Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Jisung never did see the allure in boxing. 

It wasn’t like he hadn’t tried it. What? Bouncing around a ring with training pads for Chan who didn’t quite commit to a proper swing– even when Jisung insisted it wouldn’t hurt. 

He found it tiring. For his legs and his arms and his lungs that could never quite catch up to his breath that often ran far away from him.

He didn’t see why Chan liked it so much. He didn’t see why it bled into the real world, where it consumed him to the point of fanaticism. The bulking and meeting weight. The running—constantly, before breakfast and after dinner. The brackets printed and stuck onto the fridge showing who was fighting who in the upcoming weeks. 

He didn’t want to see the allure, really. 

In something that brought on bloodied noses and bruised eyes. Something that brought on pain. 

And yet, he liked to think Chan found something in it that made him keep going back to it. The glory, probably. Or the belts. Maybe even the power. 

But he didn’t quite see that same allure in Minho. Not really. 

Even when their hands were linked together and Jisung was leading him into Hyunjin’s parent’s place, with his sober conscience dissuading him while the few vodka shots and sodas were keeping his feet moving one after the other– into a den with a pride of lions. 

Because Minho was boxing. Constantly. Even when it didn’t really look like it.

“Whatever happened to me being uh… public enemy number one?” Minho muttered when they pushed past bodies lining the hallway and Jisung did consider it. That he would be called a liar. A fake friend– or worse, a bad friend. To Chan. And the others– for the deception and rummaging behind backs. 

But he simply pressed a shoulder forward. Shrugged. Twisted his lips to the side and said ‘it’s okay.’ Because it was, okay. 

Even if it felt like his heart was in his throat and that once-subdued voice of his conscience rose to a crescendo when his eyes landed on Hyunjin– sitting at the top of the staircase, two fingers pressed to his temple and committing to an exuberant conversation (with himself.) 

“Hey,” Jisung smiled softly when he reached the tip of the stairs, earning his sharp glare and that stress drenched all over his face. “Why aren’t you with Innie?” 

Jisung sank to his knees on the stairs below him. 

“Why do I do this to myself?” He muttered with an exasperated smile, head barrelling straight down to Jisung’s shoulder with a grunt. “My parents are gonna end me.” 

“You say this every year,” the pianist chuckled, wrapping a hand around his shoulder and rubbing his back. “You’re always fine, Hyun. You deserve some respite.” 

“I deserve a drink or maybe one hundred,” he sighed, shaking his head. “Tell me there’s enough left for me.”

“There’s plenty,” Jisung hummed. “I think it’s your time now.”

The pianist shivered at Hyunjin’s gentle laughter vibrating against his shoulder. 

“Tell me you’re at least having some fun, Ji,” he sighed, as though his suggestion was anything but plausible. “If anyone is gonna be honest about that, it’s you.” 

And Jisung made a small noise– caught between a laugh and a snort as he glanced past Hyunjin’s shoulder and toward Minho who was glaring at the economics major as though he had two heads or something. 

“I uh…” he whispered, rubbing circles on Hyunjin’s shoulder as he continued to make whiny noises against him. “Remember when I went out with that guy and you let me borrow your–”

“Of course,” and he was suddenly jolted back to life, brushing the hair gathered by his eyes away from his face with the back of his hand. “Are you still seeing him? Have you slept with him? Oh god… has he fucked you over?” 

“No, no– uh,” he murmured and glanced upward at his favourite pair of eyes to see Minho’s thinned lips, the way he swallowed, the way he almost seemed nervous, and smiled. “I hope you don’t mind that I brought him with me– uh… you know Minho, right?” 

Jisung wasn’t sure what his crooked smile would’ve looked like to Hyunjin’s befuddled eyes, staring back like he didn’t quite understand. 

But when his gaze finally snapped– finally jostled into place like jagged notes of a Liszt piece, he glanced up at Minho, who raised an eyebrow and let out a casual, exasperated smile. 

“Hey,” he said like it was fine and normal and Hyunjin wasn’t a party to his scuffle with Chan at the boxing arena– when he called him every name he could be called until they were separated by security. “Hyunjin– right?” 

His eyes immediately flickered back to Jisung, who felt like he was smiling because he had supposed that was his fight response. 

“Minho is– uh… he’s from Baekje. He’s in the same year as us and you uh… you’d know him from the league. You’re… you’re meant to fight next weekend, yeah?”

The boxer seemed to gauge Jisung’s probable descent into babbling and over-explaining and widened eyes and probably thought it merciful to put him out of his misery with lips twisting to the side. 

“Yeah– I fight in the afternoon,” he said, leaning against the railing. “I’ve seen you watch my fights before so– I’m assuming you’ll be there, huh?” 

And Hyunjin didn’t quite find the cynicism in his dry humour or his dark eyes or the fact he continued to glance between Jisung and Minho like they were two strangers asking for a third or something. 

“Can I talk to you?” He hummed to the pianist– eyes alight and lips thinned but grinning because that was just a means of survival for the taller man. 

Jisung sighed, giving Minho a crooked smile– indication enough that Hyunjin, while the most outwardly emotional out of the lot of them, needed a little more time. 

“I’ll get you a drink,” the boxer hummed, raising an eyebrow and Jisung just nodded again– watching him twist on his heel and etch down the stairs. 

And then a hand was tightly gripping the back of his forearm. 

“You have ten seconds,” he whispered close to his ear. “Does Chan know? Have you slept with him? If you have slept with him, does Chan know about that too? And lastly, are you out of your mind?” 

“Yes, yes, I don’t see why Chan needs to know that and I wanna say probably not.” 

Fingers clasped the flesh hard. 

“Ji,” he huffed, shaking his head and biting his lip and probably catastrophising something that really didn’t need to be catastrophised. “This whole time– all those nights you were staying at a friend's… the other week at the arena when he and Chan beat the shit out of each other I–” 

He released his arm with a soft hum– letting the words linger and marinate and penetrate that little portion of Jisung’s brain that allowed the guilt to fester. 

“I had no idea that was going on at the same time.”

“I know how it looks and I know how it sounds,” he whispered back, by the nape of his neck where it was a little safer– a little nicer and he couldn’t see those eyes that said a million more words he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear. “But… But I don’t think anyone– not even me– gave him a chance until I finally got to know him.” 

“He’s not exactly approachable,” he widened his eyes. “Was I meant to go up to him on a Saturday and say hey I’m Chan’s friend! Wanna come back to our place for pizza night?” 

“Hyun–” 

“I’m sorry,” he probably shook his head and dropped that sarcastic drawl when he noticed Jisung’s knitted eyebrows and bottom lip curled beneath his teeth. “I’m… yeah… I’m sorry. It’s just– this is new and a lot and something else to take in–”

“I get it,” he smiled weakly. “I uh– I should’ve said something. I know that.”

“It’s not that,” Hyunjin said, chewing on his plump bottom lip. “It’s… you’ve been so different lately. Distant and quiet but–” 

Jisung frowned again– doing the mental gymnastics that teetered between wanting his friend’s approval of something he didn’t even have a definition of and wanting to be his own person– not driven by pleasing others, not fuelled by someone else’s endorsement, not doing exactly what he spent the first three-quarters of his life jumping through hoops to achieve. 

“–but happy and calm for the first time since I met you and the piano stuff–” Hyunjin always looked so concerned, even if his words were sweet and his touch was tender on Jisung’s arm. “I haven’t worried about you in a while and that means something. Even if… even if it’s because of him… right?”

Jisung felt his lips tugging to the side and while he wanted to whisper yes– it almost felt wrong to do anything but shake his head. 

“It’s not because of him,” Jisung murmured. “But he helped me and I don’t know… I just wanna do the same for him.” 

Hyunjin’s eyes lingered a little longer. They travelled from his eyes. To his lips that were thinning and unsure. Even to his cheeks, sucked in as his teeth lolled over the gummy flesh internally. 

And it would always be like that with Hyunjin. The storm before the calm. The drama before the embrace that came after. 

Even if Hyunjin did surround himself with a grey slate of shitty rich kids who couldn’t take a joke about printing more money. 

Because Jisung felt it too. That calm. How it wrapped around him like an old blanket. How it swallowed him whole. How it said you’ll be fine. 

“Well,” Hyunjin whispered, glancing away from Jisung’s face and over his shoulder to where Minho was slowly making his way back up the stairs with two drinks in tow– gait unhurried. “I guess I’ve gotta make him love me now, huh?” 

“Thank you,” Jisung whispered, just to Hyunjin– just for Hyunjin. Because he couldn’t risk saying it while Minho was in earshot– not with his heart turning into some molten, unmanageable thing inside of his chest. 

Minho dipped down, handed the pianist a drink and muttered “here,” in a voice so casual that it almost didn’t match the softness of his actions. He handed the second drink to Hyunjin, who stared at it for a moment and Jisung sighed, taking a sip of the sweet concoction. Because he was watching the storm wane and the calm spread and slowly, a smile crept onto his face as Hyunjin’s hand reached out to grab the red cup. 

What Minho probably didn’t expect was the taller man springing to his feet and enveloping him in a hug. 

Jisung turned his sigh into a snort at Minho’s frozen state– arms limp, eyes darting straight to him as if to say what the hell is wrong with your friend?

“It’s really nice to meet you, Minho,” Hyunjin hummed, pulling back as quickly as he had sprung forward and taking an almost comically large gulp from the drink. “You’ve gotta meet Innie now– he’d like you. Actually– I don’t know if he’d like you but he’d tolerate you. What I mean to say is that he likes watching you fight. Well– not in that way but he did say you had a nice body but Chan cannot know,” Hyunjin didn’t stop– even when he slunk the arm around Minho’s shoulder like they were lifelong friends. “Oh, and he looks really good in the shirt he’s wearing tonight. It’s from this brand he models for and– come on, come on, come on…” 

Minho’s last look at Jisung was desperate– save me– but the pianist could only smile and follow. Dutifully. Happily. 

Even if there was warmth blooming in Jisung’s chest as he trailed behind. Something sweet and sticky that he would’ve likened to honey if he knew any better. 

And it went about the same when Minho met Jeongin. The younger man was perched on the edge of the kitchen counter once more– surrounded by spilt drinks, scattered snacks and a broken glass Hyunjin was clearly pretending not to see. 

“I… uh…” Jeongin began, voice barely above a whisper as he shifted uncomfortably. “You’re Jisung’s… uh… friend?” 

Before Minho could mutter a word, Hyunjin was talking again. 

“Why are you acting all shy?” He chuckled, clearly needing that one drink he gulped back on the way to the kitchen to grease the hinges of his jaw. “Remember how you said Minho was, like, the best in the league?” 

Jeongin’s cheeks flushed a sparing shade of pink and Jisung could only grin at the boxer– whose bruises were fading and whose smirk was as ever-present as the admiration now painted across the younger man’s face. 

In the second his eyes met Jisung, reading fifty shades of unsure and lost and puzzled by it, the pianist only nuzzled close, linked their arms together and whispered by his ear. 

“Chan knows. It’s okay. I’m sorry. We’ll talk.” 

This was enough for the youngest of the group because it wasn’t long before Jeongin, encouraged by Hyunjin’s relentless chatter, became the de facto guide in corralling the rest of the group. 

“If this is a nightmare, let me know and we can just… head out,” Jisung whispered in the fleeting second they were side by side– navigating through the sweaty crowd and hazy mess of the party. 

“It’s fine,” Minho murmured from behind, lips brushing his ear as his arms braced his shoulders– keeping him at bay and most importantly, at ease. “They’re uh… interesting.” 

Finally, they reached Changbin and Seungmin, who were sitting on the couch mid-debate. And Jisung didn’t need to eavesdrop to know the older of the two was losing. 

And there, Hyunjin leaned between them, whispered something, something Jisung– something, something likely boyfriend and without ceremony, thrust Minho forward.

“Changbin,” Hyunjin said. “This is Minho.” 

And Changbin didn’t miss a beat. Well, he paused. For a moment. Like he was taking in Hyunjin’s words– letting them sit, letting them linger. Even after Jisung nudged close to him. That repeated mantra. Chan. He knows. He’s okay. I’m sorry. Changbin even glared at Minho like he was sizing him up– which did earn a rather cautious stare in return from the boxer, but it was fruitless when Changbin sighed, took a step forward and slung an arm around his shoulder with a grin. 

