09. we're getting good at this
Title: we’re getting good at this
For: heartsnote
Rating: PG-13
Other pairings: Side Taolay (minor)
Warnings: Tao is a girl in the fic named Taozi~
Chanyeol helps them move into their new apartment. They really didn’t have that many worldly possessions, and Chanyeol was one of Jongdae’s best friends (and could also be easily persuaded with the promise of all-you-can-eat barbeque after helping them, so).
Jongdae cackles as Chanyeol almost falls over under the weight of the plastic bin he’d just picked up. “What the fuck is in here?” Chanyeol hisses as Jongdae wipes a tear from his eye from laughing. “It’s Minseok’s books and stuff, it says so on the side of the box,” Jongdae replies.
“What the fuck is the ‘and stuff’, fucking rocks?” Chanyeol grates out, making slow steps towards the elevator. Jongdae grins, carrying a much lighter bin of clothes. “Let me get the door for you, sir,” he singsongs, pressing the button on the elevator after they enter.
When they finally cross the threshold to Minseok and Jongdae’s new apartment, Minseok’s dabbing at his forehead with a folded paper towel. Jongdae gulps as his eyes follow a bead of sweat running down Minseok’s neck, while Minseok blanches, eyes focused on Chanyeol.
“Jongdae,” he says, turning to said man with wide eyes, “you made Chanyeol carry that? You should’ve both carried that together, it’s way too heavy.”
Chanyeol huffs, sitting on top of the plastic bin. “You’re an asshole, Dae,” he says, but he’s smiling still so Jongdae doesn’t take too much stock into his words anyway. “I know,” he replies with a grin, leaning over to kiss Minseok’s forehead.
“Sweaty,” Minseok complains with a frown. “Don’t care,” Jongdae replies, licking his lips.
“I’m still here, remember?” Chanyeol says. Jongdae gives him a look before rolling his eyes. “Yes, I apologize to your virginal eyes for seeing that very heated kiss.” He was starting to get mad at Chanyeol, but mostly because he was almost as tall as Jongdae and he was sitting. Tall bastard.
“What’s left down there?” Minseok questions, taking a sip off a probably warm water bottle. Their fridge was still spectacularly empty, and they had only brought dry foods over, currently in a box on the floor in front of the sink. In fact, they had mostly been living off dry foods for the past few weeks, but Jongdae doesn’t mind ramen and rice and eggs and beans all that much. Jongdae hums before saying, “just the couch, bookcase, nightstand, and coffee table.”
Minseok nods, recapping the bottle of water, placing it back on the countertop of their kitchen island. His lips were glistening a bit and it was terribly distracting to Jongdae. “Let’s go finish up then.”
Chanyeol lets out a low groan, “I’m going to eat so much meat tonight you don’t even know.”
“Me too,” Jongdae says with a wide smirk, corners of his mouth pulling up quite far. “I hate you both,” Chanyeol declares, standing up. “Jongdae-ya, you’re so gross,” Minseok chides, hitting his arm. “Your mind is so dirty, hyung,” Jongdae deadpans, left eyebrow slightly raised.
Chanyeol’s already halfway to the elevator.
--
Minseok and Jongdae had planned this move for quite a long time. Minseok was a graduate student at Seoul National University, while Jongdae mostly worked from home as a small-time composer, so where they wanted to live was decided mostly for Minseok’s convenience.
They had saved up money for the key deposit itself for practically a year. Even though their new apartment was in a more expensive area, Jongdae insisted that they were worth it, that Minseok was worth it. “You’ll be able to bike to school every day,” he tells Minseok excitedly as they walk towards the subway station from the apartment showing. “And it was clean and had central air conditioning and everything was new Minseok!”
“Jongdae,” Minseok chides as they make their way to the station (which was also very close to the apartment, Minseok begrudgingly notes), “I think it’s a little out of our price range, no?”
Jongdae frowns. In the end, it always came down to money. Everything did. Jongdae didn’t get paid that much, not really a steady salary, and while Minseok did get a stipend, he wasn’t exactly rolling in the dough. (Jongdae thought sometimes that maybe Minseok moved him into his apartment to be more cost effective, but Minseok’s actions are quick to shoo that particular thought away).
“But hyung,” Jongdae whines, “everything there is new and so so clean and nice. You loved it.”
“I did,” Minseok agrees, mouth quirking to the side as he thinks.
It was what had happened later that night that pushed Minseok into making a decision. He almost pulls his hair out from the roots when the tub didn’t drain after his bath. Baths were supposed to calm him, not stress him out further. He glances around the dingy bathroom (no matter how hard he scrubbed with bleach, the bottom of the tub always had this off yellow color, the tiles on the floor an odd off-white) and his mind wanders back to the apartment they had seen today. The kitchen was small, but furnished with new appliances and white quartz counters, a small island with stools one the opposite side before the living room started. The bathroom was dazzling clean, never used, tile floors and sparkling white shower, and the bedroom was a decent enough size, window letting in lots of light in the midday when they had been there. Minseok decides right then, enough is enough.
He stalks back into their shared bedroom, where Jongdae was lying in bed playing on his phone. “Jongdae,” he says without preamble, “let’s put the key deposit down on that apartment.”
Jongdae’s eyes light up as he glances up to Minseok, clad in just a towel, hair still damp from his bath. “Really?” he asks.
“Really,” Minseok answers, and can’t help smiling when the corners of Jongdae’s lips turn up in a huge smile.
--
“It’s a lot smaller with all our stuff here,” Jongdae murmurs, glancing around their bedroom. Even with just a few boxes and their nightstand, there was just enough room for their blankets laid out on the floor. Their bathroom wasn’t that large either, Jongdae was amazed the builders had decided to put a bathtub with a showerhead in instead of just a shower. He glances over to see Minseok already curled up on their makeshift bed of blankets, hair straight and unstyled, flopping down almost in his eyes. He had a blanket pulled snuggly under his chin, and Jongdae almost coos at the sight.
Jongdae sits down next to Minseok, getting ready to lie down, before Minseok says, “Jongdae, you can’t lay down yet, your hair’s still wet.”
“Why not?” he asks petulantly.
“Your pillow will get all moldy,” Minseok protests, eyebrows furrowing as he frowns. Jongdae thinks he’s adorable like this too.
Jongdae whines in reply. “Dry it for me then~”
“Fine,” Minseok concedes, “go get me a towel.”
Jongdae happily bounds back into their room after fetching a clean towel, sitting down on Minseok’s lap when he patted his thighs, legs bent, sitting atop the blanket he was under previously. Taking the towel from Jongdae’s hands, he slowly rubs at Jongdae’s hair. Jongdae closes his eyes at the sensations, leaning back into Minseok’s chest as his small hands rub gentle circles on Jongdae’s scalp. Jongdae was practically purring under Minseok’s ministrations.
“That should be enough,” Minseok sighs out after a moment, stifling a yawn against Jongdae’s shoulder. “I’m tired.”
Jongdae takes the opportunity to lean his cheek against the top of Minseok’s head, nuzzling as he murmurs “thanks, hyung.”
“Off you go,” Minseok insists, hands coming to push gently at Jongdae’s back. Jongdae rolls off, sliding under the blanket to wrap his arms around Minseok when they’re both lying down, damp towel left forgotten on the floor. One arm makes its way around Minseok’s waist, and Minseok wiggles back slightly so his back is flush against Jongdae’s front. Jongdae places a kiss to the back of Minseok’s head. “Love you, Minseok,” he murmurs into his hair. Minseok hums happily in reply, hand coming to rest atop Jongdae’s own.
“Wish you’d put that towel away though,” Minseok mutters. Jongdae laughs, nuzzling into the fine hairs on his nape. “But I’m comfortable now.”
(Minseok wakes up at three am to get a drink of water and puts away the towel while he does.)
--
They spend the next day unpacking, deciding together where to put their dishes and which drawer the chopsticks should go in. And Jongdae is honestly a lot more excited about it than he’s outwardly acting; since when he had just moved into an apartment Minseok already lived in prior to this, Minseok had already set up where everything was. But this feels more together. It makes him feel warm all the way down to his toes, curling in his thick house socks on the cool tiles of the kitchen floor.
Jongdae painstakingly sets his stand-up electric keyboard in the spot in their living room where he could glance out the window when they’re done in the kitchen. He puts his desk nearby. Minseok also sometimes needed a desk when he had work to do at home, but they decided they only needed one.
Minseok giggles at him from their couch where he’s eating a simple lunch of rice and kimchi. “I don’t see how you had that hard of a decision,” he teases, “the room is so small there’s only a few places you could’ve put it.”
Jongdae pouts in reply, plopping on the couch next to him. “I needed the spot with maximal positive inspiration vibes.” He glances back over his shoulder where the afternoon light was hitting half of the keyboard. A good choice indeed.
He leans onto his hands, elbows perched on his bent knees, watching Minseok carefully pick up rice with a piece of kimchi held in his chopsticks. Cute.
“Hyung, feed me,” Jongdae whines, leaning his chin onto Minseok’s shoulder. Minseok rolls his eyes, but complies anyway. “Fine, fine.”
--
That Saturday is D-Day as Jongdae would call it, while Minseok prefers putting-together-our-IKEA-bed-day. Jongdae knows he’ll be spectacularly no help, as somehow things like building elude him. He voices these thoughts to Minseok, looking down in disdain at the seemingly harmless instruction booklet of approximately 30 pages.
“Following directions is what eludes you,” Minseok snaps back, ripping open the baggie of hardware. Jongdae smiles softly as he sits across from Minseok, watching his boyfriend’s furrowed brow as he orders the little screws and pins in uniform lines and piles. Jongdae does stand to help him pile the pieces of wood in the sequential order they’ll be needed in.
“How about I read what you’re supposed to do to you?” Jongdae offers, flipping through the pages, noting that the first few directions seem straight forward.
“That works fine,” Minseok smiles over at Jongdae, sitting with the tiny wrench in his hand.
“Jongdae,” Minseok chides after inserting the last slat of the headboard in place, “you need to help me with the next step.”
“Ah, but hyung,” Jongdae singsongs up from where he’s sitting next to Minseok’s carefully laid piles of separated and counted screws and pegs and bolts, “the directions clearly showed one person with a hammer and one person with the instruction booklet.”
Minseok makes a whining noise, high pitched from the back of his throat. “Get your lazy ass up and help,” he says, and Jongdae has to chuckle a bit because, well, Minseok whining is cute.
“But I was enjoying admiring your strength,” Jongdae says with a grin stretched wide across his face, “especially in that sleeveless shirt.”
Minseok shoots him an unimpressed look, and Jongdae figures maybe he should actually start helping before Minseok gets actually annoyed. “Fine,” he huffs, standing after laying the instructions face up closer to where Minseok was.
“Thank you darling,” Minseok smiles, eyes playful and sparkling, before he grabs two long screws to secure the next piece, motioning for Jongdae to hold the plank in place.
“Hopefully I’ll still have energy left after this to help break in the bed with you,” Jongdae sighs dramatically, lips curving upwards in a small smile when he hears Minseok’s tinkling laughter.
“Somehow I’m sure you will,” Minseok mumbles in reply, cheeks slightly pink.
--
They fall into a happy routine like this. Minseok is gone most days from eight or nine in the morning until five or six in the evening, sometimes seven or eight if he’s particularly busy. Jongdae stays home, working on his compositions. He occasionally goes out to find inspiration during the day. He even teaches vocal lessons a few times a week, depending on the week.
Sometimes, however, inspiration was harder to find. It was easier to pump out melancholy ballads when his life wasn’t so… settled. Because that’s how he sort of feels now. Like he belongs with Minseok in their happy little (…okay, tiny) apartment.
