Chapter Text
The hardwood floors are sticky with spilled carbonated drink.
Minho’s black socks peel from the floorboards as he walks, picking up stray crumbs of kkokkalcorn along the way. He grimaces at the sensation and his gaze shifts automatically to Seungmin, who’ll most likely wake them all up come morning wielding a mop like a knight would a sword.
For now, however, it seems they’re safe from Seungmin’s pedantic crusade, if the way his twelfth failed attempt at building a house of cards is any indication. His round spectacles are wonky where they’re precariously balanced on the bridge of his nose, and his fringe looks like he’s just stuck a fork in an electrical socket. Whenever the construction collapses upon him, he sneaks a few additional cards from Changbin to make his next project even sturdier, who doesn’t seem to notice that this might be the reason his rounds of solitaire never go the way he wants them to.
Not to mention the fact that he’s missing at least a whole suite's worth of cards that are lodged beneath half-empty bowls of honey butter chips. The remainder of the deck he passes from hand to hand is sticky with liqueur, and the soggier ones like the Ace of Spades and the Fifth of Clubs have more or less merged into a single piece of cardboard.
There’s a cheap disco light that whirs noisily above them, casting the room in a deep purple glow and splattering it with dabs of swirling colour. Jisung’s dazed gaze follows the splashes of neon, his eyes darting from left to right as red, green, blue and yellow spin like a kaleidoscope around him. The din rivals the rhythmic thump of Japanese trap blaring out of Chan’s Bluetooth speaker and their chatter, jeers and laughter bounces off of the bare walls, amplifying the cacophony until the echoes seem to have echoes of their own.
Nausea roils quietly in the pit of Minho’s stomach like a snake, and there’s a nagging headache in his left temple that keeps him grounded to where the others seem to have drifted. He takes a small sip from his beer, the same one he’s been nursing for the better part of the last hour, and swishes the flat, sweet liquid around in his mouth before swallowing it down. While the others have maintained a break-neck pace since the sun crested the rooftops, Minho’s fallen behind and been thrown out of orbit. His limbs are sore from dance and his vocal cords ache from song. What his body wants from his rest, not more beer.
Ignoring its wishes, he takes a seat among the discarded duffel bags and carefully takes a seat on one of the last remaining cardboard boxes that litter the living room with little rhyme or reason. The black sharpie half-hidden underneath his thigh declares its contents as being Bam Bam’s Noodle Trove , even though Chan’s collection of miscellaneous cables can be seen poking up from the flap. Some of their copper wires are exposed, and Minho glimpses a knot so intricate it’s difficult to believe it wasn’t done on purpose. Though he doesn’t dare bring it up to his leader, he privately wonders how many of the multi-coloured cables haphazardly crammed into the box beneath him are actually viable.
“Another?” Hyunjin slurs at him and grabs a glass at random from the low coffee table they’ve gathered around.
Minho squints and recognises the murky, greenish liquid as being one of Jeongin’s experimental and foul-tasting mixtures from earlier in the evening. They still sit untouched in the centre of the table even hours later, a testament to their taste that speaks louder than any of their curses had.
Politely, Minho declines.
Hyunjin shrugs and takes a swig of the witches’ brew, and Minho laughs at the sequent face of horror the flavour conjures, “What is this?” Hyunjin mouths in shock, holding up the glass towards the light.
“Man, you don’t even want to know,” Felix giggles in English, who had been Jeongin’s co-conspirator in the matter. The flush is high on his face, a gentle tint to his features that disappears down the neckline of his loose t-shirt.
On the low coffee table and on the floor littered around their feet are dozens of identical white-and-blue cans and amber bottles of Hite. There are a few outliers too, green bottles of Terra and malt-coloured cans of Max that Chan managed to filch from one senior or another. There’s an ominous pool of its golden liquid inching closer to Seungmin’s white-socked foot, but seeing as he’d been the direct cause of Minho downing the King’s Cup at the start of the night, he doesn’t quite feel like letting him know of the looming peril.
He’ll want to swab it up sooner or later, Minho doesn’t see why his foot won’t be just as efficient as the mop.