“You’ve gotta tell me your training routine,” he began, barely pausing for air. “And your swing is something else, man– seriously. You’ve gotta tell me where you train, what you eat, and… can I feel your arms? Not in a weird way. You can feel mine too. But your right one’s gotta be bigger than the left with that mean uppercut you do–” 

Jisung thought about stepping in. He did. But then Seungmin brushed past him with raised eyebrows that spoke volumes. 

“Knew something was up with you,” he murmured, lips twisting into something between a smile and a smirk. “You were squirming. Well. More than usual, I guess.”

“Didn’t know how it was going to go, but… I don’t think I expected this,” Jisung whispered, nodding his head toward the boxer, who was somehow holding court with the rapt attention of Hyunjin, Jeongin and Changbin as he muttered about something to do with his technique. 

“How long has this been going on?” 

“Before he got in the ring with Chan– I promise,” Jisung huffed. “But that doesn’t mean I still don’t feel shitty. Because I do. I hope you all know that.” 

But Seungmin’s arm wrapped around his shoulder and tugged him close. And maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was the fact he had known his friends for years but had only shown them glimpses of himself in the past week. Maybe something else– something he couldn’t see but didn’t really want to. 

“Whatever makes you happy, Ji,” he said simply– his voice unsurprisingly soft. “That’s all any of us want.” 

And with that, Jisung felt his chest ease– like he was allowed to breathe. Something shifted then. Something steady and warm and different. But undeniably good. 

♫

When the night was awash and the music had died down, it dawned on Jisung that he hadn’t really seen Minho around anyone before. From that jolt of reality of when his eyes first found him in a lonesome corner of a ring, where he had already run away and nicked a little piece of his barely-there heart, he hadn’t seen another around him. 

No coach. No trainer. No one. 

And he looked nice. And pretty. And almost happy, when the party had dwindled into something quieter, something softer– family only. When Minho sat quietly in the kitchen as everyone did their best to tidy up– or make more drinks. When he was caught between Changbin and Hyunjin who were wrapped up in a game of who could be the loudest as they argued about a professor at their university who, by all accounts, had an obvious bias for the taller of the two, even though Hyunjin swore otherwise. 

Jisung, stood between Jeongin and Seungmin at the kitchen island, could see Minho even in his peripheral. Even amid Jeongin’s snickering over whatever Hyunjin’s friend had done to cause such a ruckus earlier, Jisung’s still attention gravitated loyally toward the boxer. 

Like the flutter of his fingertips against the marble could only be because of him. Where he could hear faint notes cascading between the pianissimo of Clair de Lune and the fluttering fragile ending of The Swan. 

There was just warmth. Quiet, stable, undeniable warmth. 

“You’ve never had that problem, huh?” Changbin continued to rattle on, slouching into his seat as his glare shifted to the boxer. “You just showed up one day and they slapped you into the first division.”

“Baekje doesn’t have anyone who fights,” Minho murmured, shaking his head. “They don’t even have a decent gym. But anything less than first division would be a bit of a joke at that arena.” 

“Hate Baekje,” Hyunjin sighed, shaking his head as if that were enough of an answer. “Oh, uh… no offence, of course.” 

“You think I like it?” Minho hummed, raising an eyebrow with a voice low but amused. 

“You should see the facilities we have here at Mountainview,” Changbin nudged him, his tone suddenly alight. 

Like Minho wasn’t public enemy number one. Like it only took a few drinks, Jisung’s shy smiles and Minho slowly unravelling himself for Changbin to see a little clearer. To be a little nicer. 

“Two rings, trainers whenever you want ‘em and a good gym. I bet the coaches would fight over you– Ji, you need to bring Minho around to train one day.” 

Changbin’s eager nod was directed at the pianist who could only glance at Minho. And there it was. That quirk of his lips to the side, that half-smile Jisung always felt slipping straight into his chest. 

“Yeah… that… that’d be great,” Jisung whispered, letting himself melt into that haze of fleeting joy. 

But it was short-lived, Jisung supposed. Interrupted when Jeongin crossed the kitchen island, delivering one of his most infamous hangover cures to Hyunjin with a hum. 

“Where did Chan disappear to?” He asked as though the question were nothing. 

And yet, it felt like the room pulsed a little. 

Jisung noticed how Changbin immediately turned toward Minho– an oh yeah… that kind of turn. Even when Minho kept his gaze down. His lips thinned at the mere mention of him. 

“Last time I checked, he was outside,” Seungmin murmured, the words coming out slowly– aware of the ripple they might have caused on their calm patch of sea. 

“Haven’t seen him all night,” Hyunjin perked up. “Last I heard, he was with Yuna’s friend– uh… what was that guy’s name?” 

“Felix,” Jeongin said. “Are they still outside?”

And that was when Jisung felt his mouth go dry. He didn’t even need to turn but he still felt that shift. Saw it in Minho’s posture– the way he flickered his eyes toward him, searching for something. Only, they weren’t soft this time. They hardened into something Jisung didn’t like seeing. 

“Felix is here?” Minho muttered, his tone quiet but sharp around the edges. 

“Yeah,” Jisung whispered back, hesitant, careful– almost guilty. 

“And he’s with…” 

But Minho stopped himself. Jisung could see him swallow the words, lingering unsaid, as all eyes seemed to land on him at once. Minho’s lips thinned further, his teeth pressing into the flesh of his bottom lip as though trying to hold back the big, scary words Jisung was scared he would say. 

And the pianist could only watch as that warmth he’d felt so clearly began to falter. Replaced by something cooler, darker. Something brewing just beneath the surface. 

“I’ll go and see where they are, how about that?” Jisung hummed, glancing around at his friends. “It’s getting late and I wanna make sure Chan’s still okay to get home.” 

“Okay,” Jeongin nodded, returning to form by Hyunjin who not quite so subtly glanced between Jisung and Minho with a bitten lip. 

But the pianist trusted Minho. He trusted Chan. And he was severing that silence. The kind that turned every soft laugh and murmured word into a knife-edge. The kind that was a little too painful and spoke a little too much of the past in walking toward the sliding glass doors, giving Minho one last smile. An it’s okay type of smile. 

When he was outside, into the biting air under the shroud of a dark sky only lit up by the twinkling lights strung on strings across the back patio, he could hear laughter and words amongst the maelstrom of spilt cups and crushed cans lining the yard. 

He could see Chan and Felix, sitting together– talking, smiling, laughing. And when he took a step forward, their heads shot over– where the younger man’s smile was like a beacon in the night. 

“We were just talking about you,” Felix beamed, ushering a hand toward the outdoor lounge. 

“Nothing bad,” Chan clarified with a hum and only then, did Jisung notice the arm he had around the head of the sofa and how Felix was one inch away from being nuzzled beneath it. “Just about music is all.” 

And Jisung liked what he was looking at. He liked Chan’s eyes when he wasn’t so tense. When he was relaxed– unrushed and unworried. He liked seeing Felix’s smile; the one he couldn’t quite help even if he tried. The type of smile Jisung saw when they were across from one another and the blonde told him everything he wanted in the finite days he had. 

He even liked it when Chan was casual about it– pulling Felix closer. 

“You can sit here,” his best friend sneered with a casual hum, the arm around Felix’s neck dipping down to his waist and giving pull until he was syphoned onto his lap. “See? Plenty of room.” 

“How you’re fine with him being so corny is beyond me,” Jisung rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, a coy smile prodding at his lips when Felix wrapped his wrists around Chan’s neck and let him hold him like they were together. Like this was just what he wanted. Like he had been there before. 

“He’s lucky he looks the way he does or I’d be sick,” Felix feigned an exaggerated look on his face, nuzzling even closer to the boxer like this was a long time coming or something. 

But when Jisung went to smile, to walk closer and sit himself on the opposing seat and join his best friend, the door was opening and closing behind him. 

Minho. 

With those eyes Jisung could never quite read. And then, the silence of Felix and Chan– who immediately flickered his gaze to the pianist and toward the boxer who brushed past his shoulder and into the now-heavy air. 

“Minho,” Felix said softly, his smile still there– just simmering like a flame. “I didn’t know you were coming you uh– why don’t you both come and join us–” 

Jisung saw Minho’s face. His eyes as they darted from Chan’s hand on his brother’s waist, to their proximity, to Felix slowly shifting off his lap… like he had been bathing in gasoline around a flame that would ignite at any moment. 

“What are you doing here?” The boxer’s voice was low with the type of glare that wasn’t looking at the person to which it was intended– because while the softness of his tone carried his words to his brother, his eyes didn’t leave Chan’s– who was quick to bring his hands back to his lap. 

“Just sitting and talking–” 

“Get a ride home with us,” Minho didn’t look at Felix. His eyes stayed on Chan before motioning to Jisung. “You’re ready to go, yeah?” 

“Actually, I was gonna stay a little longer,” Felix muttered cautiously. “Why don’t you stay, Min?”

“With him?” Minho’s voice dropped lower, a bitter edge slicing through his words. It was that knife, Jisung supposed. Because he didn’t move. He didn’t even glance at Jisung when his fingers fluttered to his shoulder, squeezing gently. 

“Don’t do this here,” Chan muttered, his voice quietly riding the sated midnight wind. There was a tension in his posture now. Even slouched on the sofa– his head tilted slightly as though to block Felix from whatever storm Minho was about to unleash. 

“What am I doing?” Minho’s lips curled to the side– words so deceptively soft that Jisung could almost see them curling into something darker beneath the surface. “I’m taking my brother home.”

“I want to stay,” Felix interjected. “Minho– why don’t you stay? We can talk. We can have a drink. We don’t need to–” 

“Not with him.” The boxer snapped again, his eyes finally shifting to Felix, though they were sharper than Jisung had ever seen them. 

“That’s enough,” Jisung whispered, feeling his tongue taste a little different. 

“If you’re going to do this, do it somewhere it’s just us,” Chan said like it was free advice– seeing his best friend’s twitchy hands and hearing his desperate voice.

“I wanna see you, I wanna talk–” 

“Not with him here,” Minho cuts Felix off. His jaw tightened and when Jisung squeezed again, he finally turned to the pianist for a moment– just a moment. 

“You said you wanted to meet my friends, Minho. You–”

“We’ve already met,” Minho snapped quickly, his eyes clipped back to the boxer who still had his arm around Felix. 

“Don’t do this to Jisung,” Chan muttered again. His voice was quiet this time, his head tipping back slightly against the sofa as though that could possibly keep the situation from boiling over. “You and I both know what happens when you can’t control yourself.” 

But Minho’s smile was wry now. Not the warm curve Jisung swore he knew, but something darker. Something with no softness or edge or hope left to give. 

“Okay,” he said softly before turning to the pianist with eyes marred in the blackness of finality. “Go inside and take Felix with you.” 

“Minho–” 

“And you,” the boxer muttered, honing in on his brother who had dropped that otherwise soft desperation for something a little darker. “You can do better, Lix.” 

“I have nothing to say to you that I haven’t already said,” Chan muttered. “We’ve already settled this. Don’t embarrass either of them because you can’t get your ego in check.” 

And Jisung wanted to argue. He really, really did. He wanted to defend Minho. To tell Chan to take that back. 

But he recognised that face. He recognised that smirk. He recognised that he had poured the concrete and built the ledge. And if he was going to jump, Jisung wasn’t strong enough to stop him. So, he didn’t quite find it that odd that his mouth continued to taste strange. It continued to draw out the alcohol rather than the mixers that quashed its bitterness. He tasted strychnine. He tasted cyanide. 

He knew it wouldn’t take much longer for the poison to fester and for his mind to carry words that couldn’t be taken back. 

“We didn’t settle anything,” Minho took a step forward. “And then you go and disrespect me more and try and get with my brother while you’re at it.” 

“Stop,” Felix tried, his voice shaking now, hand lifting toward him but hesitating in mid-air. “Why do you always do this, Min?”

“Do what?”

“You try and take away everything I want because you think you’re protecting me or something,” he uttered, desperately, perhaps. “But you’re not. That’s not how it works.”