It’s been a somewhat difficult day for Jongdae, grappling for some sort of tune that would be worthwhile. He slinks from the living room to the kitchen where Minseok’s cooking, sitting atop a stool, elbows resting on their kitchen counter, chin in his hands.
“Minseok,” Jongdae whines, drawing out the second syllable of his name, “be mean to me for a bit so I can write a sad ballad song okay?”
Minseok bursts out laughing from where he’s stirring the soup he’s almost done making. “Jongdae-ya,” he starts, turning around to shake the wooden spoon in his hand, “no dinner for you tonight.”
Jongdae laughs so much he almost falls backwards out of his stool. “Is that mean?” he asks, standing up when Minseok turns back around to face the stove with a huff. He lets out a small surprised sound when Jongdae wraps his arms around him, resting his chin on Minseok’s shoulder. “You can’t be mean to me, can you hyung?” he singsongs, warm breath ghosting against Minseok’s neck.
“Hmm,” Minseok murmurs in fake contemplation, eyes quirked upwards, “well, I wouldn’t want to scare you off.”
“I think that’d be hard to do,” Jongdae says, nuzzling his cheek into Minseok’s neck.
“Oh?” Minseok breathes with a chuckle, “even if I was mean?”
“Yeah. You’re stuck with me foreveeer,” Jongdae says with a smirk.
Minseok tilts his head so it’s resting on Jongdae’s for a moment, before wiggling in his hold and pushing him back with his butt.
“Go work for fifteen more minutes, this is almost done.”
“Fiine,” Jongdae agrees with a whine, placing a fleeting kiss on Minseok’s neck before dragging himself back to his desk.
--
One of the worst things about moving into this apartment is the fact that Minseok takes it upon himself to budget out all of their expenses. Which is fine, but money is so tight that he actually uses every single won they both make. Jongdae stops buying coffee when he goes out to cafés just because he feels a bit guilty, mind filled with thoughts of Minseok’s color coded spreadsheets and big engineering calculator.
Jongdae mentions one night as they’re watching a drama on Minseok’s laptop that he’d have to buy Chanyeol a present for his birthday and Minseok sighs.
“Why didn’t you mention this last month?”
Jongdae frowns in response. “I forgot?” And Jongdae feels bad sure, but he’s a bit angry now. It wasn’t like he’d purposely not mentioned it. Minseok leans forward to hit the space bar, pausing the drama they were watching.
“I mean, we technically have extra money this month,” Jongdae reminds him with a frown, burrowing his feet under the warmth of Minseok’s thigh and the couch.
“But we don’t know how much the bill will go up this month because of heat, so we kind of need to save that.”
Jongdae sighs, watching Minseok scrub a hand over his face. He looks tired. Jongdae’s heart tugs a little in his chest.
“I should’ve stayed with Joonmyun,” Jongdae sighs dramatically, bringing the back of his hand to his forehead, “then I’d be a trophy wife and rich and pampered.”
Minseok frowns, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. “I’ll be rich one day. Probably.”
“Unless you capriciously decide to stay in academia,” Jongdae points out with a snort. “I am so done with academia, no way,” Minseok insists, smile curving on his lips. “Hey, but that was quite a big word you used there, Jongdae-ya,” he teases.
“I’m appalled at your notions of my vocabulary capacity,” Jongdae gasps in mock surprise.
“You just got up to the ‘cap’ part of the dictionary, huh?” Minseok asks with a grin and Jongdae bursts out laughing because Minseok knows him so well.
“I’ve been looking at the dictionary to bring some vivaciousness to my lyric writing,” he says, arms flailing slightly, but Minseok’s laughing quietly and he wants to kiss him but settles for flicking his nose instead.
“Brat,” Minseok chides, but he’s still smiling fondly. “I guess we could spare 20,000 won. But if we can’t make the electricity and gas bill this month I’m going to beat you.”
“Oooh, domestic violence threats, feisty,” Jongdae breezes back with a teasing smile on his face.
“Yaa!” Minseok scolds him before lunging at him, hands aiming for his waist.
“Please, no!” Jongdae cries, laughing hysterically as Minseok’s fingers dance along his ribs through the cotton of his t-shirt, flailing helplessly beneath Minseok.
--
“Minseok,” Jongdae sighs sleepily, when they’re both in bed later that night, “why are you squirming around and not sleeping?”
Minseok had so many things on the tip of his tongue, thoughts rolling around in his head, but he couldn’t get anything out. He felt so open and exposed, even though it was just Jongdae, he hated it. He hated talking about his feelings.
“Do you,” he takes a shallow breath, “regret being with me ever?” he decides on, almost whispering the last part.
“Minseok,” he says after a moment, seeking out Minseok’s hand to clasp in his own, “you know I love you more than anything, why would you even ask that?”
Minseok remains silent even as Jongdae gives his hand a squeeze. He’s jealous of his boyfriend in this regard - he jokes and is sarcastic a lot but is so genuine and easy with his feelings, whereas Minseok’s almost the opposite, more secretive.
“I don’t ever regret being with hyung,” Jongdae says, as Minseok continues to stare up at the ceiling. Another beat of silence passes, before Jongdae makes a noise of realization in the back of his throat. “Is it because I mentioned Joonmyun today?” he asks quietly. And Minseok tears up, and he knows Jongdae can see it, he’s lying on his side facing Minseok, still holding his hand, as Minseok resolutely stays lying on his back. Minseok feels so pathetic, so childish and vulnerable and he hates it.
“I just said it as a joke, Minseok-ah, I didn’t think you’d even think twice about it,” Jongdae says, propping himself up on his side on an elbow.
“But…” Minseok interjects before falling silent again. “But?” Jongdae prompts, looking at Minseok expectantly.
And Jongdae was always so patient with him, understanding that he needed to form his words so they’d come out right, thinking about the phrasing and how to say what was bubbling up inside him. Jongdae deserves to know, deserves some of Minseok’s thoughts when Jongdae fills him with his own, constantly.
“But,” Minseok starts again, closing his eyes as his voice cracks. “You were thinking about him,” he finishes lamely.
“I-“ Jongdae begins, but Minseok cuts him off. “This is stupid, I’m sorry, I-“
“Baby,” Jongdae chides, slipping a hand behind Minseok’s neck, untangling his other hand from Minseok’s in favor of wrapping an arm around his waist to pull him towards Jongdae, rolling him onto his side so they’re facing each other. “Your feelings are not stupid,” he gently protests. Minseok averts his eyes to Jongdae’s chin so he doesn’t have to meet his gaze straight on.
“I was just thinking today about what if I had done an idol audition at a company,” Jongdae explains, biting his bottom lip before continuing. “And I was thinking about all the ways in which my life would’ve changed and I thought of him. I haven’t in a while, and honestly wouldn’t want to anyway.”
Minseok’s bottom lip is still wobbling pathetically as a tear makes its way down his cheek. Jongdae leans forward, pulling Minseok tighter into his embrace, so their chests are flush against each other, planting a kiss on both of Minseok’s eyes.
“I love you, and only you” Jongdae murmurs against his lips, before placing a kiss there too. Minseok immediately opens his mouth, and Jongdae takes the opportunity to lick at Minseok’s lower lip.
“Ah,” Minseok says when they pull away, foreheads still touching, “I hate talking all mushy like that.”
“I know,” Jongdae says, lips curving up in a smirk, “which is how I know you really love me. Cause you’ll talk like that for me.” Minseok fakes a gagging sound and Jongdae headbutts him lightly with his forehead.
“So who’d you want to audition for? SM?” Minseok asks, curious to Jongdae’s past notions of his career. He’d never talked about it that much, surprisingly.
“Mhmm,” Jongdae drawls, fingers tracing patterns on the back of Minseok’s neck, where the soft ends of his hair start. They tickle Jongdae’s fingers. Minseok squirms slightly.
“That would’ve been a very hard life,” Minseok says after a beat. Jongdae hums in agreement.
“Do you think they would’ve made me get a nose job?” Minseok smiles at Jongdae’s question, lips curving upward revealing pink gums and perfect teeth. “I like your nose though.” He punctuates his sentence by placing a small kiss at the tip of Jongdae’s nose. “It’s cute.”
“It’s sort of wide though,” Jongdae whines, scrunching his face up so adorably that Minseok just has to kiss him again and again.
“Well, I think you’re hands down the second most attractive man -“ “What?” Jongdae interrupts with a squawk. “In this apartment,” Minseok finishes with a giggle.
“Who’s the first?” Jongdae asks, pouting slightly. “Me of course,” Minseok answers easily.
“You’re lucky I love you,” he teases, but his words have no bite.
“I really am,” Minseok answers earnestly, eyes crinkling into crescents as he smiles. Jongdae’s heart feels too full, feels too warm, feels like he just wants to protect Minseok and have him smiling at Jongdae like that forever.
He pulls Minseok closer, rolling onto his back so Minseok can comfortably rest his head on Jongdae’s chest.
Jongdae’s just on the edge of sleep, that sort of state where you can’t be sure what time you’ve fallen asleep, when Minseok murmurs into Jongdae’s t-shirt a quiet “I love you Jongdae”, barely audible over Jongdae’s own breathing. Jongdae hums happily and succumbs quickly to sleep.
--
The next morning, Minseok’s off and out by eight am so Jongdae wakes up around nine alone. He fixes himself a bowl of cereal and a mug of instant coffee before settling down at his small desk in the living room, grabbing his notebook and twirling a pen in his hand.
He feels so full and bursting with happiness, he can’t see himself writing anything remotely sad today. Heaving a small sigh, he contemplates going out to the park to look at ducks and people watch or something, before he starts absentmindedly humming.
It’s a happy tune, one that’s sort of been in the back of his mind for a while, but today he forces it to the forefront, scrambling to write down the progression of notes. He writes about happiness today, about being so in love it bubbles out and makes you confess. He grins, letting the image of Minseok smiling fill his mind. Maybe he could afford to ignore ballads for a day.
(He sends it into the company a week later, after giving it some polishing, and hopes for the best. Even if November and December were usually the season for sad ballads, he could try a change of pace.)
--
On New Years, they drink and have a nice dinner at Yixing’s house before making their way to watch fireworks. It’s already crowded by the time they get there, but luckily they get a spot on the stairs, offering them a good view. Jongdae scrambles to stand next to Minseok, but Minseok pushes him so he’s on the step below his, directly in front of him. “Ahh,” Minseok says, leaning his chin on Jongdae’s head, “my baby is so tiny.” Jongdae chuckles, feeling light as Minseok rests his hand casually on Jongdae’s waist. Jongdae wishes he could feel the heat of it, but he’s wearing a jacket, so.
Even in the sea of hundreds of other people, Jongdae can forget about everyone besides himself and Minseok when the fireworks start. He hears Minseok’s small gasps and sounds of wonderment, and can almost imagine the look on his face, lips slightly parted, eyes wide. Jongdae loves the way Minseok’s more open when he’s drunk, less inhibited. And he’d definitely had enough at Yixing and Tao’s place.
The fireworks continue even through Jongdae realizing his jacket is probably too thin. He shivers, and Minseok must feel it.
“I told you to wear a heavier jacket,” Minseok murmurs in his ear, and Jongdae’s just glad the fireworks are casting a glow on everyone, because he’s surely pink cheeked right now (even more than from the alcohol). “Keep me warm,” Jongdae says, smiling when he hears the zipper of Minseok’s large bubble coat. He immediately turns around, worming his arms around Minseok’s waist, burying his face in the soft fabric of Minseok’s sweater. It smells like the Minseok’s cologne as well as the fabric detergent and the bath soap they both use, but somehow it just smells better on him.
