No Words Spared [part 2]
Title: No Words Spared
Pairing: Onho
Length: 16,620 words
Rating: PG-15/R
Genre: au, fluff, angst
Summary: It was a curious thought (which would come first, freezing or drowning?) that inopportunely introduced Minho to Lee Jinki.
Minho was appearance-conscious by habit. It was his job to look good, after all, even though the occasion of meeting his sort-of friend at a hole-in-the-wall café wasn't exactly one to dress up for.
Nevertheless, he walked with hands tucked into the pockets of his dark-wash jeans and a brown suit jacket tightly drawn around him, both articles, along with the white long-sleeve shirt and gray knitted vest he wore underneath, carefully picked out to match his thick black scarf he needed to bury his nose in to keep it from turning red.
Coming upon the street of the café, Minho fisted his hands more rightly in his pockets.
Bouncing on the balls of his feet and breathing out visible puffs of air outside the building was Jinki, clad in tight jeans and plain black jacket, white earmuffs covering the sides of his head.
He caught sight of Minho and waved, smiling slightly. He wasn't wearing glasses this time, Minho noticed.
Minho found it awkward to keep eye contact as he continued walking, so he feigned checking his phone for text messages; he knew he wouldn't have any, but it was a perfect ploy.
He stopped in front of Jinki, mouth opening but no words coming out at first.
Jinki smiled, eyes expectant.
"I-change of plans," he said hurriedly.
His brows furrowed slightly.
"Let's go to dinner."
Jinki hurriedly reached into his pocket; Minho assumed he was getting his sticky notes.
He placed a hand on Jinki's arm, stopping him.
"Have you eaten yet?" Minho's words were rushed and ran into each other. He usually had more finesse than this, he thought. Maybe be didn't after all.
Jinki shook his head.
"Then let's go to dinner." He began to extend a hand to grab Jinki's upper arm like before, but realized Jinki didn't need to be dragged anywhere and would follow on his own accord. He fixed his scarf, feeling uncomfortable, and started on a path back to the side of town he was more familiar with.
Jinki tugged on his sleeve a few steps later.
Looking over, Minho saw that he was holding another stack of post-it notes, a warm orange this time. The first one was written on, a message for Minho.
"You look nice"
His hands clenched in his pockets. "Thank you,"
Jinki smiled contentedly, sticking it to his hand.
"You do too," he returned the compliment, though it was a bit stiff.
The older man shot a disbelieving grin in his direction.
"I like your earmuffs," Minho offered cordially. "I've been meaning to get a pair for myself."
Jinki held his stack of notes up and steadied them even while walking. "My mom bought them for me"
Minho chuckled. They turned a corner onto a rather crowded street.
Jinki looked down to write again, and very nearly ran into someone walking the opposite direction.
"Careful-" Minho grabbed his arm and dragged him in closer to his side as he began to drift sideways.
The older shot him an apologetic glance.
"It's fine." He shook his head and dropped his hand back to his pocket.
Jinki held up the note he was writing before. "Where are we eating?"
"A place just up here. It's a barbecue place, if that's okay." He felt guilty for not asking in the first place.
When Jinki nodded enthusiastically, he didn't feel as guilty anymore.
He started to write once more, and this time did bump into someone.
The woman glared at him, continuing to walk.
Jinki just mouthed "sorry" helplessly.
"Sorry," Minho vocalized for him, placing a complacent hand on his shoulder and steering him forward properly.
Jinki tore off the note he'd been writing and instead scribbled a "sorry" for Minho.
"It's fine, Jinki-hyung."
Jinki's eyes went straight to the ground.
Minho's hand fell from his shoulder. He cleared his throat as he stopped in front of a restaurant and held the door open for Jinki.
They were led to a table for two, a private booth in the back of the busy restaurant. The waitress quickly walked by and promised she'd be with them in a second.
"How do you usually order in restaurants?" Minho asked out of pure curiosity, glancing at Jinki over his menu.
Jinki, whose menu was balanced upright in front of him, peeked around it and tapped on his stack of sticky notes.
"No one asks about it?" God, Jinki was so fascinating.
