Archive of Our Own

Three months after

Minho isn’t so naive as to assume he got Chan in the divorce. He didn't get anyone, not really. Three long months since the breakup and he’s been holed up at home any time he’s not working, and only now is someone showing up at his door to demand answers. Minho has to assume they tried Seungmin a dozen times first. This must be a last resort.

“We’re worried about you,” Chan is saying, flanked by Changbin and Jisung. He’s standing in Minho’s tiny kitchen with a look of terrible concern in his eyes.

“That’s sweet,” Minho says dully.

Chan’s mouth twists. Changbin sighs. They’re all dressed casually, like they’d just come from the studio where they work together, the very picture of college best friends who stuck it out for the dream they planned and then fought for. Minho’s casual too, in sweatpants that almost prompted a nervous breakdown the other night when they got stuck in the dryer at the laundromat. Someone had been laughing outside while Minho yanked on the stupid pant leg which wouldn’t come loose and Minho was sweating and the person was still laughing and it had sounded just like—

Minho waves a vague hand around his tidy apartment. “I’m fine,” he says. “Sorry I didn’t answer your messages. I’ll come to your next party.”

“It’s not that,” Changbin says. “Jesus, it’s not about a party.”

If it weren’t a stupid question, Minho would ask how they even got into his apartment in the first place. Jisung must have let them all in. He’s the only one with the updated door code. Because yeah, all right, fine, Minho did get Jisung. If I don’t want to get involved, can we just be normal? counts as taking sides.

Minho massages his forehead. He’s sitting at the dining table, right where he’d been when they came in, looking over his bills and trying to figure out if he can get away with continuing his abbreviated work schedule or if he’ll have to start seeing Hyunjin twice or even three times a week instead of just the once. Hyunjin won’t say anything — he’s always been more for icy silence and wary glances than actual confrontation — but he’s skittish around Minho and it makes Minho feel like shit. He gets enough of the kicked puppy act with Yongbok already.

Chan breaks the silence when it’s clear Minho isn’t going to answer. “You two,” he says, “are just as stubborn as each other.”

Awful, the way Minho’s heart clenches at even the implication that he and Seungmin have anything in common anymore.

He scoffs, rolls his eyes. He’s being a dick and can’t bring himself to stop. “If you came here to lecture me, can we just agree that I got the message?”

Jisung speaks up then. “Hyung,” he says, nervous, delicate, “what happened?”

“You all broke into my home.”

“What happened with Seungmin?” clarifies Changbin.

Minho grits his teeth. He chokes the words out like he’s chewed glass. “We broke up. Several months ago, if you’ll recall.”

“Sure,” says Chan, “but why?”

“I’m not talking about this.”

“You’re miserable,” Changbin says flatly. “Hyung, come on. Do you really want us to fuck off this badly? After a breakup you’re supposed to lean on your friends.”

How dare they, Minho thinks. They pester him with texts and calls, they break into his home, they ask questions they don’t want the answers to. No one actually wants to talk about how Minho has been, because the truth is Minho is miserable and depressed and so fucking bored. He hadn’t realized how much time he’d been spending calculating timezones and agonizing over supportive messages until all of that went away overnight. He had to close seventeen tabs from his phone the day after they broke up: Weather in Los Angeles. Vocal Artist Program Santa Monica Cohort Calendar. How to Maintain a Long Distance Relationship: 10 Tips and Tricks to Keep Love Alive. Stupid, foolish, embarrassing. Now all Minho does at home is cook, clean, stare at a wall, and work out. Then rinse and repeat.

What do these three know about heartbreak, anyway? Chan’s had a couple of relationships in the time Minho has known him, but Changbin’s been with the same girl for three years and Jisung notoriously doesn’t date and spends all his free time with his roommate, who Minho hasn’t seen in months because their incestuous fucking friend group has made socializing with everyone together all but impossible now that there’s a Seungmin-shaped elephant in every room Minho walks into.

Chan is trying his soft authority figure voice on Minho, the one he must use when directing a nervous artist in the booth: “Minho, we know it’s been hard on you. Getting broken up with sucks. But you can’t disappear on us forever.”

“Who’s disappearing?” Minho asks blithely.

Chan sighs. Changbin rolls his eyes. Jisung, still behind both of them, picks at a loose thread at the end of his sleeve.

Minho isn’t usually this much of an asshole, but desperate times call for desperate measures. This is the most he’s dwelled on the breakup in at least a week. His eyes start to prickle, throat getting hot. “You should leave,” he says, so they won’t have to watch him cry, if he can even get there. Usually it's just false starts, the emotion rising and never quite breaking through.

“Hyung,” Jisung says again. His previously pitying expression is starting to sour with frustration.

“I didn’t ask you to come here and feel sorry for me.”

“Minho-yah,” Chan tries.

Minho shakes his head, crosses his arms. He nods toward the kitchen, back the way the others came in. “Door’s that way.”

They all try one more time to make him see sense, but Minho isn’t having it. He’s minutes from tears. He can already tell he isn’t going to be able to sleep tonight. He threatens to call security and they finally start moving.

He waits until they’re almost out of sight before calling after them, one last confession before he gets to be alone again: “You got bad information, by the way.”

“Huh?” Chan asks.

Minho’s answering smile is mirthless. “You don't have to feel bad for me. Seungmin didn’t break up with me—I broke up with him.”

/

It's blessed radio silence for several days after that. By the time Minho has to work a shift with Hyunjin again, he's almost back to his current normal — which, to be fair, is still low energy and vaguely depressed — and Hyunjin's awkward glances barely register. Minho tries not to look at him too much when they pass each other in the break room or equipment closet, and as usual Hyunjin returns the favor.

Classes go well. Minho's advanced teens are mostly idol trainees or hopefuls looking for supplementary practice. Minho is teaching them his own choreography this time, flavored with some moves from a particularly tricky boy group comeback that just dropped and keeps getting stuck in his head.

One of the trainee hopefuls, who's currently polishing an audition in solo lessons with Minho on Saturdays, is a slight girl named Kim Juyeon, and she looks at him through blunt bangs after everyone's left and says, "Hyunjin-ssaem asked me to ask you to check your phone before you go home."

Minho blinks at her. "He did?"

Juyeon nods hurriedly. "I'm sorry," she says quickly, apologizing for nothing as she's in the unfortunate habit of doing. Minho is trying to break her of it. Gently.

He waves her off. "Thanks for letting me know. And stretch tonight, all right? I saw you looking sore during cooldown. Hamstrings? Quads?"

"Quads," she says, "sorry. I'll stretch."

"All right. Go on, then."

She bows her head and ducks away, quick as a wisp.

"And stop apologizing," Minho calls after her, but she's out the door before he can be sure she heard him.

Grumbling to himself, he takes a deep breath. If Seungmin were here and things had gone differently he'd tease Minho for being a grouch and a softie, asking needling questions about his disgruntled expression and fondness for his students until Minho would have to kiss him to shut him up.

Awful. It's only when the memories are more painful than the task ahead of him that Minho pulls out his phone, braced for another diatribe.

This time, he's spared. Hyunjin has only written: I left my wallet next to the storage room can you bring it to my apartment? The lockbox in the tiny back office has been broken since March, and contrary to popular belief Minho isn't such a dick that he's going to leave Hyunjin's wallet here unprotected when some students have after-hours access to the studio.

Minho sighs and grabs it from the window ledge. Can I just give it to you on Tuesday?

It's my WALLET, Hyunjin replies, and then, rapid fire: Please! I know I'm dumb you can tell me to my face.

If Hyunjin wants to act like they're friends again because he needs something from Minho, maybe this will thaw the ice between them at work. Minho doesn't care, as such, but it makes Yongbok sad. He'd be thrilled if Hyunjin and Minho buried the hatchet. It's for that reason, and only that reason, that Minho responds: Fine. Twenty minutes, I have to lock up.

Thank you! I'll buy you pizza or something.

Minho knows how much Hyunjin makes, and it isn't a lot. Minho doesn't particularly want Hyunjin's parents' money to buy him a pizza tonight. He doesn't bother answering either way, instead putting his phone in his pocket and beginning the motions of locking up for the evening.

/

Outside, it's begun to rain, so Minho dons his hood and shoves his hands deep in his pockets as he muscles through the ten minute walk to Hyunjin's apartment. The frigid wind, though painful, narrows his focus to the singular task of making it there. It's nice to think about nothing for a bit.

Minho doesn't think to pull out his phone for updates. It hasn't vibrated since 2015. He's a Silent Mode guy.

Because of this, he misses Hyunjin's string of increasingly frantic texts:

Wait actually Tuesday is fine haha sorry! Or actually just leave it I can come get it myself before then.

I'm busy tonight so you can't come here. Family emergency.

You're not already on your way right??

Seriously it's not a big deal I'll be fine…

Hyung

Do NOT come over!!!

Hello????

/

Hyunjin lives on the second floor of a tall building in Seong-su. Despite his regular complaints about the noise (he claims he can always hear the traffic and pedestrians from his bedroom window), the interior is typically far more peaceful than the bustling street. Rather than bothering with buzzing into the building, Minho follows a resident in and begins the ascent up the narrow stairwell.

Minho stands outside of Hyunjin's second-floor apartment, hesitates, then knocks with three sharp raps. Immediately, voices come from inside. Hyunjin first, of course, louder and rushed, and the other responding in a more sedate tone. Minho can't quite place it, though for a second he could swear it's Seungmin. Funny, to be hallucinating someone an ocean away. Funny, how Minho still doesn't know how to get over it.

"—behind the couch," says Hyunjin, muffled, and then the noise ceases for a moment before footsteps approach the door.

It swings open on silent hinges to reveal Hyunjin's flushed face. "Minho-hyung," he says, all faux cheer. "Crazy to see you here."

Minho does not have the energy for Hyunjin's particular idiosyncrasies — or random hookups — after an 8-hour teaching shift. "I brought your wallet."

"Right. Thank you. I'm guessing you didn't see my texts?"

Minho fishes the wallet out of his pocket, trying to ignore the fact that it's obvious someone, probably a hookup, is hiding in a crouching position not two meters away. "I'll look in a minute."

Hyunjin gets like this sometimes. He'll send something and assume everyone else is as glued to their phones as he is, then become histrionic if he believes he's been ignored. Minho used to find it endearing, but that's gotten harder as the barbs got meaner and more pointed over the last few months. Minho probably wouldn't act that way in Hyunjin's position, but that's more a matter of personality than it is of morals.

The question of blame is complicated. Does Minho blame the friends that disappeared out of his life seemingly overnight alongside his relationship? Does he blame them for the tension at work or the particular quality of silence his tiny apartment has taken on in the evenings? If they're the ones at fault, then what does that make him?

He and Seungmin had talked about this once — in jest, naturally, the only way they ever considered breaking up before Seungmin left for LA — and came to the conclusion that the friend group would have to split pretty neatly down the middle. Jisung and Felix and Chan to Minho, the others to Seungmin. Seungmin laughed, even: Changbin-hyung would try to play both sides, so that's not really fair. Except I guess Chan-hyung would too.

Right, Minho had replied, they're too attached, they wouldn't let us get far.

Reality hasn't been quite that simple.

Hyunjin takes the wallet from Minho's hand with a grimace. "Thanks, you can go now."

"That happy to see me?" Minho quips. "Or maybe you should get back to whoever you've got waiting."

Hyunjin says something else then, but a blur of movement over his shoulder stops Minho in his tracks.

Short brown hair, striped shirt, glasses sliding down his nose as he sits up from behind the arm of the couch… it's a noise, actually, that resolves the image into clarity, and then Minho can't fucking breathe.

Hyunjin must see it on his face. "Well!" He claps his hands together. "Thanks for the wallet, see you Tuesday, if you could just—"

"It's fine, Hyunjin," says Kim Seungmin, in the flesh. "He already saw me."

/

Tension chokes the room. Hyunjin, who has now tried three more times to shove an immovable Minho out of the doorway, and has now opted for crossing his arms menacingly and glancing between the two of them. Seungmin is standing with a wry, exhausted smile. There are bags under his eyes. His bare wrists and oversized t-shirt make him look oddly small. Minho wants to ask when he last ate and chokes the words down so he doesn't do something stupid like say them out loud.

It's up to Seungmin, then, to break the silence. "I thought I'd be able to settle in a little before we bumped into each other," he says, then gestures ruefully at his rumpled clothes. "I haven't been here long. But we should probably talk."

"You haven't been here long," Minho echoes stupidly.

Hyunjin blows his bangs out of his eyes. "His flight got in like an hour ago. It was early."

"Oh."

"I've been back and forth a few times," Seungmin explains, like that makes it better. "Getting my affairs in order and stuff. But yeah, Hyunjin wasn't expecting me tonight until ten."

"Right."

"Hyunjin," Seungmin says, "would you give us a minute?"

Minho isn't sure he wants a minute with Seungmin. After all, the last time they were alone together both of them still thought they'd make it work — Minho has not seen Seungmin in person since well before the breakup was even a glimmer in his mind, and the image is devastating.

Hyunjin is already nodding, though. "Fine," he says, and then, warily, to Minho: "be nice."

I could snap you in half, Minho doesn't say. He just inclines his head once in acknowledgement.

Hyunjin slips out the door and it shuts behind him with a quiet click that seems to boom in Minho's ears.

"So you're back," Minho says lamely.

Seungmin nods.

"Visiting?"

"Not really," Seungmin says, and the room seems to tilt dangerously. "I left the program early. I'm still figuring out what comes next. Hyunjin is letting me stay with him while I get back on my feet."

The fellowship doesn't end for another ten and a half weeks. The date is still marked in Minho's calendar, and every time he sees it he tells himself he'll delete it next time. "What—" Minho starts, clears his throat— "what happened?"

"I couldn't keep up."

"Nonsense," Minho says, automatic. Couldn't keep up, he thinks derisively. What a stupid lie. It's impossible to believe. "What's the real reason?"

When Seungmin blinks, his eyes betray frustration. The light reflects off of them, a stark contrast to the heavy bags underneath. "That's not fair. I couldn't," he insists, mutinous. "I'm not lying."

Impossible, Minho thinks again, but this time he doesn't say it out loud. Last he talked to Seungmin, Seungmin was struggling, of course. But it was supposed to get better. The whole point was for things to get better. If they got worse instead, then what the fuck has Minho done?

Cold trickles down his spine. "Not because of…" he trails off. He can't bring himself to ask.

Seungmin chews on the inside of his cheek. "It wasn't just one thing. There was a lot that was hard."

"Like what?"

The story spills out of Seungmin piece by trembling piece. The heartache, the cliquey internship, the way people treated him differently after realizing his English was missing the ease and flow and slang of a native speaker. The grueling hours, starting before sunrise and extending late into the night, how they were expected to stay in top vocal shape while consuming only green tea and grilled chicken in insultingly tiny amounts and the times Seungmin, swaying on his feet, was yelled at for a voice crack at the top of his range while blinking spots out of his vision. The producer who pulled him aside and told him Hey, kid, not for nothing, but I hear a hundred pretty voices every day. You have better chances blowing up on social media or something. Have you thought about starting a YouTube channel?

The time Seungmin spent lying on his bed staring at the water-stained ceiling in the tiny apartment he'd been subletting alongside three other people. How he remembers thinking so clearly, two months ago now, This isn't what I dreamed, and couldn't stop thinking it.

