Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Jisung wasn’t sure what he expected but it sure wasn’t this. 

‘Oh, he just does not shut up,’ his friend from calculus snorted as she slipped him the contact. ‘I barely got in two words of work before he started trailing off again about this guy from the gym.’ 

Jisung was perfectly cut out for the job according to Yuna. ‘It’s not like you can relate to him,’ she snickered when their professor turned her back. ‘Once you throw questions at him, he’ll shut up real quick.’

He saw the only downside being the twenty-minute drive away from campus to the dorms nestled at the seams of the rival university across town. Well… that and the parking situation… and the unfamiliarity of an entirely new map of campus buildings and their confusing names. 

But he accepted the job knowing it meant cash and perhaps a chance to travel as far away from the relentless yawn of Jeongin and Hyunjin arguing over exam preparation like Jisung didn’t have eyes or ears or a penchant for correcting their errors every time they tried to revise together. 

It was strange, though, not seeing that bumbling, love-struck chatterbox Yuna lined up for Jisung to tutor. 

It was strange to stare at a stranger in an open doorway, on the fourth floor of a compilation of units with a mouth barren of moisture and a note written in squiggly handwriting in his palm. 

Unit 6/4– written upon the lined paper and by the door left agape. 

“What?” Muttered the man with the eyes that skimmed over him, past his glasses, past the bag pulsating on his back, and directly toward the sweaty note now scrunched in his fist. 

Maybe he imagined someone chipper. Or perhaps someone chirpy. Someone not this. 

“F-Felix?” Jisung puffed his chest out, feigning whatever smile he could translate with teeth that felt too big for his dry mouth. “I’m Yuna’s friend. From Mountainview. Uh… I texted you that I was coming today, right? Um… see,” with the messages already prepared, he could only push the log toward the mess of black hair, wispy and scuffed around in the middle of the doorway. “I did say I would be here a little earlier… I uh… I hope that’s not a problem.” 

Jisung felt his mouth go stale again as he listened to the pulsing thump of the music blasting from the earbud in the man’s left ear. 

Sure, when he used to tutor high schoolers he was used to seeing their feigned dissatisfaction and gnarled grunts at the sight of him. But he didn’t tutor the often nonchalant and painful high-school-aged headaches anymore. In fact, he was here for advanced calculus. 

And apparently to a man swabbed in dark sweatpants, an equally dark tank top displaying his collarbones and chest who was absolutely swimming in an oversized grey zip-up jacket. His features were sharp– skin that had seen warmer days and the type of eyes that looked to kill. 

Maybe even the tutor scrambling in his doorway, Jisung imagined. 

“Well um… if you’re ready to begin,” Jisung followed his eyes as they scanned across their messages– particularly the very spritely ‘Can’t wait to finally meet you JiJi!!’ Felix had sent that morning. Maybe he was shy. Or just didn’t like the look of him. Or was described by Yuna as something and was disappointed in all that stood before him. 

But Jisung somehow lost that thread of patience when the man in the doorway flickered his gaze away from the message log, back to the sweaty note in Jisung’s palm, to his glasses, to the shirt he so suddenly became aware of. 

“I’ll just… yep… thanks…” 

Jisung held a hand over his mouth as he slipped past the gap the stranger so kindly gave him just in case he muttered something contemptuous beneath his breath. Maybe he should’ve come with Yuna. Or Chan. Maybe he shouldn’t have had those two coffees that morning because there was no mitigating his thumping chest. 

Not when the music bleeding out of those headphones followed him past the sky-blue walls of the hallway, covered in framed photos, posters from movies, and then the open sprawl of the living area. 

Maybe he expected that sting… that scent of cigarettes and ash when he brushed past his next student. Maybe he expected that 2-in-1- bench press and pull-up contraption, tucked tightly into some corner as best as it could for one of the larger dorm rooms on account of the gym bag he noted was wrapped around his torso. 

But what he didn’t quite expect was the clinically clean state of the kitchen. With its great big spice rack and frilly aprons hanging up by the pantry. Or the plush white couch– the type that coaxed insecurity about the cleanliness of one’s clothes. 

His roommate probably had a penchant for the nice stuff. His new student, however, and that gaze that burnt into the back of his neck, probably didn’t. 

“Is… Is here fine?” And Jisung smiled again and pulled his backpack from his back to raise his eyebrows at the two stools by the kitchen bench. 

Well, he was kind enough to remove the bud from his left ear.

“So this is uh… tutoring?” 

God–Jisung really needed to work on his comprehension skills in some components of the lesson. 

“Yep,” Jisung hummed as friendly as he could as he glanced at the bench once more, utilising the man’s rough grasp of the back of one of the stools as he pulled it outward as evidence enough of a yes. “Don’t worry, we won’t do anything too crazy today. Yuna told me that you guys don’t have exams for another month or so– which is lucky if you ask me.” 

Jisung couldn’t quite help his chuckle– knowing for sure it wasn’t at his self-deprecating attempt to humour but rather because he didn’t know what to do with his face. 

“All of our exams start in the next two weeks so…” 

It was then, that he slid onto the stool beside him, shoved the bag that was once wrapped around his torso to the floor and finally glared at Jisung’s backpack as though he had a semblance of an understanding of what was going on. It was probably in poor taste that Jisung felt his breath hitch at the sight. 

Maybe the angel sitting on Jisung’s right shoulder wanted to slap him for finding something so oddly attractive about his symmetry. It helped with those collarbones peeking out of his singlet. And his lips, pink and slightly glistening as he ran his tongue along the bottom one. Even when it was his eyes, so dark and gloomy, that fuelled the devil sitting on his left who knew better than that. 

“What did you want to begin with? Yuna told me you’re going into STEM and while I’m a little bit rusty when it comes to some of the more nuanced subjects, I aced advanced calc last year so I brought over some of my notes and prepared some practice questions for you.” Jisung pulled out a binder of notes and tabs and plonked it onto the kitchen bench before him with a grin– perhaps to hide the grimace that followed the idea that the man across from him was staring as though a second head had shot up out of his neck. 

“Advanced calc,” his voice was a mutter, finding some sort of complacency with the nod he conjured from the outset. “Right,” he clears his throat, arm swung around the head of the stool as though hanging onto a languid thread that he knew would unnerve his new tutor. “Right– right… yeah… I remember now.” 

“Good,” Jisung darted toward his notebook and laptop laid atop one another in the thin pocket of his backpack. “Because I like to go about things hard and fast.” 

Somehow, Jisung’s words conjured a semblance of a reaction from the man who smelt like a strange combination of cologne and cigarettes, whose lips twisted to the side in some sardonic curiosity. 

“Hard and fast, huh?” He tilted his head to the side, reaching across the bench and snatching up Jisung’s blue ballpoint pen, rolling it between his fingers. “I didn’t take you for that.” 

So not the chattering, chirping, lovestruck man Yuna described him as but something worse. 

Jisung could deal with worse if it meant he could pretend his inner forest wasn’t proverbially tindering toward a fire back at home.

“Well, that’s how I like to do things. I talk. You listen and do.” Jisung pressed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose with a nod. “Hard and fast.” 

“I usually like doing it slow and messy,” he raised an eyebrow, his tongue darting out once more to swipe his bottom lip. “But I can do it hard and fast if you want me to.”

Did he smile earnestly? Probably. Sarcastically? Definitely. Was he a challenge Jisung really didn’t want to take on right now? Absolutely. 

Was Jisung usually nice and easy-going and personable as a tutor? Sure, but he didn’t quite imagine a man like this deserved such a disposition. 

“I have only two rules when I tutor– okay?” Maybe it was the fact he knew he had a year on Felix that made him puff out his chest, open his notebook to the page left marked, and glare at him out of the corner of his eyes. “Follow them and you and I should get along just fine.” 

“Bossy, hm?” He smirked again, pressing Jisung’s pen between his index finger and thumb until the pads of his fingertips turned red. There was no such comfort present to settle that relentless stammering of his chest– not when he continued to flicker his gaze from Jisung’s shirt to the lump in his throat bobbing up and down with every silence. “Go on then, tell me your rules.” 

“Rule number one; you need to tell me if you don’t understand,” Jisung was quite stern about this. “It’s a waste of your time and my time if you just nod and say yeah I get it when you don’t. Stop me at any time and we can talk things through, okay?” 

It seemed futile because the man across from him scrunched his eyebrows together, pursed his lips and pressed the lid of Jisung’s ball-point pen against his bottom lip. He still had that smirk simmering to the surface and the more he stared at his tutoring subject, trying to garner a plausible shred of sincerity, Jisung realised he may as well be talking to a brick wall. 

“You like to be talked through it?” His teeth skimmed the electric blue of the pen, prodding and pressing until it met the tip of his tongue and god– why was Jisung staring? “Hm.”

“And rule number two,” Jisung severed that jumping mouse in his chest by reaching forward and snatching his pen back. “I know better than you do.” 

That seemed to conjure the opposite of a reaction than what Jisung intended. Where he almost craved his rather taut throat to swallow down the sarcastic drawl of words Jisung was sure he had prepped and primed to make his tutor feel as uncomfortable as humanly possible, those pink lips instead coiled to the side. Like he liked Jisung’s words. Like they were just what he wanted to hear.

“You in arts?” 

“No.” 

“Law?” 

“No.” 

“Then what?” 

Jisung suddenly remembered all of those TV shows he binged about guys of this nature and something about getting in with the wrong crowd. 

“Does it matter?” He snapped, opening his tabbed and laden notebook with a huff. “We’re not here to talk about me.” 

And then he tilted his head to the side once more, eyes flickering in every place Jisung wished to turn invisible.

God, he wanted to fling that devil sitting on his left shoulder off and out of the window. 

Yet, when he heard some jostling about with the front door, those same unnerving thoughts washed over him like a torrent when a head of blonde hair, a white cardigan and a songful hum came scurrying into the dorm. 

“–Yeah, yeah I get that I’m late,” the voice– deep and exasperated travelled across the hall. “But I stopped to fill up the car so I don’t even want to hear a word out of your mouth about it– Oh… Jisung!” 

