Chapter Text
1
He lets out a sigh that sounds more like a growl and thinks, not for the first time that day, about how long it’ll take for this damn shift to end so he can go home and wallow in his misery.
It’s not like being miserable is anything new for Song Mingi. However, the past few weeks had seemed like things were finally going to get better, like there was a light at the end of the tunnel.
Apparently it was all a lie, or maybe he was just very naive, and now the only thing he wants to do is eat obscene amounts of ice cream and watch a bunch of low-quality comedies until he forgets there’s a world outside his apartment.
But it’s a fucking Wednesday afternoon, he still has half a shift left today and two more days during the week before he can disappear for the weekend like he desperately wants to, and with the industrial amounts of work he has piled up, he’s pretty sure they’ll ask him to work overtime.
He growls again, because at this point he’s not even going to pretend he’s sighing.
“If I didn’t know what a sweetheart you are, those growls would’ve scared me,” a voice says behind him.
Mingi suppresses the urge to sigh since he doesn’t feel like interacting with anyone, but first of all, he wouldn’t be that disrespectful to someone older than him like Seonghwa. Second, because he knows the older man doesn’t have any bad intentions and would never make fun of his frustration. And third, and most importantly, he’s kind of his boss’s boyfriend. Mingi is frustrated and miserable, but he’s not an idiot.
“Sorry, hyung.” He’s not exactly sure why he’s apologizing, but it feels like the right thing to say.
“Too much work?” Seonghwa offers with a sympathetic smile, holding out a disposable cup toward Mingi.
The smell of coffee with milk that doesn’t come from the evil office coffee machine makes Mingi’s shoulders relax a little, and he accepts the cup with a hesitant smile.
“As always,” he answers, taking a cautious sip of the drink, letting out another sigh, though this one is more out of happiness from the warmth spreading through his body.
“Take it easy, sweetheart, don’t stress yourself too much,” the older man says again, gently running a hand through Mingi’s dark hair and giving him another smile before walking away toward where the gremlin he calls his boyfriend presumably is.
Acts of affection and consideration from Seonghwa, or from any coworker, aren’t unusual. It’s the main reason why Mingi tolerates being exploited at work, because he has friends and they treat him nicely. And he’s always liked being treated nicely. Otherwise he would’ve gone back to the countryside with his family and dedicated himself to harvesting whatever, or simply become a useless vegetable fed up with life in general.
It’s always tempting to think about that last option.
But aside from the endless work -which he should be grateful for even though sometimes he barely has time to think- everything else is perfect. Good pay, good company, what could he possibly complain about?
He tries not to think about that what.
However, Mingi is very aware of the mood he’s been in all that week. How distant and quiet he’s been. How much he sighs, growls, or disappears onto the terrace just to breathe a little and avoid drowning in his thoughts. And he’s not unaware that all his coworkers and friends have noticed. They ask how he is, of course, but they don’t insist after the “I’m fine” he gives them, giving him enough space to deal with his things and share them when he’s ready.
He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be ready. He just wants to pretend it never happened. Bury it in his mind and move on with his life. Forget how much it hurts.
What he wonders most is when it stops hurting.
For that same reason he’s been receiving more acts of service than he believes he deserves. Seonghwa brings him drinks and snacks whenever he comes to visit Hongjoong. Even Yeosang, who guards his chocolate cupcakes like a jealous dog, offered him one during lunch, and Wooyoung and Jongho have had the decency not to mess with him.
They joke, laugh and chat with a normalcy that feels forced, without pushing about Mingi’s behavior, who also tries to force some normalcy, although he gave up on the second day and now just thinks that dealing with his feelings during the weekend will be enough.
He hopes it’ll be enough.
“Seonghwa hyung!” a voice exclaims from the office door and Mingi feels all the tension his body had lost come rushing back at once, almost knocking the air out of him. He’s glad he left the coffee cup on the table, because if he’d been holding it, he’s pretty sure he would’ve crushed it and spilled the contents all over his desk.