He couldn't stop wondering, either, about what would happen if he did make it after all. What would his life be like? More of the relentless, solitary striving that had defined the majority of his last year?

And then what?

"It was lonely," he admits. "I talked to Hyunjin a lot. And Jeongin. And my parents. And in the end, I just… I don't think that life is for me."

Some of this Minho had heard, but the majority is new, and with each detail Seungmin adds to Minho's picture of events Minho can feel his eyebrows drawing more and more tightly together. Guilt swimming in his chest, Minho swallows his own feelings down for a moment to tell Seungmin, "Then it's not that you couldn't keep up. It's that you chose different. That's not a failure, idiot."

It's far too familiar for a conversation with an ex-boyfriend. Minho realizes this as soon as it comes out of his mouth.

Before he can apologize or take it back, Seungmin laughs under his breath. "You're exactly the same."

"Not really," Minho says, thinking of the cloak of sadness he's taken to carrying around, but Seungmin is shaking his head.

"Thank you," he says, "for listening well. It's a relief to me that you know now."

Minho doesn't feel like he knows anything at all.

"The flight was long," Seungmin continues. "I don't really know up from down right now, so I should probably sleep soon."

"Right," Minho says. It's a kind dismissal, but a dismissal all the same. Whatever Minho had been expecting from a reunion with Seungmin, he'd always imagined to do either a lot of yelling or a lot of groveling. Tonight had neither of those things, but maybe Minho should have anticipated this. They always were bad at fighting when it counted.

"I'll get Hyunjin," he hears himself say.

"Yeah," Seungmin says, "thanks."

Minho turns around, a thousand questions burning on his tongue. Does Seungmin know that Minho unblocked him on every platform? That if he reached out, Minho might shatter into a million pieces? Is he looking for a place to live and will that place be in the same neighborhood he was in before? Is he looking for a job? Is he proud of himself for realizing what he really wanted and going after it, the way he's always been so good at doing? Does he recognize that Minho did the opposite, let the fear yank him by the throat and ruin a good thing before it could sour?

Minho could ask, could demand answers, but for the ashen pallor of Seungmin's skin. But for the ragged edge to Seungmin's sigh.

In the end all he does is leave.

Minho has thrown away his own happiness for this boy before, and wonders, as he does so again, if he's cursed to repeat this awful pattern, doing it over, and over, and over again until or unless Seungmin moves on from him for good.

/

Hyunjin glances at him warily when Minho emerges. "Is he okay?"

"Tired," Minho replies, "but he's in one piece."

"But is he okay?"

Minho feels himself harden. "He's not crying, Hyunjin. I didn't bite his head off. Whatever you think of me, I'm not—" He cuts himself off, jaw tense.

Hyunjin, still on the floor with his back against the wall of the hallway, blows a lock of hair out of his face irritably. "It's just been hard on him."

"I got that."

"Especially since the breakup."

"I'm going," Minho says. "Okay? Yell at me later."

Hyunjin's expression wavers. His mouth presses into a thin line like it always does when he's about to burst into tears. "Hyung," he says.

Whatever part of Minho used to store his softness has been hollowed out, and exhaustion hits him like a brick to the chest. "Jesus. This isn't a reunion. Nothing's better." A tear rolls down Hyunjin's face, and Minho turns away. "Pull yourself together and go back inside."

For him, Minho doesn't say.

For yourself.

For me.

Hyunjin sniffles behind him. Minho doesn't turn around.

/

Time goes funny when Minho gets home. It's after work, he reminds himself, mid-evening and blue-lit, and he needs to figure out dinner. Everything's still tidy and in its place, but the apartment looks alien now that he knows this city has Seungmin in it. He and Hyunjin are probably talking right now. Minho can't tell if it feels better or worse to imagine they aren't talking about him.

But he made his choices. He put his cards on the table and then walked away from them. Wasn't that the point? Wasn't he supposed to start moving on? A few minutes in the same room and it's like the clock has reset.

He can't help but think back to how they got into this mess in the first place, and as he casts his mind back the world goes blurry around him, spinning him into a past that feels far more distant than it is.

Six months before

“Passport?” Minho asks. “Itinerary? Water bottle?”

Seungmin rolls his eyes, smiling, as he dutifully pats the respective pockets of his backpack where each item has been safely tucked away. Next to him, two hulking suitcases are full to bursting. “I have everything. You literally watched me pack.”

“If you forgot something important I’m not turning around to bring it to you.”

“I know.”

“I mean it.”

“Sure, hyung.”

Minho frowns. “I won’t,” he insists.

Seungmin’s smile doesn’t waver. “Of course. But it doesn’t matter, because I do have everything.”

Some unhinged instinct inside of Minho thinks about rifling through Seungmin’s pockets and keeping something on purpose just for the excuse to see him one more time after the goodbye, but that wouldn’t be good for either of them. And they agreed at dinner the other night, the official celebration for Seungmin starting the fellowship, that going long distance for a year wouldn’t kill them. In fact, Seungmin had shyly offered, maybe it could even bring them closer together. Something about absence and fondness, or else about having to put in more effort to stay connected than they did while living in the same city just a few blocks from each other — a funny coincidence that Minho once, drunk off his ass, convinced himself must have been fate.

Threats dried up, Minho allows Seungmin to guide the both of them out to the car. The suitcases barely fit in the trunk. Seungmin, oblivious to Minho’s increasing nausea, takes his usual place in the passenger seat and manually disconnects Minho’s phone from the Bluetooth so he can play his own music instead.

"Do you remember," Seungmin says once they've pulled away from the building and into the throes of midday traffic, "when I got accepted into the program, and you were like, this is gonna suck but you have to do it or you'll regret it?"

What Minho had actually said was: "Kim Seungmin, are you going to stay here for a man? That's ridiculous, don't do that. You're not stupid"

To which Seungmin had replied, disbelieving, "Are you calling yourself 'a man'? You're my boyfriend, you're not just a man."

Minho, red-eared, had shrugged it off. "Regardless," he said, and Seungmin had nodded thoughtfully. Two days later, Seungmin accepted the offer and began preparing for the program, and that had been that.

Flattering, that Seungmin remembers it the way he does. Minho mostly remembers the pit of dread that formed in his stomach the day the letter came. Before Seungmin even opened it, Minho could feel the life-changing energy radiating off of the moment — they'd be idiots not to accept Seungmin, but even if they didn't Seungmin would just try again until someone did. When Kim Seungmin sets his mind to something, he doesn't let go of it until the universe bends to accept his will. Minho has been the subject of that force of determination before. It's heady, unstoppable. He knows.

"Anyway," Seungmin continues, "I was thinking about that last night. Part of me really doesn't want to go, but you were right. I'll never forgive myself if I don't see this through."

"You'll forget all about me," Minho jokes. Too honest! blares the alarm system in his heart as Seungmin cuts him a soft sideways glance. "I just mean, you'll be meeting so many famous people and getting used to the LA weather. The time will fly."

"I'll call a lot," Seungmin says. "You'll be sick of me."

Minho shakes his head. The lump in his throat prevents any response from coming out, so that the silence builds into an obvious indictment. Shit, he thinks, as his eyes sting. And he'd been holding it together so well. He blinks hard.

"Ah, hyung." Seungmin's voice is fond and sad at the edges. "Don't start, you'll get me going and then I'll be puffy on the plane."

"Talk about something else," Minho manages. "I'm fine, it's dusty in here. Distract me."

Seungmin recounts the last Lotte Giants game he'd attended practically play by play from memory. The patter, warm and familiar, soothes Minho even while it aches. Seungmin's hand rubs a soft back and forth over Minho's knee as he drives, and Minho wishes he were enough of an asshole to actually contemplate turning the car around. A year without this? The only blessing is it's too hard to comprehend when he and Seungmin have been in each other's pockets for better or worse practically since they day they met.

If other relationships come to mind — past boyfriends, friends made at the company before Minho was cut loose as a trainee, even his parents — as counterpoints that remind Minho he's more than capable of leaving people in the rearview, there's no reason to dwell on those. This thing with Seungmin is different.

Even in the midst of oppressive traffic, the drive ends too quickly. It's still early enough that Minho pulls silently into the parking garage rather than up to the terminal drop off zone. They're not doing this goodbye in the car. He grabs the suitcases, one in each hand and pulls them out of the car, handing one to Seungmin and keeping the heavier to roll himself.

Before they start walking, they take a moment to look at each other. Minho's breath shudders out of him.

Here, in the chill of the garage surrounded by the cover of cars and cement pillars, is their best chance for a private moment.

"You have everything you need?" Minho asks again, voice tight.

Seungmin's smile wobbles. "Mostly," he says, and puts a hand on Minho's cheek. "The time will fly, right? In a year we'll be laughing about how short it felt, how it's like I was never gone at all."

They'll be apart for almost as long as they've been together.

"Right," Minho forces himself to whisper.

"And," Seungmin says, blinking faster, "when I'm a famous singer I'll dedicate all my sappy love songs to you. And you have to duet them with me at karaoke."

"I can do that."

"And we can— and it'll be—" Seungmin's smile turns into a self-conscious grimace as tears start to spill over. "Shit," he mumbles, resigned to it. He leans down to tuck his wet face into Minho's neck. "I'm happy," he admits wetly, "but I'm also really sad."

Fuck. Minho sniffles. "Don't be sad, Kim Seungmin. This is your dream."

"I know," Seungmin says. "I know, I know that."

Two crystalline tears drop into Seungmin's hair. Minho sniffs again, yanking on the reins of his self-restraint. He can break down later. "You'll miss your flight."

"No I won't," Seungmin complains, "we're so early," but he extricates himself all the same.

He is, as he feared, very puffy. The effect is devastating. Minho has only seen Seungmin cry once before outside of sex, and that was when one of Jeongin's grandparents passed away and Jeongin crashed a noodle shop date on Seungmin's invitation. Jeongin had held it together remarkably well until, after being asked gently how he was holding up, his face had twisted up into something tragic; Seungmin, an emotional sponge, had followed him into tears. It had been sweet then. Minho fed them both noodles and alcohol and pretended to be annoyed when they used his sleeves as tissues, and they stayed at the restaurant talking late into the night until it closed around them.

This is different. The sadness is coming from the space between Minho and Seungmin, that tenuous bond that cultivates banter as quickly as gentleness, that hasn't been home to this emotion before.

Minho thumbs tears from Seungmin's cheeks. "Aigo," he says. What was meant to be mocking comes out terribly fond.

"I should go," Seungmin says, crying harder. "I'm okay."

Minho sighs, continuing to brush tears away. He removes a hand to rummage around in his own pocket. "One last thing," he says, and pulls out a silver bracelet with a single delicate charm.

Seungmin's face crumples. His shoulders shake as he takes it, turning it over in his hands, holding the puppy charm up to the faint light. "Hyung." The word is a single dry sob.

"It wasn't expensive," Minho says. "And proceeds went to charity, so."

Seungmin doesn't even seem to hear him. He holds out his wrist, silently demanding Minho put it on him, and Minho acquiesces. His heart squeezes hard in his chest when it's done.

"Okay," Minho murmurs. "Now you can go."

Though the goodbye extends another five minutes as Seungmin calms down, Minho doesn't remember what's said after the bracelet is on Seungmin's wrist. The same stuff, probably, over and over again, assuring each other that everything will be fine.

They steal a kiss in the shadows, Minho checking his shoulder to make sure they aren't being watched, and before Seungmin can pull all the way back Minho rocks onto his toes to kiss his forehead, too.

Another blur of parting, and then they're heading into the airport together, Minho carting the heavier bag. Seungmin calms once he's in line to check the suitcases, dust mask up over his mouth and nose and eyes partly obscured behind his glasses. He's quiet and sedate as Minho walks him to security.

They don't even hug there. Minho assumes Seungmin must feel the same way Minho does: like if they try to say goodbye one more time, one of them will fall apart for real.

So instead, the last image is Seungmin, huge backpack over his shoulders, face tucked under his ball cap, waving.

Minho returns it, and then it's just Seungmin's shoulder blades as his dreams carry him away, and up, and away.

/

Seungmin video calls when he lands. He's laughing into the camera, seemingly delirious from lack of sleep. It's the middle of the night for both of them, though on the other side of the call Minho can see the California sunshine pouring onto Seungmin's skin, lighting him up.

"I'm here!"

Minho grunts. "Glad the plane didn't explode."

"It's gonna be crazy," Seungmin says. "I need to find the shuttle to the dorms for the welcome dinner and then we're doing a full day orientation tomorrow. I might not be able to call for a few days."

Minho nods blearily. They've discussed this already. But Seungmin isn't saying it again to be annoying, and Minho knows him too well to take it at face value. "You'll be fine," he says, trying to wake up enough to sound reassuring. "It's nothing you can't handle. Go become a superstar or whatever it is you're doing over there."

He watches Seungmin take a deep, grounding breath. "I can handle it," he agrees. Some of the anxiety seems to have drained from his shoulders.

Better.

They chat a little more while Seungmin traverses the airport (which sounds massive and poorly laid out from what little Minho can glean). Over time, Minho's eyes droop further and further closed, and Seungmin's remarks become a soothing drone. How many times has he fallen asleep to Seungmin's warm voice? It's too easy to pretend nothing will change at all.

"Hyung," Seungmin says at one point, "are you already back asleep?"

Minho snores in response.

/

Over the first few weeks, Seungmin seems to settle in all right. The other fellows are nice enough, he says, and he's living with a few of them in a house with no air conditioning — which, Seungmin notes, will get annoying in the summer but has been fine so far — and white paint peeling from the hinges and light switches.

"It's a little strict," Seungmin tells him, whispering because his roommates have already gone to sleep. "They're intense about making sure we improve. I'm already learning a lot."

"Good," Minho says. "If they're going to be strict then you should at least be getting something out of it."

Seungmin smiles. He looks tired, though every time Minho asks he insists he's just jet lagged or adjusting to the schedule or in bad lighting. "Yeah. How are you? How is everything back home?"

Minho fills him in—though there's little to report, Seungmin still drinks in each anecdote like it's the best thing he's ever heard. Minho embellishes a bit just for Seungmin's satisfying reactions to dramatic moments, and so his recounting of a hectic morning turns into a race against the clock to make it to work, and Yongbok's unpolished choreography draft gains the mark of a next big dance trend.

He's mid-reenactment of Hyunjin spilling his coffee when a student sticks their head into the empty studio. "Minho-ssaem?"

"Oh," Seungmin says, "I shouldn't keep you."

Minho forces a smile. "Do you need something?" he asks the student.

"Um, there are two boys arguing by the desk. It looks like they might start fighting. I thought you would want to know."

"Ah," says Minho. Disappointment rushes through him. "Okay, I'll be right out."

The student darts back into the hall, and Seungmin chuckles. "Need to go?"

"Trust me," Minho says, "I'd much rather be talking to you, but I can't let kids fight. It wouldn't be a great look."

"Go save the day," Seungmin replies. "We'll talk tomorrow. Or— not tomorrow, Wednesday? I think? Or Thursday after my gym session if I don't get out too late for you. Which I need to tell you about, oh my god. They're making me lift."

"I'll text you. We'll find a time." The noises from outside escalate, and Minho groans. "Okay, I seriously need to go. Don't get into any trouble where I can't bail you out."

"Love you too," says Seungmin, and hangs up before Minho can answer.