Jisung had to pull his silver-rimmed glasses he used more for reading than anything else from his eyes as he honed his vision toward the man in the kitchen and the smile peeling onto his lips. 

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry I’m late,” he chuckled as he ran a hand through his hair– a few inches off sitting upon his shoulders. With a wide-beaming grin, his satchel was hung up on the neat perch of bags and trinkets by the living room that bled into the kitchen. “You would not believe how much my biology professor talks. It’s endless. Non-stop. Yap, yap, yap. I almost had to beg him on my hands and knees to let me go and–” 

The man’s chattering, bumbling and flittering voice faded as his eyes trailed between the lax ray of sunshine sitting languidly upon the stool as though it were a chaise lounge and Jisung… whose insurgency of confusion only heightened. 

And then, with a resigned sigh as he leant against the kitchen counter, the new addition to the very strange dorm rolled his eyes. 

“Minho… what are you doing?” 

Minho. 

“Minho?” Jisung wasn’t sure why his brain commanded he said it out loud. 

“God– what did he say to you?” He was staring at Jisung now before his gaze barrelled to the man who probably knew what his tutor’s blue ballpoint pen tasted of. “What did you say to him?” 

Felix–Minho– whoever was sitting next to him at the kitchen bench sighed and plucked himself off the kitchen stool. 

“I didn’t say anything to him,” he hummed, all innocent and nonchalant, sure to snatch the keys from the man Jisung very quickly worked out to be the real Felix gawking and glaring at him in all the ways he supposed he deserved. “Good luck though– this one likes things hard and fast, apparently.” 

“I am so sorry for whatever he said,” Felix– real and comforting and a wonderful change from whatever that was that re-wrapped the gym bag across his torso, whispered as he scampered toward him. “So, so, so sorry and he was just leaving anyway. Weren’t you?”

Minho didn’t even cast a glance at him. Just walked around the bench, eyes grazing the floor, and opened the fridge, staring into it for the better half of thirty seconds. 

Only when he found dissatisfaction with whatever was in there amongst the shelves lined with protein yoghurts and strangely neat meals prepped in separate containers, did he shut the door with a sigh before plucking an apple from the fruit bowl and running it beneath the tap. 

“I’ll be back late,” he muttered between indiscernible crunches of apple, eyes not leaving Jisung’s as though the words were meant for him. 

“What is late?” Felix and those darting eyes muttered back. Like he was conscious and aware Jisung was still sitting there, putting together disjointed pieces of a weird puzzle. “Last night you said you would be back late and you woke me up at six in the morning– you know what? Just leave. Jisung– gosh… sorry Jisung… had to drive from Mountainview and you-you–” 

“Oh, sorry Jisung,” he hummed back like a flat note rather than a sharp and Jisung had to pocket his fingers that suddenly fluttered along to some sonata that stayed in his mind long after he fled from the studio the night before. “We can’t upset Jisung, can we? Fuck Felix… why don’t you just relax?” 

It had to be the boyfriend. And he was sizing Jisung up. Like he would ever have a chance with the man across from him who thankfully sauntered into the dorm with that infectiously wide smile. Maybe that explained the weird glances and the way his eyes burnt into the back of Felix’s head as though he wanted his gaze to burn into all the dark places of Jisung’s mind. 

It had to be the boyfriend, and they were in some cold, strange and turbulent relationship where they communicated solely in sharp mutters and grunts. 

“Bye!” Felix hummed, sliding down on the stool beside Jisung, elbow leant on the surface as though that were the brick-and-mortar to completely exile the man loitering nearby. “Come home when you feel like it. I’m not mum or dad.” 

“You wish you were though,” that irritating ‘tch’ fell from his pink lips once more and maybe that was power enough for Jisung to fumble through his backpack to grab his glasses case, acting like he was too busy to absorb the strangely familial exchange happening before him. 

Not a boyfriend. How interesting. Jisung wasn’t sure what to do with that information or the smile that subtly conjured from the revelation of it. 

“Please ignore him,” Felix laughed perhaps to overcompensate and as his hand reached forward to gently squeeze Jisung’s shoulder, he blinked. Felix treated him like they had been friends for years and while it would’ve been nice to talk about what more they had in common like Yuna and exams and a penchant for advanced calculus, he couldn’t help but notice that same stare from the other party in the kitchen almost commanding his attention. 

The party that made it difficult to swallow or dart his gaze around the room in case it rubbed him the wrong way. The party continued to smirk. Continued to watch him. Continued to only notice his fidgeting hands and his gulping throat. 

Like it was some form of entertainment for him and while it would be easier to turn on his heel and utter a what are you looking at… the angel swinging its legs and twirling its hair on his right shoulder was far too busy enjoying the attention from him. 

“Can I get you anything? Maybe a cup of coffee or an iced tea before we start?” A head darted into view. A very cheery, spritely, smiley head. 

“Shame it didn’t work out,” Minho made one more passing comment, hood shoved upon his tuft of messy dark hair, jaw clenched as his lips twisted to the side as one last fright, Jisung supposed. “Thought we could’ve had something– you and I.” 

“Yeah, you wish– lock the door behind you–” 

And he was turning on his heel, out of the dorm and leaving Jisung in the hands of his new student and a strange thrum in his chest. 

Was it anger? Highly likely. Irritation? Surely. Something more? Jisung feared so. 

♫

The time away did wonders. 

The more students he took on as his mid-year exams loomed on the horizon, the more his fingers stopped wandering. It was a pesky habit, after all. The worst of its kind. 

He tried to mitigate it over the years. Mittens rather than gloves during the winter months. Pockets. Headphones wherever he went– flittering through house music or those insufferable demos Changbin threw his way from his favourite Soundcloud rapper. 

Anything that didn’t carry a melody that would latch itself to Jisung’s mind and take charge of his fingers– ensuring they played out an entire composition without his consent. 

But he still took those same precautions… even with two coffees in his system that ensured his fingers were only there to type on his laptop and flicker through pages of his textbooks. 

He, like always, found himself in the most distracting place he knew of to study… Therefore, it was the least distracting. His wandering fingers could never quite do a silent library. Or the desk in his bedroom. 

It was the smell that distracted him the most, he supposed. Sweat and rubber. 

And it was the sounds. Grunts. Pants. Gloves colliding with leather and chains moving on the hooks connected to the ceiling. A melody of its own kind that didn’t need a nocturne. Or a tempo or pulse. No such articulation in staccato or form. 

It was its own gruff depiction of harmony. 

Like a library, nobody held so much as a conversation, which was helpful. And when they did, it was usually one of the coaches or faculty from the university, there to sing their praises to their star boxer and the one person who understood Jisung better than most. 

But today was a little different. There was quite a lot of talking. An audience, even. 

Gathered around the practice ring, yelling grunts and cheers as the sparring carried on. While Jisung and the rest of the university had a good three weeks of rotating exams, Chan had both his exams and the first match of the open season all in the same week. Even when Jisung’s fingers weren’t quite tired from typing and his eyes were preened to keep reading and reading and reading, he still glanced up, closed his notebook, and smiled as he watched his best friend in the world bouncing around the ring. 

He flowed like water. Soft elbows. Light feet. He always had that big grin– all white from his mouthguard. But he still laughed the same. It was a howl of a noise and while Jisung didn’t understand the technicalities or the rules of the game, he judged it from his best friend’s laughter. 

A snicker of a thing if he nailed a combo. A cry of a cackle if he made a mistake. 

And while he sat there, bright-eyed, watching a master at work, he couldn’t help his smile when Chan, towel wrapped around his bare sweat-slick torso called a pause, gloves hung on the corner of the ring and ventured straight toward him. Passing the faculty who were murmuring among themselves about Chan being the big-ticket to represent the university in the amateur league– enough promise clad to his name that he could one day go pro. 

When he slid beside him on the bleachers, he leaned an elbow on the seats behind, softly panting beneath his breath as he ran a hand through his sweaty dark curls, squirting water from his squeeze bottle into his mouth. 

“Get much done?” He huffed between breaths, hands clad in his white wraps, pointing at Jisung’s books. So casually. Like he didn’t just nail his practice and like there wasn’t a torrent of important people (on the basis they had whistles around their necks, clipboards, and hoodies with their ranks in the boxing association on) speaking the world of him before their eyes. 

“I think I see quadratic equations when I close my eyes,” Jisung sighed, sure that there was something upon his brow. Maybe he was frowning. Maybe he was raising his eyebrows in some strange sense of comfort. “What is that a symptom of?” 

“Obsession,” Chan snorted, shaking his head as he glanced back at the empty ring. 

“Oh yeah… that.” Jisung was shutting his textbook probably because the same part of his brain that activated his survival instincts told him so. 

“Coach says I’m ready,” he sighed. “And once the first round is over, I’m gonna become your worst nightmare, you know that, don’t you?” 

Jisung shrugged, always happy to be Chan’s tutor– helping him pick up the slack around his boxing season. 

“It’s fine,” he murmured. “I think I’ve finally got a grasp on everything so… maybe we just pull an all-nighter once your fight is over. We’ll get it covered.” 

Chan’s eyes softened as he pulled the towel from around his bare shoulders, bunching it up and running it across his forehead and into his hair. 

“You’re doing it again,” he muttered, flickering his gaze back to Jisung’s books. “But you’re being subtle about it this time.” 

Jisung rolled his eyes in playful jest– even though his index and middle finger fluttered on the bench beside his knee… a C and D, jutting and soft. 

“I’m not doing it again,” he shook his head with a laugh. He didn’t want to linger on their last exam period and the way he nearly killed himself from not sleeping.

He remembered not eating. Not drinking. Not seeing the sun until Chan started training outside so Jisung could at least get some vitamin D. 

Chan made a face and Jisung sighed, knowing he often needed to put on the bravest facade in the world to reassure his best friend. 

“It’s fine. I’m gonna be fine.” He shook his head. “We’re all in the same boat.” 

