several moments pass and he doesn’t move. At all.

“…Ien-ah?”

Jeongin starts slowly shaking his head, but otherwise continues to hold himself utterly still.

“Are you okay?” Seungmin asks, because he has never been better. Ever. He can’t think past the fullness, and it’s so freeing, not having thoughts—but Jeongin stopped.

“Mh-hm.” Jeongin gives a curt nod, but then goes back to shaking his head. His face is scrunched in concentration. “M’fine. You just. It feels so.” He gives a shallow, tentative thrust and stops again immediately. “O-oh.”

Oh. Seungmin liked that. Seungmin would like more of that. His body, brainless, chases it, arching to try to get more of Jeongin again, the feel of him moving inside.

“W-wait, wait wait,” Jeongin gasps, grabbing him by the hips and forcing him still. His entire body is shaking, all hard tension where Seungmin feels loose and viscous and fluid. “H-hyung, I-I’m gonna come.”

Seungmin looks at him. Jeongin is panting for air, so lovely, face sparkling, so red down his neck to his gorgeous chest, up to his ears.

“You’re close?” he asks, redundantly, but something in him thrills to hear Jeongin say it.

“Y-yeah.” Jeongin gives another tentative, short thrust, and makes that needy noise that Seungmin loves. “Oh God.” He repeats the motion, seemingly helpless. The noise climbs in pitch. “Oh God. Oh God.” He does it again, and again, keening, starting up a rhythm that as Seungmin watches gets more and more frantic, noises spilling out of him one after another, hips surging into Seungmin with increasing urgency. He’s trying, clearly trying to stave off, but he’s losing himself to it right in front of Seungmin’s eyes. “Hyung. Ah, ah, hyung, I…”

Seungmin reaches down to touch himself and keeps watching, hungrily tracking the conflict in Jeongin’s face as his inability to hold off from coming clearly overwhelms him.

“I’m gonna, ah,” he gasps, hand pawing at Seungmin’s shoulder in warning. “Hyung, m’gonna—I can’t—”

“Do it, I want you to,” Seungmin tells him, and Jeongin instantly speeds to a frenzied rhythm and coughs out a grateful groan, hips punching forward, slamming deep into him, coming so hard he’s shoving Seungmin up the mattress.

His hand grips Seungmin’s neck for purchase.

Seungmin comes with a jolt, going from a molten simmer to a sudden explosion that singes him, implodes him. Jeongin tries to move his hand away but he grasps it by the wrist to make sure it doesn’t leave its spot and wheezes, mind a wide expanse of nothing but goodness, trust, gratitude… love.

Eventually his lungs do start burning for oxygen and he finally lets Jeongin go.

“Hyung!” Jeongin pants, eyes stern. He’s still breathing really hard. “Y-you… have to be careful!”

Seungmin is still trembling with aftershocks, stomach a mess of his own making, legs gelatinous and weak.

“We have to plan that better next time, okay?” Jeongin says. He’s still inside Seungmin, softening. “W-we need a signal; you can’t talk when I do that, so you need to… be able to tap me. To stop.”

He’s right, but Seungmin was doing the holding, he had full control over when he stopped, so he’s not worried. He’s stuck on ‘next time’. He can’t wait for next time; maybe they can nap and go again soon. He hopes Jeongin wants to.

“Hyung,” Jeongin prompts.

“Yes, yes. Sorry, yes.”

He’s smiling. He feels Jeongin pull out of him and the mess inside of him leaks out a little; it’s not exactly pleasant but it bothers him less than other messes have.

Jeongin makes a low noise of distress and presses his fingers in there, making Seungmin jolt. He’s confused by the way Jeongin is—he’s pushing the come back in. What…? “What are you doing?”

Jeongin’s shoulders hunch. “N-nothing.” He kisses Seungmin and stops, and Seungmin figures he can ask him about it later. He is suddenly exhausted, and they both move to a dry area of the bed to lie together. Thankfully it’s large enough.

“G’night, hyung,” Jeongin murmurs, wrapping around him, pressing a hand to Seungmin’s sticky lower stomach.

“Goodnight, Jeongin,” Seungmin responds. Setting an alarm for a couple of hours from now so they can go again is probably unwise, he probably shouldn’t do that—they’ll just naturally wake up when it’s time, and then he can have Jeongin again. He gets to have him all week.

He falls asleep like someone flipped a switch on his consciousness, such is his peace.

Minho

Minho is Hyunjin’s friend, now. He’s not sure how it happened but it did, and apparently being Jisung’s boyfriend and Hyunjin’s friend means he got a sort of intern-package-deal that includes Felix, Seungmin, and that cute medical student Minho mindlessly hated for a little bit there. Jeongin is his name, and he’s still rotating in the ICU with Seungmin but the other interns have seemingly adopted him as one of their own.

This also means that when Hyunjin wakes up with a horrible hangover the day after the club, and when Felix shows up with a bunch of ingredients to bake ten minutes later, Minho is expected to co-host them in Jisung’s apartment. Minho is not upset about this at all; he would do anything for Jisung, this is incredibly easy, it’s just… surprising.

“Guys. Why did Seungmin reply ‘we are on our way’?” Jisung says, wide-eyed staring at his phone screen. He looks adorably excited. “Guys?”

Felix also looks excited; Hyunjin manages a sort of tired interest in the proceedings for the first time. They are all in Jisung’s kitchen area, though Minho and Felix are doing the brunt of the baking.

“Did they leave together?” Jisung asks, voice rising in volume. “Did any of us figure out what happened? Are they dating now? Seungmin could not stop staring at Ien-ah in that shirt, do you think they slept together?”

“Jisung, we don’t have any more information than you do,” Felix says, but he’s smiling.

“We have to get Seungmin to fess up.”

“They are coming together, you can’t ask him in front of Jeongin,” Hyunjin points out.

“Then I’ll videocall him tonight.”

“You’ll be at work, jagyia,” Minho can’t help but remind him.

“Oh, right.” Jisung huffs. “Aah they like each other so much, this is torture to watch from the sidelines!”

Felix snorts, but then he glances at Hyunjin, and Minho sees Jisung’s gaze dart to him, too. Hyunjin hasn’t noticed yet.

“We should add the chocolate chips now,” he says, drawing the attention off poor Hyunjin.

“Oh, yes, thanks Minho-hyung.”

Hyunjin shoots him a grateful look when Felix and Jisung get busy with their next task, and Minho nods at him. So he did notice—maybe that’s why they are friends.

*

Jisung greets Seungmin and Jeongin like a fanboy meeting a celebrity couple, which is endearing, but then he hugs Jeongin and pinches his cheeks, and Minho finds that that prompts him to physically insert himself between them. It’s a shame, he thought being Jisung’s boyfriend might inactivate his jealous instincts, but it turns out it didn’t.

“Hi Nurse Lee,” Jeongin greets him, bowing, and Minho feels some of his annoyance dissipate when he sees Jisung’s pout. Then he notices the general… vibe going on with their two new arrivals.

Seungmin is a put-together, fairly prim sort of guy who Minho has mostly interacted with in the context of working on shift, and despite his wearing a hoodie and the neckerchief of a baseball team, that professional air around him remains. There’s a veneer of control over his facial features that makes him harder to read in general.

Jeongin, on the other hand, looks like he’s high.

There’s no better way for Minho to put it inside his head; once the greetings are done and he shifts his focus away from Jisung’s focus on the med student, it hits him that Jeongin looks like he is floating on a different plane of existence. His eyes are on Seungmin most of the time, but there’s a droopy-lidded dreaminess to him that suggests he is seeing things others aren’t privy to. He will occasionally drag his gaze away, as he does when he greets Felix and Hyunjin, and he ‘ooh’s at the mention of freshly baked cookies awaiting them, but then his focus will drift back to Seungmin as though looking at him is his default. He also seems incapable of being further than an arm’s length away from Seungmin at all times, and is preferably closer to him than that. He’s handsy, too, petting or prodding or brushing against Seungmin with the flimsiest excuses.

He’s very pretty, Minho acknowledged this from the get-go, but the feverish pink of his cheeks, puffy lips and sleepy eyes today make him look even more ridiculously, artlessly charming. It doesn’t make Minho any less devoted to Jisung to see it—if anything it makes him want to cover Jisung’s eyes around the kid for fear that Jeongin will pull focus.

“Ien-ah. Ien-ah,” Hyunjin emphasizes, waving his hand.

Jeongin startles, and looks away from Seungmin again. “Bwhuh?” he says.

They are sat around the floor of Jisung’s living room, around the coffee table there, and Jeongin scooted so close to Seungmin that their thighs are touching. His hand is also on Seungmin’s knee.

“Can you pass me the water, please?” Hyunjin asks, not for the first time, and Felix and Jisung dissolve into giggles. Jeongin was dutiful enough when it came time to pass Seungmin some water, or refill his glass, or get him another cookie; he’s been very attentive to Seungmin.

“O-oh. Yeah, sorry.” Jeongin does this, and then slants his eyes back to Seungmin. Seungmin’s neckerchief, to be specific.

There’s a beat of silence, and Minho has no loyalty to Jeongin the way he feels it for Hyunjin, so he sees no reason to volunteer a change of topic to lighten the tension.

“So,” Felix starts, tentative. “What… did you guys get up to last night? How late did you stay at the club?”

Seungmin will have to be the designated speaker because Jeongin’s gaze has become vacant again.

“We left pretty early.” Seungmin scratches his ear. “Uh. We had a lot to talk about, so. We talked.”

“Talking is good,” Felix says. Minho gets the sense that Felix knows something. Felix is looking at Seungmin’s neckerchief now, too. “Would you guys like to share what you talked about with us?” he offers.

Seungmin clears his throat, glancing at Jeongin.

Jeongin’s free hand makes an aborted twitch in his direction before going back to his own lap, as though having both his hands on Seungmin is where he draws the line.

“Uh.”

“You don’t have to,” says Hyunjin.

“But you can if you want to,” Jisung is quick to offer. Minho’s little baby is such a gossip, God he’s so fucking cute.

“Uh.” Seungmin swallows. “We. Like each other.” He’s blushing, staring at the floor. “We love each other, and we decided to be together while we can, before.” But here he cuts off, and his jaw ticks.

“Before…?” Jisung asks.

“Before Jeongin leaves?” Felix clarifies. Him and Jisung exchange a look. “Isn’t he only gone for six mo—”

“That’s great,” Hyunjin says loudly, interrupting him. “You guys should make the most of this week! And Jeongin is gonna come to Chuseok on Friday, right?”

Alas, Jeongin is not in the building right now.

Jeongin

He knows he’s being obvious but he can’t help it; he really likes his intern hyungs but he needs to be inside Seungmin like right now, it’s been almost ninety minutes since he last had it and the memory is all that’s preventing him from dragging Seungmin away from his friends by the scruff of his neck. They only have a week together, and a hundred times wouldn’t be enough but Jeongin needs to spend as many hours as they can trying.

Minho

“Jeongin.”

“Jeongin-aaah,” Jisung calls.

“Ien-ah,” Seungmin says softly, and Jeongin startles.

“Oh. Sorry, y-yes I will be there. I’ll see you there.”

Minho finds it in him to feel a little bit sorry for him. Not just because he understands how consuming that kind of pull towards another person feels, but because the thought of ending things with Jisung fills him with such terror and sadness that he can’t bear to even contemplate it as a hypothetical. If Jeongin feels even an increment of that, then Minho envies him not at all.

*

The new week brings with it more of the kind of stupefying caliber of joy that Minho had no idea his brain was wired to feel. Jisung goes shopping for a suit to wear at the hospital-wide Chuseok celebration on Friday and Minho gets to join him, gets to watch him browse clothes and just sort of bask in his presence. For hours. It turns out that his love for Jisung cancels out his dislike for shopping, and Jisung looks so delectable in the dark green suit he ends up picking that Minho discreetly buys a dark green tie that will match it. Then they go home together and fuck, and Minho tries not to come like a loser the second Jisung says he loves him, but Jisung has figured out that it sets him off the way humiliation sets Jisung off, and that leads to a fun little game where he uses a gag on Jisung for the first time, which goes amazingly well for both of them.

They are still able to function without issue at work; Minho sees Jisung placing an IV with the ultrasound machine the next day and feels a silent pride as he passes him, but doesn’t go disturb him about it. Jisung gets supplies from Blue Pod and Minho helps him find them, but it’s pleasant and professional as anything. The spend a lot of time together outside of the hospital now; enough that work itself doesn’t feel unbearable anymore.

The main reason Minho hasn’t practically started living with Jisung is the children, since he doesn’t want all three of them to miss him too much, but on Wednesday Jisung offers to come to him because he is off work after his morning lectures.

“Oh my God, something huge happened at conference today,” Jisung tells him, absent-mindedly groping Minho’s ass and upper thighs a bit as they hug in greeting. Soonie meows in greeting at him from between their feet, then pads away, duty done.

“Hm?”

“They announced who the interim program director is going to be, and a lot of us thought it was going to be Dr. Bang.”

Minho’s eyebrows raise. “Didn’t Chan graduate like, two years ago?”

Jisung nods, wide-eyed. “Yes, but he’s won the teaching award both times, and he’s just… the best.”

Minho agrees that Chan is amazing, but he wonders how Chan would do if suddenly given a bunch more responsibilities. Chan recently decreased the manic amount of overtime he’d been putting in, but that took Changbin, San, Wooyoung, a break-up, and his secret relationship with Felix to do. At this stage in his career, if he was promoted so aggressively, Minho has no doubt that Chan would overwork himself to a breakdown again.

“So who will it be?”

“Dr. Kim, the assistant program director.” Jisung looks pleased, so Minho is also pleased. Dr. Kim is always very respectful of the nurses, and she takes Minho seriously every time he expresses concern about a patient.

“That’s great, isn’t it?”

“It is! She’s awesome, it is, but…” Jisung bites his lower lip. A part of Minho’s brain suddenly loses interest in the conversation, and he has to make an effort to redirect it. “I guess there’s speculation on whether he, like, turned it down. Because his name must have come up during the conversation, and I’m not sure…”

They both curl up on the couch, Minho taking the remote to find something to watch that he can eventually turn off when they undoubtedly get distracted groping each other and having sex again. “You think he’d turn it down because of Felix?”

Jisung nods into his shoulder, thoughtful. “I mean… I could see it?” he takes Minho’s free hand in his own, interlacing their fingers. “I guess I’m wondering how Felix feels about it.”

Felix

Chan suggests a drive-in date after Felix’s shift on Thursday, which means he wants to drive them up to Namsan mountain, grab take-out on the way and eat in the car watching the stars.

It’s perfect. It’s such a sweet idea, since they can’t eat out in public in case they run into anyone from work.

Felix is rattling with tension the entire time.

He wants to talk to Chan as soon as they are settled in their car picnic, but keeps getting side-tracked by Chan’s loveliness—Chan brought a blanket to put on the hood of the car if it wasn’t too cold (it is, so they drape it over their laps across the front seats instead), Chan ordered Felix dessert without telling him because he knows how much Felix likes sweets, and wanted to surprise him with a beautiful, expensive-looking chocolate delicacy. Chan bought Felix a new pair of earrings, just because. Chan thought to bring a small portable heat-pack in case Felix’s hands got cold. Chan is the best partner Felix could have never dreamed of, for fear of being unrealistic. Chan is perfect.