“Hey, it’s fine,” Chan said and Jisung could almost hear the hiss of gasoline meeting fire when his best friend’s hand tapped Felix’s thigh once, then twice, before he stood up. “If your brother wants this to be between us, then that’s what it’s gonna be.” 

“Stop,” Jisung whispered, but his voice was caught somewhere between his teeth and his throat, the music sounding off at all sides of his mind and just how loud the back of Minho’s head was when it was trailing toward his best friend. 

He saw Felix move, stepping up and slotting himself in front of his brother. He saw Chan’s smirk– a familiar one. The one he kept on his face when his heart was set and he was going to follow through. And maybe it was more of a popping sound rather than something as refined as a flat or a sharp. But Jisung felt that vessel of poison in his mouth finally explode the second Felix raised his voice to get them to separate. 

“Minho,” Jisung called, loud enough. Loud enough to still the moment. Loud enough to catch Chan’s eyes and feel the weight of his gaze settle on him– sober and deep. Loud enough for his heart to fetter and loud enough for his fingers to have a melody he could tap on his sides. “What are you doing?” 

And Felix hesitated. Even his hands, the ones he kept steady on Minho’s shoulders, softened. But the boxer didn’t move– not a muscle. It was like he was coiled beneath Felix’s touch like a spring wound tight enough to snap. 

But Jisung took a step forward. And then another. And another. Until he could taste something acrid on his tongue like absinthe or ash and his voice slipped out again, shakier this time. 

“Huh?” He tried, at Minho’s blank face– purposefully ignoring him. “Why can’t you just… why can’t you…” 

The music was so loud. So ominous. So angry. So Rachmaninoff and Moments Musicaux. 

“–why can’t I… what?”

Jisung felt his stomach plummet the second Minho turned to look at him with the type of gaze intended for Chan. 

“Why can’t I be more like him?” The boxer laughed wryly as he ushered at Chan with the hand he used to shrug Felix off him. “Or why can’t I be more like you?” 

And if there was anything about Rachmaninoff that Jisung appreciated from the years he spent studying his composition, it was the fact his heart often rose to the rushed beats of his most infamous works whenever anger diluted his bloodstream. Like a very fast, very toxic metronome that purposefully wanted his chest to ache. 

“Why can’t you just stop fighting?” 

With that, Minho’s lips twisted into something cruel. Something familiar. Something that stung like salt on the wound that never closed. 

“He’ll never stop,” Felix joined in with a contemptuous stare. “He’d rather have no brother than a happy one– he’ll do the same to you, Jisung.”

The pianist heard the whisper with eyes darting straight to Minho. At his posture. His fists that were clenching and unclenching at his sides– who wasn’t looking at Jisung. He wasn’t looking at the floor or at Chan or anything else. He was watching his brother– perhaps because he was used to the way he looked at him. Perhaps because he knew what he was going to say. 

“Felix–” 

“No, seriously,” the blonde scoffed. “You always do this. You want to make sure we are okay but the second we want you to be okay you go off the rails and get upset over anything– especially if it makes me happy.” 

And Minho glanced at Jisung, who didn’t frown. He didn’t feel himself drawing his hands to his sides, letting them flutter and dance and play some chaotic symphony to try and get his mind to travel elsewhere. He didn’t feel his eyebrows falter, or his face move out of sympathy. His face said more of a he’s right than a don’t do this and maybe that was why the boxer kept his glare on him– cornered by Felix and Jisung and ready to fight… because that was all he knew. 

“How many times do I need to tell you, baby, that you don’t know me?” He murmured. So low and soft yet he may as well have screamed at him. “That I’m not the guy people like you should be with, or that shit just doesn’t magically get solved for me like it does for you unless I stand up and fight?” 

Jisung let his fingers move. He didn’t ball them into fists. He played. Even the parts that felt like the tendons keeping his fingers tethered to his fist were tearing. He let his heart race. He even let his eyes flutter closed in case he wanted to wake up. In case he wanted it all to be a dream. Just in case it had all been an excruciatingly beautiful but hopeless dream that stretched from the time he froze on stage and lost who he was until now. 

And when he reopened his eyes and he saw Minho’s face… his pretty but broken yet face. The one he had kissed and touched and whispered words into, he drew his gaze to his best friend instead. A silent type of look. One that said let me handle it. 

Chan understood. He always did. He stepped back, nudging Felix gently and murmuring something low enough that Jisung couldn’t catch it. Then, they were gone, in a mist of Felix’s whispered words of agony– leaving Minho and Jisung alone under the twinkling lights and taking with them, the music. 

Because it was quiet now. Even in Jisung’s head. 

Minho’s shoulders dropped when the door slid shut. His jaw was still tight but his eyes were fixed on Jisung like he was trying to find something he knew he had already lost. 

“Say it,” he muttered. “Go on.”

The wind carried and Jisung didn’t see them tangled in the backseat of the car after the party anymore. Or wrapped in each other’s air the second they got back to Minho’s place. He didn’t see the kisses his mind vowed to give him or the sun that would hit his bare back and flitter through his blinds the next morning. 

He just saw the same broken thing again. The same broken thing that lived inside his mirror. 

“Say what?” 

“Say what you always do,” Minho said. “That you can fix me. That you can make it better. That this isn’t me.” 

But Jisung didn’t have the words loaded. He didn’t have them practised. He didn’t have the capacity anymore. 

“I’m not going to say that,” he replied instead. “Because I’m sick and tired of lying. To my friends. To myself. To you.” 

And with that, Rachmaninoff was gone. Faded into the night. Out of the tips of his fingers. Into the air. Maybe even into Minho, whose upper lip twitched and eyes stilled. 

“I don’t know what you’ve gone through,” Jisung continued, his voice quiet but unsteady and broken and trembling under the weight of words he wasn’t entirely sure how to say. “I might never know. And I might not even know anything that would come close,” he muttered with a gaze flitting everywhere but Minho’s face. His fingers, his shoes, the empty space just beyond him. Anywhere but his face. “But I know you now. And I…” 

Care about you. 

Need you. 

Love you. 

“...don’t want to see you like this.” 

“But I am like this,” Minho grunted low and clipped and Jisung had never flinched at Minho before. Not when he was the target of his words and actions and shoulders square and facing him. 

“No, you’re not,” he whispered back, the words tumbling out quickly. Like he had a finite amount of time before Minho could talk over him. In case he continued to look at him as he was… like Jisung was crazy. Like he was in the way. Like he was something else to lose if it meant he could protect himself. 

“You forget you don’t know me,” Minho let out, almost with a laugh. “You forget you don’t know my brother or what we’ve been through and the thing is, baby. I don’t care.” 

He took a step forward to Jisung’s step back. 

“I’d be anything you needed me to be if it meant you could find yourself or… whatever it is you wanted with me.” 

And Jisung laughed with him. It wasn’t joyful, though. It was hollow, bitter, broken– just what he expected. 

“Whatever it is I wanted with you?” He echoed, shaking his head. “What? You thought I wanted to lie to my friends about who I was seeing? Skip studying so I could watch you fight and clean up your scars? All so you could magically cure my stage fright and pretend everything was fine?” 

But Minho hummed, tilting his head to the side. 

“And why were you lying to your friends about me again?” He let out to Jisung’s furrowed brow and god he could hear Rachmaninoff again. He could hear Beethoven. He could hear Chopin… and Liszt… and Mozart and Shubert and– 

He almost felt good. When he connected his balled fist to the side of his head, rubbing his temple to try and get the music to turn off. To stop hearing the crescendos. To stop feeling his fingers flutter and dance but god even looking at Minho made him tremble. 

“You’re doing this to yourself,” he whispered, “being angry and scorned and hurt for something you can’t even tell me about. You’re being just like I was before you made it all better for me.” 

“You want me to go professional. So does Felix. You want me to fight.” 

“Boxing and fighting are two separate things,” Jisung scoffed. “And you know that.” 

“I’m not you,” Minho muttered, taking another step forward. Maybe because he knew Jisung couldn’t breathe. “And I don’t need you to make it all better for me.” 

Jisung’s fingers twitched at his sides, desperate for release. Unsure if he wanted to retire to a stool or to drape his hands on Minho’s sides to feel his skin beneath his fingertips. 

“I just need you,” the boxer said– like that was any better. “Whatever you can give me. Whatever you think I deserve. Whether it’s just sex or your time or if you just need me to push you– I don’t care. If I can be around you, then I’m okay. I’m fine. I don’t need you to try and do to me, what you think I did to you.” 

“What you did to me,” Jisung murmured, shaking his head with lips twisting into something between a smile and a grimace. “You made me happy, Minho. Did I…” his voice cracked and he swallowed his saliva at the back of his throat, forcing himself to look up. To meet him halfway. To see Minho head-on. “Did I not make you happy?” 

And Minho could’ve said anything and it would’ve hurt. He could’ve shaken his head, scoffed and rolled his eyes. He could’ve just looked him up and down and said it was a relief. The fact that Jisung let his guard down and let him have his lips, his body– his virtue. That the sex made him happy. That getting Jisung made him happy. He could’ve said yeah… maybe even a little. 

But he said nothing. And that was worse, Jisung supposed. 

Way worse. 

“Okay,” the pianist huffed all small and tight, severing a silence that was so terrible it rivalled that day he sat on a lonesome stool with spread, petrified fingers and a gasping audience to his right. In fact, his mind raced– scrambling to collect itself and fold away the pieces of his heart into the proverbial suitcase his mind knew he needed to pack. Folding his last shirt. Rolling up his last pair of socks. Everything neat and orderly and ready to go “If you don’t want anyone… if you don’t want me…” 

“Jisung–” 

“What?” He whispered, threading his fingers through that last suitcase handle, hoisting it up, awaiting the words that would ensure he carried it away and never looked back. 

“You’ve made me happier than… than I’ve been in so, so long,” Minho muttered with a voice that carried something fractured– like shards of glass, maybe. Softened just enough not to cut but sharp enough to wedge into the flesh if squeezed. 

It was like he took offence to the look in Jisung’s broken eyes. Like it was the score he needed to settle personally. Like he wanted to reach into Jisung’s chest and grab his heart before it splintered into shrapnel and debris. 

“And that’s why it’s shit,” Minho continued, quieter now. “That someone like you. Pretty, perfect, talented you… would do this to yourself over someone like me.” 

Jisung blinked. Once. Twice. And then, with a sound halfway between a breath and a laugh, he grunted. 

“I’ve done nothing since we met but put myself first,” he whispered, as though he’d learned the shape of Minho’s forked tongue. “I spent years wanting to… wanting to…” 

Die. Disappear. Dissolve. 

“...Not exist,” he settled on, the words a little more forgiving in his mouth. “Until I did. Because you showed me not everything needed to be so terrible. And yeah, you’re right. I’ve never done this before– I don’t know how it’s supposed to go. If we’re just supposed to be until we’re not anymore.” 

Minho’s shoulders flinched like he’d been hit. Even the curve of his upper back seemed to curl– like he was about to hold up two balled fists to his face and protect his chin from the blow he suspected to come. 

“You’re probably better at knowing how these things are meant to end than I am,” the pianist whispered softly, a laugh escaping the space between his teeth. “But I almost forget that this is what you’re good at, Minho.” 

And Minho… broken, hazy, shattered Minho, was staring at the Jisung like his words were no longer as melodic. No longer as pretty. Like he wasn’t just a soft thing anymore that he could squeeze like a stress ball or lay on like a pillow made of down. 

That Jisung was real and present and scary. And about to take it all away. 

“What am I good at, huh?” Minho murmured, all split down the middle. 

Jisung smiled and it wasn’t cruel. But it wasn’t warm either. 

“You’re good at pushing everyone away,” he whispered, his words a lullaby turned requiem. “Even if you can’t see how much people love you. Even… even me.” 

He couldn’t help the flutter of broken laughter that followed his words. 

“But I’m not gonna stop you, if you want to do what I did to myself,” he muttered, looking at his feet and how they shifted from the left to the right. “Nobody stopped me. Well. You did, I guess but… I don’t know if you’d let me do the same thing to you.” 

And Minho stilled. For one second and then two. Until Jisung glanced up, seeing his broken, dark eyes– toiled and ran-through. 