It goes on like that, stolen moments in between responsibilities when they can get them. Seungmin keeps promising that things will settle down and he'll have more free time once he adjusts, but if anything he seems to get busier. He spends some time with the other fellows, telling Minho about their outings to get dairy-free ice cream and walks down Santa Monica pier in the dry heat.

Before Minho knows it, Seungmin has been gone for a month, and their calls have dwindled to one or two a week from the four or five they'd optimistically aimed for.

Minho texts a picture of the cats at his parents' house, then a selfie, then a meme, then another selfie.

Twelve hours later, Seungmin responds with laughing emojis and his own selfie, smile on his face but eyes so, so tired.

Minho sends a heart, then un-sends it. Asks, are you eating well?

Seungmin's answering thumbs up doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.

/

"I think you're overthinking things," says Hyunjin where he's lying practically upside down on Minho's tiny couch. He drops a cheese-flavored crunchy salty abomination (American, courtesy of a Seungmin care package) into his mouth and keeps talking around it. "He's Seungmin, you know? If he only has a certain amount of time, he wants to get the most out of it. You know in the last cohort one of the fellows left with a record deal and put out an album like six months later?"

Minho did know that. Minho was the one who found that information in the first place when he was helping Seungmin determine which programs were even worth his time.

"I mean," Hyunjin continues, "you know him. Was he ever gonna not work himself into the ground?"

"He shouldn't," Minho grumbles.

"Well of course you're gonna say that, you're his boyfriend. You want to like, hand-feed him grapes while he lounges on the beach. Or cuddle or something."

"Stop imagining me and Seungmin having sex," Minho says, just to watch Hyunjin flinch in horror.

"I was not! You are disgusting!"

Minho shrugs, letting Hyunjin squawk for another moment. "I get that he's working hard," he says, as though he hadn't terrorized Hyunjin at all, "it just sucks. I don't know. Why are we talking about my feelings again?"

"It was me or Changbin-hyung," Hyunjin says. "And I lost the rock-paper-scissors."

"What if I choose neither?"

"Hyung," Hyunjin says, exasperated, "you can't just bottle things up forever. It's fine if you're worried about him, but then just say that instead of inventing problems in your head. I bet if you told him you wanted to check on him he'd be fine with that. Or he could say No, idiot, I'm busy but I'm fine, and you could stop worrying."

Minho despairs. When did Hyunjin learn to lecture people? He misses the junior that used to flinch at his every sneer and would never dream of condescending to an elder.

Even worse, the advice isn't terrible. Minho isn't interested in actually telling Seungmin he's worried about him, or in sharing his feelings at all, but a request for planned calls might be easier than trying to spontaneously find time every other night; they've been failing at it so far, much more so than either of them anticipated. Time zones, as it happens, are a bitch. But maybe if Minho works at it he can make them his bitch.

"Okay, you've been quiet for a while so I assume you're just taking in my wisdom."

"No," says Minho flatly, "I'm planning your tragically early death."

Hyunjin, annoyingly, laughs, mouth orange. "You're welcome," he says knowingly, and Minho flicks him in the forehead.

/

He and Seungmin set up a call for that weekend. Seungmin likes the idea, teases a little about Minho's newfound interest in planning dates when he's historically liked to spring them on Seungmin, and Minho is relieved at how normal the exchange feels compared to the stilted back and forth of the last few days. Maybe he was overthinking things. He's not historically prone to that, but long distance apparently has a way of bringing out the worst in him.

On Saturday late afternoon in LA, Sunday morning in Seoul, Seungmin answers the video call in a soft-looking gray crewneck with the program's logo stitched into the top left. "Hey," he says. He looks to be sitting in his top bunk in the dormitory. "We have like an hour, my roommates agreed to clear out so we could talk."

"Talk, huh?" Minho asks, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Seungmin rolls his eyes, though he can't hide his grin. "I thought so, yeah. But if you'd rather, you know… then we could."

It's a tempting offer. Minho aches to see Seungmin fall apart a little, to watch him touch himself or even just see the slack tilt of his mouth when it drops open in pleasure. And for a few moments, Minho allows himself to indulge, feeling the way his eyes must darken as his attention sharpens to a point.

It's quick and messy, the two of them jerking off while mostly breathing into each other's ears, occasional requests to see what the other is doing—your face, Minho wants to direct, but he can't bring himself to ask. Minho comes with a gasp and a sigh, pulsing onto his own belly, shirt rucked up so he wouldn't get it dirty. He cleans himself off with a tissue from the side table and laughs when he notices that Seungmin doesn't have the same resource immediately available to him.

"What, have you been using your socks?"

"Laugh it up," Seungmin replies with an eye roll. His droll expression makes Minho laugh. "I've been busy, I don't know. It's harder with a roommate. I've been jerking off in the shower."

Minho can respect that choice and tells him so.

Seungmin snorts. "Thanks for your approval." Despite his surface-level irritation there's an ease to him that wasn't there at the beginning of the call. He eventually finds a hand towel and grimaces as he uses it and tosses it into the laundry to wash.

They're left with a little over half an hour to actually talk. "Are you learning a lot?" Minho asks. "Long days?"

"Long days," Seungmin agrees. "And I am learning a lot, it's just… stressful. But I'm doing good. Keeping up with everything."

Minho runs his tongue along the back of his front teeth, pressing into each ridge. "That's good."

"Enough about me, though. What about you? How are the kids?"

Minho ends up rambling for the majority of the rest of their call about his students, most of whom have made great progress under Minho's careful eye. He tells Seungmin about the parents who want their kids to be idols someday, the kids who parrot a dream they don't fully understand, the ones who just need to burn off some energy and find that dancing is their favorite way to do it. "I don't think the middle schoolers are as scared of me anymore."

"That's nice."

"Is it?"

Seungmin laughs. "You don't want them to be scared of you. I've seen you teaching, you're sweet."

"That doesn't sound like me."

"You can't hide from me, hyung. You want them to like you. You use the same soft voice with them you use with your cats. You use it with me sometimes too. You sent me money for coffee this morning. I know what's under that grumpy shell."

Minho flicks his gaze to the side of the room, jaw tightening. "You don't know anything, Kim Seungmin."

Seungmin's answering smile is higher on one side than the other, a rising tide threatening to pull Minho under. "Whatever you say."

Seungmin is at his most irritating when he thinks he's won something. Minho ignores his smug face and lets Seungmin rope into a discussion of what the others have been doing while Seungmin's been gone. Surely they've told Seungmin themselves, but Minho dutifully reports the more interesting changes anyway: Jisung's latest Soundcloud upload has outpaced his last one in downloads nearly twice over and it's only been a week; Felix is adding two more classes to his schedule, which means he's finally going to quit his terrible food delivery job; Chan went on a few dates with someone but has been tight-lipped about it to the point that Minho doesn't even know the gender of this person; the others are fine, normal, can't Seungmin do his own work for it if he wants the gossip so much?

Seungmin, as though penitent, shares his own gossip in return: Changbin has been informally mentoring someone at the gym and enjoying it so much he's considering going for a personal training license; Jeongin is still crushing hard on a mystery guy whom he describes as "gross" and "annoying" but apparently likable enough that Jeongin can look past those things; Hyunjin started using oil pastels and now his entire apartment is covered in smears of color because he likes to blend with his fingers and forget he's done so.

"I knew that one already," Minho grouses. "He showed up with a blue streak in his hair the other day."

Seungmin laughs, then quiets, mirth fading like the slow slip of a sunset. When he speaks again, it's quiet: "I miss you guys."

"Yah, you said you were sick of us."

"I guess…" Seungmin says, unable or unwilling to join in on the joke… "I guess I lied."

When Seungmin brushes a lock of hair back from his eyes, Minho catches the glint of his silver bracelet in the light.

He wonders whether he'd have done anything differently before Seungmin left if he'd known it would hurt this much.

Minho opens his mouth to respond just as the light in Seungmin's room changes, a curtain shade drawing back to let in a pouring stream of sun. Another voice mumbles in the background and Seungmin replies in English. Minho loses track of the short back and forth almost immediately.

"Hyung," Seungmin says, low, in Korean, "sorry, I have to go."

"That's okay. You warned me we wouldn't have a lot of time."

Seungmin's eyes look shiny. Minho can't tell if the threat of tears is real, or if he's seeing things that aren't there. "Still."'

"It's okay," Minho says again. "Go hang out with your American friends, you need some people on your side over there."

Seungmin's expression has gone blank. "Yeah. Sorry again. I love you."

Minho swallows, forces himself to say it. "I love you, too."

"Bye," Seungmin whispers.

He hangs up as Minho is telling him to text before he goes to bed.

/

One month and three and a half calls later, one of which was literally six minutes long, Minho finds himself out to drinks with Chan, Jeongin, Jisung, and Felix. It's a bit of an odd group, but apparently Chan already had plans with Felix and he and Jisung were already at the studio together. Jisung agreed to join but felt guilty ditching his plans with his roommate, so Jeongin got invited, and Felix decided to bring Minho as a plus one if it was going to be a group event anyway. Minho, who had no plans aside from wondering forlornly if Seungmin would text him back before Minho fell asleep and looking at cat adoption websites, decided it would probably be a good idea to get some socialization in on a Friday night.

Though Chan has limited himself to one drink, the rest of them haven't. Minho is pleasantly swimming an hour in, and has the presence to faintly wonder if giving himself some relief from his sadness in this way is a bad idea.

Jisung, lightweight that he is, leans heavily into Minho's side. "Hyuuuung," he complains, "you're no fun these days."

"No?" Minho asks, amused.

Jisung shakes his head. Across the table, Jeongin is staring at both of them with something oddly intense in his gaze. "You don't hang out with us," Jisung insists.

Minho snorts. "What do you call this, then?"

"Doesn't count. Chan-hyung leaving the studio is like a national holiday, of course you're here."

"Hey," Chan protests mildly.

On Minho's other side, Felix adheres himself to Minho's arm. "It's true. You're all sad at work and then you just go home."

"If I didn't know better," Jisung offers, "I'd think you hated all of us."

Minho rolls his eyes and changes the subject, and the others allow him to talk about anime for a bit, even Jeongin.

Eventually, though, the conversation turns back to Minho, innocuous at first. It's Chan, sipping the dregs of his beer, who asks, "So how's Seungmin doing?"

"Ask him yourself."

"You hog all his attention," says Jisung.

Jeongin nods. "It's kind of true. He's always been bad at answering texts, but these days I feel like I would have a better chance at getting a response if I sent smoke signals or something"

"That's why I'm asking," Chan says, hands hovering over the table placatingly. "You've talked to him the most. It makes sense. We just miss him, we want to know what he's up to."

"He must be exhausted," Felix adds. "The program sounds pretty intense."

Minho nods warily. "He's busy," he allows. It's odd to talk like this, as though his relationship with Seungmin has ever been fair game for a group discussion. "It's not like I've talked to him that much more than you guys. The time difference isn't easy."

Chan makes a sympathetic sound, and Felix pats Minho's arm and says, "That must be so hard."

"We knew it would be," Minho says. And then, unable to stop himself, alcohol loosening his tongue, "But I guess it's harder than I thought. We can barely call once a week these days, and whenever we do he's half asleep. I worry that he's not eating enough. But it's stupid to worry, he's a grown adult."

"Hyunjin and I were gonna send a box with snacks," Jeongin offers. "You could put something in that. So he has it."

Minho's face burns. "I don't know, I think he's wearing himself out trying to keep up with me, or, like, with us."

"What do you mean?" Chan asks.

"The relationship, I mean," spills Minho. "He messages me back and takes pictures of things and gets on video calls but that's on top of everything he's already doing. It's an intensive program. But he apologizes every time it takes him more than an hour to get back to me. He shouldn't be worrying like that. It's giving him wrinkles."

Felix sighs forlornly at Minho's side. Soju-soaked, he says: "But you don't care if he's wrinkly. You think he's the hottest person ever and you want to be together forever. And like, I get it. Seungmin is total boyfriend vibes."

"At least he's talking to you," Jeongin adds. His mouth is tipped down at one side, eyes serious. "He hasn't even told me he's finding it difficult."

"He doesn't say that shit straight out. I'm just— it's obvious."

"To you," says Chan.

Minho shrugs. "I guess. Jesus, can we talk about something else? This is fucking depressing."

Felix pats Minho again, a flutter of fingers. He's the only one Minho would allow to do that. The others gaze at the scene fondly like they know. "Just seven more months," Felix says, depressing Minho even further. "And when he's back it'll be like he never left at all."

No it won't, Minho thinks but doesn't say. He's watching his boyfriend decompensate before his eyes, each week looking frailer and joking less. In seven months, when Seungmin is finished, how much of him will even be left to come home? And how much less, when Minho is done taking and taking and taking from him?

/

In lieu of discussing the issue with any of his friends, Minho takes to having imaginary conversations in his head. Their success is variable; sometimes he loses their voices, clear that he's actually just conversing with himself in his own mind, and the self-consciousness of the act consumes him. Other times, however, he gets swept up in the moment, and launches passionate arguments against their inevitable disapproval.

An example—

Minho: I'm thinking about breaking up with my boyfriend for his own good.

Changbin: Well that is fucking stupid.

Minho: Of course you'd say that, you've been in the same relationship forever.

Changbin: That has nothing to do with how much of a moron you are. A breakup is not going to make things easier on Seungmin.

Minho: Not right away. But isn't it the perfect time, if it needs to happen? He can lean on his new friends. He can adjust. He can live in a place I've never stepped foot in and throw himself into his art and get everything he deserves out of this experience he's been breaking his back over. And then he can decide what comes next without a ball and chain on his ankle.

Changbin: Ugh, whatever. He's going to cry a lot. Are you prepared to handle that?

Minho: No, but I'm very good at sounding bored when I'm not.

Changbin: Great. You're going to sound bored when you break up with him. That's sure to help things.

Minho: Do you have any better ideas?

Changbin: […]

Minho: Exactly. I'm not helping anything either way. He misses me and he's making bad choices because of it. It's fucking him up when he should be thriving.

Changbin: I guess long distance is hard for a reason.

Minho: No shit.

Changbin: Do you at least recognize that you're doing this because it's hard on you? It doesn't seem like it's actually to Seungmin's benefit. It seems like it's for yourself.

Minho: No, and also fuck you. Why did I even start arguing with you? Let's stop.

Changbin: Fine. I still think you're stupid.

Minho: Thanks, Changbinie. Great talk.

—He does iterations of these with everyone, sometimes in cycles, or swapping out one person for another mid-dialogue if the Chan in his head is being overly nice and bringing Minho too close to tears. Themes emerge: Changbin is angry, Jeongin is biting, Hyunjin is disbelieving. Jisung and Felix are weepy, insisting that love can overcome anything, quoting songs or shows they've seen to prove their points. Chan is kind and firm in turns, and Minho's bad at dealing with either of those approaches, to the point that he finds himself avoiding Chan in real life, too, and by extension most of the others while he tries to form a plan.

/

It's not that he doesn't try other things first. Minho isn't so stupid as to believe the only options are break up or spontaneously resolve all of their issues. But each attempt only seems to nudge Seungmin further away, as though noticing Minho trying hurts him, too.

More and more, the time they get together is rushed and designated for catching up. Though Seungmin almost exclusively talks about the program, Minho feels he isn't actually learning much about it; the conversations get so bogged down in reports of logistics that he can't tell if Seungmin is enjoying it, and asking doesn't seem to yield anything new.

"It's hard work," Seungmin will say, "but I knew that going in," and then he flutters off topic to ask about their friends.