But the announcement at conference yesterday has gone carefully undiscussed between them, other than Felix texting him when Chan was sat just a few rows away in the auditorium, right after it happened.

omg dr kim???

Yes isn’t that great?!

And that was it. So now, Felix has to talk to him. He has to at least bring it up, and ask.

“Is it good? Do you like it?”

Chan is smiling, the distant lights of the city making his face glow. This is not one of the many popular viewpoints within Namsan that Felix’s family visited as a kid; there are no cute benches or picnic tables or even a railing. Chan stopped the car right on the edge of an offroad and then slowly drove forward until they were parked facing a spot between the trees, likely illegally.

The view is spectacular, and it’s cozy and sweet in the car. Felix nods in response to Chan’s question, mouth full of fried chicken, happy. But nervous.

“It’s delicious, thank you.” He smiles, puts down the clean bone and steels his resolve. “Hyung. Can I ask you something?”

Chan immediately tenses, putting down his own half-eaten piece of chicken.

“It’s about the program director role.”

Chan’s tension dissolves, and Felix intuits that he was afraid their relationship would be coming into play, at first. He resolves, once again, keep working hard at convincing him, showing him that he’s as gone for him as Chan is in the reverse.

“Don’t you think Ji-a will be great? She’s already doing so much of the job, she works so hard, she’s a great choice.”

“I agree, she’s… so great.” Felix chews the inside of his cheek for a second. “But. But you’re great too, and. I wanted to know…”

Chan’s eyes warm. He smiles sweetly, understanding. “You wanted to know if I applied? Or didn’t apply, because of you?”

Felix nods, glad Chan gets it.

Chan puts a greasy hand over his greasy hand. “I didn’t apply for a bunch of reasons, among them you,” he says honestly. “Because whatever my career holds, and I hope it holds a great and prosperous future, that future can wait.”

Felix feels his face crumble. He has a feeling—he knows Chan is telling the truth, but he has a feeling, brought about by the phrasing of his response. “You didn’t apply, but did the board ask you? Or… the chair of the department? Did they approach you?”

“They didn’t offer me PD, Felix, I promise you.”

Felix can tell that’s not all. His eyes sting with unshed tears as it hits him: belated, but he suddenly understands that PD was never really in the cards for an attending who only graduated two years ago; it would be beyond unheard of for that to happen at a prestigious program like SNUH. Of course they wouldn’t offer Chan the position when it takes an average of ten years of experience in the field to get close to that kind of title.

But that must mean… “Then assistant program director. They offered you Kim Ji-a’s position, didn’t they?”

And Chan goes silent.

“Fuck.” The tears fall, and Chan makes a noise of distress at the sight of them. He quickly produces a napkin, and leans in to dab at Felix’s face. It’s pointless, Felix keeps crying. “Chan. Why didn’t you tell me? When was this?”

Chan still looks resolute, if determined to dry Felix's tears the second they leave his lashes. “I got a couple of calls over the weekend, while you were with your friends. Felix, I didn’t even have to think twice—”

“You can’t put your career on hold for me—”

“Of course I can, baby.” Chan smiles. “It’s only four years—"

“Four years is a long—”

“It’s not. It’s not; I’ll be six years out from residency by then and that is a perfectly respectable time to become assistant program director, if it’s something I want at that point. Ji-a got the job when she was five years out, and she was one of the youngest APDs in history.”

Felix is still crying. “I don’t like that you had to turn—”

“Felix. Baby. Listen to me.” Chan dabs at his face again, taking such care not to be too rough and smudge Felix’s eyeliner. He’s so perfect, Felix loves him so much—"I love you so much, this is the happiest I have ever been. The thought of us ending made me want to say no, and that is in part why I did it. But.” He takes a deep breath. “I am also going to work on… how intense, I get. About things. And how much I… lose myself in them. Work is something I easily lose myself in, and I’m not sure it’s a good idea. To add more work to my plate right now, just as I’m trying to cut down. At least not… until I figure out a balance.”

Felix blinks wetly at him.

He’d had these thoughts before—he can’t imagine that anyone who truly knows Chan, truly sees Chan, wouldn’t. Chan gives too much of himself. Chan is, frankly, at times a danger to himself, because of how much he gives. Felix just wasn’t expecting this insight from him, if he’s being honest.

“…Oh.”

“I’ve got to work on myself so I can be better, yeah? Better for you, but also just… better, overall.” He makes an apologetic face. “Do you… understand?”

And Felix does. He does.

“Yes.” He kisses him; a greasy, snotty, perfect kiss. “Yes, okay, I understand.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too. I love you, hyung.”

Chan leans up to kiss his forehead, and Felix can feel his smile against his skin. When they pull away again, Chan's expression is relaxed and happy and adoring, completely conflict-free.

"There is something else I want, though. Something I want desperately, that I can't wait four years to get."

Felix can tell he is teasing, but he's proud of Chan for sharing anyway, even if it's partly a joke. "What is it?"

“I want to pay for you to get your nails done,” Chan says, taking both of Felix's hands in his own. “I want you to get the nicest polish they have, any design you want, and I want you to do it as often as you need.”

Felix scoffs, starting to laugh. “Hyung, you don’t have to—”

“Please! I want to,” Chan says earnestly, and even though he's laughing too, Felix can tell that it's not actually a joke after all. “Please, Felix, I dreamt.” He pauses, then keeps going even though he is starting to blush around his smile. “I fantasized about this exact moment, about getting to do this for you, before. I… would love to do this for you. Please, please let me.” He leans down to kiss Felix’s fingertips, looking up at him from under his lashes. “Please?”

Felix smiles, face hot. “You fantasized about it?” he mumbles.

“You have no idea,” Chan huffs, and Felix laughs a breathy, incredulous laugh, and acquiesces. It will take getting used to, how sweet and perfect and loving Chan is, but he will keep trying. He will support Chan’s decision, and let Chan spoil him like he wants to, and continue to love him and show him, until Chan believes it.

And so they spend the rest of the evening comfortably chatting and eating in the car, eyes only on each other; ignoring the view, ignoring the stars.

Chapter Text

Felix

The hospital-wide Chuseok event has the cheesy tagline ‘At SNUH, we are a Family’, and Felix snorted a little when he saw that on the invitations. However, in the taxi on his way there he ends up thinking of his little intern crew, and of Minho and Jeongin and Changbin and of course Chan, and he finds himself having to concede the term. Because in such a short time that has felt so incredibly intense, the others have become so close to his heart. Chuseok is supposed to be celebrated with family and without these people he would have spent the day feeling lonely and sad, on the phone with his mom wishing he could teleport to Australia in time to be back before his next shift. Instead, he is elated, and looking forward to spending a night with his loved ones.

Everyone is expected to dress to the nines, and so Felix and Hyunjin went all out on their outfits tonight. Felix is in the white suit he had hesitated to wear at the welcome dinner; he put on the pretty gold earrings recently gifted to him by Chan, two necklaces, was liberal with his make-up, did his hair in a half-plaited updo, and accessorized to his heart’s content. He is looking forward to Chan’s reaction, because Chan hasn’t seen him yet. He is not looking forward to JYP’s, if the man decides to show his face at the event.

Hyunjin, on the other hand, is in the same black tux he wore at the intern welcome dinner. It’s a slim-fitting, flattering suit that, on its own on Hyunjin, looks absolutely devastating—much as a garbage bag would, because it’s Hyunjin. Tonight, he swapped out the crisp white undershirt for a silky blood-red one, and his jewelry is in tones of silver and red. He put the top half of his hair up in a ponytail that makes his face look even more devastating, and he also put on lipstick. Not gloss, like Felix is wearing; Hyunjin is wearing red lipstick to match the color of the shirt.

They are commuting together because they both worked during the day; Felix in the ER, Hyunjin in surgery, and are arriving late as a result of getting ready together after their respective shifts.

Felix can tell Hyunjin is nervous, but in Hyunjin this manifests as a quiet, almost standoffish vibe.

“You okay?” he asks him.

They haven’t really talked properly, at least not about Hyunjin’s side of things. It worries Felix that Hyunjin has been avoiding any one-to-one conversations with him since the block two party, essentially for this entire month. The closest they came was that night at Jisung’s apartment where he admitted to sleeping with Changbin, but then Changbin’s accident happened shortly after, and things just got so busy and chaotic. Even tonight, and even though they got ready together and it was just the two of them, Hyunjin refused to engage about what’s been going on when Felix gently asked (they were rushing, to be fair, but Felix would have been later for Hyunjin’s sake). He doesn’t want to ask Chan because he knows Chan would cave right away and tell him what he knows through Changbin, but that’s not how Felix wants to find out. He wants Hyunjin to trust him enough, and maybe trust himself enough, to tell him.

“Nervous,” Hyunjin mutters. It sounds so casual, so unaffected that it takes Felix a second to process the admission.

He grasps Hyunjin’s hand just as they are pulling up to the entrance. “It’s gonna be okay. You’ll be okay.”

Hyunjin squeezes him in return and then, after a moment’s consideration, doesn’t let Felix go as they emerge from the car. “Don’t let me get drunk again, okay?”

Felix laughs. “You watch me, I’ll watch you.”

The hospital rented out a massive banquet hall that is, Felix suspects, more typically used for large wedding receptions. The night will be an exponentially bigger deal than the intern welcome dinner was, since it’s not just the emergency department staff in attendance; hundreds of guests are here, instead of dozens, and the space needed to accommodate that kind of volume is nothing short of lavish.

They walk in to the event already well underway, but thankfully the set-up involves a buffet-style meal in addition to carts and trays being passed around, as opposed to a sit-down dinner. With that many invitees, this makes sense to Felix; there are plenty of circular tables available with seating for groups of eight to ten people, but most of them are expected to stand around and mingle.

Within a few moments of arrival, Felix notices lots of heads turning their way.

This happened at the club, too. It’s in a different flavor tonight, but Felix recognizes it nonetheless. He’s not stupid, he knows he looks good, and he knows him and Hyunjin together attract attention even without the amount of work they put into their appearance tonight. Now, as they make their way deeper into the throng of people milling about, looking for the familiar faces of their department, he starts to feel the increasing weight of multiple pairs of eyes on him, on Hyunjin, on the place where they are holding hands—except it’s not a hold anymore, Hyunjin is clinging to him for dear life, clearly rattled about the possibility of being near Changbin again or, God forbid, having to speak to him. Felix lets the others stare. Most of the looks are admiring, some are appreciative, some are downright aghast. He doesn’t notice any overt disapproval, though he is sure that’s peppered in there; unfortunately JYP is not the only one of his kind in the world.

It’s with quiet confidence that he leads Hyunjin around the giant hall, wandering aimlessly, craning his neck to find his people, exchanging polite smiles and nods and half-bows with the guests bold enough to verbalize a compliment their way. A radiologist calls them ‘a beautiful pair’, and one of the anesthesiologists who was there when Changbin came in as a trauma remarks on Hyunjin’s lipstick, shyly calling it ‘stunning’. Felix thanks her on his behalf, then waves and bows at a group of the nurses from the general surgery department who remember him from his July block, and who have very flattering things to say about his appearance.

After a few minutes he spots the back of his favorite head in the middle of the reception hall, and his stomach swoops with happiness.

“Dr. Bang! Sunbaenim!” he calls, knowing better than to address Chan the way he wants to (and is entitled to at home).

Chan immediately turns towards him at the sound of his voice, smiling, and the crowd conveniently parts between them. He is in a dark grey suit, with a pitch-black shirt and tie underneath, looking so handsome, but—Hyunjin freezes, and then a couple of things happen at once.

The fact that Changbin is standing next to Chan becomes apparent.

Chan’s gaze takes in Felix’s outfit and general appearance and the smile drops from his face.

Changbin turns with a frown when he sees Chan’s face and then his gaze lands on Hyunjin, and then he freezes.

Hyunjin resumes walking and tugs Felix forward in a lurch, but suddenly this feels like a bad idea.

The two seniors watch them approach with twin expressions of utter stupefaction, and it would be funny if Felix couldn’t still feel every ounce of the tension contorted into Hyunjin’s body through their joined hands. Hell, Felix is starting to get nervous, too, because he is being looked at… frankly lustfully by Chan in a setting where all of their coworkers can see. Whoever Chan and Changbin were talking to was left hanging mid-sentence, as neither of them appear capable of speech right now. Felix had anticipated some covert blushing, maybe a sneaky text saying ‘wow’ or ‘can’t wait to take that off you’, something flirty and cute, but this... this is way too overboard for public consumption.

Unfortunately Changbin, who can usually be relied upon as the voice of reason in situations when Chan is being too much, cannot seem to stop staring at Hyunjin for even one second. His mouth is slightly open and he looks, if possible, ever more dumbstruck than Chan does.

Felix will have to be the voice of reason on behalf of everyone here, he understands this now.

“Hi Dr. Bang, hi Chief Seo,” he says, pointedly.

Changbin doesn’t register him.

Chan, at least, blinks a few times and tries to compose himself. “Uhm. H-hi!” His gaze rakes over Felix once more, then comes stoically back up to his face. “Y-you—”

“It’s good to see you,” Felix interrupts, because Jung and Sooah are just a few steps away, and he recognizes a lot of the other attendings from the emergency department behind them. Seems as though they found the pocket of ER staff within the crowd.

“Uh-huh. Yes, g-good to see you too. You look…” Felix shoots him a wide-eyed warning look. “Uh, well. You look very… well.”

“Thank you.” He loves Chan so much, and it is flattering, this overreaction, but he really needs him to get it together.

Changbin and Hyunjin are caught in a staring contest.

Hyunjin has drawn up to his absolute maximum height, looking down at Changbin with his nose in the air and an expression that someone who doesn’t know him would likely interpret as haughty. He hasn’t let go of Felix’s hand yet, however, and anyway Felix does know him.

Changbin looks like someone hit him over the head with an anvil.

The poor guy just recovered from a concussion, too.

“Should you be here?” Hyunjin asks.

Felix winces a little at the tone; obviously that bite in it came from fear, from vulnerability, but… it did sound really mean.

Changbin blinks, for the first time in a while. “Huh?”

Hyunjin takes a step towards him, finally letting go of Felix’s hand.

“Should. You. Be. Here,” he enunciates, and his shoes today have a slight heel; between that and the way he’s leaning up to make himself as tall as he is, he seems to tower over Changbin more than ever.

“U-uh.” Changbin is staring at his mouth and Felix feels bad for the poor guy; Hyunjin in red lipstick is a lot to take in, even for Felix it was a lot. “W-why. Why shouldn’t I be here?”

He sounds like he’s asking why am I here? Or perhaps where am I?

Felix and Chan exchange a look.