“So, you… you love me, Jisung?” Minho said and Jisung couldn’t tell if the boxer was breathing or if he had finally collapsed inward on himself. Like his broken edges were curling into a shield of whatever was left of him. 

“I do,” the pianist said, perhaps stupidly. “Every part. Even the parts you try and hide from me.” 

Minho didn’t move. Like Jisung’s words were hurtful. Like they were sharp. Like they were wasted on him. 

“But that’s my fault, I suppose,” he whispered. “Because how can I give you my love when you don’t even want it?” 

“I want everything from you,” Minho muttered, taking another step closer but it was too much. It was too near. It was too real. “Don’t you get that? You’re the only thing I see worth fighting for–” 

“I don’t need you to fight,” Jisung grunted. “I don’t need you to hurt yourself and push everyone away for me.” 

“I will always fight for the people I love.” 

“Yeah?” Jisung chuckled something bitter and jagged. “Why can’t you stop fighting for the people you love instead?” 

Minho thinned his lips. Like that didn’t exist. Like that wasn’t real. 

“How else am I meant to love you?” He said. “Doesn’t I love you and I’ll fight for you mean the same thing?” 

“No,” the pianist whispered, picking up the last of his things– with Minho’s parting words being the coat he wore out the door. “They don’t.” 

♫

What was a week later without Einaudi and taped fingers pulsating on black and white keys? 

What was a week later without Hyunjin and Jeongin, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the practice room, whispering between themselves and trying their best not to interrupt? 

What was a week later without a phone sitting propped up, by his sheets of music, just in case a name and a number and a single message came flittering through with an I’m sorry or let’s talk? 

What was a week later without a heart? 

Probably this, Jisung supposed. 

At the gradual decrescendo of Einaudi’s waning Experience. Where in the closing measures, the textures were simplified. Transitions to broken chords and light arpeggios. Where he could sigh that it was over. Where his foot flattened on the pedal and let the notes carry and linger and stick to the walls. To earn Jeongin’s contented ah’s he hummed after every piece and Hyunjin’s grunting and groaning about the films he could swear each song was featured in. 

When he knew he did well and was happy to please his audience. But it was hollow and empty and desolate that he couldn’t find much outside of hastily tucking his hands between his thighs– because he didn’t have the beautiful, baby or the winding garden of their shared song infiltrating the room like he was used to. 

He just had this. 

A week later and no better. 

“I don’t think it’s a finale song,” Seungmin uttered from behind him, using three of the plastic seats used for assemblies as a makeshift lounge as he listened concurrently to his study. “It’s too… passive.” 

“What are you talking about? It’s perfect,” Jeongin countered from his seat on the floor– lodged somewhere between Hyunjin’s spread legs and leaning against the shelves of music sheets. “It sounds like it’s from a Ghibli movie. Like right before the climax.” 

“Is it?” Hyunjin shot up. “Because I swear to fuck it’s from something.” 

“Seungmin’s right,” Jisung whispered as he grabbed the Einaudi method book, folded it closed and rested it atop the Steinway. “It’s empty just as an accompaniment. It’s not enough.” 

“The last five songs you played were enough,” Jeongin sighed, bottom lip protruding. “Everyone else competing… they’re good and all. But you could wipe the floor with them if you closed your eyes and played any of the others too.” 

“I liked the one before,” Hyunjin shrugged, wandering hands flickering through a Mozart book. “Solar.” 

–Solas, Jisung wanted to correct, but he didn’t find a reason to waste his breath. Because none of them were good enough. None of them meant anything. None of them even came close to what he promised Professor Park on the phone a few days prior. That he would take his place in the finals. That he would play. That he wanted to. 

“Don’t you guys… don’t you wanna break?” Jisung whispered, letting out a crooked smile at his friends who were shifting more and more into the product of their presumably bored fidgeting the more he played. 

“Us have a break?” Jeongin scoffed. “Don’t you want a break? You haven’t stopped for like an hour.” 

And Jisung punctuated his snort by ripping off the tape that was tightly binding the pad of his index finger. 

“Yeah,” he muttered. “A break would be nice.” 

And so they came and went. Out of the music rooms and onto the main campus, where Chan and Changbin were bartering back and forth about Chan’s training schedule for the league semifinals set for that weekend. The former, just fidgety enough about wanting to get back into the ring, earned himself a solid punch to the shoulder from Jeongin, who leaned over the table with a grin sharp enough to split clouds. 

“Pick me up,” he quipped, fox-like eyes squeezing shut in delight at Chan’s befuddled scoff. 

All the while, Jisung sat glaring at his food. A sad, unappealing mosaic of uneaten portions decorating a lunch tray. He imagined if he would’ve felt any worse had he carried on living the life he did before Minho. If this– their after– was any better: the silence and the erection of great, big walls around both of their hearts. Walls built from the bricks of parting words whispered too softly to crumble: “I’m not strong enough to watch you hurt anymore.” And from the mortar of Minho whispering back with that laugh that stung like citrus on a cut: “You’re smarter than to love me anyway.” 

Because even now, even when he glanced at his phone again– like he did in the morning, at night, before practice and during– he didn’t see Minho’s name. He didn’t see Minho’s smile. He didn’t see his heart– that heart slow-dancing with Saëns just behind them. He didn’t see anything but quiet. 

So, Jisung lingered. Back to the music rooms when his friends separated into the differing ports of the universe calling their names– Seungmin and Jeongin to the library, Chan and Changbin back to the gym, Hyunjin to wherever his feet happened to take him. Jisung stayed behind, gluing himself into the stool where it was just him and the keys. Where he spread his fingers like a habit over black and white: heavy, deliberate, aching. 

Where he played a piece that was the equivalent of rubbing salt into a festering wound– one that refused to scab over, one that enjoyed being raw and red. Because playing the piece he played when he was seventeen, in front of a gasping audience, with a piano that looked alien beneath his frozen and shaking hands, felt better than lingering in their quiet.

In that want. In that love. The love that never left. Not even for a second. Not even for the respite of a break. 

Because if Minho had walked through the door– with his cruel eyes and soft touches and shattered promises– Jisung would’ve preferred to have played Beethoven. He would’ve preferred to play Moonlight Sonata in Presto Agitato: the one piece that he never mastered. The one piece that took everything from him.  

♫

That was how Jisung decided on which piece to submit to the university for what he wanted to play in the finals. 

Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp Minor Op. 27 - Presto Agitato. 

It was a week away and Jisung was just waiting for it.  

There was ample room he would fuck up. Plenty, in fact. If statistics were anything to go by, the piece was the equivalent of a featherweight rookie one more loss away from being kicked out of the league going toe-to-toe with an undefeated heavyweight champion. 

So, Jisung enjoyed it. When Professor Park furrowed her eyebrows when he handed her the sheets. When she whispered ‘Are you sure, Jisung?’ between a frown and a bitten lip– knowing what the piece meant. Where it was colloquially dubbed Beethoven’s Masterpiece but also Han Jisung’s Undoing to those who saw what happened to him. Knowing that it was too hard and too fast for a has-been because it was too hard and too fast when he was someone. Like he anticipated his failure. Like he didn’t even want to try. 

Because he didn’t. 

Not even when Chan gave him a soft smile, dressed in blue shorts with a bag slumped over his chest, on his way out of the dorm to prepare for the semi-finals. The match that decided who would be up for the championship belt. 

“Are you sure you don’t wanna come?” He offered, leaning against the door frame to Jisung’s bedroom. 

“No, I’m okay,” he whispered, giving him the best smile he could. “But good luck, hyung. I’m there in spirit.” 

“What am I gonna do without my good luck charm?” He tried again, not leaving and the pianist sighed, knowing that he could smile and laugh or even come to the match with Chan and he would still look at him the way he was. Like he knew something wasn’t right. 

“Win,” Jisung huffed weakly. “I can feel it.”

“You know, I didn’t wanna tell you this but Innie said he was my good luck charm last weekend,” he let out, with a gentle laugh. “Didn’t have it in me to break his heart.” 

“S’okay,” Jisung hummed. “I haven’t felt that lucky as of late.” 

And he wanted that silence to sift off. To go away. But Chan didn’t budge. In fact, he let himself in, like he always had and Jisung didn’t mind. Not really. 

It almost felt nice to have someone so close to him. The one person in the world who didn’t judge or stare or act like the fire inside of his chest wasn’t this smouldering thing but rather, just a chamber for warmth instead. 

He crossed the room in a few strides and perched himself on the edge of Jisung’s bed, hands immediately clasping together between his bare knees. Fidgety and with tense shoulders. 

Jisung blinked up from the sheet music he had been staring at for the better part of twenty minutes, his pencil still caught between his fingers. 

“What’s wrong?” He asked quietly, though he already knew. He could already see the words he wanted to say. 

“Nervous,” Chan replied, but his voice was strained– too light, too careful. 

“You?” Jisung huffed, smiling so faintly as he turned in his swivel chair to face him. “You don’t get nervous.” 

And Chan offered a lopsided grin. 

“Maybe I just wanted you to say that.” 

Jisung rolled his eyes but didn’t push further. Silence settled, thick but not yet unbearable. He could just see the boxer shifting on the bed, his fingers tapping out an aimless, off-beat rhythm against his thigh. He was probably the loudest thinker in the world. Could even feel the words brewing just behind his tongue. 

“You know,” he said finally. “If you want to talk about Minho–” 

“–I don’t wanna talk about Minho,” Jisung said.

“You don’t have to. But I think you should.” 

Jisung let out a weak laugh, dropping his gaze to the floor. 

“You don’t even like him.” 

“No,” Chan said plainly, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t. But you do.” 

Well. That pulled Jisung’s eyes back up, his heart stuttering painfully at the nuance in the quiet truth in his best friend’s voice. 

“I don’t like seeing you like this when I saw you like that,” Chan went on, gentle-like– trying to edge Jisung closer and closer to the fire blanket to put him out. “Relaxed. Happy. Peaceful, even.” 

Jisung’s lips twitched into something small, rolling his pencil between his index finger and thumb. 

“Yeah, well. Look how that turned out.” 

“That’s not the point.”

“So, what is?” 

Chan exhaled, leaning forward, elbows braced against his knees. 

“The point is… you can never get it right.” He said, practically wearing the plaid suit, with the notepad and glasses on the bridge of his nose as he tried to coax Jisung into his counselling armchair. “You either walk away from something or give it your everything. You don’t do in-between.” 

Jisung scoffed and glanced back at the staff sheet, checking the time on his phone. 

“You’re going to miss the match–”

“You got it right once. Right before Hyun’s party. You looked like yourself. Not the guy who hides behind his textbooks or smiles because he thinks everyone needs him to. You. The real you.” 

“Chan–” 

“And I know Minho,” he continued, raising both eyebrows and hollowing out his cheeks, “is rough around the edges. But if you… if you love him… that means something to me. If you could see something in him that I just can’t… that’s probably because you’re like five times smarter than me.” 

Jisung swallowed hard, his fingers tightening around the pencil until the flesh bloomed white, almost regretting telling Chan everything.

“Whatever you said to each other, I get it,” he added. “Sometimes people hurt each other because saying the right thing is unnatural and scary and uncomfortable.” 

“And what if it’s more than that?” Jisung asked quietly, letting the pencil fall into his palm where he gave it a squeeze. “What if he said all those other things to me instead because he doesn’t feel the same way I do?”

“I reckon you’ll figure it out,” Chan said softly, his lips quirking at the sides like he knew something Jisung didn’t. “If you think it’s worth it. If you think you’re worth it.”

Jisung huffed out a weak laugh from the embers of a bit cheek, turning his gaze back to the sheets of music on his clasped-shut keyboard. 

“Maybe he’s just one of those people that are destined to be alone,” he muttered. “Who doesn’t want help– who doesn’t see the problem.”

“Well, if that’s the case, the two of you are perfect for each other,” Chan smiled. Like there was humour in it. “Two birds of a feather.” 

And Jisung glared at him. For the dig– albeit a small one that would only ever leave a scratch come morning, but a dig nonetheless. Because he wasn’t like Minho. Not really. Well. Maybe in ways. Maybe so insignificantly that they were differing notes but on the same set of keys. Jisung on one end. Minho on the other. There weren’t that many pieces that required both notes together and sure, when they were played in synonymous harmony, it sounded fine. 