And Minho would push, but Seungmin doesn't like that. He tries once, tells Seungmin to just spit out whatever he's hiding, but Seungmin won't. The pit in Minho's stomach grows. Is there someone else? Are all the other students assholes? Why won't he let Minho help? He even looks at his bank account to see if a round trip flight would be possible, but when he factors in the lost wages for the time he'd have to take off the math just won't make sense.

Minho loses time some afternoons, spending long minutes staring at his knees and trying to figure out how to maneuver without feeling so damn scared all the time.

But Spring turns to Summer, and the answers don't come.

/

When the day of judgment finally arrives, Seungmin is just past the halfway point of his program, and that knowledge is almost enough to change Minho's mind. But Seungmin canceled their last two calls because he's been sick, and when he picks up the video call tonight Minho's resolve is strengthened all over again.

"Don't look at me," Seungmin moans, noticing the way Minho's eyebrows have risen at Seungmin's sunken under-eyes and pallid skin. "I look awful. I feel awful."

"Then why are you on the phone with me, dummy?"

Seungmin rolls his eyes. "Because I wanted to talk to you."

Something in Minho's chest fractures. "Okay, well, at least turn the camera off. You'll give yourself a headache."

"Already have one," Seungmin grouses, but turns off the camera. Minho does too, and it becomes a regular phone call, easier to handle. He'd been planning on trying to do it like that anyway. He's always been shit at standing up to Seungmin's tragic expressions when he's upset.

They catch up a bit. As Seungmin talks, exhaustion dogging his stories about the new mentor they have and how exacting she is, how Seungmin is carving time out of the little recovery break he's getting to talk to Minho instead of sleeping, the coil of unease in Minho's gut keeps tightening. He makes compromises with himself: After this sentence, he'll jump in. After the next one, then. One more. Another. When Seungmin is done talking Minho will break up with him. When Seungmin mentions being tired Minho will force the words out. When—

Before he knows it, half an hour has passed. If precedent holds, Seungmin only has another twenty minutes or so to talk, and that's in the best of circumstances.

"Anyway," Seungmin says, "I'm just… I don't know. I hoped it would feel easier by now."

"Yeah?" Minho asks. He sounds hoarse.

Seungmin hums. "It's hard to be so far away from you. From all of you. But I'm trying to just focus and put my all into this while I'm here. I guess," he continues with a sad little laugh, "I need to remember why I came here in the first place."

He's been set up. There won't be a better chance. Minho still flirts with letting the opportunity pass, but then bile rises in his throat.

He can't go on like this. They can't. He can't.

"Hey," Minho manages. The moment flutters in the air like a bird wing, suspended, and then Minho smacks it out of the air all at once. "We need to talk about that, actually."

"Oh, yeah? What about it?"

"The distance isn't working out. I can't do this anymore."

"What? It sounded for a second like you were breaking up with me."

"Seungmo."

Seungmin laughs a little, too high and tense. "But you wouldn't just do that out of nowhere, right? You'd have told me if you were unhappy and we'd work on it. Because we've been together for so long."

Minho remains hideously silent.

"We're both tired," Seungmin continues. "Can we talk about it at least? I can wait, or we can get into it now, I just—"

"Now," Minho says.

"Okay. What… why isn't it working out? Like, what do you mean?"

"You call this working out? Every time we get on the phone your dark circles have grown. Come on."

"It's temporary."

"It's May," Minho reminds him. "You're not even halfway done."

"I will be in a week."

"And then? Six more months of this? You're sick. You stay up late to text me back. You don't take care of yourself. You're thinking about me at home when you should be thinking about yourself. And you think it makes me happy? Knowing you're killing yourself because you're only letting yourself be there halfway?"

"That's not fair. It's hard, it's not just you. And when I'm back, then…"

"What if you end up with a record deal, Seungmin?" This is the part they haven't talked about. Not once, not even when Seungmin was first admitted and the whole future opened up in front of the both of them. "What if you decide to stay? I can't follow you there. We'd end up back in this position anyway."

"So we should just give up now?"

Minho can hear the tears creeping into Seungmin's voice. "So I'm ending it," he says, trying to be firm. "It's not a discussion. I've thought about it a lot, okay?"

Seungmin makes a low, wretched noise. "Really? You've thought a lot about how you needed to get on the call tonight to listen to me tell you how I'm having a hard time and I miss you and then fucking break up with me? While I'm here by myself, you think that's what will help? Leaving me alone?"

"We barely talk to each other anyway! And it's not like anyone's dying." Minho feels his own voice trying to give up on, the impulse to change his mind, take it all back. But he can't. They're breaking up. He thought he'd prepared himself for this moment. "You're not alone. You and me, it just… it's not helping things. I can't keep watching this happen, knowing I could take a burden off your shoulders."

"No," says Seungmin.

"I'm sorry."

"I'll come back," Seungmin hiccups. "I'll finish early, I'll leave and come home—"

"Don't you fucking dare," Minho snaps. It's the last nail in the coffin, the push he needed to finish this. "I won't forgive you if you do that. This is your dream, Seungmin. Don't make this any harder than it has to be."

"But it's not— you're not—" he cuts himself off helplessly.

Minho shuts his eyes. Seungmin needs a villain, then. Someone to close the door once and for all, to rail against in memory, to hate later when the sadness has passed. Minho had imagined telling Seungmin that of course he knows where to find Minho when he gets back, that this can be a break and not an ending, but the hope will drive Seungmin crazy. He'll stay up even later trying to figure out how to turn the conversation back around, or he'll blow up Minho's texts, or he'll tell all their friends to work on Minho so Seungmin can go back to wasting his time on the phone listening to Minho's insipid worries and leave one foot lodged firmly in Seoul instead of leaping into the unknown of Los Angeles the way he should be. If Minho isn't firm here Seungmin will come home, and he'll come home for Minho, and they'll have gone through all of this for nothing. Minho knows him too well to offer either of them that out.

"Haven't you thought," Minho forces himself to ask cruelly, "that this was hard on me too? That I might not want to go on like this?"

An awful, frigid silence.

"You're really doing this?" Seungmin finally whispers.

"I'm sorry," Minho says again.

"Really?"

"It's better this way," Minho tells him, feeling simultaneously completely in the right and utterly full of shit, and he lets the righteous martyrdom carry him all the way through ending the call.

When he hangs up, he notices tears dripping onto the floor. He wouldn't be able to guess exactly how long he's been crying if he tried. Knows only that it continues for hours, steady like a leak in a faucet, irreparable except by succumbing to the oblivion of sleep, understanding that tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, Minho will have done the right thing but the pain will be fresh again each time he recalls it.

Two Years Before

When asked about it later, Jisung will insist the restaurant got it wrong, but Minho was there, and he heard Jisung blithely ask for a table for six without stopping to count. It's a ragtag assortment of people, Minho and Jisung and Minho's dance friend and Minho's dance acquaintance and Jisung's music hyungs and Jisung's roommate and Jisung's roommate's best friend. They've all gathered, ostensibly, for Jisung's birthday, though Minho knows it's more of an album release party than anything else. 3RACHA dropped six tracks the night before, and streams so far are higher than anticipated, so Changbin had doubled down on going out for a late lunch all together. It's also apparently Felix's birthday.

Ultimately, this all means that they're celebrating for a mishmash of reasons, and that Jisung being in charge was not necessary. A valuable lesson that can only be applied in the future.

In the present moment, Minho has been relegated to a two-top halfway across the room from the rest of the crew for a twenty-minute "rotation": Chan's idea, of course. The other short straw was Jeongin's friend, a guy with floppy brown hair and a comically oversized dusty blue flannel who claims to be a Kim Seungmin.

"Anyway it pays the bills," Kim Seungmin is saying about his data analysis job, "but with any luck I won't be doing it forever. I think it's cool you followed your passion."

Minho's passion has had him living with roommates his entire adult life, but he can admit it's better than pushing papers. "I was never amazing at school," he says. "It just made sense to stick with what I was good at."

"I can literally see a book in your bag."

Indeed, Minho's current read is visible through a sliver of his open gym bag. "I like to read for fun. Not so someone can quiz me on it."

"That's fair. I feel that way sometimes too. I want to accomplish things with my hobbies, but then it's hard to know how far to take that. Will I stop loving music if I throw myself at it fully?"

Minho cuts a glance to Jisung, Changbin, and Chan. Thinks about his own world, about Hyunjin and Felix. If Seungmin is looking for a group of people to prove that pursuing music in some form will destroy his love for it, he'll have to keep looking.

Seungmin follows his gaze and chuckles. "Right, not necessarily. Also, sorry, this is a little intense for a first meeting. I haven't had to make a new friend in a while." He grimaces at himself. Minho, despite himself, finds the expression terribly cute.

"What's your relation to our Jeonginie?"

"We took voice lessons together."

"Right, he was a trainee, wasn't he?"

Seungmin nods. "For a while, yeah. And then when he finished school he ended up staying up here. We lived together for a bit, actually, before I moved out and Jisung took my room."

"That's Jeongin," Minho says solemnly. "He'll love you and leave you any time."

Seungmin bursts into startled laughter. "Right? So hot and cold. Total tsundere."

"I can hear you," Jeongin complains, appearing behind Minho's chair. He must have been on his way to the bathroom. "Whose idea was it to introduce you two? This was a mistake."

"We're best friends now," Minho says with a sharp grin. "You've brought us together. Aren't you proud?"

Jisung materializes at Jeongin's side. "Wait, we should all do something together again. This is great."

Jeongin looks skyward, though a smile seems to be tugging at the corners of his mouth. Seungmin offers a thumbs up.

The others gather around too, since apparently Minho and Seungmin's time is up, and rather than rotate another duo out to the table they finish up at the restaurant and head to noraebang for drinks and song, presumably so Jisung can show off and Chan can pretend he doesn't want to sing before serenading all of them with something goofy while Changbin hypes him up on the secondary mic. Minho's fine with it — his own voice isn't great, but he can carry a tune —and he finds himself humming as they walk down the block in a messy clump while trying not to get separated in the slightly egregious crowd.

"This is why I don't go out on Saturdays," he hears Jisung complain, and Felix replies with something encouraging.

Seungmin ends up close to Minho, and grabs onto Minho's messenger bag after a particularly intense jostle. Minho feels a flicker of protectiveness, which prompts him to realize that his quip about becoming fast friends might actually be grounded in reality. He likes Seungmin, who is cute and a little awkward and clearly prone to rambling about the things that spark his interest.

In the rented room, Minho leans against the wall and spends most of his time watching. Chan orders drinks for everyone and Minho almost manages to get buzzed. Things go about as he expected, including Hyunjin roping him into a trot song and the two of them coming up with an improvised dance on the spot, until Jeongin sighs exasperatedly from the other side of the room.

"Seungmin-hyung is going to sing," he proclaims, nudging the aforementioned hyung up out of his seat. "He wants to but he won't admit it. Can someone give him a microphone?"

Felix silently hands it over. Seungmin takes it, ears red, and rolls his eyes. "Don't make me sound desperate."

"You keep this place in business," Jeongin contests.

And oh, that's interesting. Kim Seungmin, a noraebang regular? Minho knew he sang, but there's something oddly charming about imagining him stopping here on the way home from work, suit and all.

Seungmin's face reflects the bright colors of the machine as he scrolls through to pick a song. Reds, blues, greens, yellows — a kaleidoscope hugs the contours of his cheekbones, the frame of his jaw. Minho watches him. Takes in the little swoop of hair on his forehead, the long line of his neck, the fluttery tap of his fingers over the console.

"Yah," Jeongin complains, "just pick something."

They must be close, because Seungmin doesn't even flinch at the blatant nagging. Just replies: "I'm going, I'm going."

The opening notes of the song fill the room, and Jisung and Felix gasp in twinned delight. Minho merely raises an eyebrow. IU, huh? Bold choice.

And then Seungmin opens his mouth, and the room stills, and Minho loses track of what his face is doing in favor of listening with rapt attention.

Seungmin's voice soars through the space. In some moments it lowers to almost a whisper, but in others, when the full body of a belt shines through, the resonance hits Minho directly in the chest. It's clear he's nervous at the start, but as he gains his confidence his shoulders straighten and he seems to start having fun. The last note stretches, a trail of vibrato as he fades out, and there's a moment of silence before the room erupts into applause.

The first coherent thought in Minho's head once Seungmin has finished bowing with a bashful grin is: How incredibly stupid that a voice like this sorts numbers on a computer all day. What a terrific, catastrophic waste.

Seungmin looks up, still beaming, and meets Minho's eyes across the room.

Not bad, Minho mouths at him, helpless not to smile back, and feels something in him that he'd thought long dormant shake off the dust and finally wake up.

/

If Minho goes out of his way to spend more time with the wider friend group after that, no one needs to know his true motives. He starts attending more anime watch nights at Jisung's in hopes that Jeongin might have a friend over too. He accepts Felix's invitation to go to a cat café and pointedly doesn't ask whether anyone else is going; the outing ends up being just the two of them and, delightfully, a highly affectionate group of cats. Felix gasps at the voice Minho busts out for animals only and demands to take video to send to the group chat. Minho swallows his pride and allows Felix to take and send a few photos, then pulls out his own phone and refreshes until Seungmin posts a response. It takes almost twenty minutes, but it comes.

Cute, it says.

Minho feels like a teenager with a crush. Cute? What is he supposed to do with that?

It turns out he missed Seungmin's birthday altogether, which he realizes too late to be able to get him a gift without coming across obsessed, and he wouldn't know what to get anyway. Maybe Seungmin is a wallet guy, or maybe Minho could make an arrangement with the noraebang to get him in for free anytime if he really does go there as often as Jeongin implied. Minho doesn't make enough to humor that for more than a few minutes, but the idea is nice. Thoughts like this circle his mind, half pleasant and half irritating, like a bug bite you scratch to get relief or a deep muscle stretch that hurts in the good way.

Minho dreams of him a few times. The dreams mostly highlight innocuous things Minho is interested in: Seungmin singing, or buttoning a coat. Once, though, Minho wakes up half hard and sweating, and all of a sudden hoping for the stars to align to get to see Seungmin again isn't enough.

/

At the end of his rope, Minho creates a group chat and invites Jisung, Seungmin, and Changbin to a dance show one of his friends is in.

Then he messages Jisung: Don't come you're not really invited.

And then he messages Changbin: Don't come you're not really invited.

Seungmin replies: Cool can't wait! and takes it in stride when Minho lets him know the other two aren't able to make it, so it'll just be him and Minho the following evening.

On the night of the show — which, Minho has to keep reminding himself, isn't technically a date yet — Seungmin gets there first and is waiting outside the venue in a peacoat when Minho arrives. The scarf around his neck is a soft plaid. Burberry, he'll later explain, which is when Minho learns that Seungmin comes from money.

"Kim Seungmin," Minho greets.

Seungmin looks up from his phone, lashes blinking as he takes Minho in. "Hyung," he says, a familiarity Minho doesn't know he's earned but won't reject. "Was the drive okay?"

Minho is double parked a few streets down in an alley so cramped he won't be surprised if someone scratches his car pushing it out of the way to get to their own. "Fine. Did you take the bus?"

Seungmin nods. His nose is pink. "I thought maybe I'd see you, but then I remembered you have a car."

"I'll drive you home after."

"Oh, you don't have to do that."

"Not out of the goodness of my heart," says Minho. "It'll just be annoying if you get frostbite and then I have to hear about it from the others. They'll never shut up if you die because I sent you home alone in the middle of the night."