He shook his head, retreating behind his menu fortress.
A few seconds later, a hand reached around the menu and stuck a note on the table beside Minho's hand.
"Do all models eat such expensive food?"
Minho grinned. "Don't worry, I'm paying."
Another note covered the first after mere moments.
"No you're not. I have money for myself."
"It's my treat, really." Minho craned his neck to meet Jinki's eyes over his upright menu.
Jinki narrowed his eyes unsurely.
"You saved me from drowning or freezing to death. Dinner is the least I can do." The part he left out of that backhanded "thank you" was that, on top of saving him from stupid impulse, he'd given him something to look forward to for the past three days, a new streak of nervous energy in him, a spark that'd been missing for far too long in his life. Without even meaning to, Jinki had Minho on his toes since the first day they met.
Jinki nodded, though his eyes were guarded.
The waitress returned. While Minho was ordering his water to drink and a simple beef dish to eat, Jinki wrote his order down. The waitress seemed confused at first, but had taken the note and written the order down the same as Minho's, urged on by Jinki's warm smile.
"I'll have that right out," she said with a forced smile as she took their menus, but Minho saw the stress pulling at the corners of her eyes.
The menu no longer in place to shield Jinki from Minho's view, he looked at him more clearly than the first time.
He was really very handsome, Minho saw on further inspection, with smooth skin, strong features, full lips, and a sharp jawline.
Seemingly unaware of Minho's intent gaze, Jinki made to pull his earmuffs off and lay them on the seat beside him. More of his hair spilled forward, and Minho decided that it only added to his charm: his long, wavy light brown hair.
Finally noticing that Minho was watching him, Jinki cocked his head to the side in question.
He cleared his throat, busying himself with shrugging off his jacket and loosening his scarf. It was nice and warm inside; no need for heavy winter-wear.
Another note was stuck in front of Minho.
"I like your handwriting," Minho said idly as his eyes scanned the few words, which read, "How was your day?"
Jinki was smiling when Minho looked up at him.
"My day?" Minho's expression went slightly grim.
Jinki nodded.
"It was okay. Not terrible, I guess." He shrugged. "I had a photoshoot for a billboard campaign and a fitting and my manager had to drive me all the way to the venue where the next show is going to be held so I could get 'familiar with the stage,' as if I haven't been doing this for years, and-what?" He stopped abruptly, noting the odd stare Jinki was giving him.
"You weren't lying when you said you were a model"
Minho chuckled in amusement. "I wish I was."
His brows knitted and his head tilted again.
Minho studied his hands, which were folding over each other on the tabletop. "I don't want to get into it."
He heard Jinki scrawling, and watched his hand quickly glide over the small page.
"Then why did you want to meet?"
Minho licked his lips, and, just like everything else he said to Jinki, he opted for the truth. "I wanted to see you."
Jinki's mouth fell open slightly and Minho looked away in embarrassment.
Their waitress chose an immaculate moment to bring them their food and drink. They had ample distraction to thin the tense air around them.
Despite saying that he didn't want to talk about work, Minho found himself doing so anyway throughout the meal. It felt nice to talk to Jinki, to be able to paint a picture exactly how he saw it, an image of his home industry from his perspective and not a magazine's or a reporter's.
Minho wasn't a very talkative person by any standard of the word. He'd always been quiet by nature, the kind to keep to himself and not speak out about his troubles or his feelings to anyone.
With Jinki, it was different.
With Jinki, he spoke without reserve, bluntly, truthfully, without the worry of being judged for his words or having them communicated through a grapevine to a higher-up and get him in trouble.
He couldn't help but tell him everything, how tired he'd become of working to be perfect, to be the next best thing, of people only caring about his appearance. He summed everything up in as few words as possible to give Jinki a chance to interject when he could, switching his chopsticks to his left hand in order to write with his right. The first time he did that, Minho told him about his friend Jonghyun who was ambidextrous, and Jinki had assured him (while promptly dropping the strip of meat from his hold) that he was nowhere near coordinated enough to be ambidextrous.