But– 

“I let people in. Minho doesn’t. That is the difference.” 

Chan didn’t dispute it with words. Just his face. His all-knowing, smug, confident face slowly rose higher as his legs did, and his smile led the way. It always would. 

“Okay, Ji,” he said, shrugging his bag over his shoulder. “Sure you do.” 

“I do.” 

“Mm-hm,” he sighed, heading toward the door, glancing back at Jisung with a small smile that was too knowing. Too warm. “I’ll leave you to it. But you know… if you change your mind and wanna come to the fight, you’re always welcome. Good luck charm and all.”

“I don’t want to watch you and Minho in the ring again,” Jisung muttered with one last desperate blink of his eyes. “I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime.” 

“Why not?” Chan tilted his head to the side. “It’s the most anticipated fight of the night.” 

“You know why,” Jisung grumbled, uncaring if Chan was leaving for the match with the pianist’s glare in his periphery. “Surely you’re bored of hitting each other by now.”

“But Minho wants you there.” 

Jisung’s eyes flickered to his phone on the corner of his desk, its screen black and empty. 

“No, he doesn’t.” 

“No?” 

“No.” He reiterated this time with steam. “And you wouldn’t know anyway.”

Chan made a tch sound and shrugged once more. 

“I mean… he did tell me himself this morning when I was with Felix,” he chuckled. “He told me a few times, actually. He talks a lot when he isn’t so… err… bothered.” 

“What?” 

“I either see you at the fight or I don’t,” Chan let out with a smile that said the world. “We’ll both be waiting for you.” 

“Chan–”

Jisung stared at the door when Chan slipped out of it, leaving him alone again. Alone with his music, with his thoughts and god– he couldn’t work out which was worse. And he could’ve sat there and stewed and stared at his empty phone and maybe even let his anger fester at Minho and his spite and his streak of sending him into a spiral. 

Because he supposed that standing to his feet after a bout of staring at the wall and walking to his wardrobe was something of fighting back. Even if he couldn’t help the way he was slowly relaxing his muscles so taut and tense and pent-up. Just a little. Just to himself. Just because. 

Even if it hurt, even if it was terrifying, it almost felt better than filling his head with a piece he never truly mastered. 

♫

Was Jisung embarrassed to be sifting through a crowd of very loud, very patriotic, very energetic boxing-goers? Probably. 

Did he have a pep in his step and a little too much uncharacteristic enthusiasm for something other than sleep as he headed toward the main ring of the arena? Undoubtedly. 

Where he could see promotional posters and screens lighting up in university colours. 

Baekje v Mountainview. 

Lee v Bang. 

Where he could see Chan’s smile– so bright, so ready, so familiar. And Minho– sharp around the edges, serious and infuriating Minho– who made the pianist question everything. 

Why was he there? What was he going to do? If any of it was worth it? 

He had never felt the arena vibrate as though it were alive. There were more people crammed into the seats than there had been at last year’s grand finale, where Chan had taken home the championship belt. It was a bracket match, or so Changbin had explained somewhere earlier in the week when it was announced Chan and Minho would be fighting each other to see who would get a shot in the grand finale the following weekend. 

It wasn’t just the crowds. There were scouts. Serious men in serious jackets with creased foreheads and clipboards in their laps. Representatives from major boxing gyms. Even a whisper of a head-hunter from the professional league. It wasn’t just talk anymore. They were everything the league were following. 

And maybe Jisung wasn’t supposed to be here. He had promised himself he wasn’t coming. He even pulled Chan aside a few days prior, when Changbin announced the match to the group, and everyone stared at Jisung like he would be the one shoved into the ring with a rabid, wild Minho. Where he tugged on his sleeve and whispered: “I’m sorry, hyung… I can’t watch.” Where there, Chan smiled softly and said, “I get it.”

Because, of course, Chan got it. He always did. 

And while it was true, that Jisung was using the solitude to go over and over and over Beethoven again, he felt his chest settle when he saw (or heard) his friends in the rows near the ring. Where all of Chan’s trainers and coaches were in bright blue and in serious talks. 

“You came!” 

It was Jeongin first and the hand of who-knows-who wrapped around his forearm in the seconds before he was yanked toward the group like a ragdoll. 

“Innie–”

“Too late,” the youngest grinned, his fox-like eyes flinting as he pulled him forward with a strength that seemed inconsistent with his size. 

And before Jisung knew any better, there they were– Hyunjin waving wildly from the middle of the row, Changbin hunched forward and swinging like he was already preparing for round one, and Seungmin, unbothered, with a hand lodged halfway through a packet of chips like he was waiting for his movie to start. All of them turned, one by one, grins breaking over their faces like one big I knew it. 

“You said you weren’t coming,” Hyunjin sang as Jisung stumbled into the row, cheeks burning with the weight of far too many pairs of eyes on him. 

“Yeah, well, I changed my mind,” he muttered, dodging Changbin’s elbow as he shoved past to hold out an open palm to Seungmin who rolled his eyes. 

“Pay up, Kim,” he smirked, watching his dormmate pull out enough cash to buy a meal which he shoved into his hand. “You’re just in time, Ji– they’re almost ready to go.” 

And Jisung didn’t look at them. Not at Jeongin or Seungmin or Hyunjin– who was already getting settled into what looked like an in-depth analysis of the later fight lineup with Changbin– but at the ring. At Minho, whose poster loomed larger than life on the far wall of the arena. 

Minho, whose edges had always been sharp enough to slice but whose smile, when it appeared, was soft enough to save. Minho, who was just about to fight. Minho, who was just about to make the pianist reconsider everything.  

All he knew was that it was too late to leave now. 

So, he tucked away the smile that wanted to tug at his lips. Still angry. Still hurt. Still unsure what Chan meant… but he was there for Minho. Because he was there, on the side of the stage, for him. 

It didn’t take long for the lights to dim at the arena Jisung could cite from smell at this point. The stands dissolved into shadows, leaving the spotlight on the empty square of canvas bordered by rope and the looming posters at the rear. 

Minho in red. 

Chan in blue. 

Chan’s smile was the same as it was in the marquee reading his name. The everything will be okay, Jisung kind of smile, paired with the eyeroll and lopsided grin that seemed to appear in his poster alongside two blue gloves poised and ready for action. 

Minho, though– Minho looked different in his poster. The lips Jisung had tasted were quirked to the side– about an inch away from a scowl. His eyes, which once held Jisung like he was everything or at least something, were sharper now. Distant and unreadable. 

Not the picture he had in his mind but maybe the most accurate one instead.

The announcer’s voice boomed through the arena, their names rippling into the static-ridden air. The stakes were announced as if anyone needed reminding: a shot at the championship belt the week after. The most anticipated match of the league. 

But Jisung wasn’t thinking about any of that. His frown lingered, drawn to the sea of blue in the audience, only occasionally broken by droplets of red– Baekje fans standing out like stray notes in a symphony. His gaze drifted to Minho’s empty corner. No coach. Just a nervous waterboy pacing near the ropes. And a little beyond that, a glimpse of blonde in a sparse patch of red, trying to fill his corner’s emptiness. 

Jisung glanced at his friends, perched in prime seats with the best view of the fight. It would be easy to stay there– hidden among them. But he wasn’t supposed to be there. He knew it. 

He let Beethoven die when he leaned toward Seungmin with lips pulling into a faint, recognisable smile. An I need to do this kind of smile. And before Seungmin could protest, he excused himself, slipping down the dark stairs into crowd. 

The arena grew louder, more fervent but nevertheless, Jisung weaved and dodged and let his feet lead him almost on instinct until he slid into the seat beside Felix. 

His shoulder nudged the blonde gently. A small tether amongst the noise. 

“You’re here,” Felix whispered with a voice tinged with surprise and something broken. His eyes held the muted light strangely- their spectrum shifting in a way the pianist couldn’t quite articulate. “I didn’t think– he didn’t think–” 

“What else was I meant to do with myself?” Jisung’s laugh came out as a half-sigh, half-deprecating note. “Something, something most anticipated fight of the season.”

The creases by Felix’s eyes softened.

“I’m assuming you had some help?” he murmured. “In getting here.”

Jisung smiled at his lap.

“Chan told me that he’s been visiting Baekje. With you. And Minho.” 

Felix’s gaze flickered upward.

“T’yeah,” he uttered. “Thought of messaging you. Calling you. Come and get one of them so I don’t have to clean up the mess.”

“And yet…”

The blonde sighed again.  

“Minho asked him around. I didn’t want any part in it,” he said, raising both eyebrows with a shard of concern Jisung knew too well. “But he thought he could get to you if he could get through to Chan and it helped, you know? Having that conversation with him.”

“They didn’t try anything…?” 

“Almost,” Felix let out a quirk of a smile as Mountainview’s song erupted through the arena, sending the crowd to their feet for Chan. “And then they didn’t,” he said a little louder– right by Jisung’s ear. “They talked. And then…” 

Felix’s face shifted into something small and barely there. 

“I’m just really glad you came today. For Minho.” 

The lights dimmed further and the crowd’s chatter turned into a dull roar as the announcer made another noise through the speaker. 

Then came Chan, weaving his way through the wall of people, his university jacket slung over his match shorts and gloves that gleamed brightly under the harsh fluorescence. His head was down, his stride solitary, and god– Jisung could almost hear his friends from his perch beside Felix. Their cheers, their commentary, their familiarity. 

But the noise blurred when the lights shifted, revving life onto the other side of the arena, and Jisung’s gaze pulled like gravity. The announcer said Minho’s name, and there he was. 

The fighter in red threaded through the crowd like he was sewn into the colours of the university he didn’t even care for. His stride was purposeful, set, and his eyes– those sharp, cutting eyes– seemed to latch onto the spaces between Jisung’s ribs, making it hard to breathe. 

And the pianist’s heart thundered in his chest. Unsure if a single glance from Minho would unravel everything. Would make him realise it wasn’t worth it. That he was wrong for being there. For coming back. For sitting in the wrong corner. 

But when Minho ducked beneath the ropes, stepping into the ring, and under the bright lights, Jisung knew he didn’t feel that way. Not really. 

Chan was still waving at the crowd– doing what he did best. As if the weight of the fight and everything it meant wasn’t pressing down on him. But Minho… Minho moved differently. He didn’t even glance at the crowd; he only had eyes for the centre of the ring. For Chan. 

“You know, they’re not that bad in a confined space together,” Felix chuckled softly by Jisung’s ear, pulling him back to the moment. “Well, at least not when Minho wants something.”

Jisung tore his gaze from Felix and let it dwindle at the ring. Chan had turned to face Minho, the two boxers now jacketless, their gloves poised and ready. But it wasn’t the stance or the posturing that made Jisung’s foot tap and fingers pulsate. It was the way their eyes met. 

There was something strange about it. Chan, always so steady, seemed wary. Apprehensive, even. And Minho? Minho’s gaze was unwavering, his focus absolute. Then, Minho moved forward, stepping deliberately toward the centre of the ring. A red glove extended– more than protocol. 

“I don’t know what he wanted with Chan,” Jisung whispered. “All that silence and now… this.”

“Because he’d do it for you, Ji,” Felix murmured, nudging him again as the pianist watched Chan’s blue glove meet Minho’s red. 

It wasn’t a declaration of peace. Not quite a we’re all good. But maybe, it was an it’s going to be okay. 

And then they broke apart, retreating to their corners. Jisung’s eyes trailed Minho, watching as he turned his back to the crowd. His chest rose and fell, already lightly sheened with sweat like he’d been warming up for hours. His damp, dark hair clung to his forehead, and his mouth, now covered with a guard, seemed to press tighter with resolve. But it was his eyes that made Jisung’s chest feel like an inadequate shell for his heart. 

Because his eyes were searching. Through the crowd. Scanning each row like he was looking for something. For someone. 

“He told me he’d do anything for you,” Felix whispered, so quietly it almost got lost in the cheers and chants. But Jisung heard it. Felt it settle in the pit of his stomach. 

And upon the ding of the bell, he felt himself starting to believe in what Felix said. That it was true. 

Jisung stood by it– not seeing the allure in boxing, that is.