Seungmin's face scrunches up a little as he laughs. "All right, you can drive me if I can play the music."

"Is this a negotiation? I thought I was doing you a favor."

"Take it or leave it," Seungmin says, wiggling his phone in the air between them. His eyes bore into Minho's, a playful challenge in them.

Minho rolls his eyes, looking skyward. His ears must be pinkening under the attention. "Fine." A glance at the time tells him they need to head inside, and Minho pulls up the tickets and scans them both in, ignoring Seungmin when he asks how much he owes Minho.

"I got the tickets for free," Minho lies. "But next time I'll charge you double."

They find their seats, the two on either side conspicuously empty since Minho acquired four before concocting his ruse, and as the lights go down Minho focuses on looking straight ahead and not tracing Seungmin's profile in his peripheral vision.

Later, when Minho looks back on this moment, he won't remember a single routine, though each of them is impressive in its own right. He won't remember the songs, or the choreography, or even what he and Seungmin talk about between dances and during the intermission. Instead, it will be the tiny bubble of warmth between their elbows, the brush of their sleeves; Seungmin reaching up to rub his nose without taking his eyes off of the stage like he can't bear to miss a single second; both of them reaching for their phones at the same time when the emcee encourages the audience to take a picture of the group's final bows, their arms bumping, Seungmin's quiet, amused apology and all the ways Minho wants to take his polite exterior and dig until he can find what's underneath.

On the drive home Seungmin plays seven Day6 songs in a row. "Big fan?" Minho asks when he realizes.

Seungmin nods seriously. "Are you? This is make or break for our friendship, by the way, so think about your answer."

In lieu of a yes or no, Minho sings along to You Were Beautiful at full volume, loud enough that Seungmin yelps and covers his ears.

"Point made!" Seungmin shouts over the din. "You're a menace."

Minho stops singing to respond: "I've been called worse."

The car's navigation tells Minho to make a right, then head straight through a few lights, then make two lefts, and before Minho knows it he's a stone's throw from his own apartment. He's beginning to think he put his own address in by mistake when Seungmin straightens.

"This is fine," he says. "I'm just in that building."

Three blocks. An insane coincidence. "Go on, then."

"Thanks for planning this. Bummer the others couldn't make it, I had fun."

"Bummer," Minho agrees tonelessly. "Well, thanks for coming. Otherwise I'd have had to go alone."

"Ask me any time. I don't usually have a lot going on outside of work." Seungmin pauses with a rueful expression. "That makes me sound like a loser. I just mean if you need a buddy to do things I'm free most of the time. No, that wasn't better, was it?"

Minho affects a solemn tone. "If I need to help a loser get out more," he promises, continuing over Seungmin's protests, "I know who to call."

When Seungmin finally gets out of the car Minho watches him leave through the passenger side window, idling to make sure he gets inside. The streetlights create yellowish pools of light on the sidewalk. Seungmin steps from one to the next, posture erect, hands in his pockets and head ducked down to brace against the wind. It's freezing out there; Minho's hands are cold on the steering wheel. Seungmin lets himself into the improbably close apartment, and Minho is reminded of the fact that they barely know each other. It doesn't stop him wishing he'd taken Seungmin's face in hand, rubbed a thumb against the plane of his cheekbone, and kissed him warm.

/

A full week passes before Jisung confronts Minho about it. Changbin had gotten to him within 24 hours and only accepted Minho's vagueness once Minho admitted, annoyed, that of course he told the two of them to fuck off so he could go on a date, but Seungmin didn't know that, so it would be great if he could keep his mouth shut. Jisung catches him in person.

"So," he says, and Minho is only caught off guard because Jisung is un-nosy and confrontation averse by nature, "you and Seungmin, huh?"

"No clue what you're talking about."

Jisung laughs, and their knees bump together in Jisung's tiny bedroom, where they're cramped on the floor watching anime via Jisung's laptop. "Very smooth. Believable. Hyung, you could be an actor, teach me your ways."

Minho pinches him. "I'm not talking about this."

Jisung pouts. "I didn't say you had to. I was just curious. I've never seen you into someone like this before."

Time was, Minho was into Jisung like this, but of course Jisung never figured that out. They'd clicked like puzzle pieces when they first met, but Jisung hadn't come to terms with his sexuality yet, and Minho was in school and then the military, and the right time came and went with little fanfare. Minho used to harbor what-ifs about it, wistfulness breaking through his pragmatic demeanor, but it's been a long time since Jisung was anything but a best friend to him.

"I'm not into someone," Minho says. "You're putting words in my mouth."

"Dude, I'm not cornering you. I'm just saying if you want to talk about it I'm all ears. You listen to me enough about my crush."

"Not that you'll tell me who he is."

Jisung flushes. "Well, it's new!"

"Dick doesn't have to be frightening."

"I'm not frightened," Jisung insists, with enough gravity that Minho properly turns to face him. Jisung's expression is fondly exasperated, resolution in the line of his mouth. "I just don't want to scare him off, that's all."

Minho sighs. "That's very mature of you."

"Aww, that was almost sincere."

"Fuck you."

"You too, baby."

Minho scoffs and turns his attention back to the show. In the last few minutes, the main character has gone from fighting a monster to weeping in his love interest's arms about duty and the loss of his brother, or maybe his uncle. Something. Minho is having a difficult time paying attention, the conversation still nagging at him.

They get through another full episode with Minho only half checked into the storyline when he huffs. Without looking at Jisung, he says, "My thing is new too. And he's part of the group, so I can't just…"

"Fuck him and get it out of your system?" Jisung offers. "Yeah, that would be a whole thing."

"Too messy," Minho agrees.

"And not to judge, but Seungmin doesn't really seem like the type."

No, Minho thinks. No, he doesn't.

"Okay," Jisung says, "I'm getting hives being so serious, so this is the last thing I'll say, but it doesn't have to be a bad thing if you like him. Like, that's fine. It's normal. He's nice, and you should go for it if you think it'll make you happy."

Minho keeps looking studiously at the laptop screen, which is paused on a shot of the main character taking a sword through the gut. "Cool. Thanks."

"Cool," Jisung echoes.

They both pause for a second, neither sure what to do with the atmosphere, until Jisung rescues them both and hits play on the show.

The camera zooms out. The sword in the protagonist's belly is his own. The wise companion says It didn't have to be this way, but you're still afraid to step up and accept that everything must change.

Cool, thinks Minho again, this time dry. Very on the nose.

Message received.

/

His messaging thread with Seungmin balloons when he stops trying to come across aloof. Seungmin meets his energy, responding to cat pictures with stickers that burst with hearts and offering the occasional shy clip of himself singing at the same noraebang from that first night. Minho never knows what to say to those, watching them three or four times through before replying with his own sticker or a quip about Seungmin's free time and how Minho is failing on his promise to rescue him from having to occupy himself after work.

Hyung-ahhh, Seungmin writes one night in November, you were a trainee too??? You never told me, that's not fair.

Despite the near-perfect spelling, Minho can tell something's up. Are you drunk?

Seungmin sends a sticker of a puppy shaking its butt. I don't usually drink!!

You're going to be so hungover tomorrow.

Whatever! Tell me about your trainee period. I can't believe I'm only just learning this you held out on me!! Trainee Minho-hyung you must have been so much younger. A baby.

Minho chews on the inside of his cheek to stop from smiling. I was eighteen. It was only for a few months anyway, I barely remember it.

It's true and it isn't. The dream of idoldom is long behind him — Minho suspects he'd have hated it anyway, having to play family with a group of guys he may or may not even like, dressing up his average voice or else hiding behind his dancing on every stage. The instructors had been exasperated by seemingly everything about him outside of his technique: his facial expressions, his shyness, his offbeat sense of humor, his resting frown. That said, there had been something consuming about that time not unlike the way Minho has heard friends talk about religion. Something to believe in and work towards, a vessel for a greatness beyond previous comprehension. The moments where it clicked, though few and far between, stand out in Minho's memory like the twinkle of stars.

I need to see you dance someday, Seungmin replies. Not fair that you've seen me singing and I haven't seen you in your element >.<

Come by the studio sometime then.

Really?

Tuesday night classes are for adult beginners. Anyone can join, just be ready to learn some hip-hop. Unless you're scared.

Do you think I wouldn't?? I'll come and dance! It'll be fun!

Minho is smiling now. He can't help it. All right, Kim Seungmin. I'll believe it when I see it.

Soon! ^^

And then: Wow I'm excited, Hyunjin says you're really good. Wait he said not tell you that because it'll make your ego bigger. Too late he said it already!!! Hahaha he's trying to take my phone

Are you drinking water?

I did NOT say you're really good, Hyunjin replies from Seungmin's phone. Also we are NOT drinking water you freak its a PARTY!!!

Minho sends a thumbs down and doesn't get any further response, so he leaves it there and tries not to think too hard about drunk, affectionate Seungmin, flushed and smiling and calling Minho cute. Nothing good can come of that. Not until Minho gathers the courage to do something about it, at least.

/

In the morning Seungmin sends an array of tragic stickers and bemoans his headache.

Check your door, Minho replies.

A few minutes later, Seungmin sends a picture of the convenience store bag, which contains a sports drink, painkillers, hydration packets, and a face mask. This is really nice, he sends alongside a crying emoji.

Can't have you dying of dehydration. It would look bad.

There's a long pause between responses. Long enough that Minho almost twitches to delete his reply, even though it's already been seen. The silence lasts until Minho gets to the studio and unlocks the door ahead of his first class of the day.

It's only when he checks his phone one last time before the teens arrive that he sees that Seungmin has answered.

You know, he's typed, you're a lot kinder than you make yourself out to be. Thank you, hyung. I'll recover well.

/

Two weeks later, Seungmin joins Minho's adult beginner hip-hop class. Amidst the smell of sweat and the sound of sneakers squeaking against the floor, the crowd seems to part, Seungmin at the center of it all. He's one of the older ones here. Minho is usually teaching university students, some foreigners who want to learn K-Pop dances, the odd single guy who hates dancing but heard from someone that dance classes are a good place to meet women. Despite that, Seungmin doesn't stand out, dressed casually in loose sweatpants and an almost comically oversized gray tee. When he bends over to stretch it droops to reveal his collarbone. Minho is staring. He can't seem to stop. Even when Seungmin looks up, throws him a little wave, and goes back to what he was doing, Minho can't look away.

It somehow gets worse when the instruction starts, because Seungmin failed to disclose that he can move. He's not a professional dancer by any means, but his foundations are all right, and he brings enthusiasm where he lacks skill. He was a trainee, Minho remembers.

When Minho inquires further during a water break, Seungmin grins. "I was in my school dance club too. It's been forever, but it's fun to get back into it after so long."

"You're not bad," Minho tells him.

Seungmin throws his head back laughing at that. "You've gotta stop complimenting me. It'll go to my head."

"There's room for improvement," Minho says. "So don't let your head get too big."

"Okay, ssaem. Teach me, then."

A bead of sweat rolls down Seungmin's neck. Minho feels stupid with want.

At the end of the night Seungmin leaves with the rest of the class. Minho stays back, cleans and closes out the studio for the night, and burns.

/

It's not until early December that Minho finally takes the plunge. The first snow has come and gone, an opportunity he'd been playing with in his head before watching it pass him by, and he only just manages to snag a single sunflower from a local florist. She tells him she's running low, that they were popular this autumn, and he thanks her and politely declines the offer of a plastic sleeve to carry it in. Instead, he lets the prickles of the stem press into his palm, a reminder that this is happening now and that nothing good comes without a little bit of roughness if it's real.

Seungmin is already at the cafe when Minho arrives, coffee steaming in front of him. That same Burberry scarf Minho has seen him wear a few times is draped over the back of his wooden chair, and a plate is set in the middle of the small table, a slice of cake and two forks atop it.

Minho hands the sunflower over without explaining himself, unsure what he'd say if he tried. Seungmin's eyes widen as he takes it. He stares at it for a long moment, lashes long and dark, and Minho watches him absorb the situation. He then sets it on the table, right along the edge, and gives the stem a pat before looking back up at Minho.

"Happy birthday," Seungmin says. "Just, by the way."

Minho tilts his head. "Sorry?" It's been a solid five weeks since he turned twenty-six.

"You didn't tell me I missed it. I had to ask Hyunjin, which was embarrassing."

"I don't really celebrate it," Minho says. He'd gone to see his parents and hung out with the cats. His mom made him seaweed soup. A few friends texted and Jisung sent him a gift card for the chicken place they like to order from on anime nights.

Seungmin shrugs, choppy enough that it's clear he's shy, and juts his chin toward the cake. "I asked the staff for a recommendation. It's a spice cake with miso caramel."

That sounds incredible and Minho tells him so. Between the two of them, they get through the cake in record time.

Even after the plate is clean and the cups are empty, their conversation continues, flitting from topic to topic and never staying on one for too long. Minho shows Seungmin pictures of his cats and appreciates that Seungmin's response is an appropriate coo. Seungmin reluctantly shows Minho pictures of him pitching for his old baseball team and bears Minho's laughter with grace. Minho doesn't want this to end — the fire hose of new information, the flutter in his stomach, the ease with which they seem to charm each other — but the sun starts to sink in the sky and he allows himself to trail off a bit here and there, to check his phone, to wonder if they'll be able to extend this or get together again before the new year.

Seungmin notices Minho winding down and follows suit. He keeps cutting glances at the sunflower, then back to Minho, then down to the flower again. It's a terribly impractical gift. Seungmin will have to take it home and then wait for it to die, a morbid reminder of this get together and the thing between them that still hasn't been given a name. Minho's heart is in his throat.

"Hey," he eventually manages to say.

Seungmin looks at him, gaze liquid. "Yeah?"

"How many dates do I need to ask you on before you finally figure it out?"

Gratifyingly, the apples of Seungmin's cheeks go pink. He replies, slowly, "I'm not great with implications."

"I'm a neon sign," Minho despairs.

"You're impossible to read!"

"Now you're just playing with my heart."

Seungmin laughs, tension dropping out of his shoulders, and all at once Minho realizes they're going to be just fine.

He asks Seungmin on another date. Seungmin says yes.

It's the beginning of everything.

/

Three months and four days after

Minho goes for a long, long walk once he's tired himself out mentally and the memories have begun to relent. He loops around the same blocks, hands stuffed in his pockets, umbrella useless against the rain as it soaks through his jeans and shoes and socks and into his bones.

He's so cold when he gets back to his own apartment that his teeth chatter together on every other breath. A long shower helps but not enough.

Seungmin is home.

Minho sits on the edge of his bed wrapped in a towel.

Seungmin lasted fewer than three months after Minho broke up with him and then called the whole thing off anyway.

Minho dries his hair roughly and steps into sweatpants and a ratty t-shirt that used to be Seungmin's, the same one Minho sleeps in every time he's sad.

He can't sleep when his brain is going like this. He throws open his fridge and gets to work cooking enough food to feed an army. An old habit from his days after coming home from the military, thrown off without the routine and camaraderie, reintegrating into his dance team and getting slowly used to all the new faces. Dishes pour out of him: noodles and stir fries and meticulously seared steaks; every ingredient of hangover soup prepped within an inch of its life and several small portions of milk bread dough proofing under cloth napkins in their bowls. It's a ludicrous amount of food, even more so after a middle of the night grocery order in the midst of his frenzy, and when the worst of it is finished he stands there heaving looking at the mess and takes a series of long, deep breaths so he doesn't scream.