“I don’t know… I just… I don’t want this to be another…” 

Chan cut himself off halfway, probably because he could see Jisung’s brows furrowing– his bottom lip curling beneath the top. Probably because he knew that his heart stammered and stuttered at the thought of then. Of the time his hands shook as he lay in the middle of the music room across campus. Paper cuts across his skin. Strewn pages of sheet music across the room. The tears that fell from his eyes. The chest that heaved when Chan held him tight. 

Of a time when Jisung imagined losing himself if he got any result lower than perfect. 

“Fuck, Ji… I wanna win this fight so bad.” Chan said instead. “M’only making sure everything is okay with you too. If I’m not around and you need me I…”

And a small smile bloomed on Jisung’s face at the diversion in topic. 

“You’ll win,” he sighed. “You always do.”

“Saying that is bad luck.” Chan’s crooked smile helped… but his fingers– those pesky things– continued to tap along the bench. Like a riff this time. 

“But I’m your lucky charm,” Jisung’s head tilted. “So if I say it, my luck cancels out all the bad luck.” 

“Sure,” he rolled his eyes. “And when I say good luck to you, you nearly bite my head off.” 

“Because luck doesn’t work on me,” he sighed. “Preparation doesn’t equal luck. It equals preparation.” 

Chan sighed, standing to his feet and rubbing his towel across his face once more– this time a little harder resulting in small pink marks beneath his eyes. 

“When I step into the ring this weekend, luck isn’t gonna get me that win, prep is,” he raised an eyebrow. “Luck is just gonna make me look good out there.”

“And how do you suppose I look good when I make the Dean’s list again?” 

Chan grinned, maybe at Jisung’s sense of self. Maybe at the flames behind his eyes. Maybe at the thighs that had graduated to sitting flat on his fingers to stop them from fluttering. 

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Go and get out there, I guess. Half of the fight is finding something that makes it worth it.” 

And while Jisung would’ve loved to have sat there, rolled his eyes and nearly gagged at the pseudo-inspirational drawl Chan pulled out of his ass whenever anyone in the group found themselves against a proverbial brick wall, he didn’t find much to argue. 

♫

The dorm was eerily quiet when Jisung finished his first practice exam. 

Chan was at the gym. Hyunjin about an hour into his economics trial exam. Jeongin off at a photoshoot– having secured an exemption to take his practices a week earlier to model for a clothing label. 

He could hear it at the back of his mind. Nuvole Bianche– Einaudi. 

It was almost dirty that the first thing he did after leaving the exam hall was to sprint to the music rooms on the other side of campus. He locked himself in the piano studio and played a flawless rendition. He knew it from memory, after all. It was his finale piece at a recital from years ago when he was thirteen, having won first place in the open category. 

He remembered the silent drive home– the applause still echoing in his ears. 

Hands crawled through his hair as he shook away the memory and stared at a barren sheet of lined paper meant for the calculus notes he needed for his practice exam next Tuesday. But instead, he saw a staff sheet. He could visualise the notation clearly: F minor, four flats in the key signature, andante. 

The dorm was so silent that even the residual sounds of the TV and Chan’s sports channel from the night before couldn’t drown out the quiet. His wandering eyes fell to his phone, lingering on a pulsating text he had received the day before from a new number.

You mind if we go over my revision notes once more? I made cookies!!

Felix was sweet. Even Hyunjin muttered that most of Jisung’s tutoring students usually got scared off after that first session. But Jisung supposed Felix was just like this with everyone. 

This time of year was Jisung’s retail peak, and for that, he didn’t mind driving back across town to a unit far neater than his own, hoping to escape that relentless buzz that pulsed on his fingertips when he aimlessly glared at his bedroom wall– wondering how it all went wrong. 

He wasn’t opposed to seeing Felix again. They got along well, after all. He listened. Asked questions. Chattered on about interesting things, complimented his demeanour and even sighed with disappointment that they didn’t go to the same university. 

When he knocked on the door, he ran a hand through his hair, standing in an oversized shirt, neat, not wanting to be seen, and jeans that fit him everywhere but the waist (having tied himself into them by threading one of Jeongin’s laces through the back belt loops.) 

After three knocks, Jisung furrowed his brows. 

He expected that cheery face. A flash of blonde hair. Bright gaze and that calming nature. 

And yet, he was met by a different set of eyes. That ray of sunshine that leant casually across the kitchen island the other day. Staring. Sizing him up. Doing everything in his power to make him more uncomfortable if that were even possible. 

Jisung hated that they were nice eyes staring back at him. Sharp and lingering. As were the collarbones and the hint of chest peeking out of his singlet. His lips. And his mess of dark hair. 

Jisung wasn’t particularly proud of the cacophony of thoughts that carried him to sleep when he tossed and turned since that semi-disastrous first session. It certainly didn’t hurt to think of something good to look at even if he was in every way, an entitled, argumentative pain that Felix continued to apologise for long after he had left their dorm in a huff. Even if he opened the door with that same clenched jaw and darkened gaze, leaning against the frame as though he was being charged by the hour for doing so. 

This time, without the oversized grey hoodie, and the tank top leaving little to the imagination, was white rather than black. 

Jisung had never darted his eyes away from a set of impossibly toned arms so quickly before. 

“Is Felix home?” Jisung narrowed his gaze, knuckles white on the grip of his backpack slung over his shoulder. 

“No hello?” He raised an eyebrow, arms crossing over his chest as he leaned against the door frame. 

“No. No hello.” He muttered. “Is he home or not?” 

Jisung took one look at Minho’s lips and the way they curved to the side and almost felt his fist clench by his torso. 

“He’s out,” he tilted his head to the right. “Won’t be back till tomorrow.”

“But he…” Jisung whispered as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. “We were meant to–” 

“He said you were a good teacher,” he jostled his shoulders as though it was meant to be assumed knowledge. “So…” 

“So…?” Jisung didn’t quite catch what he was throwing. “How can I teach him if he’s not here?” 

“He made you cookies to say sorry,” he sighed, flickering his gaze from Jisung’s inturned feet and the tight grip he had around the strap of his bag. “You think I wanna do this?” 

“What’s this?” Jisung tried once more. “You think I’m going to tutor you because your brother made me cookies?” 

“Look,” he slumped against the wall again, fingertip tracing up and down his upper arms, so toned and taut and god– Jisung knew better than to stare. “Sorry, we got off on the wrong foot– hm? Is that what you wanted to hear?” 

Jisung swallowed the words he wanted to spew back. Words like no way and this is the last thing I need and the fight wouldn’t be worth it. But Minho and the way his eyes sharply glared at him as though he were the only person in the world– uncaring about whatever such consequences carried with it, made consideration a pill far easier to swallow. 

So, with Nuvole Bianche chastised to the back of his mind, he leant on his hip and puffed out his chest. Maybe to assert some sort of standing. Maybe because he needed to communicate that he wouldn’t take the sort of juvenile shit Minho threw at him the last time. Maybe because he couldn’t be confronted with that smirk and those arms, and that singlet that left barely anything to the imagination. 

“Do you remember my rules?” Jisung huffed, watching Minho’s eyes light up like two stars. 

“Yeah,” Minho hit back with a smirk. “You want me to ask questions, right?” 

“Uh-huh. And what’s my other rule?” 

Minho clasped his bottom lip between his teeth, words tumbling out like a melody. 

“You know better.” 

And maybe it was shallow that Jisung blinked at such a thing. Perhaps he was surprised Minho knew how to listen after all. 

“See? Follow me,” Minho sighed, not letting Jisung even the solace of umming or ahhing an okay then or stamping his foot and uttering that he was Felix’s tutor, not his, before he twisted on his heel, leaving Jisung a prism of plastic and a mouth slowly drying alone in the hallway as he ventured back into the dorm. 

Jisung did as he was told… although he wasn’t sure how he felt about the door clicking closed behind them, however. It felt like all bets were off. 

“The cookies are on the bench if that’s what you’re wondering,” Minho muttered, having disappeared into some bedroom beside the kitchen. “They’re not that good. He puts cinnamon in them.” 

“I– uh… I like cinnamon,” Jisung whispered, more to himself, as he flickered his gaze at the dozen cookies on a tray, sitting on the kitchen bench. 

Jisung swallowed nervously as he listened to the distant hum of Minho in another room. Rustling and moving and completely out of his sight. The dorm was still neat. Clean. But he could see remnants of Minho all over the dorm, unlike the last time he found himself a fidgeting mess in their kitchen. A black duffle bag on the coffee table, unzipped, waiting to be packed. A water bottle near the sink. Dark clothes in a pile on the couch. 

“So– um… these are the sorry cookies then?” Jisung tried to strike up some semblance of a talking point, wanting to make conversation as his eyes frantically sought for more than the softness of Felix’s belongings that were a dead giveaway across the dorm. The aprons. The laptop lid decorated with bright stickers. The photo frames littered all over the place with Felix and his arms wrapped around other people. “You’re uh… you’re lucky you have a brother who bakes. I don’t think my roommates have ever used the kitchen outside of the fridge and microwave and it’s not like I can talk… I nearly burnt the place down the last time I tried to make brownies and it’s a funny story actually, my roommate Hyunjin he–”

Jisung’s voice receded when his wandering eyes landed back on Minho, now leaning against the kitchen island once more, squinting his eyes as though he couldn’t give a shit– even if he tried. Except now he had covered up those arms with a jacket. Grey and enormous. 

“It’s math,” Minho muttered, sliding the silver cookie tray toward him, as though it were a peace offering. “That’s what I need help with.” 

The pianist bit his lip, glaring between the baked goods and the man across from him… and his crossed arms, well-defined even in all that grey with just the right amount of softness. He looked almost embarrassed to say that he needed help– with those darting eyes and the way they grazed along the tray. 

“Okay,” Jisung whispered, not wanting to be that guy who didn’t just roll over and instead held Minho accountable for that immature show he fronted the other day. But he almost felt bad for him. The tonal shift. The way this felt more like a punishment he knew he couldn’t avoid. “Math. That’s fine. I did bring some of the notes I was gonna run through with Felix and–” 

“No,” Minho cut him off again, tilting his head to the side as his eyes raised. “I’m not… Felix isn’t… he’s trying to be an engineer or something and I’m just…” 

Apprehensively, Jisung plucked his backpack from his shoulder and placed it on the bench. 