When the crowd rose to their feet like the crescendo in Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude, he and Felix stayed seated in their little pocket of quiet wonderment. Punches landed– hard, sharp, calculated. Jisung wasn’t even sure who hit who half the time because it was so quick and sudden, but both were taking blows in equal measure. 

Jisung really… really didn’t see the allure. 

Seeing his best friend’s jaw twist to the side from a flash of red. Seeing the man who held his heart in his fist, always poised to squeeze, falter backward when a bolt of blue barrelled into his stomach. 

The cheers, the bets, the people capitalising on the spectacle– it all made his stomach churn. 

And yet. 

When the referee broke them apart after a bout of pressing each other against the ropes– neither quite swinging, both tiring hot out of the gate– Jisung felt his stance falter. Because they were both smiling. 

Chan shook his head as he retreated to his corner, rolling his eyes like they were back in the dorms and someone had dared him to do something stupid. All the while Minho stalked back to his own corner, eyes on the canvas, blood slicking the corner of his mouth. But there was a smile there too– quirked, defiant, alive. 

Like it hurt but it was fun. It was worth it. 

The screams and the support and the hand Jisung felt clasp his wrist as the referee blew the whistle and they advanced toward each other again like two shooting stars destined to collide. It was everything to them. And for that, it became everything to Jisung. 

“I don’t know how he came around,” Jisung muttered to Felix, eyes locked on the flurry within the ring. “I don’t know how they came around.” 

The blonde chuckled, tugging Jisung a little closer with a voice a quiet hum over the roars of the crowd. 

“I can be persuasive,” he said, raising a knowing eyebrow. 

“Do I wanna know?” Jisung’s lips curled to the side, his teasing almost swallowed by the thunderous applause. Felix didn’t answer, not directly. Instead, he tugged at Jisung’s wrist again, pulling him to his feet so they could get a better look at whatever the crowd was aweing at. 

“Nope. But… your friend’s a nice and giving guy, huh?” 

Jisung rolled his eyes, elbowing Felix lightly in the ribs. Their gazes shifted back to the ring, just in time to see Chan cornering Minho against the ropes, navigating each block and weave with an energy the pianist hadn’t seen before. A punch to Minho’s stomach. A dodge. An uppercut that barely missed Minho’s chin. 

But it didn’t last long. 

Because Minho had twisted– slipping free from the bracket and landing a hit square on Chan’s jaw. Then a quick combination. Then a block that earned the referee’s whistle and brought the first round to an explosive end. 

The crowd made so much noise it was contagious. 

But Jisung’s focus lingered elsewhere. On the way their gloves touched before they retreated to their corners. Not as enemies but as players of the same game. And the fingers that wanted to flutter, the eyes that wanted to dart away, the stomach that wanted to roil, all settled. Even if only for a moment. The world felt still. It didn’t tilt. 

Minho leaned over the ropes in his corner, reaching for a water bottle held out by his lone attendant. He took it, tipping it to his lips before his eyes returned to the crowd. First, Felix. A flicker of recognition, a confirmation of presence. Then, Jisung. 

And the pianist froze. 

Because Minho didn’t move. Not at first. His chest rose and fell steadily, sweat glistening on his skin, in his dark hair– that clung to his forehead in damp streaks. He even pulled his mouthguard free, revealing lips marked by a single streak of blood. His gaze didn’t waver, didn’t flicker, didn’t stray. 

Jisung swallowed hard. 

He wasn’t sure what Minho was waiting for– or maybe it was the other way around. Minho blinked, his teeth dragging over his bottom lip. And Jisung– heedless, heart-pounding, hallowed Jisung– let Chan’s voice ring in his mind. Like it usually did when he was about to do something stupid. 

But this time it wasn’t caution. It wasn’t a be careful or a be okay. It was a get it right, Ji. 

So, the pianist stood a little taller, smiled and mouthed “Fight for me,” to the boxer whose eyes didn’t leave his own. 

And then the bell dinged again but Jisung didn’t see the clamour around them– the noise and the people and the referee staring at Minho’s back. Instead, he saw the way Minho’s lips quirked into a smile. The way he nodded, almost imperceptibly. 

I will, he said as he glanced at his corner– at Felix, at Jisung– and saw, for the first time, that it wasn’t empty. 

♫

Jisung wasn’t sure how many rounds it had been. Four? Probably five. It felt more like a thousand. 

Each ding of the bell blurred together into one chaotic symphony but in every one, he caught Minho’s eyes– steadily breaking down, faltering but more intent as the match carried on. He caught Chan too. Moving slower now, every hit deliberate and laboured and each step heavier as they ran each other into the ground. 

It was clear how badly they both wanted it– the win. 

But it wasn’t like last time. 

There was no malice in the blows, no pockets of venom hidden in their gloves. 

Jisung could see that Chan had learned how Minho fought. Where he was quick in parts and pulled punches in others. And just the same, it was clear Minho had adapted to Chan’s style seamlessly. They were evenly matched. 

It wasn’t about anger anymore, but hunger– a hunger that lit the ring and the crowd on fire. Maybe that was why the arena didn’t sink into the same darkness as before. There was no ugliness to taint it. Just the purity of two fighters, each grappling with themselves as much as the other. 

And maybe that was why it hurt less when the final blow landed. 

It was Minho. A sharp hook to the side of Chan’s face left him staggering into the corner, the whistle blowing to call it over. 

There, Jisung exhaled a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. The match was done. It felt too close to call. Chan had fought like he used to, and Minho was everything he had always been– the best. 

The pianist barely paid attention to the music rippling through his veins or the referee in the centre of the ring, clasping both fighters by the wrist as they awaited the judge’s decision. He didn’t care. His gaze was locked on Minho, who wasn’t even looking at the referee. He wasn’t looking at the crowd or the cameras or the ceiling lights casting a golden hue over his sweat-slicked skin. 

He was looking at Jisung. 

Always at Jisung. 

For Jisung.

–Who could only smile, pocketing his hands as warmth spread through his once-barren chest now soft and unhurried. He didn’t care about the result, and he was sure Minho didn’t either. He was just proud of him. Just missed him. 

The referee’s voice boomed through the air, drowned out by the cheering crowd and when Minho’s red glove shot into the air, marking him as the winner, Jisung barely noticed the announcement. Neither did the boxer. 

Minho simply bumped his glove against Chan’s– no pomp, no celebration, just some strange, mutual respect. 

Then, he turned to his corner, slipped beneath the ropes, and walked. No, not walked– jogged. Straight toward Jisung. 

His mouthguard was out and tucked into his shorts, the strap of his left glove pulled off with his teeth, leaving his hand bare save for its wrapping. His entire focus was on one person– who heard nothing. No such melody. No sonata nor movement nor opus. 

And Jisung’s breath hitched as Minho reached him, standing right before him. He wanted to say something. Maybe an I’m sorry or I’m proud of you or I’m so glad I came. But the words didn’t have time to marinate and bake in his throat for Minho’s hand was wrapped around his waist, pulling him close. 

So close. 

The heat of Minho’s skin and the scent of sweat and canvas enveloped him all sticky and overwhelming and impossibly comforting. Jisung didn’t hesitate. He let himself fold into Minho, let his arms wrap around his neck, let his face press into the crook of his shoulder until he could almost taste every hit his body took. 

The crowd was a distant hum, the ring a forgotten, desolate stage. 

Because Minho was holding him so tightly, his gloved hand squeezing at his waist, his body swaying slightly as if they were caught in their own rhythm. A silent I missed you in the way he pressed closer. An unspoken I needed you in the way he held on like he’d never let go. 

When Minho pulled back, Jisung could see everything in his face. The bruised lip, the cut on his nose, the sweat clinging to his temples and the exhaustion etched into every line of his body. And yet, his eyes were warm. Soft. Full. 

“You came,” Minho whispered like he was a pianist at the side of a desolate stage, running into the arms of the one person who made it all better. 

“Of course I did,” Jisung murmured back, like a boxer who walked the same painful road that made showing up as easy as falling asleep. “You were perfect.”

There, Minho squeezed a little tighter.

“It was all for you,” he whispered into the crook of his neck—sweat and exertion and exhaustion translating from skin to skin. “Win or lose.”

Jisung could only squeeze his eyes shut and melt and melt and melt.

“You won.” 

Minho made a noise, glancing to the side of him at Felix who swatted his back. A well done he supposedly fixed upon his shoulder before other officials and people from the university neared. 

“It’s just some stupid university league, isn’t it?” His lips tugged to the side. Tired but undoubtedly happy and Jisung smiled again. 

“Yeah. Like some stupid university music competition or something.” 

And his wrapped hand fell to the side of Jisung’s face. The hand that hurt. The hand that people came to see. The hand that felt like a soft morning in Autumn– bitter in parts but kept snug and warm when their skin was touching. 

“I love you; you know?” Minho whispered, not grand nor loud. Not polished nor perfect. 

It was raw and broken and said through the waning embers of the fight he was still wearing in his chest. Even when their lips were pressed against each other. Rustled pecks and quick kisses in the space hiding between the words. But it was enough. Enough to take the breath from Jisung’s lungs and for him to finally– finally let the music inside him still. 

No more Rachmaninoff. No more Beethoven. 

Just silence. 

Because– 

“I know. I love you too,” –wasn’t too far away. 

♫

Jisung only felt compelled enough to shuffle forward when Changbin did. His chest was pressed so tightly to the bench out front of the auditorium that the pen tucked into his breast pocket threatened to snap. 

“You clearly weren’t watching,” Changbin muttered, his hands poised as if he were seconds away from demonstrating the fight himself. Leading hand. Protecting hand. “He only lost points because his elbow was faltering.” 

“Nah, he was sweeping the floor with his eyes– it was obvious he was going to duck.” 

“I don’t know if it was obvious,” Chan was quick to cut in, following Minho’s words with a steady voice but his posture was still loose from fatigue. He leaned slightly forward, the bruise under his left eye a deep purple, blooming like a shadow. 

“Mm. Just his eyes,” Minho murmured, a hum laced beneath his words. “Isn’t that enough?”

His lips were quirked in that way– half amused, half testing. It was enough to prompt Jisung, Felix and even Changbin to exchange a not this type of glance. 

But Minho doubled down, his town as sharp as the tape still stretched over his nose from the fight the day before. 

“I knew it’d be over in the first round. He can’t hold his own with all that pressure.” The boxer continued, even if his eyes said one thing to Chan, his lips curled into a smirk said another. 

So, Chan lolled his head to the side, mouth pursed but holding back more than he let on. 

“It won’t be a hard final though. That’s all I’m saying,” he shrugged. “You’ll have him by the fourth round. Mark my words.” 

“Were you listening to anything I was saying?” Changbin joined in with a grunt. “Minho’s stats say he’ll have the final won next week by the second round– even if Choi decides to actually look up this time.” 

“You’re confident,” Minho couldn’t help the chuckle that spilled from his lips. 

“Yeah. Too confident,” Chan agreed, leaning on his elbow as his gaze danced to Changbin’s phone.

“And what stats of mine are you even looking at?” Minho snorted, leaning closer to Changbin’s screen. All the while, his hand settled on Jisung’s thigh, an anchor among the conversations about numbers and outcomes and the highly anticipated final match that everyone promised to make. Because if Chan wasn’t going to take the belt– it just had to be Minho, according to Changbin. 

Jisung glared down at the sheet music in front of him. Beethoven with his fingers spread across the page to hold it steady against the light spring wind. His gaze, however, was unfocused. Caught somewhere between the thrum of Minho’s touch and the notes he’d pencilled in between the staff lines to mark the odd fortissimo sections he could now hear in his sleep. 

“Are you sure you’re ready?” 

Jisung blinked, startled out of the melody by the ten fingers sprawled out over his own. Longer, slenderer, and completely covering his notations. 

“What do you mean, are you sure he’s ready?” Seungmin scoffed from the other side of the pianist, about halfway through a packet of jellies, and doing his best to ignore Jeongin’s burning gaze, which was likely aimed at the last few pieces. “Of course, he’s ready.” 

“I know that,” Hyunjin shot back as his nails tap, tap, tapped against the sheet music so comically off-key. “But does Jisung know that?” 