The next morning the food is still there, confirming that the cooking was not a Seungmin-induced hallucination. Minho thinks about inviting someone over to start making a dent in the array, but opening KakaoTalk has him twitching to open his chat with Seungmin, and it's all still there: every sweet, inane, random, silly, neutral message all the way up to one week after the breakup. Without his conscious permission, Minho rereads the last exchange.

Confirming their call, selfies of their respective days, one last check in before they got on the phone followed by an hour of silence.

Then: Seungmin asking, can we talk?

And Minho telling him no.

If he said yes he knew he'd cave. He'd collapse all the way in on himself and ask Seungmin to take him back, and then all of the suffering would be for nothing on both their parts and he'd be right back to standing between Seungmin and his dreams.

No, Minho had insisted to himself, one of them had to hold the line.

A calendar reminder pops up on his phone, helpfully encouraging Minho to wake up and prepare any choreography that still needs finishing for his afternoon class. Minho stares at it for a long moment before thumbing it away and navigating to his contacts so he can call out of work.

Nothing is getting done today.

/

The post-breakup numbness Minho had only just began to welcome is gone again. Seeing Seungmin in person knocked it away in one fell swoop.

/

He gets a message half an hour into the class he was meant to be teaching. Hyunjin said you missed work.

Minho reads it and double takes. It's from Jeongin. Despite his temptation to leave it unanswered, sentimentality prevails. He's missed Jeongin. They haven't seen each other in months. Not feeling well, he responds.

That sucks.

You're being surprisingly nice.

It takes Jeongin a long time to reply to that one. Are you actually sick?

Minho sighs. Sick in the head, maybe. He takes a picture of the inside of his fridge, the overflow of glass and plastic containers. I think I lost my mind last night.

I'm coming over.

Minho sends a laughing sticker. There's a 95% chance Jeongin is kidding, and when he doesn't answer Minho assumes the conversation is over, nothing mended but nothing broken either, a dull glimmer of hope in the same sad soup.

/

It turns out Jeongin wasn't kidding, because he does come over, and he brings backup.

"You can pretend I'm not even here," Jisung insists, bee-lining for the fridge. He's forcing cheer, so opposite the shadowy slip he'd been just days ago when he and Chan and Changbin barged in like they thought a confrontation would help. "I'm just gonna eat. Don't complain, you need the help, this is insane."

"Hi hyung." Jeongin is comparably much more sedate as he takes his shoes off, slow and a little awkward, by the door.

Minho blinks at both of them, delirious with exhaustion and confused by the entire situation. He's still in Seungmin's old shirt. "Hi," he manages. And then, the only logical question: "Are you hungry?"

"I could eat," Jeongin says, still wary. He's been working out since Minho last saw him, chest and arms filling out and firming up.

The three of them end up seated on the ground around Minho's low table by the TV, which is turned off. The silence is loud. Every once in a while Jisung declares that one dish or another is the most delicious he's ever eaten, but it's clear that the act is wearing on him, and the bluster is starting to give way for slightly hysterical effort.

There's a universe where this would feel normal. In that universe, Minho didn't break up with Seungmin out of a useless noble effort to spare him suffering that he was already experiencing. In that universe, Seungmin might be here too, sitting across from Minho and chewing happily on the food or coughing at a poorly timed joke. The confirmation that things didn't have to go this way is worse than anything Minho could have inflicted upon himself. He gets lost in the swirl of thoughts the longer the tension in the room builds.

Mortifyingly, Minho's eyes sting. He ducks his head, but he can't help a sniff.

Of all times to actually be able to cry, he doesn't know why his body decided to pick now, but there's no stopping the tide once it's begun.

"Hyung?" Jeongin asks.

Minho can't even answer. Tears pour down both cheeks. His chest clenches up so tight it hurts, and he fists his hands in his sweatpants.

Jisung presses his knee against Minho's in silent support, and Minho tries with everything he has not to completely fall apart in front of two younger friends, one of whom he isn't sure even thinks of himself as such anymore.

Seconds stretch into minutes. Each time Minho thinks he's pulled himself together another jagged sob tears its way out of his body.

"We can leave if you want," Jeongin murmurs.

"Don't," Minho gasps before he can think about it. He reaches a hand out blindly and one of them grabs it.

The contact helps. Minho tightens his grip and isn't met with a complaint. He realizes abruptly just how long it's been since anyone touched him. Weeks at least. A month? More? No wonder he's been fantasizing about someone punching him — anything to feel real. But this is better than blood in his mouth, even though the ache is different.

"Sorry," Minho gets out. "I'm fucked up. We can—" a pause for air— "pretend this never happened." His chest heaves less. He's breathing better. He's scared to open his eyes and lift his head up.

The hand in his offers a squeeze. "Uh, no offense," Jisung tells him, "but I don't think I can just act like you're not, uh..."

"Yeah," Jeongin agrees.

Minho doesn't have the energy to go back and forth with them. He keeps his forehead pressed to his knees.

Another long moment passes. Minho can hear his own breathing loud in his ears. "Fuck," he says. "This sucks."

"Breakups suck," Jisung agrees.

"Why didn't he tell anyone it was me?"

"He didn't tell anyone anything," Jeongin says. "I only heard from his sister when she messaged me asking if I'd talk to him. Even then he didn't want to get into it. He just kept saying he wanted to come home."

Jisung makes a low noise. "Why did you even do it? You loved him."

Minho shakes his head helplessly. "He wasn't doing well." He finally looks up, face feeling swollen and puffy, to see Jeongin and Jisung both looking at him with a similar degree of warm concern. "He didn't— he was barely telling me about it, but he was staying up to talk and trying to put on a happy face and I could tell it was killing him. And what if he got an offer or something? What if he wanted to stay? I knew it was bad but I didn't know he'd— I thought it would just be better if—"

"That's really stupidly noble," Jisung says.

"He wasn't doing well," Minho repeats again. He doesn't add the implication, which is that Minho loved him too much to see him trying so hard to pretend he was okay.

"He's not doing great now either," Jeongin says quietly.

Minho shuts his eyes. Two more tears track down his face. "That doesn't make me feel better."

"It wasn't really meant to. Just— you should talk to him. He's home now. It's done. Are you just going to avoid him for the rest of your life?"

"No," Minho says, but his heart isn't in it.

Jisung clears his throat and extricates his hand from Minho's grip, flexing it in front of him with a little grimace before tossing Minho a smile. "It's fine. Hey, did you even sleep last night?"

Minho shakes his head. "I was cooking."

"And it's delicious, but you should probably get some rest. Panic attacks always wipe me out."

"That wasn't a panic attack."

Jisung shrugs. "Close enough. Crying jag, whatever. Do you really want to hash out the specifics?"

Minho does not.

He levers himself up numbly and starts packing the food away again. Jeongin helps him. They pass things back and forth, Minho stacking things back into the fridge, and sets a few things out in a bag for Jeongin and Jisung to take home with them. Then he washes his face in the kitchen sink, scrubbing away the salt on his cheeks. The cool water feels like the closest thing to relief he's gotten in ages.

Jisung has gotten Minho's bed ready for him to sleep in — read: pulled back the corner of the bedspread — and nudges their shoulders together when Minho comes into the bedroom and stands next to him.

"Sorry," Minho whispers, this time just for the two of them.

Jisung bumps him again. "For what? Get some sleep, hyung. Maybe things won't seem so awful in the morning."

In the morning, Seungmin will still be in Seoul. Minho doesn't know if that's better or worse than the alternative. He forces himself to stop thinking about it and tucks himself into bed.

Jisung waves and shuts off the light on his way out. The front door clicks open, then closes. Jeongin's words bounce around Minho's head, but even then, guilt wracking him, uncertainty about what lies ahead, Minho is so exhausted that it doesn't take long for blackness to drag him under.

/

He dreams in odd snatches of light and color, an amorphous beam of sun slicing across his torso, a greenish puddle pooling at his feet, the air thick like water, the water cool like the truth.

/

The next morning Seungmin is inside of his apartment.

He's seated on the floor in the kitchen, idly tearing into a bowl of kimchi and egg over rice and scrolling through his phone. His hair is neat, contact lenses in, jeans paired with a responsible t-shirt and open button-up overtop. He meets Minho's eyes when he hears Minho walk out of the bedroom, locking his phone and setting down the bowl.

Minho stares at him like the image will resolve into something else given enough time and disbelief.

"Hyunjin is covering your classes today," Seungmin says, "before you ask."

"What time is it?"

"Seven-ish."

Minho squints at the light in the window. "In the morning?"

"According to Jeongin you must have slept like fifteen hours. Not bad."

"What are you doing here?"

Seungmin brushes his hands on his jeans and stands, placing the bowl and chopsticks on one of the few bare spots of counter space. "Heard you needed help eating all this food."

"Seungmin-ah."

Seungmin's eyes flicker then, the barest wince belying the fact that this is hurting him too. "We need to talk. I'm sorry I ambushed you, but I wasn't sure you'd still be here if I came any later."

"How long have you even been here?"

"Just an hour." Seungmin is an early riser, but not a six in the morning wake up time early riser. He reads something off of Minho's face and adds, "It's fine, I'm still jet-lagged. My body has no idea what time it is right now."

Minho's brain slowly comes online. Seungmin is here, in his apartment. He must have begged the new code off of Jeongin, who likely didn't need to beg to get Jisung to hand it over. Seungmin wants to talk. Yesterday afternoon, Minho cried himself into a headache and then he slept for fifteen hours and now this is happening.

"You want to talk," he echoes.

"I can wait," Seungmin says. "As long as you promise you won't disappear on me. I thought about messaging but I didn't know if you'd blocked me and I didn't want to check." He grimaces at himself.

Minho takes a deep breath. "I didn't. But okay, fine. I was gonna go for a run."

"You can run."

"Are you just going to wait here for me?"

"Did you have somewhere else in mind? I figured better here than at Hyunjin's again."

"The Thai place next to the pharmacy," Minho suggests. "You can walk. I'll meet you there in an hour."

They don't need more food at this point, but a restaurant feels like neutral ground, and it's a place they've been together but that doesn't have some of the more painful memories associated with their favorite date spots. No advantages. Clean slate.

Seungmin agrees. His eyes scan up and down Minho's body, and Minho realizes too late that he's still wearing Seungmin's old shirt. How many embarrassing conversations can he have in it? At this rate he's going to have to burn the thing.

"I'll see you there," Seungmin says, and starts washing his dish.

Minho stares hard at the terribly familiar line of his shoulders at the sink. The image still doesn't change. Years away, Minho shuts his eyes and turns toward the door.

/

At the restaurant, Minho notices the delicate lines of Seungmin's wrists and the high points of his cheekbones. He's lost weight. It takes a sharp smack of internal effort for Minho to stop himself from commenting on it, and instead he pretends he doesn't like the peanut sauce and dumps more of it onto Seungmin's skewers. Seungmin rolls his eyes and doesn't comment on it.

"So," Seungmin says, "I'm sorry for ambushing you."

"You said that already."

Seungmin makes a frustrated noise. "I know, I just— I don't know how to do this either."

Minho takes a long sip of his water. "What is 'this' exactly?"

"A… post-mortem, or something. Maybe."

"You want to review the breakup like a group project?"

"Do you have any better ideas?"

Minho tilts his head to one side, then the other, stretching his neck while he thinks. They hadn't fought often when they were together. Neither of them really has the disposition for it, both more inclined to let something lie and assume they'll get over it rather than dealing with things in the moment. Maybe that was part of the problem. It certainly makes this difficult, because Minho doesn't see a way out of this conversation that doesn't end in confrontation. "No," he eventually is forced to admit, "I guess I don't."

"Okay, so. Where do you want to start?"

"Where do you want to start?"

Seungmin blows out a frustrated breath. "I don't know."

Minho tries not to get frustrated, too. Silence presses on both of them. The restaurant is still pretty much empty aside from the two of them and a single older gentleman on the other side of the room. It won't get busy until the lunch rush, and they have a couple of hours until then. The quiet isn't helping anything, and Minho watches as Seungmin gets more and more agitated the longer Minho goes without saying anything.

Minho tries to put him out of his misery. "I broke up with you," he says around the lump in his throat, "because I thought you'd be better off. But you're saying you weren't."

"No," agrees Seungmin.

"Why not?"

Seungmin scoffs. "I told you, I had a lot going on."

"What, like dating once you were newly single?" Minho tries to joke.

Not only does it burn coming out of his mouth, it also backfires as Seungmin closes up and rolls his eyes. "Oh, fuck you."

"You were," Minho pushes, like some outside force is controlling him. "So was I. We've both been single for months."

"Stop."

"Is this not what you wanted to talk about?"

"I don't know!" The words burst out of him. "I just know I've felt absolutely insane since the last time we talked, no thanks to you. And I hate you, I don't even want to look at you, but not looking hurts too when I know you're right here." He is, in fact, staring Minho down with no small measure of desperation. "And I want to understand why you thought you could just steamroll me while I was away, because that wasn't fair, it wasn't, and if you're not sorry then maybe we shouldn't even be talking right now. I don't know. Maybe it's been over the whole time and I'm the idiot who can't let go of something, but people have been telling me things. And I keep wondering if maybe you feel like this too. Like it's not… finished. Or at least like we still owe each other something before we put it to rest for good."

"Like it's not finished," Minho echoes.

Seungmin is chewing on his lower lip like he's trying to work his way straight through. Each time he blinks his hand twitches the tiniest bit at his side. "How can it be? You left me alone, five thousand miles away, and now you're here being impossible like always and I don't know what to do." His voice cracks hard on the last word.

"Seungmin," says Minho softly.

"Well?" he demands. "Are you sorry?"

Minho has never been sorrier for anything in his entire pathetic life. It's the intensity of the regret that makes it so impossible to say out loud.

Three months ago, fear choked him like vines in his throat, and the thorns pierced the parts of him that might have, with enough patience or courage, been able to speak up and say the true thing: that Minho never wanted to do this to either of them. That he felt backed into a corner, and his strategy has always been to throw himself silently on the pyre of someone else's suffering if that meant it would stop burning.

In the end, what Minho can get out in a quiet voice is: "I never meant to hurt you. I really thought I was doing the right thing."

Seungmin blows a frustrated breath between his lips. "And now?"

"I don't know anymore. Yes? No? Fuck, it's not like it's simple."

It had been foolish of Minho to be concerned about the quiet of the restaurant. It's a relief to both have relative privacy and not have to do this at home. Minho's bedroom, where he'd made the call to break things off in the first place, has felt stained with that conversation ever since. How much worse might this have been if they tried to do it in Minho's apartment? In Hyunjin's? Somewhere else Minho wouldn't be able to avoid after? If the worst scar he ends up with is a barrier to entry for his favorite pad see ew in the city, he'll take that gratefully.

The server brings them a carafe of water and spicy cucumber salads. Minho shoves a bite in his mouth and revels in the burn.

Seungmin is staring at him again with a confusing expression. Does he want to kill Minho or forgive him? A dozen expressions filter through his dark eyes, none of which Minho can name before the next one has taken its place.

"Seungmin," he says eventually, "I'm exhausted, and I suck at guessing. If there's something you really wanted to say to me, can you say it?"