Jinki didn't write much, only asking a few questions here and there about clarification. As obvious as it was, Minho sometimes forgot that Jinki wasn't part of the fashion industry like he was and didn't understand the vernacular.
It was huge relief, to be talking naturally with another person who didn't care about his status or what magazine covers he'd been on (though Jinki did ask, an amused curl in his neat handwriting that Minho noticed after a few notes). It reminded him of being a kid again, a normal student with normal friends and not a sought-after human mannequin. It reminded him of awkward dates he'd been on in high school, both he and the girl (usually a girl on the other end, though years of being surrounded by gorgeous people of both genders had brought him to being comfortable with either in that sense) trying to get to know each other through forced questioned and awkward laughs and ill-held eye contact.
That nostalgia was only brought forefront near the end of the meal, when Jinki set down his chopsticks to write Minho a question.
"Is this a date?"
Minho froze and his mouth gaped, looking from the note to Jinki's questioning eyes and back.
"I-I mean, if-"
He quickly added one on top of the first. "I'm okay with it if it is"
Ten thousand kinds of relief colored Minho's expression and his shoulders relaxed.
He still didn't have a real answer for Jinki.
"I-do you want it to be?" he asked, what would be a smooth question turning into a choppy mess of disaccord with itself.
Jinki simply blinked at Minho.
So he wanted Minho to decide, then.
Well.
He licked his dismally-chapped lips and cleared his throat. I should say no, he thought, just so it doesn't get awkward. I should say no because I don't want to scare him off. "Yes, it's a date." Dammit.
Jinki's cheeks lifted in a grin as he wrote something new.
Minho's nerves worked overtime as he watched him.
"My mom isn't going to believe that I went on a date with a model."
The younger's eyes crinkled and he laughed aloud.
Jinki's shoulders shook and his lips spread wide across his face.
"Will you-" He cleared his throat a second time, fingers of one hand playing with his lower lip in an age-old nervous habit as the others tapped on the table. "I mean… Do you want to go out with me again? After this. In the future, I mean. Not right-"
A hand on his stopped him from babbling on. He felt his cheeks color and he looked at Jinki.
The older nodded, not pulling his hand back until he saw Minho smile again
"How'd your date go last night?"
"What date?" Minho asked, recoiling as Jonghyun moved to flick him on his shoulder.
"The date with that dude you keep texting," he clarified, squatting down next to him as he sat cross-legged on the ground, waiting for the stylist to hand him clothes to change into.
"We didn't go on a date last night," Minho denied, compulsively checking his phone to see if Jinki had messaged him yet.
"I thought you guys go on dates like every day." Jonghyun rocked sideways, bumping their shoulders together.
"I-not every day." He shook his head. "It's just easier to-it's complicated."
"Complicated?" Jonghyun fell back onto his butt and stretched his legs out in front of him.
Minho nodded silently, turning his phone over in his hands. He wasn't sure if he wanted to explain things to Jonghyun.
To him, it wasn't an issue at all that the man he'd been seeing for the past few weeks was mute. It didn't make much of a difference to him that he had to scan handwritten words and study facial expressions carefully to communicate; silences between them were frequent but not awkward, not to Minho, and each day they were together was a good one for Minho.
Judging by how careful Jinki was, however, how disinclined to go to many crowded places or to touch Minho at all past a pat on his arm or a quick grasp of his hand to get his attention, it wasn't something everyone was comfortable with.
He sometimes wondered how weird it made him seem, to be interested in someone with such a blatant disability. He didn't particularly care how others saw him or Jinki, but he had to ponder every now and then.
Others would probably think he pitied Jinki, which, no, he didn't, not in the slightest. Pity would mean that he saw Jinki's disability as a flaw, when he saw it instead as something incredibly unique, something he'd never experienced before. It was fascinating to him, but not nearly as fascinating as Jinki as a whole.
Aside from being very good-looking, Jinki was cute in personality. He was quirky, and sometimes acted just as painfully awkward as Minho felt. He had a good sense of humor, an off-the-wall sort of timing, and had a pun for everything he heard or said. He made Minho laugh, made him cringe in good nature, made him smile so widely his face felt like it was splitting.