Watching them spiral into drunken stupor from his increasingly sober perch is a borderline surreal yet familiar feeling. In contrast to the rest around the table, most of Minho’s youth was spent outside of the company, and so the taste of malt and wheat isn’t new to him.
His eyes drift from face to face, from Hyunjin carding a hand through Jeongin’s hair, lying uncharacteristically complacent on his lap with a loopy smile on his lips. Opposite them, Felix sits nestled in between Chan’s shins with his back against the shedding leather couch. He attempts to engage the leader in conversation, oblivious to the fact that the intended recipient has been decked out and snoring for the past fifteen minutes. Minho can’t follow the topic of his monologue, the Australian lilt even thicker than usual in Felix’s mouth.
It’s the first time they drink together. The experience is loud, and more than a little messy. Clumsy hands and shrill laughter clad in flushed cheeks and glassy eyes. Barely adults, barely anything. Minho is technically still a teenager, and Jisung has a few more months before he turns even eighteen along with the rest of the Septemberists.
In their pre-debut days, drinking together equaled a death sentence. Trainees were cut-throat - even more so than regular teenagers - and all battling for the same, scarce spots in the spotlight. The official slogan beneath the JYP logo was “Leader in Entertainment,” but there were a few choice words that were exchanged far more frequently by those who'd scrawled their names on the dotted lines of their contracts.
“All is fair in love, war, and at JYP.”
No one could trace its origins, but it had spread like wildfire once coined, and soon it was the only piece of advice they could afford to give one another. With everyone busy looking after themselves, a knife in the back wasn’t unheard of. A whisper or a rumour of someone breaking the rules could easily spell the end to someone’s dreams. The trainee dormitories were shark tanks. Filled with hungry eyes and keen noses that could smell a single drop of blood for miles.
With that in mind, trainees stay watchful, and sober.
Now, once debut has come and gone in the span of a day, the bottles are tentatively opened. Now, when there’s a reason to celebrate good enough to forsake morning practice the next day for. With the survival show wrapped and aired, the last remnants of tension have fizzled out between the eight of them. In the ashes are the building blocks of what might grow to be trust one day, when the dust has settled and “ I” becomes “ we”.
Minho taps his foot to the beat, singing under his breath as he absent-mindedly peels the label from his bottle and scrapes the stubborn glue from beneath with blunt nails. There’s a gentle breeze from the open door leading out to the balcony, and the curtain billows softly in its wake. The cool caresses bleeds the warmth from his cheeks, like rain on a summer day.
He feels far away.
Watching the members spill cheap beer on one another, he sees none of the tension that his shoulders carry, none of the dark circles that burrow deep into his sockets. There’s a tug at his heart where his insecurities pull for his attention like a toddler on his sleeve. He wonders if Felix feels it too, the question lodged in the back of his throat.
At night, it’s given free reign of his mind. Pointless and endless like the moths that chase the lazy turns of the fan blades on the ceiling. Does he deserve a seat at this table? Minho doesn't dare voice it, doesn't dare give room to the anxiety and worry that crawl alongside his blood and coat his veins with unease. It’s like there’s a pane of glass between him and the seven, a gap that he doesn’t know how to bridge.
There's a heavy weight against his thigh that anchors him. Minho's felt it before. His own clammy hand trapped in the other's steady one, squeezing out the beat of a rap that felt foreign on his tongue. He wonders how Jisung knows. How he always manages to seek him out just as Minho’s thoughts begin to bubble out of his brain like coke erupting from its bottle once the mentos dissolves.
Minho likes to think he keeps a rather straight face, the type of guy who'd be good at poker if he ever bothered to learn. Even Chan has a hard time hitting the mark with what plays behind the curtain of his mind. Maybe it’s just a fluke that Jisung always happens to be right there, maybe it’s cognitive bias on Minho’s part, maybe it’s a sixth sense, maybe it’s-
Nevermind.
The weight on his leg lolls forward, almost dropping off of his kneecap and onto the floor. By instinct, Minho's hand shoots out to grab the slender shoulder below him. Its owner mumbles something that’s unintelligible from tiredness and drink, so Minho leans down to catch the murmured words that disappear into the denim of his pant leg.
"What did you say?" he prompts, catching a whiff of the yoghurt-and-honey scent from his shampoo.
