#89: On this planet spinning, I think that I was meant to be next to you [2/2]
It takes Minseok half an hour to come home, and trepidation, dread, and regret settles heavy in Tao’s heart. Sharp, so painful, it’s hard to breathe properly when Minseok steps through the door.
Minseok’s wearing a red sweater. Deep, it contrasts so beautifully with his skin, makes his eyes, his lips look so impossibly dark. Minseok’s too gorgeous to bear, and Tao has to look away for his own sake. He motions for him to sit down.
Tao’s already agonized over the words, and at his side, Minseok is silent, letting him speak. His fingers are curled into the denim at his thighs, tense, tight, distressed, nervous, too.
“Sehun said I should stop using you to hurt myself,” Tao starts. “That-that you deserved to know so right now I’m finally-hyung, I’m finally...” He trails off, his false bravado fading as he catches Minseok’s gaze. It’s burning. “This is for me, hyung. I have a choice.” His hands, his voice are shaking. “I love you, and I-I know you don’t feel the same. ”
Minseok swallows thick, slow, lips parting, and the shadows are so kind across his bobbing adam’s apple, sharp jawline. They’re cradling, caressing, loving, loving, loving.
“I love you, Taozi, you know that.” So soft, soothing, like he’s placating a child.
And Tao winces like he’s been slapped because that’s the problem. Somewhere along the way, this got all mixed up-because he was fated, because he was doomed-and this isn’t enough anymore. This doesn’t work anymore.
And he’s choosing. He’s choosing. He wasn’t fated, wasn’t doomed.
“As a brother,” Tao whispers, bitterness and vast, vast longing staining every word. “You love me as a brother, hyung. As a friend. That’s not how I love you. That’s not how I feel about you.” His sigh is too wet, weak, and tears sting in his eyes. “I’m tired of hurting. I’m tired of pretending. I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
Minseok swallows again, drags his teeth across his bottom lip. Shock, maybe hesitance, maybe fear, but nothing concrete that Tao can cling to. Minseok squeezes his hand tight, almost painful.
“Hyung,” Tao manages. “Please say something.” And fuck, he hates the utter vulnerability in his voice, hates how raw and open and naked and small and ugly he feels. His voice is wavery, thick with the tears he refuses to cry. He braces himself for impact, and Minseok's eyes are dark and pensive and too wet and oh so beautiful. “Hyung, please.”
“Taozi,” Minseok breathes, sliding closer, unlacing freeing his hand from Tao’s grounding grasp. His fingers are soft, fond, familiar, fraternal on his cheekbones, trying for soothing. But they’re searing, and Tao swallows back the tears, blinks heavily to will them away. Minseok’s thumbs swipe beneath his eyelashes, and Tao melts into the touch. “Please don’t cry. Please don’t think I don’t...”
Wrong, wrong.
And he’s shifting even closer, pressed so tight that Tao’s head is dizzy.
“Taozi.” A kiss is dropped to his eyebrows, whisper-soft, warm plushness, warmer breath as Tao’s eyes flutter shut. “I love you, too, Taozi.”
Tao’s chest feels impossibly tight, heart folding in on itself, smaller and smaller until he feels his body might implode from the utter heaviness of it.
Balanced, balanced, balanced.
Minseok’s lips linger, shift, down, down, down, grazing his. His dark eyelashes kiss against Tao’s cheekbones as he tilts his face, brushing with the most distressingly confusing promise. He’s cradling, caressing, maybe even loving, loving, loving.
“Hyung,” Tao manages, the word leaving his lips in a reverent exhale.
“I’ve been aching for you to ask,” Minseok confesses against the seam of his mouth. “I didn’t-didn’t want to...” Minseok releases a low groan of frustration, wet, hot against Tao’s trembling lips. “I want you. I love you.”
Tao is reeling. Not doomed, not after all.
And so exquisitely slow, excruciatingly slow, soft, soft, soft, softer than anything Tao’s ever pictured, Minseok is kissing him, his lips so incredibly warm and wet as they part, press against his.