He couldn't remember ever liking anyone as much as he liked Jinki, girlfriends and boyfriends and crushes included.
Being around him was nerve-wracking as it was exciting, and he couldn't get enough of him, of his silent laughter or his multicolored post-it notes.
"You all right?" Jonghyun interrupted his thoughts, waving a hand obnoxiously in front of his face.
Minho batted it away. "What? Yeah."
"You zoned out."
"Sorry."
"You were saying something about your boyfriend before."
Minho felt himself blush all the way up to his hairline. "He's not my boyfriend."
Jonghyun threw an arm over his shoulders. "Seriously, Minho? You've been seeing him almost every day for like three weeks now. You obviously have this sick puppy schoolgirl crush on him. Have you not made your move, or is he just an unreachable paramour to you?"
"What the hell does that even mean, hyung?" He tried to shove him off, but Jonghyun was stronger than he was, despite being short and stocky.
"Why isn't he your boyfriend yet?" Jonghyun didn't answer him properly.
Minho frowned. "I don't know, he just isn't."
"Is he straight?" Jonghyun asked, faux-pity in his tone.
"I… don't know? Hopefully not?" Minho had never outright asked Jinki. Just because he'd said before that he was okay that they were going on dates didn't mean that he was open to having a romantic relationship with Minho.
"Did you even kiss him yet?"
Minho shoved him sideways none-too-gently. "What the hell, hyung?!"
"So that's a no. Why not, Minho? What are you waiting for?" He shook his arm juvenilely.
Minho tried to escape and sent the few workers in front of him a dirty look because they were taking too damn long to choose clothes for him. They could have saved him from this conversation long before.
"You should ask him out properly tonight. And if you come to work tomorrow still 'technically single,' I'm not talking to you for a week."
"He can't go out tonight, he has voice therapy," he said distractedly, punching in the passcode for his cellphone to start a new game of soccer to give him an excuse not to talk to Jonghyun anymore.
"Wait, voice therapy? For what?"
Oh, so he actually said that. Minho froze, knowing that he'd already half-told him, so trying to lie would be like stepping right into a pit of quicksand.
"Is he a singer or something?"
"Uh, no," Minho stated intently at his phone screen. "He's mute."
Jonghyun paused. "Mute? Like, for real mute? Like he can't talk?"
"Yeah, that kind," he murmured dejectedly.
"That's cool," Jonghyun said, sounding genuinely interested in the subject.
Minho shot him an odd glance, masking how relieved he was that Jonghyun didn't think he was a freak with a fetish or something.
"What? It is! How do you guys talk, then?"
"Uh, he writes stuff down. I talk. That's why it's easier for us to be together than to like… talk on the phone or anything."
"I want to meet him," Jonghyun was suddenly way too excited, and Minho's heart felt heavy with affection towards his friend.
"You should bring him with you one day! I'll take care of him while you're shooting, I promise. I won't let him get lost or anything."
He snorted, arms twitching as he tried to block a goal on his handheld game. "Hyung, he's twenty-six, not four."
"Still. Bring him one day, please?"
Minho sighed. Jonghyun's puppy eyes were really ridiculously persuasive. "Fine, hyung."
It felt extremely odd to have someone in his apartment other than Kibum, Jonghyun, or Taemin after years of self-inflicted isolation.
Yet, here he was, all-but twitching with nervousness as Jinki sat on his couch, every speck of dirt suddenly amplified in his vision. He shouldn't have invited him over on a whim like this, he really shouldn't have.
"Do you want something to drink? I can get someth-" He made to stand, but Jinki's hand on his elbow held him back.
The older shook his head with an amused smile. He held up three fingers, wordlessly reminding Minho that it was the third time he was asking him that.
"Right, sorry." He sank back onto his couch cushions. Had they always been that stiff and uncomfortable? He hoped Jinki didn't hate it too badly.
Jinki's eyes lit up suddenly and he reached into his hoodie pocket-he was always underdressed for the weather, in Minho's opinion-for his post-its, a bright grass green for the day. "I have something to show you."
Minho blinked, eagerness bubbling in him. "What is it?"
Jinki shifted slightly, but then halted to write down a quick warning, "Don't freak out."