Jisung lifts his head and lets his lips brush against Minho's ear when he repeats himself, "I don't feel so good.”
Unwilling to jump to conclusions, Minho studies him for signs of something else being amiss besides his obvious inebriation. He’s grateful when he comes up short. Unlike himself, Jisung can be counted upon to wear his heart on his sleeve. His emotions are stark on his face, painted with broad strokes upon his forehead to spell out that which lingers on his mind. Wide, trusting eyes broadcast his emotional state to the world before his mouth ever can - fast though it may be.
But all Minho finds in his face is the slightly cross-eyed look of someone who should've stopped at least three beers ago but failed to catch the signs. There's a sway to how he moves, like all of his limbs weigh more than he expects and his centre of balance has hitched a ride on his pulse, moving from left to right, back and forth.
"All right," Minho murmurs, shying away from the hot breath upon his cheek. He's glad that his face is most likely already flushed from the alcohol, and that Chan's hawk-eyed gaze has clocked out for the night.
Making sure he doesn’t accidentally deposit Jisung on the floor, Minho places their bottles onto the table and pushes them towards the centre, far away from Hyunjin's flailing gestures. Carefully manoeuvring Jisung into a more manageable position, he hauls him to his feet. His head hangs low, wisps of his fringe shielding his eyes like a bridal veil, but his grip is iron on Minho’s forearms.
Weighing his options, Minho opts for the nipping cold of the balcony. In here, the chill just barely cancels out the sweltering heat that eight drunk teenage boys emanate. Jisung doesn't seem too keen on his plans however, judging by the furious shake of his head and his persistence to remain rooted to the exact spot from which he'd stood.
"The room is spinning," he slurs, barely audible above the racket of Hyunjin’s and Changbin’s latest argument.
"It's okay," Minho reassures, "I've got you."
At that, the death-grip lessens somewhat, and Jisung allows himself to be led away. Based on his stumbling gait and the greenish tint to his face, Minho decides that perhaps the bathroom would be preferable to the balcony after all. He'd rather avoid the other tenants knocking on their door in the morning wondering why there's vomit all over their windows.
Mercifully, the bathroom looks kind of alright by the standards of rooming bachelors. Which means that though the laundry hamper in the corner is overflowing with dirty sweatpants, and someone’s morning shave is sprinkled in the sink, at the very least it’s not a biohazardous zone. Perfectly suitable for someone who might have the need to lay down on the floor and be violently ill within the foreseeable future. Miho’s certainly thrown up in less palatable places. He shudders at the memories.
Carefully releasing Jisung, Minho digs out his bright orange plastic cup from the cupboard behind the mirror, shoved between half-empty boxes of paracetamol and nasal sprays. He lets the water run for a minute until the milky opacity has turned clear before filling the cup and unceremoniously shoving it into Jisung's hands.
"Drink," Minho orders as he turns to lock the door behind them. He’d rather avoid a bleary-eyed Chan wandering in without knocking first, or a plastered Hyunjin who still insists on checking up on his appearance at regular intervals.
With Minho’s back turned, Jisung sinks onto the ground with his back against the wall. His eyes are unfocused as they sweep across the light fixtures overhead. For a moment, Minho stands awkwardly by the door as Jisung gulps the water down, a small dribble escaping the corner of his mouth and dripping down onto his black muscle tee. Minho’s not quite sure how to proceed, what might make Jisung uncomfortable, what might not. He watches the darkened stain on his collarbone grow.
After draining the contents of the glass it clatters onto the tile from his shaking hand. Jisung cradles his head in his hands, rocking to the distant melody of the power ballad and Felix’s deep voice belting out the chorus.
At a loss for what to do next, Minho crouches down in front of him, "Do you feel sick?"
All he receives for a reply is a moan and a forehead pressed flush against his chest. He hopes selfishly that Jisung is too drunk to notice the speed at which the heart inside of it beats.
"I think so," Jisung finally rasps.
Minho simply lifts the toilet seat and gently nudges Jisung in its direction, "It's alright," he comforts, "You'll feel better once it's out of your system."