Gentle, so gentle, his movements are careful, chaste, but even then it has heat racing though Tao’s veins. Minseok’s hands are cupping his jawline, tilting his chin, setting the angle, and too many emotions are bubbling forth.
Drunk on fulfilled desires, returned affection, the heady taste of Minseok, the dizzying caresses he’s whispering along Tao’s skin, Tao moans into their kiss, fingers tight, grasping at the cotton of Minseok’s sweater, tearing at it as he shudders, mouth parting needily.
His jaw falls slack at the first cursory swipe of Minseok’s tongue against his own, his moan helplessly loud.
Minseok lets Tao set the pace, then. Into something deeper, urgent and earnest and sloppy in its eagerness. Minseok responds in kind, blunt fingernails scraping across Taos’ scalp, and Tao is shivering, needing more more more.
Minseok keeps giving giving giving.
He lets Tao drag him onto his lap, lets himself be pulled tighter, releasing the softest, hottest sounds into Tao’s mouth, all the while.
Hands sliding to Minseok’s lower back, Tao grinds upwards into him, and Minseok responds to that, too. His hands braced on Tao’s taut waist, fingernails scraping at the sensitive skin beneath the material of Tao’s rumpled shirt, Minseok rocks down onto him, all liquid, serpentine grace. Tao is panting, shuddering when Minseok pulls away.
Minseok’s lips are swollen, slick, hair disheveled, eyelashes heavy, wanting, wanting, wanting, and Tao bites back a reedy whimper at the sight. He presses his face into Minseok’s neck as he stutters out a groan, low and needy. Minseok’s hand skate further beneath the material, fingers whispering over his ribs, resting on his chest. His thumbs graze Tao’s nipples, and Tao’s face lolls forward, lips latching on Minseok’s neck.
I want you. I want you. I want you, Tao chants as he makes his way across Minseok’s throat, his kisses succulent, hard, possessive. His hands splay across Minseok’s ass, holding him steady as Tao marks his away across Minseok’s perfect skin.
I love you. I love you. I love you Minseok groans into his neck, teeth dragging against his pulse point over and over and over again, scraping in the most exquisite almost claiming.
And Tao feels so full, to the bursting, seams straining, skin entirely too tight with the vastness of his love. It’s so large, so potent, so heavy Tao has to kiss him, has to touch him, has to has to has to-
Minseok’s fingers wrap around Tao’s wrist, halting his movement at Minseok’s strained zipper. There’s a potent flare of insecurity racing up his spine, but Minseok is kissing the corner of his mouth, exhaling shakily as he smiles shyly and weakly into his skin.
“Hyung?” Tao’s voice is still husky with desire, and Minseok groans, nuzzling into him.
“Don’t you dare ask me, Taozi,” Minseok chides, still so very raspy, still so affected. “Because I’ll say yes, and it’s too soon for that.”
Beneath Minseok’s lips, Tao feels his face heat. Minseok’s breathless laugh against his cheek heats it further.
Minseok shifts, pressing their foreheads together. He’s so close that Tao goes slightly cross-eyed from staring at him, but he doesn’t want to stop. He just wants to drink in every moment of this, Kim Minseok, his hyung, loving him back. “Taozi, my Taozi.”
Kim Minseok, he has the kind of face you want to keep looking at, the kind of voice you want to keep hearing. He has the kind of laughter you want to keep causing, the kind of hands you wanted to keep holding, the kind of smile you want to warm you from the inside out, the kind of tender, tender care that you want to keep earning. Kim Minseok, he has the kind of lips you want to keep kissing, the kind of moans you want to keep provoking, the kind of skin you want to keep tasting.
And Kim Minseok like this, seated on his lap, gazing at him with the most heartbreaking tenderness, dropping soothing kisses along his cheekbones, his eyelids, his jawline, whispering his name all the while, Minseok’s the kind of person that Tao wants so desperately to keep.
Minseok kisses the corner of his mouth, humming contentedly into his skin.
But Tao still needs the words, still needs-
“Say it again,” he urges, and Minseok whispers the words against his mouth. An I love you that Tao can taste, an I love you he’s allowed to keep.