He swallowed, suddenly on edge. "All right?"
The older set his notes down and scooted towards Minho on the couch.
He felt his eyes widening with every little move, heart pounding.
Jinki beckoned him forward, and upon Minho's hesitation, simply rolled his eyes and pulled him in by the shoulder.
Minho was stock-still, terrified and panicky and suffering from the uncomfortable sensation of bugs crawling all over his skin from nerves.
Jinki angled his head towards Minho's ear, turning Minho's just a bit to get a better angle.
Minho tried to calm his heart and not focus on how nice it felt to have Jinki's hand on the back of his neck like that.
He heard Jinki swallow, lips so close to his ear that he could feel his light breaths against his skin.
He wondered what he was going to do, what he had to "show" him.
Jinki's hand tensed slightly on Minho's neck and Minho's breathing came to a halt when he heard a tiny, hoarse whisper in his ear.
"Hi, Minho."
His jaw dropped and his heart stopped beating for two moments more than were healthy. "You-" spoke.
Wearing a smile bright enough to light an entire city for a week, Jinki moved back out of Minho's space and reached behind him for the notes.
Minho was frozen in shock, shock that Jinki said something, shock that he was that close to him, shock that he finally heard his voice, as labored and fragile as it was.
Jinki held the post-it notes for Minho to read.
"I've been practicing that with my voice coach all week."
"I-that's-" His heart could not be calmed once it started beating again. He felt like he was melting into the cushions. "Amazing, hyung."
Jinki smiled sheepishly and looked down between them.
Minho reached across the gap and grabbed his hand-please don't let him notice that I'm sweating-to hold firmly.
Jinki didn't retract. He just raised his eyes toward Minho, his adorably unsure smile in place.
After Jinki went home that night, after Minho walked back into his apartment from escorting Jinki to the bus stop, he would lie awake for hours, the same words flying across his mind:
I should have kissed him.
"Is that the stray you're looking for?" Kibum asked cheekily, watching as Minho began to bounce his leg in excitement.
Minho ignored his manager's snarky comment, hopping out of the car before it was even at a complete stop. "Hi," he said to Jinki, who stood waiting in front of the café near his parents' shop.
Jinki smiled at him-Minho loved their height difference, how Jinki had to look up slightly to meet his eyes-holding a styrofoam cup out for him to take.
"Thank you," he said with a sincere smile. Taking a sudden leap of faith, he leaned down and touched his lips briefly against his cheekbone.
Jinki's eyes were wide when he backed away, cheeks flushed.
"I-sorry," he said awkwardly. Heat was building in his cheeks and his lips burned from the fleeting contact with Jinki's skin. He turned to Kibum's car and pulled the door open with free hand.
Jinki smiled at him as he made to climb in. Just as he was about to duck inside, Jinki reached a hand up to the back of his neck and drew him in abruptly, pressing his plush lips to Minho's cheek in return.
Minho didn't even have the strength to close the door, Jinki having to handle that on his own.
His fingers touched his cheek lightly, eyes staring forward, face rushing with sudden heat.
"Minho, would you get in the car? We have to get back, like, now," Kibum called out the passenger's side window.
Numbly, Minho obeyed. His eyes met with Jinki's in the side mirror and his face only heated further.
Kibum glanced sideways as he began driving. He scoffed. "Quit blushing, oh my god. You are such a fucking schoolgirl."
He saw Jinki smile in the mirror from the corner of his eye.
That only made it worse.
Minho guided a reluctant Jinki through the doors behind Kibum, a steadying hand at the small of his back.
Jinki picked at his plain-looking clothes restlessly, eyes darting self-consciously in every direction.
"You're dressed fine, hyung," he assured him softly.
Jinki jumped, seemingly not expecting Minho to notice.
"Don't be nervous." He slid the hand around to the dip of his waist, holding him close to his side.
Jinki relaxed slightly, his warmth sinking into Minho's side.
His heart inflated.
"Hey, is that him?!"
"Oh god," dread dripped in his tone as he heard Jonghyun's voice yell from afar.
Jinki stiffened.