“Oh, I don’t know…” Hyunjin raises his hand, listing things off his fingers. “Concussion. Fracture of rib nine. Fracture of rib ten. Fracture of rib eleven. Splenic rupture—”

“Partial splenic rupture—” Chan can’t help but correct, but Hyunijn ignores him.

“—contusion of pectoralis major on the left. Contusion of quadriceps muscle on the right. Contusion of—”

“Hyunjin, that was three weeks ago. I’m pretty much back to normal.”

Halleluiah, a coherent sentence from Changbin. Two, even.

“This is still a risky outing. You should leave.”

Changbin winces, looking a little hurt. His suit is wine-colored, two shades darker red than Hyunjin’s shirt, but they look like they… match. Goodness. “I don’t… think that’s necessary? I was fine last week at the club, and that was arguably—"

“Oh my gosh! Is that my prince and my artist?”

Felix whirls around to find Mingyu, Chul, Hongjoong and a couple of the surgery interns coming up behind them.

“Mingyu!” he grins, and the two groups bow to each other. Felix is glad for the break in tension. Changbin and Hyunjin could use it, and surely Chan will act normally, with the amount of times Felix has clarified his relationship with Mingyu at this point.

“You guys look stupid-good,” Mingyu says, and he looks stupid-good too so Felix just snorts and makes a waving dismissive gesture with his hand.

Then he feels someone (Chan, it’s Chan) touch the small of his back and he stills. Oh Chan.

“Where’s my Seungmin and the baby pediatrician?” Hongjoong asks, looking around. Felix hasn’t seen Seungmin or Jeongin yet, nor has he spotted Jisung or Minho. It has become crowded enough in their area that he gets pushed into Chan a little, back to front, so the touch to the small of his back is likely well-concealed. He still doesn’t know how to get rid of it inconspicuously.

“Hey, Felix,” says Chul, who didn’t work with Hyunjin. “Hey Changbin.”

“Hey, Chul.”

“Hey man, what’s up?”

“Wow, everyone looks amazing—”

“Dr. Bang, hi!”

The chatter starts to overlap, too many people standing around, and then Hongjoong goes: “Seungmin!” and it turns out that it is Seungmin he’s waving at, and he’s with Jeongin and Jiwoo and Harin, and then Jisung, Minho and Seri show up, and the scene gets truly chaotic.

Mingyu gets shunted towards Changbin’s side of the group and starts happily chatting with him, so the touch at Felix’s back finally relents and Felix ends up talking with a couple of the surgery interns plus Seungmin and Jeongin, who apparently have been here for about an hour. Chul joins them after a moment and taps Felix’s shoulder, making Felix look up at him.

“Some of our attendings are around this area, too,” Chul says in an undertone, and Felix understands what he’s saying immediately. He didn’t think Chul had it in him to be so perceptive, or so sweet as to warn them.

“Thanks, Chul,” he says sincerely. And then: “Dr. Bang, can we go get something to eat?” And he grabs Chan and the first few people he lays eyes on (Seungmin, Jeongin, Minho, Jisung), ushering a group towards the buffet tables, away from the area where Choi Nari is likely to be found.

He sends Hyunjin a look over his shoulder but Hyunjin shakes his head, declining the nonverbal invitation to join them in favor of situating himself between Changbin and Mingyu.

Changbin

Choi Nari approached Seri a good fifteen minutes ago, and they are still talking. Changbin is delighted, but alas, he is also dealing with a few other issues that are preventing him from focusing solely on his happiness for Seri and the possibility that her (inadvertent) dedication to the long game is actually going to pay off in a real way.

Among those issues is the unsettling realization that he can… relate… to Chan.

The thing is, is that Mingyu is so good looking. If he was less good looking, Changbin would probably feel normal and fine about him chatting with Hyunjin while Hyunjin looks like the closer for a fashion show with a dark and sultry theme. He is so used to people ogling Hyunjin; someone literally tripped on the sidewalk and dropped their groceries from staring at Hyunjin too hard the day him and Changbin walked from the hospital to the resident dorm building together (to talk about how they weren’t going to sleep together a few days before they slept together). Hyunjin shrugged like that was normal and kept walking, and anyway Changbin isn’t possessive like that—if Mingyu was even slightly less good-looking he would not care that he calls Hyunjin ‘my artist’ several times and is of a height with him so they can chat at eye-level.

Unfortunately Mingyu looks the way that he looks, and Hyunjin got extra tense and basically stood in front of Changbin to talk to him, treating Changbin with a nice view of his back and also with total asperity. Mingyu tries to include Changbin in the conversation a couple of times, but Hyunjin is ruthless; at one point he even steps to the side to prevent Changbin from leaning over and answering Mingyu’s question.

Changbin is struggling, if he’s honest. He’s struggling to kick-start his brain after the sight of Hyunjin blew his fuses, and he’s struggling to reconcile Hyunjin’s presence and rude attitude with his confession to Changbin the other week and the subsequent fourteen days of radio silence and no response on the phone. He’s struggling with relating to Chan while watching the object of his affections talk to a ridiculously handsome surgeon. He is not proud of any of these struggles; he frankly thought himself above them. Better than them.

But here he is.

He knows, objectively, that him and Hyunjin need to talk even if the idea of attempting coherent speech tonight in the face of Hyunjin’s, well, face, is daunting. But they need to, given how they left things off. Changbin has to… clarify things, to say his fill, to be given an opportunity to respond, even if he’s not exactly sure how he will word it, per se. He’ll figure it out in the moment. He can’t keep doing this dance with Hyunjin for ever, for both their sakes, and he knows that tonight might be his best chance to do it, given Hyunjin’s clear reluctance to be in a room with him ever again.

“Actually, I think Changbin was on shift when that happened, Binnie, do you remember?” Mingyu leans sideways to look at Changbin around Hyunjin’s frame, and Changbin sees Hyunjin ball his hands into fists.

“I was in Blue Pod, but they called me over to help out,” Changbin contributes, finally, to the conversation. The side of Hyunjin’s face looks pissed.

“That’s right! Wooyoung was in Red Pod I think. So anyway, everybody is crowding into the trauma Bay…” as he keeps retelling the story, Mingyu (bravely) steps around Hyunjin towards Changbin, so that the three are standing in a triangular formation again instead of in a line. “And then this dude goes up to intubate, but anesthesia is there at that point—”

He reaches out to—maybe touch Changbin’s shoulder, maybe lightly tap him when he said ‘this dude’ to illustrate which dude he was talking about, but alas he is unsuccessful, because Hyunjin clasps his hand around Mingyu’s wrist and stops it mid-air.

All three of them look down at Hyunjin and Mingyu’s hands for a moment.

Mingyu huffs a laugh, some inner joke Changbin is not privy to. “You ER guys have a really specific—”

“He was injured,” Hyunjin says, and lets him go.

“I know, Mr. Artist, I was there.” Mingyu gives Changbin a conspiratorial look. “That was almost a month ago, no? You look good, Bin.”

Something about that makes Hyunjin look even angrier, and then he grabs Changbin’s wrist and tugs at him, starting to walk away from the group. “Sorry Mingyu-hyung, I need to discuss something with my chief.”

Unfortunately as soon as they leave the area where the ER and surgery staff are mixed in, someone clears their throat in front of a microphone, and everyone suddenly goes quiet.

Then the lights dim.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the Chuseok celebration for our Seoul National University Hospital staff!”

A round of applause sounds off, and Changbin identifies the chair of internal medicine on a slightly raised dais. That man sure loves his speeches.

“It is an honor and a pleasure to see you all here tonight,” he goes on. Hyunjin hasn’t let go of Changbin’s wrist yet, but he has temporarily stopped pulling on it. “If you’ll indulge me for a moment, I’d like to reiterate the principles of excellence that make us the top hospital in the country—”

There’s a collective ill-disguised sigh as the crowd gears up to listen to the droning presentation, and suddenly Hyunjin starts pulling at his arm again.

“Wh-what’s happening?” Changbin whispers, stumbling after him. Most everyone is looking at the chair, half-heartedly following along, but a couple of people watch them curiously as they pass by. “Where are we going?”

Hyunjin doesn’t respond, just guides him through the crowd, and Changbin lets him knowing that if he planted his feet and refused to move Hyunjin wouldn’t be able to do much about it.

It turns out that they are going… to the bathroom.

There are four doors without gendered signs at the end of a shadowed, dimly-lit hall that branches off the rear of the massive ballroom to the left, and which is currently empty as stragglers no doubt felt the need to join the hospital staff in the main area for speech time.

“H-Hyunjin—” Changbin looks around, but literally no one is around right now, and so there are no witnesses to them both walking into one of the single-stall rooms.

Hyunjin locks the door behind them. Their very first one-to-one conversation after Hyunjin came back to SNUH was in a locked bathroom, what a bizarre parallel. This one is much fancier than the one at the dumpling place; a wide room with white marble tile and gold fixtures, a large individual sink that extends with counter space where scented hand lotion and a stack of individual hand wipes are neatly arranged next to a set of menstrual products. Changbin still remembers Hyunjin with water dripping down his face, not a paper towel in sight, saying Okay. And here we are.

“Hyunjin, what the—"

“Do you think,” Hyunjin starts, voice shaking. “That you could wait five minutes after I arrive to start flirting with Mingyu?”

“…Huh?”

Hyunjin is wearing foundation so it’s hard to tell if his face is red, but his neck and ears certainly are. “Now that you know my whole… deal, after I told you all that horrible, fucking crazy psycho stuff—” Hyunjin rasps, gesturing vaguely with his ring-adorned hand at the empty air as though to indicate the enormity of his confession. “Can’t you find it in your heart to… to spare me?”

“Spare you from what?” Oh God what is Hyunjin even talking about? Why did he have to paint his lips so red?

“I thought you’d be more considerate,” Hyunjin says, and he sounds accusing, so angry that it’s making Changbin hurt, making Changbin feel a sense of urgency to fix whatever caused this, but he is literally clueless. “I thought you’d at least wait.”

“Hyunjin. I don’t know what you mean,” he tries, as reasoned as he can be. Hyunjin is glaring at him, panting. “I-I try to be considerate of you—of everyone, always. What… what did I do?”

Hyunjin’s chest is heaving. Changbin has seen him angry so many times, and most of them angry at him—at Changbin specifically. This is the first time he’s seeing it so close and so well-illuminated; these bathroom lights are overbright, clinical, casting Hyunjin’s perfect face in sharp relief. Changbin can see the beads of sweat, the brush of highlighter, the dusting of eyeshadow. He can track the lipstick and how carefully it follows the vermillion border of Hyunjin’s lips; can imagine how delicately it must have been applied. Did Felix do it, or was it Hyunjin himself, in front of a mirror?

In this light, Hyunjin’s anger doesn’t look like anger at all. It looks like fear. It looks like desperation.

Has it always been this?

“I know it was a lot, to hear all at once,” Hyunjin grits out. “I know that. I’m not asking you to—I understand what you must be feeling, that you must be… weary. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck, for me, seeing you with other people—”

“I wasn’t flirting with Mingyu, Hyunjin.”

Hyunjin scowls.

“And I don’t know what you think is so horrible about your confession,” Changbin goes on. He wonders if this is it, if he is finally getting to speak. In this bathroom at this event, one locked door away from half the hospital, will he be able to make Hyunjin hear him? “But if you read my text messages you’d know that I am not weary, I just—"

“I read them.” Hyunjin sounds defensive.

“Then you didn’t understand them. I wanted to—"

“I understood you were being nice—"

“Hyunjin, you didn’t understand me—"

“What is there to understand? You’re normal and I’m insane, what is—”

“Yah! Can I talk?”

Hyunjin’s red mouth drops open.

Changbin didn’t mean to yell, but he is reaching some sort of boiling point. “You gave your speech. Can I give mine? Can I give you my answer?”

Hyunjin’s eyes flash, and it’s—it’s not anger at all, it’s terror, a sort of vulnerable panic that makes Changbin’s heart ache.

“I’m not scared of you, Hyunjin. I’m not weary.”

He sees him; he sees all that gnarly, complicated, gaping want and is… not repulsed, or squeamish. He can handle it; he’d like to be allowed to try.

Hyunjin just has to let him.

“Your confession was… intense. But it wasn’t too much.”

I couldn’t get you out of my head. I know you moved on. But I didn’t. I never did. I came here for you. I chose SNUH for you. I’m fucking obsessed with you.

“I was surprised, but I was also… really flattered.”

Hyunjin is trembling. It’s subtle but it’s there, and when he puts a hand on the lip of the sink to steady himself he actually draws even more attention to it.

“I like you, too. I was… happy, to hear you’d been thinking of me when we were apart. I thought about you too.”

There is a long, charged silence, broken only by the muffled voice of the chair of medicine speaking into his microphone back in the main hall, words indistinguishable. Whatever he is saying, it elicits a round of applause, distant but audible, the combined sound of hundreds of people politely clapping.

Hyunjin’s jaw clenches.

“I like you,” Changbin says again.

The words seem to finally prompt something in Hyunjin to kick-start as, in the background, the clapping dies down and the speech resumes.

“I don’t just like you,” Hyunjin says. His tone is tight, and his eyes are shining. He is still holding on to the lip of the sink like he’ll fall down if he doesn’t. “I told you; I’m obsessed with you.”

“That’s not—"

“I love you,” he interrupts.

Changbin stares at him.

“I love you,” Hyunjin says again, like it’s a trump card, like they are fighting and he pulled out an unexpected secret weapon. It’s almost a taunt: I love you, what are you gonna do about that, huh? How are you going to come back at me after that?

There’s only one thing Changbin can do, and that’s tell the truth, of course.

“I love you too, Hyunjin.”

Hyunjin’s shoulders slump, and he sways where he stands for a moment. Changbin almost reaches out to steady him, but Hyunjin rights himself at the last minute. He looks terrified, even more so than earlier. Maybe he wasn’t expecting Changbin to toss his secret weapon aside so easily. Maybe he thought the blow would hit its target instead of glancing off.

There’s another round of clapping outside, this one a little louder.

“The… the love is the least of it, hyung,” Hyunjin says finally, weakly. “You don’t get it, love is the starting point, for me, the rest is… it’s so much more than that. I might have crossed your mind once in a while, but you were at the forefront of mine every fucking day. My—the way I feel, it’s too much, it’s—”

“It’s not. It’s not too much—”

“Hyung—”

“Hyunjin, it’s not.”

Hyunjin is breathing so fast, he’s not steady, he’s going to fall—

Changbin puts his arms around his waist, and then Hyunjin is clutching at him with a harsh inhale.

It doesn’t hurt, only a residual soreness in the bones Changbin broke, and it’s worth it, to feel the desperate force of Hyunjin’s embrace. He’s too solidly built to buckle at that.

“Changbin, I can’t—be normal about you, I’m—”

“Stop saying that. What does normal even mean? Stop that.” Changbin strokes his back, holds him just as tightly to him. “I love you, okay? I love you, Hyunjin.”

Hyunjin muffles a sob into Changbin’s shoulder. “I get crazy at the thought of you with someone else,” he says, choked. “It makes me sick. I want to murder them. I want to go back out there and stab Mingyu with a fork for talking to you.”