Dutifully, Jisung crawls over and kneels in front of the porcelain, his elbows braced against the rim. Minho's hand hovers in the air for a moment, brows furrowed with indecision before he tentatively begins to rub soothing circles onto the other's back. The warm, clammy fabric follows his movements slightly, riding up and exposing a thin sliver of skin at the base of his spine.
Minutes pass in silence, and Minho settles down into a cross-legged position as he listens to Jisung's laboured breath. He varies the patterns he draws on his back, disguising syllables as meaningless swirls. Words are always easier to write on skin than on paper. He watches Jisung’s hands fist in his hair, knuckles whitening as they pull against the roots.
Yet nothing happens.
"Are you... scared of throwing up?" Minho finally ventures, and the stiffening of Jisung's shoulders confirms his suspicions.
After a pregnant pause, the answer comes verbally too, "I know it's stupid," Jisung admits with a weak attempt at laughter.
Minho shrugs, hoping that Jisung will see it from his periphery. This kind of thing was always Chan’s forte, not Minho’s. Where his speech should flow like water, it tumbles like ice cubes from a broken dispenser. He knows about throwing up, not feelings.
"I'm scared of heights," he admits shyly, and his hand stills involuntarily as Jisung's eyes rise to meet his.
"Really?" Jisung marvels.
Had it been anyone else, Minho might’ve felt defensive. But the honest look in Jisung’s eyes keeps him from crossing his arms, and the vulnerable tremble to Jisung’s hands soothes the itch to pull his knees up towards his chest. The tug at Minho’s heart that he named doubt not twenty minutes ago has a different shape now, with softer edges and a warmer weight.
Minho nods. Jisung doesn't look away, and neither does Minho. The silence gathers like water from a leaking pipe, covering the floor and creeping up towards his ankles, burying him to the throat in quiet, threatening to burrow down into his lungs and make a home there. The bathroom feels like a liminal space, and Minho’s mind still spins like a Rubik’s Cube, a flurry of colours against the white tile.
“Are you having fun?” Jisung blurts out abruptly, his words too loud in proportion to the muffled music.
Minho blinks at him in surprise before he bursts out laughing, “Fun? What, at your expense?”
Unless the light deceives him, Minho spies Jisung’s earlobes redden marginally, “Tonight, I mean, you were looking a little out of it,” he grumbles.
“Just marinating in a stew of self-pity,” Minho replies sardonically.
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
Jisung’s voice is so quiet that Minho thinks that his swallow that follows must be just as loud, “Me too,” is all he says, when the silence starts to build anew.
The answer doesn’t seem to satisfy him, because he turns fully to Minho and crowds him against the wall. Minho’s head knocks against the cool surface as he leans back from the sudden onslaught. Suddenly, there doesn’t seem to be enough oxygen in the room.
For better or worse, Jisung isn’t deterred, but only settles in the recently opened space between Minho’s legs. His hand finds Minho’s left wrist and thumbs the sleeve of his shirt up, tracing the faint ridge that hides there, a line of shame and misery. Minho pales, he hadn’t even known Jisung had noticed - that anyone had. His mind races along with his heart.
Jisung lifts Minho’s wrist and presses his lips to the spot, and Minho’s breath catches somewhere in his throat. He wonders when his touch began to feel like a branding iron, a touch so scalding he’s surprised his skin doesn’t blister at the contact. Jisung cradles Minho’s hand against his cheek, covering it with own, and his eyelids flutter shut as he nuzzles into his palm. The hair that grazes his fingertips is damp with sweat.
“I’d like to be your calm,” Jisung says, his breath ghosting across the sensitive skin when he speaks.
“I think you’re more likely to be the storm,” Minho whispers back.
He gets a genuine laugh from that, at least until Jisung cuts himself short and throws himself back towards the toilet, dry heaving and coughing as his body attempts to expel what it considers poison. With the spell broken, Minho follows to brush his hair back and shush in what he hopes to be a comforting way.
Tears pool in Jisung’s round eyes, threatening to spill over, and the veins stand out against his slim neck, “I - I can’t,” he croaks miserably.
When the episode passes, Jisung falls back onto his haunches with a pitiful sob, “I’ll die like this,” he proclaims morosely, “I’ll go to the hospital with alcohol poisoning and they won’t be able to pump it out of me because there’s a higher ratio of Hite than blood in my circulatory system, so they’ll just have to let me die, and my mother won’t even be able to bury me because my body will be considered hazardous waste.”