"Don't worry, it's just-"
"Hi!" Jonghyun came (quite literally) running towards them, waving maniacally. "Taemin-ah, he's here, come meet him!"
"Minho-hyung's boyfriend?" another voice joined Jonghyun's.
Minho's heart jumped at the word. "I, uh, I didn't tell them that you're my- they just started-"
Jinki just barely tilted his head to nestle into Minho's shoulder, and that was all the reassurance he could have possibly asked for.
"Hi," Jonghyun arrived first, bursting with energy.
"Hi," Taemin was right behind him, bright smile appearing foreign on his face already fully made-up for the dark-themed photoshoot.
Jinki lifted his hand in a wave, smiling back nervously.
"Don't crowd him, guys. You have work to do," Kibum called from beside the photographer, checking out the backdrop.
"We're just saying hello, Kibum-hyung!" Taemin yelled over his shoulder.
Minho was all kinds of relieved that Kibum interjected when he did. Now he could make introductions short and not worry about things getting too awkward. "Jinki-hyung, these are my friends Jonghyun-hyung and Taemin. They both work under Kibum, too."
Jonghyun's face lit in a devious smile and he raised his voice, projecting it in Kibum's direction. "Yeah, I do lots of work under Kibum, right sweetie pie?"
"KIM JONGHYUN!"
The shortest of the group snickered evilly. "He's going to kill me, I gotta go. Nice meeting you, Jinki-hyung!" he sped off in the opposite direction as Kibum began his tirade about "professionalism and how there was nothing going on between them (which was a complete lie), so he shouldn't say things like that." It was almost like a script by now. Minho could recite the entire rant from memory.
"Lee Taemin!" the photographer called after him right as the youngest was opening his mouth to speak.
"I have to go, too," he said, a small pout on his lips. "I'll talk to you in a minute, okay, hyungs?" He took his time walking over to the backdrop, which was dark and bland as was to be expected, a few tacky ornaments adorning small pillars that he assumed would look better in print than life.
Minho looked down to see Jinki's eyes darting between Taemin's retreating back and Kibum, who was very loudly making his way towards the make-up station to yell at Jonghyun more than he already had.
"This is where I work," Minho said. Taking in the setting now, it was full of life, buzzing from all around, movement everywhere. A month or so before, he would have regarded the scene with pure disdain, pure dread that he had to take any part in it at all.
Now, with Jinki at his side, it was different.
Jinki pulled out his sticky notes, pale pink today, and wrote a quick message for Minho. "They seem fun"
He grinned and held Jinki closer to his side, just because his arm was already around his waist and just because he could. "They are, most days. Jonghyun-hyung gets to be a handful, though. Only Kibum can really keep him in check."
Jinki angled his body so he could lean more easily into Minho. There was a content expression on his face, a certain calm that seemed almost out-of-place in the middle of the commotion that was a photoshoot. He lifted the hand that only held the sticky notes and wrapped his arm around his middle, bowing his head into his shoulder.
Minho was sure the older man could feel or hear (or both feel and hear) the way his heart was speeding erratically as he held him closely. It was a peaceful moment, aside from the chaos that was his pulse.
"That's really cute, Minho," Kibum yelled good-naturedly across the room, head sticking out from behind one of the lighted mirrors, "but we need you over here. We're running behind."
"Be right there." He pecked Jinki on top of the head-He really liked kissing him. Really, really liked it-and Jinki got the message to drop his arm from his waist.
Together, they headed toward Kibum, Minho taking a seat in a make-up chair, Jinki hanging awkwardly beside the counter.
An artist immediately got to work, building on the make-up he had on from before he went to fetch Jinki.
"You have to take care of him, Kibum," Minho said in a playfully warning tone. "You can't say anything weird, okay?"
"Weird like what?" Kibum asked, tone like a dare to Minho.
"Weird like they," he jabbed his thumb in the direction of Jonghyun beside him and then Taemin taking his solo photos, "Already said he was my boyfriend, so they already set the standard. Nothing weirder than that."
Kibum cocked a brow, but it wasn't his challenging expression that caught Minho's attention. It was that Jinki bent his head down to look at his pad of notes, writing something quickly.
