Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There are many other things that Chan would rather be doing right now than being stuck on this topic of conversation. He should never have brought up the new club they’d gotten trashed at three weeks ago, especially after what Seungmin had whispered to him before they tried the place out, and not with an overeager Minho sitting way too close to him on his couch.

Like come on, their thighs are practically overlapping when they are the only ones occupying it while Jeongin, Changbin, and Felix sit sprawled around the empty containers of messy takeout over his coffee table. Chan was nowhere near intoxicated enough to have Minho this close without struggling to act normal about it. Trust that little devil to twist his enthusiasm for another good night out into something else.

Thanks, Seungmin.

“You only want to go back to that club because Minnie told you about the supposed glory hole in the back bathroom,” Minho laughs with his head thrown over the back of the couch. His cheeks have this slight rosy hue from the few shots of soju they’d each taken with their food, and Chan would see that as a great distraction if Minho’s hand wasn’t currently nestled between their thighs. “You just want to get your freak on with some random dude because you’re deprived.”

Chan blushes more from the comment than he does the small amounts of alcohol flushed over his skin. He doesn’t give a crap about some glory hole. Seungmin was probably yanking his chain with the whole thing in the first place because he loved getting a rise out of Chan and it was so easy to do so by mentioning anything even remotely sexual. It really didn’t help that the little tidbit had been whispered into his ear with Minho sitting on the opposite side of him. Chan may be deprived, and he may want to solve that issue with the man currently smooshed against him, but he didn’t need Seungmin of all people to tease him about it.

“Don’t be an ass Min,” he pouts. It’s not like it’s his fault that the only thing he’s had sex with recently is his own hand. Chan just hasn’t been feeling like ‘getting his freak on’ for a while. Or a few years…it wasn’t anyone’s business but his own. Of course, that meant all his friends knew the excruciating details of his love life. Some of them more than others. Curse that Kim Seungmin.

“I’m not,” Minho says flopping his head around until it lands on Chan’s shoulder. He smells good, feels good this close, and sometimes Chan wished that Minho wasn’t as friendly with him as he is. “I’m just saying there’s an opportunity for you to fix your sex problem and maybe that’s why you want to go back there. I think it would be good for you.”

Chan groans. Hearing Minho tell him that he thinks Chan having sex with some random guy would be a good thing makes his chest ache. The only person Chan wants to have sex with is him. For too long now. Probably longer than Chan has gone without sex and that’s a really fucking long time.

“No, I think he has a point Hyung,” Changbin pipes up from the floor. He’s a lot redder in the face than anyone else is, and Chan really hopes he doesn’t say anything that wasn’t meant for sharing. “I know Seungmin probably made up the whole thing, but you could still try? I mean, check it out or something.”

Jeongin starts giggling. Chan has a hard time discerning if it’s because he finds this conversation funny or Felix wriggling around in his lap is making him feel some other type of way. “Yeah, Hyung. I think you should get your freak on.” Then he starts making this lewd gesture in the air in front of Felix’s mouth before he breaks out into giggles again and Felix starts slapping his hands away. “What? Even if there isn’t a glory hole in the bathroom you could still charm some guy up and take him home. No one should have to go that long without sex. Bokkie gets cranky when I make him wait even a few hours.”

 A chorus of ‘didn’t need to know’ groans and giggling from their little dongsaeng who doesn’t seem so little anymore before Felix silences him with a palm over his mouth. He looks apologetic toward Chan with a lopsided smile.

“Guys, give Channie-hyung a break,” he says then points a finger in Changbin’s direction when he opens his mouth to retort. Chan will always appreciate Felix knowing when they shouldn’t be so teasing. “Glory hole or not, you know that Hyung doesn’t like to do that stuff with random people. He likes a connection before things get physical. Don’t be dumb about it.”

Minho scoffs near his ear before finally leaning forward with a frown on his pretty lips. Chan misses the warmth of his head immediately. He hopes Minho doesn’t get the urge to suddenly stand to start wrestling with someone just to leave him absent here on the couch. “No one’s being dumb Yongbok. We’re just trying to help Channie out with a dry spell. Not everyone has a little horndog attached to their hip like you do.”

At this Felix sticks his tongue out at all of them, and Jeongin finally frees his mouth to smirk triumphantly. Chan seriously does not need to know what the two of them get up to behind closed doors. Or even in open ones. He’s fairly certain that the two of them have had it out in public before. “If you think Innie is bad,” Changbin starts up with this smug tone as he puffs his chest out. Chan needs to get a hold of a pair of earplugs. “Then you should see Seungmin when he gets riled up. I swear that one is a sex demon.”

“Alright!” Chan grits out squeezing his eyes closed to get images he never needed out of his head. A few snickers pass around the room before he manages to open them again, but he’s relieved to find that Minho has fallen back into the couch cushions again. His eyes are soft as he turns to look at Chan. “I appreciate all the sentiments of wanting to get me laid, guys. I really do. But that’s not what’s on my mind and it’s not why I suggested we go back this weekend. You’re all missing the point.”

Everyone blinks at him in silence, but Minho blinks several times in quick succession like he always does. Chan will always think that habit is so cute of him. Jeongin raises his hand with his lips pursed and doesn’t say anything until Chan nods in his direction like this was a classroom instead of his living room. “Um, correct me if I’m wrong,” he starts, and Chan already knows that he is going to have to correct him. “But I thought the point of this conversation was glory holes.”

Felix leans back into Jeongin’s chest with a shake of his head before he starts nudging at Jeongin’s jaw with his nose. “No, silly baby,” he whispers to him, though it’s loud enough for everyone to hear as clear as day. “The point is Channie is lonely, but he wants to find love before he gets freaky on someone. You know he’s sentimental like that.”

Sometimes Chan really disliked his friends. Not hate, never hate, but disliked. They all knew him too well, every thought and feeling that could possibly be going through him, and how to push his buttons in the right way to get him frustrated. Never to the point that he was genuinely mad, but they’d teased him enough to garner some pretty strong irritation every now and then. He knows they don’t do it maliciously. It’s never with an evil intent or as a way to piss him off, but because they love him and really just want what’s best for him. Apparently, they think that visiting a glory hole is best for him. Chan doesn’t share those same ideals.

It was often that he wished his friends didn’t know him as well as they do. Felix was right; Chan is lonely, and he hates being physical with anyone without having a real connection first. It just doesn’t feel the same. Maybe Chan has gone this long without sexual pleasure from another body because he can’t form those connections anymore. His heart is already set on Minho, and it has been for a long time. No other connection could run any deeper than the one he already has. If only Minho could realize it or feel the same way.

“No, no, Felix,” Chan grumbles then sighs when he realizes that everyone is dead set on this glory hole ordeal. He wishes Seungmin had never mentioned it and that he hadn’t the ability to go ahead in repeating the words to everyone later that night. “I don’t give a shit about the glory hole. Real or not. I don’t care about having sex either. It’s just an activity that not everyone needs to do all the time, and I am completely fine without having it at the moment. I’m not looking for any hookups here or getting freaky with some Joe Blow in the bathroom. Okay? Every single one of you has your mind in the gutter.”

Silence falls over them. Felix looks apologetic, which Chan can appreciate. He isn’t upset with what he’d said or anyone for that matter. Just tired of his friends always meddling in a nonexistent sex life like it was the only thing that ever mattered. Jeongin looks mildly appalled that Chan could blow off sexual pleasure as easily as he had, and Changbin just looks thoughtful before reaching for another shot of soju. Minho…well, Minho isn’t looking at him anymore, but Chan finds the reassurance he’s silently offering in the fingers tapping over the side of his thigh.

“Alright, I’ll bite,” Changbin says after a mild coughing fit from the burn of alcohol sliding down his throat. “What exactly was the point of bringing up the club again if we aren’t supposed to care about the glory hole?” Chan wishes they’d drop that part of the conversation already. He wasn’t even the one who brought the damn thing up.

Chan shrugs. “I just, it was really fun, you know? Not some dirty, lame bar that we would typically go to, and it was a nice change from us just gathered around here hanging out.” Chan loves it when everyone comes over to the apartment. He loves it when they do anything together, but having spur of the moment shenanigans with the people he holds dear just felt a little different. “We got shitfaced, danced our asses off, and I’m fairly certain I spent way more money than I meant to, but it was fun. I just thought we could do it again.”

Changbin starts to nod with this sly smile on his lips glancing between everyone except for Chan. “Oh, I see now,” he chuckles and crosses his arms over his chest. Chan frowns. No one is taking him seriously tonight, it seems. “You don’t want the glory hole. You want the glory days. No, I get it. You were a rambunctious little thing in college. I remember.”

Somehow, Chan would rather they talk about the glory hole again instead of what Changbin refers to as the ‘glory days’. He wouldn’t call his college self a slut or an exhibitionist animal, but college Chan wasn’t exactly a saint either. Too many embarrassing memories of him stripping down to nothing for the hell of it and sneaking off into back alleys to pound someone useless against the brick of a wall resurface. Alcohol used to make him do wild things.

Shamefully, he wishes that Minho had been around during that time or that he could have been one of those nameless people crying out how bad he wanted it. Maybe then they’d be more than best friends who shared an apartment. Minho didn’t have the luxury to attend the same university as Chan had. He thinks those activities of the past were his weird way of dealing with being without Minho for long stretches of his time.

Those weren’t necessarily Chan’s glory days. If anything, all he did was horribly cope by trying to forget about how bad the absence hurt him. He was sort of depressed without Minho constantly at his side. But Chan wasn’t like that anymore. Now, he had values, some self-respect (however poor it was), and a horrible crush that has overtaken every single one of his inhibitions. Being in love would do that to a guy.

“Man,” Jeongin sighs wistfully leaning back on his palms and staring at the ceiling. “I wish I’d have been old enough to witness all that. Bang Chan in his slutty prime. Can’t believe I missed all the nude fests you had. Ow!” Felix always had sharp elbows. “What?”

“Quit being a pervert,” Felix sulks at him. “We have our own nude fests to keep us busy. Besides, Hyung isn’t like that anymore. He has class now.” Jeongin pouts, and Felix gives Chan a look like he should be praised for the statement.

“Thanks,” he replies flatly then sighs as he falls back into the couch cushions. He should have never brought up that damn club.

Minho has his entire palm over his thigh now, and Chan is having a desperately hard time keeping himself from staring down at it. That man could never keep his hands to himself. He’s just thankful that he’s at least sitting right now or that hand would find a home in his back pocket like it so often does. Living with Minho’s flirty personality was already hell but living with a flirty Minho who also liked to freely grope on him was tortured anguish. Chan really doesn’t know how he’s survived this long.

“Hm, I think what Channie is trying to say is that he’s a super big sap,” Minho announces to the room like that was some sort of revelation. He’s even got a toothy grin on showing how pleased he is with himself. Chan, unfortunately, begins to blush. “Big sappy Channie who just loves us so much. He just wants a fun night out with his favorite people, right? We can do that. Chan-ah,” his voice turns cute, all soft and airy as he starts poking at Chan’s chest with a sparkle in his ever-shining eyes. “Chan-ah, tell us how much you love us.”

He hates it when Minho uses that cute voice on him. It makes him sound like this precious little thing that needs to be protected and safely stored in a shirt pocket or something. Minho’s cutie voice only ever arose when he spoke to Chan; that little tidbit he’d learned over the years was definitely something that almost killed him. He could get whatever he wanted when he spoke to Chan like that. It was literal poison injected straight into all the resolve he’d built in shrouding his feelings from the only person they mattered for—the only person left who still didn’t know.

Chan could tell him how much he loves them all because he does, but he can also throw Minho’s antics right back in his face. “Oh, my little Mimo,” he coos and reaches forward to pinch Minho’s cheeks as he makes kissy lips at him. “Hyung loves you so much. Mimo is so cutie. Oh look, he’s so adorable and loveable.”

As expected, Minho immediately pulls a sour face and starts slapping at Chan’s hands quite hard as he squirms away from him. “Ack, ew, gross,” he groans in complaint. He always gave his cuteness in the most devastating ways, but the second anyone tried to return it Minho wanted absolutely nothing to do with it anymore. “Knock it off. Don’t call me that.”

But Chan knows that Minho likes getting overt affection even if it was in a teasing manner. Minho will do anything at all to receive it when they aren’t in the presence of others or he’s too drunk to realize he’s being needy for attention. Minho hardly gets too far from him. Chan still has a grip on his cheeks and follows his direction when Minho tries to roll back on the couch to escape him. “But you’re just so kissable,” Chan coos at him trying not to laugh, “let Hyung give you kissies.”

Minho grunts when his back hits the couch cushions. Chan still follows after him only to let out an ‘oof’ when Minho gets a knee jammed up into his stomach and shoves a palm flat in his face to push him away as he fruitlessly attempts to bite at the fingers pinching his cheeks. “Yah!” he shouts with faux anger in his voice. The pink tint to the tips of his ears will never fool anyone. “Get off me. No one wants your mouth germs.”

Chan would argue that everyone was literally just suggesting he give someone his mouth germs at a goddamn glory hole not minutes prior, but he relents on this useless battle. Minho always wins anyway. He sits back up into his previous spot chucking to himself when Minho also resituates himself at a much further distance than he had before with arms crossed over his chest in a sulky pout. Though he is remiss to not have his warmth pressed up against his side anymore, it was always fun to mess with him.

The new problem is that now he has three sets of eyes staring at him from the floor with poorly concealed sly smiles and curious looks in their eyes. They all know everything Minho doesn’t—that given the opportunity, Chan would do anything to give Minho kisses. Just not as part of some joke. “What?” he grumbles with a heated face.

“Well?” Felix says with a raise of his brow like he’s waiting for something. Jeongin squeezes at his stomach. “Aren’t you going to preach about how much you love us too? Or are we just stray rice grains stuck in the carpet?” Chan wrinkles his nose at the comment. He hopes there aren’t any sticky pieces of rice stuck in his carpet.

“Yeah,” Jeongin whines with pouty lips and his chin hooked over Felix’s shoulder. “We want kissies too. Big sloppy ones.”

Changbin scoffs at him. “You don’t even like kisses that aren’t from Felix, idiot. Every time I try to give you one you act like the world is ending.”

Jeongin giggles before steeling himself and throwing his nose up in the air. “That’s only because the world would end if I let something like that happen,” he counters. “I will only ever make an exception for Channie-hyung. It would be the highest honor to swap spit with him.”

“Okay, no one is getting any kisses, alright?” Chan blurts out before the dejection on Changbin’s face turns into a yelling match about who deserves what. “Not from me anyway,” he adds when Felix raises his hand to no doubt ask if significant others are off limits. “But yes. I do love all of my dongsaengs equally. Like Minho-yah said, I am just a big ole sap who wants a night out together. Will you guys at least think about it for the sake of my sappy heart?”

A round of head nods and murmurs of agreement are his answer. Chan has his own reasons for wanting to go out again specifically for a night of alcohol and at that particular club. It has nothing to do with the supposed glory hole or the pushing urges from his friends to get his dick wet but has everything to do with Lee Minho. He can’t really remember when he first realized he was in love with his friend or how deep those feelings truly ran. Chan just knows that it’s been long years of silent suffering since he came to terms with it.

Minho was an entirely different animal when he had a great amount of alcohol in his system. Even a tipsy or mildly drunk Minho was exceptional to be around, but that isn’t to say that Chan would take him impaired over the normal everyday Minho he already knows so well. That was the Minho he was in love with anyway—the bristly yet deeply warm and affectionate man who has stood by his side since grade school. But being around a Minho that didn’t have all his reservations quite in the right space was a deeply selfish and indulgent opportunity that Chan simply could not pass on.

Seeing Minho in that club all loosened from copious imbibing and on display for everyone to see was something straight out of Chan’s dreams. His wet dreams anyway because that was exactly what Minho looked like dancing under the pulsing lights. Minho was a terrible flirt in his normal state of mind, but Minho without the wherewithal to realize what his actions suggest is like coming face to face with a powerful succubus that hooks claws into his skin with only a mere glance. Chan was always so helpless to fall under his spell.

In that club, Minho was a lot less modest than Chan had ever seen him dress. He was confident too, almost overly so, and he looked so damn good. This delectable meal that Chan still hungers for even weeks later. He owned the dance floor, held the desire of way too many men, and strutted himself around like he knew how hot he was. Minho in a setting like that carried himself as a lecherous devil that screamed and exuded nothing but filthy sex. Everywhere he moved, all Chan could smell was the stench of seduction.

A Minho without his wits about him also tended to lose all his inhibitions. Not only did he turn from his soft, squishy normal self into this form of sharp edges and boner-inducing flashy skin, but everything Minho normally hid within himself came to clearer light. He was far more affectionate, open to both giving and receiving it, and absolutely terrible at keeping his hands to himself. Chan doesn’t think he has ever had a lapful of Minho for as long as he did in the club that night. Not to mention the constant gropes of his ass or chest, or the way Minho seemed to cling to his side anytime they were standing at the bar waiting on drinks.

He’d say these things too like comment on how handsome Chan looked, marvel at the softness of his hair, or whine about how he ‘couldn’t live without his hyung’ the second Chan tried to leave for a bathroom break. It was achingly cute of him, but it also made Chan feel all hollow in his chest knowing that he couldn’t have Minho like this all the time. There were always these guards in place that only sometimes fell when the two of them were alone.

The real kicker though was Chan’s inability to look away from him. Even if Minho had been dressed in poofy sweats and a hoodie looking like he’d just recovered from a heart attack, Chan’s eyes would only ever seek him out in a sea of hot, sweaty bodies. It was as if he had a magnet deep in his core that was only ever attracted to the poles of Minho with how easy it was for him to spot his blonde head in the throngs of gyrating bodies.

Someone Minho always found his eyes too. Chan would stare for too long and eventually Minho would meet his stare with challenge, tease, or joy. Like clockwork, their gazes would collide, and Minho would either drag him from wherever he was to dance or motion him forward until Chan gave in. Dancing with Minho was another beast to deal with. He was so fluid, graceful in every move, but also drenched in sin. Minho didn’t just drag Chan out there to dance with him but on him too.

The only action Chan got in that club was Minho’s ass grinding against his groin or his hips knocking into his own as he rolled his body against every plane of Chan’s being. It was heaven and hell wrapped up in one dangerous package. Several times Chan had to excuse himself because he suddenly felt parched beyond relief or his dick was getting way too excited over the feel of Minho all over him.

Minho wasn’t putting on a show for Chan though. He was performing for all the other sorry suckers that had been eyeing him all night showing them exactly what they couldn’t have. Chan was his safe space, the only person he could do whatever he wanted to without unwanted roaming hands or propositions, and that was all he’d ever get.

Chan loved his friends very dearly. There was truth to his excuses for bringing the club up. He did have fun, he did love having outings with them that extended beyond his apartment or their usual restaurants, and he did want to go again to spend unfiltered time with them. But Chan would be lying to everyone including himself if he said those were his only reasons.

Clubbing with Minho was the closest thing he had to being with him as intimately as he longed for. Though it left him stained and bleeding when it was all over, Chan would keep doing it. He would bleed and bleed for Minho until everything he had ran out just to be with him like that for only a few hours. It was selfish, indulgent, and maybe wrong. It was pathetic and weak of him to feed delusions off an unsuspecting Minho, but Chan couldn’t love in pain all the time. He had to take whatever he could in whatever form lest it destroy him

Satisfaction settles in his chest when everyone agrees to at least think about going back to the club with him. Jeongin throws his ‘yes’ in almost immediately which does not surprise him. Their maknae had done a whole lot of gawking on people that weren’t always Felix, but everyone knows that Felix doesn’t mind that either. He had spent his own time scoping the place out when Jeongin wasn’t sticking a tongue down his throat.

Changbin promises to ask Seungmin about it but is sure that they will both be up for another night of shenanigans. Hopefully they can at least find a Friday or Saturday where Seungmin is actually available to join them. It definitely feels weird to have him absent from their little shindig tonight, but that smart cookie has been working on an important project at work recently. They all understand.

Minho is the one who doesn’t offer any input. He’s curled up at the end of the couch snuggled into the armrest, still far enough away from Chan not to be coddled again (a shame) and doesn’t voice any thoughts on the matter. All he does is give a small nod before the subject changes into something else. Chan hopes that nod leans more toward the affirmative than a decline. He only wants to go out if Minho does too. That is the whole point after all.

Shuffling everyone out of his apartment when it gets late is always a chore. No one ever wants to leave, stop aimlessly chatting, or sprawling out wherever they are until Chan starts trying to drag them out the door. There’s always the surefire way of immediately getting everyone to their feet and collecting their belongings because Chan has learned over the years that his friends would rather do absolutely anything other than help him tidy up the place. All he has to do is suggest picking up the trash scattered about the table and then everyone is more than ready to flee home.

Minho gives his partings before starting up on the mess. Mostly he just picks through the containers that still have salvageable contents because he would be damned before he wasted perfectly good food. Into the fridge then into Minho’s belly at a later time all that will go. Chan stands at the door trying not to watch him hovering over the messy table with that cute wrinkle between his brows as he thinks and the way his mouth parts to reveal bunny teeth as he decides which things to keep.

Instead, he focuses on thanking everyone for coming and attempting to usher them out the door. Changbin gives him a side hug that lingers longer than it usually does. Felix kisses him on the cheek with a promise of bringing something better than soju next time. Jeongin stands there staring at Chan with these pleading eyes long enough that Chan finally asks, “what?”

Batting his lashes in a mischievous manner, Jeongin offers his cheek to him and pokes his finger right into his dimple. “I’m waiting for my kiss, Channie~” he singsongs and doesn’t budge when Chan gives his shoulder a shove out the door.

“Alright,” he murmurs resigned. It isn’t the first time Jeongin has demanded a kiss on the cheek from Chan, and it certainly won’t be the last. Except when Chan leans forward to peck his dimple, Jeongin whips his head around to smack one right on his lips instead. “Aw, seriously?” he whines wiping at his mouth, but Jeongin is already shoving Felix out the door to slam it behind him giggling like an absolute maniac.

Chan just stands there like an idiot for a while. Jeongin had this weird fascination with him that Chan would never in this life understand. It’s like all the little devil tried to do these days was get a piece of his ass. He doesn’t mind, not really, but he just doesn’t understand what all the hype is about. It’s a very well-known fact that Felix gives him more than enough attention.

“You know,” Minho muses from the couch. Chan turns to face him finally just to be met with a sly little smirk and glinting eyes as he sifts through their meal’s remains. “If I didn’t know any better, then I’d think that poor Innie-yah was trying to get into your pants. Rather persistently, I might add.”

Chan groans, and despite his disinterest in giving in to Jeongin’s antics his face begins to flush with images he didn’t need to have roaming around in his brain. “Oh, he definitely is,” Chan confesses. If he was going to tell anyone about this, then it probably would have been Changbin. Not Minho. “Both he and Felix have asked multiple times if I’d throw myself into their mix of bedroom activities. All for the ‘sake of hyung’s health’. Felix seems to have gotten the hint, but I don’t think Yennie will ever back down.”

Minho drops whatever he’d been holding back onto the table and shoots several blinks Chan’s way. He doesn’t blame the reaction. It was a rather strange bomb to drop on him that two of their closest friends like to play around a little. “Wow,” Minho says and rolls his head around like he too is trying to rid unwanted images from his head. “Look at you, Channie. Desired by the masses. Everyone wants a piece of you, huh?”

Yeah, everyone but the one person Chan wants a piece of back. He knows it was meant as a teasing compliment. Minho would never say something to intentionally take a jab at him. The words still sting anyway. “Sure, Lino-yah,” he nods with a smile that feels too unnatural on his face. “I’m going to go fetch a garbage bag.”

Minho isn’t in the sitting room when Chan comes back from the kitchen, but all the food he wants to save is pushed off to one corner of the table while the trash is on the other. Chan sighs at his absence. His roommate liked to pretend he was helping tidy up then bail whenever Chan got down to business to get it all finished. Knowing Minho, he was probably locked up in the bathroom right now warming up a shower before bed and making Chan clean up. Bastard.

Chan does all he can think of doing to leave the sitting room in a state that won’t occupy his mind for the rest of the night. He sorts Minho’s leftovers into proper containers to store into the fridge. Ties up all the garbage in a plastic sack to take down to the dumpster in the morning. Wipes off his coffee table with disinfectant and vacuums the carpet around where they’d all been hanging out. He even runs the suction tube over the couch cushions too to ensure there are no stray crumbs.

Minho never emerges to check on him, or God forbid, help out. He doesn’t even come out to say goodnight either. His bedroom light is off, so is the bathroom’s, so Chan just decides to get ready for bed too. It wasn’t like either of them were obligated to wish each other a good sleep, announce their tucking in, or wander into the other’s room for a bedtime story. It was only a courtesy they sometimes exercised. Especially after nights like these. Oh well.

The bathroom is still steamy when Chan enters to wash his face and brush his teeth. The mirror is only mildly fogged up with the fan whirring above, but the spicy scent of Minho’s soaps lingers in the air in delectable fashion. Where Minho prefers to shower immediately before going into his sacred bedspace, Chan likes to just put off a good wash until the morning. He doesn’t care so much if his bedding gets a little dirty because he always cleans it at the end of each week anyway.

Before managing to even get started though, Chan just stares at his blurry reflection in the mirror with his hands holding the edge of the counter. There are so many aspects of him to look at that he has always disliked, sometimes even hated. All he does is stare at himself thinking and wondering. He wonders what everyone else sees in him that Minho doesn’t because Chan can’t seem to see it either.

“Hey,” Minho appears in the doorway. Chan straightens from where he’d half slumped over the counter and turns to look at where Minho is leaning against the doorframe. He has his arms crossed over his chest and a small frown on his lips like he could just read the self-deprecating thoughts racing through Chan’s head.

“Hey,” he says back offering a smile.

Minho always looks cute like this in his sleep clothes and fresh out of a shower. Just a simple white t-shirt that’s loose over his form and long shorts that reach past his knees. His hair, recently dyed blonde, is still damp where he’s brushed it out of his eyes. He looks tired, bare skin glowing with that honeyed hue, and lips slick with his nightly chapstick. Chan wishes he could kiss him to taste what flavor he has on tonight. Seeing Minho like this every day was both a blessing and a curse.

The smile that appears on those pretty lips is immediate as Minho returns the gesture with a soft hum. Then he kicks off the door frame to stand next to Chan in front of the mirror gazing at his own reflection before his head ends up on Chan’s shoulder. He isn’t really sure what to make of Minho’s sudden appearance or his behavior. Even when a palm finds its way to rest over the curve of his ass like it so often does, Chan just stands there staring at himself in the mirror waiting for Minho to continue.

“Channie,” he eventually sighs and meets the gaze of his reflection. “I know you don’t do random hookups or even hookups in general. Not anymore. I wasn’t trying to push the agenda on you or make a big deal out of it. I just know how a dry spell can feel and wanted to throw some options out for remedying that. Glory hole or not.”

He hears it for the apology it really is. Minho is sorry for bringing it up, especially in front of the others who only egg everything on further and is trying to apologize if his words had somehow hurt Chan or made him uncomfortable. Saying ‘sorry’ wasn’t really Minho’s thing, but Chan knows when he’s insinuating the word. How silly of him. There really was no need for sincerity of that sort.

“Ah, Minho,” he says nudging him with his shoulder. “It wasn’t a big deal. You shouldn’t worry about that kind of stuff. I didn’t mind. You were only trying to help.” Really, it was okay. Chan would have rather Minho brought it up not in the company of other tipsy people who only ever built and built on something until it got out of proportion, but hearing what his friends have to say also matters to him. Though no one was really making an effort to hear him out properly, Chan can understand that they all only had his best interest in mind.

Minho sighs again with his hand patting over Chan’s butt. In their reflection, Chan can see the way Minho is biting at the inside of his cheek as he often does when he’s thinking. “I just want you to be happy, Chan,” he confesses. The words hollow this little pit in his chest. If only Minho knew that the happiness they were all trying to find for him was literally right here snug against his side. “I will make sure we go back to the club soon. We can figure something else out for you that doesn’t involve glory holes or mindless sex, yeah?”

Deep appreciation lies in that sentiment, but Chan knows the only thing he’s looking for is the man actively trying to find him someone else. It’s such a shame that Minho is the only one left of his friends that hasn’t realized it has always been him. It’s such a shame that Chan doesn’t have the balls to just tell him or go out on a limb and take for once. Years and years of something akin to brotherhood were just too risky to throw on the line for a romance that may not even work. Chan sometimes wishes he didn’t know what love like this felt like.