He tries with all his might to look indifferent, not to think again about… whatever it is that didn’t happen.
“What is it, Yunho?” he hears Hongjoong answer, as if he’d been the one called.
Jeong Yunho walks all the way from the door to the older man’s office with natural confidence and a huge smile on his lips. He passes by Mingi’s desk, which unfortunately sits right in the way, barely acknowledging his existence with a light tap on the desk without saying anything. Mingi pretends not to notice the small gesture and doesn’t make any effort to look at him, offer a smile, or greet him like they usually do.
He doesn’t think there’ll ever be normalcy between them again, at least not from Mingi’s side. If Yunho wants to act like everything’s normal, that’s fine. He’s not going to play along.
He prefers to think about the thousand tasks he has. There’s always something urgent that was needed yesterday and he doesn’t need any distractions, so he grabs his headphones to muffle anything with some music. Hongjoong knows perfectly well that his productivity increases if no one is bothering him and if he can dissociate with music, so he’s not worried about being reprimanded for it.
Working in the IT department of a company has its advantages. Few, but it has them. The biggest disadvantage is that any failure is always their fault, as if people didn’t know that things tend to fail because failing is an unchangeable quality of things. But Mingi has given up trying to explain his point and just nods, saying he’ll check the issue and that’s that.
The biggest solution is always turning the device off and on again, but don’t tell anyone or he’ll lose his job.
Mingi is definitely dissociating so he won’t take his thoughts back to last Saturday again. He thinks he’s already spent too much time on those thoughts and it doesn’t seem fair to keep torturing himself.
But it’s impossible. What did he do wrong? What did he misunderstand? Over the last few months, Mingi had believed that Yunho and he had been flirting, that they were finally doing something about that supposed sexual tension they’d had since they first met.
Yes, they are -were- good friends. They clicked in a way few people do. They seemed like each other’s favorite person in the whole world and when he felt like he finally had within reach what he’d been wanting for years everything simply… went to hell.
2
It was all Wooyoung’s idea, of course. Mingi shouldn’t be surprised that bad ideas start with Wooyoung. But he loves him too much to blame him for anything. It’s not his fault he can’t be alone with his thoughts and wants to party every damn weekend. So half the office ended up dragged to a nearby bar on Saturday night, Yunho and Mingi included.
Mingi doesn’t love going out drinking. He’d prefer a gathering at home and being able to pass out peacefully on a couch. But Wooyoung and Yunho had given him such convincing puppy eyes that he couldn’t say no.
It was way too out of control. Too many drinks, too many shot challenges. He doesn’t know who the hell ordered tequila, but Mingi suspects he alone finished one bottle and Yunho another. Saying they ended up wrecked is an understatement. Maybe that was what also evaporated the inhibitions they both had about their feelings and desires, because sleeping at Yunho’s place, which is closer to the bar, suddenly turned into the two of them stumbling inside, devouring each other’s mouths like two horny teenagers.
Kissing Yunho was better than anything Mingi had ever fantasized about. With his playful and sweet personality, he had thought the older man would be gentle and careful. But no. It seemed like he wanted to devour Mingi in every kiss, or at least drown him, because the older man’s tongue invaded everything in its path, tasting and wetting until their lips were red and wrecked. There had been a lot of saliva and a lot of tongue involved in their kisses that in other circumstances, maybe seen from afar, might’ve been a little gross, but Mingi could only think about licking the slippery trails at the corner of Yunho’s lips until Yunho shoved his tongue back into his mouth again, never getting tired of tasting him.
He also bit and sucked at Mingi’s skin in a way that still leaves marks he tries to ignore every time he showers or changes clothes, as if Yunho had wanted to claim territory, leave his mark for days. And although he succeeded, Mingi would’ve preferred he hadn’t tried so hard.