Though a stupid hopeful part of him had been hoping Seungmin might tell him they can put it all in the past, he's not surprised when Seungmin shakes his head. "I don't know what I expected, honestly. I think we both need some space. But for now, for the sake of the group, we have to find some way to move forward."

"For the sake of the group," Minho agrees.

"Cool. Because Jisung already invited me to the twins' birthday."

A week and a half of space. It's forever. It's the blink of a fucking eye. "Okay," says Minho.

"Maybe we just steer clear of each other a little."

"In a group of eight?"

"Try, at least."

As though Minho can be normal about the fact that Seungmin is here, and seems to feel the same way Minho does, like the charge between them has distorted but not disappeared. "Fine."

"Fine," Seungmin echoes. He's still flushed. "You should also probably talk to Hyunjin before then."

Minho snorts. "Hyunjin wants me drawn and quartered."

Seungmin's eyes jump like he only just managed to stop himself from rolling them. "Yeah, well, he's mad. You should still talk to him. Apparently you ditched everyone, not just me. You didn't die — of course people are annoyed you dropped off the face of the planet."

Minho retreats into sullen silence.

Somehow, they eat a whole meal after that. It passes in a lurch, a heave, two people sharing silence and reluctant to leave. Two people in each other's space and wishing they weren't.

If Minho was looking for confirmation that this thing between them is ruined, he hasn't gotten it. Before he can talk himself into some semblance of hope, he remembers that there's no confirmation it isn't ruined, either.

At the end of the meal, Minho puts his card down for the both of them. Seungmin huffs an irritated sigh.

They don't hug outside the restaurant.

Minho just says, "See you next week," and Seungmin nods, and they're leaving each other again.

/

Though the next day is technically Minho's day off, he'll be damned if he owes his coworkers debts for longer than he has to. He messages the group asking if anyone needs or wants coverage today and gets a taker, so by ten in the morning he's out the door with his dance bag and subsequently drowning out his thoughts with music on the bus.

He's determined to be normal. The kids always bring him back to himself, especially the younger ones, and he's managed to feel nearly optimistic by the time he gets inside the studio proper, thirty minutes early for his first class of the day.

What he'd failed to account for was the fact that Hyunjin works today, too. He's putting his hair back into a half-ponytail by the mirrors, warming up in Minho's room, and seems surprised to see Minho walk in.

"Thought I'd be out today too?" Minho asks.

Hyunjin visibly wavers before shaking his head. "I wasn't sure."

"Well, I'm here."

"Okay."

Minho can see how flat his own expression is in the mirror and wills forth some animation, eyebrows softening, mouth pressing into an attempt at a friendly line. "Okay."

They give each other wary space for the rest of the day. Hyunjin takes lunch outside of the studio and doesn't offer to bring anything back for Minho, not that he's done that in months, and Minho throws himself into the work. Juyeon is in a wrist brace, making apologetic noises about a fall at school, and Minho has his hands full making sure she gets what she needs from the class without aggravating it further. In the back of his head he wants to tell Seungmin about it, considering how much he's heard about some of these kids, and it's like skipping a mental stair to remember why he can't, and to subsequently realize anew that he could, it just wouldn't be the same.

That becomes the theme of the day: there are plenty of moves Minho could make — with Hyunjin, with Seungmin, even with Yongbok the next time he and Minho are scheduled atop one another — but all of them would be irrevocably touched by the fallout of the breakup.

You didn't die, Seungmin had told him, and through the bristle Minho can see that he was right. No one forced Minho to move through his life like a ghost. He did that to himself.

Maybe he can undo some of it. Maybe he can even start soon. Not today, and probably not tomorrow, but if he aims for next week— or if he tries to grab someone before the party—

As he leaves, half-baked ideas swirl through his mind, each of them stinging with the fact of his own cowardice. Minho makes it halfway to the door before he stops himself.

Enough.

He can't ignore this. Seungmin asked him for one thing. If he wants to fix anything he broke, he has to start with the worst fucking part instead of hiding from it.

He turns on his heel, back towards the rest of the studio, and squares his shoulders. "Hwang Hyunjin."

Hyunjin pops up from behind the front desk. "Huh?"

"We need to talk. Come over to my apartment."

"I need to close up."

"I'll help you."

"I have plans after."

"Cancel them."

Hyunjin huffs a piece of hair out of his eyes and glares. "So now you're ready to talk?"

"Like you've been tripping over yourself to talk to me."

"Don't act like it's my fault."

"It takes two," Minho snips, unable to help himself. That familiar anger is surging within him.

Hyunjin bites on the inside of his cheek like he's trying to stop himself from yelling. Or, it dawns on Minho as the moment extends in silence, something delicate in the air between them, like he's trying not to cry. Like he's scared. He's never been the bravest of their little troupe, often relying on older members to stand up for him or make things happen. Maybe that's changed. But maybe, whether it has or not, Hyunjin's temper just keeps getting the better of him, and Minho should know that the bubble will pop if he gives it any space to.

He'd assumed Hyunjin was just angry, judgmental like he can get in his worst moments. But if he was sad, too, then Minho's been even more of an asshole than he thought.

Shit.

"This is so stupid," Minho says. Before Hyunjin can get offended again, he continues: "I want to apologize. Okay? Limited time offer. So let's finish up here and go to mine. I have a lot of leftovers to get through and I know you can make a dent in the bulgogi."

Hyunjin boggles. "Huh?"

"Don't make me take it back."

"I just never thought I'd hear you say sorry."

Minho grits his teeth. "Well, here's your chance."

"I'm still mad at you," Hyunjin warns.

Minho shrugs, opens his arms. "Fine." He heads over to the shoe and bag storage, making sure it's empty, taking that task off of Hyunjin's list before moving onto the next one.

Hyunjin returns to his folder, where he seems to be organizing a pile of choreography notes that he must have jotted down after his last class while Minho was screwing up the courage to start this conversation.

Warily, like he's not sure whether Minho will bite, Hyunjin finishes up and comes around the side of the desk. Minho shoulders his bag and Hyunjin does too. They're just looking at each other, each waiting for the other to break the truce.

They've headed out from work together a million times before. At one point Hyunjin was the person Minho saw for the most cumulative hours each week, family and boyfriend included. At one point Hyunjin could have been called the person Minho trusted most, too.

"Come on," Minho says, softer now. "Let's go."

/

For all his awkwardness, Hyunjin enters Minho's apartment like he owns it once they get there, slipping into house shoes and grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. The condensation sweats down his hand and he wipes it off with the dish towel.

"You weren't kidding," he comments, "the fridge is full. Did someone hire you to cater a company meeting or something?"

"Or something."

Hyunjin goes on to narrate the process of fixing them dinner, heating the meat in the microwave (which makes Minho twitch, but he lets it be), scooping quick-pickled radishes and sesame-glazed cucumbers into bowls, and visibly debating over the bean sprouts before dumping them in a bowl, too . He keeps talking about how hungry he is.

Minho showers while Hyunjin works, confident enough for now that Hyunjin isn't going to fully trash the place in a rage, and comes out in fresh clothes with wet hair to a more-than-humble spread on the folding table by the TV.

"Thanks," Minho says.

"You cooked."

Minho dips his head in acknowledgement and sits cross-legged on the floor, where not 24 hours before he'd wept in front of two of their friends.

It's quiet at first while they eat, each bite punctuated by the clink of chopsticks against ceramic and the crinkle of plastic water bottles being picked up and put back down.

"It's good," Hyunjin tells him, limbs askew and lax, gray shirt sweaty around the collar.

"Good."

"Seungmin said he saw you yesterday."

Minho nods tightly. "We got lunch."

"And you apologized?"

"We heard each other out."

Hyunjin affixes Minho with a look so disbelieving and so Hyunjin Minho's chest suddenly aches. "Sure."

"He still staying with you?"

"For a bit. Until he figures out what he wants to do next. His parents were being a little much, I guess."

There's no point asking more. Hyunjin won't share, and anyway Minho isn't sure he wants to know.

"So," Minho finally says, "I wanted to— I think we should—" Fuck, this is hard, he should have prepared something.

"You've been a dick," Hyunjin fills in.

"Sure, if you want to put it that way."

"I do."

Minho snaps a radish between his teeth and wishes there was a guidebook for this. A way to this mix of emotions and turn it into words that make sense instead of a swirl of uncertainty and regret. Minho has been a dick. Minho misses his friend. Minho wants things to change, but he knows they can't go back to how they were while things are still so tenuous. Minho wishes he'd made different choices, but he also doesn't see how he could have; things were shit, he missed his boyfriend, he threw himself on the pyre to try to save Seungmin the pain and only hurt the both of them worse, and Hyunjin ended up caught square in that crossfire. Had Minho asked him directly to take Minho's side, Hyunjin would have spit in his face, but something about the proximity clearly hurt too, like Hyunjin wanted Minho to feel the impact of his fuck-up and didn't care how willing Minho was to dish it right back. They'd both been willing to absorb the hits.

Maybe in some ways Hyunjin was doing the same thing as Minho: feeling Seungmin's pain and spitting it back out at the nearest target. That still doesn't make it easy to talk about.

Minho stabs a piece of bulgogi with the ends of his chopsticks and stares down at it. "I didn't break up with Seungmin just for the fun of it. It wasn't some impulsive decision. I thought about it for a long time."

"None of us knew, though. A long time? It was a huge surprise to literally everyone."

"I didn't talk about it. It felt like I was going through a fucking trash compactor, I couldn't say that shit out loud."

"That's why you should have talked about it." Hyunjin sighs dramatically. "This is why I didn't want to be in charge of your feelings. You're like, stunted."

"Thanks."

"I would've told you you were being stupid."

Minho releases the piece of meat, stabs it again. His eyes are locked on its adorning sesame seeds. "I know. I was."

"But then," Hyunjin continues, gentler now, "I would have told you that long distance sucks, and maybe we could've figured out a way for you to go visit him or something."

"I don't want—"

"My charity, I know. But hyung, my family has a lot of money. And they give me a lot every month just for existing. It's pointless if I can't use that to help two of my friends feel less miserable. And," he goes on, "even if you said no, I'd still try to help some other way. Literally no one wanted you to just sit and stew until you exploded."

Minho's chest feels hot, shaky. "But I did."

"Yeah, and it sucked."

"Sorry," he forces out, and it's not as jagged in his mouth as he expected. "I'm sorry," he says again. "I thought I was doing the right thing."

Hyunjin scrubs his hands over his face and groans. "I hate that I believe you."

"You do?"

"It didn't make sense to me," Hyunjin admits. "You're not cruel like that. Not like, actually. So I figured something must have been going on, but I didn't think you were just torturing yourself nonstop and that's how we got here. You're human! We're all human! We need each other! I know you're bad at feelings, but god, hyung. It didn't have to be like this."

Minho swallows, looks away. "Do you think he'll forgive me?"

"Eventually," says Hyunjin.

"And in the meantime?"

"First of all, it'll probably be sooner than it should be. He's stupid, too. And he missed you."

Minho grunts.

"Second," Hyunjin continues, "I think in the meantime you just have to talk to your friends."

"I don't think I have many of those anymore."

Hyunjin socks him in the shoulder. Minho whips around, shocked, and Hyunjin appears delighted by his own courage. He bops Minho again, softer this time. "That is literally the problem. Stop thinking by yourself and deciding we all hate you. Apologize and do better."

Minho swallows thickly. "I'm sorry."

"There you go," says Hyunjin. "Now pick something to watch. Wait— let me pick something. You owe me that much, right? We have so much food left and I want to watch a movie one of my students' parents recommended me but no one else wanted to see it with me. You have Netflix, right?"

Before Minho can answer any of those questions, Hyunjin is up fumbling for the remote control. There's a level of performance to his chaos, like he wants to pretend things are perfectly fine now — or, more likely, as though he wants Minho to be able to pretend. It's oddly sweet. It settles something in Minho's chest. There will be more of this: apologizing and listening, dredging up feelings and giving them away. And Minho will do it if he has to. And he's starting to realize he may even survive it.

On the screen, Hyunjin types a title so long the search appears to be trying to glitch.

"Is this movie going to be artsy garbage?" Minho asks, fond despite himself.

Hyunjin beams and replies, dreamily, "Yes."

/

Over the next week and a half, Minho sends some messages and shops for gifts. He'd actually been debating attending this party at all even just two weeks ago, but with Seungmin back and town it's been made clear in no uncertain terms that the gang will be getting back together, breakup or not.

Chan is responsive when Minho says he's sorry for snapping the other day, and encourages him to reach out more. Thanks, dad, Minho replies, and Chan sends him a photo of his middle finger in response.

Changbin tells him not to worry about it and that he's looking forward to seeing him.

Yongbok thanks Minho a dozen times for agreeing to come and expresses so much enthusiasm that the backdraft of guilt for blowing him off nearly bowls Minho over.

Jisung sends a bevy of hearts, Jeongin is short but not unkind, and Hyunjin keeps sending screen-grabs from the movie they'd seen — which he'd failed to mention was three and a half hours long and completely silent when putting it on.

Minho doesn't text Seungmin. He isn't sure what he'd say.

But either way, Saturday comes.

/

One of Chan's producer friends co-owns a bar near Jisung and Jeongin's apartment, and she's offered them the private room for the celebration. They file in all together — the eight of them and some others, including Changbin's girlfriend, some of Jeongin's work friends, more 3RACHA producer connections, and the other two dance instructors at the studio — and fill the long table end to end. Balloons in various shades of green, blue, black, and silver populate each corner of the room, bouncing against each other when the bass from the main bar is particularly heady. Minho finds himself seated between Yongbok and Hyunjin. Drinks start to pour.

"A toast!" Changbin declares, standing. "To our birthday boys, of course, and to our Seungminie, who came home!"

Seungmin tries to wave it off, but everyone is already cheering, clinking glasses and throwing them back. Minho is sitting across from him, off-set by a seat, and can picture in punishingly vivid detail the way the flush on his neck must be working its way beneath the collar of his shirt and down his chest.

Jisung demands they play a drinking game, immediately refilling glasses. For once, no one gives him a hard time. This must be why he always says his birthday is his favorite day of the year.

They roll through a few in rapid succession: 3-6-9, the radish game, an explanation of a convoluted one Chan and Yongbok insist is real, where, had they the proper equipment and space, they'd rig a bag of wine to a rotating clothesline and spin it to determine who drinks. Yongbok is crestfallen at the fact that it won't be possible until they manage to sort a low budget version that involves handing someone an unopened bottle of beer and spinning them around very quickly with their eyes closed in the middle of a loose circle of people.

By the end of that one even Minho is dizzy. Jisung had unerringly lasered in on him three rounds out of five and watched Minho chug each beer in turn.

"You looked like you needed a drink," he mumbles after, elbowing Minho conspiratorially on his way back to his seat.

"You little shit," says Minho, but Jisung is already gone.

They do gifts next, which Minho suspects they might be getting a bit old for, but when it's two of the youngest guys in the group it's fun to spoil them. Jisung and Yongbok are both great at reactions, and they ooh and aah at each item in turn.

When it comes around to Jeongin, he hands a bag to Yongbok and then stops.

"What," Jisung jokes, "you didn't get me anything, baby?"

Jeongin turns his eyes heavenward and grimaces. "We can tell them," he says.

Through the chorus of what? and tell us…?, Jisung says, "No way. Really?"

"Yeah."

"Really? You promise? You don't mind?"

Jeongin is going pink, skin vibrant against the pale blue of his shirt. He looks at Jisung, an expression on his face Minho has never seen before. "I've made you wait long enough."