“Thank you, Minho-yah.” Even if Chan isn’t interested in propositioning someone or looking for any sort of romantic connection without anyone but Minho, he can still be grateful for how the man cares about him. Sexual health was important too, he supposes.

“Mhm.” He gets a short glimpse of softness warming through Minho’s sleepy gaze before his butt gets slapped and Minho is pulling away from him. “Goodnight, Chan-ah.”  

Chan watches him go with his hands squeezing at the counter a little harder. What he should have done was slap Minho’s ass right back. For retaliation of course. Not because it always looks just as delicious as the rest of him. “Yeah, goodnight Mimo,” he calls after him when he remembers to respond. Delight comes in the form of Minho grumbling back not to call him that, but there is affection in the tone like he really didn’t mind the name. Chan will continue to call him that.

Alone now, he tries not to sulk at his reflection as much as he would have if Minho hadn’t come to visit him. He washes himself up, brushes through the silvery strands of his hair, and tries not to dwell on the longing in his eyes. Chan can be okay. He can go on loving silently and maintain the deep bond he already shares with Minho that he has cherished for more than a decade now. Living in desperate pain was better than living without him at all.

It's a Friday evening only two weeks later that Chan finds himself in front of the mirror in his bedroom fretting over his appearance. This time though, he isn’t trying to identify his features of attraction that he can’t distinguish himself or wonder why he isn’t good enough for someone like Minho. Chan would never be good enough for him, but that’s beside the point. He can wallow in it after their night of fun.

In the mirror now, Chan is trying to decide what to do with his hair and ensure that his makeup hasn’t smudged in the process. He’s worrying about his makeup too. Whether it’s too much or not enough, well balanced and looked sharp rather than sloppy, and if his applications have been even enough to not look crooked on his face. He doesn’t want it to appear like he’s going all out with his appearance, but he wants to put effort into it too. Maybe if Chan made himself look desirable enough then Minho would finally see him in a different light. It’s hopeless and stupidly wishful, but Chan will always try.

He’s gone for a subtler smokey eye with silver accents of glittery eyeshadow in the corners of his eyes and center of his lids to match the strands of bangs framing his face. His lips are glossy with a faint, polished shine that gives his mouth a slightly more beige-pink hue. Chan thinks he looks good like this and for once, his reflection seems to agree.

Fitted black slacks that taper at his ankles and hug his physique in all the right ways. The waistband sets low on him exposing the V of his hips and leaving his lower abdomen on painful display. They’re held up with a simple black belt with an even simpler chrome buckle that is sure to glint under the lights of the club. Chan knows his ass looks unbelievably fat in these pants and that is exactly why he’s wearing them. Minho was unable to resist touching his butt in normal situations but on such outward display under hugging material, Minho will be drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

Paired with is the sheer black tank top that clings to him enough to suggest the definition of his chest and sheer enough to reveal glimpses of the skin poorly hidden beneath. The straps are smaller to keep his broad shoulders and collarbones in plain view, and the cropped hem rests just above his navel to showcase the firmness of his stomach. When the light catches right, his nipples are visible beneath the thin material. What a useless garment. Chan loves it.

What ties everything fabulously together though are the two thin silver chains decorating his abdomen that sparkle from the gems embedded in the metal. Chan is a sucker for body jewelry, will take any excuse to wear belly chains, and even feels a little proud of how his body looks every time he wears them. There was just something about midriffs glinting with jewels, charms, and shiny colors that drove him absolutely mad. Not just on himself, but others too. He’s waiting for the day that Minho waltzes in here with newfound confidence asking to borrow one of his chains.

There is one set higher on his waist that wraps snugly around him and crosses over his navel. It has a sparkly rhinestone that dangles just to the left of his bellybutton. The other chain rests lower, loose where it catches on his hips and drapes low on his abdomen just above the waistband of his slacks. Chan adores the sight of them on his skin and how it makes him feel irresistible. Turning around, he marvels at how both the chains sandwich the dimples on his back. They match the bracelet cuffed over his wrist and the short dangles of silver hanging from his earlobes.

Chan feels elegant. He feels rich, sexy, and fond of the body looking back at him through the mirror when he so rarely ever enjoys the sight of himself. Oh, but his hair. He never knows what to do with it now that it’s gotten so long. Last time it just became this sweaty, damp, and slightly curled mess when he left it as is, and Chan is abhorrent in styling his hair. He needs Felix’s help, but no one else has even arrived yet. The spiraling he can already feel stirring about inside him begins to settle in his chest just as his door bursts open.

“Channie!” Minho shouts behind him, loud enough that Chan jumps both from the noise of his door and the volume. He never bothered to knock for any reason whatsoever, and Chan wonders how he’s never managed to walk in on him naked after so many years of bursting in whenever he pleased. When Chan turns over his shoulder to glare at his startling appearance, he finds Minho standing there with his head tilted and his hand half raised in the air. There’s question in the blink of his eyes and curious words rapidly forming on his lips.

His eyes are smudged with black liner, dark purple, almost black shadow faded over his lids tinted with metallic lilac shimmer that makes it look like Minho’s lashes had been kissed by glitter. The faint shine of highlight on his face accentuates the sharpness of his cheekbones in a less bold way. His lips look wet from the glossy pink coating them, almost bitten like he’d applied a slight tint as well. His ears sparkle from between the strands of hair falling over them. A white gold stud in one paired with a cuff on the shell of his ear and his other lobe holding a drop earring of glinting gems.

Ethereal is the best word Chan can come up with to describe the painting and décor of Minho’s face before him.

“Yes, Lino-yah?” Chan prods when Minho does nothing but stand there. It’s endearingly cute the way he’s looking dumbfounded in Chan’s presence. He wonders if that has to do with how he looks or not. Sometimes Minho burst into his room like this to ask him something but immediately forgot what it was the moment he stepped through the door and always ended up just turning around to leave without a word.

“Tell me,” Minho starts, straightening his head out to narrow eyes at him, “what the purpose of wearing a shirt is if it does nothing to conceal what it’s meant to cover. You may as well just go shirtless.”

Chan chuckles at him feeling the tips of his ears heat up. “Can’t go shirtless. They wouldn’t let me in otherwise. Besides,” he rationalizes, “it’s not like it’s entirely see-through. Just because there isn’t a lot of it doesn’t mean there’s no coverage at all. They’re just nipples.”

Minho’s expression falls immediately flat. Nothing but the raise of a brow Chan can hardly see hidden beneath the blonde strands of his bangs falling over his eyes. “Never say ‘just nipples’ ever again. They are so much more than that, Hyung. Nipples are a gift to be cherished.”

That gets a snort out of Chan who turns back to the mirror to adjust the chains on his belly. Minho was such a wonder, and his comment actually has Chan considering making his nipples a little more well-known. Perhaps he could start wandering around their place shirtless even more than he already does if that’s how the other feels. “Okay, Mimo.”

The groan of complaint at the nickname isn’t as long or as suffering as Chan had expected it to be. Just a short-lived form of whining before he’s edging closer to Chan. “You look good though, Channie. Really,” he says softly. It isn’t teasing but sincere. “Like sexy elegance or something.”

Stopping his incoming blush is fruitless and frankly impossible. Any compliment from Minho felt like a love confession, especially the ones that weren’t masked in joking words or tones. Chan clung to each of those moments with a vice grip and swallowed down the sincerity it was to fill up his heart with false promises. Being appreciated didn’t mean he was desired.

He turns back to Minho with warm cheeks ready to give Minho the same respects, but he really looks at what Minho is wearing this time and can’t seem to find anything but confusion. Minho has on his staple black leather pants that cling to him like a second skin. The material hugs nearly everything to accentuate each plane, curve, and aspect of his lower half. Firm, thick thighs that bulge from the fabric just taunting Chan to squeeze or suffocate himself between. He knows Minho’s ass has to look delectable because it does every time he wears these pants. Firm, curved, maddening. There is great wonder in imagining what it may feel like sitting over his face.

Grip. He ought to get a grip on himself before he ends up needing to jerk off before the night even begins. Chan can’t help it. He is so down bad for this specimen standing before him.

The odd thing, the one that causes his confusion, is the fact that Minho is just wearing a plain tee. There isn’t anything special about it. He’s fairly certain that it’s one of the shirts Minho often sleeps in or just wears around the apartment when he lazes about. So why on earth would he be wearing that to the club?

“Is that, um, what you’re going out in?” he asks trying not to sound like a dick. It isn’t that he cares what Minho wears or how he looks because Minho is always stunning. He’s just a little confused about the choice. It isn’t something Minho would normally wear to a place like where they are going.

Here, Minho turns a little sheepish. He ducks his head a bit as his hands reach up to grab the hem of his shirt and shrugs like it didn’t really matter. If Chan didn’t know any better, then he might say that Minho has suddenly gone shy. “Ah, no,” Minho says with a dry laugh. He starts toeing at the floor in what Chan thinks is distraction. “That’s why I came in here. I was having some issues with my outfit and needed reassurance.”

Chan frowns briefly. Reassurance is never a word that he would have ever expected to come out of Minho’s mouth let alone something he’d request. Confidence was the only thing he ever exuded. Yes, there were vulnerabilities and insecurities that arose that Minho didn’t always hide away, but he never asked Chan to help ease them. They were normally internal negativity anyway. He just voiced them to get the feelings off his chest and forgot about the conversation within minutes. Chan cannot even begin to imagine what sort of thing Minho might want to wear that would create doubt in his mind.

“Okay, um,” he starts, notes the way Minho is worrying his hands in the bottom of his shirt. “Hyung can help. What top were you thinking of? I take it not one that you’ve worn before if you’re having some doubts.”

Minho’s lips twitch into an almost smile as he hums a quiet chuckle out. Chan doesn’t get what’s so funny. “I think usually it’s the top wearing the bottom, Channie,” he says with barely contained amusement.

“Ha-ha,” Chan deadpans but can’t help the crinkle of his own smile over his lips. The comment also unfortunately procures images of him wearing Minho on his dick because it’s no secret that Minho favors taking rather than giving. How lucky that Chan is quite the opposite. Unlucky though that his face heats again and that Chan probably won’t have the opportunity to ever wear Minho around like an accessory. “But seriously,” he adds clearing his throat.

“Right, well, I did go out and buy something to wear for specifically tonight,” Minho says pulling at the hem of his shirt again. Minho only ever bought things he was sure were useful or that he knew he would wear. It’s just a surprise that for once he hadn’t done that. “And now I’m not sure if it would look so good on me.”

Chan tilts his head, “why not? You look good in a lot of things, Minho-yah.”

“Yeah, I know that,” Minho huffs because he really does know how attractive he is. He isn’t cocky about it, just aware of how people view his body. Then Minho sighs and tips his head back to stare up at the wall like he was having a hard time confessing to something that really shouldn’t be such a big deal. “It’s cropped. My stomach would be out.”

Chan short circuits for a few moments. It’s not that Minho shied away from showing skin, but his abdomen was never usually on the table. Shoulders, arms, legs, collarbones, and back were the extent of what he was willing to display. Minho was modest in how he flashed himself, and him being risqué was wearing something that exposed the cleavage of his chest or even unintentional slips of a nipple here and there. His stomach? Absolutely not.

Chan has seen it before, of course. Not so much recently, but he has seen Minho with a shirt that’s ridden up or even him quickly parading around shirtless like he didn’t want to be seen but the exposure couldn’t be helped. It was truly a sight to behold—one that Chan often thought about when he was admiring Minho in something with a tight fit. Minho wanting to go out in public wearing something like that seems unfathomable though.

“Okay,” he says carefully hoping that his excitement at seeing Minho in something so revealing isn’t as clear on his face as it feels in his chest. “And why do you think it wouldn’t look good? You liked it in the store, yes?”

“I wanted to wear it. I still want to wear it,” Minho grumbles with mild exasperation. He tugs on his shirt once more. “I just, you know, have put on a few extra pounds recently and have second thoughts about how I will feel having other people see me like that. I’m all squishy now.”

Chan frowns again. This doesn’t sound like the usual Minho talking. “I thought you liked it when you were squishy. You said it means you’re healthy and taking good care of your body.” Especially in the colder months, Minho always announces that he’s starting his ‘squishy Minho diet’ and eats whatever his little heart desires within reason. Chan doesn’t know why he’s ashamed of that now. He likes it when Minho is squishy too.

“I do like being squishy, yes,” Minho nods, “but that doesn’t mean I like showing it to other people. The public, I guess.” Then he tugs on his shirt again before rolling his head around on his shoulders with his mouth stuck open on a disgruntled noise like a child throwing a fit. When he’s finished, he leaves his head tipped back with his bunny teeth out and the bob of his Adam’s apple looking painfully distinct. “These are the pants I’m going to wear. I just want to show you my stomach so you can tell me whether I look too squishy to pull it off. You’re a terrible liar, so I’ll know if you mean it or not.”

Chan gulps at the prospect of Minho revealing something as sacred as his tummy. A purposeful showing at that that seems to be all for him. In this moment anyway it will be all for him. “Alright,” he says feeling a little strained.

Minho hesitates for a few seconds before the worrying at the hem of his shirt turns into him slowly pulling it up to the bottom of his ribcage to reveal his abdomen. Chan is sure that he dies, ascends, and is reborn all in the span of half a second the moment his eyes focus on exposed skin with this honey glow. His throat dries out and squeezes up like he’s having some sort of allergic reaction, but that doesn’t compare to the erratic beating of his heart or the surge of arousal that unfolds in his gut.

Minho’s skin looks so soft as he stands there with his shirt raised and his head turned to the side to escape Chan’s gaze. His hair falls over his eyes just enough to hide the mystery of what his irises hold, but they do little to hide the red tips of his ears peeking through the strands. Minho is certainly squishy too, this little pooch of his tummy that barely protrudes from the tight waistband of his pants. It’s cute, sexy, and something Chan wants to nibble on until the skin turns pink with bite marks. Minho isn’t fat. He isn’t ‘too squishy’ either. He’s perfect.

But a little pouch of a tummy that’s already so hot in every way is not what has Chan weak in the knees or fearing that he’s just made acquaintance with some divine being. It’s the light dusting of hair trailing from his navel down past his waistband that has him feeling like he’s seconds away from fainting. More importantly, it’s Minho’s bellybutton in general. A bellybutton that has been adorned with a white gold barbell pierced through and a plum opal orb at the top. At the jewelry’s bottom is a plum gem in the shape of a star, and from there are two glittery chains each with miniscule moon pendants that shimmer in the light.

Minho has his bellybutton pierced. Chan doesn’t know when this happened because he didn’t even know it did happen and now he feels like a drooling mess as he just stares at the offending thing with his mouth dropped open. He said it before, and he will say it again: he absolutely adores body jewelry, and Minho has gone and kept the most beautiful expression of it hidden away. Belly chains were nothing compared to pierced navels.

Chan didn’t think it was possible for him to want the man in front of him anymore than he does right now. It was never just about Minho’s body though. Lust was a silly thing when he felt the pull of it from Minho like he does now, but the physical attraction he feels toward him will never be anything as sweet as the attraction he harbors to Minho in general. Standing there as he is bearing his little secret to Chan feels like another confession that he so desperately wishes would come true.

“I, uh, I’m…” Chan eventually stutters out. Not a lot of thought occurs in his head at the moment, and he still feels like he can hardly breathe with the sparkly jewelry staring back at him. He wants to touch it and the little hairs of his happy trail as he nibbles on Minho’s little tummy pooch. Yeah, he is definitely going to have to jerk off before they leave if he wants to make it through the night. “So, yeah. Um, what is that?” he very eloquently puts.

Minho snorts at him. The noise gains enough of his attention back for Chan to meet Minho’s eyes that are back on him. That little devil is smirking with this glint in his eyes like he knows exactly what he’d just done to Chan and how stupid body jewelry tends to make him. “It’s a bellybutton piercing, Channie,” he says with a teasing tone. It’s like Minho had transferred all his initial shy demeanor right to Chan without him knowing it. “What else would it be? Have you never seen one before?”

Chan shakes his head to get his thoughts back in order. He has seen plenty of bellybutton piercings in his life. Both in real life and online when he scrolls through ideas on how to style his belly chains. But he has never seen one on Lee Minho—never even pictured it on him before. This sudden discovery is making him throb. “Of course I have,” he defends himself. “I meant when. When did you get that? I’ve never seen it on you before.”

Minho’s shrug is nonchalant while his expression is smug. Gone were his nerves for his outfit plans for the night. He always took such pride and delight in reducing Chan to an embarrassing mess. It’s not like it took a lot of effort to do that. “A while ago, like months. I didn’t tell anybody and never really got around to showing it either. Now is as good a time as any. Do you not like it?” he asks blinking innocently, but Chan can see the anxiety stuck in his eyes. He’s still holding his shirt up to his ribs with fingers gripping the material unnecessarily tight. Minho was never one to seek out approval. It seems he must want it now though.

“Lino-yah, yes, I like it. I really like it,” Chan says trying to sound as sincere as possible without coming across as cheesy. It must work with the sudden pinking over Minho’s cheeks that has nothing to do with his makeup. “You look really good, Minho. Seriously. And you aren’t too squishy either. You are the perfect amount of squishy, and I think you would absolutely devastate with whatever it is you want to wear. Go ahead with the cropped shirt. I mean it.”

Finally, Minho drops the hem of his shirt to hide everything away once more, and Chan almost lets a whimper slip through when that delightful tummy is taken from his view. “Hm, alright,” Minho says with a smile stretching over his lips. It’s a genuine smile, one that melts Chan’s heart away and makes him ache to wrap Minho up even more than he always does. At least he made him happy. “Thank you, Hyung.”

The second Minho is out his door and disappears down the hall for his own room, Chan attempts to put himself on lockdown as he computes all these new developments. His heart feels like it’s beating out of his chest with how hard he’d been trying to keep his panicking all internal before Minho realized something was up with him. There is a pressing need to shove his face in a pillow and scream all this frustration out before it eats through his insides and makes him do or say something completely off kilter.

Chan doesn’t want to ruin his makeup, so instead he squeezes his eyes shut to force the images of Minho’s bare stomach with its cute perks out of his head. He does his breathing exercises to calm all the buzzing desire humming beneath his skin and gathering in his belly until it feels like just a little sizzle. He even balls his fists up at his sides too to rid himself of the urge to reach out, feel every inch of Minho’s body beneath his palms to appreciate it in the way it should be, because he knows that the second Minho comes back, all he will want to do is touch.

When Chan feels mildly normal again and not on the verge of a major freakout, he turns to face his mirror to pretend to fret over his hair. “You’ll be fine. It’s okay,” he quietly repeats to himself over and over again. Affirmations or something to keep him from crashing out. “You suggested this in the first place. Just don’t think about it too much.” Except he will think about it too much and drive himself into a fit later.

This whole mess really is his own fault. Chan should have just set up a movie date night with Minho like they often did, ordered takeout, had a few beers, and cuddled up against each other on the couch with a blanket tossed over their laps. Minho would eat too much, laugh too loud in his ear, whine about plot holes, and loop his arm around Chan’s shoulders to rest against him when he got too sleepy. Those were some of his favorite moments because Minho often let his guard down and just existed as himself with only Chan in this domestic sort of way that never felt one-sided.

Instead, Chan wanted sensual and mind-altering Minho that had no issues getting progressively maddening as the night went on. Chan could have had soft little Minho that did cute things and spoke sweet words, but he had decided that gropey Minho pressing his ass into his crotch in a definitely platonic way was better than that. Now he is paying the price. Who knew horniness could feel so incurable.

He stops his self-berating and giving his reflection loathsome looks when Minho starts padding down the hallway again. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Minho had shut his door on the way out, but then again he might have started pulling at his hair or messing with his dick with that sliver of privacy. He’s fairly certain that he’s sporting a half chub at the moment.

“Chan-ah,” Minho calls cutely from his doorway. Always so cute. For how often Minho calls him that in that soft, lilting yet mischievous tone of his he thinks he should be used to it by now. Unfortunately, it will always turn his insides into this mushy mess. “How is it then?”

Chan had expected Minho’s idea of something cropped to only show a thin sliver of his stomach and maybe even his bellybutton if he lifted his arms high enough. Minho was so modest when it came to showing himself off. Chan hadn’t expected him to come waltzing in here looking about as bare as he feels walking around shirtless. Minho is the complete opposite of modest at the moment. He’s wearing something that Chan would wear without a second glance, and the sight sets him on fire all over again.

Minho is wearing a deep, lustrous purple satin shirt all smooth and liquid looking. There is a soft sheen to it that shifts between violet and plum with each soft expanse of his chest as he breathes. The neckline plunges into a deep V revealing a glimpse of his collarbone and the devastating exposure of his pectoral line. Cleavage. Chan ought to just call it cleavage because in that shirt he thinks Minho might need to be wearing a bra with how pronounced his pecs look. When did that happen?

The cut is cropped, hitting just above the navel to expose his squishy tummy, the happy trail disappearing beneath leather, and the glinting jewelry stuck through his bellybutton. Even the colors of the gems of the barbell match the satin of his shirt. The sleeves are fitted through his upper arms then slightly loose at the wrist giving his silhouette something between flirtation and control. The satin moves like smoke over his skin when Minho puts his hands on his hips waiting for the verdict.

The thing about the shirt is that it only has a single button. A single button that is fastened right over his breast bone allowing the shirt to open further and reveal most of his torso. It’s so much skin. More skin than Chan even knows what to do with or handle on someone like Minho, and he simply can’t keep his eyes from roaming all over it. He’s gone parched again, stupidly thoughtless in the head, and unbearably horny. It’s a terrible affliction really.

Chan should throw Minho’s comment right back in his face. What, pray tell, is the goddamn point of wearing a shirt that does nothing to conceal what it’s meant to? Chan has never had that thought before. Not until now. Minho might as well be naked looking like that. A wet dream is what he is. This demon wrapped in sex and seduction that put an irreversible spell on Chan so many years ago.

“Is it so bad that you can’t even tell me?” Minho asks after several beats of painful silence. It’s spoken quietly, nerve ridden. Chan tears his eyes from sights he will never forget with wide eyes thinking he’s upset him with his inability to speak. The last thing he needed was Minho thinking Chan didn’t approve of such a bold look from an even bolder personality.

But Minho looks smug again, entirely too pleased with himself like he’s just won some victory in a game Chan didn’t know they were playing. If he had any sense, then he’d like to wager that Minho knew exactly what he was doing coming off all shy about his appearance just to show up in that because he somehow knew that it would drive Chan mad. He unfortunately does not have any sense and that notion is just as improbable as Jeongin thinking he can bag him. Minho just likes to flirt. That’s all.

“I, uh, that’s, what? Huh?” Chan manages to say in a sloppy mess. He loses his bearings for just a moment, enough that he stumbles just a bit backward and knocks into his mirror which then bumps against the wall. Minho laughs at him as he rights himself. Not in a cold or mocking way, but something warm and amused. Chan’s face feels beet red and flaming hot. He always thought that fainting from Minho’s beauty was just an expression, but now he’d gone and almost actually done it.

“No, no, Minho,” he amends when he feels he can speak proper. “You look amazing. Like extremely put together but also suggestive in every way. It’s hot. It’s sexy. I really don’t even have the words to tell you how good you look right now.”

Minho waves a dismissive hand at him like the words hardly meant a thing, but the tint of his ears tells Chan just how much he ate the praise up. “Alright smooth talker, that’s enough of the flattery,” Minho laughs then nods his head over to where Chan’s jewelry organizer sits atop his dresser. “Fix me up with one of your belly chains, would you?”

Chan gapes at him with his mouth stuck open. “What?” he squeaks out. He couldn’t have heard that right. Just earlier he had been wistful about fitting Minho with a chain or two. He thinks about it all the time whenever he has his jewelry out or he puts one on himself. Is Minho actively trying to kill him? Because he’s doing a stellar job so far. “Really? Like actually? You want one?”

“Yeah, why not?” Minho nods with a brief shrug. His hands are clasped in front of his stomach now like he was trying to hide himself a bit. Chan doesn’t want him to be uncomfortable all night despite how pretty the sight is. “I feel a little naked like this, and it’s a lot of skin, no? I know you already have an idea of what to put on me, and I know you’ve just been dying for me to ask.” He smirks at this part, and Chan too feels a little naked at being called out when Minho doesn’t even know the half of it. “So, you better just get on with it before I change my mind.”

The thing is that Chan does already know what specific piece he wants to decorate Minho in. He’s thought a lot about how his different jewelry might look on Minho even if his visual of Minho’s waist was a little imaginative at times. Now though, he has a clear canvas and a willing participant. This is very real no matter how hard of a time his brain is having in recognizing it as such. Minho’s the one already drawing eyes from his throat down to his waist; Chan can just accent the appeal a little further.

“Right,” he says, resolute, before going to dig through his chains. His mind had already conjured a vision the second he saw Minho’s outfit because all Chan can ever think about when he sees skin is how to decorate it. He knows the pieces he’s looking for, even worn a few, and hopes that Minho will give absolute free reign in what he plans to do. Chan might combust. He probably will combust when his fingers brush over smooth skin as he puts them on.

“That seems like a lot of chains, Channie,” Minho comments when Chan turns around to approach him with several white gold thin chains in his hand. “Are you trying to tie me up?”

“Shut up,” Chan huffs laying the longer ones over Minho’s shoulder as he sizes him up. “You said it’s a lot of skin, so that means you get a lot of bling. Don’t you worry your pretty little head. They aren’t even permanent ones. Just trust the professional, alright?”

Minho hums his assent and tips his chin up just a fraction when Chan’s fingers thread a thin chain around his neck. His vision involves more of a body harness chain than it does belly, but it’s done in a minimal, elegant way rather than something tacky or overdone. It will fit perfectly with the tone of the purple satin outfit like the material was meant to hug such pieces of jewelry that twinkled along Minho’s skin. A seamless silhouette that creates intentional contrast—the cool shimmer of white gold against the warm violet gloss, the softness of satin against the sharp edge of leather.

The chain at his neck functions as a choker yet loose enough to allow for his movement as Minho will no doubt dance and have his breathing come easily. Chan slips another chain equally as thin, dainty, from the collection at Minho’s shoulder to connect to the piece at the base of his throat. This one has small crystal beads spaced along the links to create a delicate etherealness that will twinkle as he moves. It follows down the plunge of the shirt’s neckline and runs between his filled-out pecs almost like a living jewelry seam that highlights his chest line.

Chan’s knuckles brush across smooth, warm skin as he fastens the thin white gold chains across the silk of a body meant to be adored. Each touch has burning flames licking over him, infernos that twist around his bones and send his nerve endings into buzzing orbit. Minho has always been this precious thing born of praise and aching to be revered. Chan will do all those things behind the silence of his want with sealed lips and a heart that yearns to bleed all over the floor. His love stains, but Minho somehow always remains unblemished.

It's odd to kneel before Minho like this. On his knees in front of the very man he aims to worship, face to face with his crotch and fingers hovering delicately over his tummy is a position that Chan has only ever dreamed of. He does his best to only have his touch ghost over the exposed skin of Minho’s abdomen because anything more intentional than an accidental graze may just send him into cardiac arrest.

He’s careful in connecting another thin and simple chain to the end of the vertical, crystal one swaying where it ends in line with the hem of Minho’s shirt. He doesn’t want his touch to linger or for his fingers to become greedy when they should only be decorating. This chain drops in a V from the hemline to hug around Minho’s waist and swoop low on his back where it rests just at the tip of his waistband. There’s another chain matching in both delicateness and spaced-out crystals like the one running down his chest that Chan aims to have sitting over Minho’s hips. If he does it right, then it should run right along his navel through the sliver of space between each end on the barbell of his piercing.

Divine beauty that will twinkle under the lights of the club and draw praise from every eye it will catch. All. It should catch everyone’s eye among the swarm of people. Chan is selfish enough to wish everyone but himself blind.

“Are you trying to make me sparkle like those vampires from Twilight?” Minho giggles, squirms a little when Chan’s fingers brush over his bellybutton—over the sinful piercing stuck through his navel that has Chan’s breath stuttering. “Watch it. That tickles.”

Chan smiles to himself, though it feels wobblier than it ought to as he tries to hold onto his last threads of sanity. It’s a miracle that the stains of his heart never break through his surface—that Minho, who spends all his time observing, has yet to see what feels so painfully clear on each of his features. “So what if I am?” Chan asks slyly. “Aren’t vampires supposed to be eternally beautiful? I’m only helping you play up the part, though you’re doing a fine job on your own.”