Clumsy and laughing drunkenly, they made it to the couch, where Yunho dropped down gracelessly, dragging Mingi onto his lap. With unusual confidence for him, Mingi rubbed his hips, searching for friction between their crotches. He could feel the desire, the excitement running through his veins, though the alcohol made him clumsy and he couldn’t manage to get hard. That, however, didn’t stop him from sliding a hand down to grope Yunho over his pants.
“Mingi…” he remembers Yunho panting against his lips, the older man’s hands gripping his ass.
The broken, desperate tone had encouraged him to drop to his knees, even though he really liked being on Yunho’s lap, eager to remove the layers of fabric separating him from the prize between his legs.
However, he thinks that’s where everything started going wrong. Looking up and making eye contact with Yunho seemed to bring some clarity, at least to the older man, because when Mingi tried to open his zipper, maybe drooling a little at the possibilities, Yunho stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, pushing him gently but firmly away from his body.
“Yunho…?” he remembers asking stupidly, watching as Yunho ran a hand over his face and then through his hair, messing up his dark strands even more.
Yunho let out a sigh that sounded frustrated and more sober than he’d been a few minutes earlier.
“I can’t… I’m not going to be able to…” Yunho said, standing up from his seat and fixing his clothes.
It was a little humiliating, since Mingi was still kneeling on the floor, understanding absolutely nothing. Not understanding why Yunho suddenly looked so embarrassed and, even worse, regretful.
Well, he tried to tell himself, let’s sleep and tomorrow we’ll see what happens.
“You should leave,” Yunho said then, as if it weren’t three in the morning, Mingi still half drunk and on his damn knees in the middle of his living room.
“What…?” he tried to ask again, but Yunho cut him off with a wave of his hand, pointing at the door before disappearing down the hallway toward the apartment bathroom.
Mingi is not unfamiliar with understanding when someone doesn’t want him around, and he’s not the kind of person who begs or forces himself to stay.
He remembers leaving the apartment, his eyes clouded with tears he refused to let fall until he got home. He doesn’t remember the way there, he barely remembers managing to call a taxi and pay for it.
What he does remember very clearly is the immense humiliation he felt under the covers. The terrible rejection and feeling so undesired and unworthy of at least staying until the next morning. Mingi wasn’t even going to ask for an explanation, which he still believes he deserves.
He thinks the least he deserved was not to be thrown out onto the street without any consideration. Or to be ignored for the rest of the weekend, without a single apologetic message. Or that the following Monday at work Yunho would pretend nothing had happened, that they could just continue as if nothing.
When he ran into the older man at the entrance of the building and he greeted him enthusiastically.
“Good morning, Mingi!” as if Mingi hadn’t spent the last twenty-four hours torturing himself over what he did wrong, over why Yunho behaved like that, over how apparently he didn’t deserve even a gram of concern about how he got home in the middle of the night, and all he was going to get was a huge smile like nothing happened, he felt something inside him finally break.
He walked into the building without returning the greeting, under the incredulous gaze of his friends who knew Yunho and Mingi had practically become inseparable since the day they met.
There were questions, of course, he doesn’t know if Yunho said anything, but Mingi shut down completely about it and he’s infinitely grateful that at least Yunho understood the message and didn’t keep pushing to “go back to normal” or force interactions.
He has no idea if the older man believes Mingi will eventually let go of his feelings and they’ll go back to what they were, and if he truly believes that, Mingi had no idea Yunho was that stupid, because for him something ended that night, not because he refused to have sex with Mingi -thinking about it coldly he doesn’t even know if they would’ve gotten anywhere with how much alcohol there was- but because of that indifferent way of treating him as if he were just a failed hookup and not one of his damn best friends.
3
“Mangi,” Wooyoung greets him on Friday afternoon.
Mingi definitely has not spent the whole day counting the seconds until he can run out of the place, of course not. Knowing there are two hours, thirty-five minutes and thirteen… twelve… eleven… ten seconds left is purely coincidence.
“No matter what your weekend plan is, I refuse,” he says immediately. It hasn’t even been a week since the disaster the other time and Mingi doesn’t have the mental strength to deal with anything else.