The force of Jisung's smile could power a city. "Oh my god. This is the best day ever. Do you want to do the honors, or should I?"

Jeongin takes a steadying breath. "Everyone," he says, and the room goes quiet. He breathes again, visibly steeling himself, and then he says: "Jisung and I have been dating for two months."

It's like every person in the whole room jumps from their seat at once. Minho feels like his eyes are going to bulge out of his head, moving to get a better angle and further shuffling the seating order, which had already gotten fucked up by all the drinking and spinning.

"You're kidding," Chan yells.

"This is a lie," accuses Hyunjin.

Jisung laughs, a full-body cackle, and tugs Jeongin closer by his belt loop. Suddenly their relationship resolves into focus, an unspoken ease, a mutual astonishment. Jeongin is shaking his head but he's smiling, too, right up until Jisung kisses him and the room explodes back into noise.

"Did you know about this?!" Minho demands, turning to his right to ask—

"Nope," says Seungmin. His eyes are wide as he takes in the scene. "I can't decide if it's gross or perfect."

Minho's heart thuds in his chest. "Both?"

"I should have known Jisung was Jeongin's embarrassing crush. It makes so much sense now. I was so caught up in my own stuff I didn't even…"

"I didn't know either," Minho says. Amidst the screaming — Jisung is now trying to dip Jeongin to plant another one on him, and the others are egging him on — the pocket of space between him and Seungmin almost feels quiet. Private. "I'm not that surprised either, thinking about it. They make sense in a weird way."

"Right? Two months keeping it to themselves, though. I didn't think Jisung was capable of that level of subtlety, to be honest."

So much, Minho thinks, for keeping their distance. If Seungmin isn't going to break this fragile calm between them, Minho certainly won't be the one to do it. "Jeongin probably scared him into it. I'm sure he runs a tight ship."

Seungmin snorts. "Yeah."

A long pause. Jisung succeeds in kissing Jeongin, dipping him even further, and Jeongin breaks down into helpless laughter.

Then Seungmin adds: "We didn't wait at all, huh? I didn't even think about it."

"We could've, maybe. If you'd told anyone but Hyunjin."

"He was excited."

Minho inclines his head. "I talked to him," he offers tentatively. "I think we're on better ground now. It's not perfect, he's still mad, but— if that— I mean, I'm sure he told you."

Out of the corner of his eye, the most he's willing to look lest he spook Seungmin, he can see the reflection of the balloons illuminating Seungmin's cheekbones and nose, amorphous streaks of watery blue-greens, of metallic shine. "He's not really mad anymore. If he's still been giving you a hard time, he's probably just power tripping." Unexpectedly, Seungmin smiles, something boyish in it that calls to mind the way he looked before his trip, that youthful vigor and hope always humming under his skin. "It's hard to get one over on you. Let him have it."

"He's been fine," Minho says. And then, quieter: "I deserve worse from him."

From you, especially, Minho can't quite say.

Seungmin's mouth twists at the corner. "He's a forgiving person."

"Yeah."

"With a really big heart."

"Right."

"And he seems to think you were stupider than you were cruel."

Minho swallows. Across the room, Hyunjin is grabbing Jisung's shoulders now, shaking him back and forth with a disbelieving grin and yelling something at him through the din.

"I think that's fair," he says neutrally. "But don't— I'm not asking you anything tonight."

Seungmin's eyebrow ticks. "Tonight?"

"If you want nothing to do with me," Minho forces himself to say, "I get it. But I'd like a chance to make it up to you. Or— not make it up to you. I don't know if I can do that. But I'd like to apologize, if you'll let me."

"Hm," Seungmin responds. He's picking at the skin at his wrist, empty now. Minho's traitorous mind can all too easily insert a mental copy of the bracelet he used to see on every call. "You've lost weight."

Minho blinks at the non sequitur. "I've lost weight? You're barely standing up."

"I was at a program so rigorous I was the fourth person to drop out in the same couple of weeks. Of course I lost weight. But you were… what, working yourself to death?"

"Sad," Minho admits.

Seungmin tilts his head, finally turning to look at Minho properly. It's clear by now that the others are giving them space to talk, but it still feels exposed.

Minho presses on anyway. "I was sad," he repeats. "I know that's not fair. But it's true."

"Hyung…"

"I know."

At his sides, Seungmin's hands clench, unclench. "We can talk. But later. And only if you can actually explain to me what you were thinking, and what you'd do differently, and why I should trust you. Don't tell me now. Think about it, don't rush. I'm serious."

Something terrifyingly familiar rushes to Minho's chest — that unendurable yearning, a spark into a flame, that comes with the dizzying fall into Seungmin.

"Okay. I'm thinking about it. I'll keep thinking."

"Good."

"Is everyone still listening, do you think?"

"Only most of them," says Seungmin drily, and Chan guiltily ducks his head.

"Yah!" shouts Minho, loud enough to startle half the room. "If those two are done making out, there are more gifts to give! Let's be civilized."

"You're asking us to be civilized?" Jeongin demands. He's pink-faced and smiling, happiness pouring from him. Even that edge of sharpness toward Minho he's yet to shed has been softened by Jisung.

Yes, Minho thinks, Seungmin was right; they're good for each other.

Now Minho just has to figure out whether that's still true for himself and Seungmin, too.

/

He takes six weeks, all things told. 42 excruciating days of reflection. Some of that is dedicated to working and mending his friendships. Another part is focused on learning about repression and communication, poring through self-improvement and psychology books and filling pages of notebooks with cramped writing, trying to figure out what it was that drove him to implode instead of trying to fix things.

He also calls his mom for what turns into a two-hour call, one of the longest they've ever shared. He cries on it, much to both of their surprise, and accepts an invitation home for the weekend the following month. When he hangs up he feels lighter.

"You're taking this really seriously," Jisung tells him during an anime night.

Minho shrugs a shoulder. "I think," he replies, "Seungmin is the love of my life. So."

"Damn, dude."

"Yeah."

"You didn't even talk like that when you were together. Is it just that the breakup really sucked, or…?"

Minho blows out a long breath, leaning back against the foot of the couch. "I look back and I can't stop thinking that I was out of my mind. But I wasn't really. I was just doing what I knew to do, and that fucked things up. In past relationships, I'd just shrug and let it go and keep doing the same shit to the next person, but this time I'm trying to be better. So yeah, the breakup sucked, but that's not the whole story. I didn't know that I needed to grow up. He makes me want to."

Jisung takes that in, gaze toward the ceiling as he thinks, before he says: "Good for you. And give yourself some credit, because that shit was enlightened."

Minho snorts a laugh. "Thanks. I'm trying."

Jisung bumps their knees together. Minho presses back.

As loath as he is to admit it, Jisung might be right. There's only so much of this Minho can do on his own, but he's made strides he's proud of. He's worked himself to the bone figuring this out. And he misses Seungmin.

"I'm gonna reach out to him," he tells Jisung.

He and Seungmin haven't seen each other since the party with just brief exceptions, bumping into each other when Seungmin brings Hyunjin something at the studio or comes over to see Jeongin as Minho is leaving a hang with Jisung.

Jisung grins, patting Minho's arm. "Good luck. No, you don't need luck! Have fun. But not too much fun."

"I think I get the message."

"Knock him dead, hyung."

"I got it."

"Remember, love is real! And beautiful! And all around us!"

"Jisung-ah—!"

/

For once, Minho lets his dumb romantic heart make a decision, and he invites Seungmin to join him at the same cafe they were at when they first got together. He cleans his apartment top to bottom waiting for a response, scrubbing the floorboards with a stiff-bristled brush, and the patience ends up paying off: Seungmin says yes.

To talk? he asks. Should I bring anything?

A nonsensical question from anyone else. Minho replies: Just yourself. And yes, to talk. I have a lot to say to you, Kim Seungmin.

I'll listen. I can't promise anything else.

I'm not asking for more than that.

Seungmin doesn't respond to that, and Minho tears himself away from the exchange. In the hour and a half before they're supposed to meet, he restricts himself to three outfit changes, outsourcing to a group chat conversation that Hyunjin ends up running like a dictator.

He gets to the cafe fifteen minutes early only to find Seungmin already there.

"Ha," says Seungmin as Minho sits down, "sorry, waiting was killing me."

"Me too."

Six weeks have done Seungmin a world of good. Though he's not living at Hyunjin's anymore, he's managed to leverage his program to pick up enough gigs teaching voice lessons to kids that he can afford to live with a roommate. The guy's also a singer, according to Hyunjin, and remarkably tidy, so it's been a good fit. Minho has only broken a few wooden chopsticks in his hands thinking about it.

"You look good," Minho tells him.

Seungmin smiles. It doesn't quite reach his eyes, but it's clear he's making an effort. "Thanks. I, um. I ordered for both us."

Minho shakes his head. "Sneaky."

"Sorry. I was nervous."

Their food comes then, alongside two coffees and a tall glass of water for Seungmin, and they thank the waitstaff politely before being left alone in their corner here on the second floor.

Some part of him had been expecting Seungmin to show up righteous, intense. Harsh, even. But it's not surprising that he seems to have tangled himself up. There's a lot of pressure on this moment. Minho's done his best to bear it with grace. It still isn't easy for either of them to hold it up.

But he'd promised he'd work on it and come prepared. The least he can do is get them started.

"You told me to only come back when I felt sure I knew what I was apologizing for. And that you wanted to know I got it, that you could trust me, that everything could be on the table. Yeah?"

Seungmin swallows. "Yeah."

"I'm sorry I made you wait so long."

Seungmin shakes his head immediately. "I worried at first you'd changed your mind. But that wasn't it, was it?"

"I was taking you seriously. I was fucked up over everything when you got back, and I needed to get my head on straight before this had a chance of fixing anything."

"Fixing," Seungmin repeats quietly.

"Or healing, or moving on better. I realized I needed to figure my shit out or else I'd just be miserable forever."

"Forever is a long time."

"I was shaping up for it."

Seungmin hums. "Can I go first, actually? Right when I got back I just blurted a bunch of stuff out, and I've been thinking a lot about what I actually wanted to say."

Minho holds out both hands, open-palmed.

"Thanks. So, it's hard to even fully explain how lonely I was in LA." Seungmin casts his gaze down, talking to the wood grain and his untouched slice of lemon cake. "Sometimes, when I canceled our calls, it was just because I didn't want you to see how sad I was. And I hated myself for that when you broke up with me. Especially when you said it was hard on you to get so little of me. I got scared I'd done it to myself."

"Seungmo."

"I know, I know. I really thought you were fine. I mean, you were home. You had our friends, and your work, and your whole life. I was the one who left. You were supposed to be okay. When I realized that wasn't true, it really shook my world for a bit. That, and the fact that you didn't even talk to me about it. You just cut me off."

Minho's chest pangs with old shame. The defense rises, rises in his throat, then ebbs away.

"It fucked me up," Seungmin continues. "I didn't want to tell anyone about it because it was so embarrassing. You dropped me like I was nothing."

Minho nods. "And now?"

"Now?"

"People know. You're home. Any better? Or still bad?"

"Both," says Seungmin, "neither, I don't know. No, it's better. Time was always going to help. But I told you, before… maybe I'm wrong, but this still doesn't feel finished to me."

"Yeah. Me neither."

"So I'm here. Because I guess I'm not done trying to undo that hurt."

Beautiful, stubborn, generous Seungmin. Minho wants nothing more than to kiss him right now. "I think we can do that. I really, really hope. My turn now?"

"Yeah, go ahead."

"For me," Minho begins, "the whole time you were gone it felt like you were asking me to watch you disappear. You got quieter, you weren't answering my messages, you always looked exhausted… I know it was hard. I know that now better than I did then, I think. But I couldn't figure out how to help you and it was ripping me up inside, because I could tell you were using any extra energy you could find to be with me instead of keeping it for yourself. And I didn't think you'd stop if I asked."

"So you didn't ask at all?"

Minho shakes his head. "I didn't want to know the answer. And now I think that was just cowardice, but at the time it felt like life or death. It's insane. I was scared to lose you, so I just…"

"Made it happen," fills in Seungmin. "Broke my heart before I could break yours."

"That's what was so stupid. I didn't save myself anything. I was embarrassed, too. I didn't think I deserved to even ask people to hear my side. All our friends had the whole situation wrong up until right before you got home."

"Yeah."

"I took my time before meeting again because I wanted to make sure I could say this to your face. Earlier this year, or even just a few weeks ago, I'm not sure I could have. But I'm here now. And I would do anything to make things right with you."

Seungmin sips his water, hesitates, then speaks. "I thought you just wanted to be rid of me. And the whole 'for my own good' thing was an excuse."

"The opposite," Minho admits.

"Really?"

"I wanted too much. And you were so worn out already, even without me pushing. It wasn't… right. Or fair."

Seungmin shakes his head. "What do you mean too much?"

Minho shrugs helplessly.

"No, really. What— what does that even mean?"

Minho wants Seungmin to move in with him, even with how broken things are now, just so he doesn't have to let Seungmin out of his sight. Screw the handsome singer roommate; Minho is tidy, too, and he's probably funnier and better looking anyway. He wants to have sex for three days straight and then go for a fourth just for fun. He wants to consume Seungmin, to hold him, to cry into his shoulder and be held in return, to make him promise to never talk badly about himself again and then to be there to make sure he keeps it.

These are the cards he meant to keep close to his chest. This is what he has to spill out onto the table between them if he wants anything to change.

"Even if you hate me," Minho says, "I want to be next to you. I tried to protect you from myself, but that didn't work either, so if there's even a chance we can get back together I want to pursue that all the way. I can't be halfway to anything with you. Do you get it? It's too much. If you want me to tell you how much I want you we'll never leave this table."

Seungmin's shoulders have gone preternaturally still, like he stopped breathing while Minho was talking, and a little shudder disrupts the eerie freeze. "Hyung," he says, ragged.

Minho shrugs again, just as helpless. "I think I'd do anything for you. I wanted to be noble and give you up so we wouldn't hurt each other, but that almost killed me, and it hurt us both. So I'm here telling you that I get it. I wasn't just stupid, I was scared. I'm still— I'm fucking terrified. And I'm telling you that because I swore to myself I'd change."

"I want you to stay as you are," Seungmin manages, eyes filling. "Just don't leave me out of that anymore."

"I can do that."

"Can you? Don't try to turn yourself inside out for me. Don't make up your mind about something you think has to happen because you're scared I'm unhappy. I told you already—you make it easier."

"Kim Seungmin," says Minho, serious as a prayer, "you know how I am."

"Stubborn," sniffs Seungmin. "Stupid."

Minho nods. "Both of those things."

"You broke my heart."

"I'm sorry," Minho says, and it's the easiest thing in the world to lay himself at this boy's feet. "I really am, I'm so sorry. I'm a million times worse without you. Forgive me?"

Seungmin takes in a wobbly breath and reaches into his backpack. From it, he pulls the mangled stem of a a bruised sunflower, which he rests on the table between them. For a moment all Minho can do is stare. The petals of the flower crisscross over each other, some broken and others bent at odd angles, and Seungmin's long fingers begin the slow work of untangling them and smoothing the creases.

"Maybe I'm stupid, too," Seungmin murmurs. "But I got on that plane home and all I could think about was seeing you again."

The word home in Seungmin's mouth is a spark in a smoldering fire, a last hope amidst a cloud of smoke.

Minho cups it in his palms and blows.