“I meant for you to just lean back against me, silly,” he murmurs into Jongdae’s hair, even though he almost immediately circles Jongdae in his arms in a closer embrace. “You’ll miss the fireworks like this.”
“One more minute,” Jongdae protests, nuzzling at Minseok’s chest with his nose. Minseok giggles, attention drawn back upward when the crowd around them murmurs appreciatively at the last firework.
“Ooooh, ahhh,” Minseok exaggeratedly sounds as one after another firework goes off, “oooh Jongdae that one was so beautiful.” His tone is light and teasing, and Jongdae can’t help but chuckling, feeling the rumbles in Minseok’s chest as he makes more noises.
“Fine, fine,” he grumbles, turning around so his back is to Minseok’s chest instead, using his hands to hold the flaps of Minseok’s coat in front of his own body. Minseok kisses the top of his head and Jongdae breaks out into a large grin, because, wow, he feels warm and loved and Minseok is showing affection in public (even if no one’s paying any attention to them).
Later, when they’re walking back from the fireworks, Jongdae only feels a slight pang of jealousy when Minseok wraps his arm around Taozi’s shoulder, citing the reason for their secret time together as “eldest and maknae bonding”.
“Stop looking at Tao like that,” Yixing chuckles, nudging Jongdae’s shoulder with his own as they continue to walk, trailing slightly behind their giggling significant others. Yixing’s hands are in his coat pockets.
“Like what?” Jongdae asks sourly, attempting to school his face into something more neutral than the near-death glare that currently resides there.
“Like she’s trying to steal your man,” he says with another laugh, dimple appearing as he glances back over at Jongdae. “You have nothing to worry about, trust me,” he continues after Jongdae doesn’t reply for a moment, “you’re basically married already.”
“What?” Jongdae asks, biting his lip to keep from grinning. He’s almost successful in this endeavor.
“Minseok hyung really loves you, a lot. I can tell,” he says with another smile, eyes trained back forward to the back of Taozi’s earmuff-clad head as his eyes melt to something warmer.
“Don’t call him hyung, he has a complex about it, ugh. Everyone always thinks I’m the older of us two.”
“Well, your cheek bones are looking a little softer this year,” he laughs, causing Jongdae to scoff.
“Two words, Zhang: dimple wrinkles.”
Yixing glances over at him scandalized, before looking forward when Taozi makes a noise as she sits on the pavement.
“What’re you doing babe?” he asks in Chinese, stopping behind her as she looks up at him, glassy eyed. Jongdae’s impressed he still can understand Mandarin.
“I just wanna rest here for a second,” she replies, playing with an empty soju bottle in her hand. Yixing groans, rubbing his palm on the back of her neck. “Did you drink that whole thing?” he asks.
“Nope,” Minseok announces with a huge grin, enunciating the ‘p’ sound with a pop, “I helped. Our bonding experience,” he finishes with a giggle. Jongdae bursts out laughing and Minseok shuffles closer to his side, Jongdae throwing a lazy arm around his shoulder.
“I better get this one back before he passes out too,” Jongdae says, giving Minseok’s shoulder a slight squeeze.
“’m not passed out,” Taozi proclaims petulantly, head lolling back to rest on Yixing’s knees.
“Well, it was nice seeing you. Goodnight guys,” Yixing says fondly, smiling up at them, “thanks for coming out.”
“Thanks for inviting us over!” Jongdae says at the same time Minseok replies, “thank you Xingxing!”
“You’re awfully affectionate tonight,” Jongdae murmurs into Minseok’s ear as they round the corner of their street, Yixing and Taozi just out of earshot now.
“Are you jealous?” Minseok croons, swaying his hips a bit, knocking against Jongdae’s own.
“Maybe,” Jongdae replies with a grin, steering them towards their apartment.
They stumble back to their apartment around one in the morning, Minseok tripping over the threshold of the door to their apartment, but Jongdae is there to catch him. Minseok leans his face into Jongdae’s chest, unable to stop the laughter from bubbling up, frigid fingers clutched at the neck of Jongdae’s coat.
“I was gonna fall, but there you were, Jongdae-ya,” he singsongs, smiling up at Jongdae, eyes all scrunched up into half moons with pink cheeks and Jongdae feels a swoop in his stomach as he falls in love with his boyfriend all over again. “I was there,” he croaks out past the feelings that have taken residence as a lump in his throat, moving to start taking off Minseok’s coat for him.
“We should get you to bed, huh?” he asks rhetorically, chuckling when Minseok makes to lay on the floor as Jongdae hangs up their coats. He kneels down to help Minseok out of his heavy boots, huffing before tickling his feet.
“Jongdae-yaaa,” Minseok chides, nose scrunching up adorably as he sits up, feet flailing slightly.
“Sorry hyung, I couldn’t help it,” he smiles, helping Minseok to standing with an arm around his shoulder, wrist under his armpit.
“I gotta go bathroom, Dae,” he whines, head hanging, chin near his chest. Jongdae frowns. “You’re not gonna throw up, are you?”
“No, just pee.”
Jongdae laughs, biting his lower lip. “Okay, Minseok.”
He leaves Minseok by their bathroom before padding to the bedroom, quickly shucking off his clothes until he’s just in his boxers. He puts on one of Minseok’s soft SNU t-shirts, fabric overworn from the many times it’s been washed, before going back to the bathroom, another shirt for Minseok in hand.
Jongdae giggles upon entering the bathroom, Minseok sitting on the toilet, fighting to get his shirt off his head, hands stuck in the long sleeves. And times like this Jongdae is reminded he really is in love, because despite seeing Minseok in the compromising and horribly unattractive position, he just feels his heart clench in his chest, feels the corners of his mouth turn up in a smile.
“Hyung…” he trails off, before striding over to help Minseok pop his shirt off. He also helps him into his sleep shirt, trying not to laugh too much at the general state of drunk Minseok.
“We better get you some ibuprofen, huh?” he asks, standing and throwing Minseok’s long sleeved shirt in the bathroom hamper before retrieving some pills from the medicine cabinet behind their bathroom mirror.
“Jongdae, ‘mm really drunk,” Minseok slurs, head so tilted his ear is practically leaning against his shoulder, lopsided grin on his face, lip curled over his front teeth so his pink gums were on display. Jongdae can’t stifle his barking laughter when he turns around.
“You think?” he asks playfully, deciding to feed Minseok the ibuprofen and large glass of water while he’s still on the toilet (because at least he’s sort of sitting up). Jongdae sits on the side of the tub next to Minseok, making sure he drinks the entire glass of water.
“You ready for bed?” he asks after Minseok sets the empty glass down on the floor. “In a minute,” Minseok insists, eyes fluttering shut. Jongdae swallows, studying the reddish tinge on Minseok’s cheeks, the way his mouth looks shiny and wet.
“Fine, I’ll give you two minutes, okay?” Jongdae asks, smiling. He brushes his teeth, keep an eye on Minseok the whole time, before finishing up, standing in front of Minseok.
“Pull your boxers up and let’s go to sleep.”
Minseok tries to look at Jongdae through half-lidded eyes that can’t quite stay open, and the grin on Jongdae’s face is practically cracking his cheeks.
“How can you fuck me with boxers on though?” Minseok asks after a moment of contemplation, hands gripping the front of Jongdae’s shirt. Jongdae kisses his forehead, stifles a laugh into his soft hair.
“There will be no fucking tonight,” Jongdae says, “I imagine you’d probably fall asleep. Or try to give me head and forget about your teeth. Or maybe even both.”
Jongdae manages to get Minseok into bed, rolling in after him after clicking their bedroom light off. Minseok curls into his chest, small hands under his own cheek. Jongdae takes the opportunity to kiss his forehead, and gives into the temptation of following a line down Minseok’s nose, until he’s kissing his philtrum and ending on his lips.
Minseok hums happily into the kiss, and while Minseok’s distracted, Jongdae pushes his feet between Minseok’s calves, reveling in the warmth there.
“Yaa, Jongdae, your feet are frozen,” Minseok complains sleepily, eyes not even opening. “Wear a proper coat next time, okay?” And Jongdae laughs at his pouting face. “Even drunk you have to scold me, huh?”
“Sorry I don’t want my boyfriend to freeze to death,” he huffs crossly, headbutting Jongdae’s collarbone playfully.
“So cute,” Jongdae can’t help but murmur, bringing a hand up to run his fingers through Minseok’s hair.
“I know,” Minseok mumbles and Jongdae lets out a bark of laughter, but then Minseok must already be asleep because his mouth’s slightly open and his breathing evens out.
“I love you Kim Minseok,” he whispers gently, eyes trained on the gentle curves of Minseok’s sleeping face, “and I look forward to spending this year with you, as well as the rest of my life.”
Jongdae wrinkles his nose at his own mushiness, placing another gentle kiss on the crown of Minseok’s head before letting himself succumb to sleep as well.
Minseok still manages to somehow wake up at the asscrack of dawn, rolling out of bed to use the bathroom. Jongdae’s already awake when he slinks back into bed, rolling over to face Jongdae.
“I feel like I got hit by a train,” he mutters, eyes squeezing shut.
Jongdae laughs softly, petting down the unruly tufts of hair sticking up from Minseok’s head with the flat of his palm. “Did you take some more ibuprofen? More water?”
“Yes,” he murmurs, eyes still shut as Jongdae continues to pet him, running fingers through his hair now. “Do you remember last night?” he asks with a quirk of his lips, smiling even wider when Minseok’s nose scrunches up. He scratches lightly at the back of Minseok’s scalp.
“Mostly. Except for after halfway through our walk home, it gets a little fuzzy there. Was I unbearable?”
“Unbearably cute,” Jongdae coos, moving to pinch at Minseok’s cheek, but Minseok deflects him with his own hand.
“Stooop, too early, too greasy,” he whines, squirming his way further under their blanket.
“Did the Kim Minseok just proclaim that 7:14 in the morning was too early? Be still my heart, I need to inform the presses!”
“Jongdaaaae,” he chides, punching at Jongdae’s chest lightly with a balled up fist, “cuddle me back to sleep.”
And Jongdae does, wrapping his arms around Minseok’s warm body, Minseok’s head resting comfortably under his chin.
--
New Year’s somehow has Jongdae thinking about how they’d met all those years ago. He watches Minseok stir the batter for pancakes with a dopey grin spread on his face, sitting on a stool at their counter. Minseok’s making “breakfast” despite the fact that it’s almost two in the afternoon.
They had met when Jongdae was merely a freshman in university, fresh-faced and excited at the prospect of learning, excited by the novelty of the big city of Seoul he had just moved to. His first semester he had decided to take “Introduction to Chinese” to get his language requirement out of the way early, despite the class meeting a ridiculous four times a week. He figured if he worked hard for the first year or two, his last years could be spent focusing on really developing his musical talents.
Notions of working hard sort of flew out the window (for his Chinese class anyway) when he paid more attention to the gentle curve of one of his classmate’s jawline, his gummy smiles when the teacher said he had pronounced the sentence perfectly, his perfect little pout, than to the teacher.
He didn’t know much about him, Xiumin as he was called in class (they had all chosen Chinese names), other than his real name was Kim Minseok and he was fairly certain he studied some sort of science (Jongdae had seen a thick binder labeled “Biochemistry I” in his backpack). After some (definitely not creepy) browsing through the school’s class catalogue, he found that that class was a third year class. So Minseok was definitely older than him.
And this stupid class Jongdae was taking as a way to an easier future was making his life so much more difficult, the stupid pretty (gorgeous really) TA, Lu Han, flirted shamelessly with Xiumin.