Changbin takes that in, then keeps stroking him. “I still love you.”

“I-I’ve been creeping on your Instagram. I screenshot all your stories and keep them.”

“That’s fine.”

“I want to be your boyfriend.” As he talks, Hyunjin shifts more of his weight onto Changbin, steadily increasing how much of him Changbin is holding upright. Changbin is fine with it; with all of it. He can take all of it.

“I want to be your boyfriend too, Hyunjin.”

“I’m going to want to marry you.”

“Okay.”

Hyunjin shudders. “I want you to turn down an attending job SNUH and go work at Asan next year so that we don’t have to hide that we’re together.”

“Asan is a very prestigious institution, I’m sure it’ll be great to work there.”

“You can’t ever leave me. It’ll kill me, you can’t take it back after you’ve said it, you can’t—”

“I won’t.” Oh, that’s not healthy. None of this is, but Changbin doesn’t care. “I will never leave you, I will never take it back.” Is it realistic, to promise him that? Changbin. Doesn’t. Care.

A soft inhale. “Fuck,” Hyunjin whispers. “I’m so obsessed with you.”

Changbin smiles. “I still love you. I’m obsessed with you too.”

Hyunjin makes a pained noise, like he’s the injured one. “…This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening to me.”

“I love you,” Changbin says again. He thinks of the thorns, of the knives, of Hyunjin’s sharpness, the edges of him. All to protect this soft, needy core. Changbin made it to the center, and all in all he did so pretty unscathed. “I love you so much.”

“Oh my God,” Hyunjin gasps, shuddering again. “I’m gonna pass out, I’m so fucking serious.”

Changbin chuckles, certain that that’s not true. “You’re fine.”

“No I’m not.”

“I’ve got you. You’re fine.”

At this point Hyunjin is fully slumped into Changbin.

“Am I hurting you?”

“No, Hyunjin. Not at all.”

And Hyunjin whimpers again and finally, finally lets himself be held.

They spend a long time like that; the medicine chair’s speech ends with a final round of thunderous applause, Changbin suspects primarily due to relief from onlookers that he has stopped talking, and eventually people try the door a few times, but there are multiple other bathrooms so Changbin feels no need to leave. Instead he thinks of how many of their intimate moments have been behind locked doors, stifling their voices. He thinks about the fact that he is still Hyunjin’s chief and Hyunjin is still his intern, this is still not a good idea and it will very much be frowned upon, but there are only nine months left in the academic year and he can assign the brunt of Hyunjin’s grading and scheduling to San and Woo. They can work around this. They will make this work, the alternative is too hard to contemplate.

After a few minutes of holding up Hyunjin’s entire body weight, it occurs to Changbin that Hyunjin is slumping due to their height difference, and his back might be slightly uncomfortable.

So Changbin lifts him up by the thighs.

Hyunjin yelps, arms suddenly tensing around Changbin’s shoulders to keep his balance, but Changbin grunts with satisfaction and thinks: this is better. Hyunjin’s legs immediately wrapped around his waist, so Changbin carries him to the counter next to the sink, checking that it’s dry one-handed before depositing him there. He doesn’t step away from him after he does, though.

“Hyung, your ribs!” Hyunjin gasps, leaning back to look at Changbin. “Your spleen!”

“I’m fine.” He really is, it’s not that painful.

Hyunjin’s eyes track his face. He’s back to blushing, neck a splotchy red.

“You’re sure?”

Changbin nods with a little shrug. It’s really hard not to smile, with Hyunjin this close to him, with Hyunjin’s legs around his waist.

“That shit gets me crazy, you know that right?” Hyunjin says finally, still staring at him with those wide eyes. They are so pretty, so shiny.

“What does?” Changbin asks, even though he’s pretty sure he knows.

“The… the lifting and the… way that your body…” One of Hyunjin’s hands slides from his shoulder down to his pec, under the jacket to palm it over his black shirt. “How strong your body is,” he adds, squeezing. “Fuck. Changbin.” He squeezes it again, kneading, dropping his head down to Changbin’s opposite shoulder, pressing his heels into Changbin’s lower back to push them together. He’s fully wrapped around Changbin, a pretzel of warm limbs in a black suit.

Changbin hums in contentment, eyes drooping shut as Hyunjin gropes him.

“Hyung,” Hyunjin pants, rolling his hips to push his groin into Changbin’s stomach. He pops two buttons of Changbin’s dress shirt to slip his hand inside of it, grabbing him skin to skin. “Fuck.”

“Hyunjin-ah,” Changbin murmurs. “Is this the best—”

“I just wanna blow you,” Hyunjin breathes. “Please. Please, just… just let me do that and then we’ll go back out there, I’ll wait until we get home, promise.”

Changbin’s brain went offline for a moment, so it takes him a few seconds to gather himself and respond.

“O-okay.”

What? Hyunjin said he wants to blow him, he’s only human.

Somehow, that’s something they haven’t done before. Changbin gave Hyunjin a blowjob their first night together, but not the other way around (Hyunjin jerked him off while Changbin fingered him to completion before they had sex on the bed, on the floor and up against the wall). That being said Changbin has thought about the idea more than he cares to acknowledge.

“You don’t move,” Hyunjin says, and (reluctantly) takes his hand out of the shirt to hop off the counter and position Changbin against it, so he can fold to the floor in front of him.

Changbin is so hard he’s seeing spots.

Hyunjin is staring at the bulge in his crotch, hands on the buttons of his pants. When Changbin reaches down to help he slaps his hand away.

“Mine,” he snaps. “This is mine now.”

He grabs Changbin’s erection through the fabric, making Changbin choke and then he gets the buttons undone one-handed anyway, so he can tug the pants and Changbin’s underwear down past his raging hard-on, because he got so fucking hard so quickly, oh God.

“Hyunjin,” he gasps, staring down at Hyunjin’s blood-red lips hovering so close to him. “A-are you sure—”

Hyunjin tips forward to bury his face in his groin, inhaling loudly from the skin there.

“Fuck,” Changbin grunts. “Hyunjin, fuck.”

Hyunjin’s tongue slides against the silky, taut skin at the base of his dick and he mouths his way up Changbin’s erection, kissing it, licking it, smearing lipstick all over the shaft, and Changbin’s breathing stutters, hurts.

“Oh shit.” He has no control over what he’s saying. Hyunjin keeps letting his lips drag against him, and the sight is… dizzying, he’s so lightheaded, he’s steadying himself against the counter at either side but it’s not enough. “Hyunjin fuck the way you look tonight is unreal I can’t fucking breathe you’re so fucking beautiful I’m gonna lose my fucking mind—”

Hyunjin’s eyebrows scrunch like he’s in pain and he fastens his mouth around the head, slurping from it with a moan while he wraps a hand around the base. The rings are cold against Changbin’s sensitive skin, but somehow that feels good too. Hyunjin’s generous upper lip stretches and purses prettily as he sucks, no longer well-outlined in red; there are smears up to his nose. The way he moves and suckles on it can’t be described as anything other than worship, a fervent and devoted exaltation.

“Hyunjin oh my God, if you could see yourself right now—fuck you’re gorgeous, you’re so hot you look so fucking hot that’s so good that feels so fucking good—" Hyunjin twitches and hollows his cheeks, moaning again, taking him a bit deeper, and a lurch of heat kicks Changbin in the gut and he suddenly realizes he’s in danger. “Oh, oh fuck s-stop, wait, one second—”

He puts one hand on Hyunjin’s shoulder, pushing, and Hyunjin pulls back immediately, looking up with lost eyes. Changbin would describe the look as ‘innocent’, if Hyunjin wasn’t holding his leaking erection and staring at him with glossy precome-smeared lips. His mouth is ruined, but Changbin is about to paint it a color that further dilutes the red to pink.

“You okay?” Hyunjin asks, panting.

“M’gonna come,” Changbin admits hoarsely, blushing.

Hyunjin’s jaw drops open. He looks taken aback. “But I barely.” He gazes into Changbin’s face, absorbing this development. “Hyung. I barely touched you.” Then he leans forward, just a little. He’s still holding Changbin’s erection, pointing it towards his mouth, but he doesn’t touch his lips back to it yet. “You’re… that into this?”

Changbin squirms. “Uh.” It’s not any less hot, to be stared at by a debauched-looking Hyunjin kneeling a hair’s breadth away from his dick, with a mildly skeptical, disbelieving look on his face. “S-sorry.”

Hyunjin exhales, the warm air fanning over Changbin’s sensitive tip. He seems to consider this, then reach some sort of inner conclusion. “We can’t stay in here forever, it’s better if you come quick,” he says, and wraps his lips around Changbin again.

Changbin whimpers, head falling forward. He’s going to come right now. He’s not about to come ‘soon’, it’s going to be any second, he wasn’t bluffing, does Hyunjin not—

He puts the hand that was on Hyunjin’s shoulder in his hair, and Hyunjin shivers.

“Hyunjin that’s, it’s too—it’s too good, you’re so—” Hyunjin chokes on a whine around him, and Changbin gasps, tugging at his hair in warning. “Fuck I’m gonna come, fuck—” But Hyunjin doesn’t pull away, just swallows around him, the squeeze of his throat clenching wetly, warmly around the tip, and Changbin is undone—he keeps his hips pinned to the anchoring cold of the marble counter behind him, but he hunches forward and comes with a groan.

Hyunjin swallows every last drop of him, nursing until Changbin has nothing left, until he’s starting to get too sensitive and the gentle pushing away by Hyunjin’s hair has to become a firm pull to get him to unlatch. Hyunjin blinks owlishly, something dazed in his expression suggesting he was not aware that Changbin was done.

He licks his lips, and Changbin twitches.

“Fuck,” he rasps, helping Hyunjin to his feet.

Hyunjin is definitely wobbly, his balance off enough that he requires steadying. Changbin can feel the firm press of his erection against his hip when he leans into Changbin’s side for support.

“Can I…?”

“No,” Hyunjin slurs, hand pawing at Changbin’s chest. “I’ll—I just wanna—” He has found the unbuttoned hole in the shirt that he made earlier, and clumsily starts making it bigger, pulling, undoing more buttons. He’s half-draped over Changbin, grinding his erection into the plush side of Changbin’s ass. “I just wanna suck on them.”

Changbin just came, he can’t get hard again. No way.

“You… want to…”

“Suck on your tits. Jus’. It’ll only take a second, fuck.” He’s gotten enough buttons that he can open the shirt in a vee and he pushes Changbin back, bending him backwards onto the counter. He follows him down, hovering over him. “Jus’ for a second, okay? It’ll only take a second, please. Please.”

Changbin can’t unscramble his thoughts enough to speak, and then Hyunjin is latching onto his nipple while he manhandles the other pec in his hand, greedily palming and squeezing it, pushing at it, and Changbin is pretty sure he’s using his free hand to jerk himself off but he can’t see it from where he lies, arched back as he is.

“H-Hyunjin…”

Hyunjin makes a satisfied slurping sound that raises goosebumps all over Changbin, who cannot and should not get hard again, no matter what.

“M-my beautiful Hyunjin…”

Hyunjin whines, the wet slapping sound of him touching himself increasing in speed, and Changbin wishes he could see his face, wishes he could see the both of them from an outside perspective, what taller, lither Hyunjin looks like bent over him sucking on his nipple while he jerks off.

“I can’t believe you’re mine, Hyunjin, you’re so good, so good sweet thing I love you I can’t believe I’m yours—"

Hyunjin bites down and yelps, hips twitching forward in jerky movements, and Changbin feels him muffle a breathy moan into his chest.

After a few moments of panting into Changbin’s pec, he turns to rest his cheek on it. His left hand is still cupping the other one, greedy fingers dug into the soft flesh.

“Was that…?”

“Mh-hm.”

They both still and catch their breaths for a few moments more, coming down from it together. Changbin is so, so glad they are together.

“We should...”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

Hyunjin lifts off him and Changbin notes that he was polite enough not to get come on Changbin’s suit pants. He sets to cleaning while Hyunjin uses some of the tissues on himself, then tucks himself in and washes his hands.

Together, they dab Hyunjin’s face clean, taking most of the foundation and even some of the highlighter with them, though his eye make-up smeared attractively in a way that looks intentional. When it comes time to wipe off and reapply his lipstick, he lets Changbin try but then gives really harsh feedback on his technique, making Changbin laugh.

“Ah, you smudged it again, give me—”

Finally Hyunjin just takes the tube from him and leans towards the mirror, and Changbin watches as he carefully puts it on. It’s a precise, artistic process.

He’s back to half-hard by the time Hyunjin is done.

Their eyes meet in the mirror and Changbin gives him an apologetic smile, which makes Hyunjin snort fondly. “You have a thing.”

“Oh, yeah.” There’s no point in arguing about the truth.

At last, they are mostly put together, and after a final mutual once-over it’s time to go. Hyunjin will exit first and Changbin will follow in thirty seconds.

“Hyunjin.” Changbin pauses right before getting the door for him. “Please don’t avoid me again? If you’re… upset, or unsure about anything. Please don’t ignore me.”

Hyunjin’s eyes soften, contrition in the slant of his brows. “I’m sorry, hyung.” He thinks about it for a moment and then pulls his phone out of his pocket, tapping at it for a moment before he shows Changbin something on the screen.

It’s their fairly dry text thread, ending with a message from Changbin that says Hyunjin please not even a phone call?

His number is at the top, unsaved.

Changbin opens his mouth in shock as Hyunjin quickly types something else in, then shows him the screen again. This time he’s pulled up Changbin’s contact, where he filled in the line for Changbin’s name as ‘Seo Binnie’, the pink heart next to it.

Changbin snorts, smiling and feeling the need to pull his own phone out, editing the ‘Dr Hwang Hyunjin – SNUH’ to say ‘Hwang Hyunjinnie’ with three red hearts. He shows Hyunjin this, who bites his lower lip completely unintentionally this time, eyes shiny and bright.

“I’m going to need you to talk to me more, okay? You see why having a conversation was necessary, right?” Changbin adds, one last little push.

Hyunjin huffs. “Yes, but I hated it.”

“No you didn’t.”

They both smile; a grin on Changbin and a tentative, vulnerable look of hope on Hyunjin.

“…No, I didn’t,” he concedes, and walks out, looking back over his shoulder at Changbin the whole time.

Seungmin

They end up sitting in a little group around one of the circular tables, having covertly loaded their plates with food from the buffet during the chair of internal medicine’s speech.

The hospital spared no expense on this event, which makes Seungmin remember the ICU nurses complaining about the lack of equipment for their patients in isolation rooms with disdain. He should probably aim to become department chair one day just so he can sit at a table with the person who proposes these budget decisions and tell them ‘no’.

“Hyung,” Jeongin mutters. “How much longer do you wanna stay?”

Seungmin leans towards him, suppressing an inward smile. They have spent every waking hour together the whole week, and sleeping has only happened with them side by side, but there hasn’t been much of it. Seungmin feels jittery, like he’s been laced with amphetamines, or steroids, an energy he didn’t know he was storing inside himself. Jeongin’s voracious need for him is on a level Seungmin is shocked he can keep up with, but it turns out that they are more than a match.