Wooyoung makes an exaggerated pout, a clear sign that probably everyone is rejecting him this time.
“Everyone in this office is so boring,” the younger complains, not insisting for once on his invitation.
“Ask San out on a date like you want to and that’s it, don’t include everyone just as an excuse.”
Wooyoung at least has the decency to blush.
“San likes Yeosang…”
“And Yeosang doesn’t like absolutely anyone on this planet. Take that as an advantage,” Mingi grumbles, stirring the salad that is his lunch that day, “and finding someone cute doesn’t mean being in love with them. I think you’re incredibly cute…”
“And you’re incredibly in love with me, I know…”
“But I’d never date you,” Mingi finishes, unfazed by the interruption, which only makes Wooyoung’s pout deeper.
“I’d be an amazing boyfriend,” Wooyoung says, as if Mingi were the one he needed to convince.
“Jongho,” Mingi calls when he sees another of his friends passing by. The boy is so distracted by his phone that he almost walks past them, “Wooyoung wants to invite you for coffee this weekend.”
“What?” the two younger ones exclaim at the unexpected words.
“Wooyoung wants to go out and you need to learn how to socialize,” he shrugs, watching Jongho take a seat with them.
“Hey, I don’t…” Wooyoung tries to complain. They’re all very good friends, the three of them especially, but nothing is more opposite than water and oil like Jongho and Wooyoung are. Sometimes they think they wouldn’t even be friends if Mingi wasn’t between them.
“Okay, if he pays,” Jongho accepts with a shrug, “I guess he’s still too scared to ask San out.”
“He insists San likes Yeosang.”
At that, they can see Jongho wrinkling his nose.
“I don’t get why…”
They’re all friends with Yeosang, of course, which is exactly why they can admit the older man has a particularly difficult personality. He has dry, sarcastic humor, insults without hesitation and believes most of the world is idiotic. Mingi agrees with that and Wooyoung generally gets along with everyone, he’s been friends with Yeosang for years to the point they think the older man already gave up on the idea of getting rid of him someday. But there’s a special rivalry between Yeosang and Jongho, since the older man tends to be very condescending with the younger, not just like he treats him as an idiot, but like an idiot child that irritates Jongho to unbelievable levels.
“Fine,” Wooyoung finally accepts, defeated, “anyway there’s a place I want to go to. Hyung pays, but don’t get used to it,” he says as he stands up, messing up the younger one’s hair with one hand, who grumbles but doesn’t push him away, “have a nice weekend, Mangi, I hope everything gets better these days,” he tells the taller one, leaning closer to kiss his cheek and mess up his hair too before leaving.
None of them are from the same department, they mostly know each other because Mingi has had to handle tasks from issues they sent him and little by little they started having lunch together and it’s a routine they’ve kept.
Silence stretches for a couple of minutes after Wooyoung leaves. That’s why Mingi likes Jongho so much, he can be as loud as Wooyoung if necessary, but he knows when it’s necessary to keep quiet, unlike their other friend.
“Are you okay?” the younger asks anyway. Mingi remembers he’s the only one who hasn’t asked that question during the week. Yeosang hasn’t either, but he showed his concern by sharing snacks and, as everyone knows, that’s not usual for him.
Still, Mingi likes to think Yeosang does care about people, he just wants to keep a tough facade. Wooyoung wouldn’t love him so much otherwise, considering he feels like he loses to him in matters of love and still calls him his best friend.
“No,” Mingi says honestly, because with Jongho there’s no need to lie, he would know anyway, “but I will be,” he assures with a tired smile.
Jongho, very unlike his usual character, extends a hand across the table and takes one of Mingi’s, giving it a light squeeze.
“I’m here for anything, Mingi, whenever you want,” he says, smiling softly.
Mingi doesn’t know how to deal with that side of their friendship. Few times he has felt so discouraged as to admit he’s not completely okay, but at the same time it makes him happy to know he has such good friends.