Minho laughs, “I’ll make sure to bring a nice bouquet to your funeral,” he concedes with a somber pat on his shoulder.
“Wildflowers,” Jisung insists, his eyes boring into Minho’s.
“As you say.”
They smile at each other, a gentle thing, and the coiling thing in Minho’s chest withdraws into the shadows at long last, and the relief that floods out of him accidentally pulls the words out of his mouth before he can think better of it, "Do you trust me?"
Jisung doesn't blink or question him, his eyes still holding his, “More than anyone," he answers, the steadiest words out of his mouth in hours.
"Then open your mouth," Minho commands, rising to his knees and shuffling over to hover over the younger.
This was evidently not the follow-up question Jisung expected. His eyes widen comically, twin saucers staring up into Minho’s face. Like usual, it reveals nothing, and this time, not even Jisung can decipher it. It takes a second before he complies, but he does, cautiously parting his lips without breaking eye-contact.
Taking a deep breath, Minho tilts Jisung's head back to its original position and slips a finger into his mouth before either of them has the opportunity to chicken out. Jisung scrambles slightly from his position, understandably unsure about the recent development. But Minho is determined, having plotted and set his course already. With no hesitation, he jams his finger down Jisung’s throat until his knuckle scrapes against his uvula.
It’s weird, kind of awkward, and heinously uncomfortable for both of them. Somewhere off-center from his original train of thought, Minho tries not to register the warm wetness of his mouth, the silky inside of his cheek, or the rough texture of his tongue, jerking slightly beneath his rough handling.
He does try.
Notwithstanding, the effect is instantaneous. While the body might’ve had some concerns about rejecting the foreign liquid, it has no qualms whatsoever about getting Minho’s finger the hell out. With no further preamble, Jisung spills the contents of his stomach until there is nothing left but bile.
The tears that had previously gathered in Jisung’s eyes have streaked down his cheeks, clumping his wet lashes together into black, glossy pairs. Once it’s over, he sits still and catches his breath, gulping down air after it had been denied him.
With the aim of sparing his already aging knees, Minho perches on the edge of the bathtub and waits for the aftershocks to pass, the minute quakes passing through Jisung’s body becoming fewer and farther apart. Only when the shivers have passed entirely does he speak.
“Thank you,” Jisung breathes, “But also fuck you.”
Minho laughs and gives him a sympathetic pat before climbing to his feet, stretching each stiff knee in turn, “You don’t think the element of surprise helped?”
“I think my fist in your face would help,” Jisung grumbles as he staggers up, flushing away the evidence of his inexperience.
Minho tsks in response, “C’mon, let’s get you ready for bed.”
While he does pout, he doesn’t protest. Jisung obediently accepts the already prepped toothbrush from Minho, a fat dollop of minty, icy blue gel meant to counteract the presumably deadly breath he currently wields. He even lets Minho wrangle a headband onto him before they wash their makeup off.
Taking care of Jisung is a nice change of pace.
With each step in their nightly routine, he watches Jisung’s eyes droop, his jaw grow slack, his movements slow and sloppy. At the end, Minho simply applies the moisturizer for him and mists his face with rose water, afraid that he’ll collapse from exhaustion before they can even make it to bed.
Though it takes time, they do get there. Somewhere between drunk and sober in the hour just between night and dawn, when the sky has yet to lighten and the birds still draw breath for their song. The last window of time when the illusion of a good night’s sleep can still be had, when the moon and the stars still claim providence over the encroaching sunlight.
Minho helps himself to Jisung’s closet, rummaging through the haphazardly stashed t-shirts and baggy pants before settling on a flannel pyjama set, which looks to have been laundered half to death if its threadbare, holey state is anything to go by. It’s worn in, and obviously beloved. A pale grey with faint daisies upon the cuffs and collar.