Jongdae wasn’t sure to be happy over the fact that Xiumin never seemed affected by the flirting, or sad that that might mean Xiumin wasn’t interested in boys.
By some miraculous (cruel) twist of fate, Xiumin and Jongdae (or Chen in the confines of the small classroom) had been paired up as project and class partners for the entire last half of the semester. When the TA told them to practice the conversations in their textbooks with their assigned partners for the first time, students shuffled around the classroom to be seated next to their partners, and by the next class, everyone was already sitting like this naturally. And this is how Jongdae ended up becoming closer to Minseok (if only by physical proximity alone).
Towards the end of October, Lu Han announced that they’d have to create a powerpoint presentation about some aspect of Chinese culture for the class. Lu Han wandered around the room, while the teams were all brainstorming what to do their presentation on. When he had passed their two desks pushed together, he announced off handedly “maybe someone could research gay culture in China?” before continuing walking around, sending a wink at Xiumin who barely even looked up.
“He’s so transparent,” Jongdae had muttered almost inaudibly, but apparently Minseok had heard it, considering he chuckled. Jongdae’s eyes widened, “I’m sorry hyung,” he stuttered out.
“It’s gege here, Chen,” he chirped back in Chinese, tilting his head to the side as he glanced up at Jongdae from the notebook they were scrawling in between them.
“Sorry,” he muttered in Chinese.
“But he is.” Minseok said suddenly, before drawing a little doodle of a snowflake on his corner of the otherwise unwritten on piece of paper.
“Is what?” Jongdae asked confused.
“So obvious in his interests,” Minseok said, voice barely above a murmur, punctuating his sentence with another giggle.
Feeling emboldened by the fact that Minseok was even talking to him about something that wasn’t directly related to their class work, he decided to voice his surprise. “You noticed?”
Minseok chuckles again, eyes narrowing as his lip curls up over his teeth in a smile, revealing those cute pink gums Jongdae had come to love so much.
“How could I not?”
“You never respond,” Jongdae said, looking back down at where Minseok was doodling, pen circling as he added small flourishes to the snowflake with black ink.
“Mm,” Minseok hummed noncommittally, “he’s not really my type.”
Jongdae swallowed. Was Minseok flirting with him?
“What is your type then, ge?” Jongdae asked, saw out of the corner of his eye as Minseok’s eyes focused on the upward curve of the corner of Jongdae’s lips as he smirked.
“Hmm. Well for one, someone who’s not prettier than me.”
Jongdae snorted, and Lu Han flashed a glance at them from where he was reading at the teacher’s desk. There was no way he could hear what they were saying, but he probably noticed Jongdae’s loud noise, just then.
“I’m pretty ugly, ge,” Jongdae almost whispered, looking up to meet Minseok’s eye. And he sort of wasn’t as ugly as he had been, glasses left behind in high school along with his short haircut, where his bangs had barely passed his natural hairline (he still shudders when thinking about how long he had that stupid haircut for), but.
“Hmmm,” Minseok muses, bringing a finger to tap at his own chin, “definitely uglier than me,” he finished as his lips quirked into a small smile.
And even though Minseok had technically just called Jongdae ugly, he couldn’t even bring himself to mind.
--
It’s another quiet afternoon for Jongdae, scribbling lyrics in his almost full notebook before pausing to take a sip of his hot tea.
He sighs when he realizes he’s lost his train of thought. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he decides to take a break, throwing on a pair of slippers to go down and check their mail.
There’s the normal fliers and credit card offers, but also a slightly thick envelope from his company. Odd.
He rips it open, holding the other letters in his mouth as the elevator brings him back upstairs.
When he reads the first few lines, his mouth falls open, scattering the papers there around him on the floor.
“Holy shit,” he breathes out, hands shaking. The elevator dings, informing him of his arrival back on his floor, but he doesn’t even notice.
His song - his happy, out of the blue, anti-ballad song - tvN wants it as their title song for an upcoming drama.
“Hyung, you’re home late today,” Jongdae calls to Minseok when the latter opens the door. Jongdae’s strategically sitting on their kitchen stool in a way that blocks the cake he’d bought this afternoon behind his back, facing out to their front door and living room. “And you didn’t answer my calls,” he says with a frown.
“Ah, sorry, today was a mouse sacrificing day,” he says, toeing off his shoes, hanging up his jacket on the hook next to the door. “You know I always have a bunch to do on those days. And I can’t pick up my phone with my gloves on.”
“You sacrificed your tiny mouse brethren today?” Jongdae asks, faking scandalized as Minseok makes his way over to Jongdae, settling between his open legs as he leans in for a hug. “How many times are you gonna make that joke?” he murmurs against the skin of Jongdae’s throat, and Jongdae shivers a bit involuntarily.
“It’s my greatest joke, I can’t ever let it go,” he says, tightening his grip around his boyfriend.
Except he doesn’t realize the fatal flaw in his well executed plan, because now Minseok’s head is slotted in the space between his shoulder and neck, clearly in line of sight of the fancy cheesecake on their counter.
Jongdae feels Minseok stiffen slightly against him, and he sighs, almost hearing the thoughts and number whirring around in Minseok’s head about budgets and extraneous spending and being responsible.
“Hyung,” he starts gently, pushing Minseok back a bit so they’re face to face, “before you freak out about what’s behind me, I have something really super important to tell you.”
Minseok raises a brow, lips slightly pursing on one side, “what would that be?”
“I um,” Jongdae worries at his bottom lip with his teeth before continuing, “one of my songs kind of got bought by drama as their title track but it’s just a tvN drama so it’s not like, super important but they paid a lot more for it than I would have expected and I mean like a lot -“ Minseok cuts off Jongdae’s rambling with a squeal, squeezing Jongdae’s sides with his hands. “Your song’s gonna be a drama title song?” he asks excitedly, and Jongdae could almost cry at the look in Minseok’s eyes of just pure pride and elatedness he feels for Jongdae. “Yeah,” he croons, voice cracking as he feels tears start to well up in his eyes before Minseok’s leaning in and kissing him on the lips, pulling him so close to his own body with his arms wrapped around Jongdae that Jongdae’s mildly surprised they haven’t fused together.
When they finally pull apart, Jongdae can’t stop rambling again, hoping to fend off his tears, “I’ll get the check next week before the electricity bill comes and ah -”
“Jongdae,” Minseok interrupts excitedly, wiping a stray tear away from Jongdae’s cheek with his thumb, “baby, I don’t care about the money, I mean, obviously it helps us out a lot, but, I’m just honestly so happy that you’re being recognized for all your hard work and ah! Your song is going to play on prime-time TV and probably have some famous actor as the lead!”
“Maybe, yeah,” Jongdae replies weakly with a smile, eyes still watery, and then Minseok’s kissing him again, warm and wet and comforting.
When they’ve both calmed down a bit, already having eaten the cake, Jongdae thinks back to the thought he’d had this afternoon. They’re sitting on the floor of their kitchen, Minseok’s head resting on Jongdae’s shoulder, hands entwined between them.
“Hyung, we should go to Berlin with this money! Your professor dude will let you take like a week off, right?”
“Jongdae,” Minseok begins chidingly, smiling with his bottom lip clenched between his teeth as he lifts his head up, “professor dude? Plus isn’t Germany a little too… far and foreign?”
“I’ve been learning German, Min, it’s fine -“
“Listening to Rammstein doesn’t even count, Jongdae,” Minseok says through peals of laughter.
Jongdae huffs, crossing his arms across his chest. “Their lyrics speak to me, okay,” he whines. “Plus I took a German pronunciation course in uni, so.”
“For singing,” he shoots back. Minseok’s still smiling, but Jongdae can tell he’s about to turn on the part of him that’s like ‘Jongdae I love you very much but I am responsible so I’m putting a stop to this before you get too ahead of yourself’.
(Jongdae’s just glad Minseok is responsible enough for the both of them.)
“How about we save the money,” Minseok starts before Jongdae cuts in with a groan. “Hyung, I just wanna do something nice for you too,” he mutters petulantly.
“Hey,” Minseok says, grabbing Jongdae’s shoulder in his hand in what he means to be a comforting manner, “you didn’t let me finish. I was gonna say how about we save the money for a trip to Berlin after I graduate?”
Jongdae’s taken aback for a second, because, Minseok is agreeing?
“Did I actually leave you speechless?” Minseok asks, grin stretching wide on his face and Jongdae knows he’s so proud of his comeback and he can’t help but letting out a loud laugh, leaning back a bit as he does.
“You want to go to Berlin with me,” he murmurs, cupping Minseok’s face with both of his hands. Minseok’s cheeks pink under the scrutiny.
“Ah, well, we can save the money for that,” he starts, reaching up to rest a hand on Jongdae’s wrist, palm warm against his skin, “but also, y’know, it’ll be there in case we need it for something before then too.”
Jongdae’s still smiling, unperturbed by his boyfriend’s words. “You wanna go with me,” he murmurs, taking a few more seconds to admire Minseok’s face before leaning in to capture his lips in a kiss.
“Of course I wanna go with you,” he says, wrinkling his nose, “why wouldn’t I?”
-- -- --
(two years later)
Jongdae’s happily finishing up packing for their trip tomorrow, bouncing around the room, singing at practically the top of his lungs. Minseok had already packed earlier this week, because, well he’s Minseok.
Minseok enters the room when Jongdae’s just humming. “Hey Jongdae are you almost done - oh.”
“Oh, what, hyung?” Jongdae asks, peeking at Minseok from over his sunglasses.
“What are you… wearing?”
Jongdae looks down. He’d bought himself a new sweater he saw online, and he’s trying out his new black sunglasses. He’s also donning a pair of black leather pants, because why not? He could dress like he wanted in Germany, right? He’d never see these people again.
“Just some new clothes. Why?”
“Jongdae, I don’t know how to put this lightly, so...” he trails off. “That macaroni sweater is a travesty.”
“Minseok!” Jongdae whines, hitting him on the arm lightly. “You don’t understand high fashion hyung! This is by a Thai designer and -”
“Yeah, yeah, sorry Jongdae,” Minseok sighs, smile on his face nonetheless.
“It comes in grey and blue too. Do you want a matching one?”
Minseok rolls his eyes, making to walk out of the room before Jongdae grabs his arm. “Miiinseok-ah,” he singsongs, smiling at his boyfriend. “I know you’re just jealous of my impeccable fashion sense.”
“I’m going to accidentally on purpose leave you in Berlin.”
“Hey!” he complains, hitting Minseok on the arm. Minseok laughs, sliding out of Jongdae’s hold as he runs out of their room, into the kitchen, then into the living room. Except their apartment isn’t that large so Jongdae easily catches up, pinning him down on the couch.
“Say the shirt isn’t that bad,” Jongdae threatens, holding Minseok’s wrists in his hands, knees on top of Minseok’s thighs.
“Jongdae you’re squishing me!” Minseok cries out, but his face is lit up with a brilliant smile, eyes curved into tiny crescents Jongdae loves.
Jongdae forgets his interrogation, instead leaning down to capture Minseok’s lips in a kiss.
“I’m going to kiss you in public in Berlin tomorrow,” he murmurs, “and it’s gonna be awesome.”
Minseok’s cheeks pink under the scrutiny, and he squirms a bit in his hold.
“I might just let you,” Minseok shoots back, bottom lip drawn up between his teeth in a wide grin.