“You know, it’d help if I knew what your major was,” he tried to smile. It was a crooked one that almost shrunk into itself when Minho glared back with a sharp, biting stare that said a million more things. 

“Doesn’t matter,” he muttered. “You can help, can’t you?” 

Jisung’s eyes snapped up and met him in a glare. 

“Well, I can’t help if I don’t know what I’m helping with.” 

It didn’t seem to earn anything more than a twitch of his upper lip. 

“Fine,” he grunted, disappearing back into that same room beyond the kitchen and retrieving a folder of books, planting them firmly in front of Jisung whose eyes only widened. “I need help with all of these.” 

“That’s…” Jisung whispered as he flickered through each textbook, the titular resource for each of his subjects as it seemed. “Everything, isn’t it?” 

“What? You need two dozen cookies or something for compensation?” And in some form of dastardly avoidance, Minho circled the kitchen bench and shoved himself into the seat beside him. “You can either help or you can’t.” 

“I can help,” Jisung couldn’t help the bite that followed, pulling the first calculus book he laid his eyes on from the pile and placing it between them. It was one thing to be gawked at by Felix’s strangely attractive brother… but it was another to be urged by him in the same vein. 

“You sure about that?” 

“Very sure,” Jisung snapped, hating that sudden shift from a darkened mutter to the return of Minho’s sarcastic barrage of words and that smirk, that made him crack the spine of the textbook he had a sneaky feeling had never been opened before and turned to the contents page. “Okay. You’re going to list off everything you know about the topic.” 

“What?” That seemed to stump him, leant all decrepitly in the stool like he had more interesting places to go and more enthralling people to see. Like Jisung was there for him and not the other way around. “I don’t need to do that. Just teach me or something.” 

And then fell a scoff and inadvertently, Jisung rolled up his shirt sleeves. 

“What’s my second rule?” 

But this time, Minho didn’t deadpan a stare back in Jisung’s direction. Rather, his lips curled to the side into a small smile. Like he liked the reminder that Jisung knew better. 

“Something about you thinking you know better than me.” 

“Mm… you’d be right,” Jisung bit his lip and pressed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, trying to hold back the irritation bubbling inside him. “Go on. Everything you know about the topic.” 

And then his eyes were rolling again followed by a hasty fist balled up and rubbing against the socket of his left eye. 

“I don’t know. Differential equations… and complex uh… something… and I don’t know. Those brackets.” He didn’t seem as confident now, fingers picking at his hands and the cuts and wounds sitting upon them like jarring little specks of crimson disrupting the softness of Felix’s dorm. “I don’t know what’s going on with the exam but… yeah. I don’t know. That’s why you’re here.” 

Jisung really couldn’t help his prying eyes and the way they flickered to the hands before him. His knuckles were freshly healed over, with a faint pink tinge– scarred and toughened just enough that it was oddly captivating. The veins on the backs of his hands were like a network and he imagined they connected visibly to each tendon that ran along his arms. 

“Okay,” Jisung whispered once more, pulling out his notebook and turning the textbook to a page filled with practice questions. It was doable. He was familiar with the topic. He had even tutored Jeongin on it when he took the equivalent at their university the semester before. “Well, let’s start with that.” 

♫

Jisung tried to not let his frustration show. He tried not to argue. Tried not to pull his glasses from their position against the bridge of his nose and wipe away the exhaustion on his brow. Tried not to mutter a why can’t you just listen to me? And tried not to grunt a why can’t you just focus? 

But it was one big test and Minho was the most difficult equation he had come up against yet. 

He liked to bite. Argue. Point at something and utter that it didn’t make sense and that he didn’t even need to know this shit. But a small break was needed; consisting of Jisung staring at the glass in his palm overflowing with the water that continued to trickle out of the faucet and Minho sitting out on the balcony, cigarette between his fingers and a symphony of voices in his head that were probably professing their hatred for Jisung within.

What was perhaps the most frustrating of all, was every hint that bled from the seams of Minho’s nonchalance and disinterest, which alluded to the fact that he knew everything Jisung was talking about. He understood the theories. Got every question correct (when wrestled into answering one) and even referred back to other parts of the subject that would eventually be relevant. 

He was just toying with Jisung. He had to be. 

Making him run in circles and roll his eyes. Make him gulp down his water like he had just run a marathon and needed something to sustain himself because exhaustion was so very plausible and just about on the horizon. 

And when the sliding door to the balcony forced him to gulp down the water he kept stewing in his mouth until it turned warm, Jisung watched Minho reenter the dorm, re-zip up his jacket and pocket his lighter like everything was good and fine. 

His entire existence was a challenge and maybe Jisung felt that itch of empathy for Felix. All that yelling and his barked orders at Minho as though he were the younger brother when in reality, Jisung worked out he had two years on the STEM major anyway. 

“Your cheeks are red,” was the icing on the cake when Minho brushed past him and poured himself a glass. “I heard high stress is bad for people like you.” 

Jisung wondered how much stamina he needed for a man like Minho. 

“People like me?” 

“Well… highly strung people,” Minho tilted his head to the side, glaring past Jisung almost at his boiling point and through the window offering a nice view of the campus soccer field. “Isn’t that what you are?” 

“I’m not highly strung,” Jisung muttered back, swallowing down another mouthful. “I just… I had my first trial exam this morning and it went well enough, so… I have nothing to worry about.” 

“You sure about that?” 

“Completely.” 

And Minho folded his arms and leant up against the sink– locking Jisung into a tiny parcel of the kitchen bench with the sting of cologne and cigarettes to his left or their pile of books and scribbled notes to the right. 

“So, you’re not studying arts or law,” Minho reaffirmed like he had nothing better to do than small talk now, making his heart shake that little bit more than usual as he cast his sharp eyes across his face. “In fact, whatever you’re studying over in the north doesn’t matter to me, remember?” 

“I didn’t know that it would change much if you knew what I studied,” Jisung scoffed, wondering if he was some kind of sadist who was challenging himself to dig further beneath his new tutor’s skin. “I mean… you’ve clearly made your own assumptions about me. Haven’t you?” 

“You wanna know my assumptions about you?” 

“No,” Jisung snapped with a stare– maybe hoping that whatever semblance of authority he once felt when they were working through a question on partial differential equations, was still there. “And not that I owe you the knowledge, but I’ve made the Dean’s list two years in a row,” he shot back. “I’m trying to make it three.” 

Minho raised an eyebrow, a small smirk playing on his lips. 

“Why? If you’re already doing well for yourself… What's the rush?” He tilted his head to the side, hands on the kitchen bench. “You one of those uh… overachievers?” 

“Not an overachiever,” he murmured, feeling his cheeks heat up. Maybe from frustration. Maybe from the strange thrill that came with that sly smile that followed. “Some of us actually need to work hard to get where we want to go.”

Minho made a noise. Like a ‘hm’ that was soft enough Jisung thought he made it up at first. Yet, he still pushed himself off the counter, shoulders square and lined up with Jisung nearly about to combust before him. 

“And where is that, exactly?’ He asked, his tone softer but still probing and god… it all of a sudden felt way less suffocating than their to and fro against the calculus textbook. “What’s so important?” 

“I’m not…” 

But it was Jisung who cut himself off by sucking his bottom lip beneath the top, hating how it sounded in his mind when he really gave it thought.  

Chan was right. When he really thought about it, he was doing it again. 

And who was Minho to Jisung, he wondered. He doubted he would ever step foot in this dorm again. He was sure he could strike up a deal when he got into contact with Felix next that all of their future tutoring sessions would be under the protective shroud of the campus library and he was sure Minho wouldn’t want to put himself through whatever they just did together. 

For what it was worth, Minho was just some frustratingly hot stranger who so happened to be related to the guy he tutored and made really delicious chocolate chip cookies. His hands, so rough and marred by callouses from days in the gym– judging by how arms and the maelstrom of gym paraphernalia littered around the place– made it clear to Jisung that he wasn’t from any music faculty that he knew of. 

He wasn’t from the recital circuit from back in the day. Jisung would have noticed. 

He wasn’t from Jisung’s university.

He hadn’t seen him on any of Jeongin’s social media that Jisung utilised as a contact book of a thing considering how much he posted and how many people he featured on it for his tens of thousands of followers. 

He wasn’t from Chan’s boxing gym. 

He wasn’t from Hyunjin’s circle of asshole economics friends. 

Therefore, Jisung suddenly lost the ability to care what he said. 

“If I don’t rank first in my class, I’d have thrown my career away for nothing,” Jisung muttered, with a pathetic huff of a laugh following the words. “And maybe me doing this and taking on more students to tutor than I can handle is all to avoid one big I told you so… but these are the options I’ve been given.” 

“Your career?” 

Jisung bit his lip again, unable to help the small chuckle that escaped at the thought– that he was actually saying any of this out loud.

“Piano,” he glances at one of his hands retrieved from his pocket. “I played my whole life until I didn’t.” 

Minho made a face. It wasn’t the usual face he saw when he told people he once played piano. Where they would curl their lips into a smile, gush and aw and maybe request he play a Mozart piece to sound cultured. He didn’t then frown, and sigh why would you give something like that up? 

Rather, he just leant his weight back against the kitchen island and raised an eyebrow.

“Did you like playing?” 

Jisung blinked at the question and the way he said it. Like he didn’t really care what Jisung said in response, but his eyes held onto what answer he would give tightly. 

“I… I don’t know,” he didn’t quite know how to answer something he had never been asked before. “I try not to really… think about it.” 

Minho’s lips tugged to the side again. A soft smile this time. 

“What’s your name?”

“You know my name, Minho.” 

“Your full name,” he clarified and Jisung felt his stomach plummet– unsure if the heat in his cheeks translated to a tint of pink or if he was as red as the blood-curdling in his ears. “I’ve never met a pianist before. S’cool.” 