The moon charms hanging from the drop chains of Minho’s piercing jiggle a little when he huffs a breath out. Chan watches them with a painful lump in his throat. “Yuck,” Minho fake gags, “enough with the flattery already. You’re going to make me sick before I even get wasted.” Chan rolls his eyes at the exaggeration. He knows Minho eats the compliments up like he’ll never receive any again.

What Chan doesn’t do is look up at Minho from his knelt position when fingers brush some loose strands of hair behind his ear and a smooth palm cups his jaw. He doesn’t dare raise his gaze from the soft skin decorated in art before him, not when Minho is touching him so tenderly with Chan on his knees. His fingers tremble as they fasten that last chain threading through Minho’s bellybutton.

Minho’s hand is cold where Chan burns. It halts his breathing, his heart, and all other functions of any normal human body. A statue is what he is—frozen by the charms of something he so dangerously wants. If Chan were to look up now, then he is sure he won’t be moving from this spot for centuries long past Minho leaving him a stupid, drooling mess.

“But thank you, Hyung-ah,” Minho says in a low, suggestive voice. Chan feels his skin crawl from the timbre with which it’s said. Either Minho is playing him as the fool he is, or he knows how hard Chan is in his pants and finds gratification in watching him suffer. Then he coos at him with this appreciative hum and drops his hand from his face like his touch hadn’t just seared another brand onto Chan’s soul. “So sweet. How do I look now?”

Minho takes a few steps back to show the whole picture of himself off with spread hands and a cheeky grin on his face. Chan remains on the ground, even sits back on his heels as he takes a generous once over of Minho’s form now adorned with jewelry resting over his pretty skin like a God flaunting their beauteous wealth. His hands are clasped over his lap to hide the shame and obviousness of how he thinks Minho looks. How he makes him feel is like nothing Chan ever thought people could just experience. This must be witchcraft.

“I think,” Chan starts then clears his throat when his voice comes out strained. Minho just smiles wider. “I think you may catch a few murder charges tonight. You know, from being overly drop dead gorgeous.”

“Exactly the intent,” Minho cheers for himself with a victorious fist in the air. Chan thinks he ought to have the right to feel a little pride in how he’s put together. Then Minho’s eyes remain on Chan for a moment before raking down the rest of his body. They linger on his exposed abdomen for a beat too long. It has Chan squirming on the floor wondering if Minho can still see how aroused he is even beyond the shield of his carefully placed hands or if Minho just likes to look.

“Make it a double homicide kind of night, Channie,” Minho finally says with a sly quirk to his lips and something mysterious glinting in his eyes. Chan hopes his gulp isn’t too loud. “I think looks can kill.”

And as if right on cue, their front door opens to reveal the barely contained laughter of Felix and Jeongin announcing their arrival. Minho gives him a wink that looks more like a blink before scampering off to greet their guests. Loud whistles follow Minho’s appearance as well as Jeongin (no doubt) tripping over his own two feet as he gasps out, “I am so not looking respectfully in the slightest. In fact, I am violently drooling.”

Chan remains knelt in the middle of his room listening to the squeals and the awful flirtatious remarks from their maknae. He stays there torn to shreds, bloody and still bleeding all over the damn carpet and himself until even his soul is stained with things he can’t have. “You are one miserable loser,” he says under his breath before Felix can wander in to save him from his hair incompetence.

Chan is never going to survive the night. He is never going to survive Lee Minho.

Chapter Text

Chan was under the impression that this outing of theirs would be fun, euphoric even with the heavy influence of alcohol and seduction that seemed to meander around the establishment. His excuse for even coming back here was to have fun with his best friends, pine a little over his roommate, and not think once about the supposed glory hole waiting for takers in the back bathroom. Chan though, is having anything but fun.

He feels this itch under his skin that either can’t or won’t go away no matter how many times he idly scratches at his arm or palms over his pecs. It’s an insatiable thing, incessant and irritating the longer it lingers deep in his chest and spreads to the furthest reaches of his insides. Like an open wound, the itch festers and becomes debilitating. He’s only waiting for it to become unbearable and isn’t sure that he’s going to like what will happen then.

He strangely feels distant, yet physically present in moments he is half paying attention to. It’s almost like his consciousness has drifted away from his brain just to peek down at his corporeal form and watch everything else surrounding him rather than inhabiting his body like it’s meant to. A live wire. That’s what Chan thinks he is right now. Everything protecting his nerve endings has been stripped from him to expose each and every little essence of his being.

The environment is too much. The bass of the music hits like a pulse under his ribs, a living, breathing thing keen on throwing his balance off-center. Internal noise that rattles his bones in an unpleasant way and keeps his head thoughtless during the conversations happening around him. Strobing lights fracture sweat-sheened skin. Jewelry glints with each pulse and change of the light flashing over bodies, faces, and the clinks of shot glasses hitting together. Everything is too close. Much too close. Perfume, heat, alcohol—all the sounds and brushes of skin drive him mad. Chan can’t breathe.

Minho feels too close too yet not close enough. All six of them are shoved into a booth off in the corner so that they don’t have to shout too much to hear each other. Chan is sitting at the edge because like Minho, Jeongin too cannot keep his hands to himself when he has some alcohol in his system, and Chan really does not want to be smooshed against him right now. His wandering hands were less shy than Minho’s, and Chan already feels entirely too overstimulated.

Minho is the one pressed against his side. Their hips are flush, and Chan chokes on his breath each time the heat of Minho’s bare side brushes against his own exposed skin when the man leans forward to grab for his drink. He has a thigh thrown over him too. Entirely unnecessary. There is enough room in the curved booth for Minho to not be half in his lap, but he chooses to sit that way anyway. It’s like he wants to sit in Chan’s lap or is inching his way into doing so. Chan wishes he would just decide already. Minho’s heat, his touch, is way too close for him to remain unaffected, but Chan desperately wants him to be even closer.

Sometimes Minho’s hand creeps up the back of his neck too to play with the wisps of hair slightly curling in the dampness of his nape. Felix had tied his hair up into a knot with bangs framing around his face and barely long enough to tuck behind his ear. It isn’t a messy style. Every strand is carefully placed, exactly where it’s supposed to be, like a controlled sort of chaos. It doesn’t take away from the elegance of his outfit or the richness he feels wearing himself like this. Every brush of fingers over his nape has a chill running up his spine despite how hot it is. It’s a miracle that Minho hasn’t commented on how Chan seems to be vibrating out of his skin.

It isn’t any question either why Chan feels so out of it—the complete opposite of put together. It comes in the form of Lee Minho himself and the intoxicating presence of him stuck at Chan’s side. He feels foolish thinking that he could handle him in this sort of environment like he had semi-well last time because Minho didn’t look like he does now the last time. Not even close.

If Chan had felt mildly insane and chipped during their last adventure here, then he feels clinically insane and shattered to pieces now. There isn’t even anything left of him but a heap of flesh and bone drenched in arousal.

The glint and twinkle of the jewelry adorning Minho’s body is a constant flicker in the corner of his eye. Whether it’s just a reflection from the lights that race or pulse over them or from Minho shifting around, Chan can still catch them. He peeks at them too with glances subtly thrown to Minho’s ears, his throat, or the exposure of chest and the line of white gold slipping beneath the sliver of buttoned fabric.

Sometimes Minho will slouch too far forward to open the neckline of the satin too much so that both his pecs are on painful display. Chan has even caught a couple nipple glimpses too, but the plumpness of those pectorals and how squeezable they look really throw him off guard. He never knew Minho’s chest was so delectable—almost as much as his stomach is. Chan will skirt his gaze down there too. To the tiny folds of Minho’s slight pudge as he sits, the way the chains rest over his skin, and at the sparkle of the jewelry stuck through his navel. It really was something to behold.

Everyone had praise to throw Minho when they first saw him in this scandal of an outfit. A lot of ‘oo’ and ‘ah’ from each of their mouths when Minho strutted into the sitting room to greet them all before their departure. Chan wasn’t the only one who didn’t know about the piercing; it appeared that no one did when each of them took turns marveling over the sight. Jeongin even got onto his knees right in front of Minho in much the same fashion Chan had earlier and gripped his waist tight as he stared at the offending piece drooling all over himself.

Chan thinks his appreciation over Minho’s decorated tummy is subtle enough to remain unnoticed. He doesn’t look for long before shame forces his eyes away nor does he stare outright either. But Felix always catches his eye with a knowing look when Chan has had his fill. He smirks at him too. Chan can’t blame him. Felix was lightning quick to notice the humiliating boner in Chan’s pants when he came in to fix up his hair. He was also the one who forcefully urged Chan to go take care of it in the bathroom to relieve the tension before the night got too hectic.

Chan obliged because there was no other possible way to get that beast to go down with Minho wandering around oblivious to how he was affecting him. A quick jerk off session in his bathroom with the spout running water to hide the pitiful whimpers slipping past his lips. When Chan unloaded into the toilet water it wasn’t like he was imagining himself coming over porcelain. No, his brain was picturing Minho’s abdomen and how all that jewelry might look with his cum dripping all over the metal.

Shame. Chan burned hot with it as he washed his hands in the sink staring back at his reflection that looked just as miserable as he felt. He was nothing but a sappy-eyed milksop at that moment. Or maybe that was just how Chan always was when it came to Minho.

Even now he still catches glimpses of his reflection just to see how hopeless, lost, and bloody he is. He wears all that emotion on his face and can only seem to build up his walls when the need truly matters. Minho would have realized how in love Chan was long ago if he hadn’t been able to manage as such. Instead of clear reflections through mirrors, Chan sees himself broken now fragmented in chrome, glass, and lights. Still, he looks as sorry as he does when he is whole.

Though Minho’s decision to crumple up his modesty and put himself on display like this is the catalyst of Chan losing any shred of sanity he had left, Chan can also tell that Minho isn’t overly comfortable with it. He isn’t wearing himself as confidently as he had when it was just the two of them in their apartment. The second they met night air and the subsequent stuffy heat of this club, Minho has drawn in on himself a bit. He’s still the obnoxious flirt and carefully postured smug menace, but he does it with a slight wrinkle in his brow.

He holds himself up almost too much when he’s walking around or passing through people to get to the bar. His expressions sometimes seem a little too pinched when usually Chan would only find smooth or passive indifference. Chan thinks he’s thinking too much about how other people are looking at him, like they may not enjoy what they find with so much of his skin put on display. Even as they sit here among friends with no strangers, Minho will sometimes curl his arm around his stomach like he’s trying to hide away or shift his hips around like he’s uncomfortable.

Chan wishes there was something he could do or say to alleviate the insecurity. He thought he had already said enough in chasing Minho’s doubts away, but being comfortable around friends was different than being comfortable in a place packed with too many sweaty bodies. Each time Minho shifts around or haphazardly covers his abdomen, Chan places his palm over the thigh in his lap to bring him any sort of reprieve.

Minho was lust, seduction, and ardor incarnate all wrapped together in a glittery bow shoved right into Chan’s hands by the devil himself. Sometimes he wishes Minho could see that. He doubts it would save him any of this bloody ache he carries around, but it would be nice to be known for once.

Fingers come into focus just in front of his nose. Fingers that are snapping for his attention that seemed to have been lost in anything but the conversation happening around him. They snap so close in front of his nose that Chan can feel the noise over his skin. He blinks at them in confusion before turning to Jeongin who is half leaning over the entire table to shove his fingers in his face and half over Minho to reach him.

“What?” he coughs out. All his focus snaps right back to Minho though instead of the person trying to talk to him. Minho, who is rubbing at his nape with a thumb and tilting his head at Chan with amusement on his lips.

“Yennie is trying to talk to you, Channie,” Minho says with a voice that’s velvety smooth. Chan can smell the alcohol on his breath, the musky cologne wafting from his closeness, and all he can look at is the way his blonde hair falls over his shiny eyes.

“For like five minutes now,” Jeongin whines and slumps back into his seat with a huff. Chan blinks away from the sultry monster sucking the life out of him to give Jeongin his attention. Well, half of his attention. Minho is still staring at him after all. “I was trying to ask when you’d let me borrow a belly chain, Hyung, but you were lost in la-la land. What were you thinking about?”

Chan feels his eye twitch at the sudden delight in Jeongin’s eyes because of course he knows exactly what is on his mind. The entire table does except for the one that should. It must be obvious in his blatant distraction and his ignorance of everyone else. Chan is pretending to be at ease, present in his surroundings, but he’s aware that he’s failing terribly. He laughs half a second late at jokes, looks in the direction of someone’s pointing only after everyone else has forgotten about it, and apparently can not recognize when people are talking to him.

Instead of offering an answer that would be complete bullshit anyway, Chan gulps half his drink down that tastes more like straight vodka than it does the juice it was supposed to be mixed with. The mild burn of it makes him shiver slightly, though that could just be Minho’s hand trailing down to gently squeeze at his bicep.

“So muscly,” he murmurs. Chan seriously cannot breathe. His fingers fumble with the glass a little when he tries to set it down, and he pretends not to hear the short giggles from across the table.

“Um,” he clears his throat not liking the way the lights are suddenly making his eyes hurt. That’s never happened before. “You’ve never asked for one, Innie-yah. Next time, yeah? I’ll help you put it on.” Jeongin seems to swoon at such news. He’s scattered. So scattered.

“Bullshit!” Seungmin shouts from across the table with his hands in the air. “I asked for one that one time, and you just threw it at me and told me to figure it out myself. And don’t blah blah about how I was going to wear it under something because that doesn’t even matter.” Chan wishes his friends forgot how to access their memories in times like this. Especially when it was meant to derail what comes out of his mouth and turn it into a teasing match about his stupid feelings.

And Minho—poor, oblivious Minho, is the worst about opening his mouth without knowing what sort of havoc his words would bring.

“Channie put all of mine on for me. I just stood my hot ass there,” he says smug with his wandering hand drifting down to brush over the naked skin of Chan’s waist. Minho only says it to get a one up on everyone, to prove that Chan is mushy when it comes to him and therefore his favorite. How right Minho could unknowingly be. Everyone else is already so painfully aware of the truth. All Minho’s words do is prove a point that he himself does not get.

Chan’s ears heat at both the touch and the way Seungmin’s face breaks into this evil grin. Just more fuel for this fire ever burning in his chest. “Well, of course he did, Hyung,” Seungmin says like the little shit he is. “You’re his special little man. Channie would do anything to spoil you.”

Chan refuses to comment on that. Seungmin had this habit of boldly skimming topics Chan didn’t want brought up just to pique Minho’s curiosity enough to inquire about what exactly the words mean. Thankfully, Minho never takes the bait even when he isn’t tipsy, and thankfully, Felix bursts more words out before Minho even gets the chance.

“Oh, Hyung! Me too!” he shouts then slumps into Jeongin’s side to grab onto him in a tangle of limbs. “Spoil me too. And Yennie. Can we stand our hot asses there too and have you decorate us in pretty chains? Oh, please.” Jeongin enthusiastically nods along before giggling and whispering into Felix’s ear. Chan isn’t sure he wants to know what he said. “Or Innie said you could just tie us up in pretty chains instead.” Right.

Chan lets his head fall back with a thunk as he stares up at the flashing lights of the ceiling. Why did everyone insist on sitting around to get a nice buzz going before they managed to make it on the dance floor? He doesn’t want to sit here chatting about his hopelessness or listen to the freak twins proposition him. It really gets to a point where Chan has stopped being flattered with each comment and maybe is a little curious. Not interested, though. Not.

His head snaps back up though when Minho shifts. The thigh disappears from his lap for only a moment before there is a lot more heat and weight over his legs. Minho gets up on his knees to straddle Chan without sitting all the way down in his lap. Instinctually, Chan’s hand falls to Minho’s thigh when he sways a bit over him. Chan just stares at him with a desert of a throat and swarming flames reaching up from his core to lick at his teeth. The hand on his waist remains for a second then trails up the front of his chest to clasp over his shoulder.

Minho’s looking down at him with his head hung forward—bangs shrouding his eyes and glossy lips parted to reveal the tips of his teeth. “Gotta pee,” he says loud enough for Chan to barely hear over the music. His lips twitch up into a small smile before he’s shaking the hair from his face to reveal cheeks flushed with alcohol and hazy eyes lost in mild intoxication. Divinity, he thinks. That’s what Minho is. Something untouchable that chooses to crawl over his lap to exit the booth rather than ask Chan to let him out.

Minho slips from his lap with a short giggle, taking all the heat and flames with him. Chan is sure that he’s gasping for breath with his hand still stuck over a thigh that used to be there as he watches Minho go. His posture straightens into that indifferent confidence as he stalks off toward the bathroom with his nose slightly raised at any who turns to look him over. Everyone, it seems. Gravitational pull. Minho tore everyone’s attention to orbit around him with such ease, even when Chan could so clearly see just in the set of his shoulders that Minho’s confidence was a crumbly wall dressed like that.

Without his steady presence half in his lap and plastered against his side, everything around Chan morphs into something on the brink of too much. The bass thumps agonizingly against his skull like a pounding migraine not even the burn of alcohol can soothe. The lights flashing and changing colors make everything worse. Chan wants to close his eyes and never open them again to escape the harshness of it all. He hadn’t realized how bad it was until Minho left, disappeared from his sight behind the door of the bathroom. Not the back one with a certain feature. Just the normal bathroom.

Even the people, all the smells, feel overbearing. Cologne is too sharp, perfume too dizzying, and the stench of alcohol mixed with cigarettes something that clings in the back of his throat. Chan didn’t feel like this the last time they were here. He wasn’t a body of exposed nerves being assaulted by the smallest particles in the air. Crowds have never been an issue for him. He should be fine, but he’s not.

He flinches when Jeongin slides into the empty space Minho left to settle against his side. Both of his legs end up thrown across Chan’s lap, arms looping around his neck in a loose hug, and chin resting over his bare shoulder. The touch makes his skin crawl, and he flinches because it isn’t Minho. It isn’t the warm silk of Minho touching him or invading his space to warm up his already overheated body further. It’s just Jeongin. Was Minho really holding him together that much?

“Hyung, are you alright?” Jeongin asks. His voice is too loud in Chan’s ear like the wave lengths of the sound are grating his eardrum into dust. But it’s also distant, fragmented, and wonky. It feels like Jeongin is both crawling into his ear canal to speak to him but also calling his name from borders away. Chan picks up on the twinge of concern in the tone.

Of course, Jeongin can tell something isn’t right. He’s attuned to every one of Chan’s mannerisms like a fly to rotten fruit for no other reason than just being plain obsessive over something he can’t have. Perhaps they are too similar in that sense. He flinches again when Jeongin lightly pinches his neck stealing his attention away from everything and nothing all at once.

Once his bearings have returned again to his body, Chan blinks himself back into a present state of mind only to find everyone at the table looking at him in varying degrees. Jeongin is propped on his shoulder with a frowny pout. Seungmin looks annoyed, Changbin curious in a backhanded sort of way, and Felix has this awful bout of pity written all over his face. “What?” he huffs out. They would never give it a rest. Not when Minho was present and certainly not when he wasn’t.

“You dragged us all out here for a night of fun partying, and you’re acting like someone stole all your organs,” Seungmin snaps at him with a hard press of his lips. “Not everything is about you and your crippling obsession with being a poor, sorry sod of a man. Your inability to act on something or for fuck’s sake, at least talk to him isn’t just hurting everyone else’s joy. Chan, you’re killing yourself by continuously doing this. Get a grip or sack up already.”

Chan watches Seungmin push himself from the booth and stalk off to nowhere in particular with this hollow roar in his gut. He knows Seungmin is right; that little devil has always been right, but that didn’t mean Chan liked to hear any of it. Wallowing in his own self destruction was his way of coping. He just hates that everyone else likes to stick their hands in too like it would make any difference.

“Hyung-ah,” Felix says softly trying to look a little happier with the sour weight of Seungmin’s words hanging in the air. Even Changbin shoots him an apologetic look for the short outburst, but he doesn’t chase after his boyfriend. “Why can’t you just tell him? You really are torturing yourself, and none of us like seeing you like this. Minho-hyung doesn’t understand that it’s because of him. I promise you that.”

He wishes that Jeongin caressing the side of his neck with his thumb was comforting. It would be in any other scenario but now, it only makes him feel worse because it isn’t Minho touching him. “I can’t,” he breathes out. If he knew how Minho felt, then things would be different. But he doesn’t know. He doesn’t even have the faintest clue, and Chan will not risk a lifetime of what they already have in asking for more. “I just can’t.”

Give Minho an inch, and he’d take a mile just to wad it up and throw it right back in your face with a snarky remark. Try to take an inch from Minho, and he’d give you absolutely nothing with his nose in the air like some ponce who knows the entirety of his worth. Minho only gave when you weren’t requesting anything or in moments when it was least expected. Even then it was only a mere centimeter—not an offer but a deal that he would soon come around to collect his own share of. Chan has been trudging through that push and pull for more years than he has fingers to count. Mucking it up now for the sake of his happiness? How foolish.

Changbin clears his throat from across the table in a suspicious way. Chan meets his curious gaze just as he tilts his head to the side with a poorly hidden smile. “Disregarding everything that was just said, humor me for a moment,” he says. Chan doesn’t like where this is going. “Did you tug one out before we left?”

If that was an attempt to lighten the mood, then Chan would dub it as a complete failure. He reaches for his glass again to choke back the rest of its contents in a dry swallow. Obviously he tugged one out. Had they seen how Minho looked? There was no way he was going to admit that though, and he glances once at Felix hoping that he wouldn’t open his mouth about it either.

“It’s okay if you did, Hyung,” Jeongin says close to his ear. One of his hands has drifted down to wander over his chest where he squeezes at his pecs and shuffles closer. “No one would blame you. I almost had to. Minho-hyung looks like the most erotic wet dream I have ever had, and I’ve had some crazy dreams before. Mostly about you though.”

Chan shoves Jeongin away from him before he starts kissing at his neck which he has done before in situations like these. He doesn’t dwell on the dejected whine the younger lets out or the glimpse of his fractured reflection he sees in his empty glass as he pushes himself from the booth. “Need another drink,” he murmurs on his way out. Maybe if he downs enough of it he’ll be able to wash away that stain Minho has left all over his insides.

The bar top is sticky when Chan leans his elbows on it. With a grimace, he removes them and quickly orders another drink that he hopes tastes more like alcohol than his last few. People brush past him as they pass behind him or leave with their own drinks. Chan flinches every time because still, these touches are not Minho. He hates them. The sweaty heat of others makes him want to hurl and it has nothing to do with the alcohol already sloshing through his system.

Because Chan is hyper-aware of where Minho is in the room at all times, he notices when his blonde head comes strutting out of the bathroom. Instead of wandering back to their table or going to mill through the singular heartbeat of bodies on the dance floor, that little blonde head starts making his way to where Chan is leaning against the bar waiting for his damn drink. Chan doesn’t stare. He just remains conscious of how close Minho is and when he will be right there. He notices the glint of his jewelry before he feels the heat of him approaching his side.

Then Chan finds him in the reflection of the small glass panels decorating the bar wall. Both are fractured in the glass like fragments of faces, bodies, skin, and sparkling metal. A piece of abstract art. Their forms only straighten when Minho sidles up against his side, hip to hip. That single touch immediately fades everything into the background until all that remains is Minho. Even then, it’s only one half of their bodies standing together. Two broken people standing as one single being like their souls just couldn’t help from melding together. Chan will only ever see them as one whole, complete picture in his dreams. Even the mirror knows that tragedy.

Minho holds up three fingers to the passing bartender without a word and gets a nod of understanding in return. Chan would find that silent exchange odd, but then that hand holding up three falls to his ass. There is no pocket for Minho to creep his touch into, so he merely rests it over the curve of his right cheek. One squeeze is all it takes for Minho to hum in curiosity before he’s groping all over Chan’s backside. He’s thorough with his exploration like he hasn’t done this millions of times before. Chan lost count years ago, but he would never mind the reacquaintance.

Fingers inch up to his waistband where they pause for a brief moment. Then there’s a palm sliding over his right cheek down to his thigh. He repeats the action with the other cheek, squeezing handfuls the entire time and watching Chan in the reflection of the glass with a slight upturn to his lips and delight in his eyes. When Minho is satisfied, he rests his hand over its original spot with another pleased hum. “You aren’t wearing underwear,” he says. A statement. Not a question.

Chan shrugs just as his drink gets placed in front of him. “And? You never do. Maybe I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about,” he says casually. Casual. Like all this illusioned intimacy Minho touched him with that will only ever and always be casual. Maybe Chan forwent them to feel a speck of freedom in the imprisonment of his own feelings. Maybe he forwent them because he knew Minho would notice.

Minho giggles in an endearing sort of way that lets Chan know he is definitely a little more than tipsy. He doesn’t stop Minho from stealing his drink away to take a sip from the tiny straw because the immediate sour face he pulls is more than worth it. “Oh, hold on,” Minho gasps out with widening eyes, “lemme see something quick.” Chan turns his head over his shoulder as Minho steps behind him with a devilish glint in his eyes. He knows that means trouble, but with Minho he could hardly care.

He does care maybe a smidge when Minho slaps his ass fairly hard and it sends a jolt of interest through his dick which has remained under strict control since they left the apartment. His hand involuntarily grips the bar top when Minho does it again giggling like a maniac. Chan can see the glee in his eyes in the glass reflection and prepares to stand here like this all night if it’ll keep Minho entertained.

“Gee, Channie. I think you leveled cities with that recoil,” Minho says with a little awe before coming to stand beside him again with a grin. Such fascination with his backside. Chan wishes that fascination extended to more parts of him. What ever happened to personality? “You should diss underwear more often. Makes your ass look even more like a delicacy.”

Chan means to say something witty back. Something that would start up Minho’s happy giggles again or get his hand back on his ass, but the bartender returns with three shot glasses full of something dark. Dangerous too, more than likely. Chan is already nursing a lousy triple that’ll probably give him heartburn in the morning. Antacids could fix that. The heartburn Minho gives him? Uncurable.

“Those all for you?” Chan asks with a raised brow. Minho isn’t at the bar with anyone but him, and he hasn’t made any move to gather them in his hands and return to their booth. Even then, three is not enough to satisfy everyone. Chan wonders if Minho is harboring his own secrets if he means to throw them all back right here.

Minho shrugs and passes one over to Chan. “One for you because you look absolutely miserable. Have since we left. But I know you won’t tell me why, so I won’t ask,” he says with a slight frown. Chan doesn’t like how the words make the pit in his stomach grow. The frown disappears as soon as it appears, replaced with a wobbly smile. “And two for me. Liquid courage and all that. Better to flaunt myself if I’m not thinking too much about how I look and more about not falling over.” Then he tips one of the glasses back, and Chan watches the way his throat bobs with the burn before doing the same.

Liquid courage, right?

“Mimo,” he says seriously. Though Minho claims to hate the nickname that only Chan calls him, he always listens when it’s uttered. “It’s okay to feel anxious in your own skin, you know? Whether it’s just a new experience for you, or you legitimately feel uncomfortable showing yourself off like this, that’s okay.” Minho makes a face before reaching for his second shot. “But you’re really pretty. Like, really pretty.”

And Chan looks him over again. At the glittery mystery of his eyes covered in colored shadows and hiding behind his ever-growing blonde hair. He looks at the exposure of his collarbones, his chest, and how glowy his skin is under the club’s lights covered in a sheen of sweat. He looks at his tummy—at the barely noticeable pudge there, the iridescence of the piercing in his navel, and how the chains enhance his beauty rather than take it away. Minho fits the clothes he’s wearing exceptionally well. The fabric hugs him and accentuates everything he has to offer in the best of ways.

Minho is just Minho. Even if he wasn’t wearing something like this. It would be wrong for Chan not to confess his thoughts on the matter. They won’t mean much anyway. Not in the way Chan intends them.

“Just in case it meant anything different for you,” he continues, “I think you’re really pretty, Minho. Even in your sleep clothes or that overly puffy coat that you hate wearing so much. You’ve always been and will always be pretty to me.”

Minho isn’t looking directly at him but staring silently at the curve of Chan’s shoulder. He doesn’t say or do anything for the longest time besides standing there in a muted trance. His cheeks are rosy, the tips of his ears red where they peek through blonde strands, and his lips tightly pressed together like he was trying his damnedest to hide the smile threatening to break through. He looks so soft. The honey glow of his sweaty skin and his bright eyes shining with something affectionate even as they refuse to meet Chan’s gaze.