“I know,” he replies, squeezing back.
4
To absolutely no one’s surprise, the weekend solves nothing. It only gives poor Mingi’s stomach indigestion from stuffing himself with junk food. His eyes are a little red and swollen from crying so much and almost drowning in self-pity.
Yunho doesn’t call or send messages those days either and Mingi knows he should somehow feel relieved, that he understood the message about being an idiot and that Mingi doesn’t want to deal with his stupidity and lack of scruples. However, at the same time he wishes for a sign that his feelings matter.
How stupid, didn’t last weekend make it clear that it’s something Yunho cares very little about?
The following Monday catches him by surprise and he has no fucking idea how he’s going to survive another week.
He’d like to be petty and ignore all the tasks Yunho sends to IT, letting his work fall apart and get him fired from the company.
But Mingi isn’t that horrible of a person, so he spends his time pretending every task and every person in that company is just a number on his long list of pending work.
At least that way, in the blink of an eye, he manages to survive until Thursday, he can almost taste a new weekend of self-destruction.
It’s not something he can fully do during the week. He has to dedicate himself to being a functional adult. Household chores, cooking, staring into nothing contemplating the infinite void and the uselessness of human existence. Watering the plants.
The usual.
Trying not to think about the occasional dinners with Yunho, about how they would invade each other’s apartments to hang out, with videogames or movies. Afternoons discovering new places to spend time.
How easy it is to erase someone from your life, Mingi thinks sadly, but how hard it is to erase memories. If not impossible.
“You’re still growling,” Seonghwa is the one who points it out, his pretty smile painted on his inhumanly pink lips, a new cup of coffee in his hand, like a peace offering to a wild beast.
Mingi is more of a scared rabbit than a wild beast, but the offering works just the same.
“What would I do without you, hyung,” he sighs happily, taking the drink, pushing away the thought that it was usually Yunho who brought him coffee sometimes.
“Let’s not find out,” Seonghwa replies, patting his hair and placing a light kiss on the crown of his head. “How are you this week?”
“Better,” he lies, because he doesn’t need to cause more worry for anyone.
Seonghwa smiles wider, but Mingi knows the older man is aware of his lie. He can fool Hongjoong relatively easily, especially because his boss is always drowning in work and tasks to look beyond his own exhaustion, but Seonghwa knows everything, he keeps track of everything. There’s a reason he’s the head of HR.
“Hyung is here if you need anything,” he assures before heading toward the semi corpse that is Hongjoong.
Mingi would like to feel sorry for him, but he has his own mountain of work to worry about, so he returns his attention to the screen, seeing what he should focus on now, trying as always to dissociate so he won’t feel the slow passing of time, and always trying for his mind not to return to Yunho and his stupid smile. His pretty and very stupid smile.
He prefers to think about the unexpected compatibility Wooyoung and Jongho had during the weekend. Jongho admitted he thinks Wooyoung is very funny and always has something to talk about. Which shouldn’t surprise anyone considering how much of a social butterfly he is.
“Ask him out,” Mingi had suggested with a shrug during lunch on Monday.
“We’re going out next Saturday. Want to come?” Jongho offered, before stuffing his mouth with food. Their break time was running out and they had spent too much time chatting.
“What’s the point of asking him out if you’re going to include me?”
“Because it’s not a date. We get along well, but we wouldn’t stand being a couple. Wooyoung seems high maintenance…”
“Well, yeah, and you’re so antisocial.”
Jongho shrugs at that as if he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care, Mingi knows that.
“But you were right,” Jongho had continued.
“I’m always right,” Mingi snorts. “But what was I right about now?”
“That I need to go out more and stuff, being locked up sometimes is suffocating. And Wooyoung has interesting plans. He wants to finish a list of places to visit, that’s why I was inviting you.”
“Isn’t that the list of places he wanted to take San to on a date?”
Jongho shrugs again, though he looks less carefree this time.