“Like I would tell you,” Jisung murmured, eyes probing the space between them– urging that tantalising barrage of black and white to infiltrate his mind, knowing it would be the sweetest escape from the sweetest thing he had ever seen in his life. “You’ll just assume something again.”

“Is that so bad?” He lolls his head to the side. “You don’t even know what I think of you. Maybe it’s something good.” 

“Oh yeah? Like what?” Jisung hummed, doing his darndest not to melt into the pink haze dangerously flirting with him. 

“Maybe I think it’s cute,” he grazed his eyes from Jisung’s fingers grasping the glass tightly to his eyebrows, drawn together in the middle of his forehead. “That you try and act tougher than you look.” 

“I’m not…” And Jisung found it easier to just pocket his hands. 

“Tell me your name,” he whispered back, pink lips and that boyishly contagious smirk that turned Jisung’s knees to jelly. “Lix has people come and go all the time in this place and you’re the first pianist I’ve met.” 

“So that… so that means you have to find out, hm?” 

“I’m not asking for the world,” he titled his head to the side. “And you’re standing in my kitchen… all alone… and I’m asking so very nicely.” 

Jisung had no idea what it was prompting his continuous smile or the wispy laugh to follow. 

“Do you… do you really wanna know that bad?” 

“Yeah, I do,” he whispered again, eyes flickering around his face– sure to be pink and heating rapidly the longer he stared. “Is that so hard to believe?” 

Jisung wasn’t quite sure what to do. A normal person would do the courteous action of stepping away. A normal person would lower their gaze, maybe even twist on his heel with a thank you and a have a nice day. 

A normal person wouldn’t fix his lips into a smile with dark eyes resurrecting into light and maybe it was the proverbial sigh of relief that conjured from the second they grunted a let’s have a break before Jisung tore his hair out. 

Jisung was sure if the man before him had a lens, shutter and flash ingrained in his eyes– he would have a picture to show the world. A picture of Jisung, staring back, frozen in place. 

“A little bit,” he murmured, unable to control the gentle laugh that followed. “I mean… nobody really asks for my name– nobody asks me anything.” 

Minho’s eyes– a flat, rather than a sharp, Jisung supposed– softened. 

“Well, I’m asking,” he whispered again, for they were so close that speaking would be inappropriate. “I’d like to know.”

And Jisung could only honour his autonomous whim to smile again for he knew nothing more than the beating in his chest. 

Minho’s lips tugged to the side once more. 

“It wouldn’t kill you to relax.”

“You…” Jisung smiled crookedly. “You don’t know me. How do you know I’m not relaxed right now?” 

He made another face and Jisung imagined himself a mess of a thing staring back at Felix’s brother alone in the kitchen, partial differential equations laid somewhere to die in his subconscious and perhaps Chan’s voice in his head once more, whispering that he was doing it again. 

“Prove me wrong.”

Jisung glanced upward when he went to take another step forward, completely literate that Minho could make quick work of him in every sense of the matter but having some strange sense of trust. It seemed to work when he paused, flashing those eyes with lips twisted to the side– like he knew Jisung for five seconds and that with a simple smile, he could annoyingly win him over lightwork-style. 

“Han Jisung,” he muttered, staring at the eyes that wouldn’t quite leave his own. Unsettling eyes. Dark. But just about the only thing that strangely calmed the fluttering in his chest for the first time in a while. He could feel the deep water all around him that he knew he couldn’t quite swim in. But he was beginning to enjoy the way his gaze fell like he could one day teach him to float. 

“Hm,” he lolled his head to the side, as though he were studying his name, the syllables and how they sounded in his mind and out loud. He glanced at the ceiling, as though he were trying to recall the name from somewhere, maybe an old friend from elementary school or an old friend-of-a-friend who had shown up on his doorstep in a too-big white shirt and baggy jeans secured with a shoelace. “I like it.” 

“How can you like a name?” He muttered. “It’s just… a name.” 

Minho smiled, as though he meant it. 

“It’s your name– that’s why I like it.” 

And Jisung had to contain his inability to act normal in front of a man he had known for five seconds, who leapt into his chest and sat himself down at the abandoned stool before the abandoned piano and began to play a song so sweet his fingers began to flutter on their own. 

“And you… you’re just a picture of relaxation, then?” Jisung murmured, enjoying the way Minho’s lips moved around like he was thinking and it was showing. 

“If I need to relax, I find ways to do so.” 

“Such as?” Jisung widened his eyes at how little he hesitated in asking. 

“I sweat,” he pressed a shoulder forward. “Gym. Run. Sex.” He shrugs again. “Whatever works.” 

Jisung blinked. Maybe at how forward Minho was being. Maybe at the fact, he hadn’t quite considered that. 

“You know I… I work out sometimes,” he said, chewing on his lips, almost grimacing at the memory of the time he and Jeongin went to the gym and lasted only ten minutes before getting frozen yoghurt at the store next door. “And I can… run,” he added, thinking about the time he and Hyunjin went out for a morning jog with Chan and ended up calling a rideshare a mile down the road to take them back home. 

“Mm… and what about sex?” Minho tilted his head to the side. “Does that ever get you to relax?” 

Jisung widened his eyes.

“I– uh… well–” 

Minho’s lips don’t budge from that gentle smile. His eyes glimmer with a hint of mischief as Jisung stumbles through his responses and the pianist can almost feel the weight of his gaze as he shifts slightly, clearly enjoying himself. 

“Mm, I see,” Minho hummed with that smooth voice. “So, it’s all about finding the right person, huh?” 

“Easier said than done,” his voice was as crooked as his smile, unable to help the way he mirrored Minho’s lax position– ironically poised from the way he handled himself. 

“Depends how you do it,” Minho was pressing a shoulder forward now, skimming past Jisung who was stuck between a parcel of air and the very unconfident voice in his head that told him not to follow him to the couch. “And if the person you’re with wants the things you want.” 

Jisung was smarter than to follow a man who looked like Minho to the living room, sliding onto the cushion beside him and clinging to his words about sex and finding the right person. But smart people did stupid things, right? 

“You know uh… we still have about three questions to go,” Jisung furrowed his brow as he stared down at Minho, whose dark cargo-pant-covered legs were spread in the corner of the sofa. He seemed lax, unburdened by the thoughts swirling around his tutor’s mind and completely disinterested in venturing back to the kitchen as it seemed. 

“Come on,” he pressed a shoulder forward, shuffling over– a lion inviting a gazelle into his den. “We can have a break for a little longer, huh?” 

And Chan’s voice in his conscience faded, his knees failed and he was sitting down on the opposing side of the sofa– bleeding out of the side and willingly letting a bull shark circle him. He knew better. He did. But every second he spent in the dorm room on the other side of town, he was really beginning to forget just what he was escaping in the first place. 

“What if I don’t know what I want?” Jisung stiffly sat beside Felix’s brother, unsure whether to cross his legs or to lean an elbow on the upper cushion as Minho was. 

“Well, what usually feels good for you?” Minho’s teeth flashed again, sucking his bottom lip making his upper one seem impossibly soft. It was like he knew how he looked. And after all, Jisung was privy to understanding men like Minho. Chan was surrounded by them. 

The type of men that empowered a lip bite or a raise of their eyebrows. Argued with the lecturer because there were no such consequences for anyone with perfect symmetry. Weaponised their words because they knew that those like Jisung who spent three-quarters of their lives staring at black and white keys and the other, at words jumbled on a textbook, had to resort to other means to get their point across. It was a shame, though, that Minho seemed of the finest make to irresponsibly wield that power whoever the hell up above bestowed upon him. But perhaps that was because Chan’s friends on the soccer or baseball teams usually skimmed past Jisung who used his backpack and insatiable need to answer every question in class as a repellent to toxic men, and landed on Jeongin instead. 

Jisung figured he wasn’t missing out on much. 

“Come on…” perhaps Minho could visibly see the cogs turning in Jisung’s head. “Everyone has something they’re into.”

“What do you expect me to say?” Jisung wanted to melt through the upholstered couch at the snort that escaped his weakened chuckle. “I’ve never even… I’m not–” 

And his elbow was bent, hand behind his head and scratching an invisible itch the more he pathetically laughed it off. Every voice in his conscience was screaming that he just snatched the cash and finished the job– even being nice enough to say they could meet again for further revision at a later date when he didn’t feel like his stomach was sitting at his feet. 

“Well, for me, I like it when whoever I’m with talks to me,” Minho raised an eyebrow, the buttons for him to push there and waiting and maybe he was sizing up which one to press first. “M’not talking about whether we get along well but, when we’re together and we have nothing but each other, I need to know that what I’m doing feels good for them. Makes me feel good to know I’m the reason they’re feeling that way.”

“W-What do you…” and Jisung’s lips were tugging to the side on their own now, maybe he was enthralled, maybe curious– probably better off shoving himself off the sofa and heading back to their textbooks in the kitchen. “I mean… I– well, I’m only curious and all but like… what do you like to hear?” 

Small talk. Yeah. It was small talk. Forget his fingers digging into his thigh hidden by the couch cushion, or the teeth sinking into his tongue in anticipation of whatever Minho was to say next. They were communicating. Normally. Sure. Jisung had communicated before. 

“I like to hear what I deserve,” Minho shrugged as though he were talking about something as mundane as sports. “It’s gotta be real. Yeah, being loud is one thing, but it’s kinda cute when whoever I’m with is trying to stay quiet. Like they’re fighting themselves to not cry or curse. There’s something about it.” 

“Right,” Jisung whispered, flickering his gaze back to his fingers sitting idle upon the couch cushion. They didn’t pulsate. They didn’t jitter. In fact, his mind was too full to imagine a melody when all he could think of was Minho’s voice. 

Irritating as all hell moments ago. But maybe it was soft like this. Maybe it was gentle. Maybe he wanted to know what it sounded like when– 

“Well– that’s good, I suppose,” Jisung nodded with that lingering smile. “You know… knowing what you like and all that.” 

But Minho didn’t quite catch hold of his dismissive tone, one more silence away from ushering them back to the desk to wrap up the last of the practice questions. Instead, he waited. Like he wanted to hear more. Never satisfied as it seemed. 