And when his eyes met the pianist, who adjusted his reading glasses and finally looked up– they softened, a grin tugging faintly at the corner of his lips. 

“I know it.” 

“Even the hard part?” Hyunjin didn’t seem so satisfied. “The one where it goes dun-dun uh… do-da-do-da-do– you know… the one where you cross your hands over and go from high notes to low–” 

“I’ve got it,” Jisung chuckled, catching the allegretto da capo Hyunjin was referring to, nestled in the folds of the second movement. 

“You just need to breathe,” Hyunjin reiterated, leaning against the table with the gravitas of a sage. “Breathe and play. Play and breathe. But most importantly, breathe.” 

“Solid advice,” Felix chimed in, eyebrows raised as he scooted closer to the faction of the group– clearly bored of Chan and Minho and Changbin talking about boxing. “Is that hard to do?” 

“You missed my last performance,” Jisung said, his laughter soft but wry. “Turns out if I stop breathing, I stop playing. Who knew?” 

His gaze dropped momentarily to the hand on his lap, absentmindedly leaving a gentle squeeze against the trousered flesh. 

“But it’s okay,” he added with a gentle smile. “It’s fine. If I stop, I stop. The world keeps spinning, apparently.” 

“No– it’s not fine,” Jeongin was quick to shoot his head up. “You’re going to win. I already told my friends to meet us out after because you’d win and I bought all the ingredients to your winner brownies I was gonna bake tomorrow.” 

“Innie–” 

“You’re the best there is,” his hand darted straight across the table and into Jisung’s shoulder. “And you’re going to breathe, right?” 

“Yes, I’m going to breathe,” Jisung rolled his eyes. “And I’m not playing to win. I’m playing…” 

The pianist let his fingers linger downward again to rest atop Minho’s hand. Swollen in places with tape over a wound Jisung suspected he got training. He gave it a squeeze. A for you type of squeeze but it felt a little stale in his mouth when he glanced up, at Jeongin’s eyes and Seungmin’s and Hyunjin’s– the way they were treating his stint at a silly piano competition on a Sunday night like the world stage. 

“...for us, remember?” He settled on with a smile. “And the food coupons, I guess. I’m sure that’ll make it worth it.” 

But it was easier said than done when Jisung was pacing up and down the green room at the auditorium– with his friends a distant memory and probably sitting through the first contestant’s performance with too much conversation laced on their tongue and too much confidence in Jisung for his liking. 

–Which was strange for the pianist. To pace, that is. 

He used to sit still, his head tilted back against the plaster wall, his earbuds in, softly thudding his head in time with quarter notes as his fingers tapped imaginary keys on his thighs. He would wait like that, quietly counting down until it was his turn to perform. Or maybe he’d sit there, half-listening as his parents droned on about how to handle the second movement of a piece while his mind wandered to video games or the catchy part of a song he’d heard on the radio. Something synth-heavy, repetitive, with meaningless lyrics. 

So, it was odd, not having that same swirl in his stomach. 

Instead, every time he turned at the edge of the small patch of floor he’d claimed for pacing, his eyes caught on the hoodie and headphones tucked in the corner of the green room. 

Minho sat there, his face scrunched up in concentration as he listened to the third movement of Moonlight Sonata. His brows were furrowed, his teeth tugging at his bottom lip, and every few seconds his expression twisted into something unmistakenly lost. 

Jisung could almost tell which part Minho was up to by the way his face shifted. Words like fuck or really or how are you gonna do that etched into his sharp features with every footstep Jisung took. 

It was almost funny, how out of place Minho looked in the corner of the green room. The other musicians and contestants were so poised, prepped, formal and entirely immersed in the protocol of competition that Jisung often referred to as his second language. 

Meanwhile, Minho was a languid sprawl of limbs and casual ease, leaning back on a plastic chair like he owned the place or something. Even if he was there because Jisung couldn’t do without him, and somehow, that eased the music in the back of his mind. 

“What’s the matter?” Jisung hummed, breaking his pacing as Minho plucked his headphones off and let them rest around his neck. “Something wrong with the demo? Did I miss something?”

“No, it’s not that,” Minho let out a soft laugh, blinking up at the pianist with those wide, dark eyes. Though, the quirk of his lips straightened into a still line as he took in the worry on Jisung’s face. “It sounds… pretty fucking good.” 

“Then what?” 

“Well. You’re not giving the others much room to breathe with this one, huh?” Minho teased, gesturing with a casual wave toward the other contestants scattered around the room. “You sure you won’t need a water break midway?” 

Jisung followed his gaze to the other contestants and snorted. 

“I don’t know about that,” he hummed, slipping into the seat beside Minho. His hands stayed busy, smoothing down the crinkled sheet music in his lap, fingers brushing against the pencilled notes and reminders. 

“You’re not playing fair,” Minho added with a gentle nudge to Jisung’s knee, earning a faint smile from the pianist. “It’s dirty, actually.” 

“It’s ambiguous… and probably stupid,” Jisung chuckled as he brushed his thumb over Beethoven’s name atop the sheets. “But I think I’ll get to the five-minute mark before my body runs out of juice. Right where it slows down before picking up again. That’ll be a nice place to tap out.” 

“But you finished it in the demo,” Minho pointed out, brows furrowing. 

“That was a recording, not a performance,” the pianist hummed the reminder. “The five-minute mark is fine. Last time I played this piece in a competition, I only made it four minutes before I ran off. I figure I deserve some kind of consolation prize for making it further this time, right?” 

Minho sighed, slinging his arm over the back of Jisung’s chair to pull him closer. It was nice. The way the boxer created a little cocoon of safety around him, and Jisung leaned into it without a second thought– his temple on his shoulder. 

It was easier to be here, to face the stage, with Minho right next to him and his friends who fought a couple of students for a prime spot near the front. 

“You’ll be perfect, baby,” Minho murmured like it was something of a fact. “You always are when you play for me.” 

Jisung smiled faintly, his gaze dropping to where their thighs knocked together. Subtle and unobtrusive but he shifted closer anyway. 

“So, I make it to the five-minute mark. What’s my prize?” 

“Five-minute mark,” Minho sighed, running the tips of his fingers over Jisung’s shoulder covered in a thin white dress shirt. “I take you home after we go out to celebrate tonight.” 

“That’s not a prize,” the pianist shot back with a glare. “I thought I was going home with you anyway.” 

“But cross the five-minute mark, and you can get something else,” he countered with a smirk. 

“You mean what I was already hoping to get anyway?” 

“Get to the end and we’ll go shopping sometime soon,” Minho offered instead, shrugging. “How about it?”  

“What for?” 

“For a coach,” he muttered. “I mean, if I’m gonna keep sweeping belts left right and centre in this lame university league, I’ll need one,” Minho said casually, stretching his neck. “Chan mentioned something about one of the coaches at Mountainview who’d be interested in taking me on.” 

“You’re going to transfer?” Jisung asked, his voice dropping to a whisper with a growing smile so odd and out of place. “Here? With Chan a-and the team and–”

“You,” Minho hummed back. “Because maybe that’s where I’m better off.”

“Solid advice,” the pianist whispered in a voice that barely believed it.

“Turns out, doors open when you win,” the boxer chuckled. “If that means wearing blue gloves next season, maybe I’ll deal with it.” 

Jisung felt his teeth dig into his bottom lip to quash the smile tugging at his lips. Because he wanted to wrap both arms around Minho and squeeze. He wanted to melt into that haze of Saëns and Chopin and Debussy. He wanted to float away into that hazy river of this and swim far, far away from the bothersome obstacle Jisung would be walking onto in a matter of moments. 

But instead, he hummed and nuzzled his head slightly on Minho’s shoulder. 

“You look really, really good in red,” he sighed. “But blue gloves just might do the trick, you know?”

Blue gloves in stability and being near each other and being lost but being lost together.

Minho reached down, lacing their hands together– leaving no room to jitter or fidget or move– letting them rest atop his lap. 

“Next thing you know, I’ll have some university lackey doing my wraps and wiping my sweat and being a poster boy like your friend.” 

Jisung snorted, squeezing his hand tightly. 

“Nobody can wrap you like I can.” 

“And nobody likes it when you play Beethoven more than I do,” Minho whispered back. “Even if you only get through the beginning.” 

“We’ll be fine, I think,” the pianist sighed against Minho’s shoulder, letting his weight press fully onto him. “I mean, probably. Maybe. Most likely.” 

“We will,” Minho replied, with a gentle squeeze of their hands– mismatched in places, soft in parts, rough in others. “I’ll make sure of it.”  

♫

Breathe. 

It was the last thing whispered in Jisung’s ear as the ushers wheeled the piano onto the stage following the waning notes of a cellist and a spectacle rendition of Elgar. 

His fingers flexed, a reflex born out of habit, as he glanced through the curtain’s folds. A lengthy stretch of sorry sacks there to watch an amateur music competition. Nothing serious. Nothing heavy. No diplomats or reporters or parents. 

But he still needed to hear that one last ‘breathe, baby,’ Minho had murmured against his cheek before the press of a kiss lingered there. 

Because then Jisung stepped onto the stage, met by a rising wave of applause and lights so bright they were nearly searing against his skin. And it didn’t help. That the tempo etched in his mind wasn’t Beethoven or Debussy or Chopin. 

It was the frantic, ugly cadence of his own heart. 

It was still there– the fear. Sitting heavy in his chest. There to make him hurl or trip or stare blankly at the keys and play the jingle from his favourite chicken restaurant instead of the sonata that had haunted his sleep since he was seventeen. 

But the word lingered. 

Breathe. 

It was so etched into his brain that he saw lavender when he closed his eyes. Reds and blues bled together and became one when they danced. It followed him as he pivoted on his heel to face the crowd. A bow. A polite brush of his trousers. 

The stool beneath him squeaked as he sat, and the pages rustled as he adjusted the sheet music on the stand. 

Sure. It was insignificant. 

Nothing to worry about. Nothing to fear. Nothing to warrant the sneering voices in the back of his mind that called him a has-been, a loser, a husk of a genius who once lived and breathed music like air. 

Still, his gaze flickered to the crowd like a conductor might suddenly appear and count him in. 

He saw them all. 

The adjudicators– three of them, faces unreadable and unrecognisable. Professor Park was nearby, her head tilted slightly with two thumbs up, as if her encouragement were a physical thing Jisung could reach out and hold. The rows were scattered with people he recognised from the orchestra. The jazz band. The musical faculty. People who had once known him as Han Jisung and now as an adrenaline-junkie testing out the one movement he never quite mastered as some twisted form of self-pity. 

And his friends. 

Chan’s broad smile so soft it threatened to melt him. Felix’s excitement was palpable and touchable even from the stage. Hyunjin’s whispering and Jeongin and Seungmin and Changbin, waving and grinning like it was the finals on the world stage or something. 

Breathe. 

He whispered it to himself as he turned back to the keys. His knuckles cracked, first on one hand and then the other. His neck followed. A ritual for luck. 

When he let his eyes drift past the Steinway, however, past the polished mountain of wood and strings that felt almost like a prison cell, his gaze caught the key on the jangly chain and the freedom he needed. 

Minho. 

Standing somewhere near the curtain, still and composed, his hoodie askew. One step away from being on the stage himself. But his smile was brighter than anything the stage lights could conjure. A play for me type of smile. With an I love you in there too. 

The one that bore a foam roller and a bristled brush and painted the keys that sat before him with a colour so intrinsically theirs. 

“Okay,” Jisung whispered to himself, stretching his fingers as far as they would go. Settling them in sections of C minor.

He let his hands hover there for a moment. A goodbye to the noise and the fear and the hesitation. 

All to kiss away the freedom for some seven minutes and forty seconds. 

No looking back. No stopping now. 

And then, he began to play. 

All of sudden, Jisung blinked and fury coiled itself around each of his fingers as he struck the sharp, quick and unforgiving opening. His hands moved with precision, each note sending ripples that expanded into the silence between bars. 

Breathe. 

A pause in the notes. Exhale. 

Then he blinked again, and the fury dissolved into a flurry, propelling him forward. Through bar fourteen, his foot softened on the dominant pedal point, the rush of motion interrupted only by the delicate suspension that followed. He let the pause linger, savouring the way it gave the flurry room to breathe. Allowing him a fleeting moment to gird his stomach muscles and to hold his breath because he was in the race now. 