Chan really wants to pull him into a hug even though he knows Minho would just squirm away or probably start shouting. He wants to tuck Minho’s hair behind his red ears or brush the bangs from his face to see him a little better. Maybe he wants to leave his hand stuck on his cheek too and leave a kiss on his jaw to let him know how much he means it. A real kiss would be nice too, but Chan doesn’t have the balls it requires to do something like that. Or any of what he wants to do it seems.

“Thank you, Chan-ah,” Minho finally says smally, like a little squeak he hadn’t meant to let out. Chan offers a genuine smile that Minho never sees because he doesn’t raise his eyes as he pats him on the shoulder he’d been staring at before walking directly into the crowd of the dance floor. He disappears into the mass of bodies almost instantly.

Chan would follow him, ask to dance even, but that’s not how this works. He has to wait for Minho to ask either as a direct request or from a particular look thrown at him from across the room. If Minho doesn’t ask, then there will be no dancing together. That’s just how things work between them. Feeling a little warm and a lot hollow, Chan sighs as he takes his drink and wanders back to their booth.

Shockingly, everyone has deserted their little space when Chan gets there, probably to escape his bad mood before it returned. Everyone except Seungmin who seems to have cooled off enough from his random outburst to welcome Chan back. They don’t acknowledge each other when Chan takes the spot right next to him, and that’s fine. He understands why Seungmin is upset with him and knows that it won’t last for long. So, Chan rests his elbows on the not sticky table with the straw of his drink stuck between his lips and watches the crowd of bodies dancing as a single entity.

He spots Minho easily and quickly. His eyes have always been attuned to picking him out in even the biggest, messiest crowds. Minho was terribly hard to miss when Chan has spent so long seeking him out and searching for him even when he wasn’t there. It doesn’t help though that Minho is in his direct line of sight, toward the outskirts of the moving bodies, and already dancing with someone. Someone who isn’t him, of course. They aren’t too close to each other, not yet, and they certainly aren’t dry humping like Jeongin and Felix seem to be not too far from them. Those two are absolute fiends.

Whoever this guy is doesn’t really matter. Chan hardly pays him any mind beyond the fact that he is cute, exactly Minho’s type, and very interested in dancing with him. The focus here is Minho—the way he fluidly moves with each roll of his body and the grace he carries in each of his limbs. Even under the influence, Minho is an unstoppable force when it comes to being on the dance floor. If anything, he becomes worse when alcohol is involved. Hotter, bolder, and dripping sex with every sway of his body.

Minho looked better then, in the quiet of Chan’s bedroom standing nervously in the center with his hands on his hips. Here, the light makes everything harsher. Sharper angles. Silky skin glowing and dripping lust. Jewelry that glints and shines like Minho himself is a disco ball spinning at the ceiling’s center. Everything on him looks so grabbable. Hips. Waist. Ass. Thighs. His fucking tits that keep baring themselves each time the satin like liquid over his skin dips far enough forward to expose trails that Chan longs to lick.

Drink. Drink. He doesn’t think he stops drinking. This isn’t fun. It’s torture—poison that contaminates and mutates his blood into something loathing.

Chan waits. He waits, and he stares. Minho always beckons him to come join him when he tires of the random men trying to get handsy with him. Every time. Minho dances with him every time to show all the sorry suckers here what they can’t have. Like Minho already belonged to him or something. But Minho doesn’t beckon him. He hasn’t even looked over once or caught his stare like he always did. Chan just sits there feeling like he’s going to explode. He’s the sorry sucker now, and Minho is showing him exactly what he can’t and won’t ever have.

The lights keep flashing. They pulse with the beat of music that is deafening Chan’s ears. They change colors to mirror Minho’s presence like even this club is vying for his attention. Purple. White. Purple. White. Heartbeat.

The chains swish around his body like they can’t let go of him either. His bellybutton twinkles. His shirt rides higher. Hands that are not his, not Minho’s, encircle his waist with a squeeze—too familiar, too easy. Purple. White. Hips knock together. That guy laughs into Minho’s neck. Then kisses the sweat on his skin. Mouths over his throat when Minho tips his head back with parted lips. Purple. White. Too loud. Too much. Chan’s drink tastes like metal.

His body is achingly tense. Every muscle feels taut, and skeleton crammed like he somehow no longer fit in his own body. He’s hard too—can feel it pooling low in his tummy and stretching out his pants as he sits there with his thighs squeezed together.

Minho was a sin. No matter what he did or who he was doing it with, Chan would always fall victim to the nasty games of ignorance. He feels like he’s swallowed a nuclear reactor that has wedged its way painfully into his core. Seconds. Chan fears he is only seconds away from immolation or exploding everywhere. Poor Seungmin is going to end up drenched in his remains.

Chan sips until his straw runs dry and all he’s sucking up is air. He only feels a little woozy, but he grumbles at the loss anyway with the straw still stuck on his lips. That is, until his empty drink is taken from him and replaced with something much fuller. It’s sharper on his tongue and nasty down his throat. He knows Seungmin has given him his drink, but Chan can’t look away from the display of Minho and that guy rubbing hips together. The feat is impossible.

Then Seungmin’s voice is close in his ear. Dry and grounding. It’s enough to break him from his trance but not enough to get him to look away. “You look like you’re about to pass out or propose. I can’t tell which.” Chan just grumbles again. He doesn’t need Seungmin’s snide remarks right now. “You know, Hyung. Mind powers don’t work either. Exploding someone just by staring at them does not work. Trust me, I have tried. Even on you a few times.”

Chan takes a deep inhale before taking a gulp of whatever monstrosity Seungmin had been drinking. He wasn’t trying to explode anyone. He just doesn’t like the way this guy is all over Minho when it should be him. “Sometimes I wish I were blind,” he mutters around the straw.

Seungmin scoffs right in his ear. “Don’t be stupid.” It’s harsh but necessary. Seungmin counters it by bringing fingers up to twirl the strands of Chan’s bangs. “That wouldn’t make you love him any less. It was never only about looks when it came to Minho, and you know that. You’re just upset that he waltzes around looking like that and decided to dance with someone who isn’t you for once.”

Always so intuitive that Kim Seungmin. Chan often wonders if he’s some omniscient being because he’s more than right; he’s spot on. If Chan had to list all the things that he loves about Lee Minho in order, well, his looks would be lower on the list because physical attraction was never a driving factor in how Chan felt about a guy. It isn’t that they are unimportant, but never the star of the show. Being blind would change nothing. Chan would still be as infatuated with Minho as he is with sight.

It’s just that when Minho happens to look exceptionally good, Chan is, for lack of a better word, blinded by his beauty to the point that all his other aspects that Chan has fallen in love with filter to the back of his mind. Minho’s beauty certainly was a weakness that drunk Chan could never overcome.

Then Seungmin is draping his arm over Chan’s shoulders and leaning so close that his lips tickle his ear as he speaks. Again, he shivers with disgust at a touch that isn’t from Minho. “You know, there are quieter ways to suffer, Hyung. You could…unfry your circuits before you end up combusting.” The words are twisted in quiet tease and veiled sincerity. Chan can’t tell if he’s joking or not. He can’t though. He isn’t like that anymore.

Seungmin pushes him a little more almost fully into his space. Chan’s grip on the glass feels close to shattering. “I know of a secret place to cool off. Works wonders on helpless little souls. You’ll forget about him in no time. At least for the rest of the night. Go blow off all this steam, yeah? You never know who’ll you find on the other side. Maybe, it’ll be everything you’ve been grasping for.”

Again, with the suggestive words warped in tease. He can’t help but wonder if Seungmin knows something he doesn’t. Even the corner of his mouth lifts like he already knows the outcome or is simply imagining it.

Chan clenches his jaw, grits his teeth, and uselessly digs his nails into the glass of his half-empty drink. Minho is enjoying himself far too much with that man’s wandering hands and mouth. He’s touching too—roaming palms groping all over the man’s chest and tugging him closer. The worst of it all is that Minho looks happy with his bright smile and twinkling eyes. Chan can’t breathe. He can’t think, and he can’t feel, or he feels too much of everything all at once. His mind, body, and soul are stripped. He’s spilling out everywhere. It’s so dark and cold in the emptiness beneath his skin.

It's stupid. It’s reckless. It isn’t him—not anymore. Maybe if he empties himself out somewhere dark, he can breathe again. He tells himself that’s all it is. A breath of fresh air, a means to an end, something to relax himself enough to be able to just exist for the rest of the night without feeling like he’s choking on nothing. He tells himself it’s just a reset to release all this tension he’s had building and building up over the years. It never is.

Chan watches Minho for a beat just waiting for him to look his way. Waiting for a sign that he doesn’t have to resort to this. Nothing ever comes. He even lingers for a little longer trying to convince himself that he’ll be fine, but he knows that he never will be. His last straw is when the man slides his palm over Minho’s bare stomach to thumb over his bellybutton and twist the piercing around. Chan feels himself break, this visceral drop that spreads demise through the rest of everything that was still holding on.

Seungmin lets go easily when Chan pushes himself up from the booth and stalks off toward the hallway with trembling limbs. All his senses hone in on the hallway that will lead him to false bliss. Tunnel vision. Everything else simply fades into nonexistence. He shoulders past people milling about uncaring of if he knocks into them or trips up on his balance.

The music dulls to a heartbeat muffled in the walls. The air feels heavier, weighted with something cold, harrowing. It smells faintly of disinfectant and sweat in this hallway. The lights are darker, cast warped shadows on the walls, and seem to swallow up everything that lingers on his skin. Each step echoes in deliberate stride. It’s the only other thing Chan can hear now over the pounding of his heart. He’s still trembling half from jealousy and half from shame, but his cock is interested. It seems to hum further with every step closer he takes toward the room at the end of the hallway.

When Chan turns the corner and meets the end of this little carved space of solitude, he meets a door that blends into the darkness. It reads ‘employees only’, but it’s the only other entrance in sight. It looks like isolation. It looks like relief.

He catches his reflection in the doorknob all distorted and looking nothing like him. Fractured, like the darkest parts of him are the only things showing. Chan covers it with his hand before he can overanalyze it and opens the door. Fresh air. That’s all this is. Anonymous sex doesn’t mean anything. It never meant anything to Chan. Not when it wasn’t Minho.

The handle is cool under his palm, slick with something that might be sweat or guilt. He can still hear the bass, faint and thudding, like a heart he’s about to abandon. Somewhere out there, Minho is still laughing, still glowing beneath the lights, still unreachable. Chan’s throat feels tight with everything he’ll never say. Just a breath of fresh air, he tells himself again, though he no longer believes the lie. He turns the knob, steps into the dark, and lets the door close behind him.

A room bathed in dim, sultry light greets him. Here, there is only silence. The sounds of the club cannot reach him nor do the flashing lights or sweaty bodies that taint him in displeasure. It’s almost peaceful to be shut away in here, but Chan knows it’s only an illusion. False hope and promises. False shelter from the things he cannot escape. He can breathe though, and he can hear his own thoughts no matter how deceptive or deprecating they are. Again, he tells himself, this is just for fresh air.

It doesn’t look like a place for only employees unless the workers of this club are into sensual anonymity or banging disagreements out on a leather couch. He decides never to ask how Seungmin found out about this place. It’s the weirdest bathroom Chan has ever seen, but that’s the thing; it is a bathroom. There’s a sink off in the corner and two toilet stalls tucked in the other alongside a urinal. He avoids the mirror above the sink. Chan knows he won’t like the reflection that would stare back at him.

The stalls run all the way to the floor with doors that do the same. The partitions go high enough that Chan is sure there was no way to see over them even if he did stand on the toilet bowl. The floors are tiled in much the same fashion a normal bathroom would be, but the kicker really has to be the leather couch positioned right across from the two stalls. He doesn’t even want to think about the sort of fluids left behind on the surface or stuck in the crevices. Helpfully, the door also locks from the inside for privacy of whoever is enjoying these amenities. Chan doesn’t lock it though. He’s the only one here at the moment.

He wanders into the furthest stall and closes the door behind him with hands that feel too clammy and a body that seems too cluttered. In a place like this, he should feel nauseous or grossed out, but this bathroom isn’t dingy. It actually seems fairly clean despite its activities. If anything, Chan feels nostalgia from closing himself in this bathroom stall.

His college self had seen a lot of glory holes in what Changbin refers to as the ‘glory days’. He knows how they work, the etiquette, and how to operate in a situation like this. Muscle memory, he thinks.

It doesn’t make it anymore right though. Chan shouldn’t have subjected himself to resorting back to the person he used to be. What other choice did he have? Suffering didn’t seem to be working out so well for him.

The hole itself is at the perfect height for his hips yet not large enough to stick his balls through. That’s fine. The upside is that the opening is modestly padded with something soft to keep his dick from chafing or any other unfortunate accidents. The only accident that will happen here is Chan shamefully giving into desire or if he’s unlucky enough, an STD or two. He tries not to think about that outcome. No use dwelling on that when he came to play.

Thankfully, there is a packet of wipes helpfully waiting for him on the top of the toilet. It won’t do much good other than giving him peace of mind. That should be enough anyway. He takes more than one wipe out and drags it across every inch of the partition even close to the opening. Then he wipes over the padding like it’s stained with something that won’t come out and goes as far as reaching his fingers through the other side to give whoever joins him the same courtesy. If anyone joins him, that is. He doesn’t want to be sitting here all night twiddling his thumbs waiting for salvation.

Semi-satisfied with his poor clean up job, Chan unbuckles his belt to let his pants fall down to his shins and sits on the toilet to keep himself occupied for the time being. He’s hard from watching Minho dance. Not overly so, but enough that his cock has filled out nicely and has a little fluid glistening at the tip.

He probably should have worn underwear. He isn’t wearing constricting pants like Minho is but having his dick be noticeable was the entire point, hard or not. It sure did a lot of good when Minho decided not to even dance with him anyway. He hardly even looked his way except for when they were in the booth together.

He busies himself with his cock as he waits for the click of the door signaling a visitor. It takes next to nothing to stroke himself to fullness and make the shine of fluid at his tip turn into a smeared mess. Chan is just so worked up from everything tonight. Pent up sexual tension and frustration that he’s been harboring for Minho for so long that he’s unknowingly doused in barrels of gasoline by suggesting they go out again. He’s just waiting for the match to light—for that one spark that will set him on fire and burn him into an unrecognizable crisp.

Even if no one joins him, Chan is sure to jerk himself raw just so that he can breathe again.

When the door clicks open, it sounds like the rumble of thunder reverberating on the walls. The slide of the lock is near deafening. Chan’s hand stills its meager attention on his cock. He can no longer hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears or the harshness of his breath. Even his skin stops humming in gooseflesh. All that remains are the quiet footsteps inching closer and the bang of a stall door closing before the latch locks his faceless partner in. Then a deep breath and the sound of a zipper being undone.

Chan doesn’t look away from the hole. He doesn’t even blink, frozen there on the toilet seat with a hand closed around the base of his cock. It’s never mattered to him whether he gives, receives, or does both. He’s never really had a hard preference for how his pleasure is achieved, but he likes to do the receiving more than the taking. Whatever his partner prefers is what Chan will do, though, so he just waits for the signal of what comes next.

It takes a few seconds that feels like long, drawn-out minutes. Hesitation maybe that Chan can relate to. But soon enough there’s a finger that slowly circles the padding of the hole. Then it dips further into the opening as another finger joins, and Chan watches with held breath as the pointer curls into a ‘come hither’ motion. How pleasant. His cock leaks just a little more with the prospect of getting sucked. It’s been years since he’s felt the touch of another like this and not once has that touch been who he needed it to be.

He takes a deep steadying breath before easing his cock through the opening. His hips meet the partition as he spreads his legs as far as the pooled fabric of his pants allows and knocks his forehead against the only thing separating them. Just this once. Chan can slip just this once to ease the torture Minho has been unknowingly putting him through with just his simple existence. Love hurts, and Chan just wants it to stop momentarily.

The stranger, a man, gives an appreciative noise at what Chan has to offer. It’s a quiet hum that rumbles from the back of his throat, and Chan feels his cheeks heat with embarrassment at being so exposed to someone he can’t even see. He was always bashful with things like this. Not having a face to look at or not exchanging any words did little to diminish that.

He jolts a little at the first lick of a flat tongue over his cockhead. Little zips of interest and greed creep through his groin when the man does it again with more pressure. He wants so much more than a few licks. Smooth lips leave open-mouthed kisses all over the head, up and down the length, and with special attention at the slit. Chan knows he’s wet. His cock can’t help but be overjoyed with getting the praise he has denied himself for so long now. If it were Minho’s mouth on him, then Chan would be left with smears of shiny gloss from those plump lips.

His hips knock lightly into the partition when the man’s mouth closes tightly around the head. He suckles on him, tongues at his slit, and stains the inside of his mouth with Chan’s precum. The noises he makes are quiet—stunted little hums at the feel and taste of him on the tip of his tongue. They sound nothing like Chan’s harsh breaths. He didn’t know a stranger could sound so sweet without even uttering a single word.

The heat encapsulating him deepens in slow fashion. Inch by inch that hot mouth sinks down his length before pulling up just a smidge and continuing further. It’s a welcoming sort of heat, oddly familiar, and eases the tension right out of his body. The tongue licking along the underside and tracing veins never quits. Neither do the huffed, happy little noises exhaled through the man’s nostrils. Everything about the man’s mouth is smooth, heavenly. The wet slide of his tongue, the velvet of his soft palate, and finally the tightness when his cockhead nudges against the back of his throat.

Chan plays with what he can when all the real estate of his cock has been engulfed. He cups his balls, fondles them around, and tugs at the loose skin with a fist pressed against the partition. His fingers itch for something to hold onto. Whether it’s the back of a neck or threaded through messy blonde hair, it doesn’t matter. The man swallows around him once, then twice with a soft groan before pulling off to suckle once more on the tip. He only allows a moment for Chan to take a deep breath and goes to work putting his mouth to enthusiastic use.

And just like then when Chan was in bed with people who meant nothing to him, his mind swarms toward Minho to conjure up pictures of him. It’s the only way he can enjoy things like this both in the past and present. Keeping it up for unimportant people was difficult but keeping it up for a Minho façade was no issue. His entire being was made for Minho—body, mind, heart, and soul. His only pleasure comes from Minho. If he can’t have him how he wants, then Chan is just going to have to pretend.

Minho is the one on his knees before Chan bobbing up and down his cock as he palms himself over the tight leather of his pants. Sucking, slobbering, slurping with breathy whines that tickle more strings of precum out that drip right down the rings of his esophagus. Minho is the one drooling all over himself keeping this blowjob wet, sloppy, and so noisy in the near silence of their little nook of privacy. Minho’s fingers are the ones slipping through the chains at his belly, fondling his balls, and skirting up to pinch his nipples.

“Fuck,” Chan grunts unable to keep the curse and husky praise buried down. This guy is sucking him off like it’s his fulltime job—Minho. Minho is sucking him off like it’s his fulltime job. Wet, sloppy, greedy.

Chan isn’t dragging his knuckles against the slightly rough texture of the partition. He has a fistful of Minho’s blonde hair at the top of his tilted-up head to keep his bangs from falling in his eyes or sticking to the sweat of his cheeks. Minho’s staring up at him with half-lidded eyes swimming in desire. They’re wet with unshed tears. His makeup is all smudged and close to running down his face. His filthy mouth stuffed so full of Chan’s cock that it leaves imprints in his throat. His pretty lips stretched red and shiny with saliva and precum wrapped beautifully around Chan, taking everything that is offered him.

“Ngh, fuck—” he grunts again, bites back the name that wants to spill out because this isn’t Minho. No matter how badly Chan wants it to be or how deluded he can convince himself it is, the man on the other side of this wall will never be Minho.

His hips snap forward when he’s swallowed again, balls knocking into the outskirts of the hole’s padding and nails digging into the partition. The man doesn’t pull away from his inability to control himself. Chan can’t help it; he’s being worshipped so good, and he hasn’t felt pleasure like this pooled in his gut or humming at the base of his spine in so long. He’s desperate. So desperate. Instead, the man sinks down as far as he’s allowed and simply waits there with a heavy weight on his tongue and harsh breaths through his nose.

Chan knows it’s a cue, but he doesn’t want to wrongly assume or do something that will make that mouth disappear. He flinches when a palm smacks against the partition and muffles out a groan when a grunt of impatience vibrates through his cock. His satisfaction isn’t the only thing that matters here even if this person means absolutely nothing to Chan. Just a means to an end. Escape.

It takes zero effort for him to ease himself out of that wet heat just to slide slowly back in. Just because it’s been a while doesn’t mean Chan has forgotten how to get his hips in rhythm as he fucks a willing mouth. So willing. There’s no pushback, no hesitation. Only a mouth that yearns to be used, abused, and stuffed full. He’s never been rough. His thrusts are gentle but deep. His mouth hangs open on breathier groans as he smooshes his nose into the partition clawing at it with nails that itch to hold skin—satiny skin with a honey glow. Minho. Minho. Always Minho.

The repetition of throat gurgles echoing in the air mirror the bubbling of ache rising from Chan’s heart. Undercutting them is the soft, muffled moans sounding sweet, syrupy as they wash over his length and pull even more pleasure to the surface. Chan thinks he’s dying. Not because of how good this is but because it isn’t what or who he longs to have. Delusions of grandeur; they only get him so far until he starts to collapse again when his mind finds reality.

This whining sound he’s never made before rips from his throat when everything leaves him. No more mouth, tongue, or wet heat. Just air that feels much too cold on his slickened and hot length. He slumps against the partition pawing uselessly at it with more whines for the stranger to come back. Chan isn’t done. He hasn’t finished, and he doesn’t feel any less wound up in everything Lee Minho than he had before he wandered in here. Had he done something wrong? Was he not doing enough?

Fingers find the base of his cock in a light hold. It’s a familiar warmth he can’t quite place, something soft and tender as a thumb strokes along the underside. Chan isn’t sure what’s happening or why he wants more of those fingers touching him everywhere, but he short circuits even more when something smooth, squishy and warm nudges at his cockhead. All he can think of is Minho standing there with a hand on his dick and dragging the tip all over his stomach, the belly chains, and dirtying his piercing with milky white.

It isn’t Minho though, and it certainly isn’t someone’s tummy.

The man drags his dick over a curve of flesh until it slips between cheeks and slides along his crack to nudge at the base of his balls. Chan moans at the insinuation. Moans some more when the grip on his cock changes and the head is nudging at the flat base of a plug nestled between the man’s cheeks and stuck in his hole. His knees feel like buckling and his arms tremble as he thinks about what it might be like to fuck Minho like a rabid dog. This stranger could do. Chan was so good at pretending until everything was over.

He shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t. Not in some strange place with a strange man who could be carrying anything. Chan doesn’t carry around condoms anymore, and he’s fairly sure that this man doesn’t have one either. There’s no pushing though. No grunts of impatience, no lubing up his dick, or even prepping his ass to get fucked. The man just waits there without a sound and Chan’s cockhead resting at the base of the plug. Waiting. Offering.

Nothing ever came without risk. Falling in love was an unavoidable one. Even coming to this secret of a place was a risk that Chan could have turned from. He hadn’t though, and what’s one more piled on? His need outweighs logic. The alcohol sloshing around and way past infecting his system makes the decision for him. Chan needs this. He does. Snagged in the barbs of his own heart, he just wants relief.

“Okay, okay. Yes,” he rushes out before he changes his mind.

The fingers leave him only to be replaced by a hand covered in liquid. It’s too slick, too cool, and viscous to be saliva. Lube, yes. The hand coats him with it until the man is satisfied. Even then, he doesn’t let go of his dick. There’s a huffed whine beyond the wall as something squelches—the plug being eased from a hole already stretched and slick with lube.

“Come inside,” the man says. His voice isn’t something Chan is familiar with. Gruff, strained, wrecked, and hardly more than a rasp that lacks tone. Unrecognizable. Chan must have done a number on this man’s poor throat. “I’m clean.”

Yes. Yes. Chan would be more than happy to fill someone up. He convinced himself that it’s something Minho might like—that Minho would simply gush at the idea of getting bred by his one and only hyung. He shouldn’t believe what random men tell him in shady backrooms harboring secrets. But Chan shouldn’t even be here in the first place to listen to what could very well be a fib. It won’t matter. It doesn’t. There’s no care. Chan just wants it no matter how disgraced it makes him feel.

“Mhm, mhm,” he nods to an absent audience and licks his lips with excitement when the wet tip of his cock meets an equally wet hole. His live wires are buzzing, near sparking even with the increasing pressure on his cockhead until it breaches through a rim. A rim that’s slick, begging to be full, and greedy in what it wants.

Chan feels like he’s been swallowed up in tight heat when the man takes no care or precaution and simply sinks down the rest of his length in one fell swoop. The partition trembles with the force of ass and thighs hitting against it. Chan can do no more than throw his head back with a moan and claw at the barrier like it could save him from the richness swarming him.

The man makes a sound too. It’s pitchy, crackling from the hoarseness of his throat, and muffled like static. Chan wonders if he’d stuck the plug in his mouth to keep his whines down. He can picture it now—Minho on the other side of this partition stuffed full like a Christmas hog roast with a crisp apple stuck between his teeth. Oh, the sight. He can’t tell if his whimper comes from his conjured images or the hips rotating in small circles as the man all but sits on his cock.

Again, an impatient palm smacks against the partition. The vibration the impact sends through where Chan has his forehead pressed against it feels hurried, so wanting and desperate. A plea born from silence and need.

He starts with a slow, shallow thrust. Chan knows how it feels to be clinging to the last dredges of hope left and the desperation that will twist that hope into doing anything to make it happen. Another thrust that’s still slow but much deeper. He would never corrupt, never hurt Minho. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t inflict all this pain on himself either.

Minho was glory, and Chan was just the bruise that could never heal. He can’t stop himself from shoving his thumb into the tenderness at his center to make it hurt even more.

It’s bliss that tastes like bile in his open mouth as Chan starts thrusting in earnest. The partition trembles with each knock of his hips and the slap of ass trying to chase him deeper. Chan goes fast, he always goes fast, and the wobbling of the partition hurts his forehead too much as it vibrates pleasure through him. His hands grapple for something. Anything. He just wants to hold, to squeeze, to touch. All he has though is rough texture to paw uselessly at.

It’s Minho again. He’s the one getting split on Chan’s cock through a damn partition and whining through every inch of it. Minho’s body that his fingers itch to dig into—ass, thighs, hips, his belly, and that damn curve of his spine. The blonde strands of his head bounce around with each thrust, falling in his eyes and plastering over the sweat lining his forehead. His grunts are low, moans pitchy as they muffle around whatever is stuck in his mouth.

Chan can see the twinkling jewelry on his naked skin drooping from his bent body, swishing around with every jolt of a thrust, and slickening with sweat. He swears he can hear them too—the clinks of thin threads of metal hitting together or jingling around as Chan fucks him. And his tummy. Oh, how he can picture the way his tummy jiggles with every press of his cock and the glint of adornment in his navel. Maybe his piercing is a little wet too. Dripping from the precum that’s smeared all over his belly as Minho jerks himself in quick, tight strokes trying to squeeze his thighs together from how good it all feels just to have them tremble instead.

Chan is trembling too. His thighs shake with each sharp thrust of his hips that feel bruised from assaulting this poor partition over and over again. His fingers too as they claw and grapple at nothing. Chan will never have anything to hold in his hands that isn’t his own shame. But it does feel good. It feels so good to have pleasure swimming through his veins and balls aching for release. This man’s ass is calling to him, swallowing him up and begging for more with each push and pull. Chan feels addicted to the tight heat of it clenching more and more around him.

His groin is swimming with two parts unbridled desire and one part disgust. Maybe it’s regret. Regret because of what he’s doing or regret that it isn’t Minho. Chan just wants to let go. Nothing will ever squash his love for Minho or morph it into anything less, but he just wants to be able to let go. It hurts too much to keep clinging on so helplessly. His balls are heavy, and he wishes they were full of the courage he needed to just tell Minho how he feels already.

“Fuck,” he chokes out feeling his toes curl in his shoes and something hot surge right through his dick. The taste of release is right at the tip of his tongue. So is the drool that’s pooled in his mouth when he licks his lips again and feels a long string of it drip down his chin. Holding on was so hard. Letting go should be easy.

Minho appears to him again not in the form of the faceless man meeting each one of his sloppier thrusts, but as memories that Chan cherishes with each crevice of his being.

Minho in that puffy coat he hates clinging onto Chan’s arm with fear in his eyes as they slowly shuffle over a thin sheet of ice. Minho in his sleep clothes curled on the couch with damp hair and a pouty face as he whines about wanting ice cream but his toes are cold. Minho looking like teary sorrow when they parted ways for college and the teary joy that replaced it when they both graduated and could be together again.