“We can leave in an hour,” he says. Jeongin looks so good in his dark blue suit. Then his gaze drops to Jeongin’s lips, which Felix put some gloss on a few minutes ago. “Uh, make that half. Half an hour.”

Jeongin smiles. “Okay.”

“Hey, Seungmin,” Jisung waves at him across the table. “Felix just had a great idea.”

Seungmin looks to Felix, who sat between Minho and Jeongin instead of sitting next to Chan, which was smart because those two look at each other in ways that make Seungmin squirm sometimes—distance will be necessary if they want to keep their relationship hidden for the next few years.

“What’s up?”

“I know Jeongin is leaving on Monday,” Felix says, nodding at Jeongin and oblivious to the stab of pain Seungmin just felt. “So I thought we could have a goodbye dinner for him on Sunday. You’ll be post-call, right? Jisung is working the day shift but Hyunjin is off and I’ll be post-overnight, so we should all be good to meet up by eight at night or so. What do you guys think?”

Seungmin can’t look at Jeongin suddenly. He’s not sure why; it’s a sweet idea on his friends’ part. They are Jeongin’s friends too, of course they want one more evening with him before he goes. But if he’s doing his math right that means that tonight is his last night with him: they both work tomorrow morning and Jeongin will leave after twelve hours but Seungmin will be stuck in the ICU for twenty-four, and by the time he makes it home it’ll be Sunday morning and he’ll need to sleep if he wants to wake in time for this dinner. On Jeongin’s last night in Seoul.

“No pressure, Ien-ah!” Jisung says. “But we’d love to see you and hang out with you one more time.”

Minho takes his hand over the table.

“I could host,” Felix says with a smile. The glitter under his eyes shimmers.

“That’s... amazing.” Jeongin looks shocked. “Hyung, thank you so much. O-of course I would love that.”

Okay. Okay, that’s fine. It’ll be fine.

“Amazing! It’s a done deal then.” Felix clinks champagne glasses with Jeongin, who bows deferentially before turning to drink his.

Seungmin’s mood just plummeted to his feet, but then he sees who is approaching their table and it gets abysmally worse. It’s not his father: Kim Kyubok isn’t here tonight because he told Seungmin that he preferred to celebrate Chuseok with Seungmin’s mother (Seungmin was invited to join them, which he declined, though it was a pleasant surprise). No, it’s someone way worse.

It’s Dr. Park.

Chan spots him next; Seungmin can tell because he suddenly sits up.

“What—"

Felix turns right as JYP reaches them, and he startles when he catches sight of him standing right behind the back of his chair.

“S-sunbaenim!” He stands and bows. No one else stands but they all bow as well, to varying degrees (even Seungmin inclines his head due to habit) except Chan, whose twitch cannot be described as such.

“Dr. Lee.”

Seungmin is displeased to note that JYP looks drunk. His face is beefy red, and he sounds slurred.

“I was hoping to see you here tonight.”

Chan gets up. He doesn’t say anything, but a threat is heavily implied in the abrupt scrape of his chair.

“Y-you were?”

JYP looks at him in a way no one should ever look at Felix: a disdain that makes Seungmin ball his hands into fists, just like Chan is doing.

“I was advised to retire as program director last week,” JYP says. “I figure I have you to thank for that.”

“...Me?”

Chan takes a step forward; he sat next to Jisung, so he’s three spaces down from Felix.

“I was told my views are ‘old-fashioned’,” JYP says, miming an air quote that’s full of mockery and swaying where he stands. He puts a hand on the back of Felix’s chair to steady himself; Felix never sat back down so it looks like he’s circling him, and definitely leaning further into his personal space than is appropriate. “Who would that come from but you?”

"Back away from the intern, Dr. Park." Chan takes another step; he’s breathing through his nose, panting like a bull.

Chan

He can’t punch him he can’t punch him he has to be strong for Felix’s sake Felix would not want this he can’t punch him—

Seungmin

“I was told my ‘outdated opinions’ had hurt some feelings,” JYP goes on, ignoring Chan's warning with an eyeroll. “You residents have no resilience these days. Everything has to be catered to you, every one of you thinks you are a special little snowflake—"

“That’s enough,” Chan snaps, shoving his way between Felix and JYP, bodily pushing the former PD away from Felix.

JYP stumbles back, clumsy in his intoxicated state.

Seungmin sticks his foot out.

JYP trips and falls backwards with a yell, arms flailing. He crashes to the floor dramatically, a loud thump that draws a lot of attention around them and quiets the chatter in their vicinity.

Seungmin smiles faintly at the sight.

“Yah!” JYP scrambles to right himself, glaring at Felix. He looks furious, but Chan steps in front of him; despite being around Felix’s height he is much bigger, and his shoulders are so much broader that he probably covers him from view completely. “Who do you—"

“Dr. Park, you’re drunk,” Chan says loudly. “You should probably go home.”

A frisson of scandal travels through their onlookers, and whispers erupt all around. At a quick glance, Seungmin spots a lot of ER staff that he knows including San and Wooyoung, but also a handful of the surgery residents, and ICU medical residents, as well as an ortho surgeon and two neurologists. The chair of the department of psychiatry almost drops her glass in shock.

“Bang,” JYP snarls, stumbling back up to his feet. “You were a good resident, but as an attending you’ve been nothing but trouble.”

Chan looks like he took that as a compliment.

“Your generation is so caught up in wellness and wokeness that you’re going to be worse doctors because you haven't worked hard enough during your training—"

“Sleep it off, Dr. Park,” Minho cuts in, standing up as well. He hasn’t let go of Jisung’s hand, and JYP’s gaze travels to them. It turns scornful when he sees their joined hands.

“You’re a nurse,” he says. “You don’t understand the kind of grit required for residency training.”

Jisung gets to his feet, and at this point Seungmin is starting to feel left out so he does too, Jeongin following his lead.

“No one works harder than a nurse,” Jisung says heatedly, and JYP raises his palms.

“I didn’t mean to insult your boyfriend.”

He says boyfriend like that’s an insult, too. Jisung steps forward but Minho tugs him back, looking entirely unbothered by JYP’s comments and instead gazing fondly at his partner. “He’s not worth it, jagyia,” he murmurs, smiling. Jisung still looks furious.

“Clinging to outdated views is equivalent to practicing non-evidence-based medicine,” says Seungmin. “Similarly to how you should change your practice based on new research articles, so should you check your prejudices as the world slowly becomes a better, more inclusive place.”

“Kim.” Dr. Park rounds on him. “You’ve been out of line since the first day, your parents must be so disappointed."

“Hey—” Jeongin starts, but Chan steps forward, putting his arms out like he’s shielding them all behind him.

“Leave,” says Chan, firmly. “You should leave now.”

JYP glares at the lot of them, paying particular, venomous attention to Chan standing protectively in front of everyone.

“So this is the future of medical training,” he says, shaking his head.

“Don’t worry Dr. Park, since you’re not program director anymore you’re not going to have any part in it.”

That was Felix.

Specifically that was Felix, with an angelic, reassuring smile, leaning sideways behind Chan so he could look JYP in the eye when he said that.

JYP is apparently speechless, as he lets out a strangled sound and finally notices just how many people are watching his little tantrum unfold. They’ve gathered quite an audience at this point, and the chagrin and secondhand embarrassment on everyone’s faces is clear, and unanimous. The whole outburst constituted a fireable offense, Seungmin can’t wait to email Dr. Kim about it and cc all their witnesses. They are going to get him kicked out of SNUH for good.

JYP storms away, and after a few beats of stunned silence there seems to be a collective release of tension, with smiles and sighs of relief breaking out across the room. Iseul, the ICU senior, mimics silent clapping. Mingyu is clearly muffling laughter into Hongjoong’s shoulder. Wooyoung blows their table a kiss.

Chan turns to face them, but he’s really just looking at Felix, his entire frame vibrating with tension.

“I didn’t punch him,” he says. “I-I didn’t punch him.”

“I’m so proud of you, hyung,” Felix says softly, so that only the six of them might overhear. His hand twitches towards Chan but he keeps it by his side. “I know that took a lot. I didn’t want you to, okay? I don’t want you to get fired.”

“...And I’m not going to chase him outside and beat him up,” Chan says, with a touch more uncertainty.

“That’s right,” Felix says, chuckling fondly. “You’re going to sit back down and finish your dinner.”

“...Okay. Okay.”

Chan walks slowly back to his chair, and Jisung pats him on the shoulder when he sits.

“We’re all proud of you, Dr. Bang. That must have taken a lot of restraint.”

“Thanks, Jisung.”

“Okay wait,” Minho says, lowering his voice. “I’m not crazy, right? Seungmin totally tripped him.”

Seungmin smirks, and Felix bursts into laughter. “I saw that too!”

*

They have fun recounting the incident to Changbin and Hyunjin when they join their table soon after, by which point Chan seems calmer and Jeongin has started to seem... antsy.

Seungmin might be feeling a bit antsy too; he loves his friends, but he has so much time with them to look forward to.

“And then Seungmin totally stuck his foot out and tripped him!” Felix says, eyes wide.

Hyunjin snorts, gaze fixing on Seungmin. “Wow,” he says. “You’re my new favorite.”

“Um, ouch?” Jisung says.

“Felix is the runner up,” Hyunjin tells him flatly, and Jisung gasps and clutches a hand to his chest.

“I’m at the bottom of the Bang gang?” Jisung cries, and the four non-interns at the table look confused.

“The Bang gang?” Chan asks.

Jisung makes a hilarious expression, mouth in a perfect circle.

“Oh no,” he says.

Hyunjin laughs.

It’s not a snort, not a sneer, it’s full-blown laughter, and it’s loud. Seungmin has never heard him make that sound before; he’s never seen him so outwardly delighted; he throws his head back and then curls towards Changbin and grabs his bicep as if for purchase, body shaking with the giggles that rock his frame.

“What’s so funny?” Minho asks, brows quirked with amusement.

Felix is blushing, but he’s also looking at Hyunjin as he comes down from his little outburst. He looks like he’s never seen him do that before, either.

Changbin is smiling gently down at his lap.

Seungmin missed something. Maybe they all did, this time.

“The Bang gang,” Hyunjin explains, grinning. “Is me, Felix, Seungmin and Jisung.”

Chan is smiling tentatively too, but he still looks confused.

“Uh. Is it Bang as in...?”

“As in you, yes,” Felix says. He’s smiling so big, despite his prominent blush. “It’s the name of our group-chat. Jisung made it.”

“The name of your group-chat is ‘the Bang gang’?” Minho asks Jisung.

“...No.” Jisung looks mortified, but there’s a breathy, hysterical giggle that escapes him every few seconds. “Ohmygod, I never thought this day would come.”

“What?” Chan asks.

Seungmin is going to have to take this matter into his own hands. “The name is I wish Dr Bang would bang me.” His English isn’t perfect, but it’s passable enough to pronounce that.

There’s a beat of silence.

Minho breaks it. “You wrote that?” He asks Jisung calmly.

“I-I hadn’t even met you!” Jisung yelps. “And anyway it was about Felix!”

Felix shushes him, though no one is close enough to their table of eight to overhear.

“It was about Felix?” Chan asks. He’s blushing too.

“You are very conventionally attractive. We all thought so,” Seungmin clarifies. Jeongin’s hand comes down to grip his thigh, and Seungmin feels the need to add: “But it was pretty obvious that Felix was the one with an instant crush on you.”

Chan blushes ever harder, and Felix shushes Seungmin.

“He already knows that, can we stop talking about this?”

“I never want to stop talking about this,” Hyunjin says, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in his chair, grinning.

“No, let’s definitely stop talking about this and start talking about what the fuck is going on with you,” Jisung says, pointing an accusing finger at Hyunjin. His other hand has been kidnapped by Minho again.

Hyunjin raises an eyebrow. “What makes you think something is going on?”

Jisung mouths wordlessly for a few moments. “I... I don’t know! There’s a vibe about you.”

“A vibe,” Hyunjin echoes, still with that air of enjoyment about him.

“A... chill vibe. A happy vibe.”

Hyunjin purses his lips (his lipstick doesn’t seem to be very durable; the corner of his mouth has a smudge and he hasn’t even started eating yet) and shrugs. Then he schools his expression into something colder, more like the face Seungmin is used to.

“But I’m always such a chill, happy fun guy,” he deadpans.

Felix leaps to his feet.

“Hyunjin,” he gasps, and he’s looking from Hyunjin to Changbin and back. “Did you two...?”

There’s a pregnant pause.

“…Fuck in the bathroom? Who do you think I a—"

“I meant ‘talk it out’! Confess!”

“Oh, that.”

Him and Changbin exchange a look, and Hyunjin smiles. Changbin hadn’t really stopped his own fond smiling, at any point.

Seungmin, for once, gets it without needing to hear the words.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, we. Talked.” Hyunjin ducks his head, like there’s a chance they won’t see how big his smile is. “Changbin is like, obsessed with me, so we’re together now.”

Felix makes a high pitched noise and Chan yells “No way!” happily, also leaping to his feet. Jisung slaps a hand over his mouth dramatically, and Jeongin’s hand on Seungmin’s thigh clenches harder in his excitement. Minho reaches across and high fives Hyunjin with a grin.

“It’s true,” Changbin says, not a trace of a lie in his voice.

Chan breaks into a run and rushes around the table to his side, throwing himself over Changbin’s shoulders to hug him from the back.

“Channie—”

“This is amazing! Binnie I am so happy for you!”

Changbin laughs and Hyunjin giggles, but he also grabs Chan’s arms to untangle them from around Changbin, replacing them with his own.

“This is the best night ever,” Jisung declares. “I just saw JYP fall on his ass and all my friends are happy, what the hell more could I ask for?”

They all laugh and cheer, and Seungmin tries very hard not to think about how he’s going to feel in three days as he claps along.

*

“Can we go now?” Jeongin asks Seungmin in an undertone fifteen minutes later. Between the JYP incident and Hyunjin and Changbin’s return to the group, they are closer to the hour mark at this point.

Jeongin’s hand didn’t leave Seungmin’s thigh after landing on it, but it has slowly crept up higher, and Seungmin stopped paying attention to the conversation shortly after they established that Changbin and Hyunjin are in love and everyone is happy.

“Absolutely.”

Seungmin sees no reason to explain himself, but he has the excuse he needs in his early start time in the ICU tomorrow, so him and Jeongin deliver fairly hasty goodbyes and retreat.

Once outside the venue, their steps speed up as Seungmin calls them a car, clumsy fingers requesting the faster ‘priority’ option, suddenly in a rush.

The driver arrives after an endless minute.

“I can’t stay over tonight,” Jeongin whispers. The moment they are both seated in the back of the rideshare his hand returns to Seungmin’s thigh, aided by the privacy darkness affords them. “I have to go back to my place to change into scrubs before the shift.”

“I washed the set you left at mine the night Changbin got hurt,” Seungmin says, having planned for this particular snafu. He is unwilling to give up any time with Jeongin, even time spent unconscious in the same room as him. “Stay.”