“Do you like it? Knowing you’ve made someone feel good?” He raised an eyebrow, all dizzying stardust and white frilly lace. Like he didn’t have a bite to those frustratingly pink lips nor bark to that melodic voice humming in their shared quiet. 

“What– no,” Jisung scoffed with a gaze darted to his lap and a bottom lip tucked beneath his teeth. “I don’t know. No. Maybe? Yes–God… you can’t just ask someone that.”

“I told you,” He hummed again. “There’s gotta be something and who am I gonna tell?” 

“It’s not about who you’ll tell,” Jisung snorted, adjusting the glasses on the bridge of his nose that he all of a sudden became achingly conscious of. “Cos it’ll be you that laughs at me.”

“No, it won’t.” 

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” and maybe it was because he sounded sincere for the first time since he sauntered into his life like some kind of orchestral chaos ready to wreak havoc, but Jisung almost believed him. What's more, when he balled his hand into a fist with his pinkie sticking out and hovered toward the younger man trying to make himself impossibly small on the far side of the couch. “Promise.” 

Jisung stared at his pinkie and sighed. And rather than reaching forward and touching Minho– because every star in the sky knew that would be the last thing he needed to do– he simply thinned his lips, straightened his shoulders, and hummed. 

“I like… kissing.” He whispered, eyes dancing upon the space between them. “Even just a little bit.” 

“Kissing, huh?” Jisung just about expected the look on Minho’s face. Where he knit his eyebrows together and twisted his lips to the side. 

“Well, what’s not to like?” An airy laugh escaped his mouth again, tucking his knees to his chest as he melted into the sofa. “I mean, it’s not completely terrible or gross. A-And I guess it kinda feels nice.” 

“Again,” Minho thinned his lips, nodding with that sly smile. “Depends on who you kiss.” 

“T’yeah,” Jisung coughed, scratching and scratching that invisible itch that festered and travelled to the side of his throat now. “It really does,” and maybe he was nervously laughing at the thought of the handful of times he kissed someone, having only crumbs to utilise and form his own opinion. 

“What? Bad experience or something?” 

“Not a bad experience,” Jisung chucked as his fingers dug into his calves, knees so tight into his chest he could feel them against his shirt. “It’s actually kind of a funny story actually– well… Hyunjin found it funny,” he couldn’t quite help his mutter as he thought back on one of the handful of parties his roommate dragged him to. “But there was this guy from my language class and I don’t know… it just felt like he was kissing me because everyone was telling him to kiss me and I didn’t know whether to close or open my eyes because I was scared someone was gonna walk into the bedroom and I didn’t know where to put my hands so I kinda just… grabbed his shoulders and then he told me I was holding on too tight but I couldn’t even breathe–” 

And Jisung’s hand slapped over his mouth when he realised Minho’s face hadn’t shifted– stilling over that semi-intrigued, semi-enthralled smirk that made his insides do those irritating flips. 

“I don’t think I could embarrass myself more if I tried,” Jisung whispered, uncaring if it was out loud and Minho’s smile didn’t dissipate. “And yeah, it probably was a bad experience, but it was kinda nice to just be wanted by someone.” 

It was strange how every word he said felt like cascading notes. It wasn’t Einaudi. It wasn’t Bach. Maybe it was Chopin and that feather-light touch. Sweeping in the right hand and complex in the left. A technically brilliant challenge but one Jisung always enjoyed when he played. 

Maybe it was because Minho didn’t feel as embarrassed as he should have. Not when Minho looked at him that way. Intense, perhaps, but soft around the edges. Like Ballade No.1. 

“Well,” Minho sighed, shifting on the couch, leaning further into the cushions as though it was good and normal and completely fine that his new tutor (coerced into the role) was nearly combusting right beside him. “I see what your problem is.” 

“There’s just one problem?” 

“Yeah,” he hummed with a shrug. “You just haven’t kissed the right person. Someone who can show you how to do it properly.”

“Well… I don’t see a massive line of people waiting around to show me,” Jisung chuckled nervously, feet hooking around his ankles until he was cross-legged on the couch. “But it’s good– it’s fine,” he shook his head with a waning smile. “I–uh, I can try out some of the gym stuff, like you said. That’ll probably do the trick.” 

But Minho didn’t seem to catch onto the thread of dismissal. Instead, he raised an eyebrow, leaned forward slightly, and let that glimpse of Chopin linger in Jisung’s ears– with all the air between them buzzing like the final unresolved note of the piece. 

“I can show you a thing or two,” Minho hummed, all light and airy. 

“Really?” Jisung’s eyes could only flicker to the gym equipment in the corner of the room, desperate they steer the conversation away. Somewhere nice and safe. “Good, cos’ believe it or not, I don’t really have the best idea of what to do when I get in there. I kinda just follow my friends around like a lost dog. There’s actually this pretty crazy story with my roommate Jeongin and–” 

“I meant, with the kissing.” 

The words severed the strumming string in Jisung’s chest, letting his pulse stumble as he processed that firm, unwavering tone in Minho’s voice. It was a suggestion delivered without hesitation or doubt. He hadn’t even caught on to Jisung’s rapidly widening eyes or mouth left agape before he was speaking again. 

“Don’t get the wrong idea,” Minho interjected quickly. “It’s not like I think you’re bad at it. But maybe you need some pointers– on how to hold someone. How not to hold someone. What feels good.” 

Jisung froze and strangely, Chan’s voice suddenly echoed in the back of his mind. 

You’re doing it again. 

He remembered the start of the last exam period. Adderall-fuelled nights of running himself into the ground, staying up until his eyes burned and his chest rapidly thumped. Chasing success until it hurt. And it always hurt. 

Every trophy, every medal, every title won in the past had come at a price, and every single achievement felt heavier than the last. And Jisung hardly knew if or when it would ever be worth it. 

Or the exam period before that, when he hung up on his parents after they sighed in disappointment, uttering down the other side of the phone that Jisung was no longer the pride of the family– without piano, he was just regular. 

And sure, Jisung was no stranger to making bad decisions if it meant coping. 

But none of the bad decisions of his past looked quite like the one sitting across from him now. A bad decision with sharp eyes, elegant and disarming. The most inviting thing he’d ever seen. He looked like trouble– the kind of trouble that Jisung was smart enough to know to avoid. The kind he shouldn’t want. The kind he didn’t need. 

But not even Chan’s voice, insistent in his conscience, could stop him from stilling as Minho moved closer, inch by inch, until Jisung’s nails plucked themselves out of the cushion, releasing the tension he’d held for so long, and finally, let go. 

“Hey– you taught me about that formula with all the x’s and y’s–” 

“Differential equations,” Jisung whispered, cutting him off in some sad, desperate last attempt.

“Yeah, that,” he shrugged, licking that sly smile back onto his lips. “Maybe I can show you some stuff in the same way.” 

“Like… uh… like what?” 

“Relax,” Minho whispered, shuffling closer again until the couch beneath Jisung dipped and he could see nothing but his grey hoodie and their hands, too close to not draw a hitch of his breath. “Nothing you don’t wanna learn.” 

“I-I don’t even know where to begin, Minho,” he whispered, not chuckling so pathetically nor smiling in respite. He just watched. Waited. Consumed Minho and his probing gaze– wanting his words. Wanting his guidance. Wanting to do something so stupid he could finally feel something other than that relentless dread that lingered in his mind like Mozart. 

“Can I touch you here?” He hummed, as soft as air, glancing at Jisung’s wrist– a vessel for his shaky left hand but a vessel nonetheless. 

“Mm-hm,” Jisung nodded, bottom lip tucking beneath his teeth and he was almost surprised that something as innocent as his hand reaching forward and wrapping around his wrist made his breath hitch as it did. But maybe it was because it was so soft. So tentative. So gentle that his periphery blurred with ideas of just what he thought he was doing. 

“When I’m with someone I really wanna kiss,” Minho hummed, shuffling closer– until his thigh was by Jisung’s crossed legs. “I like it when they touch me right here.” 

And Jisung let him lead his wrist forward until his hand was flat on the side of his neck– so warm and soft that his fingers pressed against the flesh to the point he could feel his pulse thump and move and pulsate against them. 

“You’re warm,” Jisung whispered, eyes unshy in flickering upward– until their gazes converged. 

“So are you,” Minho’s lips twisted to the side as he reached down to grab his right wrist, giving a pull until his other hand was leaning against his hoodie-covered chest. “That feels nice.” 

Jisung left the tips of his fingers to dig into the plush fabric. It was strange to wonder just what the heart in someone’s chest felt like when it was softly beating. But he liked it. How Minho’s chest and throat ran with vitality and life… maybe because it settled that same thump of nerves in his own chest that didn’t quite relent, even when he noticed Minho’s gaze on his lips like he wanted nothing more. 

“W-Well… where do you like to put your hands?” Jisung whispered, slight and shaky. Unsure but willing. Desperate for guidance. “–When you uh… when you’re with someone you really wanna kiss.” 

Minho was slow in twisting his body to face Jisung. Maybe because he was following the will of his hands that reached forward and pressed against Jisung’s calf, giving it a gentle tug to coax him out of his cross-legged position to lean against the sofa as he had. Jisung gulped, doing what he was told. Following directions. Touching Minho where he wanted to be touched. On his throat. On his chest. His pulse point and heartbeat were like a metronome guiding a melody he was awaiting. 

“Can I show you?” He whispered the starting notes of Ballade No. 1 that rushed to Jisung like a soliloquy. 

“Yes. Please.” 

And then Jisung was holding his breath, letting the ornamentation of the piece swallow him whole as Minho’s hand reached forward, knuckles pressing against his cheek in the space below his glasses. Albeit slightly marred by the roughness of his fist, it was almost silk-like in how gentle he was being. Like Jisung were to break or shatter and he didn’t want to be the catalyst to putting him back together. His hand travelled further, tangling into Jisung’s hair and angling his face toward him– like he wanted to see everything. 