Chan sees Minho quietly smiling to himself after that first time he’d called him ‘Mimo’ when it was just the two of them. Minho acting like a smarmy little devil each time he cutely says ‘Chan-ah’ and happens to get his way. Minho taking Chan’s temperature when he gets sick and fussing over him like a worried mother, hot soup and all. Minho silently padding into Chan’s room when he hasn’t been sleeping the best, crawling in with him, and rubbing his back until Chan drifts off into dreams.

Minho. Always Minho. Letting go should be easy.

“Fuck. Oh fuck, I’m gonna come,” he rushes out in gasps that do little to fill him with oxygen. He presses his entire body to the wobbling partition as his hips lose their rhythm, stutter in quick, small thrusts. The man must be close too. He’s stuck his ass right against the partition, keeps clenching his hole, and lets out these strings of garbled, muffled whines that would sound so syrupy had they been free to echo in the quiet.

Letting go…letting go. Chan should just let go.

“Fuck, oh Minho,” he moans, low and throaty. It feels so good to say his name aloud like this even if he hadn’t meant for it to slip out. Chan never lets it slip out. It’s almost as if his name was intended to be groaned out in the throes of pleasure. Maybe this is him finally letting go.

Something snaps deep in his gut—this wiry hot ball that unfurls in humming droves all through his nerves. It snaps because the man makes this wanton keen that’s less muffled than before and it sounds like an angel’s choir. It snaps because the hole he’s fucking suddenly clenches up something tight and doesn’t let up as the man whines and whines around whatever is in his mouth. Chan thinks it even sounds a little like he’s crying through the spasms wracking through his body.

Chan comes too with a drawn-out groan and knuckles scraping over the partition. Hot pleasure surges through his dick in pulses as he grinds his hips into the man’s tight ass milking his orgasm for every beat that it’s worth. It feels like the cum is just bring wrung out of him in startling amounts.

The man takes every inch of him, every ounce of his release. Even as he starts whining more from overstimulation than pleasure and starts squirming back into the partition, he doesn’t pull away. Even when Chan slows then eventually falls still as he slumps against the partition with nothing left, the man remains all around him weakly clenching at all Chan has offered.

His breath keeps stuttering, his heart knocking against his ribs like it wants to break free, but Chan himself doesn’t feel free even as he supposedly unloaded all this tension from his body. Ever trapped in the imprisonment of his own hands. If Chan’s body was a temple, then all he ever did was desecrate it.

Relief doesn’t follow. The tension of his muscles remains, his forehead feels wrought in stress, and that hollow in the pit of his stomach has only seemed to grow in numerous size. He hasn’t accomplished anything here. Minho is still fresh in his mind, clear as every summer day they spend going on runs together, and he certainly doesn’t have that post-bliss state floating around beneath his skin.

Chan doesn’t feel relief. It’s weightlessness, a numbing ache that suspends him right there. Thoughtless. Trembling.

Tears stupidly flood his eyes like he could take back anything he’d just done or pluck that name he’d moaned right from the air feeling so stale now around him. Stale and stinking of sex that was all under a guise Chan should have never been the fool to create. He feels trapped in slow motion, warped in something that is not himself. He’s filthy. So, so filthy. Chan doesn’t feel purged of Minho’s stain; he feels even more contaminated.

His knees buckle a little when he pulls away from the hole—from the partition and the man who makes a soft noise at the sudden emptiness. The lack of awareness he feels almost sends him stumbling into the wall, but Chan catches himself before he can tumble the rest of the way into this ache poking at him.

He’s rushed yet uncoordinated as he pulls fresh wipes from the discarded pack to wipe all this grime from his body. There’s so much of it inside and out. Chan thought this would wash him clean. Now, he’s tainted by his own self-erasure.

Something in him hurts as he pushes his way through the stall’s door and does his best to keep his composure before entering reality again. This place was isolation, and Chan should have never entertained its false promises. All he feels is ruin and the nausea curdling the acid of his stomach. It has nothing to do with alcohol. Chan doesn’t want to look at his reflection in the mirror. He knows he won’t like it. He doesn’t want to see the misery he feels flooding through his veins.

He looks anyway.

Even his reflection is shrouded in dark. The dim lights of seduction glowing softly overhead cast nothing but dull shadow over him. Deep violet. Just like Minho—like the bruises this love he feels has stained in every swatch of his skin.

Shame. So much unbearable shame. Chan doesn’t feel better or like he’d gotten a breath of fresh air. He feels contaminated. Possessed. Wrought in poison and rotten feelings that gnaw at his insides. Contaminated not from doing what he’d just done but because he moaned out Minho’s name and pictured him the entire time he got off when he was supposed to be banishing him from his head. He only ever got off when he was stuck in the delusions of who he really wanted.

Right now, he looks like that college kid grappling at anything he could to find a replacement when Minho wasn’t so present doing anything at all to feel the rush that Minho’s presence always ran through him. He feels like that kid too because back then, Chan’s sought out pleasure lay in touches he only pretended were Minho.

It’s such a terrible stain. Chan will never be rid of it.

Minho has tainted the very makeup of his soul.

Chapter Text

Emerging from the hallway should have freed him from the defilement of that backroom. All that greets him is damnation. It’s a cruel, lingering thing. Chan drifts through mingling bodies like a lost, wandering ghost finally letting his unrelenting grasps slip from his fingers. A man unmoored.

Nothing is as Chan left it when he entered that hall of purgatory and sullied himself more than he thought possible. Everything pierces through him now as if the unseen forces that had been tormenting him all night can still see right through his flimsy disguise. The club feels alive as it openly mocks him with dancing lights flashing purple then white. Those colors have been following him around and now they laugh at him and his own self destruction.

Every reflection of himself looks foreign. Broken. Like even the light wants to splinter him when everything else already has. Chan can’t even recognize the fragments that stare back at him. They certainly aren’t him, but he can’t look away from the slivers he catches either. More evidence of the emotional rot that is reaping up his insides.

The air feels colder than he remembers. Colder when it used to be so harshly suffocating. It clings to his skin, sticky and sour with someone else’s scent. Every step Chan takes feels like trespassing on a life he shouldn’t have touched. People pass him. They even brush against him and the contact feels worse than before. Like icicles jamming through his skin to freeze up his blood. But these people don’t look at him. They don’t see him, not really. It’s as if they know what he’s done, know the betrayal he’s committed to both him and Minho, and cannot bear to even acknowledge his presence.

Chan wonders if now he’s the faceless one. To others maybe, but not himself.

Regret is a heavy, nasty thing in his mouth. His tongue feels swollen beyond measure with all of it pooling there. His regret and disgust don’t just come from what he’d subjected himself to, but from the why, the how, and how slimy it has left him feeling. Chan stopped being what he was in college not only because Minho came back to him when everything was over, but because he felt just as awful as he does now every time he tried to fill that Minho-shaped void in the past. He was an animal. An obsessive animal that needed to be put down.

He's running on guilt and exhaustion. The flashing lights hurt his eyes almost as much as they mock him with their titillating colors that only remind him of the bruise he’s become. The club’s music is distorted as it vibrates through his body and shakes up his skull. Each beat seems to flake a piece of him right off to get squashed into the floor. It all sounds like gibberish, nonsensical and incomputable like the voices of people skirting right passed his ears.

Instead of fresh air Chan found poisonous gas, a lulling, tempting thing that tricked him into falling deeper. His circuits aren’t unfried; they’re toasted, burnt crisps that even still have all this feeling buzzing through him like angry wasps. Chan was feeling itchy before. That itch nudged and nudged at each of his nerves just begging for him to do something or scratch himself in relief. Now, he itches from the inside like he’s trying to crawl right out of his own body. Chan didn’t think disgust and disappointment in oneself could feel quite like this. Like everything and nothing all at once.

Chan is falling apart. He’s mindlessly making his way toward their booth hating the way his body remembers what he wishes it would forget. Vanishing into the nothing of the night is what he wants. Even vanishing from his own self would be great right about now, but Chan will not leave without saying goodbye to Minho. He owes him that much after vandalizing his name in that backroom of false hope. Hurting Minho was something Chan would never be capable of. Neither would abandoning him no matter how crumbling he feels.

The issue is that Chan can’t find him amongst the masses. It has always been so easy for him to spot that little devil no matter how large the crowd is or how overstuffed/bled dry he feels. Chan doesn’t see him anywhere. Not on the dance floor with that man that isn’t him. Not at the bar guzzling more drinks or even splayed all over the booth he tends to drift to when he’s tired of being the spectacle everyone watches with interest. He could be in the bathroom—the normal one. Maybe he decided he wanted to leave too or maybe Chan has gone and sullied himself so much that he just can’t sense the real Minho anymore.

At the booth he only finds Felix sprawled on the leathery cushions with Jeongin draped over him in a mess of sloppy limbs. It looks as if they’re attempting to suck each other’s souls out right through their mouths and grinding on each other like heathens making the nastiest of noises. Chan would like to cringe at the sight, but isn’t this exactly how he’d just behaved? Unhinged and desperate for touch? The only difference is that what Felix and Jeongin share is real.

“Um,” he meekly says before clearing his throat. Not even his voice sounds like his own. Distant, diluted, and full of remorse. Just the reminder of physicality like that makes his stomach turn further. “Uh, have you guys seen Minho?”

Jeongin slips his mouth from Felix with a wet smacking noise as he turns to face Chan. There’s this dazed smile on his face, spit dribbling from his lips, and his eyes dark with something Chan knows the feeling of. Jeongin giggles a little when Felix attaches his now freed mouth to the side of his neck before wiping a hand over his swollen lips. “Shouldn’t you know where he is, Hyung?” he slurs out.

Something foreboding creeps down his spine at the knowing tease in Jeongin’s tone. Chan doesn’t think he likes the strange glint in blown eyes that are staring half-lidded back at him. It’s a mystery to him what Jeongin might mean by that. Surely he’s just teasing him about always seeming to know where Minho is and not being able to this time.

Nothing gets to leave his mouth because Felix kisses up to Jeongin’s ear to whisper something to him. They both break out in quiet giggles that quickly fuse out when their lips meet again if only for a few harrowing moments. “Did you have fun in there, Channie?” Jeongin turns back to him to ask.

“I, uh,” Chan stutters out shifting on his feet and gluing his eyes on the wooden top of the table. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The two horniest dogs on the planet are the last people Chan wants to confess to. What happened at that glory hole is between him, those walls, and a man he couldn’t even pick out in a crowd.

Jeongin laughs, not cruelly but like he’s pleasantly amused by Chan’s pretending. It morphs into a groan though when Felix rolls his hips up and reattaches his mouth to his throat. “Man, I wish I’d been there,” Jeongin says wistfully albeit with a little strain in his voice as he returns the grind of hips. “I should have followed you in for just a glimpse or even a listen. Bet you sounded pretty. Did you get it real wet, Hyung?”

Chan’s jaw clenches at such crude boldness. He doesn’t blame Jeongin; he never will. Especially when the poor kid is all juiced up on alcohol and getting spoilt with attention. “Shh,” Felix steals him back with a hand on his cheek. “Leave Hyung alone, honey. He doesn’t know. Just play nice.”

The words are lost on him. All he knows is that the two people who always fall over their own feet trying to help or please him are deciding to let him flounder on his own for once. That’s fine. Chan will just find Minho himself, and if he doesn’t, he’ll just leave and deal with the betrayed whining in the morning like this was all just some bad dream. He would have rather this all been a terror born from the dark than his own reality. Nightmares didn’t normally hurt him so badly.

“Alright, just,” he stops to take a breath and waits until the two aren’t writhing around so much to at least listen to him. “If you guys are going to dry hump each other, maybe pick a darker corner?” It isn’t really a question, but Chan has a habit of making his words sound more like weak suggestions. “I don’t want them throwing you out so don’t give them a reason to.”

They don’t even hear him. Too lost in the worlds of each other that Chan can only beat himself up for never having. Maybe that’s for the best. He’s said enough for one night. His thoughts are having a hard time aligning anyway.

Leaving here wasn’t about escaping Minho. Even if Chan had the capability of doing so, he would never want to escape Minho. Their relationship went too far back and meant far too much for him to want to run away. This unwinding spiral he’s careening down is what’s sparked his need for departure—for just a few hours alone in a place that isn’t grating his brain raw and chipping inches of him off piece by piece. Chan wants to escape these walls of flashing lights that keep chortling at him. He wants to escape himself and the bloody stains all over his body.

But Chan will not leave here without telling Minho first. Not tell him what he really should be telling him, but that he’s dipping out for the night because he suddenly feels unwell. He doesn’t know why exactly he has to let Minho know. He just knows he’ll feel awful if he leaves without saying goodbye to him. Minho will understand. He may get whiny, but he doesn’t push. Especially if Chan gives him his pouty face.

Still, there is difficulty in locating that little devil no matter how easy it has always been for him to be spotted. The center of crowds, a stand-out in the bodies of millions, and Chan simply can’t find him. It’s driving him insane not to feel the magnetic pull of Lee Minho he is so used to feeling. Chan feels so scattered that he walks right past Changbin in the crowd without ever realizing he’s there. His presence doesn’t materialize in Chan’s senses until a hand grips his bicep and pulls him back a few steps.

He stumbles a little with the force of it and getting spun around to face an expression that shows Changbin is absolutely elated to see him. His smile feels a little blinding as Chan reorients himself. Changbin seems a little fuzzy to him, but Chan doesn’t miss the excitement in his eyes or the sweat lining his forehead. Someone was certainly busy dancing his tail off.

“Hyung!” he shouts patting on Chan’s shoulder after he’s steadied. “Where have you been? You disappeared on everyone. You’re missing the fun! They played that song you like.” That could be a million different songs, and Chan can’t help but be a little amused when Changbin starts belting an unfamiliar tune in his face before bursting into laughter.

Chan wonders how long he was gone. Sequestered in that purgatory that did nothing to cleanse him. He starts wringing his hands as Changbin continues to laugh unsure of if he should tell him what happened or just glaze over it. Seungmin wouldn’t go announcing his activities around, especially with something like a glory hole visit, but that didn’t mean he’d keep it from his boyfriend. “Uh, have you seen Minho? I can’t find him.”

Changbin shakes his head before whipping his sight around in poor search of him. “No, he’s been gone a while, I think. Haven’t seen him since you disappeared.” Then Changbin narrows his eyes at him and crosses arms over his chest like he’s guarding something. “Why? You finally have something to tell him?”

Unlikely. Chan has always been a coward. “Yeah, that I’m leaving. Nothing else.”

All the joy drains from Changbin’s face. His eyes lose their mirth, and his lips fall into something dismaying, angry even. “And why’s that? Don’t use that bullshit excuse of not feeling well. You look awful, and I’m not talking in the stomach ache sort of way. What happened?”

Chan clenches his jaw. He doesn’t want to say what happened. Not to anyone. He wishes he could just forget about the entire thing, but no matter how hard he pretends, Chan enjoyed the sexual stimulation he felt. It’s the aftermath he can’t handle. “Nothing. I’m just leaving. I’ll find him myself then.”  

When he turns to leave, Changbin snags his forearm with a grip that isn’t harsh but not one that Chan could shake off so easily. There’s desperation in the press of his fingers. Chan refuses to face him again. “Seungmin was right, you know,” Changbin says with a level voice, but Chan can hear the undercurrent of irritation. He doubts the statement. All Seungmin is right about is being an instigator of bad decisions. “You are killing yourself over this, Chan, and we’re all worried sick about you. You disappear then come back looking like shit and saying that you’re leaving but won’t even say why?”

Chan closes his eyes. He can take these words from Seungmin without issue, but Changbin isn’t supposed to say them too. Changbin is supposed to tease, make lewd jokes, or wallow with and for him. Not—not tell him the things Chan hates to hear. They mean so many more things coming from him.

“I’m tired of this and all these other pity parties you just love to throw. We came here for you, and all you’ve done is mope around like the world is ending,” and there it is—the anger he only saw a sliver of slipping into his tone. Changbin didn’t get mad so easily and that only makes it worse. “You want it to stop hurting so much? Fess up or get over it like everyone else does. But if you’d rather be a loathsome jackass, then don’t bother asking any of us to come out with you again.”

The hard press of fingers leaves him in an instant. So does the presence of a body behind him that Chan has always sought out for comfort with his Minho problem. If even Changbin is tired of his shit, then Chan really has fallen so far down in this deep pit he’s dug out himself. It hurts to have someone normally so carefree and empathetic about these things leave him here. He wants to leave more now. If not to keep himself from doing something pathetic like cry, then to let his friends have their fun without his poor self bringing everyone else down.

A drink first. Minho found him at the bar earlier, so he might find him again. Really though, Chan just thinks he needs something to wash all the emotion stuck in his throat down before he lets it all come out in nasty fashion. Bury it all down before it boils back up. He just wants silence, but silence won’t take him.

The stickiness of the bar top doesn’t bother him as much this time when he places his elbows over it. His skin is already dirty so a little extra smudged over him won’t make any difference. He isn’t sure that his exhaustion would allow him to stand here like a normal person anyway. His mental battles are fought on a nonstop clock, and Chan is just so tired of it all. Hiding it away was supposed to be easier than letting everything spill through.

Remembering what he even asked for is a terrible feat. He hadn’t even heard the words fall from his mouth, just saw the nod of the bartender and him grabbing a glass. Chan refuses to raise his eyes from the bar top. His reflection all matted and poorly put together like a puzzle with all the wrong pieces waits for him in the panels. Meeting a face that isn’t his isn’t something he wants to willingly subject himself to. Not again. He’s tired of seeing what’s on his insides.

Just as a fresh drink is set in front of him, a touch slips over the small of his back. Fingers—gentle, deliberate, grounding, trace over the chains hugging his waist before curling over his hip. It’s a small touch, yet it burns hotter than anything that came before. It melts all the cold frozen in his pores and stiffening up his limbs. Only one touch sparks such fire beneath his skin, but Chan still can’t raise his eyes. Staring back at himself was one thing. He can’t bear to see the burning sight of Minho next to the ruin of his own face.

Despite himself, Chan’s lips quirk into a small smile. Minho was both the life and death of him. “Hi, Mimo,” he says and pokes the straw through the ice cubes of his drink.

Everything dulls to a low hum around him like Minho’s hands were the magic that shut everything up, squashed the spell he was stuck under. Music and lights fade into the background, no longer jarring but more of an afterthought. Even the chatter disperses until Chan can hear his own heartbeat again. Minho’s hand on his hip is a focal point, but despite the quiet, Chan feels the sudden charge in the air that he hopes doesn’t crackle into implosion.

There’s a giggle behind him, a pleasant sound. Minho creeps a hand into Chan’s front pocket for no other reason than to idly tap fingers over the notch of Chan’s hipbone while the other slides up from the front of his torso. Quickly, Chan sticks the straw of his drink in his mouth when Minho presses his entire body against Chan’s back—still giggling—in a clingy sort of hug with a finger poking at his left pec. He takes large gulps of his drink at both the sudden closeness and the coolness of jewelry he can feel brushing against the exposure of skin on the small of his back. Dainty chains and the two iridescent ends of a barbell.

Chan was cold before. Now, he’s on fire. Fully ignited and burning up from the inside. It gets no better when Minho hooks a chin over his shoulder and lazily gropes his chest with a hand still messing around in his pocket.

“Chan-ah~” Minho singsongs right in his ear. He doesn’t have to be loud. Chan will always hear his voice loud and clear even in a pulsing place like this. “Binnie said you were leaving,” he pouts. Ignoring the dejection in his tone is nearly impossible when Minho’s words seem to drip with it. “Is something wrong?”

Hearing sadness in Minho’s voice is one of the biggest pains Chan has come to known. Especially if he’s the one that has put it there. It doesn’t even matter if Minho is doing it for show because it all means the same thing to him: ache. His hand finds Minho’s over the fabric of his pants. He squeezes it once before turning his head toward him and pressing a kiss to his sweaty forehead like he’s done so many times before. This meant nothing to Minho but to Chan, it was his way of sucking that sadness out.

“No, nothing’s wrong, Mimo,” he assures him and squeezes his hand again. About a million things are severely wrong, but those are for Chan to deal with and for Minho to not have to worry about. “I’m just…not feeling it anymore. I don’t feel the greatest, and I don’t want to be a spoil sport for everyone else.” It may not be the real reason why Chan wants to go home, but he does feel like stomped over dung. Bluffing isn’t entirely easy when it comes to Minho.

Minho tightens his hold around Chan. It’s becoming increasingly hard to ignore the press of a crotch against his ass and the soft warmth radiating from Minho that seeps into his skin like a comfort. He hates that the very same person who inadvertently causes him so much pain is also the one who heals him. “But we can fix that, yeah?” Minho reassures him, hopeful. He sounds so tender, so sure of himself, and like he wants nothing more than for Chan to stay. “We can have fun together. You and me.”

Chan swallows hard. He should refuse the implied request. He should down his drink and keep walking. Drown himself in something else the moment he gets home so that he can forget this night and that backroom ever happened. He just wants to be able to pretend for once that he is okay. Convincing himself doesn’t seem to work so well, but he is so good at playing make believe. Maybe he could do that for a little while longer just for Minho’s sake. “I don’t know…”

He splutters on his drink a bit when Minho grabs him by the hips to spin him around. It isn’t hurried or rough, but a graceful fluidity that ends with his back pressed into the bar top and Minho near crowded against him. There are hands on his exposed waist. Soft, warm hands that hold him tenderly yet with an ounce of possession like Minho won’t or can’t let him go. Chan swallows the drink in his mouth and meets Minho’s eyes.

He’s unable to look at him for too long until his shame and disgust with himself forces his eyes elsewhere—past Minho’s shoulders or off to the side. Anywhere but into the face he imagined under him not too long ago. Coincidentally, he’s also incapable of straying from that face for too long. Staring back at Minho was something Chan could never avoid. He will always be drawn to gazing at such delicate craftmanship no matter how twisted it makes his insides knot up.

And Minho. He looks beautiful, too beautiful for how badly Chan wants to collapse.

His skin doesn’t just glow now with that honey hue; Minho is radiant. Despite the frowny pout on his pretty lips, he seems elated or at peace with something he’d been struggling with for so long. Unburdened. Free. His bangs still fall in his face and cast his eyes in those mysteries Chan can never decipher, but he can see the shine of them through the sweaty strands. His makeup is a little smudged under his eyes like Minho had done something like weep quietly to himself or sweat up an unruly storm. It looks like he tried to fix it up but did a poor job with the wet ends of wadded-up toilet paper.

Minho held such devastation in the features he wore and the quiet care he bestowed upon those he felt worthy of his attention. Chan isn’t so sure he wants to survive anymore or that he even can.

“You’re so handsome tonight, Channie. You can’t leave now and waste it on the couch,” Minho says with thumbs brushing over Chan’s skin. They streak fire in their wake—a fire that can never be put out. Not with the soft pleading in Minho’s eyes nor the gentleness in his words. “Please, won’t you stay and have some fun? For me? I can’t live without my Hyung. Don’t you love your Mimo enough to stay with him?”

And just like that, the ruin of him stops running. It’s so cruel for Minho to use something like that against him because he knows the right cards to play and words to say to get Chan to do whatever he wants. His weakness for this man is the most obvious thing about him, even to someone as oblivious as the man in question. The request alone was enough to get Chan to agree without the subtle guilt tripping tacked on the end. For Minho? He’d do anything.

Chan doesn’t stay because he has hope; he stays because he could never hurt Minho or deny the things he so sweetly asks for. He stays because Minho wants him to when all Chan wants is to walk out the door and get lost in his own misery. Always trying to make Minho happy at the expense of himself. It’s an endless cycle that he will commit the rest of his life to.

“Of course I love my Mimo,” he confesses wishing the words held the same weight of how he means them. He reaches forward to tuck some of Minho’s bangs behind his ear just because he can and because he knows Minho doesn’t mind. Not truly. Even as he wrinkles his nose at the affectionate gesture, Chan will never miss the way his pout lifts into a small, pleased smile. If anything, he keeps pretending just for that one little sight. “Alright, I’ll stay. Just for you.”

Minho breaks out into this wide, overjoyed grin that’s far too toothy for something as simple as Chan agreeing to stay for longer. It has his stomach flipping with pleasantness rather than the turmoil of late, and Chan doesn’t know how Minho keeps making him so weak in the knees over a smile he has seen so many times. The upward twitch of his own lips can’t be helped. Seeing Minho happy will never fail to make Chan feel better about whatever may be bringing him down. Even something as heavy as this can float to the back burner when Minho smiles at him like that.

“Oh, Channie. You’re so sweet on me,” Minho coos at him and slides palms further down his waist to cup his butt in a generous squeeze. If only he really knew. If only Minho could see on his face how touching him like this threatened to put Chan into a coma that he may never wake from. “Go save us a seat at the booth. The lovebirds are gone for the moment. I’ll join you in a minute.”

Chan can’t argue with that. Not when that means he’ll get to spend his time with Minho for however longer he can bear to be here and not when Minho looks so thrilled to have his hyung’s attention. He never needed to ask for it; Chan was a sucker in giving him all the attention his heart could ever desire. It would always be dedicated to Lee Minho.

He leaves his spot stuck between the bar top and Minho’s body when the hands on his butt give him a pat before slipping away. It’s Minho’s turn to step up to the sticky surface to signal the bartender. Chan only goes because Minho asked him to and because the poorly executed wink Minho sends him makes his face heat with this terrible illness of affection he can’t seem to cure himself of.

The further he gets from Minho though, the more everything creeps back in—lights, music, this escapism he feels stuck in pursuing. The more distance he puts between him and his muse, the more alive the club begins to feel. It’s a living, breathing entity that creeps down his spine and spies on him just waiting for the rest of his exterior to crack. Chan hates how the walls stalk him with judgement and the derisive laughs that echo beneath the music. The only other place that has felt as terrible as this entire establishment is the flesh of his own body.

As Minho had pointed out, Jeongin and Felix are no longer acting like horny heathens on the booth’s cushions. Seungmin and Changbin are not present either. No one is, and Chan can’t think of anything better. It’s not because he suddenly hates his friends or doesn’t want to spend time with them. Having time with Minho that doesn’t involve his drunken entourage of teasing and pushing confessions that Chan is not ready to make is a mild relief in this place.

The last thing Chan needs is for someone to blurt something out, put him in the spotlight, or worse, reveal where he’d run off to. Not having to worry about anything other than Minho and his own unbecoming is a blessing he wants to afford. Besides, Changbin didn’t seem too pleased with him during their last encounter, and Chan knows that that would only transfer over to Seungmin as well. That Kim Seungmin was a dangerous man when he grew impatient and felt perturbed. It’s a miracle that he’s kept Chan’s feelings away from Minho for this long.

He takes his usual seat at the very end. Chan was typically the one to get up for another round and the one with the smallest bladder. It’s a spot he favors because Minho will always sit next to him, and he doesn’t have to worry about someone else smooshing against him. This time though, he sits at the end with dual purpose in mind. Either Minho will sit across from him so that he won’t have to fret so much over proximity, or Minho will climb over his lap again to glue himself to Chan’s side. Both outcomes have their wins and losses. Chan would be okay with either.

Except when Minho joins him at the booth suspiciously without a drink in hand, he does neither of those things. He doesn’t sit across from him or climb over his lap. No, Minho crawls into his lap without notice or even a moment’s hesitation. One second he’s standing there, then he’s pressing a knee into the cushion and suddenly Chan has Minho once again straddling him. But this time he doesn’t hover in the air on his knees.

Minho takes a seat over Chan’s spread thighs like he belongs there before raising fingers to thread through the bangs Chan has loosely tucked behind his ear. Either by reaction or a desire Chan didn’t have time to quell, his hand comes up to rest over Minho’s thigh. It’s a little higher than he’d usually allow his palm to wander, but thick firmness beneath his touch keeps it there. Oh, how Chan longs to squeeze that muscle.

The gulp he swallows down is audible to his own ears—ears that have no doubt turned a striking red in a split second. Chan isn’t too sure why he’s the seat of choice, but he knows the spike of heat that shoots through his groin certainly spells trouble for his own wellbeing. Thankfully, Minho isn’t hip to hip with him, but that doesn’t mean an impromptu boner won’t be noticeable. He really should have worn underwear despite his delusional rationalization.