“Oh. I... forgot.”

“Please stay.”

Jeongin smiles. “Okay, hyung.”

His hand inches higher, and he spends the remainder of the ride torturing Seungmin until the car comes to a stop in front of the luxury high-rise building.

Seungmin pushes him against the corner of the elevator when they are finally inside, kissing him until Jeongin is gasping, as close to the edge as he drove him with that damn hand, pawing at Seungmin’s body and arching into him. He makes a moue of distress when Seungmin wrenches away once they get to his floor, chasing him out and crowding him against his own door when Seungmin is too slow to key-in the code. His mouth fastens to the back of Seungmin’s neck, his hard cock pushes against Seungmin’s ass through their clothes, and they stumble inside with breathless panting.

They are greeted by the night sky through the windows, and the thought that this is their last time together hits Seungmin like a bullet.

He stumbles again, but it’s not a good kind of stumble, not the kind of clumsy walk brought about by arousal-heavy legs.

Jeongin can tell.

“Hyung? Are you okay?”

He feels like crying. It’s so abrupt, he doesn’t understand it at all. He was so turned on and so excited to sublimate that feeling, and he’s suddenly about to burst into tears.

“J-Jeongin-ah.”

Jeongin must sense something in his voice, a request Seungmin didn’t know he was making, because he steps into his arms and hugs him.

“I’m.” It might hurt Jeongin, to hear this. But he has to tell him for fear of hurting him if he’s not honest. “I’m. Thinking of how much I will miss you.”

Jeongin stills, then clutches him harder.

“Hyung.”

Seungmin holds the tears at bay, fighting the tight sob in his throat.

“Sorry,” he whispers.

“Don’t… no, that’s… don’t be sorry. I will miss you too. So much.” Jeongin kisses his shoulder and goes back to resting his cheek on it. There’s an expectant silence, except Seungmin isn’t sure what he’s expecting from it. “I don’t… want to miss you,” Jeongin adds.

Seungmin stills. What is the implication of that? Can he ask?

“I guess. I guess what I mean by that,” Jeongin goes on, because of course he does, of course he knows what Seungmin needs. “Is that I wish I could… look forward to seeing you again. I think that would. Be.”

Oh God. The want wraps around his windpipe—if only he could. If they could. His vision blurs; if he blinks the tears will fall. He can’t speak, even though he thinks Jeongin might want him to respond in some way.

“I’m going to come back in six months,” Jeongin says gently, and tries to pull away, but Seungmin isn’t ready. “We could still… talk. Over the phone, and.” Jeongin takes a deep breath; Seungmin feels it expand against his own chest. “We could visit each other?”

Seungmin considers it. He has considered it, he realizes; in his furthest fantasies, in the corners of his mind he was avoiding spending time in, he had considered it. But it was so much to ask of Jeongin, and he had thought—he had imagined that Jeongin’s life would be easier, if he could simply move on, and find someone less complicated, someone whose family was warm and who didn’t need things explained to him sometimes that other people simply, inherently know.

He has made a complete mess of everything, but maybe.

Maybe.

They can find happiness too, out of this mess.

“Would you... want that?” Jeongin asks.

Seungmin pulls back from the hug finally to look at him, but he keeps his arms around Jeongin’s chest.

“Yes. If you do, then I also. I really really want that, Ien-ah.”

The tears win the fight, but it’s because Seungmin was distracted by how happy he is. Can they just... keep this? Does he get to keep seeing Jeongin for… months? Years?

“I told my parents about you. You could come and stay with us, they are dying to meet you, they will love you so much, like I love y—” Seungmin cuts him off with a kiss, jittery with happiness, then realizes that was rude and pulls back.

“Yes, I… yes,” he gasps. “I want to meet them. And I will miss you anyway, but. We could talk? And. When you come back, we could…”

“…Date?” Jeongin is smiling. What a perfect smile he has, God.

“Yes. Yes, please, yes.”

Jeongin’s smile gets bigger. “Okay. Yes, I want that too.”

Seungmin has to kiss him again then, he has to. It’s wet and messy, his tears transferring to Jeongin’s cheeks, but Jeongin doesn’t seem to mind. He hums happily into Seungmin’s mouth and gives and takes, and it is so, so different to think of missing him for a while compared to missing him for ever—plus Seungmin will get so much work done on the train.

Chan

He’s a doctor, and he is supposed to want to heal people, not harm them, but Felix is literally the only thing preventing him from tracking down JYP and beating him to a pulp.

He’s reminding himself that Felix said ‘I didn’t want you to, okay? I don’t want you to get fired’ in order to prevent the satisfaction of pleasing Felix from being outrun by blind anger and fury, but he can do this. He can be good for Felix, he can do (or in this case, not do) what Felix wants.

He balances the two glasses of champagne he got for Felix and himself on one hand, trying to decide if he can fit the ones for Jisung and Minho in the other, when a hand touches his back.

“Hey.”

It’s Nari. He knows her voice even before turning around, but then he does and it is.

She looks good, pretty and relaxed, her hair in uncharacteristic waves around her shoulders. She also put more effort into her dress and make-up than is usual for her.

“Hey, Nari-ah.”

She smiles, a little wistfully. They’ve been calling each other ‘Dr. Bang’ and ‘Dr. Choi’ these days, he supposes. “Hey Channie.”

She doesn’t look hurt or angry or reproachful the way she did the night they broke up. She just seems tentative, and a little out of character for it.

“How are things? Is it okay that I ask?”

Chan nods, giving up on the extra two champagne glasses.

“Things are good,” he admits, wanting to remain polite and kind, holding back. He can’t exactly tell her ‘I’ve never been this happy, I’m so in love with this man I’m trying to figure out how soon is too soon to secretly propose to him’.

He’s also conscious of the people who are casting them covert glances, no doubt unable to hear what they are saying but excited to report that the exes were seen talking to each other at the event. “How about you?”

She nods back, a little flushed maybe, and smiles. Some internal conflict seems to be playing out, because she says: “Good, honestly,” and seems to mean it, but it does not seem like that is all.

Chan waits her out, owing her that much, surely.

“This is.” She laughs breathily, rolling her eyes at herself, and Chan smiles. “This is dumb, but I. Can I. Um. Ask you a question, actually?”

“Uh. Sure?” In truth, Chan is not sure. He will not divulge Felix’s identity, and he will not answer any questions about him. He may not answer her at all, depending on what Nari—

“How did you know you were bisexual?”

Out of all the questions in the world, that is the last one he expected.

“…Huh?” He blinks. “Wait, what?”

She’s blushing. Nari is not just ‘a little flushed’, she is blushing. Chan has never seen her blush. Ever. Even when they started dating, she was always so cool, so badass, so focused on work.

“Uh. Just. I’m. Curious.” She looks mortified. “I-I’m sorry to—I remember you telling me it happened in high school, but I was wondering how…? I-I don’t know who to talk to about it.”

Chan knows his jaw dropped. “Talk to about what?”

She takes one of the glasses on the table and sips it, even though sparkling alcohol didn’t use to be her thing. “I’ve. This is not about you falling for a man, t-to be clear.” She sips the drink again. “I-I’ve just. Been thinking.”

Chan is… smiling. Smiling big.

“Have you been thinking about someone who isn’t a man?” he asks, delighted. They broke up a month and a half ago, and he already knew that neither of them were particularly invested in the relationship at that time, he felt that Nari knew it too. But to hear objective evidence that she is moving on at such a rapid pace gives him so much joy—and, if he’s honest with himself, it gives him relief.

Nari has almost finished the drink. “Ugh.” She makes a face. “I really don’t know who to talk to about this, I need more friends.” She shoots him a look. “More queer friends, at any rate.”

“What about talking to the person you’ve been thinking about?”

“Absolutely not, are you crazy?” she scoffs. “I need to figure my shit out before I approach her. I need to be good at it. And I have to wait a year, anyway.”

Chan has a thought.

“Is she a resident?” he asks, lowering his voice further. “Nari-ah. Is she a third-year ER resident?”

Nari looks panicked.

Chan is not used to seeing these kinds of emotions play across her features, she looks so animated, so… invested. She doesn’t look cool at all.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he adds. “But to answer your original question, I had a friend in high school who I was… really into, in more ways than made sense for a friendship. Eventually I realized I had romantic feelings for them, when they started dating someone and I was crushed. Like, heartbroken.”

“Hm. Okay.” She’s still agitated, but trying to smother it. “O-okay, I just. I’m just.” She huffs out a breath. “I-I think our break-up is forcing me to take a look at my love life and my, like, outside-of-work feelings, and…” she puts down her empty glass. “And the conclusions are… confusing.”

Chan tries to curb the wattage of his dumb grin a little bit, out of politeness. “Gotcha. Well, I’m proud of you for reflecting. It’s never late to realize things, or want new things—”

“Oh please, spare me the lecture—”

“Hey! It’s an important lecture! Fighting, Nari!”

“Ugh!” she shoves him, jostling the glasses a little, but Chan is careful not to spill them. One of them is for Felix, after all. “Okay, I’m sorry if it’s weird that I brought that up.” She smiles. “I appreciate you, Channie.” The wistful thing in her eyes is back, and her smile doesn’t dim at all when she adds: “And it is very good to see you so happy. I’m really glad you’re happy.”

Something catches in Chan’s throat. “Thanks,” he says. “Thank you, Nari. Really.”

With a nod and a little salute, Nari sweeps away, undoubtedly eliciting a wave of gossip and whispers behind her. The rumor mill regarding their break-up eventually settled on her having ended things, which is technically true so Chan felt no need to correct it. And it keeps suspicions off Chan’s love life, the narrative instead spinning in the direction of Nari having lost patience with the long engagement and looking to find someone who is ready to commit to her.

He's sure Seri will be up to task, when the time comes.

*

“I saw Dr. Choi approach you,” Felix whispers as soon as Chan sits back down. “I-I wanted to come over but then I thought that’d be a bad idea, was it—are you okay?”

He let himself sit next to Felix because it was either him or, on the other end of the table, Minho, and Minho is leaning very heavily into Jisung’s space and saying something in his ear that is making Jisung squirm and blush.

“I’m fine,” Chan smiles, fighting the urge to lean similarly closely to Felix. Instead he places the champagne glass in front of Felix and then the other in front of himself, facing his nearly empty plate.

“What did she want?”

Felix is also facing forward, but he’s slanted his gaze Chan’s way, Chan can tell because he is doing the same.

“She wanted to say hi.” Chan lowers his voice enough that no one, not even their friends at the table, will hear him other than Felix. “It was chill. I think we’ll be fine, honestly. We’re not going to be friends or anything, but I think we’ll come out of the whole situation with a… mutual respect. And I have hopes for her future happiness, which she deserves, so. So that’s good.”

There’s a soft sigh from Felix. Then: “I love you so much. You know that, right? You know that?”

“I do, Felix.” God help him.

And then Felix adds, even more quietly: “And you didn’t forget that you’re mine?”

Chan puts down his chopsticks with a thud, causing the rest of the group to level startled looks at him.

“Uh, sorry,” he tells them, smoothing his napkin nervously. He chances a quick darting look around and then grabs Felix’s hand under the tablecloth, squeezing his cute little fingers in his own.

“You didn’t, right Chan-hyung?” Felix whispers, and Chan can hear his smile.

“N-no. No, Felix, I didn’t. I’m yours.” His voice is a whisp, barely audible, but the words are the truest he has ever said. “I’m always yours.”

Felix squeezes him back, a promise.

Hyunjin

Felix corners him just as Hyunjin emerges from actually using the bathroom.

“Hyunjin. Oh my God,” he says, like he gets it. Like he understands just how momentous the thing that happened to Hyunjin tonight is.

“He said he loves me,” Hyunjin blurts, unable to contain his glee. “He... I said the most insane shit to him I’ve ever spoken aloud, and he just... accepted it. Accepted me. He loves me even though I’m crazy!”

“You’re not crazy!” Felix counters immediately, indignant. “Why would you say that?”

They wander over to a corner that’s relatively empty, by the desserts table. There’s a shaved ice station with a man actively preparing the individual cups, so most people are crowding that area instead of the pre-cut cakes and melting room-temperature cream puffs.

“Felix, last week I told him that I’ve been in love with him since we slept together when I was a med student, and that I declined an offer from Asan Medical in order to do my residency at SNUH just so I could be close to him.”

Felix’s pretty little mouth drops open.

“...No way.”

“I swear to you. I perseverated on our night together for months, and when the time came to choose I changed the course of my entire career—"

“Oh I believe that, I just can’t believe you told him! I’m so proud of you!”

Hyunjin falters, then feels his face break into a smile.

“... Thanks, Felix.” He feels an impulse, and lets himself follow it and hug Felix tightly.

Felix hugs him back. “I am so happy for you, Hyunjin.”

“Thank you.”

They hold each other for a while, and Hyunjin lets himself bask, lets himself feel the joy, tries hard not to be afraid of it going away and just enjoy the moment. Changbin had sounded so sure. So certain. He has to believe him. If Changbin says something then he means it, and that means it’s true.

“Hyunjin-ssi, can I… ask you something?”

“Sure. What is it?”

Felix pulls back from the hug and holds Hyunjin’s face in his cute little hands, close enough that it almost feels like he’s going to kiss him on the mouth.

“Can I please fix your lipstick?”

Hyunjin explodes into laughter—an alien, ripping uncontrolled feeling that has him nearly doubling over. “Yes!” he wheezes, excited to tell Felix all about how he messed it up in the first place. “Yes, please yes!”

*

They return to their table a good thirty minutes later because there was a lot of taking make-up breaks so that Hyunjin could answer Felix’s very detailed questions, and they are both flushed after the amount of depth the topic required. Hyunjin discovered he doesn’t mind Felix picturing Changbin having sex as long as it’s sex with Hyunjin.

Only Chan and Changbin are left at their little round table, sitting next to each other. Seungmin and Jeongin left a while ago, and Hyunjin spots Minho and Jisung chatting with a giddy-looking Seri in a corner with a couple of other nurses, all of them listening to her talk while gesticulating a lot; hopefully about her lengthy conversation with Dr. Choi.

Both seniors watch Hyunjin and Felix’s approach with similar expressions again, and this time Hyunjin lets himself enjoy the expectant, still slightly stunned look on Changbin’s gorgeous features. That’s mine, he thinks of Changbin’s kind eyes. That’s mine, he thinks of those shoulders. His hands. His arms. His endless well of patience. His whip-smart brain. His leadership skills. His pecs. His shoulders. His perfect fucking shoulders.

“Hey,” he sits down next to Changbin and basks in the awe on his face like a flower turning to the sun.

“Hey. You guys were in there a while.”

“Felix had to fix my make-up.”

Changbin nods, examining Hyunjin’s face. “You look really beautiful,” he says, and Hyunjin is kind of done being at this Chuseok event, actually. He needs to have sex with Changbin six more different ways, he needs Changbin to say he loves him ten times in a row, he needs to be in a room alone together with him and no one else and he needs that now.

He whispers as much in his ear, testing him, testing his resolve, and Changbin just shrugs and goes: “Yeah, let’s get out of here,” which only makes Hyunjin love him more.