His eyebrows drew in the middle of his forehead. His eyes glistened in some strange mixture of want and fright and desperation. Even his lips, curled inward out of fear, but still and waiting for whatever Minho wanted to see next. 

“Here,” he smiled gently as his hand sat resting on the side of his head between the strands of hair, before his other hand lingered forward, against Jisung’s chest. “And here.” 

Jisung tried not to tighten his grip against Minho’s throat nor pull at the fabric of his jacket but it was hard not to. 

“Means I can move you, and feel you, and have you any way I wanna have you,” he whispered, even letting his fingers dance in Jisung’s hair. “If I want you sitting on my lap, I just need to–” he tightened his grip on Jisung’s white button-up shirt until he felt his lungs recede. “–pull.” 

And Jisung couldn’t help but lick an albeit crooked smile on his face when he felt that slight pressure dissipate. 

“Or if I wanna kiss your neck–” he hummed, hand tightening in Jisung’s hair, letting Minho tug gently against it until he was stretching his throat– presenting his flesh for the giving before the older man hovered over it. “–I just need to do this.” 

Jisung swallowed the lump at the base of his throat. It was a nervous lump– there was no disputing that– but when he did, his gaze flickered to Minho’s lips. They were still coiled to the side, relaxed, fine, and completely unabashed to the storm brewing in Jisung’s mind. 

The music in his head. Chopin, the relentless melodies, the hum that usually followed him– had disappeared. All he could hear now was Minho’s breathing, slow and steady, like the rhythm of something just beginning. 

Is this what Minho felt when Jisung barked at him to show his working out? Is this what he saw when Jisung ran a hand through his hair and broke his one, cardinal rule, by just giving him the answer to stop the back-and-forth? 

Maybe. But here, there was no answer to give. No one such solution. 

Instead, Jisung leaned closer– into shark-infested waters, his blood pulsing out with every moment, letting Minho linger and be and exist within his tiny parcel of universe. 

Their noses were almost touching now, and Jisung’s breath hitched at the last thread of his conscience whispering one final, sanctimonious warning that he was making a mistake. That he was leaving the door open for destruction. Distraction. Chaos. 

But it was faint. Too faint to stop him now. 

“Do you, um…” Jisung whispered with a voice slightly trembling. “Do you want to kiss me, Minho?” 

The words barely left his lips before Minho smiled, that same infuriatingly confident smile, tightening his grip around Jisung’s shirt and pulling him close enough that their lips brushed, featherlight, against each other. 

“What was that rule of yours?” Minho whispered, his voice a low mutter, as though being this close required its own language. “Something about you knowing better than me?” 

Jisung hummed against him, the sound vibrating in his chest as he melted into the proximity, into the pull he realised he wouldn’t win against. God– he wanted to be closer, wanted to touch, wanted to finally let go. 

“Well…” Minho’s voice was barely a breath now, their lips nearly fused with every word. “It’s my turn to know something better than you.” 

And then their lips were pressed against each other, soft and sure, with Minho leading the way, while Jisung’s mind stilled in a manner it hadn’t in years. The second they touched, there was no Chopin. No relentless symphony of thoughts– just the applause. The rush of it. Like a standing ovation in his mind, filling that empty auditorium. 

Jisung chased. Ran. Pressed against him until every frozen limb began to thaw and he could finally melt for the first time in years. 

And Minho just felt so good. Against his lips. His tongue. His skin– when the tips of his fingers massaged against his scalp. Maybe it was soft at first. Gentle. Testing out the waters. 

Or maybe Jisung had just blanked. Froze. Stopped thinking. 

Because the second his eyes fluttered close, he realised that he hadn’t made it up. He had Minho. There and against him and guiding him in ways he hadn’t been before. The warmth spread to his chest. His mind jolted in thoughts of more and now and want, want, want and before his mind could discern that very strange sensation of Minho’s breath and voice bleeding into the kiss, he realised he was exercising exercise number one. 

A tug against his chest and Jisung was being pulled until thighs were bracing thighs and you’re doing it again fell out of his vocabulary. 

Even pulling away for a mere second, being used to being on Minho’s lap made his chest pulsate in ways it hadn’t before. Maybe it was because Minho’s eyes were dark and intense– bleeding with want and need and desire and it had to be that. To be wanted by another. It felt good. Really good, in fact. 

Minho was looking at Jisung with little thought of what would happen after. Whether they would pull apart and utter that it was a fun, little mistake. Whether Jisung’s hands wouldn’t be able to control themselves before he was whimpering into Minho’s mouth that he wanted to take off his jacket and feel his arms. Whether Minho would hold him so close and lick against the shell of his ear that he could show him every side of pleasure if he so wanted to. 

Jisung wasn’t sure if he was being cohesive. He wasn’t sure if he was good at kissing. He wasn’t sure if he was learning any such thing about the act that he could one day replicate on another. 

But he was learning Minho. He was learning Minho’s movements like notes on staff paper. He liked to bite. Graze Jisung’s bottom lip with his teeth and suck. He liked to tangle his fingers in the hair at the back of Jisung’s head and press him so close he imagined he wouldn’t want to breathe again. He liked to move the hand that was once on Jisung’s chest downward until his grip was tight and firm and around his waist. 

He liked to gently lave his tongue against his own. Like he was in his element. Satisfied and full. He didn’t need to hunt when a wounded gazelle had fallen right in a clawing position. 

And Jisung truly couldn’t help the small noises that fell from his mouth. Whimpers. Grunts. Even the whine that conjured when Minho exercised exercise number two and pulled against his hair until he had Jisung’s throat– there and his and right where he needed it. 

The softness of his tongue against every nook and juncture of his throat earned every gasp. More was right there. Within reach. 

He knew Minho felt the same. He knew he liked it when Jisung made noises and maybe that was why he was making so much of it. 

He wanted to hear him. He wanted to hear what he deserved. What he desired. 

And yet… rather than pull away, with an almost languidly exhausted look on his face and the understanding that if he ever wanted to chase such a feeling again, he needed to be right there, on his lap, in his grasp, in his web, Jisung heard Chan again. 

One last saving grace. 

One last ‘You’re doing it again, Jisung’ and that disappointed yawn written all over his face. 

And seemingly, it was enough to make Jisung flatten his hand against Minho’s chest, press him away until a breathy little noise escaped the older man’s mouth– maybe frustrated, probably disappointed, and stood to his feet with a huff of his chest. 

God… Jisung couldn’t look at the mess he made for himself. In Minho’s pink lips and eyes blown dark and wide with a certain type of lust. In his spread legs and a zip-up jacket moved in the rhythm of Jisung’s body. 

He just saw his next addiction… one that he could fall into like slumber… and just about recoiled. 

“I-I–” he was out of breath. “I should go.” 

Minho pressed his thumb against his bottom lip, maybe rubbing away Jisung’s taste. Maybe reminding him that it was there and he earned it. 

“Really?” He whispered with a huff, the other hand tangling in his hair a scuffed mess. “Really now?”

“Yes, really now,” Jisung whispered harshly, fixing the glasses he just knew were crooked and foggy and straightening out his shirt. “I didn’t mean to– I mean– I just–”

“You’re really going now?” And maybe it was expected that Minho would look disappointed, maybe as treacherously regretful as Jisung felt inside, but rather, his eyes were glimmer, his thumb continuing to graze over his bottom lip, laving and tasting and keeping him there and his lips were coiled to the side like he was almost entertained by the sight. “Don’t we have uh— we have those questions to do, right? Something about carrying a y and solving a heat function?” 

God– he didn’t even listen to Jisung’s explanation of the topic. 

“Well– you can keep my notebook, how about that?” Jisung backed away again, glancing down at his chest to make sure his buttons were straight and that his literal heart was not bleeding through the cracks of his shirt from how hard it once beat. “I can just… well… I can just get it from your brother the next time I see him, who knows when that’ll be though I just remembered how busy I’m gonna be these next few days and– gosh– this has been… nice… and just keep reading, yeah? Even if you work backwards from the answer in the practice question area that could work for you and–” 

“This has been… nice?”

“Nice? Lovely? Good?” Jisung coughed as he zipped to the kitchen, packing his backpack insatiably fast in case Minho looked at him again and he fell back into his lap and then further away from focus. “Interchangeably synonymous words; productive, efficient, helpful– I uh… god the time… I better get back.” 

“For what?” 

“Oh, I have so much to do– where do I even begin?” Jisung’s crooked laugh waned when he heard Minho following him down the hall and maybe he quickened his pace to stop himself from waiting until he reached the space just behind him because then there would be nothing stopping Jisung from listening to that greedy voice inside of his head that wanted more. “But uh… it’s all water under the bridge, right? The whole deceiving me to get me to tutor you and everything else, I suppose. Forgiven and forgotten. We’re square. We’re good.”

“Jisung–” 

“Hm? What? Oh.” 

Jisung’s eyes flickered downward to the container in Minho’s hand and the cookies packed neatly inside of it. 

“Thanks for today,” Minho sucked in a breath, leaning against the wall and illustrating that same frustratingly effective charm that worked a little too well on the pianist in his midst. “You’re uh… pretty helpful.” 

“Well,” Jisung whispered, reaching forward to snatch the container with the cookies (and the money he was sure Minho slipped in beside it for the tutoring) and finally meeting those eyes he just could count on appearing in his dreams. “You’re pretty helpful too… or whatever.”  

And Minho raised an eyebrow– forever enthralled and Jisung grabbed the handle, twisting it and making a run for it before he dug himself further into a hole he knew he wouldn’t be able to escape. 

♫

“Do you have to bring that with you?” Hyunjin’s glare felt like fractals of ice from the driver’s seat. “God– you’re going to be sick.” 

Jisung ignored his words from behind his laptop, hooked up to his phone’s shitty Wi-Fi and not without Jeongin’s sharp gaze barrelled toward him, lips tugging to the side into a grin. 

“He’s making that face again– a calculus face,” he nodded with an accusatory point, irritatingly correct. “You gotta’ be the only one studying for that.” 