(Jongdae doesn’t finish packing until a few hours later, because, well…)
Author's Note: This wasn’t exactly the most domestic of all domestic but hopefully it’s fluffy and warm and snappy enough for you ;; Thanks for the lovely prompt! Title taken from 400 Lux by Lorde. Also, this is what I affectionately refer to as the “ macaroni sweater”
For: heartsnote
Rating: PG-13
Other pairings: Side Taolay (minor)
Warnings: Tao is a girl in the fic named Taozi~
Chanyeol helps them move into their new apartment. They really didn’t have that many worldly possessions, and Chanyeol was one of Jongdae’s best friends (and could also be easily persuaded with the promise of all-you-can-eat barbeque after helping them, so).
Jongdae cackles as Chanyeol almost falls over under the weight of the plastic bin he’d just picked up. “What the fuck is in here?” Chanyeol hisses as Jongdae wipes a tear from his eye from laughing. “It’s Minseok’s books and stuff, it says so on the side of the box,” Jongdae replies.
“What the fuck is the ‘and stuff’, fucking rocks?” Chanyeol grates out, making slow steps towards the elevator. Jongdae grins, carrying a much lighter bin of clothes. “Let me get the door for you, sir,” he singsongs, pressing the button on the elevator after they enter.
When they finally cross the threshold to Minseok and Jongdae’s new apartment, Minseok’s dabbing at his forehead with a folded paper towel. Jongdae gulps as his eyes follow a bead of sweat running down Minseok’s neck, while Minseok blanches, eyes focused on Chanyeol.
“Jongdae,” he says, turning to said man with wide eyes, “you made Chanyeol carry that? You should’ve both carried that together, it’s way too heavy.”
Chanyeol huffs, sitting on top of the plastic bin. “You’re an asshole, Dae,” he says, but he’s smiling still so Jongdae doesn’t take too much stock into his words anyway. “I know,” he replies with a grin, leaning over to kiss Minseok’s forehead.
“Sweaty,” Minseok complains with a frown. “Don’t care,” Jongdae replies, licking his lips.
“I’m still here, remember?” Chanyeol says. Jongdae gives him a look before rolling his eyes. “Yes, I apologize to your virginal eyes for seeing that very heated kiss.” He was starting to get mad at Chanyeol, but mostly because he was almost as tall as Jongdae and he was sitting. Tall bastard.
“What’s left down there?” Minseok questions, taking a sip off a probably warm water bottle. Their fridge was still spectacularly empty, and they had only brought dry foods over, currently in a box on the floor in front of the sink. In fact, they had mostly been living off dry foods for the past few weeks, but Jongdae doesn’t mind ramen and rice and eggs and beans all that much. Jongdae hums before saying, “just the couch, bookcase, nightstand, and coffee table.”
Minseok nods, recapping the bottle of water, placing it back on the countertop of their kitchen island. His lips were glistening a bit and it was terribly distracting to Jongdae. “Let’s go finish up then.”
Chanyeol lets out a low groan, “I’m going to eat so much meat tonight you don’t even know.”
“Me too,” Jongdae says with a wide smirk, corners of his mouth pulling up quite far. “I hate you both,” Chanyeol declares, standing up. “Jongdae-ya, you’re so gross,” Minseok chides, hitting his arm. “Your mind is so dirty, hyung,” Jongdae deadpans, left eyebrow slightly raised.
Chanyeol’s already halfway to the elevator.
--
Minseok and Jongdae had planned this move for quite a long time. Minseok was a graduate student at Seoul National University, while Jongdae mostly worked from home as a small-time composer, so where they wanted to live was decided mostly for Minseok’s convenience.
They had saved up money for the key deposit itself for practically a year. Even though their new apartment was in a more expensive area, Jongdae insisted that they were worth it, that Minseok was worth it. “You’ll be able to bike to school every day,” he tells Minseok excitedly as they walk towards the subway station from the apartment showing. “And it was clean and had central air conditioning and everything was new Minseok!”
“Jongdae,” Minseok chides as they make their way to the station (which was also very close to the apartment, Minseok begrudgingly notes), “I think it’s a little out of our price range, no?”
Jongdae frowns. In the end, it always came down to money. Everything did. Jongdae didn’t get paid that much, not really a steady salary, and while Minseok did get a stipend, he wasn’t exactly rolling in the dough. (Jongdae thought sometimes that maybe Minseok moved him into his apartment to be more cost effective, but Minseok’s actions are quick to shoo that particular thought away).
“But hyung,” Jongdae whines, “everything there is new and so so clean and nice. You loved it.”
“I did,” Minseok agrees, mouth quirking to the side as he thinks.
It was what had happened later that night that pushed Minseok into making a decision. He almost pulls his hair out from the roots when the tub didn’t drain after his bath. Baths were supposed to calm him, not stress him out further. He glances around the dingy bathroom (no matter how hard he scrubbed with bleach, the bottom of the tub always had this off yellow color, the tiles on the floor an odd off-white) and his mind wanders back to the apartment they had seen today. The kitchen was small, but furnished with new appliances and white quartz counters, a small island with stools one the opposite side before the living room started. The bathroom was dazzling clean, never used, tile floors and sparkling white shower, and the bedroom was a decent enough size, window letting in lots of light in the midday when they had been there. Minseok decides right then, enough is enough.
He stalks back into their shared bedroom, where Jongdae was lying in bed playing on his phone. “Jongdae,” he says without preamble, “let’s put the key deposit down on that apartment.”
Jongdae’s eyes light up as he glances up to Minseok, clad in just a towel, hair still damp from his bath. “Really?” he asks.
“Really,” Minseok answers, and can’t help smiling when the corners of Jongdae’s lips turn up in a huge smile.
--
“It’s a lot smaller with all our stuff here,” Jongdae murmurs, glancing around their bedroom. Even with just a few boxes and their nightstand, there was just enough room for their blankets laid out on the floor. Their bathroom wasn’t that large either, Jongdae was amazed the builders had decided to put a bathtub with a showerhead in instead of just a shower. He glances over to see Minseok already curled up on their makeshift bed of blankets, hair straight and unstyled, flopping down almost in his eyes. He had a blanket pulled snuggly under his chin, and Jongdae almost coos at the sight.
Jongdae sits down next to Minseok, getting ready to lie down, before Minseok says, “Jongdae, you can’t lay down yet, your hair’s still wet.”
“Why not?” he asks petulantly.
“Your pillow will get all moldy,” Minseok protests, eyebrows furrowing as he frowns. Jongdae thinks he’s adorable like this too.
Jongdae whines in reply. “Dry it for me then~”
“Fine,” Minseok concedes, “go get me a towel.”
Jongdae happily bounds back into their room after fetching a clean towel, sitting down on Minseok’s lap when he patted his thighs, legs bent, sitting atop the blanket he was under previously. Taking the towel from Jongdae’s hands, he slowly rubs at Jongdae’s hair. Jongdae closes his eyes at the sensations, leaning back into Minseok’s chest as his small hands rub gentle circles on Jongdae’s scalp. Jongdae was practically purring under Minseok’s ministrations.
“That should be enough,” Minseok sighs out after a moment, stifling a yawn against Jongdae’s shoulder. “I’m tired.”
Jongdae takes the opportunity to lean his cheek against the top of Minseok’s head, nuzzling as he murmurs “thanks, hyung.”
“Off you go,” Minseok insists, hands coming to push gently at Jongdae’s back. Jongdae rolls off, sliding under the blanket to wrap his arms around Minseok when they’re both lying down, damp towel left forgotten on the floor. One arm makes its way around Minseok’s waist, and Minseok wiggles back slightly so his back is flush against Jongdae’s front. Jongdae places a kiss to the back of Minseok’s head. “Love you, Minseok,” he murmurs into his hair. Minseok hums happily in reply, hand coming to rest atop Jongdae’s own.
“Wish you’d put that towel away though,” Minseok mutters. Jongdae laughs, nuzzling into the fine hairs on his nape. “But I’m comfortable now.”
(Minseok wakes up at three am to get a drink of water and puts away the towel while he does.)
--
They spend the next day unpacking, deciding together where to put their dishes and which drawer the chopsticks should go in. And Jongdae is honestly a lot more excited about it than he’s outwardly acting; since when he had just moved into an apartment Minseok already lived in prior to this, Minseok had already set up where everything was. But this feels more together. It makes him feel warm all the way down to his toes, curling in his thick house socks on the cool tiles of the kitchen floor.
Jongdae painstakingly sets his stand-up electric keyboard in the spot in their living room where he could glance out the window when they’re done in the kitchen. He puts his desk nearby. Minseok also sometimes needed a desk when he had work to do at home, but they decided they only needed one.
Minseok giggles at him from their couch where he’s eating a simple lunch of rice and kimchi. “I don’t see how you had that hard of a decision,” he teases, “the room is so small there’s only a few places you could’ve put it.”
Jongdae pouts in reply, plopping on the couch next to him. “I needed the spot with maximal positive inspiration vibes.” He glances back over his shoulder where the afternoon light was hitting half of the keyboard. A good choice indeed.
He leans onto his hands, elbows perched on his bent knees, watching Minseok carefully pick up rice with a piece of kimchi held in his chopsticks. Cute.
“Hyung, feed me,” Jongdae whines, leaning his chin onto Minseok’s shoulder. Minseok rolls his eyes, but complies anyway. “Fine, fine.”
--
That Saturday is D-Day as Jongdae would call it, while Minseok prefers putting-together-our-IKEA-bed-day. Jongdae knows he’ll be spectacularly no help, as somehow things like building elude him. He voices these thoughts to Minseok, looking down in disdain at the seemingly harmless instruction booklet of approximately 30 pages.
“Following directions is what eludes you,” Minseok snaps back, ripping open the baggie of hardware. Jongdae smiles softly as he sits across from Minseok, watching his boyfriend’s furrowed brow as he orders the little screws and pins in uniform lines and piles. Jongdae does stand to help him pile the pieces of wood in the sequential order they’ll be needed in.
“How about I read what you’re supposed to do to you?” Jongdae offers, flipping through the pages, noting that the first few directions seem straight forward.
“That works fine,” Minseok smiles over at Jongdae, sitting with the tiny wrench in his hand.
“Jongdae,” Minseok chides after inserting the last slat of the headboard in place, “you need to help me with the next step.”
“Ah, but hyung,” Jongdae singsongs up from where he’s sitting next to Minseok’s carefully laid piles of separated and counted screws and pegs and bolts, “the directions clearly showed one person with a hammer and one person with the instruction booklet.”
Minseok makes a whining noise, high pitched from the back of his throat. “Get your lazy ass up and help,” he says, and Jongdae has to chuckle a bit because, well, Minseok whining is cute.
“But I was enjoying admiring your strength,” Jongdae says with a grin stretched wide across his face, “especially in that sleeveless shirt.”
Minseok shoots him an unimpressed look, and Jongdae figures maybe he should actually start helping before Minseok gets actually annoyed. “Fine,” he huffs, standing after laying the instructions face up closer to where Minseok was.
“Thank you darling,” Minseok smiles, eyes playful and sparkling, before he grabs two long screws to secure the next piece, motioning for Jongdae to hold the plank in place.
“Hopefully I’ll still have energy left after this to help break in the bed with you,” Jongdae sighs dramatically, lips curving upwards in a small smile when he hears Minseok’s tinkling laughter.
“Somehow I’m sure you will,” Minseok mumbles in reply, cheeks slightly pink.
--
They fall into a happy routine like this. Minseok is gone most days from eight or nine in the morning until five or six in the evening, sometimes seven or eight if he’s particularly busy. Jongdae stays home, working on his compositions. He occasionally goes out to find inspiration during the day. He even teaches vocal lessons a few times a week, depending on the week.
Sometimes, however, inspiration was harder to find. It was easier to pump out melancholy ballads when his life wasn’t so… settled. Because that’s how he sort of feels now. Like he belongs with Minseok in their happy little (…okay, tiny) apartment.