“Bye,” he cackles at Felix, waving.

“You’re leaving?” Felix and Chan exchange a look. “Aren’t the chiefs from every department expected to stay until the end?”

Oh. Hyunjin didn’t know that—

“San and Woo owe me like, a hundred favors,” Changbin says, already out of his seat. “Have a good night guys, don’t forget to space out your exits by a good ten minutes.” And he takes Hyunjin’s hand and leads him out of the venue.

*

They go to Hyunjin’s apartment, and he’s riding his high of newfound love so mindlessly that he doesn’t realize it’s a mistake until he is literally opening the door for Changbin to walk in.

And then it hits him.

The drawings. The sketches… fuck. He put them back up.

He’s proud of them, is the thing. In his own secret, twisted way, he thinks they came out beautiful, and he didn’t think Changbin would end up back here, not tonight, not in a million years. He didn’t think to take them down again, to edit the space so it was less creepy, the way he did last time.

The only way to prevent Changbin from seeing them is to stop him from turning on the lights and by kissing him senseless, of course. Maybe in the morning Hyunjin will feel even braver than he’s been tonight, and burden Changbin with one more confession, one more overbearing want.

I drew you. For months, I drew you.

He wants to be scared, but remembering how every revelation he flung at Changbin was accepted makes him... hope. Hope that this one won’t be the one that makes him agree with Hyunjin, that there is such a thing as ‘too much’.

“Fuck, Hyunjin,” Changbin pants, grabbing him by the waist. “I flatlined for like a good ten minutes when I first saw you in this getup, I swear. The fucking lipstick—"

Hyunjin’s stomach lurches, thrilled at the admission. Changbin’s face had looked really stupid.

“Yeah, you looked really stupid,” he hisses, even as Changbin grabs his suit jacket and tugs it down his arms. Hyunjin wants to do the same to him but his wrists end up trapped behind his back, tangled in the jacket, and Changbin doesn’t help him because he’s too busy undoing the buttons at the front of his silky red shirt.

“You make me stupid,” Changbin agrees, focused on his task. Hyunjin can’t move his arms, isn’t feeling coordinated enough to successfully detangle the fabric wrapped around them. “I mean God, look at you.” He splays his hands over Hyunjin’s collarbones, spilling the open shirt over his shoulders and looking at his neck, his exposed chest, abs, waist. Hyunjin is on fire, ears buzzing with the praise. It’s all he’s wanted, all he’s ever wanted—"Fucking Christ.”

Hyunjin’s silk shirt also bunches by his jacket sleeves and he’s still trapped, arms behind his back. He looks at Changbin looking at him, at the smears of red Hyunjin left on his mouth from their kissing. He feels insane from wanting him, like he should be in a straightjacket from how much he loves this man; the position he’s in a parody of what he’s imagining.

“I did it for you,” he hears himself whisper. “It was all for you, so that you’d notice me and think I’m pretty.”

Changbin stares at him for a beat longer, and then he picks him up.

Hyunjin yelps as Changbin carries him with just his arms, like it’s nothing, like he weighs nothing, bringing him over to his bed with just his arms under Hyunjin’s ass and not even dropping him once they get there, gently lowering him onto the mattress instead.

This want is going to kill him, tonight.

“Stay like that, just… please, don’t move,” Changbin says. He put Hyunjin down so that he’s lying on his own trapped arms, so Hyunjin has very little choice. Of course the choice to tell Changbin that he wants to move is there, he’s sure Changbin would free him in a second—but that would have to involve Hyunjin actually wanting to get free.

Changbin undoes his pants next, and takes them and his underwear all the way off. Hyunjin is wearing long black socks that are held up to his mid-calf by sock garters, and when this becomes apparent to Changbin there is… a noise.

“What?” he huffs.

Changbin is staring. One of his hands grabs Hyunjin’s ankle and lifts his leg, all the better to stare at it up close, to trace the clip of the garter and then the loop of it right under his knee. He’s almost breathing as roughly as he did while Hyunjin blew him in the bathroom.

“I’m going to fuck you with these on,” he grunts, and Hyunjin flushes.

“O-okay.”

Changbin doesn’t take off any of his own clothes, even his damn suit jacket stays on while he fumbles under Hyunjin’s bed for the lube and a condom, one-handed.

“I haven’t been with anyone but you, since,” Hyunjin rasps. “Can you please. Can you not.” He squirms again, wanting Changbin to toss the condom aside. He already came down Hyunjin’s throat, anyway, Hyunjin is ready to argue about this, to really plead his case if he must.

Changbin watches him for a beat, then discards it.

Hyunjin sighs in relief, stomach clenching with anticipation. “Give me. Please. Please give it to me now. Don’t make me wai—"

“No, actually, this time you’re going to let me do this how I want it,” Changbin corrects, lightly but with a steel undertone. He takes Hyunjin’s other leg and lifts it until he can rest his calf on Changbin’s shoulder, pressing a soft kiss to the inner bone of his ankle through the sock. “Like this,” he says, and slides one finger inside him.

Hyunjin moans, and Changbin makes a low echoing noise that almost harmonizes with it, their voices rising in tandem.

“So tight,” Changbin grits, crooking his finger and sliding it and out with care—with too much care. “You’re so fucking tight.”

“Hyung. S’not enough.”

“Oh? It’s not?” Changbin pulls his finger out entirely, and Hyunjin makes a noise of distress. “You want more?”

“Hyung—” Hyunjin gasps, writhing. “Please. Please, come the fuck on.”

Changbin’s finger returns, and then a second, and Hyunjin’s back lifts off the mattress; Changbin’s fingers are thick, not as long as his own but they feel so much better.

“Ah.” He arches again, thinking about what Changbin is seeing; his chest thrust out and his shoulders pushed back by the bound wrists under him, his already arched body curving further. Still in his socks. He hopes… he hopes Changbin likes what he’s seeing. “Hyung. More, hyung. Please, please more.”

“More?” Changbin adds a third finger, and Hyunjin was hard before, but now he hurts. He’s dripping on himself, he needs it, why doesn’t Changbin understand that? It’s a need.

“Ah, ah, hyung, fuck, why are you—why won’t you—”

“Because having you like this is so beautiful, Hyunjin.” Hyunjin chances a look up at Changbin and sees… oh God. He’s not even sure how to describe it to himself. There’s a… fervor, there. Changbin is not looking at his face right now, maybe that makes it easier to study the expression; he’s devouring Hyunjin’s body like he’s able to consume it through his eyes alone, tracing Hyunjin’s collarbones, his abs, his dick, looking at the leg that’s bent open on the mattress and then at the one that’s up in the air, perched on Changbin’s shoulder. He seems almost pained by the sight, looking with the kind of devotion that instills suffering because of how transcendent it is, how otherworldly. “I’ve never wanted anything more.”

Hyunjin’s dick twitches, the static hum in his ears suddenly back and louder than ever.

“Y-you don’t want anything more than you want me?” he whispers, and hates how his voice quivers.

Changbin looks at his face. “Nothing. No one.”

Hyunjin whimpers. He’s not proud of it, but then again his dignity vanishes around Changbin.

“You…” He can’t breathe, Changbin’s fingers feel so fucking good shoving into him, for all his dramatic demands for his cock. “You don’t… want anyone other than me?” he manages, voice a whisp by the end of the question.

Changbin understands. Of course he understands him. “Of course not, Hyunjin.” His thrusting is getting rougher. “Never wanted anyone as much as I wanted you when I met you, and I’ll never—” Hyunjin spasms, bucking on the mattress. Changbin’s hand is being so rough for how gentle his voice sounds, how delicate his words. “I will never want anyone else ever again.”

“Fuck,” Hyunjin cries. “Oh my God, Bin, hyung, I… I… can’t… please just fuck me, why won’t you—"

Changbin makes a sympathetic noise, but he’s not slowing his movements. “You keep asking for my cock but you love this too, Hyunjin,” Changbin tells him, like Hyunjin doesn’t fucking know. “Look at how well you’re taking it. Look at how wet you are. Wish you could see yourself… I should record you sometime, so you can watch.”

Hyunjin’s mouth drops open, his capacity for speech obliterated.

“I’d watch it,” Changbin goes on, and the obscene squelch of his brutal thrusting fills Hyunjin’s ears, and it stopped qualifying as just ‘fingering’ a while ago. He hadn’t done this their first night, he’d been so careful, so tortuous, driven Hyunjin to an edge he’d never know he could get to. He’d fallen off it with devastating gratitude, but getting there had been torture; this is much more to his liking. “But then again I’d get off to a video of just your lips.” He huffs. “Or a picture, really. I certainly did plenty of damage with just a memory.”

“You. You thought about me when you...?”

“I told you I thought about you too, why would you assume I didn’t touch myself while I did?”

Hyunjin knows Changbin wasn’t sick from it like he was, wasn’t haunted and consumed and obsessed, but the fact that he jerked off to memories of them together is making him so happy he could cry.

Hyunjin bites his lower lip, half because he wants to and half so that Changbin will say something about it.

“Yeah, yeah, just… the thought of you doing that, fuck.”

He kisses Hyunjin’s ankle again, but doesn’t look away from his mouth. Hyunjin blushes even harder, feeling frantic, feeling overwhelmed. His ears buzz, his shoulders ache, his dick drools and jumps on his stomach, overstimulated from the way Changbin is mashing into his prostate yet untouched and sore. He doesn’t want to ask, but he knows that if he hears Changbin talk about how much he wants him again he’s going to come before Changbin actually gets his dick in him.

“No one ever drove me this crazy with just their mouth before,” Changbin says, and Hyunjin gasps, about to—

Changbin takes his fingers out.

“N-no!”

Changbin stills with the lube bottle in his hand. “No? You don’t want me to fuck you?”

Hyunjin feels insane, about to crawl out of his skin with want; he whines, keens, bucking desperately, and then Changbin takes his dick out bends him in half to press himself over Hyunjin.

“Hyunjin-ah, I so wish you could see yourself the way I see you,” he gasps, and Hyunjin can feel him, the bare tip of him notched at his hole, about to—but not quite—

“Please please please please,” he whimpers, near tears. “Please oh hyung come on come on please—”

Changbin holds his hips still one-handed, preventing Hyunjin from shoving himself onto his cock. “You’ve ruined me,” he says, adoringly. His voice is soft, happy, and Hyunjin is writhing, clenching his jaw with frustration and want and desire and so much love he should be fucking committed, because no one who feels this much should be roaming free—

“Hyung—"

Changbin slides inside of him with a single smooth, relentless glide of skin on skin, sighing with satisfaction, flattening Hyunjin to the bed, and Hyunjin comes.

He throws his head back and shoves his hips up, spurting between them just from the friction of Changbin’s dress shirt and the plush warmth of his stomach pressing down on his dick, beyond words, beyond screams, so much pleasure that all that’s left in him is silence.

Changbin crushes him to the bed, Hyunjin’s favorite thing out of everything about Changbin, even though everything he does is his favorite. Suddenly all the tension, the panic, the urgency, the frustration just vanish. His anxiety gets so quiet when Changbin’s weight is on him, everything settling and comfortable and perfect—coming while he’s pressed between the soft mattress and soft, heavy, perfect Changbin is the best feeling of all. He feels so safe, so loved, he can’t feel any stress like this.

Eventually he stops twitching and shivering under Changbin’s bulk, and Changbin moves off him.

“You love getting fucked so much, don’t you sweet thing?” Changbin says sympathetically, and he lifts Hyunjin’s torso by his armpits, making quick work of the tangle of clothing at his back, finally separating his arms so they can splay at Hyunjin’s either side. Hyunjin flops back down when Changbin lets him go; boneless, empty. “D’you want some more? Hm? Or do you want me to—"

“More.” He doesn’t care what the counteroffer was going to be. “More, more, please more—”

Changbin braces a hand on the back of Hyunjin’s bent knee and opens him up further. He bends down to kiss the inside of his thigh. “Okay, Hyunjin. Tell me if it’s too much.”

“Never. Never enough of you.”

Changbin groans softly at that, but still starts off slow, rocking gently into him. Hyunjin can’t even open his eyes at first, he’s too blissed out, his arms are numb, he’s sore in the best way possible. Changbin moves him to his liking, after a while switching which leg he’s holding up, putting Hyunjin down and turning him a little, then, as he speeds up a little, lifting his hips up in the air and fucking into him that way. He makes it look so easy, so smooth, because for him it probably is, to toss Hyunjin’s body around the bed however he wants.

“Hyunjin,” he whispers, sinking into him again after pulling out to flip Hyunjin onto his side, a new position, just as perfect. “Hyunjin, God. Your body. You feel so good sweetheart, love how you just take it, love how well your body just takes it—”

Hyunjin fucking loves when Changbin gets all rambly and verbose, he is somehow speaking a mile a minute but enunciates well enough that Hyunjin doesn’t miss a thing, can hoard all those words about himself to himself. “So big,” he mumbles, and feels Changbin move some of his hair out of his face, all the better to see him. “Biggest I’ve taken.”

Changbin groans. “And yet look at you,” he pants. “Look at how well you’re doing it, how pretty your face looks, how your pretty hole just… just… you’re pretty everywhere, aren’t you? Hyunjin I think you were made for me I really do.” He’s speeding up. “I can’t believe I get to do this, can’t believe you felt so guilty for wanting me so much when I want you too, love you too, you, ah.” He runs a hand down Hyunjin’s socked foot to his calf, circling the garter. “Made yourself all pretty for me, God that makes me crazy, thinking of you putting on lipstick for me, putting these on—” he snaps the garter, making Hyunjin’s leg spasm. “When you didn’t even know whether I’d see them, fuck—”

The swear makes Hyunjin moan, the praise has him floating.

“You really thought I’d be scared of how much you want me? Huh? You thought I’d be turned off by the idea of you stalking my social media and feeling jealous and doing all that stuff to get close to me…?”

Hyunjin mewls, spine hunching vulnerably at those words, suddenly so close to his gut, so exposing. He curls his fingers around his dick, almost protective of how it jerks and leaks steadily, never really went soft and now is harder still.

“Fuck, the fact that you redirected your career for me—” Changbin’s movements are getting jerky, holding Hyunjin’s legs open with his arms while his hips ram into him, their skin slapping together. “Can’t believe you did that, can’t believe you wanted me that much—”

“So much,” Hyunjin sobs, and there are tears down his cheeks, he’s leaking everywhere: crying and snotty and drooling and his dick is dripping and he’s slick with sweat, and Changbin is about to—“Love you so much, had to… had to be near you…”

“Can’t believe you were ever jealous when there’s no one… no one else… fuck,” Changbin is slamming into him, a force that jostles Hyunjin’s body, and Hyunjin isn’t even jerking himself off, just cradling his dick and holding it comfortingly, those words driving him to a place that feels—unreal, not entirely there—“Love you love you love you Hyunjin I love you I love you so much—"

He comes again and feels Changbin coming too, the moment lasting a million years, or time stops and nothing is real other than them in this room, together in a space that’s currently too dimly lit for either of them to see the pictures of Changbin dotting the walls and interspersed with his other sketches on the surface of Hyunjin’s desk.