He tosses it over his shoulder, striking Jisung clear in the chest, and turns to let him dress in peace. At least he intends to, but a high-pitched yelp and clatter draws his attention back to the bed. A loose thread on his singlet has snagged on the silver chain around his neck while in the process of removing it. Minho can’t help the laughter that bubbles out of his chest as he watches Jisung helplessly flail his entangled arms in an attempt to dislodge the collar from below his chin. Somewhere in the process, he’s toppled over, and now lays ungraciously across his duvet, his right foot upon the nightstand.
“Don’t laugh at me,” Jisung whines.
Minho disobeys as he rests a knee on the bed, untangling the fabric from the metal. The mattress dips beneath his weight, and Jisung’s thigh glides to rest against him. Even through Jisung’s grey sweats and Minho’s denim, his heat catches like a forest fire. The room feels too hot, the oxygen eaten by the flames. Minho wonders if perhaps he isn't as sober as he first thought, if the foreign unsteadiness in his feet is caused not by hours of rehearsal but the spike of the drink. His vision is fuzzy around the edges, the touch of his fingertips registering too slow, long after his eyes have seen them graze Jisung's abdomen. His skin is scorching to the touch. It might even be his own fingers, Minho's not sure. When the flames threaten to burn a house to the ground, it matters not if it was the curtains or carpet that caught fire first.
Jisung's singlet lands somewhere over his shoulder, forgotten, discarded and thoroughly cursed at. They collapse in a pile of giggles as Minho loses his balance, the too-soft mattress offering little in terms of support for drunken undressing. Jisung huffs at the new weight on his chest, his hands fisting in Minho's shirt. Dark fabric bunched in pale hands, washed out from the moonlight glancing in through the windows.
“You’re heavy,” Jisung protests, though it lacks conviction.
Their breath intermingles, warm and minty. Minho’s exhales become Jisung’s inhalations, sharing in the faint aftertaste of rice and pale malt. With only the faint disco lights from the living room for illumination, only Jisung’s silhouette is visible as Minho hovers over him. His hair is splayed out like a halo around him.
“I’m barely putting any weight on you,” Minho murmurs back, softer than the accusation calls for.
He’s unwilling to move, and his head is a muddy trench and the sound of the grenades is making it hard to figure out why that is. Whatever feeling coats his tongue when he speaks to Jisung strips his scoldings of its teeth, rounds the edges and files away the roughness.
“You could, if you’d like,” Jisung says, “I can take it.”
His voice is low, the words weighted with meaning Minho doesn’t dare read into. His heartbeat stutters, and the hand that steadies him beside Jisung’s head grips the sheets tighter. There’s an urge to give in that tugs at his muscles, like the ache that follows too many push-ups, when his arms threaten to give out. The radiating warmth emanating from Jisung’s body calls to him like a lighthouse to a sailor adrift at sea.
Jisung hiccups.
And just like that, the spell breaks. Minho’s fingers loosen their hold, and inhibition rushes through him like a cold shower. His lips turn up into a small smile, and he pushes off of the bed, away from something that just threatened to eat him alive.
A small, disgruntled noise follows Minho up from Jisung’s mouth. The dark shapes of his brows are knitted together in dissatisfaction. Man-handling him into a position more suitable for sleep, Minho tucks him into the duvet and brushes his hair behind his ear only for it to stubbornly escape again, determined in its purpose to lay across his cheekbone.
“Please don’t choke on your own vomit and die,” Minho requests politely as he wrangles Jisung’s limbs into what he remembers of the recovery position.
Jisung scoffs, “I’ll try my best.”
Already, his eyes are heavy-lidded with sleep, each blink coming slower than the last until they no longer open. Minho watches him for a moment longer until he hears his breaths follow, falling into the familiar rhythm of sleep, his body taking care of the autonomous functions as his mind drifts away. Minho wonders where it goes, boyishly hopes he’s there too. That he’s not the only one with midnight visits.
“Goodnight, Jisung-ah,” he whispers, watching his chest rise and fall in time with his breaths. Steady, alive.
When he’s halfway to the door, there’s a noise from the sleeping form that sounds almost like stay. Minho pauses in the doorway, his shadow falling upon the bed, elongated and slim in the dim light. No further words come, and Minho wonders if it’s his imagination playing pranks on him - or if not - if the appeal was spoken in dream or awake.
Minho turns away, and wonders which would hurt him more.