He waited patiently for Jinki to show him, the make-up artist obscuring his vision for a second as she powdered his skin more thickly.
Jinki held the note in place, making Minho strain to read it.
"Why is it weird?"
Oh god, this was a trap, right?
His lips opened and shut, brain searching for a response that wouldn't hurt his feelings or scare him away.
Thankfully, Jinki wrote something else and saved him from having to answer.
"I am your boyfriend"
"Stop smiling, I need to line your eyes."
"Sorry," Minho said, tone completely unapologetic.
"Minho."
"Sorry!" He met Jinki's eyes and had to bite his lip to hold his smile back.
"Choi Minho, your expression is all wrong," the photographer scolded him relentlessly.
Minho waited for his critique, but found his eyes wandering to where Jinki was standing with Kibum. From what he saw, Kibum continued to pet Jinki's head and fawn over him in every way, which was a little bit weird, sure, but at least Kibum wasn't saying odd things about him.
"The concept is dark and brooding, not… a schoolboy in love."
"HA!" Jonghyun barked a laugh from somewhere distant.
Minho glared in the general direction, hoping that his friend saw him.
"Can we try again? We don't have that much time." The photographer seemed stressed, and Minho had to sympathize with him.
"Right, sorry." He licked his lips and tried to focus. He posed comfortably, the way he knew suited him and this concept the best. His expressions were on point, he could feel it, his motivation on high.
… And then he saw Kibum ruffle Jinki's hair, and it was all shot.
"Choi Minho, what did I just say?!"
"He was getting jealous," Kibum announced in the car on when they were almost to Minho's apartment, hours of shooting over.
"Who was?" Minho asked, amusement in his tone.
"Jinki-hyung was."
Minho met his eyes in the side mirror. "Really?"
"Yeah," Kibum answered, a playful deviousness in his tone, "when you were doing the group shots with Jonghyun and Taemin."
Jinki looked humiliated, gazing out the windows with a thick blush across his cheeks.
"You should be glad that they had all their clothes on, Jinki-hyung," Kibum said joyfully, drumming his thumbs on the wheel to the beat of whatever Lady Gaga song was playing. "It's even worse when they don't. Homoeroticism everywhere."
"Would you watch the road?" Minho snapped, but wore a smile all the same.
"Whatever, we're already here." He stopped the car, jarring them all forward (Kibum was kind of terrible at driving).
Minho stepped out first.
"Don't forget, you have to-"
"Be up early tomorrow, I know. I have to be up early every day."
Kibum eyed him. "Don't you kids stay up too late tonight, okay?"
Minho's mouth dropped open. "Shut up, Kibum." He turned to open Jinki's car door for him, but found with a startled jump that the other man was already standing at his side.
"Goodnight, you two,"
Minho ignored his manager.
Jinki offered a wave.
It wasn't until they were making it up the second flight of stairs to his sixth-story apartment that Minho spoke.
"Were you really getting jealous?" he asked, curiosity overflowing.
Jinki didn't meet his eyes, combing his hair away from his face. Kibum had styled it while they were waiting on Minho at the shoot, parting it deeply to the side and smoothing one side behind his ear. It looked perfect, Minho thought.
"You were?" Minho asked incredulously, happiness bursting in his chest like a balloon that over-inflated. "Why?"
Jinki's lips pressed into a line and his nose scrunched up. He pulled his pad out of his pocket and wrote hurriedly. "You were hanging over two other guys. What would you expect?"
Minho grinned, eyes squinting, hand coming to cover his mouth.
The older tripped on the last step and Minho rushed to steady him, heaving him to his floor and "accidentally" jerking him so far that he lost balance again and landed against Minho's chest.
He wrapped his arms warmly around his shoulders and buried his nose into the crook of his neck. "That makes me really happy, hyung."
Jinki pushed at his chest and stalked to Minho's apartment door.
Once Minho saw him, he realized that the action wasn't from animosity towards him at all.
He was blushing redder than Minho had ever seen before.
Why Minho let another night escape him without so much as a peck to the lips would always baffle him.
[part 3]