Jisung, buried in a too-big hoodie and jeans, coiled his white sneakers into a cross-legged position. He was uncaring if it was rude to sully the backseat of Hyunjin’s car with his shoes– knowing all too well what the perpetrators in the front seat often got up to right where he laid his backside. 

“Well, the practice exam is on Tuesday so I’d say most of us are studying for it,” he wanted to feign some sort of tempered response, but his lips were already twisting to the side when Jeongin made a very grouchy ‘ugh’ sound that wailed longer than it should have. 

“This is the first fight back,” he hummed, slicking his strands of perfectly straight hair through his fingertips. “We are being supportive.” 

“I am being supportive,” Jisung huffed, moving his laptop about his lap. “Supportive and accountable.” 

“What will Chan think when he looks to find us and sees you hidden behind that thing, huh?” 

“Well, he’ll be a little busy getting the shit punched out of him to notice,” Hyunjin snickered from the driver’s seat when they pulled into the car park. “Should’ve brought your headphones, your textbooks and that kitty timer that I’m quite close to throwing out the window.” 

“Oh, no stress,” Jisung grinned, plucking his backpack on the floor and rustling it as Hyunjin glared at him through the reverse mirror. “I got you covered.” 

“You’re leaving that in the car– he’s leaving that in the car,” Jeongin demanded to his are-they-friends-boyfriends-or-just-hookup roommate from the driver’s seat as though the older of the three had any say in the matter. “He’s been cutting food for the past two nights for the weigh-in, we are being supportive.” 

“I’m not the one who said he’s going to get the shit punched out of him,” Jisung’s lips tugged to the side when Hyunjin meets him with an equally teasing grin and maybe it wouldn’t hurt having a little bit of fun. 

And maybe he felt that same, irritating string in his chest strum and move and waver since he ran back home from a dorm far away with his tail between his legs, but this noise sounded a little different. It was familiar. 

“Well Chan hasn’t lost a fight yet,” the oldest of the three shrugged, pulling the keys from the ignition and sighing when Jeongin rolled his eyes and sauntered out of the car. “A good betting man would say another win is off the cards.”

Jisung, closing the lid of his laptop, smiled crookedly. He didn’t know much by way of techniques, technicalities, combinations, or any notable boxers outside of the Rocky films Chan forced them all to watch bi-annually. But he knew his best friend. 

And while that meant he often sat in the stands, blinking and unsure of what the hell just happened until Hyunjin sighed and explained why the clock stopped and the referee intervened, he knew that Chan would win because he always did. 

“Have some faith,” he hummed, perhaps utilising Hyunjin’s doubts as power enough to regretfully slip his laptop into his backpack, sling it over his arm and etch out of the car. “These matches are over in like two seconds anyway.” 

“So, you can hold off on studying for two seconds,” Jeongin grunted with those sharp eyes. “Okay?” 

Jisung sighed at the sight of the arena– a local one, filled to the brim with boxing fanatics from the university and flags and colours of other competing schools. There were the regulars by way of punters, family members, and fans who utilised a local off-season boxing league as a respite from the professional matches that were scheduled in three months. He could see the camaraderie– the ‘that’s the guy who's going pro’ and ‘that referee is always in a shit mood’ echoing between crowds but all he could focus on was the chapter of work he had ahead of him that night and with it, the time he would have to make up by being here. 

But he only needed Jeongin to fold his arms atop his chest, protrude his bottom lip and loll his head to the side to put all of that behind him and grunt an ‘okay’ to the ring. 

It was always loud at this arena. It was large for a local venue– boasting three separate but concurrently operating matches where cheers and yells didn’t quite dim between them. That familiar scent of rubber, spilt drinks and so much sweat permeated the air. He was wrinkling his nose as he followed behind Hyunjin and Jeongin, who were always happy enough to greet the usual suspects of the boxing scene with grins. 

“Any later and you’ll miss his walk-out,” it was Changbin, pen lodged behind his ear and just the right amount of nervousness as Jisung suspected. Any outsider would surmise he would be the one stepping into the ring. “Minnie had to stretch himself over the bench to save you idiots a seat.” 

“I didn’t nor would I ever do that,” Seungmin muttered with crossed arms, seemingly as irritated by the cheering and loud noises as Jisung, who used his ever-present irritation as invitation enough to slide in on the bench beside him. “You better have the good stuff in there.” 

Jisung made a face at the younger man’s allusion to the backpack he slotted between his legs. 

“Would I ever let you down?” He grinned crookedly, pulling out a pouch of snacks that was consideration enough for Seungmin’s smile. 

“God, why do they need to have these forty-five-minute-long breaks between fights,” he sighed when they shuffled closer, dwelling together in their pocket of quiet– well, the most possible extent of quiet between the raucous crowd of onlookers. “I wanna see some blood.” 

“You’re extra twisted today,” Jisung chuckled, a mouthful of chips and all. “So, who is it this time? Someone from the university?” 

“Who knows, who cares? Some fresh meat from down south,” Changbin was quick to cut in, the booklet with the fight statistics and whatever else was relevant for him to decide who to place his bets on. “I don’t think you all realise that Chan is at his peak right now. His physique is the best it has ever been, and you should’ve seen him at the gym last night oh god his form is insane–” 

“You’re sure that wasn’t sex you were hearing the other night?” Jisung hummed to Seungmin who grunted with a roll of his eyes. 

“I saw the boxing pads,” he sighed longingly, glaring back at his roommate who was continuing to stand on his soapbox with an audience of Hyunjin and Jeongin, humouring him with exasperated smiles. “Otherwise, I would’ve been bunking with you to give them their… space.” 

As the announcer called out over the speaker the commencement of the first fight of the open division and the referee stepped into the ring, Jisung thinned his lips, his fingers instinctively tapping out a melody on his thigh. Sonata No. 2. 

It was easy. He learned it when he was a child– in B flat minor, Chopin. 

The sonata had been stuck in his head. On a loop. He didn’t ask for it. 

But it was strange, he associated the gentle jut of each note with those fingers he felt in his hair. He played one-fifth of the finale with his index finger and thumb as he traced those lingering memories of lips upon his own. He even imagined wanting more… before life and all of its strange, strange gifts distracted him from such dire thoughts. 

So, it helped; the drowning out the cacophony of cheers and shouts from the crowd brought– even as Chan made his way to the ring alongside his coach.

He was here for Chan. He would always be there for Chan. 

Despite the excitement, Changbin’s cheers, Jeongin’s incorrect yet greatly supportive cries, Hyunjin’s sarcastic drawl by way of copying everything Changbin said and Seungmin’s reluctant clapping, Jisung heard nothing. Nothing but Sonata No. 2. 

It was frustrating, this inability to be here and present. This inability to escape those keys; black and white and always with him. As he watched Chan– his best friend in the world, clad in his blue shorts and his club jacket draped over his shoulders as he stepped into the ring, Jisung resigned himself to that familiar melody. It was his solace. Sanctuary. The only tether to the world that reduced the sides of his head to painful aches. 

Jisung’s frustration, at the avail of that melody intensifying in every second that passed, felt the cheers of the crowd crescendo and suddenly, the keys were washed away, and all he could focus on was the man who stepped into the ring, opposite Chan. 

Red shorts with a black trim, boots and gloves to match. Jisung blinked. 

Unlike Chan, bouncing around and warming up for the impending fight, he stood still– almost disdainful. Back facing the crowd, he had the same lines defining his shoulders, reminiscent of Chan’s muscular and trained physique. He was a little slimmer than Chan– clearly in the same weight class if they were in the ring together– Jisung wasn’t a complete idiot when it came to boxing. 

He didn’t have a coach. No trainer was annexed to the ring. No corner man from any particular gym, just one of the waterboys who worked for the arena dwelling nearby. 

There was Chan, in talks with his coach– a clear favourite as far as betting was concerned, and with that same rehearsed vernacular of a man at home in the ring. He grinned and waved at the crowd– blue mouthguard rather than his teeth, the one Jisung always found in the kitchen and their only reason to argue. 

But his opponent stayed still. His gaze was fixed on nothing but Chan. He didn’t even turn and look at the crowd. 

“Tell me you put money on,” Changbin’s voice was drenched in that cockiness that carried itself to every match Chan found himself in from previous seasons. “I know this is only a grading round but we’ll have dinner paid for with my bet alone.”

“At least we won’t have to stick around long,” Seungmin sighed, shuffling closer to Jisung. “This looks like it’ll be another repeat of the semi-final from last season.” 

“Hope so,” Jisung chewed his lip as he stared at Chan’s opponent– his stillness momentarily diverting from the internal discord brought on by the relentless piano in his mind. “I have so much work to do later. I told Chan to make it quick.” 

“Come on, we’re being supportive,” Jeongin glared between Jisung and Seungmin. “Stand up now.” 

Jisung was hardly sure when formalities went out the window for Jeongin to become so comfortable he treated the group as though he had about five years in age and ten inches in height over everyone. 

Rising to their feet, Jeongin followed suit, unleashing a spirited– and rather piercing– shout of encouragement. 

“You’ve got this, Hyung!” His voice carries effortlessly through the crowd. “This is gonna be easy!” 

Jisung couldn’t suppress a smile as he watched Chan, with a plastic blue grin adorning his face as he waved back– his gloved hand raised in acknowledgement. With Hyunjin, Jeongin, and Changbin joining in with their yells of support, Jisung could only find his attention drawn back to Chan’s opponent. 

He was turned on his shoulder, his gaze piercing and unnerving and Jisung just about felt his mouth go dry. Hair– dark, shaggy and just about covering his eyes, contrasting greatly with Chan’s neat appearance. Despite the distance between them, Jisung could just discern his face. Lips, thick and parted with teeth encased in a black mouthguard. But it was that coldness in his eyes that shifted the base of his stomach and for a moment, it felt as though his gaze lingering on Jisung was a warning. Perhaps daring him to continue staring. 

Jisung blinked. Once. Twice. He was still staring– like he was to fight Jisung and not Chan, stalking toward his corner to get ready for the fight. 

Minho.

Minho.

There for the taking with his lips twisted to the side and watching Jisung slipping further and further down into his seat until his wish to be invisible came true.