Minho is entirely carefree about all this. He’s sectioning off part of Chan’s bangs with his nimble fingers and dividing them up into three. Then he just…starts braiding part of his hair with concentration in his brows. It’s a new development in the behavior of a Minho who has had who knows how much to drink. This isn’t something he’s ever done before. At least, not like this. Minho has sat in his lap before plenty of times but never as a straddle. Minho has also braided parts of his hair before but again, never in a straddle. He’s done both of those things before stone-cold sober and heavily plastered.

This feels different, and Chan can’t ignore that charge he feels again in the air. It isn’t a matter of ‘if’ but when it finally has him sparking.

“Um,” he says and clears his throat. He glances up at Minho’s face for a brief moment just to see what expression he’s wearing. His mouth is slightly parted with his little bunny teeth peaking out which is entirely normal, but there’s a smug glint in his eyes like he knows exactly what he’s doing. Chan wishes it wasn’t so easy for Minho to torture him. “What, uh, what are you doing?”

“Braiding a piece of your hair,” is the simple reply. Minho says it like he’s concentrating on a huge and important task. Then he raises a brow and glances down at Chan. “What are you doing?”

Chan blinks and casts his eyes away from the curious look Minho is giving him. His ears feel so hot. It’s enough to rival the interest poking in his lower belly. “Nothing. Uh, nothing. Just sitting here.” Minho doesn’t say anything else as he continues to braid. Just a half smirk of his lips before his focus returns.

Chan tries not to stare at him as his hair is played with. Openly staring from this close was way too obvious, and he isn’t sure that he could keep the puppy’s look from his eyes with Minho’s face right above him. He doesn’t want to move his head too much either, or Minho will gripe at him to sit still, so he trains his eyes on something else. Something he probably shouldn’t be looking at in the first place if he wanted to keep his privates under control with a lapful of sin.

Minho’s chest.

It’s right in his line of vision. Maybe only a foot away from him, and it looks so much more mesmerizing this close. His skin glistens with sweat. There are a few trails of it streaking down his collarbones or following the line of the crystal-decorated chain running between his pecs. Chan wants to taste. Trace those trails with his tongue or stain his lips with the beads of it stuck at the bottom of his throat or stuck in the dip of his clavicles. His throat feels parched all of a sudden, and Chan seems to have run out of alcohol to chase down all his wants.

Beyond the sheen of Minho’s post-dance skin is the way purple satin now clings to his form. Before, the material moved like liquid with Minho’s body and ran like smoke over flesh. Now it has molded to him as much like second skin as the tight leather of his pants. Material damp in sweat that painfully displays the definition of his chest that was already poorly hidden behind the immodest cut. It isn’t only the deep neckline that creates a sense of generous cleavage and the firmness of the top of his pecs, but the full roundness of them showing right through clingy fabric.

Chan hadn’t let his eyes wander so much shortly ago when they were at the bar, and now he sort of wishes he had if only to prepare himself to being so close to the sight. Even Minho’s nipples poke through the damp satin, pebbled little nubs, and Chan really ought to get him a bra if he was going to walk around like this. It’s lewd, really. Obscene. Minho’s shirts were never this tight, never so revealing of how he’d filled out his chest, and Chan really shouldn’t look any lower if he’s already on the verge of drooling all over himself.

“Chan-ah,” Minho calls to him in that siren sweet voice of his. Deaf. Even never hearing that voice, Chan would still love him the same. “What are you thinking about?”

Fingers tuck his now finished braid behind his ear, and Chan is having a hard time breathing with Minho sitting further back on his thighs to meet his eyes now. Worse are the arms that loop around his neck in a loose hold as Minho waits for an answer blinking at him innocently. A shiver races down his spine when a thumb starts brushing over his nape.

“Your chest,” Chan starts then purses his lips. He can say this in a normal way if he just thinks a little before words leave him. Thinking, unfortunately, is not a strong suit of his with Minho in his lap or at all tonight in general. “You’re a little sweaty for that shirt, yeah? I didn’t realize you’d built your chest up so much. I haven’t seen it in a while since it’s easier for you to go to the gym with Changbin between work. It looks good, Lino-yah.”

“Oh,” he laughs and looks down at himself. That shy laugh he does when he gets embarrassed. Chan melts at the sound and feels the smile on his lips at the tint to the tips of Minho’s ears. Even when Minho looks back up at him, his lips are all wobbled in a reserved look. “Praise from Mr. Chest himself? How grateful I am. I mean, look at these.”

Chan should have seen the groping coming, but Minho was a slippery fiend sometimes. His hands break apart from the back of his neck to slide over his chest with two greedy handfuls of pectorals. He flinches a little at the touch, catching a groan in his throat from the force with which Minho uses to squeeze at him. Little tingles creep along his skin as Minho giggles at his own actions, and Chan is grateful when those hands give it up to rub circles over his shoulders.

“I’m serious,” he replies. Even fixes Minho with a level look to prove it despite the wandering hands slipping down to lightly squeeze at his biceps. Chan is finding this all so distracting. “It looks really good, Minho. I’m proud of you for keeping with it.”

Minho looks down again with another huff of quiet, shy laughter. It’s endearingly cute, and Chan wonders just how long he’s been waiting to hear some sort of acknowledgement over how he’s been progressing. He could have just asked, brought it up or took Chan out to the gym for a late-night run, but that isn’t how Minho operates. It’s hard for Chan to notice the things he doesn’t always see, though.

“You want a feel? Squeeze or two?” Minho asks raising his head and an eyebrow with it. His ears are still red, but he looks like a schemer again who seems delighted with Chan’s comments despite the reservation he holds behind his smirk.

“What?” Chan almost chokes on nothing. Feel Minho’s chest? Squeeze it? Him? Surely he’s being messed with. Something awful starts fluttering around his rib cage. He doesn’t deserve such a thing. Not after what he did.

Minho’s smirk grows as he shifts slightly over Chan’s thighs. The movement makes him swallow hard again. He even starts tensing up when Minho reaches for his hand—not the one still over his thick thigh that has seemed to wander even further up from its original spot, but the one sitting uselessly on the other side of Minho’s knee. Chan just lets him do as he pleases while internally blowing a circuit. His fingers twitch when Minho leads his hand to his chest and his palm meets solid surface.

Chest. Minho’s chest. Chan’s hand is on Minho’s chest, or more precisely, his palm is cupped over Minho’s right pec with Minho’s guiding hand pressing his touch against him even further. Groping what he’d just been drooling over does not compute in his brain. Chan can’t even hear anything. His head has gone radio silent, and all he can focus on is the sight of Minho’s hand covering him. His hand splayed over Minho’s tit and his thumb touching the warm, sweaty exposure of skin on the other side of the shirt’s neckline.

“Don’t be a prude, Channie,” Minho teases in a low voice. To Chan, it feels like he’s whispered it directly into his ear. “Give her a squeeze.” He can’t help the sudden breath he sucks in. A taste. Minho is giving him a taste he isn’t supposed to have. Chan can’t help but drink.

Warm skin covered in damp satin. Minho’s chest is firm and solid, but the muscle gives and squishes when Chan gives it a squeeze. Then he gives it a generous squeeze, maybe too generous with the slight whine Minho lets slip. It’s breathy, a little pitched, and sends another surge of something hot through his core.

Chan pauses. Tilts his head a little. That sound, the whine, sounded oddly familiar. Like he’d heard it somewhere before. He tries to think but nothing at all really comes to his head now except for delicious Minho and his squishy chest. It’s probably nothing. Chan has heard Minho make a million different sounds over the years. He most likely heard something like it when Minho was at the gym with him or stretching his body out before bed. Yeah, that’s certainly it.

“It’s—” he swallows around the word trying to quiet the rapid humming of his skin and stilling his hands from doing more than touching what they were allowed. They should never have been allowed in the first place, but Minho couldn’t know. How could he know how fragile and bruised he was if all Chan ever did was cover it up? He never looked that closely. Not at Chan. “Yeah, Mimo. It’s good.”

Minho lets go of his hand. The touch slips from him, fingers briefly caressing Chan’s wrist before falling to rest on his own thigh. Chan follows the movement with his eyes, but his palm still lingers over Minho’s chest like he’s been glued to him. He isn’t sure if he’s allowed to feel for any longer or sneak in another squeeze. Chan might want it, maybe Minho does too, but he shouldn’t be given such luxuries over a body and name that he’d defiled, has been defiling since the moment he knew how. Minho shouldn’t even want Chan’s touch on him. He’s afraid that the rot of his own insides might end up staining Minho too. All he does is ruin.

But as Chan follows the path of Minho’s hand falling, his eyes get stuck on the man’s stomach. Not on the chain’s resting daintily over his skin or the jewelry stuck through his navel. Not at the faint trail of hair leading to his waistband or the little folds of his squishiness from the way he’s sitting. Chan’s hand has wandered up to rest in a loose hold over Minho’s exposed waist, thumb tracing over the chain that rides just below the hemline of his damp shirt. He isn’t sure when that happened. He isn’t sure how he’d let that touch on his thigh creep so high to meet warm skin.

Pulling away is the only option. Chan shouldn’t be touching here in the first place. Not without Minho’s say-so, and he seldom ever gave that. He has tarnished so many things already—people, places, memories, and imagination. Minho’s beauty was supposed to be everlasting. Chan would hate himself more than he already does if he did anything to jeopardize that.

The second his grip on Minho’s waist lets up and starts slipping from him, Chan is pulled back with firmer pressure as Minho’s palm covers the back of his hand. His breath catches at the sureness behind Minho’s guidance. The warm smoothness of his skin is intoxicating, and Chan wants to simply melt right into it. Live in Minho’s touch forever. Minho, who smiles softly at him and shakes the bangs from his eyes to see Chan a little better.

“Keep it there,” he says and drapes an arm back around Chan’s neck to tickle at the loose hairs curling at his nape. Chan tries not to shiver, not bodily anyway, with this flutter of nerves in his chest and something deeper brewing in his gut. Minho has been exceptionally sweet since Chan’s return. He keeps toeing the line between normal teasing and outright flirting, and Chan can’t keep anything straight. His brain keeps fogging with something more than just alcohol, and the glory of having a half-naked, sweaty Minho in his lap is doing nothing to clear things up.

“You like it, though?” Minho asks and juts his hips forward to stick his stomach out more as he looks down at himself. God, if Chan doesn’t like it. He shouldn’t, but he does. “I was nervous about showing you. I wasn’t sure if you’d like it.”

Why his opinion matters so much to him, Chan will never understand. Minho doesn’t fish for compliments, especially over his looks, but that isn’t what this feels like. Confused, Chan thinks Minho is asking to be seen. How silly. He has always seen Minho, the real Minho, and even spent so long trying to see the parts he’s hidden away. It’s wishful thinking that has Chan clinging to a small thought of Minho piercing his bellybutton just for him. The absurdness of it has him blinking back into himself.

“Yeah,” he breathes out trying to sound sincere. It is sincere, but he wants Minho to hear the truth of it too. “It really suits you, Lino-yah. I like the jewelry you picked out too. I just wasn’t expecting it, but I do like it. You have a pretty tummy, Mimo.” Mentally, he slaps himself for saying something stupid like that, but the sly press of Minho’s lips and the tiny laugh he exhales are completely worth the ill-thought words.

The fact that his hand is still stuck on Minho’s chest escapes him until Minho gently takes his wrist to guide his touch to the unoccupied side of his waist. Chan closes his fingers around him in an instant with a reverent hold. If he’d tainted Minho’s image before, then now he would only protect it with softness. His thumb is quick to join the other in lightly tracing the path of the chains hugging Minho’s belly. Glittering white gold.

The space between them has thinned. Minho is closer and again; Chan has no idea when that happened. Time is a crumbling thing between his fingers. Fingers. They itch to do more than trace pretty lines of thin metal.

“Earlier,” Minho says with a slight tilt of his head. Closer. He is certainly closer now. Chan can taste the alcohol on his breath and see the carefulness in the eyes searching every inch of his face. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

His grip briefly tightens on Minho’s waist as dread surfaces from where he’d poorly buried it down. It was never really buried. Chan held all his self-negativity within close reach for how often he turned to them. They weren’t something he could keep down. Neither is the cough that rushes from his throat. Minho couldn’t be implying Chan’s recent activities. He was too busy on the dance floor with someone else to fuss over Chan and his whereabouts. Talking about what he’d done with Minho of all people would kill him far quicker than the emotion already eating him up.

“Um,” he strains out. Speaking is so hard all of a sudden. His throat feels swollen, and lungs squeezed in an iron fist. “What? Was I…looking for something?”

Minho shifts over his lap again with the barest of smiles. He keeps doing that, and it’s making Chan forget what’s happening between them, whatever that may be. Minho looks like he knows something—a terrible secret or a bombshell that he could use for infinite teasing in the near future. Chan can taste his own saliva. It makes him feel just as sickly as the glint in Minho’s eyes.

“Fun, Channie,” he says like it was obvious. “You wanted to come back to have fun again, remember? Did you find it? Are you having fun tonight, Hyung?”

The breath he releases aches with relief. All this guilt he feels clouds his judgement into believing that everyone around him knows. But they can’t. Not even the person on the other side of that partition could know anything except what he felt and heard. He should just relax. “Yes,” he answers, though the anxiety doesn’t stop bubbling beneath his skin. “I am. I’m having fun with my Mimo right now.”

Minho seems pleased with the answer. He scrunches his nose up with a light little laugh and loops his other arm around Chan’s neck to slump against him. Chan sort of just freezes in place with the suddenness of it. Minho is hugging him and not loosely. Arms curl around his back in a tight embrace, their chests pressed together, and Minho’s face tucked just under his ear. He’d nudged himself further into Chan’s lap with subtle shuffling of his thighs, and Chan failed to notice until now when their hips are practically aligned.

A few shaky breaths are all he seems to manage. His hands are still stuck on Minho’s waist, but he’s able to slide one to Minho’s back to return the sudden embrace. It’s the least he could do, and Chan could never deny something like this from Minho—someone who hardly gave himself away for free hugs.

His skin feels like it’s boiling from the inside out. Oxygen is hard to come by. There’s a nose smooshed into the back of his jaw and lips that just barely caress his neck as Minho rests there. Chan can’t think. He doesn’t know what this is or if Minho had drunk a lot more than he initially assumed he had.

But Chan will never deny the affection this is when he’s seldom given it. Minho, uninhibited like this, is grace. He purifies Chan when all he ever feels is rot. All he wants is more. More Minho, more of this quiet love that means different things for the two of them, and more opportunity to enjoy without the risk of ruining himself even more. Chan knows that Minho has love for him; it’s just not the kind of love he longs for. The kind of love that has the weight behind it. That same weight Chan always fails to convey with his own words.

It still hurts. Chan still feels like he’s suffocating from the hands of another and punishing his own self for the things he simply can’t let go of. It’s cruel how badly he needs things like this from Minho and how loathsome he gets when he receives them. Chan doesn’t deserve anything.

How easy everything would be if Chan could love himself as much as he loves Minho. Or the other way around: hate. How easy everything would be if Chan could hate Minho as much as he hates himself. This split is tearing him apart. Why can’t it just be clean? Why can’t he?

Minho won’t stop twirling his fingers through the wisps of hair at Chan’s neck. It’s titillating when fingertips brush over his skin, or the curls get caught on his finger enough that there’s a slight tug. He hasn’t said anything. He hasn’t done much of anything besides breathe fire on his neck, play with his hair, and slump heavily against Chan with a deep sigh.

With their chests pressed together as they are, Chan can feel the beat of Minho’s heart. It’s a little quick, just like his own, and he can’t help but notice that Minho’s is pumping to the same tune as his does. How ironic that their hearts can beat together, and Chan is still the only one dying.

He flinches a bit when Minho shifts over his lap again, shimmying his way further up the spread of his thighs so he’s practically sitting on his crotch now. So close. Their stomachs squish together a bit, and Chan can feel the catch of Minho’s belly ring snagging on the chains hugging his waist. Impossibly close. The air. Chan can hardly breathe. It doesn’t just feel like Minho’s nesting himself in Chan’s crotch; he’s sitting right over his damn lungs.

Worse is the solid heat pressing into his V line that Chan knows isn’t just from the leather of Minho’s pants. He already ruined himself; he’s so scared that he’s ruined Minho too by whispering his name in filth. He wonders if Minho can feel the growing stiffness in his own pants. It can’t be helped. Chan is only a man with a wet dream trying to glue himself to his lap and chest.

“Chan-ah,” Minho whispers with his nose turning up to poke at the shell of Chan’s ear. It tickles. It makes him shiver and squeeze Minho’s waist for a beat. Even his lips brush over Chan’s earlobe, over the earring dangling there, and Chan has to shiver again when Minho tugs just enough at the ends of hairs he’d been twirling. He dreads what words will spill from him next because it wasn’t just a whisper; there was temptation in the slight whine of the last syllable.

“What about in the employees only room at the back? At the glory hole, Channie?” Minho’s words land soft, almost lost under the noise. Soft enough that Chan could pretend he misheard. He tries to. He wants to. The laughter and the bass fold over them, giving him somewhere to hide, but the shape of the sentence clings to his ribs. He can’t stop hearing the lilt Minho uses when he says his name. Why does Minho know what the door said? Why did he know that Chan went back there?

“With the pretty purple lights and the leather couch? What about then, Channie?” They aren’t teasing, but seductive, curious, and seeking. Chan doesn’t know what he’s asking or what answer he’s trying to find. A chill rushes through him. Every sense feels inside out. For a second he’s convinced the lights are brighter, that the whole club has turned to face him and spy on his unraveling.

It’s tragic that his mind can’t entertain the possibility and instead turns to someone like Jeongin meeting him in there. Jeongin taking the things he wanted and running to spill the name Chan had moaned when he tried letting go. Confessing to everyone what a miserable bastard he really is. That is easier to swallow than what he thinks Minho is insinuating.

“Did you have fun with your Mimo in there too?”

Chan forces out a sound that might be a laugh. That isn’t right. Minho’s only teasing him, joking around, and playing one of those games he often likes to. He’s using something he doesn’t understand to poke at him. Minho couldn’t possibly know how bad that poking was hurting him. It was Jeongin in that backroom—he’s sure of it. Jeongin is the one who told Minho what happened in there, maybe to help or maybe to harm, but it wasn’t Minho. It can’t be.

His skin prickles up like the flesh of a cactus. Short, quick breaths that do nothing to calm down whatever storm this is that’s rapidly brewing in his insides. Minho could be cruel, yes, but playing like this was pure torture. Chan can’t even stand the press of his nose or lips to his ear anymore. It’s driving him insane but turning his head away from him to escape it does nothing to ease the live wires of his nerves sparking and failing to catch. Minho is still all around him—touching him, breathing the same oxygen, and beating in time with everything Chan has.

“Chan-ah—”

“Don’t,” he says, the word catching halfway up his throat. He turns his head further to the side, away from Minho and away from the look he is trying to pin him with. His eyes ache, prickled with tears that sting right through him, and his voice feels hoarse when he opens his mouth again. “Don’t mess around like that.”

Minho doesn’t move. It doesn’t even feel like he’s breathing. He just looks at him, and Chan fails in not looking back. He can’t help it. Minho has always pulled him back in with something as simple as existence. It’s too gentle, that look; it burns worse than cruelty ever could. There aren’t words that can be said in a moment like this. Minho’s eyes do all the talking and tell Chan things he thought he wanted to hear. It’s only a moment before he has to force his gaze away.

Something small and desperate in him starts to splinter. He tries to breathe, but the air tastes of the backroom. Skin, salt, sin. Memory flashes in fragments: the feel of a body, familiarity in touch, and tug of something in his core trying to reach for something he thought was a farce. He wants to say you’re wrong; he wants to say thank God it was you.

There’s a flash of hope—a heartbeat of relief that Minho might have wanted him too. Terror and panic immediately follow because that means he’d been seen. Minho had finally seen him. Not the bright, tooth-rotting affection he wants to spoil Minho in, but the deepest dark of desires he’d always hidden away.

Chan can’t decide. He’s stuck both in himself and the shine of Minho’s eyes. Is he blessed, or will this finally destroy him?

“I followed you,” Minho says quietly. A confession that comes with the barest hint of a hopeful smile. Maybe it’s apology. “I couldn’t stand not knowing what it felt like or what you’d do. It was…selfish, but it hurt so much wondering what it might be like to feel your love.”

Everything around him breaks.

No sounds. No movement. Just a drop, a dizzying freefall inside his own chest that’s drenched in a silence that feels like static. His mouth opens, shuts. He doesn’t want to see anything, so he squeezes his eyes shut with his head still turned from Minho.

Minho, who is still so close to his face and sharing the same breaths with him like this very truth hasn’t poisoned the air. He can’t find anywhere else to put his hands. They shake and shake in their tight hold of Minho’s waist like he’s trying to pull away but simply can’t. His skin is warm, smooth, real. Not just the body of his imagination.

Chan has been tearing himself apart from the moment he left those purgatorial walls drenched in shame, guilt, and devastation. Condemnation. Knowing that it was Minho doesn’t erase the sin; it magnifies it. His brain is stuck between reconciling with the facts that Chan defiled him, but Minho came to him—chose him. Underneath all that horror, something in him exhales, because he finally knows the intimacy was mutual. Both saved and ruined all at once. It doesn’t make anything better.

Inside, it feels like prayer. A horror that’s also mercy. Maybe Chan finally tainted Minho back. Maybe it was always real to begin with.

He looks at Minho finally just to break even further at the pleading sight of him. The only thing he manages to say is, “you shouldn’t have.” It’s an accusation, an apology, and a confession all at once. Chan had what he always desired, but it was veiled, twisted in hurt and falsehood, and something that brought him uncurable shame.

Minho doesn’t let the silence close between them. His eyes are so watery when he reaches a hand forward to hover over his cheek. Chan flinches from the almost-touch, biting his tongue when Minho barely touches a fingertip to his skin. The contact is small, accidental on purpose, but Chan feels it like ignition.

“I’m not sorry,” Minho says. The words are quiet enough that they shouldn’t reach him over the music, but they do. They slip straight through every layer of noise and settle somewhere behind his ribs. Something in him wants to pull away. Something older, weaker, doesn’t move at all.

Then Minho exhales what would’ve been a laugh if his voice wasn’t so wet. “God, Channie, I went in there to torture myself. I thought if I could have it once, then I could get over it. I thought…but then you said my name. Moaned it. Chan, you said my name, and it sounded like I was the only thing you ever wanted.”

The air between them thickens. Chan feels the ache in his throat, the kind that comes from trying to swallow too much of himself at once. He doesn’t know whether to beg forgiveness or ask for more. His pulse stutters.

He’s suddenly aware of every reflection around them. They’re like nasty, old habits finally catching up to him. In his empty glass on the table, the leftover rings of condensation, Minho’s earrings, the light flashing over them and catching on the metal décor hanging on the wall. Each one of them catches a warped version of this moment. None of them look real. None of them look wrong, either.

“You don’t have to run or hide,” Minho adds, “not from me.”

It’s a mercy and a sentence in the same breath. Chan draws a slow breath with his eyes still fixed on the surface of the table. When he speaks, it’s barely audible. “What am—what am I supposed to do then?”

Minho answers by closing the remaining space. Their noses brush for only a brief moment like Minho is afraid to startle him with a touch any firmer. He doesn’t cup his face or caress his cheek, though Chan can still feel palms hovering there. His voice is low, tender, as he tries to coax Chan back to him. “Let me see you, Chan-ah. I’ve been trying for so long. Stop hiding away the parts I’ve been looking for and just let me see you. All of you.”

And Chan does. He lifts his head and his eyes while his walls crumble around him. For the first time all night and for as long as he can remember, he stops trying to hide.

The lights stop pulsing. They’re stuck in just one static burst of color that drains until the room is bathed in a slow gold, the kind that forgives. Chan can’t hear the chatter anymore. No laughter or footsteps stomping around on the floor. Even the bass seems to pull back until the music is in pause, as if the whole place has been holding its breath for them. Them. Their moment is now. The club and all its patrons recognize that, finally giving the two of them the floor.

It should feel wrong. Chan has felt all sorts of wrong all night. It doesn’t.

For once the ache in his chest doesn’t mean he’s dying. It just means he’s alive to the touch that’s finding him. Minho’s fingers brush his jaw. The touch is light, hesitant, as if asking a question rather than taking an answer. When Chan doesn’t flinch, he realizes that he isn’t bracing for impact. He’s welcoming.  Minho smiles this small, soft thing and cups Chan’s face in his hands. Reverent, just like every touch he has always given back, and protective, like Minho never meant to cause him so much pain.

Chan had fallen so far. Minho was his saving grace. The purification of all that has contaminated him.

He can see it in the eyes staring back at him. His reflection greets him once more through the revealing glow of gold cascading over Minho’s face, the shimmer coating his eyes, and the unshed tears clinging to his eyelashes. Chan sees himself again. Not fragmented or warped in something unrecognizable. No longer fractured but put together. Whole. There is no stain on his soul, bruises making him tainted and tender, or the bloody ache of his heart dripping from his skin. It’s simply him, and he thinks he looks pretty when he’s seen through Minho’s bright eyes.

All this time. Chan always thought Minho remained unblemished in the face of what he felt. He wonders now if Minho had been thinking the same thing and hurting on the inside just as badly as he has. The recognition of himself through Minho’s gentle, seeing eyes raises the last of him from the depths. He blinks once and feels the heat of a few stray tears creeping down his face. They won’t stain him—not this time. Now, they free him.

Minho makes a noise that’s loud in the sudden quiet. It’s dismaying, sorrowful, like the very sight of Chan’s tears cause him so much pain. “Channie,” he swallows, “I’m so sorry. You must have been hurting for so long. God, I must have been torturing you for so long. I didn’t—I didn’t realize until you called out for me in the bathroom. Channie, I didn’t know. I thought it was just me.” Hearing clear apology from a mouth that never uttered those words shouldn’t ache as much as it does.

And like he was trying to make up for all the missed cues, Minho holds him tighter as he presses even closer to kiss the tears from his face. One by one, the salty drops and trails get absorbed by Minho’s trembling lips. There’s forgiveness in each touch along with a request to be forgiven. Minho has nothing to feel sorry for. He has never done anything wrong in his life. Can’t he see his own self through Chan’s eyes too? It’s Chan’s fault for never seeing him back.

“I mean, don’t you love your Mimo too?” Minho whispers against his cheekbones. It’s so frail, trembling and wet as it crawls over his skin. The words are as much caress as Minho’s lips are. When Chan finds his eyes so impossibly close to him and shining with everything he has been battling for as long as he remembers, he struggles to catch even a hint of breath. “Because I love my Hyung. Chan-ah, I love you so much.”

It isn’t often that Minho says it back when he pries it from Chan. He always defends that it’s against his principles to be so outwardly mushy. But there’s weight behind them this time—that same weight that Chan can never get to reflect in his own words. Depth, meaning, confession, that feels like years’ worth of burying coming unraveled in mere seconds. Minho sees him, and Chan wants to show him all of him.

“Yes,” he chokes out. Minho’s waist isn’t enough anymore. Chan slides his hands up his body to hold his face just as tenderly as Minho does with fingers stuck in his hair and pulling him as close as he can bear to be. There’s only a single breath between them, one that they share and one where confession is finally backed by weight. “Yes, Minho. My Mimo, I love you.”

Shared breath becomes a quiet union of two lost souls when their mouths meet. The space dissolves without a sound. It doesn’t matter who moved first, who finally closed that sliver of space; none of that matters next to the depth of emotions their lips can’t articulate. The light shifts into something warmer, bathing them in a sort of halo that makes Chan feel so worthy. The noise of the club recedes until it’s only breath and heartbeat; the two of them as one.

It feels less like touch and more like pulse answering a prayer. Their eyes don’t close, not immediately, and Chan sees the relief melting through Minho’s irises. He doesn’t feel splintered in that look or falling apart piece by piece. He just exists, whole, seen. Minho is soft. Not only his mouth and how he kisses him so delicately, but in the tenderness of the hold he keeps Chan in and the gentility with which he reacts to Chan affording him the same.

There is no fever. This isn’t lust, hunger, or carnal desire taking over their mouths and limbs. It’s fragile breath. It’s stillness of everything that isn’t them, and the intimacy of being seen, known, by another. It isn’t forgiveness that Chan tastes—he isn’t sure that he ever needed ask for it; it’s recognition. Deliverance, maybe. Mutual understanding of all the pain, want, and love they’ve both held for and hidden from each other. It’s an intimacy he wants to cradle against his chest and keep safe forever.