It’s been a somewhat difficult day for Jongdae, grappling for some sort of tune that would be worthwhile. He slinks from the living room to the kitchen where Minseok’s cooking, sitting atop a stool, elbows resting on their kitchen counter, chin in his hands.
“Minseok,” Jongdae whines, drawing out the second syllable of his name, “be mean to me for a bit so I can write a sad ballad song okay?”
Minseok bursts out laughing from where he’s stirring the soup he’s almost done making. “Jongdae-ya,” he starts, turning around to shake the wooden spoon in his hand, “no dinner for you tonight.”
Jongdae laughs so much he almost falls backwards out of his stool. “Is that mean?” he asks, standing up when Minseok turns back around to face the stove with a huff. He lets out a small surprised sound when Jongdae wraps his arms around him, resting his chin on Minseok’s shoulder. “You can’t be mean to me, can you hyung?” he singsongs, warm breath ghosting against Minseok’s neck.
“Hmm,” Minseok murmurs in fake contemplation, eyes quirked upwards, “well, I wouldn’t want to scare you off.”
“I think that’d be hard to do,” Jongdae says, nuzzling his cheek into Minseok’s neck.
“Oh?” Minseok breathes with a chuckle, “even if I was mean?”
“Yeah. You’re stuck with me foreveeer,” Jongdae says with a smirk.
Minseok tilts his head so it’s resting on Jongdae’s for a moment, before wiggling in his hold and pushing him back with his butt.
“Go work for fifteen more minutes, this is almost done.”
“Fiine,” Jongdae agrees with a whine, placing a fleeting kiss on Minseok’s neck before dragging himself back to his desk.
--
One of the worst things about moving into this apartment is the fact that Minseok takes it upon himself to budget out all of their expenses. Which is fine, but money is so tight that he actually uses every single won they both make. Jongdae stops buying coffee when he goes out to cafés just because he feels a bit guilty, mind filled with thoughts of Minseok’s color coded spreadsheets and big engineering calculator.
Jongdae mentions one night as they’re watching a drama on Minseok’s laptop that he’d have to buy Chanyeol a present for his birthday and Minseok sighs.
“Why didn’t you mention this last month?”
Jongdae frowns in response. “I forgot?” And Jongdae feels bad sure, but he’s a bit angry now. It wasn’t like he’d purposely not mentioned it. Minseok leans forward to hit the space bar, pausing the drama they were watching.
“I mean, we technically have extra money this month,” Jongdae reminds him with a frown, burrowing his feet under the warmth of Minseok’s thigh and the couch.
“But we don’t know how much the bill will go up this month because of heat, so we kind of need to save that.”
Jongdae sighs, watching Minseok scrub a hand over his face. He looks tired. Jongdae’s heart tugs a little in his chest.
“I should’ve stayed with Joonmyun,” Jongdae sighs dramatically, bringing the back of his hand to his forehead, “then I’d be a trophy wife and rich and pampered.”
Minseok frowns, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. “I’ll be rich one day. Probably.”
“Unless you capriciously decide to stay in academia,” Jongdae points out with a snort. “I am so done with academia, no way,” Minseok insists, smile curving on his lips. “Hey, but that was quite a big word you used there, Jongdae-ya,” he teases.
“I’m appalled at your notions of my vocabulary capacity,” Jongdae gasps in mock surprise.
“You just got up to the ‘cap’ part of the dictionary, huh?” Minseok asks with a grin and Jongdae bursts out laughing because Minseok knows him so well.
“I’ve been looking at the dictionary to bring some vivaciousness to my lyric writing,” he says, arms flailing slightly, but Minseok’s laughing quietly and he wants to kiss him but settles for flicking his nose instead.
“Brat,” Minseok chides, but he’s still smiling fondly. “I guess we could spare 20,000 won. But if we can’t make the electricity and gas bill this month I’m going to beat you.”
“Oooh, domestic violence threats, feisty,” Jongdae breezes back with a teasing smile on his face.
“Yaa!” Minseok scolds him before lunging at him, hands aiming for his waist.
“Please, no!” Jongdae cries, laughing hysterically as Minseok’s fingers dance along his ribs through the cotton of his t-shirt, flailing helplessly beneath Minseok.
--
“Minseok,” Jongdae sighs sleepily, when they’re both in bed later that night, “why are you squirming around and not sleeping?”
Minseok had so many things on the tip of his tongue, thoughts rolling around in his head, but he couldn’t get anything out. He felt so open and exposed, even though it was just Jongdae, he hated it. He hated talking about his feelings.
“Do you,” he takes a shallow breath, “regret being with me ever?” he decides on, almost whispering the last part.
“Minseok,” he says after a moment, seeking out Minseok’s hand to clasp in his own, “you know I love you more than anything, why would you even ask that?”
Minseok remains silent even as Jongdae gives his hand a squeeze. He’s jealous of his boyfriend in this regard - he jokes and is sarcastic a lot but is so genuine and easy with his feelings, whereas Minseok’s almost the opposite, more secretive.
“I don’t ever regret being with hyung,” Jongdae says, as Minseok continues to stare up at the ceiling. Another beat of silence passes, before Jongdae makes a noise of realization in the back of his throat. “Is it because I mentioned Joonmyun today?” he asks quietly. And Minseok tears up, and he knows Jongdae can see it, he’s lying on his side facing Minseok, still holding his hand, as Minseok resolutely stays lying on his back. Minseok feels so pathetic, so childish and vulnerable and he hates it.
“I just said it as a joke, Minseok-ah, I didn’t think you’d even think twice about it,” Jongdae says, propping himself up on his side on an elbow.
“But…” Minseok interjects before falling silent again. “But?” Jongdae prompts, looking at Minseok expectantly.
And Jongdae was always so patient with him, understanding that he needed to form his words so they’d come out right, thinking about the phrasing and how to say what was bubbling up inside him. Jongdae deserves to know, deserves some of Minseok’s thoughts when Jongdae fills him with his own, constantly.
“But,” Minseok starts again, closing his eyes as his voice cracks. “You were thinking about him,” he finishes lamely.
“I-“ Jongdae begins, but Minseok cuts him off. “This is stupid, I’m sorry, I-“
“Baby,” Jongdae chides, slipping a hand behind Minseok’s neck, untangling his other hand from Minseok’s in favor of wrapping an arm around his waist to pull him towards Jongdae, rolling him onto his side so they’re facing each other. “Your feelings are not stupid,” he gently protests. Minseok averts his eyes to Jongdae’s chin so he doesn’t have to meet his gaze straight on.
“I was just thinking today about what if I had done an idol audition at a company,” Jongdae explains, biting his bottom lip before continuing. “And I was thinking about all the ways in which my life would’ve changed and I thought of him. I haven’t in a while, and honestly wouldn’t want to anyway.”
Minseok’s bottom lip is still wobbling pathetically as a tear makes its way down his cheek. Jongdae leans forward, pulling Minseok tighter into his embrace, so their chests are flush against each other, planting a kiss on both of Minseok’s eyes.
“I love you, and only you” Jongdae murmurs against his lips, before placing a kiss there too. Minseok immediately opens his mouth, and Jongdae takes the opportunity to lick at Minseok’s lower lip.
“Ah,” Minseok says when they pull away, foreheads still touching, “I hate talking all mushy like that.”
“I know,” Jongdae says, lips curving up in a smirk, “which is how I know you really love me. Cause you’ll talk like that for me.” Minseok fakes a gagging sound and Jongdae headbutts him lightly with his forehead.
“So who’d you want to audition for? SM?” Minseok asks, curious to Jongdae’s past notions of his career. He’d never talked about it that much, surprisingly.
“Mhmm,” Jongdae drawls, fingers tracing patterns on the back of Minseok’s neck, where the soft ends of his hair start. They tickle Jongdae’s fingers. Minseok squirms slightly.
“That would’ve been a very hard life,” Minseok says after a beat. Jongdae hums in agreement.
“Do you think they would’ve made me get a nose job?” Minseok smiles at Jongdae’s question, lips curving upward revealing pink gums and perfect teeth. “I like your nose though.” He punctuates his sentence by placing a small kiss at the tip of Jongdae’s nose. “It’s cute.”
“It’s sort of wide though,” Jongdae whines, scrunching his face up so adorably that Minseok just has to kiss him again and again.
“Well, I think you’re hands down the second most attractive man -“ “What?” Jongdae interrupts with a squawk. “In this apartment,” Minseok finishes with a giggle.
“Who’s the first?” Jongdae asks, pouting slightly. “Me of course,” Minseok answers easily.
“You’re lucky I love you,” he teases, but his words have no bite.
“I really am,” Minseok answers earnestly, eyes crinkling into crescents as he smiles. Jongdae’s heart feels too full, feels too warm, feels like he just wants to protect Minseok and have him smiling at Jongdae like that forever.
He pulls Minseok closer, rolling onto his back so Minseok can comfortably rest his head on Jongdae’s chest.
Jongdae’s just on the edge of sleep, that sort of state where you can’t be sure what time you’ve fallen asleep, when Minseok murmurs into Jongdae’s t-shirt a quiet “I love you Jongdae”, barely audible over Jongdae’s own breathing. Jongdae hums happily and succumbs quickly to sleep.
--
The next morning, Minseok’s off and out by eight am so Jongdae wakes up around nine alone. He fixes himself a bowl of cereal and a mug of instant coffee before settling down at his small desk in the living room, grabbing his notebook and twirling a pen in his hand.
He feels so full and bursting with happiness, he can’t see himself writing anything remotely sad today. Heaving a small sigh, he contemplates going out to the park to look at ducks and people watch or something, before he starts absentmindedly humming.
It’s a happy tune, one that’s sort of been in the back of his mind for a while, but today he forces it to the forefront, scrambling to write down the progression of notes. He writes about happiness today, about being so in love it bubbles out and makes you confess. He grins, letting the image of Minseok smiling fill his mind. Maybe he could afford to ignore ballads for a day.
(He sends it into the company a week later, after giving it some polishing, and hopes for the best. Even if November and December were usually the season for sad ballads, he could try a change of pace.)
--
On New Years, they drink and have a nice dinner at Yixing’s house before making their way to watch fireworks. It’s already crowded by the time they get there, but luckily they get a spot on the stairs, offering them a good view. Jongdae scrambles to stand next to Minseok, but Minseok pushes him so he’s on the step below his, directly in front of him. “Ahh,” Minseok says, leaning his chin on Jongdae’s head, “my baby is so tiny.” Jongdae chuckles, feeling light as Minseok rests his hand casually on Jongdae’s waist. Jongdae wishes he could feel the heat of it, but he’s wearing a jacket, so.
Even in the sea of hundreds of other people, Jongdae can forget about everyone besides himself and Minseok when the fireworks start. He hears Minseok’s small gasps and sounds of wonderment, and can almost imagine the look on his face, lips slightly parted, eyes wide. Jongdae loves the way Minseok’s more open when he’s drunk, less inhibited. And he’d definitely had enough at Yixing and Tao’s place.
The fireworks continue even through Jongdae realizing his jacket is probably too thin. He shivers, and Minseok must feel it.
“I told you to wear a heavier jacket,” Minseok murmurs in his ear, and Jongdae’s just glad the fireworks are casting a glow on everyone, because he’s surely pink cheeked right now (even more than from the alcohol). “Keep me warm,” Jongdae says, smiling when he hears the zipper of Minseok’s large bubble coat. He immediately turns around, worming his arms around Minseok’s waist, burying his face in the soft fabric of Minseok’s sweater. It smells like the Minseok’s cologne as well as the fabric detergent and the bath soap they both use, but somehow it just smells better on him.