Amidst the landscapes, and the still-lifes, and the artistic interpretations of anatomic structures, there are so many iterations of Changbin. Changbin’s face, his curly hair in the morning, his hands, the back of his head, his shoulders, his pecs, his biceps, his entire torso with his arms by his sides, his torso with a blank space where his arms would be, his torso and shoulders if he was naked and turned to the side, his back, the muscles of his upper back in isolation, the curve of his glutes, the place where his glutes meet his thighs… and his eyes; kind, warm, understanding, steady—always his eyes.

He'll see them tomorrow. He’ll still be here tomorrow. He’s not going to leave Hyunjin; he said so, so Hyunjin just has to believe him.

He finally, finally does.

Jeongin

The hyungs invited him to dinner at Felix’s apartment (which is secretly also Chan’s) on Sunday, and Jeongin was so grateful, of course. He really was. He is. But he’s going to need Seungmin to come visit him within the month or get on board with the idea of phone sex really quick, and so far he seems reluctant to consider the possible benefits, and keeps insisting that there’s not much of a point if he can’t touch Jeongin’s skin. Jeongin hopes a few days apart will show him the error of his ways, because they only had sex twice today before they had to go to Felix’s for the farewell dinner. Jeongin was trying to respect Seungmin’s post-call sleep, but unfortunately that means Jeongin still feels that familiar itch under his skin, and wants to go back to a bed (really any sturdy surface will do) and get a few more rounds in to abate his desire. He supposes he’s felt the itch for Seungmin since the moment they met, so maybe it wouldn’t go away even if they slept together ten times in a day. They’ll never know if they don’t try.

They do end up making out so aggressively in the elevator that Jeongin has to take a moment to collect himself before they knock, for fear that he’ll tarnish his ‘baby Ien-ah’ image if someone spots the semi in his jeans.

Seungmin smirks and shows him no sympathy.

“Ien-ah!”

Jisung gets the door, and it turns out they are practically the last ones there—neither Hyunjin nor Changbin made it yet, but everyone else did. Jeongin assumes they’ll be arriving together.

“Hiiii.”

“I think this is the first time Seungmin has ever been late to anything,” Jisung tells Nurse Lee—Minho, in a mock whisper. Jeongin smirks, he can’t help it.

“That was my fault,” he says. It’s not like he’s trying to pass himself off as a virgin, either. “Sorry, everyone.”

“You’re too cute to stay mad at,” Felix assures him, grinning, while Dr. Bang nods in the background. Jeongin supposes he could call him Chan, at least inside his head, but he finds the thought of an attending’s first name too intimidating even in the privacy of his own mind. “Say hi to my mom, by the way!”

Jeongin hadn’t realized Felix was holding a lit-up phone screen, where a very beautiful woman’s face is visible.

She asks him something in English that escapes Jeongin.

“No, that’s the baby!” Felix responds in Korean, thoughtful as always so that Jeongin can understand. “Yang Jeongin. The medical student whose dinner this is! The model-looking one is Hyunjin, he’s late.”

“They all look like models, dear,” his mother responds, also in Korean, her accent fainter than her son’s. She sound a bit exasperated. “Now put your husband back on.”

“Eomma!” Felix admonishes. “We’re not even engaged!”

Dr. Bang just laughs and calls out something in English that makes Felix’s mother laugh along with him, until Felix finally huffs and just hands Dr. Bang the phone.

“I swear she’s convinced I’m getting secretly married in Australia in less than a year,” Felix mutters to Jeongin and Seungmin, and Jeongin looks at Dr. Bang chatting with Felix’s mother and wouldn’t be surprised if that happened in the slightest.

Hyunjin and Changbin arrive quite a bit later, at which point the others have finished setting the table and the food is not just fully cooked but on its way to getting cold.

“Wow. Thank you for gracing us with your—”

“I’m only here because Changbin made me show up. I did not want to see any of you more than I wanted to—continue what I was doing.” The obscene swell of his pillowy lips tells Jeongin plenty about what was keeping Hyunjin occupied before making their way here. “No offense, Jeongin-ah, I know you’re leaving and I will miss you.”

“None taken.” Jeongin relates to him more than he’d ever admit to the group.

“Hyunjin, we all know what you were doing, there’s no need to be polite about it. I respect it,” Minho smirks.

“Minho, you are my only true ally among this team,” Hyunjin says with a solemn nod.

“Your friendship is still very confusing to me,” says Jisung, looking from one to the other. He does not sound displeased by it, on the contrary.

“Since when are you two friends?” Changbin asks, smiling.

“Minho-hyung and I discovered that we were in a similar spot last month. We bonded.”

“Technically you didn’t tell me.” Minho shrugs. “But I could tell.”

“Tell what?”

“That Hyunjin had also fallen for someone after having no-strings-attached sex with them.”

Changbin looks at Hyunjin with a fond exasperation. “Aw but there were strings! There were strings attached with us, Hyunjin-ah!”

“I’m complicated,” Hyunjin mutters, suddenly very interested in his chopsticks. Changbin puts a fond hand on the back of his neck, squeezing affectionately in a way that would get Jeongin an elbow to the ribs if he tried that in public with Seungmin—then again that’s because that kind of gesture gets Seungmin hard in point two seconds. Seungmin is so easy to rile up, really... and God, the way it feels to sink into him is so damn addicting, from the front, from behind—they tried oral for the first time the other day and the feeling of sliding into Seungmin's mouth is—

“Ien-ah. Ien-ah.”

“Sorry!” He blinks, shaking his head. “Sorry, what...?”

“Are you going to eat?”

“Sorry, yes sorry.” He stuffs a massive bite into his mouth and looks around, anywhere but at Seungmin. The apartment has a nice view, and the space is just so cozy; a nice big couch, the table they are all crowded around, a nice kitchen area, bookshelves with pretty, thriving plants on them... “Felix-hyung, you set this place up so nicely,” Jeongin says.

“Thanks, Jeongin-ah.”

Hyunjin raises his hand while he swallows, and everyone goes silent until he speaks.

“Okay, can I finally say this? Changbin and I could tell there was something off about the apartment ‘deal’ immediately,” he says. “Did no one else think it was weird?”

“I thought Chan-sunbae must have bought it and drafted a fake rental agreement,” says Seungmin.

“I thought he had contacts in the mafia,” says Jisung.

Dr. Bang looks mortified.

“He didn’t buy it, he just paid the rent difference,” Felix says fondly. “Leave him alone.”

“I was... very sleep deprived,” Dr. Bang mumbles. “It was the equivalent of a drunk purchase. I was also very... um. Enamored.”

“You’d known Felix for a week,” Jisung says, sounding awed.

“Technically they met during orientation, so it was two weeks,” Seungmin doesn’t sound like he thinks that’s much better.

“It was psycho,” Hyunjin agrees, approving.

“I deserve this,” Bang says with a wince. “It was crazy.”

“Okay enough,” Felix snaps, way more aggressive than Jeongin would have ever thought him capable. “He made a mistake and he has apologized. He is doing much better now, so let’s stop teasing him about it.”

“Yes, Felix,” Hyunjin mutters, no trace of irony.

“Sorry, Felix,” says Seungmin.

“Sorry,” Jisung mumbles, bowing at Dr. Bang.

Felix goes back to smiling sweetly as soon as Dr. Bang relaxes and stops wincing. “So! Ien-ah, are you all packed?”

“Yup!”

“He's not, I have half his clothes,” Seungmin says, smiling at his plate.

Jeongin blushes. He had to leave a lot of his clothes in Seungmin’s apartment because he couldn’t fit them in his suitcases. He discovered that he really likes pretty clothes during these rotations, and now he has too many.

“I’ll bring them to him when I go to Busan.”

“When you what?” Jisung asks.

Oh right, they were going to tell the others tonight.

“Uh. Jeongin and I aren’t going to stop seeing each other.” Seungmin swallows and looks up at Jisung, or at the air by his head. “I’m going to visit him while I’m on Anesthesia next block, since we get weekends off for that rotation.”

Jisung slams his palm into the table from happiness. “I knew it! I knew it didn’t make sense for you two to break up just for Jeongin to come back to Seoul in six months!” He grins at Jeongin. “Baby Ien-ah! You did it!”

“I did it!”

The others look very happy too, but Seungmin looks happily confused. “You did what?”

“Successfully seduced you,” Jeongin says with a wink.

The others laugh while Seungmin blushes.

“So do we get to hear what happened with you two?” Felix asks, diverted. “Seems only fair since apparently Seungmin was telling Jeongin about all of us on their rotations.”

“Um, no I wasn’t,” says Seungmin at the same time as Jeongin says: “He didn’t tell me anything.”

“No?” Jisung looks confused. “But then how did you know about all of our stuff?”

Jeongin knows that his expression is unimpressed, to say the least.

“You’re kidding, right?” He asks Jisung. “It was really easy, all of you were so obvious. I could tell about you two from the first block party, when Jisung offered to kiss me to make Seungmin jealous and Nurse Lee looked—” Minho scowls, even now. “See? Like that, he looked just like that.”

Everyone looks at Minho, who looks caught out but not particularly repentant. This elicits some nods and a studious ‘ooh’ from Felix.

“Right. And I could tell about you two because, well, everyone could,” he motions to Felix and Dr. Bang, and the others just sort of shrug at that one. “—but the day in the trauma bay was super obvious, when Mingyu-sunbae was flirting with Felix.”

Changbin goes “Ha!” at that. “I remember. I had to walk out of the room due to second-hand embarrassment.”

Dr. Bang puts his head in his hands, and Felix rubs his back soothingly, smiling ear to ear.

“And you…” He looks at Hyunjin and Changbin. “The day we helped Felix-hyung move to this apartment Chief Seo almost crashed the van because he was staring at Hyunjin in the rearview mirror, and Hyunjin was biting his lips and provoking him, like, on purpose.”

“... Wow, you’re really observant, Jeongin-ah,” says Changbin.

“I’m just not blind,” Jeongin responds, shrugging.

“I can’t believe you two were the ones who flew under the radar,” Hyunjin mutters, with a scoff that Jeongin assumes denotes embarrassment.

“I knew!” Jisung raises his hand.

“I told Jisung at the first block party,” Jeongin acknowledges.

“Technically, I figured it out,” Jisung says with a grin, and shoots Jeongin with a finger-gun. Minho frowns and pushes his own finger-gun into Jisung’s shoulder, frown clearing as soon as he has Jisung’s attention again—he also pretends to cock the gun back into an imaginary holster, and smiles when Jisung plants a quick kiss to his cheek.

“Wait, so what happened?” Dr. Bang asks.

Jeongin glances at Seungmin, unsure how comfortable he is with disclosing the origins of their relationship.

“I, uh.” He blushes.

“We kissed on the third week of the first block, after conference,” Seungmin says. “I confessed to Jeongin the night of the club. I had a lot of… processing to do in between.”

There’s a pause.

“I liked him from the start,” Jeongin mumbles. “From the first simulation training day—"

“You kissed on the third week?” Hyunjin interrupts.

“The first block?!” Felix yelps.

“JULY?!” Changbin cries.

Jeongin focuses on how smug Jisung looks at being in the know, in order to not combust from his blush.

“I mean, I wanted him the second I saw him, so…”

“So it goes Minho and Jisung, then you two, then Felix and Chan and then us?” Hyunjin says, pointing fingers at the various couples and turning to Changbin with a disbelieving look.

“Technically, we were first,” Changbin says with a shrug.

“I’m not counting that, I was emotionally devastated by that. I was emotionally devastated until, like, literally two days ago.”

“We slept together, but you shouldn’t count us first; we didn’t confess to each other until the day after the secret departmental meeting,” Jisung pipes up.

“This is dumb, why do we need a timeline in order? Aren’t we a team of eight?” Minho asks Hyunjin.

“We don’t, I was just curious." Hyunjin tucks his hair behind his ear. "I can't believe Seungmin was making out with Jeongin-ah back during block one! That was ages ago!”

“Remember when Seungmin said he was ‘undecided’?” Felix asks, eyeing Seungmin with bright eyes.

Jeongin thinks of all the ways in which Seungmin has, uh, decided with him, and on him, and around him, and inside him in the past few days. “Hah.”

"Wait a minute." Hyunjin puts a hand over his mouth, staring at Seungmin. "The somatic cause you identified, for your... palpitations. The hyperthyroidism." He looks at Jeongin. "Was it...?"

Seungmin had confessed this to Jeongin a few nights ago, while they were lying in bed together recovering from round three. He had told Jeongin about his confusion over his 'symptoms' back at the beginning.

"I'd just... never felt it before, so I didn't know..."

Hyunjin laughs, the new, cackling, loud laugh he's been doing only since Chuseok. "Aw, that is the cutest thing, Seungmin!" He looks so endeared, so happy, that it's clear he's not laughing at Seungmin at all, and Seungmin just smiles. "You are so cute. Both of you." He motions between them with his hand. "I love this."

“Wait, so Ien-ah,” Felix calls, waving. “Does the fact that you’re with Seungmin now mean you’ll come visit us, too? When are you coming back to Seoul?”

“Oh, I—"

“I’m going to make a group-chat!” Jisung takes out his phone. “So we can organize this team of eight! That’s a lot of schedules to overlap, it’s going to take math.”

“Oh, wait until November because I’ll be on Anesthesia for block five,” says Felix.

“My dates will be flexible either way, I’m not doing overtime anymore,” says Dr. Bang.

"Any month is fine by me, Jeongin-ah," Minho says, surprisingly. "I work less hours than you guys do."

“Wait, I’m on ICU for block five, my hours are gonna suck—" says Hyunjin, also pulling up his schedule on his phone. “Come for block six, I’m back in the ER—Binnie, you’ll make my schedule pretty on the next ER block so I can hang out with Ien-ah, right?”

"What about Christmas?" Jisung asks.

"That's too far, no?"

"Jeongin-ah—"

"Binnie, if you're gonna give Hyunjin a nice schedule then my Jisungie should have it, too—"

The chatter starts to overlap and their voices interweave with almost melodic harmony; Felix’s growly bass and Minho’s higher register when he’s amused, Seungmin's placating voice trying to remind them that Jeongin will be busy with medical school finals, Dr. Bang softly laughing at something Changbin says to Hyunjin, and Jisung chattering a mile a minute while he types. On Jeongin’s phone, a group-chat titled ‘Organizing Team of Eight’ pops up, then quickly gets renamed ‘OT8’.

Jeongin watches his hyungs and smiles, happy at the thought of seeing them again in a couple of months, excited to learn from them and maybe also teach them a thing or two by next year. If they are all going to be working under intense, life-threatening pressure, he’s glad they will at least be together.

Changbin

He loves that they are all together.

Hyunjin

It’s such a relief that they are all together.

Seungmin

It feels good, all of them together.

Minho

He’s so grateful that they are all together.

Chan

It’s such a gift, to have this group together.

Jisung

He adores this little family they’ve created together.

Felix

What a wonderful team they make; all of them. Together.

- The End –