They aren’t done. No amount of kissing will ever make up for all their lost time, but Chan is content not to chase for more when Minho slows from their languid press to just rest there against his mouth. It’s inhaling and exhaling, breathing life into the other and accepting it right back. Silence never felt as light as this. Touch never felt as special as this. The only air Chan ever wants to breathe is the air that Minho shares with him. When he opens his eyes again, he thinks Minho must feel the same.

The world returns slowly, as if uncertain it’s welcome. Music drifts back in faint pulses through the walls, a heartbeat once removed. Light softens over their shoulders, no longer blinding, only real. Chan breathes in and the air tastes clean again. It’s ordinary, merciful. His pulse still races, but the panic has gone. He can feel the echo of it in Minho’s chest breathing deeply against his. What remains is warmth. It hums quietly beneath his skin like the echo of a hymn.

He thinks this must be what grace feels like: quiet, simple, alive.

Minho’s hand slips down the side of his neck to rest over his heart, steadying it. Chan lets himself lean into that steadiness and mirrors the touch. For the first time in too long, he isn’t performing or hiding. The silence between them isn’t absence; it’s peace. The light has settled into something golden and kind, as if the night itself has forgiven him. Chan has too. Even if he didn’t need it, Chan has forgiven himself too.

“Another,” Minho murmurs, smiles into his mouth, then kisses him again.

Chan responds with his own smile that doesn’t want to easily fade away. It makes it a little hard to taste the fullness of Minho’s lips, but he just can’t stop smiling. Not when he has sweetness sharing his breath and soft hands cupping his jaw, holding the back of his neck. Minho makes a quiet sound before tilting his head and pressing further into him. He deepens the kiss with their noses smooshing together, still gentle and so precious, but fuller now. No longer testing the waters or trying to quietly take what he wants to have; it’s something older. Stronger.

Minho kisses him like he’s trying to reach Chan’s soul, touch it with his lips and mend the split that still feels so tender through his core. Minho kisses him like he’s trying to taste the love Chan has spilling out of his every pore. Chan lets him, and he takes the same right back. It’s the sweetest thing, gentle mercy, and tinted with the salt still stuck on Minho’s lips and the fresh few tears that join their union. It’s healing. Deep, curing healing. Letting go like this felt like freefalling through the clouds or rolling around in flower fields under the sun. But Chan wasn’t alone this time, and he wasn’t grieving.

They part for the barest second. Long enough for Chan to echo the deep inhale Minho takes and see the shimmer of tear tracks on his face. He wipes them away with his thumbs, holds Minho just a bit tighter, and pulls him back for more. Never. Chan will never tire of how perfectly Minho’s mouth fits with his or how pretty it feels kissing him back.

Feeling is something he realizes he can do now without guilt creeping into his touches or regret pulling him back. Minho’s tongue licks over his lip, pokes through the seam of his mouth, and Chan opens willingly for him with fingers curling towards the heartbeat under his palm. His skin feels as warm and smooth as the tongue prodding into his mouth. Chan doesn’t hesitate in moving his hand back over Minho’s chest. He slips fingers beneath the satin clinging to his sweat to cup the squishy muscle he’d felt before. He squeezes, squeezes, thumbs over a perked nipple, and swallows the breath of delight Minho gasps into his mouth.

Tongues mingling together, Chan feels the need pouring from Minho’s kisses like he was so desperate to have every inch of more. He drinks it like the nectar it is and matches the sudden fervor of lips sucking on his. Breath. Spit. Warmth. It’s a cycle that repeats without parting as Minho moves to enact his own appreciation of wandering hands and gropes over Chan’s body. Each touch, tease, and squeeze draws muffled groans from his throat and swells the heat in his belly. It’s so fiery now. He loathes the thin barrier of clothes keeping their skin separated and their want veiled in their laps.

Chan traces his fingers down the twinkling chain running vertically down Minho’s front. He feels him squirm and the twitch of his stomach when his touch reaches bellybutton. His thumb strays. It caresses the sliver of skin between where Minho is pierced, brushes over the ends of the barbell, and twists the jewelry around where it sits until he’s satisfied. There is so much spit Chan thinks it might be all he’s swallowing. His thumb dips into Minho’s navel, pinches the slight fat of his tummy, and moves further down to follow the path of dusted hair.

Minho releases a noise both breathy and whining at the touch. A happy little hum that he’s heard before muffled from a stuffed mouth. The memory spurs heat in him, heat that he wants to chase. Memories too. Chan hasn’t forgotten and neither has his body. He’s keen on discovering what other noises that were once unfamiliar he can draw from the mouth attached to his.

His touch abandons Minho’s tummy to slide up his hip, over his waist, and down to the firmness of an ass stuck over his thighs. Minho’s breath stutters. Gasps. When Chan takes a generous handful and squeezes with all his might, Minho’s mouth opens impossibly wide on a moan that plucks each one of Chan’s heartstrings. He does it again and again, swallowing every noise that he couldn’t escape in the quiet of the backroom echoing off the partition. It makes sense now why he thought those moans to sound so sweet and pretty before. Of course, they would. They always belonged to Minho.

Chan must have found what makes Minho tick because he suddenly tears himself from Chan’s mouth with his head thrown back with a loud gasp. Then he raises up on his knees to press himself against Chan’s abdomen. Hardness rubs over his stomach. Thick heat hidden beneath leather. One of Chan’s hands falls to the back of Minho’s thigh to keep him close as he palms over his ass, and Minho guides Chan to the column of his throat where lips find the jut of his Adam’s apple.

“Channie,” Minho exhales with fingers threading through the parts of Chan’s hair that are not stuck in a knot. He tugs and pulls him forward, rocks his hips subtly against Chan’s abdomen for a modicum of relief.

Fingers creep further along Minho’s ass until they poke at the small, flat base of silicone buried between his cheeks and hidden beneath the thick material of his pants. Chan knows this plug. His dick had brushed over it more than once before he gave up all hope. His lips kiss and suck, teeth nibble and bite at the throat bobbing against his mouth. Leaving marks was not something he could stop himself from doing. Minho doesn’t seem to mind either. He’s too busy jerking forward and biting back something loud when Chan presses the plug further into his hole.

“Mmph,” vibrated against his lips. Nails scratch over his scalp. “Oh, Channie. I can still feel it in me. All your cum.” Chan bites his throat harder than he meant to, listens to Minho’s short cry and soothes him with his tongue. “Ah, don’t you want to want to watch it drip down my legs? Don’t you want to fuck it back into me? Chan-ah—”

Everything in Chan trembles, tightens, and gives out. Mindless heat rushes and pulses through him at such a visual, at the remembrance of how that sweet body pulled him closer and closer before Chan even knew why. A hand slips between the press of their bodies, and Chan falls back into the cushion behind him when Minho closes a hand around the tent in his pants. Lips find his temple. They kiss softly at his skin and drift to the corner of his eye.

“Take me back there,” Minho whispers, voice low and brimming with need. Chan hardly hears it over the groan he bites out when Minho strokes him slowly through his pants. “Take me back there and do it right before I take you myself. Right here.”

For the first time since they first embraced, Chan realizes where they are. His face heats with more than just arousal, and he wonders how Jeongin and Felix could always be this shameless in the face of public without feeling the embarrassment he feels now. Him and Minho were not subtle sitting here surrounded by disinterested masses. They’d been swapping spit (quite passionately), groping, and making noises that should only be for them. Minho is rubbing himself on Chan’s stomach and has a loose hand messing with his cock from over his slacks as he sits here thinking about how inappropriate this is.

“Don’t tempt me,” Minho adds, and Chan can feel his smirk pressed into his skin. “Because I will.” Chan does not doubt that. He does not doubt that if impatient enough, Minho would expose the both of them right here and take what it is he wants. Minho grants him mercy though with a soft kiss brought back down to his lips and sincerity in his blown eyes. “I can’t wait until we get home. Please, Channie. Let’s go make it right.”

Chan doesn’t think before nodding. There is only Minho, now and forever.

Everyone parts for them like the splitting of the sea. Chan feels like he’s running toward that damning hallway with Minho quick on his heels and a hand clasped in his. The lights aren’t harsh or judging. They’re illuminating their path as they hurriedly continue. The music doesn’t mock or laugh. It guides them to their place of worship. And the club itself doesn’t stare at them in intrusion or spy on what they have. It finally turns its back on them to allow them the intimacy they need.

Chan isn’t the same as when he first stepped foot in here just as he wasn’t the same when he left. Three different versions of him have seen this room—the desperate, broken, and resurrected. The air smells the same and the dull lights still hum with lechery, but it no longer makes him sick. He exhales, slow, and the sound almost passes for a laugh. For the first time, the room doesn’t feel like purgatory. It feels like breath.

He catches their reflection in the mirror. They aren’t fractured, they aren’t two separate halves split down the middle, or unrecognizable forms drifting. Two figures blurred together, light running through them instead of cutting them apart. Wholeness. Beauty embodied and finding embrace when Minho tugs him close with hands on his shoulders.

They collide against the door that clicks shut with the thud of Minho’s back. Chan’s fingers fumble with the lock as Minho takes hold of his nape to connect their mouths in bliss once more. He doesn’t feel dirty in here, not anymore. It’s cleanse, purity, and grace with Minho’s hands curling around his back and his tongue reaching out to lick again.

The kisses are rushed. Feverish now that they’ve gotten a taste of their love and hungry for something deeper, physical, and born of repressed need. Minho isn’t just kissing him; he’s biting and sucking on his lips, tonguing into his mouth, and digging fingers into his skin. Chan feels the bruise that it is. It isn’t the aching bruise from before or the sort that left him so sore, tender, and mottled. It’s adorating. Minho is painting him in his love so that Chan can not only feel what it’s like but see it reflected on his body as well. It’s thoughtfulness he can return.

His fingers find the single button of Minho’s shirt to undo the one thing still hiding him away no matter how poorly of a job it’d done. He just means to lay open the damp fabric, but Minho shakes it from his limbs until the sleeves leave his wrists. He’s bared. He’s bared and tossing the catastrophic shirt toward the couch before reaching for the hem of Chan’s shirt too. Their mouths remain melded for a desperate stretch of time. Deep, deep kisses, because Chan knows the moment he parts to pull his shirt from his head, he will not immediately return to those sweet lips swollen and pink.

And he doesn’t.

He finds Minho’s throat again when his shirt is tossed away. He mouths down the reddened bite marks left over his skin until his lips meet cool metal resting at the hollow of Minho’s throat. Hands grope and squeeze at pectorals, thumbs pinching nipples, and Chan starts following the path at the chain running down Minho’s chest line with kiss after slow kiss. His skin is salty, so warm, impossibly smooth, and tastes of the honey he seems to glow with. Breaths expand his chest in short bursts. When Chan deviates from the path to mouth over his pecs too, Minho’s head thuds against the door.

“Channie,” a soft, wobbly plea.

Chan hushes him as he kisses, bites, and sucks at the squishy muscle. Presses reverence into his skin. He abuses his nipples with fingers and teeth before soothing with his tongue. Minho squirms away and into every touch like it’s too much but he can’t help but ask for more. The cadence of his breathy noises feels like whispered begging while the scratch of nails on his scalp screams as silent demands. Again, he feels the wire of himself crackling, but they’ve finally started to catch. Chan is sparking and all he wants is to burn with Minho.

“Mimo, baby,” he answers to an unnamed question. Minho makes this pitiful sound, a little whimper that feels like passion. Chan can taste it on his chest, on the sweaty skin covering his heart, and it’s so amorous. Fresh ripened fruit plucked straight from the tree or the tranquility of freshwater running over pebbles in a stream. There’s so much calm and ease despite the rapture breaking through their cracks.

His lips return to the vertical chain kissing and trailing lower until they meet the connector piece where chest and abdomen meet. The havoc Minho’s stomach has wrought in his insides does not translate unto now. Here, there is only worship and the means he has to show revere. Chan kisses every inch of Minho’s tummy with slow, firm presses of his lips. He wants his devotion to linger beneath the skin and when he feels it has, he turns to searing the shape of his mouth there too.

Chan doesn’t just suck small bruises into the expanse of soft skin. He nibbles and bites until Minho is blotched in pinks and soft reds. Until he’s decorated with marks of affection and branded by Chan’s love. Only then does he give himself the treat of putting lips on the piercing that has tormented him all night. He kisses each of the ends of the barbell, licks over the jewelry whole, and dips his tongue into Minho’s bellybutton just to peck at everything once more. Minho’s appreciation is quiet. Simple little hums and occasional exhales of shakier breath as hands tug Chan closer.

“This,” Chan mumbles against metal and licks at it again with a half-caught groan. “I think this almost killed me. When you first showed it and every moment since. God, Minho.”

There’s a pause of heavy breath before, “I got it for you, Chan-ah.” It’s a quiet confession, like Minho wasn’t even sure if it should be uttered. Chan stops the movement of his lips to stare up at Minho. At his pinking cheeks and the devastating shine in his eyes. He feels his heart flip then speed up at an unbearable pace. “I know how much you like body jewelry. I thought maybe you’d see me differently if I had this. But I like it too. It makes me feel pretty and not just for you.”

Chan can hardly believe his ears. Minho didn’t need to go to such lengths for Chan to notice him. All he had to do was exist, but he feels so touched, so warm that Minho would do something like this with him in mind. That Minho would alter his body for him when he was already perfect but found self-love in the process.

There is paralysis in his limbs. It pauses the beat of his heart and squeezes the air from his lungs. How could Chan never have seen Minho when he was so clearly aching to be known? “Oh, Minho, you are so pretty. Even without it. I love it though. I love you. Mimo, baby, I love you.”

Minho smiles down at him and juts his hips forward with fingers tightening in Chan’s hair. There’s a mischievous look in his eyes, and this is exactly why Chan hadn’t looked up earlier when he’d been in this position—kneeling before Minho as he outfitted him in belly chains nearly trembling in his skin. Because of course, Minho would look like sin hovering above him, and of course, he’d give him that devil glint just because he can.

“I even wore all this for you, Channie,” Minho adds, though he isn’t as shy about it this time. “So you could put your little chains on me, and so I could show you what you are missing out on. Seungminnie found this shirt at the store and told me it’d give you a heart attack if I wore it here.” Seungmin. Chan latches onto the sliver it is and stores it away for later. “And? Chan-ah, did I give you a heart attack? Are you my murder charge?”

“I haven’t fully recovered yet,” Chan says with a nod. His lips move to kiss down the happy trail he’s been eyeing. When the rest of it disappears beneath leather, he sticks his tongue out to lick back up it. “But you haven’t killed me yet either.”

Minho juts his hips forward again with less patience and more force. A reminder for Chan to get on with it already. “Let me then,” Minho purrs, drags his thumb over Chan’s bottom lip until it snaps back against his teeth. “Take them off. Give me a taste.”

Chan does not need to be told twice. Not when Lee Minho is telling him to take his pants off and give his dick a taste.

He hikes them down as quickly and carefully as he can, but they’re so tight that it takes great effort to get the material over Minho’s butt. Chan has no idea how he did this so quickly in the bathroom stall earlier. His breath feels stolen away again when he finally gets them down enough to see what Minho’s been hiding. More skin so smooth looking and glowing against the soft light. Minho does the rest of the job of kicking them from his feet as Chan’s hands find his hips to squeeze and pin him back against the door.

Beauty. Torturous beauty.

The happy trail leading from his bellybutton turns into a dusting of neatly trimmed hair over his pubic bone. His cock curls up toward his tummy, slightly left leaning, flushed, and glistening at the head. It isn’t huge, but it’s big enough for Chan. Pretty, like everything else about Minho. Beneath are a heavy set of balls that Chan leans forward to suck into his mouth. Minho sighs at the feeling, threading fingers through hair that gets pulled free from the knot most of it is still kept in.

Chan suckles on one, tugs at it with his lips, and licks at the loose skin with his tongue. His hands remain busy. They never stop moving in their path of touch up, down, and all around Minho’s thighs, over his hips, up to his waist, and landing on his ass to grab handfuls of warm, firm skin. Touching Minho’s butt was always a blessing but getting to touch it naked was divine intervention. Minho isn’t the only butt enthusiast of their friend group, and as much as he liked to touch, he also adores being touched. His little whines when Chan squeezes him particularly hard are proof of that.

It isn’t that he tires of sucking Minho’s balls; it’s that he has other things to taste, and he doesn’t want Minho to get impatient again. So, Chan pulls off a testicle to mouth around the base of the dick in his face.

He presses soft kisses along the length tracing a vein in his exploration and humming at the wetness that clings to him when his cheek brushes over the head. Eager to taste it at the source, Chan pulls just a sliver of space away with his hand reaching to thumb at Minho’s frenulum and eyes trained on the wet slit an inch away from his mouth. There’s a thin line of precum that drools from it—the same line that had gotten stuck on his cheek.

Chan drops his tongue from his mouth to catch the end of it before it slips further toward the ground and follows the trail up to where it weeps from. It’s salty, but it’s also nectar, ambrosia, a gift. “Pretty,” he hums out and presses his lips to Minho’s tip before guiding him into his mouth.

Smooth. Warm. Tasty. Chan moans around the length, hears it echoed back to him from Minho’s parted mouth, and shuffles closer to him on his knees. He drinks from Minho as he tongues over his slit and sinks a smidge further just to pull back up. It’s give and take. It’s blessing. It’s Minho, and Chan takes the communion this is with every inhale through his nose and weak lift of hips that he only pushes back into solid surface.

He sinks down on him slowly, keeps his breaths steady and noises quiet as Minho pulls at his hair and trembles against him. Chan is only here to taste. This isn’t their final act of the night, but it’s bliss when he gets far enough down to swallow around him and Minho jerks. Precum leaks down the back of his throat as Minho spews out a string of moaned profanities. He’s too wound up for something as good as this to continue. Chan can feel it in the spasms under his palms and the twitch in his mouth. He isn’t surprised when Minho pulls him off just to haul him back onto his feet and shove his tongue down his throat.

Fingers fumble with his buckle as Chan tries to keep up with the fervor with which Minho is tearing into his mouth. But Minho doesn’t undo his pants when his buckle comes loose. He just slips his hands beneath the waistband to palm at his ass, knock their hips together, and squeeze his backside into oblivion. The grip of fingers digging into the flesh almost hurts. It only lasts a few moments as Minho licks his own taste from Chan’s mouth before he’s moving a hand to Chan’s front to grab his dick.

“Didn’t wanna finish in your mouth,” Minho pants against him, whines when Chan reaches around him to put pressure on the plug still nestled in his ass. “Channie, please. I want to see you this time. Is the couch okay?”

He was afraid Minho would suggest that. He wants to see him this time too. Though it looks comfortable, Chan has no desire to put his bare anything on that leather. It may be hypocritical of him considering what he’d done earlier and the safety precautions he completely threw out the window, but Chan is very sure that that couch is stuffed full of disease. No part of him wants to steal a wipe from a stall and wipe down the surface either.

He must make a face or pause for too long because Minho pinches the tip of his dick and bumps their noses together. “Don’t be like that, Chan-ah,” he coos with his cute little voice laced in whining. Chan knows he does it extra just to win him over. “It’ll be fine. Just lay all the clothes out and sit on them. I’m gonna ride you.”

“Fuck,” he groans. His mind blanks. How many more times was Minho going to straddle him tonight? It could be a million and it still wouldn’t be enough for him. Disease and nasty couches meant nothing compared to the images Minho just put in his head. “Yeah, couch is good.”

Minho slips his hand from the front of Chan’s pants to finally unbutton them. They fall to his ankles in a rustle of fabric with Minho leaning forward to bite his chin. Chan just blinks at him as he tries kicking off his shoes, and Minho gives his ass one last tight squeeze before stepping around him with glittery, blown eyes. He doesn’t scramble after him. He doesn’t. It’s just a hurried pace and messy limbs as he gathers their pants from the floor and nearly trips over his abandoned shoes on the way toward the couch.

Minho giggles at him before slipping into one of the bathroom stalls. Chan tries not to feel embarrassed by his nude state in somewhere that isn’t his bedroom or his own bathroom by busying himself with haphazardly laying their shed clothes over the couch’s surface. He doesn’t know what Minho’s doing, doesn’t even look. Not until he feels a sharp palm on his bare ass that tears a mix between a yelp and moan from him. Flipping around has a pleased Minho with a wicked grin greeting him.

“I told you, Channie,” Minho teases and throws things onto the couch before mingling his fingers through the chains hugging Chan’s waist. Two packets, it seems. One lube and the other wipes. The only thing this bathroom was missing is condoms—not that they’d be needing or wanting any. “The recoil on that thing levels cities. I’m sure of it.”

Chan plops down on the clothed surface of the leather to escape any other slaps that Minho may want to surprise him with but leans back forward to kiss the tummy in front of him. Minho’s body twinkles in sweat and the jewelry decorating his skin. Even nude, the chains Chan adorned him in make him look so divine. A pretty feast. He ought to get some permanent ones stuck on his waist until Minho can’t stand them anymore.

“Come here,” Chan says reaching out for Minho’s waist to pull him into his lap. There was such hurry in getting in here because he ‘couldn’t wait’ until they got home, but Minho is certainly taking his sweet time now.

Sickly sweet time, because he avoids Chan’s hands just to turn around and put his ass on display. Bent slightly at the hips, back arched, and legs spread. Chan chokes on absolutely nothing when he catches sight of the base of the black plug between Minho’s cheeks—his very plump looking cheeks. It’s hard to imagine that this is what was waiting for him on the other side of that partition.

His thighs are very distracting though. Chan has never seen them so bare, spread, and flexing as Minho raises his head to look over his shoulder with sweaty bangs falling over his eyes. They twinkle beneath the blonde strands, blown with lust and desperate ache. He has this shit-eating smirk on his lips. Lips that are swollen, bitten dark pink, and slickened in spit.

God, is he sin, but it feels like transcendence.

“Chan-ah,” and it sounds breathless, “you’re supposed to watch.”

Chan blinks away from the sultriness in Minho’s expression to sweep his gaze down the curve of Minho’s back, to the glinting of chains that swoop low on his waist and dip further down his hips. Minho’s fingers are teasing at the base of the plug. They twist the silicone around then urge it deeper inside before easing it out just enough to tug on his rim without fully slipping free. His hands can’t help themselves. Squeezing the leather of the couch or digging fingertips into his kneecaps weren’t enough.

Chan reaches forward to slap Minho’s ass. Not just one cheek but both of them. He watches and feels the fat jiggle under the crack of skin that echoes in the air. There’s delight in the groan Minho lets slip. Even more delightful when it makes him finally pull the plug loose with a deep sigh that sounds more like a whining breath. Chan doesn’t look to see what Minho does with the plug. He doesn’t look to see the way his mouth has fallen open or the ruddiness of his cheeks.

He reaches with both hands to spread his butt apart and watches.

Minho’s hole is still so loose from earlier, rim pink, puffy and wet. Chan swoons at the sight knowing he’s the one who made it that way. Unknowingly, yes, but it was his doing that left Minho’s ass looking so wrecked. “Oh, baby,” he whispers with awe. His thumb drifts toward the mess, pokes and circles his swollen rim just to watch it flutter at him and try to pull him in. His thumb comes away sticky from residual lube and cum still clinging to him.

He doesn’t have to wait too long for his leftovers to start trickling out. Chan grips him firmer, spreads his cheeks wider, and stares enraptured at the little bits of his cum that start slipping from Minho’s rim down the inside of his thigh. He moans softly at the sight, doesn’t even think before leaning forward and cleaning the path of it up with his tongue.

The sound Minho makes is muffled again, but Chan can’t even form the questions of why that may be in his head. There are far more important things happening right now like the taste of himself fermented by Minho’s insides and the sweet taste of his ass when his lips and tongue meet rim. It has a metallic, salty tint when Chan slips further inside, something musky yet fulfilling as he swallows down. Minho’s hand finds the back of his head to urge him closer in demand with his muffled sounds. Chan wants Minho to ride his face until his tailbone fractures his nose and there’s blood running down his chin.

Patience is fickle when it comes to the things Minho desires. Chan has barely begun trying to suck hickeys onto Minho’s rim before he’s pulled off and away from abundance. The protest stuck in his throat is bitten off when Minho turns to push him back into the couch and climbs into his lap with knees on each side of his hips. His cock rubs against Chan’s stomach leaving sticky trails of fluid on his skin that Chan mimics with his own cock jutting into the underside of Minho’s balls.

The real thing that silences his protest, however, is the thought that maybe everything Chan imagined had always been real because he understands now why Minho’s noises were muffled, even before. Either Chan is simply intuitive, or him and Minho have always been one in the same.

There’s drool slipping down Minho’s chin not only because he has his mouth stuck open but because he’s gagged himself with the plug that’s been stuck in his ass all night. He’s so pleased with himself for doing so too. His lips try to smile around the object but all that comes out is another line of drool.

“Jesus, Minho.” Chan cannot catch a break tonight, but he wants to hear those pretty sounds he knows Minho is capable of without the silicone barrier. His fingers close around the base and tug lightly until Minho’s gives it up. It slips from his lips with messy strings of saliva and a glob of milky white that gets trapped on his lip. Minho doesn’t lick it away. He moves forward to kiss Chan as sloppily as he can manage while pushing all that’s stuck in his mouth right onto Chan’s tongue.

The plug gets abandoned. Hands find waist to pull closer, thread through dainty chains, and just hold all that he adores. Minho doesn’t hold him back right away, and that’s okay. Chan can feel him patting around on the couch in search of the lube packet he’d tossed there earlier. When his fingers finally close around it, Minho pulls away with a stuttered breath and hips still grinding slowly against Chan’s abdomen. He rips the packet open with his teeth and spits the plastic away as lube oozes out to cover his fingers and drip down his front.

“Mimo,” he breathes, buzzing in heat and humming with need that feels much more frantic with Minho reaching behind himself to close wet fingers around Chan’s cock. “Minho, please.”

“It’s okay,” Minho hushes him with lips at his jaw and a hand steadying the length beneath him. Chan trembles as Minho lowers himself, shakes and nearly cries when their bodies meet. “It’s okay, Chan-ah. We’re okay now.” He sounds so sweet, so reassuring. Even as he breaches warmth, Chan can’t help but feel so delicate in Minho’s grasp. “Let your Mimo love on you, sweetie. Everything’s alright. Just let go and feel.”

When Chan let go earlier, it was to give himself over to lustful cravings and the temporary relief of desire. When Chan lets go now, it’s to give himself over to Minho wholly—body, soul, heart, and mind. Chan would bare himself whole and crack his ribcage right open for Minho to take his heart, hold it so dearly and kiss the ache away.

Minho lowers himself with his mouth drawn open in release until he’s fully seated in Chan’s lap. Full, warm, and clinging like neither of them dared to part for another moment. Together they will forever remain. Their foreheads meet, heat gathering where their hands find each other, and this feels nothing like the last time. This is real, and it’s them.

Minho moves and everything else stops. The air feels thinner, stripped of its noise. Breath. Heartbeat. Breath. Heartbeat. It goes back and forth like ancient language only they know. Hips circling, pivoting, bouncing as thighs widen, twitch, and tense. Chan feels so full even though he’s the one doing the filling. Every breath between them sounds like confession. When they move, it isn’t to take but to recognize; skin meeting skin the way light meets glass. Not to burn but to pass through. Chan burns anyway.

They don’t need words drenched in filth. This isn’t sex born of human desire wrapped in sin. It’s absolution. It’s communion. It’s the mingling of two souls lost without each other becoming one not just in body but in spirit. Resonance. They see each other, and Chan didn’t know love could feel as full as this. To be seen is to be known, and to be known is to be loved. He wants to be loved. He deserves to be loved. They both do, and they both are.

The room that once stank of sin smells human now—warm, alive, forgiven. Minho touches every inch of him that their position allows. Hands roaming over shoulders, arms, neck, back, face, and hair like he’s trying to ensure Chan feels his devotion in every cell. And Chan touches back. From his knees up to everywhere else. Gropes, squeezes, gentle and firm caresses that chant love, love, love. Chan will never be able to say it enough, and he’ll show it in every meeting of skin until even that runs raw.

Jewelry clinks with every rise and fall of Minho’s hips. It’s hypnotizing to watch the way white gold bounces and sways on Minho’s body with the slap of skin. Chan tries to match each movement with thrusts of his own turning over in pleasure with the scratch of nails and heated sounds when he finds Minho’s prostate. Their mouths keep catching in half aborted kisses, choked off and drawn-out moans, and the little pleas of more.