A retired runner only a tenth of the way through his first marathon in years– that happened to be lined with every obstacle he could ever name. 

Jisung wasn’t sure how long he had been playing between blinks and breaths. He wasn’t sure what bar he was up to, because his body was moving before his mind could catch up. To say wait or hold on. Muscle memory. Notes buried deep in the folds of his brain, pulled from their dusty corners with a mental shovel he didn’t realise he still had. 

Maybe because this time, he played not for a win. Not for a title. Not for a belt. 

He played for Minho. 

For his friends. 

For himself. 

His wrists were aching. His lungs burned. A bead of sweat slid from his temple and he swore it dipped onto the keys before being swept away by the momentum of his fingers. His upper lip twitched in exhaustion. His eyes alternated between softening and sharpening with each transposition of the tonic key. His mouth was dry. His stomach was empty. 

And yet…

Jisung felt his eyes close as he skimmed past the four-minute mark. Then the five-minute mark. Then six. His joints were settling, relaxing as his body fought to keep pace. His mind had lagged somewhere back in the 80th bar, but his fingers pressed ahead, nearing the 160th. 

All the work flowed to his right hand, dominantly dancing over the keys closest to the audience. Not that he noticed them, really. Whether they were booing or jeering or gearing up to walk out in case the music Jisung was hearing wasn’t the music they were hearing. 

Behind his closed lids, he saw the notes as they were. He saw Minho and his glove raised in the air. He saw Chan as the golden clover on his bracelet of luck. He saw his parents, arms crossed and eyes pleading that he play and play and play. 

To not smile as he was smiling now, letting himself dissolve into the keys, into the notes. To not laugh or grunt as the crescendo swelled. To not glance away and break focus with fingers moving on their own to see trouble. Perfectly jarring and achingly pretty trouble. 

With his smile and his glassy eyes and their broken spirits bleeding into the air, reaching out to find one another. 

And Jisung laughed, then. Quietly and with what little breath he had left. He smiled through the sharp, quick arpeggios. His pinkie and thumb leapt across octaves with a precision he had only ever achieved in practice. 

He made plans in his mind for later. For the night. To be back with his friends with something to talk about. Something to be proud of. 

To hold Minho’s hand at the table and feel normal for the first time in his life. 

Normal and wanted and loved. 

Not for the piano. 

Maybe… for walking away from it.

Jisung realised he had finished when the applause swelled, filling the room after a single rest. His breathing was heavy, laboured and echoing in his ears as his slow blinks brought him back to the present; a once contender for world title, sitting on a quaint stage with the potential to win a minuscule prize.

He wiped his sweaty and pink palms on his trousers and his legs trembled when he pushed himself to stand, nearly faltering as he straightened. He blinked out at the audience, his chest heaving with each laboured breath. 

The crowd was on their feet and the sight was almost too much. 

His friends were loud, undoubtedly so. But the rest of the crowd were almost louder. People he didn’t know were calling his name. A cacophony of praise and cheers, like they were celebrating something greater than a Sunday night amateur competition. 

Jisung blinked again, doe-eyed and unsteady, before bowing. It wasn’t polished or practised. Just a clumsy, half-cast gesture as his laughter bubbled up again, unbidden. The sound was light and airy, and it carried with it every ghost he had let live in his mind. 

Because there were no ghosts here anymore. No spirits or spectres or demons. 

Just this. 

–where the buzz in his veins softened as he walked off the stage, applause still trailing behind him. So much adrenaline in his blood that for a moment, he almost wanted to turn around and play the first and second movements too. How maybe he could’ve played everything. How maybe he had so much more to give. 

But the thought faded as quickly as it came because the second he stepped offstage, there were arms around him. Strong and steady and wrapping him tight. 

Minho smelled like something soft and familiar. Maybe the hoodie he’d worn all day or the faint sting of the cigarette he smoked on the way over. But there was something else, too. Something that felt more like a you’re safe now. Something that Jisung didn’t need to be told anymore. 

“I’ve got you,” Minho murmured against his ear. “You’re okay.” 

Jisung laughed again all full and real– like the kind that used to escape him when Minho whispered something silly to make him smile. Like the boxer knew he was only standing up with jelly-like limbs and the fading adrenaline to balance. So, his arms came up, slow and steady and hooked around Minho’s neck, pulling him even closer. 

“You’re the best there is,” Minho whispered again. “The best there will ever be.” 

They swayed like that. To the applause fading into the background with no need to look at the stage or the piano; Jisung’s favourite song. 

“I’ve got a pretty good coach,” Jisung said more into the crook of his neck, meant to be sept into his skin like a tattoo that he could wear every day. 

“Yeah? I don’t remember teaching you anything about Beethoven.” 

“Not Beethoven,” Jisung grinned, fingers drumming lightly against the boxer’s shoulder. “But how to breathe. How to… be.” 

Minho pulled away something tender. His thumbs brushed over Jisung’s sides, like he couldn’t stop himself from touching him. From making sure he was still there. Still real. The same hands travelled upward, cupping the cusp of his jaw and tilting his chin upward.

“I like how you be,” Minho said, like the words didn’t make much sense outside of their little bubble of being okay. “I like how I get to be too.”

And Jisung knew his performance didn’t quite make music like Minho’s words did.

“Speaking of breathing,” Jisung sighed, his legs trembling beneath him. “We need to go before I collapse. I’m jelly.” 

“Jelly?” Minho laughed softly; the arm wrapped around his waist insurance enough that he wouldn’t fall. No way. “You sure you don’t wanna wait around to win this thing first? The prize is, what? Food coupons?” 

Jisung shook his head, his own laugh spilling out all light and unrestrained. 

“Don’t need to win,” he whispered, nestled in the groove where Minho’s upper lip hovered over Jisung’s bottom lip. “Never needed to win.” 

And he meant it. 

Because he was here. 

And he was home. 

♫

Because there wasn’t much that changed when it was a year later, and Minho’s name was in lights and Jisung’s was in a magazine. The one he tucked under his wing when he was the last one to make it to practice. An exhibition training session– where the two-time league champion was dancing around the ring one last time before graduation. Where he would make that natural progression from university to the big league, a coach and a gym and a life waiting for him on the other side of his testamur. 

“Oo– show me, show me, show me!” 

Jisung slid onto the bench beside Seungmin and Jeongin and Hyunjin– who snatched the magazine out of his hand and flipped straight to the back. 

“Look at that,” Seungmin was the first to coo when they landed on a photograph of Jisung standing in front of a Steinway– an awkward smile etched to his lips. “The lighting really makes your cheeks pop.” 

“Shut up,” Jisung rolled his eyes as he adjusted his glasses, taking a peek at the ring to see the boxer in the blue shorts but loyally red wraps spar and dodge and jostle with one of the trainers. “It’s one thing they wanted to take a photo before I went on stage and another that you can visibly see how sweaty I am because of it.” 

“I think you look nice,” Jeongin decided with finality. “And if I had any such skill with any such instrument, I’d be your first student.” 

“Prodigy Turned Principal,” Hyunjin read the title of the article, more concern etched onto his face than anything else. “Gee– who’s a guy gotta sleep with to get a whole page like you, huh?” 

“Why do you need to get featured in a magazine for theatre and music only?” Seungmin deadpanned with a mutter. 

“And why do you need to sleep with someone to get in there?” Jeongin sneered alongside him, leaving Hyunjin a gaping mouth and rolling eyes and pliant enough that Jisung was able to slip the magazine from his grip and skip down the stairs to get closer to the ring. 

“Uh-uh– no distracting him,” it was Changbin and a grip on his arm. Physiotherapist in Training read his jacket, with a whistle slung around his neck that said otherwise. “He’s in a flow state right now.” 

“If he gets distracted, that’s on his coach,” Jisung hummed, doing his best to slink past him but it wasn’t enough because the grip had moved from his arm to the magazine in his palm. 

“Cough it up,” he muttered with a snatch, pulling it into a grip and letting a smirk bloom across his face when he flickered the pages. “Ah– found you.” 

Jisung let Changbin skim the page all about him and his last performance with the university orchestra and the practice he was opening up after graduation. Of teaching music instead. 

“Cheeks,” was all he seemed to get out of the article. “Eh– fine. I’ll be your first student.” 

“Tempting. So very tempting, but I’ll need to get back to you,” Jisung hummed with a laugh as he took the magazine back under his wing, letting Changbin return to the other trainers and physiotherapists and medics– all lining the outside of the ring to let the press and the reporters and the big names gather around the practice. 

Felix was sitting nearby, his gaze fixed on the boxer in the ring as his hits landed fast and clean and unrelenting on his trainer’s pads. 

“He’s gonna hate this,” Felix muttered when Jisung sank into the seat beside him. 

Jisung raised an eyebrow, following the blonde’s gaze toward the ring. 

Minho, his mouthguard visible because of the smile on his face and sweat sheening his skin. The type of relentlessness in his movements that was becoming something of a signature– even when the whistle called for a pause. 

“No,” Jisung hummed. “He looks like he’s enjoying it. The attention.” 

“Not Minho. Chan,” Felix added with a chuckle, nodding toward the opposite side of the ring where the older man, now a year out of university, was wearing his Coach’s jacket, clipboard in hand. “He hates it when he gloats. Says it looks bad to the press.” 

Jisung snorted, watching as his best friend’s gaze flickered between his clipboard and the canvas– his eyerolls nearly audible every time Minho muttered something under his breath or lapped the ring like he was making sure everyone was watching. 

“Chan’ll survive a bit of obnoxiousness, won’t he?” 

 And Felix laughed, running a hand through his hair. 

“You’re still coming over early on Saturday, right? We need a game plan in place to shove a cake and candles in front of him and make him blow them out.” 

“Yeah,” Jisung nodded, far enough into October he just wanted cake and to gift give and to pluck a pointy hat atop Minho’s head because he knew it would make him squirm. “Changbin said he can pin him down if necessary. The least we can do is actually sing Happy Birthday before he even gets a chance to fight back.” 

“Good,” Felix smirked as the bell rang and the trainers and the officials began circling Minho– a man in demand. 

The boxer, however, had already spotted Jisung standing to his feet. He was already ignoring the water boy and the official with his towel. He even ignored Chan’s sigh of, “Minho, you need to take more pictures,” before he made his way to the pianist. 

“Baby,” Minho hummed, still puffing– his red wraps running through his damp hair as he leaned in to peck Jisung on the lips. “Thought you were gonna leave me here to suffer.” 

Jisung chuckled, reaching up with his too-long flannel-clad hand to wipe a bead of sweat trickling down Minho’s temple. 

“Looks like everyone’s here for you,” Jisung teased softly. “Better get pretty again. They’ll want more pictures.” 

Minho raised a brow. 

“You saying I don’t look good?”

“I’m saying you look hot and sweaty and like you’ve been bouncing around a ring for an hour,” Jisung replied, swatting Minho’s fingers away as they dug into his waist. 

“You got your magazine today?” Minho asked, plucking it from Jisung’s hands before he even had a second to protest. Flicking through the pages, his eyes lit up when he found Jisung nestled somewhere between a cellist and a vocalist. “Pretty,” he hummed, pulling the photo so close Jisung was sure he could see the flush of his cheeks. “Even better than the one they put up in the auditorium.” 

“Really?” 

“You look… proud,” Minho murmured, eyes dancing back to the pianist. “You’re gonna be fine, baby. More than fine.” 

Jisung huffed, squeezing Minho’s bare shoulder. 

“You’re gonna be fine too. Just smile for the cameras and we’ll get out of here.” 

Minho smirked, letting their lips touch once and then a second time. Where Jisung could taste salt and sweat and truth all over him.

“And then you're all mine, right?” 

“Yeah," Jisung whispered, letting his swan flutter away while he kept their lake still and calm and homey– tucking his own wings into his chest, knowing Minho would return. "Always will be."

Because they had no choice, Jisung supposed.

They were always bound to return to each other.

And to float together in the same lake he almost drowned in once upon a time when he thought he could swim on his own.

But it was nice to have the company; broken wings and all.