“I meant for you to just lean back against me, silly,” he murmurs into Jongdae’s hair, even though he almost immediately circles Jongdae in his arms in a closer embrace. “You’ll miss the fireworks like this.”
“One more minute,” Jongdae protests, nuzzling at Minseok’s chest with his nose. Minseok giggles, attention drawn back upward when the crowd around them murmurs appreciatively at the last firework.
“Ooooh, ahhh,” Minseok exaggeratedly sounds as one after another firework goes off, “oooh Jongdae that one was so beautiful.” His tone is light and teasing, and Jongdae can’t help but chuckling, feeling the rumbles in Minseok’s chest as he makes more noises.
“Fine, fine,” he grumbles, turning around so his back is to Minseok’s chest instead, using his hands to hold the flaps of Minseok’s coat in front of his own body. Minseok kisses the top of his head and Jongdae breaks out into a large grin, because, wow, he feels warm and loved and Minseok is showing affection in public (even if no one’s paying any attention to them).
Later, when they’re walking back from the fireworks, Jongdae only feels a slight pang of jealousy when Minseok wraps his arm around Taozi’s shoulder, citing the reason for their secret time together as “eldest and maknae bonding”.
“Stop looking at Tao like that,” Yixing chuckles, nudging Jongdae’s shoulder with his own as they continue to walk, trailing slightly behind their giggling significant others. Yixing’s hands are in his coat pockets.
“Like what?” Jongdae asks sourly, attempting to school his face into something more neutral than the near-death glare that currently resides there.
“Like she’s trying to steal your man,” he says with another laugh, dimple appearing as he glances back over at Jongdae. “You have nothing to worry about, trust me,” he continues after Jongdae doesn’t reply for a moment, “you’re basically married already.”
“What?” Jongdae asks, biting his lip to keep from grinning. He’s almost successful in this endeavor.
“Minseok hyung really loves you, a lot. I can tell,” he says with another smile, eyes trained back forward to the back of Taozi’s earmuff-clad head as his eyes melt to something warmer.
“Don’t call him hyung, he has a complex about it, ugh. Everyone always thinks I’m the older of us two.”
“Well, your cheek bones are looking a little softer this year,” he laughs, causing Jongdae to scoff.
“Two words, Zhang: dimple wrinkles.”
Yixing glances over at him scandalized, before looking forward when Taozi makes a noise as she sits on the pavement.
“What’re you doing babe?” he asks in Chinese, stopping behind her as she looks up at him, glassy eyed. Jongdae’s impressed he still can understand Mandarin.
“I just wanna rest here for a second,” she replies, playing with an empty soju bottle in her hand. Yixing groans, rubbing his palm on the back of her neck. “Did you drink that whole thing?” he asks.
“Nope,” Minseok announces with a huge grin, enunciating the ‘p’ sound with a pop, “I helped. Our bonding experience,” he finishes with a giggle. Jongdae bursts out laughing and Minseok shuffles closer to his side, Jongdae throwing a lazy arm around his shoulder.
“I better get this one back before he passes out too,” Jongdae says, giving Minseok’s shoulder a slight squeeze.
“’m not passed out,” Taozi proclaims petulantly, head lolling back to rest on Yixing’s knees.
“Well, it was nice seeing you. Goodnight guys,” Yixing says fondly, smiling up at them, “thanks for coming out.”
“Thanks for inviting us over!” Jongdae says at the same time Minseok replies, “thank you Xingxing!”
“You’re awfully affectionate tonight,” Jongdae murmurs into Minseok’s ear as they round the corner of their street, Yixing and Taozi just out of earshot now.
“Are you jealous?” Minseok croons, swaying his hips a bit, knocking against Jongdae’s own.
“Maybe,” Jongdae replies with a grin, steering them towards their apartment.
They stumble back to their apartment around one in the morning, Minseok tripping over the threshold of the door to their apartment, but Jongdae is there to catch him. Minseok leans his face into Jongdae’s chest, unable to stop the laughter from bubbling up, frigid fingers clutched at the neck of Jongdae’s coat.
“I was gonna fall, but there you were, Jongdae-ya,” he singsongs, smiling up at Jongdae, eyes all scrunched up into half moons with pink cheeks and Jongdae feels a swoop in his stomach as he falls in love with his boyfriend all over again. “I was there,” he croaks out past the feelings that have taken residence as a lump in his throat, moving to start taking off Minseok’s coat for him.
“We should get you to bed, huh?” he asks rhetorically, chuckling when Minseok makes to lay on the floor as Jongdae hangs up their coats. He kneels down to help Minseok out of his heavy boots, huffing before tickling his feet.
“Jongdae-yaaa,” Minseok chides, nose scrunching up adorably as he sits up, feet flailing slightly.
“Sorry hyung, I couldn’t help it,” he smiles, helping Minseok to standing with an arm around his shoulder, wrist under his armpit.
“I gotta go bathroom, Dae,” he whines, head hanging, chin near his chest. Jongdae frowns. “You’re not gonna throw up, are you?”
“No, just pee.”
Jongdae laughs, biting his lower lip. “Okay, Minseok.”
He leaves Minseok by their bathroom before padding to the bedroom, quickly shucking off his clothes until he’s just in his boxers. He puts on one of Minseok’s soft SNU t-shirts, fabric overworn from the many times it’s been washed, before going back to the bathroom, another shirt for Minseok in hand.
Jongdae giggles upon entering the bathroom, Minseok sitting on the toilet, fighting to get his shirt off his head, hands stuck in the long sleeves. And times like this Jongdae is reminded he really is in love, because despite seeing Minseok in the compromising and horribly unattractive position, he just feels his heart clench in his chest, feels the corners of his mouth turn up in a smile.
“Hyung…” he trails off, before striding over to help Minseok pop his shirt off. He also helps him into his sleep shirt, trying not to laugh too much at the general state of drunk Minseok.
“We better get you some ibuprofen, huh?” he asks, standing and throwing Minseok’s long sleeved shirt in the bathroom hamper before retrieving some pills from the medicine cabinet behind their bathroom mirror.
“Jongdae, ‘mm really drunk,” Minseok slurs, head so tilted his ear is practically leaning against his shoulder, lopsided grin on his face, lip curled over his front teeth so his pink gums were on display. Jongdae can’t stifle his barking laughter when he turns around.
“You think?” he asks playfully, deciding to feed Minseok the ibuprofen and large glass of water while he’s still on the toilet (because at least he’s sort of sitting up). Jongdae sits on the side of the tub next to Minseok, making sure he drinks the entire glass of water.
“You ready for bed?” he asks after Minseok sets the empty glass down on the floor. “In a minute,” Minseok insists, eyes fluttering shut. Jongdae swallows, studying the reddish tinge on Minseok’s cheeks, the way his mouth looks shiny and wet.
“Fine, I’ll give you two minutes, okay?” Jongdae asks, smiling. He brushes his teeth, keep an eye on Minseok the whole time, before finishing up, standing in front of Minseok.
“Pull your boxers up and let’s go to sleep.”
Minseok tries to look at Jongdae through half-lidded eyes that can’t quite stay open, and the grin on Jongdae’s face is practically cracking his cheeks.
“How can you fuck me with boxers on though?” Minseok asks after a moment of contemplation, hands gripping the front of Jongdae’s shirt. Jongdae kisses his forehead, stifles a laugh into his soft hair.
“There will be no fucking tonight,” Jongdae says, “I imagine you’d probably fall asleep. Or try to give me head and forget about your teeth. Or maybe even both.”
Jongdae manages to get Minseok into bed, rolling in after him after clicking their bedroom light off. Minseok curls into his chest, small hands under his own cheek. Jongdae takes the opportunity to kiss his forehead, and gives into the temptation of following a line down Minseok’s nose, until he’s kissing his philtrum and ending on his lips.
Minseok hums happily into the kiss, and while Minseok’s distracted, Jongdae pushes his feet between Minseok’s calves, reveling in the warmth there.
“Yaa, Jongdae, your feet are frozen,” Minseok complains sleepily, eyes not even opening. “Wear a proper coat next time, okay?” And Jongdae laughs at his pouting face. “Even drunk you have to scold me, huh?”
“Sorry I don’t want my boyfriend to freeze to death,” he huffs crossly, headbutting Jongdae’s collarbone playfully.
“So cute,” Jongdae can’t help but murmur, bringing a hand up to run his fingers through Minseok’s hair.
“I know,” Minseok mumbles and Jongdae lets out a bark of laughter, but then Minseok must already be asleep because his mouth’s slightly open and his breathing evens out.
“I love you Kim Minseok,” he whispers gently, eyes trained on the gentle curves of Minseok’s sleeping face, “and I look forward to spending this year with you, as well as the rest of my life.”
Jongdae wrinkles his nose at his own mushiness, placing another gentle kiss on the crown of Minseok’s head before letting himself succumb to sleep as well.
Minseok still manages to somehow wake up at the asscrack of dawn, rolling out of bed to use the bathroom. Jongdae’s already awake when he slinks back into bed, rolling over to face Jongdae.
“I feel like I got hit by a train,” he mutters, eyes squeezing shut.
Jongdae laughs softly, petting down the unruly tufts of hair sticking up from Minseok’s head with the flat of his palm. “Did you take some more ibuprofen? More water?”
“Yes,” he murmurs, eyes still shut as Jongdae continues to pet him, running fingers through his hair now. “Do you remember last night?” he asks with a quirk of his lips, smiling even wider when Minseok’s nose scrunches up. He scratches lightly at the back of Minseok’s scalp.
“Mostly. Except for after halfway through our walk home, it gets a little fuzzy there. Was I unbearable?”
“Unbearably cute,” Jongdae coos, moving to pinch at Minseok’s cheek, but Minseok deflects him with his own hand.
“Stooop, too early, too greasy,” he whines, squirming his way further under their blanket.
“Did the Kim Minseok just proclaim that 7:14 in the morning was too early? Be still my heart, I need to inform the presses!”
“Jongdaaaae,” he chides, punching at Jongdae’s chest lightly with a balled up fist, “cuddle me back to sleep.”
And Jongdae does, wrapping his arms around Minseok’s warm body, Minseok’s head resting comfortably under his chin.
--
New Year’s somehow has Jongdae thinking about how they’d met all those years ago. He watches Minseok stir the batter for pancakes with a dopey grin spread on his face, sitting on a stool at their counter. Minseok’s making “breakfast” despite the fact that it’s almost two in the afternoon.
They had met when Jongdae was merely a freshman in university, fresh-faced and excited at the prospect of learning, excited by the novelty of the big city of Seoul he had just moved to. His first semester he had decided to take “Introduction to Chinese” to get his language requirement out of the way early, despite the class meeting a ridiculous four times a week. He figured if he worked hard for the first year or two, his last years could be spent focusing on really developing his musical talents.
Notions of working hard sort of flew out the window (for his Chinese class anyway) when he paid more attention to the gentle curve of one of his classmate’s jawline, his gummy smiles when the teacher said he had pronounced the sentence perfectly, his perfect little pout, than to the teacher.
He didn’t know much about him, Xiumin as he was called in class (they had all chosen Chinese names), other than his real name was Kim Minseok and he was fairly certain he studied some sort of science (Jongdae had seen a thick binder labeled “Biochemistry I” in his backpack). After some (definitely not creepy) browsing through the school’s class catalogue, he found that that class was a third year class. So Minseok was definitely older than him.
And this stupid class Jongdae was taking as a way to an easier future was making his life so much more difficult, the stupid pretty (gorgeous really) TA, Lu Han, flirted shamelessly with Xiumin.