Salt braces his tongue. Chan doesn’t know who the tears come from, maybe them both, but he knows they aren’t of sadness, pain, or the regret of this wound festering for so long. They’re happy tears. Inexplicable happiness at finally being together and letting go of all that was held onto in destructive ways. Freedom. Sanctity.

“Channie,” spoken like praise at the corner of his mouth. Minho’s cock keeps slapping between the space of their bodies and drooling mess that smears all over their skin. The chains he wears are sticky with it, his piercing too, and Chan doesn’t want to clean them when they go home. He wants the metal to tarnish, forever imprinting the essence of Minho’s love into something tangible for him to hold. Permanence.

“Channie, please. Please.” His movements feel weaker, slower, and Chan understands what it is he’s asking for. Not just a break but release. Minho wants to come undone, but he wants Chan to be the one to unravel him.

“It’s okay, baby,” he says to parted lips. An echo of Minho’s earlier reassurance that he seals with a kiss. “I’ve got you. Let your Channie love on you too, Mimo.” He’s given a nod and a whine of surrender as he falls still, almost limp in his lap. Chan finds purchase with a hand on Minho’s waist to guide and hold him steady while the other slips between their bodies to finish him off.

He fists Minho’s wet cock to the pace of his hips slapping up against his ass. It draws the prettiest sounds from him, from them both, and Chan never thought that his knuckles brushing over a navel piercing as he jerked someone off could feel so euphoric. But Minho isn’t just someone; he’s everything. He’s so wet. The slick of Chan’s hands working him over feels louder than the smack of skin and the noises they keep swallowing from each other.

Minho finally jerks forward with this punched-out groan and trembling thighs as he slumps against Chan’s chest. His arms wrap around his shoulders in a tight grip, nails clawing along Chan’s spine and making his skin sting. Hot breath stutters over his neck where Minho has buried himself. His face feels wet and teeth sharp when he bites into Chan’s collarbone with a whimper that seems too fragile in the midst of this act.

Minho comes with a lurch and sweet devastation spilling from his lips. His cock twitches before warmth bursts over Chan’s tummy, slips through his fingers, and smudges all over his skin. Minho rises slightly on his knees with the pleasure unfurling through him, pressing himself so tightly against Chan that his hand can hardly milk him through it. Chan tries. He tries so hard to keep thrusting into Minho as deep and hard as he can fighting through the sudden tightness and keeping the pace of his hand slippery in cum.

It takes so long for Minho to relax—to unclench everything and fall back into Chan’s lap as nothing but dead weight. He still clings even though his grip has diminished to nothing but useless pawing. His body trembles and trembles with the tremors and aftershocks of orgasm, but he doesn’t ask Chan to stop. Not even to slow down and let him breathe. Chan still chases just as thoroughly as he had before, just more frantic and erratically now. He’s so close, and Minho weakly clenching around him trying to draw it out does nothing to prevent the inevitable.

All that remains is the warmth of Minho around, draped, and spilled all over him. The only thing Chan can hear beyond their deep breaths is the quiet pleading interspersed in the soft whimpers of overstimulation. “Fill me up, Channie. Please, fill me up again.”

Chan doesn’t know whether he shouts or cries when he grants the request. Coming inside of Minho was gifting him the physicality of his love when handing his heart over to him felt spiritual. The first time had only been routine; now, it was blessing. Minho makes these delicate, happy little moans at the feel of Chan’s release with messy lips leaving even messier kisses along the side of his neck. Chan doesn’t stop his short, punching grinds against Minho’s ass until the last of his pleasure flares before fizzling out into nothing but closeness.

Guilt doesn’t greet him when it’s all over. Nor does shame or regret. There’s fulfillment, opportunity for growth, and the anticipation of getting to have this again and again. It isn’t relief that his pining is finally over; Chan will never stop pining after Minho even when he does have him to call his own. It’s relief that they are just beginning, and Chan can’t see them ever ending. There is no Chan and Minho or Minho and Chan. It’s simply them, together as one.

Minho trembles still as he rests over Chan. Hoping it isn’t because he’s gone cold, Chan holds him back as tenderly as he can manage running palms up and down his back and over his sides to keep him warm. Their breaths are deeply felt. Their hearts still beat to the same rhythm. Chan may tremble too, he might even sniffle quietly, but it’s only because the emotion he feels is so joyful in coming out of him instead of hiding away.

Minho’s cheek is resting over Chan’s shoulder as he rubs at Chan’s back and hums at the fingers that occasionally flit up to play with his hair. Too many things are hard to resist. Like turning his head and angling it down to press kisses all over Minho’s face. His forehead, temples, nose, cheeks, and chin. Chan even kisses around his teary eyes and over his lids uncaring if his mouth comes away smudged in makeup or purple glitter. It doesn’t matter because it makes Minho giggle and finally grab Chan’s neck to pull him to his mouth instead.

These kisses linger. Chaste little presses of reverence and deeper ones that are slow, full of promise and things they may never find the words to voice. Chan wishes he could engrave the feel of them into each of his cells so that he may never forget.

“I’ve loved you for so long now, Channie,” Minho says against his mouth. His eyes are so bright. His makeup is smudged everywhere, and Chan can’t help the urge he has to cry again. Minho just smiles even if it does seem a little sad. “Too long. It feels so good to finally tell you and to hear you say it back.” God, they were both just piles of idiots. A silly pair of sorry sods.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” though he knows no apology will take away all those years of pain they both felt. It shouldn’t matter so much now. They have each other and all that hurt can finally wash away. “I think I fell in love with you the moment I met you, Lee Minho, and I didn’t even know what love was at that age. I’m sorry I never saw it coming from you too. It’s just like you said. I thought it was just me.”

Minho lifts his head from its resting spot to cup Chan’s face and press the tips of their noses together. His smile isn’t as sad now. “We shouldn’t have to apologize for things we didn’t know the truth of. It’s okay now, Chan-ah. You don’t have to pretend anymore. I’m right here. I’ve always been right here, and you can have me for however long you want and need. Your little Mimo, yeah?”

Chan nods, kisses him just because he can. He’ll never need a reason to again. “My little Mimo,” he coos and starts lightly pinching at his cheeks. “Oh, Hyung loves his little Mimo so much. He’s so cutie and lovable. I could just kiss him.”

Minho only giggles for half a second before he’s throwing out a frown and batting Chan’s hands away. “Stop that. Quit it,” he grumbles, but the waver of his voice and twitch of his lips betray his displeasure. Chan now wonders if every fight he put up at receiving affection had always only been a ruse. “Your little Mimo is covered in his own cum. Clean me up already, huh?”

Chan grips his waist tight to pull him closer, feel the downturn of his lips press again into his. “What, is the romance over?” he huffs a laugh out. He can only guess now that their softer moments would be achingly sweet, and the gruff of Minho’s deflection would only be ornerier. Nothing was ever easy with him, but Chan liked it either way. “Are you back to being a prickly cactus now that you’ve gotten it out of your system?”

A hand pushes at his chest in a light shove. That doesn’t mean Minho won’t give him a peck on his chin for the trouble though. “Yes, and don’t expect any affection from me for the foreseeable future. It takes several business days for me to recover.” Then Minho makes a face at him. A pout that feels almost childish. “I’m tired, dehydrated, and my head is starting to hurt from drinking so much. I just want to go home now. With you, of course. But only because we live together.”

Chan raises a brow at him. “Right. Of course. Absolutely no other reason than us living together.” Minho smacks at his chest again, and Chan can’t help but laugh. “Yes, Mimo. We can go home. Come on, up.”

But Minho doesn’t raise easily when Chan cups the underside of his thighs to lift him off his lap. In fact, he seems to slump his weight even more and weakly clenches on what’s still stuck in him. It isn’t panic in his eyes but a silent beg that forces fingertips into his shoulders. Chan stills his hands and pets thumbs over Minho’s waist as he waits for him to say something.

“The plug,” Minho says softly and inclines his head toward where it’s laying forgotten over the couch. His cheeks and ears have gone pink again as he bites over his bottom lip with his crooked front teeth. “The plug first Channie. I don’t want to lose any of it. Like to feel it in me.”

Chan swallows something down with a nod that feels reflexive. He knew Minho would be into that sort of thing. “Yeah, Mimo, here,” and he reaches for the abandoned plug to nudge it against where they are joined. “I’ll be easy.” Minho lifts off him with wobbly thighs and sighs when Chan slips the plug into him. Chan feels he earns a nice pat on the butt, so he gives him one before picking him up by the backs of his thighs and changing their position, gently setting Minho down on the seat he’d just occupied.

“Oh,” Chan says dumbly when he really looks down the rest of Minho’s body to see how much mess he’d made.

His gut curls with a muted heat at the sight of Minho’s tummy covered in his own cum. It clings to the belly chains, streaks up toward his chest, and forms little globs that drip off the end of the jewelry in his navel. Chan wonders if he can tell the future. He’d pictured that very sight—Minho’s piercing dripping in cum—as he tugged one out at their apartment. It may not be his own mess decorating him now, but it’s a mess, and Chan still adores the sight. Even better complimented with the light bruises and pink marks Chan had sucked and bit into his skin earlier.

“Do you like it, Chan-ah?” Minho singsongs with a smirk, leans back against the couch and starts tapping his feet over the tile. What a smug little princess. Chan loves him so much. “Aren’t I just a pretty picture? Go on. Tell me.”

Chan’s lips twitch. “Oh, the prettiest picture. Look at your cute little cock,” he coos at him, brushes fingers over the softened length on his tummy just to watch him squirm his hips and huff out a disapproving noise. He catches a glob of cum on his thumb that’s stuck in his navel to suck into his mouth with a hum. “A tasty one too. We’ll have to clean that out later. Hyung can help.”

Minho just stares at him with a mix of infatuation and curiosity. Chan ignores him for the moment to pick out a few wipes from the package and clean all their mess up. He tries to be thorough and diligent in wiping Minho up because he’d rather him not get irritated over being sticky and itchy on their way home. The problem is that Minho keeps trying to kiss him every chance he gets on any surface he can manage. When Chan tries to kiss him back though, Minho fakes aversion and shoves hands in his face.

It takes too long, but eventually they’re both cleaned enough to make a public reappearance. Chan even dresses Minho back up when the man claims to be too lazy to manage it himself. His infuriating leather pants are even more difficult to put on than they were to take off, but Minho seems to have lost his will to act like Chan is trying to strangle him. Instead, he lays there quietly, passively, and easily moves limbs as Chan tries to outfit him once more.

“I think we should leave quietly,” Minho says brushing the hair from his eyes while Chan does up his pants. “No ‘I told you so’ or the ‘finally’ conversations everyone is bound to give us. I don’t want to deal with it right now.”

Chan can wholeheartedly agree with something like that. The devastation and havoc their friends would wreak on them sounds worse than the relentless teasing from before. Chan can imagine the damage it would do to his psyche. There’s no way none of them had seen their kissing display at the booth. “I agree. They can harass us another time. Preferably never, but that’s impossible.”

“Kim Seungmin has been calling me a junkless sissy for a few years now,” Minho admits with a dry laugh. “That twit, and I still choose to have lunch with him every week. He told me if I didn’t buy this shirt and ask you for some chain pizzazz to get your attention, then he was going to castrate me just to make the statement true.”

Chan pauses with his shirt half over his head. Again, Seungmin. Chan gets a strange feeling, and he hopes that he can remember it in the morning. He thinks he may have some inquiries to dive into. “Well, that’s a bit harsh. Minnie said that?”

“Yes, and I have no idea where he heard that sort of language.” Chan finally gets his shirt over his head. He doesn’t even bother fixing how it sits on his chest, choosing instead to give Minho a flat look who only smiles before turning away. “I have never threatened castration before, so don’t even give me that look.”

Chan would very much like to argue that he had done that because he heard the words come right out of Minho’s mouth just a week prior when Felix wouldn’t stop tickling his toes. He can’t remember when his mild threats of violence had turned into not so mild threats, but Chan is quite aware that pissing Minho off is not in the cards if he wants to keep all of himself intact. “No, you’re right,” he agrees, “I have no idea where he could have ever heard that from.”

Minho beams at him, slaps a kiss on his cheek then a hand on his butt, and moves for the door. Chan goes to follow but halts halfway there when he catches the glare of the mirror above the sink. His hand reaches for Minho’s arm to stop him too, pulls him back into his chest, and turns them both to face their reflection. Minho stumbles a bit with the movement and grumbles out a, “what?” Instantly though, he melts against Chan when he’s hugged in a tight embrace.

“Look at us, Mimo,” Chan whispers to him with awe. And Minho looks. He stares at the same reflection Chan is—the two of them standing there. Chan with his chin over Minho’s shoulder and his arms wrapped around him. Minho’s hands come up to caress those arms, and he tilts his head to the side to rest their cheeks together.

Together. One whole, complete picture. Chan only ever saw it in his dreams. He never thought reality would ever show him what he has always known to be tragedy. It isn’t tragedy now, not anymore. Chan still doesn’t see in himself what others fawn over. But Minho sees it. Minho sees it, and he loves him for it too. Chan knows that now, and that knowledge is more than enough for him to maybe start seeing it too.

“We look so perfect together, Chan-ah,” Minho says softly, raises a hand to pet over Chan’s hair with a tender look in his eyes. “Like we were meant to be. Even if that sounds cheesy and makes me want to hurl just a little bit.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Chan says back. The looking perfect and ‘meant to be part’ anyway. Minho turns his head for a kiss. Just a soft peck that Chan will neither tire of nor get used to. Kissing Minho was a gift and blessing each time. “Let’s scurry on home, yeah?”

Stepping out of that backroom is Chan leaving as a new man. He feels lighter, a lot lighter than he ever remembers being in the face of all his burdens. Many of that heaviness may have been lifted, but that doesn’t mean he’s completely free from all the things he’s always hidden behind. There are still things he needs to work on, truths to uncover about himself, and mending up patches that have long since cracked up inside.

Minho will help because Chan isn’t leaving this place alone anymore. He has someone that knows him all too well at his side. Someone who grabs his hand and doesn’t let go. Someone that he knows loves just as much as he is loved. Minho isn’t going anywhere.

At least, Chan thought he wasn’t until they make it two steps out the door and Minho completely abandons him to kneel next to the pair of legs sprawled out on the hallway floor. They belong to one Yang Jeongin. A Yang Jeongin who is sitting against the wall right beside the door and bawling his eyes out. His face is streaked in tears both wet and dried with his red eyes all puffy as he wipes at his face. Chan feels this terrible ache in his chest at the sight. He hated seeing his friends upset, hurt, or crying. It’s like a punch straight to his gut and a sure way to get his own waterworks started up.

“Jeongin-ah, sweetie,” Chan says as he kneels beside Minho to put his hand on Jeongin’s thigh. Minho is already cupping his face and trying to wipe the tears out from under his eyes. “What’s wrong? Why are you crying, baby?”

Jeongin shakes his head with this quivering smile. He doesn’t look hurt or upset beyond the tears all over his face. In fact, he looks overjoyed. “It’s just, love is so beautiful, you know?” he wobbles out and brings one hand up to hold Minho’s wrist while his other finds Chan’s. “I saw you guys in the booth. You looked so happy, and God, all those sweet things you said in there? It felt like I was listening to a romance novel.”

Chan feels his jaw tighten and his face heat in embarrassment. He slips his hand out from under Jeongin’s to cover his mouth in resignation. Minho starts giggling before he bites it short when Chan shoots him a glare. He wants to be mad, he really does, but poor Jeongin is just weeping to himself looking like pure innocence. It’s impossible to be irritated with his cute face.

“And you, what?” Chan asks and clasps his hands in his lap. “Followed us back here to listen to us have sex?”

Jeongin makes a desperate sound, throws his hand in the air, and turns to Minho with incredulity in his eyes. “I know, I know,” Minho soothes him with fingers brushing through his hair. “Just answer the question for Hyung, okay?”

“What else was I supposed to do?” Jeongin sniffles. Chan blinks up at the ceiling trying to will some patience into his system. “You guys locked the door, so I couldn’t come in and watch. Of course, I listened. You both sounded so pretty. You made each other sound so pretty. I wish I could’ve seen.”

Minho coos at him still brushing through his hair and wiping at his face. It takes Chan great effort, on the other hand, not to simply get up and walk away. Maybe pretend this little interaction never happened. So much for leaving quietly. “Will you stop encouraging him?” he mutters to Minho, who completely ignores him.

“Why are you crying then, Yen-ah?” Minho urges.

Jeongin sniffles again and curls further into Minho’s touch. “It was just really emotional, okay?” he pouts. “I laughed. I cried. I even moaned a little. And I came in my pants.”

“You what?” Chan gasps out, jaw fully dropped.

Jeongin whines with pink in his cheeks and presses himself closer into Minho. His face tucks into Minho’s neck, and Minho just throws arms around him to rub over his back and hush him quietly. “It’s not my fault, Hyung. I barely even touched myself. I was overwhelmed, and it just happened, okay? Stop yelling at me.”

Chan purses his lips. “I’m not—”

“Oh, you poor honey. So neglected,” Minho soothes him in this soft, warm voice. It feels tender even to Chan who may be a little peeved that their intimacy had been intruded one. That’s what they get for not going home. He can’t be angry with Jeongin though. Something like that feels impossible. He’s too cute to get mad at. “Channie-hyung is negligent of you, huh? Never gives you any attention?”

Chan opens his mouth to argue because that is so not true, but Jeongin decides to betray him by shaking his head and sniffling out a, “no, Hyung never gives me any attention. He hates me.” What a filthy liar.

He doesn’t even get to defend himself yet again. Minho pulls Jeongin’s face from his neck to cup his cheeks and presses a kiss right to his lips. Chan can only blink in silence at the display. Jeongin though, seems to lighten up with the affection and even cracks a toothy grin that brings out his dimples. “What was that?” Chan squeaks out.

Minho, again, ignores him. “Don’t you worry, honey. Your Minho-hyung loves you, and he can get Channie to do whatever he wants.” Then he turns his head over his shoulder with a wicked grin and innocence in his eyes. “Chan-ah, come give little Yennie a taste. Tell him you love him. He’s so sad because you won’t love him.”

Chan flares his nostrils at Minho, and Jeongin turns to him too with his lips already puckered just waiting. “No, what? He shouldn’t get a kiss. Not from you or me.”

Minho gives him a devastating pout as he bats his lashes at him. “Oh, look at him, Chan-ah. He’s just a baby. For me? Please?”

“Yeah, Hyung. I’m just a baby.” And now he has two pairs of pleading eyes and matching pouty frowns that do something awful to his chest. Chan hates the both of them.

Minho steps away easily when Chan shoos him from his spot. He stays close, close enough that he can feel a chest barely grazing his back as he squats right beside the wall before arms wrap loosely around his waist. There isn’t a single thought in his head why Minho finds it so important for him to give Jeongin a kiss. Unfortunately, he’ll do it anyway. Only because Minho asked him to.

“Now, Innie-yah,” Chan says with a sternness to his voice even as he cups Jeongin’s jaw. “What have I told you about spying on people?”

Jeongin licks his lips but at least looks apologetic when he casts his eyes down and mumbles out, “to not. Especially when they’re doing private things.”

“And we should work on that just a little more, alright?” Jeongin nods, and Chan finds it sincere enough to press a kiss to his lips. Just one. Even though Jeongin tries to pull him back in for another with a hum and his tongue already reaching out, Chan only allows him one. “That’s all you get. And you know I love you, Innie baby. So much. Don’t think that I don’t.”

Jeongin beams at him with his teary eyes all scrunched up with joy. “I love my Hyung too, and I’m so happy for you two. Your love like, moved me to tears. Literally.” Minho reaches over Chan’s shoulder to pat his dimply cheek before Jeongin turns a little serious. “But can someone go find Felix for me? I miss him now.”

“Channie will go get him, okay?” Minho says and moves from Chan’s back to squeeze Jeongin’s shoulder. “Let’s get you into the bathroom to assess the damage. Try to clean you up a bit, hm?”

Curse Minho for making him go find Felix because that increases his chances of running into the two people who are sure to tease the shit out of him the second they spot him. He knows Minho did it on purpose. Not to save Chan from a handsy Jeongin as he helps cleanup his dick mess, but to save himself from Seungmin and Changbin. How sweet. He should’ve seen that coming.

Fortunately, Felix is quick to spot. He’s sitting at their booth all polite-like as he quietly scans the crowd. Unfortunately, the two people he’d wanted to avoid are also sitting in the booth. Changbin locks eyes with him immediately with this amused smirk on his lips, and Seungmin…seems to be laying over Changbin’s lap with his head stuck up his boyfriend’s shirt. Right.

“Oh! Congrats to the newlyweds! I thought I’d die before the day came!” Changbin shouts when Chan is within hearing distance.

Ignore.

Felix turns to him with a pleased smile. “We’re so happy for you, Channie-hyung, and we can’t wait to hear everything about you and Minho going forward. I think it’s such a blessing that all of us can have each other as we do.” Chan will always be so grateful for Felix and the genuineness of his personality.

“I could wait,” Seungmin mumbles from under fabric. “I could definitely wait and actually never hear anything about it ever again.”

Ignore.

“Actually, Lix,” Chan says and leans closer to him so that the others won’t hear. “Jeongin had a, um, thing. Well, having, I guess. It doesn’t matter. He has an issue, and he’s asking for you. Minho is with him in the back trying to clean him up.”

Felix pulls away with an immediate frown. He practically shoves Chan out of the way to exit the booth before taking off toward the hallway with a wrinkle in his brow. Chan doesn’t think he’s ever seen Felix look that worried before. God, they were so in love. He hopes they stay happy forever.

Chan doesn’t really know what to do now. He isn’t going to leave without Minho or even wait outside for him because then he’ll just throw a fit about deserted and maybe shut himself up in his room for the rest of the night. He doesn’t really want to go back either because Minho should be released once Felix takes over, and Chan doesn’t want to play that game Jeongin likes to blindside him with called, ‘hey Hyung, look at my dick’. But Chan doesn’t really want to stay here either to wait for Minho. Not with these two anyway.

“Okay, so who broke first?” Changbin asks. He looks far too interested, like he actually wants to hear about it and not just tease. Chan would tell him under any other normal circumstance. Right now was just not the right moment. Can’t he have at least one night to process the whirlwind of what just happened? “We all saw the heavy make-out session, but no one saw it start. I bet it was you, huh?”

“I think it was more of a mutual thing,” he decides to say, then twiddles his thumbs and narrows his eyes at the lump beneath Changbin’s shirt. He needed to have a few words. “Kim Seungmin, come out of there. I need to ask you something.”

Changbin pats the lump that doesn’t move and raises a brow. “He’s meditating at the moment.” Chan pulls a face. What is that supposed to mean? “Minnie drank too much. He’s using my abs to keep it all down.” Gross.

“Seungmin,” he tries anyway, “did you have anything at all to do with what happened tonight? Say…I don’t know, the outfit Minho picked out that he would never normally wear or the weird way you were ‘encouraging’ me to go cool off? Anything?”

Twin giggles erupt from the two of them, and Chan already has his answer. Luckily, Seungmin gives him a verbal one too. Or maybe it’s unlucky. Chan should have just never asked, pretended he was none the wiser when Minho brought Seungmin up so many times.

“Did I put the idea in Minho’s head that you’d trip over yourself if he bought and wore that shirt? Maybe.” He shrugs with the half-confession. Chan sort of wants to strangle him. Just a little. “Was I also under the same impression that if I got you to wander back there that he’d follow without a second thought? I guess you could say that, yeah.”

“More like, we both totally knew that Minho would absolutely jump your bones if he saw you walking back there,” Changbin adds. “He was almost as insufferable as you. It’s a miracle that you never noticed, that neither of you ever noticed. Both of you were so painfully obvious about it.”

Chan frowns at them. He didn’t think he was being that bad about his suffering. It couldn’t have been so obvious if neither of them did anything about it or even gave little hints that there was something there. Even if they had, someone would’ve pointed them out, helped them along easier, or just bluntly said, ‘hey, Minho is totally in love with you by the way’. But no one ever did.

“Do you know how hard it was to keep Jeongin from following you into that backroom because he wants a piece too?” Seungmin continues. He’s suddenly pulling himself out from under Changbin’s shirt to fix Chan with a mild glare. “Do you know how unbearably irritating it was to listen to the two of you separately squawk about how in love you were but not having the balls to do anything about it?”

Changbin nods along. “The Jeongin part was really hard, yeah.”

“So, why didn’t you just say something?” Chan asks. He feels a little butthurt that his friends were irritated with him, and he didn’t even know about it. “You could’ve told me to shut up about it. I would have. You could’ve mentioned the Minho bit too, and I wouldn’t have had to wallow about it so much.”

Changbin looks suddenly scandalized by the statement. “Are you insane? That’s not how big love confessions work.”

“Listen.” Chan is listening. “I love you, Hyung. I really do. But sometimes you are a pain in my ass. Not so big that I would ever tell you to shut up about your feelings and your struggles. Confessing someone else’s love is not for us to do. That should be between the two people who are, you know, in love. We didn’t want to ruin the words either of you had to say. We just tried to push it together a little quicker, and look, we won.”

Chan finds that oddly sweet of them. Maybe knowing it sooner would have saved him a great deal of sleepless nights and long looks in the mirror that often left him in tears, but he would rather have heard it from Minho than anyone else. He knows Minho would feel the same way too. Seungmin and Changbin might have been the greatest duo to have ever happened to him. “I appreciate that, I guess?” And you know what? They did win. All of them.

Seungmin’s eyes suddenly light up and drift off to the side of where Chan is standing. “Oh, Minho-hyung,” he calls out. Chan turns to find him wandering over to the booth with careful indifference on his face.  Chan does not fail to notice all the marks he’s left over his skin, especially his tummy, in the lights flitting over his form. “I love what you’ve done with the place. Very amusing. Great décor. Really, I love it. Props to Channie-hyung, who I am assuming is the designer. Awesome work.”

“Wow, you guys really did go bang it out, huh?” Changbin adds.

“Kim Seungmin,” Minho says slowly when he reaches Chan’s side. The way the words come out of his mouth make it sound like even the shape of his name disgusts him. “You wretched foul-mouthed schemer. Your words mean nothing to me. Are we still on for lunch this Wednesday?”

Seungmin smiles. “Yes, Hyung.”

“Splendid,” and Minho hooks his arm around Chan’s before leading him toward the entrance. “We’re leaving. Goodbye.”

Minho doesn’t let go of him as they meet cool, night air. Chan thinks he even clings to him a little tighter as they pass under the moonlight quietly walking to the corner of the block where they wait. The stars twinkle above them. Lamp posts hum with electricity. A few cars drive by and there are some people milling about, but none of them seem to bother their little bubble. It’s just them in their own little world.

“I ordered us a ride when Yongbok came to save little Yennie,” Minho says. He shivers a bit at the chill, and Chan pulls him as close as he can with both arms wrapping around his middle. It’s only rational for him to keep Minho warm because Chan himself feels so overheated with all the happy emotions bursting through his chest. He can use them to keep the chill from Minho’s skin.

Minho’s head ends up on his shoulder. He still has an arm hooked with Chan’s and even finds fingers to thread his grip through. It’s a content he’s never felt before. Quiet, filling, and whole.

“Chan-ah,” Minho starts up again. “Can we order cheese fries when we get home?”

There are a lot of things that Chan would like to do when they get home. He wants to wipe the makeup from Minho’s face, wash him up in the shower, comb his hair, and blow dry it until it’s soft. He wants to take out Minho’s belly ring to clean it for him and put it back in. The belly chains too, but Chan won’t clean those up. Those are special relics he wants to preserve. Maybe Minho can wear them again on a special day.

He wants to put Minho in his fluffy sleep clothes so that he’s all wrapped up in comfort before carrying him to the couch and bury the two of them in blankets. He wants to hold Minho in his arms as they watch cat videos and drink water to flush out their systems. He wants to kiss Minho all over his face and softly on his lips.

After each one, he wants to tell Minho a single thing he loves about him before kissing him again until he runs out of things to name. They’d be there for years before Chan ever got through his list. By then, he’d probably have a few extra things to mention to.

For now, though, Chan can agree to ordering cheese fries for later. Minho will only eat a few before he starts begging for ice cream instead. Chan will take the tub out of the freezer and watch Minho eat an ungodly amount of it while he finishes the abandoned cheese fries. But Chan will do it with so much love in his heart. This time, he’ll know that Minho has the same amount of it stored in his as well.

“Of course, Mimo,” he smiles, “we can order you some cheese fries.”