Jongdae wasn’t sure to be happy over the fact that Xiumin never seemed affected by the flirting, or sad that that might mean Xiumin wasn’t interested in boys.
By some miraculous (cruel) twist of fate, Xiumin and Jongdae (or Chen in the confines of the small classroom) had been paired up as project and class partners for the entire last half of the semester. When the TA told them to practice the conversations in their textbooks with their assigned partners for the first time, students shuffled around the classroom to be seated next to their partners, and by the next class, everyone was already sitting like this naturally. And this is how Jongdae ended up becoming closer to Minseok (if only by physical proximity alone).
Towards the end of October, Lu Han announced that they’d have to create a powerpoint presentation about some aspect of Chinese culture for the class. Lu Han wandered around the room, while the teams were all brainstorming what to do their presentation on. When he had passed their two desks pushed together, he announced off handedly “maybe someone could research gay culture in China?” before continuing walking around, sending a wink at Xiumin who barely even looked up.
“He’s so transparent,” Jongdae had muttered almost inaudibly, but apparently Minseok had heard it, considering he chuckled. Jongdae’s eyes widened, “I’m sorry hyung,” he stuttered out.
“It’s gege here, Chen,” he chirped back in Chinese, tilting his head to the side as he glanced up at Jongdae from the notebook they were scrawling in between them.
“Sorry,” he muttered in Chinese.
“But he is.” Minseok said suddenly, before drawing a little doodle of a snowflake on his corner of the otherwise unwritten on piece of paper.
“Is what?” Jongdae asked confused.
“So obvious in his interests,” Minseok said, voice barely above a murmur, punctuating his sentence with another giggle.
Feeling emboldened by the fact that Minseok was even talking to him about something that wasn’t directly related to their class work, he decided to voice his surprise. “You noticed?”
Minseok chuckles again, eyes narrowing as his lip curls up over his teeth in a smile, revealing those cute pink gums Jongdae had come to love so much.
“How could I not?”
“You never respond,” Jongdae said, looking back down at where Minseok was doodling, pen circling as he added small flourishes to the snowflake with black ink.
“Mm,” Minseok hummed noncommittally, “he’s not really my type.”
Jongdae swallowed. Was Minseok flirting with him?
“What is your type then, ge?” Jongdae asked, saw out of the corner of his eye as Minseok’s eyes focused on the upward curve of the corner of Jongdae’s lips as he smirked.
“Hmm. Well for one, someone who’s not prettier than me.”
Jongdae snorted, and Lu Han flashed a glance at them from where he was reading at the teacher’s desk. There was no way he could hear what they were saying, but he probably noticed Jongdae’s loud noise, just then.
“I’m pretty ugly, ge,” Jongdae almost whispered, looking up to meet Minseok’s eye. And he sort of wasn’t as ugly as he had been, glasses left behind in high school along with his short haircut, where his bangs had barely passed his natural hairline (he still shudders when thinking about how long he had that stupid haircut for), but.
“Hmmm,” Minseok muses, bringing a finger to tap at his own chin, “definitely uglier than me,” he finished as his lips quirked into a small smile.
And even though Minseok had technically just called Jongdae ugly, he couldn’t even bring himself to mind.
--
It’s another quiet afternoon for Jongdae, scribbling lyrics in his almost full notebook before pausing to take a sip of his hot tea.
He sighs when he realizes he’s lost his train of thought. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he decides to take a break, throwing on a pair of slippers to go down and check their mail.
There’s the normal fliers and credit card offers, but also a slightly thick envelope from his company. Odd.
He rips it open, holding the other letters in his mouth as the elevator brings him back upstairs.
When he reads the first few lines, his mouth falls open, scattering the papers there around him on the floor.
“Holy shit,” he breathes out, hands shaking. The elevator dings, informing him of his arrival back on his floor, but he doesn’t even notice.
His song - his happy, out of the blue, anti-ballad song - tvN wants it as their title song for an upcoming drama.
“Hyung, you’re home late today,” Jongdae calls to Minseok when the latter opens the door. Jongdae’s strategically sitting on their kitchen stool in a way that blocks the cake he’d bought this afternoon behind his back, facing out to their front door and living room. “And you didn’t answer my calls,” he says with a frown.
“Ah, sorry, today was a mouse sacrificing day,” he says, toeing off his shoes, hanging up his jacket on the hook next to the door. “You know I always have a bunch to do on those days. And I can’t pick up my phone with my gloves on.”
“You sacrificed your tiny mouse brethren today?” Jongdae asks, faking scandalized as Minseok makes his way over to Jongdae, settling between his open legs as he leans in for a hug. “How many times are you gonna make that joke?” he murmurs against the skin of Jongdae’s throat, and Jongdae shivers a bit involuntarily.
“It’s my greatest joke, I can’t ever let it go,” he says, tightening his grip around his boyfriend.
Except he doesn’t realize the fatal flaw in his well executed plan, because now Minseok’s head is slotted in the space between his shoulder and neck, clearly in line of sight of the fancy cheesecake on their counter.
Jongdae feels Minseok stiffen slightly against him, and he sighs, almost hearing the thoughts and number whirring around in Minseok’s head about budgets and extraneous spending and being responsible.
“Hyung,” he starts gently, pushing Minseok back a bit so they’re face to face, “before you freak out about what’s behind me, I have something really super important to tell you.”
Minseok raises a brow, lips slightly pursing on one side, “what would that be?”
“I um,” Jongdae worries at his bottom lip with his teeth before continuing, “one of my songs kind of got bought by drama as their title track but it’s just a tvN drama so it’s not like, super important but they paid a lot more for it than I would have expected and I mean like a lot -“ Minseok cuts off Jongdae’s rambling with a squeal, squeezing Jongdae’s sides with his hands. “Your song’s gonna be a drama title song?” he asks excitedly, and Jongdae could almost cry at the look in Minseok’s eyes of just pure pride and elatedness he feels for Jongdae. “Yeah,” he croons, voice cracking as he feels tears start to well up in his eyes before Minseok’s leaning in and kissing him on the lips, pulling him so close to his own body with his arms wrapped around Jongdae that Jongdae’s mildly surprised they haven’t fused together.
When they finally pull apart, Jongdae can’t stop rambling again, hoping to fend off his tears, “I’ll get the check next week before the electricity bill comes and ah -”
“Jongdae,” Minseok interrupts excitedly, wiping a stray tear away from Jongdae’s cheek with his thumb, “baby, I don’t care about the money, I mean, obviously it helps us out a lot, but, I’m just honestly so happy that you’re being recognized for all your hard work and ah! Your song is going to play on prime-time TV and probably have some famous actor as the lead!”
“Maybe, yeah,” Jongdae replies weakly with a smile, eyes still watery, and then Minseok’s kissing him again, warm and wet and comforting.
When they’ve both calmed down a bit, already having eaten the cake, Jongdae thinks back to the thought he’d had this afternoon. They’re sitting on the floor of their kitchen, Minseok’s head resting on Jongdae’s shoulder, hands entwined between them.
“Hyung, we should go to Berlin with this money! Your professor dude will let you take like a week off, right?”
“Jongdae,” Minseok begins chidingly, smiling with his bottom lip clenched between his teeth as he lifts his head up, “professor dude? Plus isn’t Germany a little too… far and foreign?”
“I’ve been learning German, Min, it’s fine -“
“Listening to Rammstein doesn’t even count, Jongdae,” Minseok says through peals of laughter.
Jongdae huffs, crossing his arms across his chest. “Their lyrics speak to me, okay,” he whines. “Plus I took a German pronunciation course in uni, so.”
“For singing,” he shoots back. Minseok’s still smiling, but Jongdae can tell he’s about to turn on the part of him that’s like ‘Jongdae I love you very much but I am responsible so I’m putting a stop to this before you get too ahead of yourself’.
(Jongdae’s just glad Minseok is responsible enough for the both of them.)
“How about we save the money,” Minseok starts before Jongdae cuts in with a groan. “Hyung, I just wanna do something nice for you too,” he mutters petulantly.
“Hey,” Minseok says, grabbing Jongdae’s shoulder in his hand in what he means to be a comforting manner, “you didn’t let me finish. I was gonna say how about we save the money for a trip to Berlin after I graduate?”
Jongdae’s taken aback for a second, because, Minseok is agreeing?
“Did I actually leave you speechless?” Minseok asks, grin stretching wide on his face and Jongdae knows he’s so proud of his comeback and he can’t help but letting out a loud laugh, leaning back a bit as he does.
“You want to go to Berlin with me,” he murmurs, cupping Minseok’s face with both of his hands. Minseok’s cheeks pink under the scrutiny.
“Ah, well, we can save the money for that,” he starts, reaching up to rest a hand on Jongdae’s wrist, palm warm against his skin, “but also, y’know, it’ll be there in case we need it for something before then too.”
Jongdae’s still smiling, unperturbed by his boyfriend’s words. “You wanna go with me,” he murmurs, taking a few more seconds to admire Minseok’s face before leaning in to capture his lips in a kiss.
“Of course I wanna go with you,” he says, wrinkling his nose, “why wouldn’t I?”
-- -- --
(two years later)
Jongdae’s happily finishing up packing for their trip tomorrow, bouncing around the room, singing at practically the top of his lungs. Minseok had already packed earlier this week, because, well he’s Minseok.
Minseok enters the room when Jongdae’s just humming. “Hey Jongdae are you almost done - oh.”
“Oh, what, hyung?” Jongdae asks, peeking at Minseok from over his sunglasses.
“What are you… wearing?”
Jongdae looks down. He’d bought himself a new sweater he saw online, and he’s trying out his new black sunglasses. He’s also donning a pair of black leather pants, because why not? He could dress like he wanted in Germany, right? He’d never see these people again.
“Just some new clothes. Why?”
“Jongdae, I don’t know how to put this lightly, so...” he trails off. “That macaroni sweater is a travesty.”
“Minseok!” Jongdae whines, hitting him on the arm lightly. “You don’t understand high fashion hyung! This is by a Thai designer and -”
“Yeah, yeah, sorry Jongdae,” Minseok sighs, smile on his face nonetheless.
“It comes in grey and blue too. Do you want a matching one?”
Minseok rolls his eyes, making to walk out of the room before Jongdae grabs his arm. “Miiinseok-ah,” he singsongs, smiling at his boyfriend. “I know you’re just jealous of my impeccable fashion sense.”
“I’m going to accidentally on purpose leave you in Berlin.”
“Hey!” he complains, hitting Minseok on the arm. Minseok laughs, sliding out of Jongdae’s hold as he runs out of their room, into the kitchen, then into the living room. Except their apartment isn’t that large so Jongdae easily catches up, pinning him down on the couch.
“Say the shirt isn’t that bad,” Jongdae threatens, holding Minseok’s wrists in his hands, knees on top of Minseok’s thighs.
“Jongdae you’re squishing me!” Minseok cries out, but his face is lit up with a brilliant smile, eyes curved into tiny crescents Jongdae loves.
Jongdae forgets his interrogation, instead leaning down to capture Minseok’s lips in a kiss.
“I’m going to kiss you in public in Berlin tomorrow,” he murmurs, “and it’s gonna be awesome.”
Minseok’s cheeks pink under the scrutiny, and he squirms a bit in his hold.
“I might just let you,” Minseok shoots back, bottom lip drawn up between his teeth in a wide grin.
(Jongdae doesn’t finish packing until a few hours later, because, well…)
Author's Note: This wasn’t exactly the most domestic of all domestic but hopefully it’s fluffy and warm and snappy enough for you ;; Thanks for the lovely prompt! Title taken from 400 Lux by Lorde. Also, this is what I affectionately refer to as the “ macaroni sweater”