"He says that when he finishes the list his feelings for San will have disappeared."
Mingi wants to laugh at how ridiculous that sounds, as if someone could simply take their feelings and rip them out of their chest to throw them away. If that were the case he wouldn’t have spent so many days miserable, overwhelmed by all the ones he still had left to live.
"He should just talk to San and stop being so dramatic," Mingi mutters, and he doesn’t like the look Jongho gives him, as if he wants to tell him to follow his own advice.
As if it wasn’t Mingi who deserved an explanation. Being the first one approached instead of having to beg to know what happened. He has to keep some dignity, even if all of this is destroying him.
The next lunches, which also included Wooyoung, were filled with the plans the younger ones had for the following weekends and reassured Mingi that he was completely invited to join them if he wanted. And Mingi thinks that eventually he will, when he doesn’t feel the overwhelming need to wreck his stomach with junk food and cry so much that his eyes end up completely dry.
He shouldn’t criticize Wooyoung for being dramatic when he’s exactly the same.
5
With the weekend having been a pathetic repeat of the previous one, Monday arrives without mercy.
He doesn’t feel particularly different or better. His mood is still shit, but at least he thinks he’s not growling as much that morning.
Seonghwa, blessed be his existence, arrives earlier than usual to prove him wrong.
"Mingi, baby, you’re scaring the whole department with all that growling," is the greeting he gives him, and Mingi deflates when he sees he didn’t bring coffee like in all his previous visits.
"Did someone go complain to you?" he asks with a bit of fear. The last thing he needs right now is someone complaining to HR and asking if Mingi has his vaccines up to date, because he looks ready to bite whoever crosses his path.
"Everyone’s worried about you." That doesn’t clear up Mingi’s doubts at all.
"I’m fine," he repeats automatically, because at least he thinks he will be.
"Whatever’s going on, you can come see me whenever you want. If Joongie is pushing you too hard, you can tell me that too."
"Hyung is the one who should stop pushing himself so much," the taller one replies, choking down a humorless laugh.
"I know," Seonghwa sighs, gently stroking Mingi’s hair the way he loves to do.
Seonghwa’s affection and concern soothe something inside him. They remind Mingi that he has people who truly care about him. It’s not just about keeping his spirits and productivity up at work, it’s because they love him and want to see him well, with the cheerful personality that characterizes him so much and that in the past few days has barely been a shadow of what it used to be.
He spends the rest of the morning absorbed in work. Time and work forgive no one, and he almost appreciates it because they are the perfect excuse not to think too much about anything complicated. Solving the company’s problems isn’t difficult, everything follows a constant pattern. Mingi likes that, without the complications of feelings and the difficulties of people.
Mingi is already complicated enough for himself to deal with anyone else. Maybe what happened with Yunho was good. Not having to get involved beyond that. Maybe Mingi isn’t ready for relationships and people, and the older one knew it, saving them both from a bad experience.
He wants to comfort himself with that at least, looking for any excuse not to feel so miserable. So unworthy and undesirable.
It doesn’t work. Feeling miserable seems to be his superpower.
He’s so focused thinking about that that someone placing a cup of coffee on his desk nearly makes his heart jump out of his chest.
The hand holding it feels far too familiar and he curses internally for remembering exactly where those long fingers had been weeks ago, tracing over his body as if they truly wanted to. Or pushing him away, because in the end it had all been a drunk fantasy.
"Hey," Yunho greets when Mingi removes his headphones and lifts his head to look at the older man.
Mingi doesn’t respond. What is he supposed to say to him? Seeing the cup and the hesitant smile on Yunho’s face makes him nauseous. He’s not going to admit that he’ll probably throw the drink in the trash, not out of disgust, but because of the knot in his throat that doesn’t let him answer the greeting. He just stays there, still, not knowing what to expect.
"Can we talk for a second?" Yunho asks when he realizes he won’t get any response other than the blank look from Mingi.
He wants to growl a firm no. He wants to tell him to go to hell and throw the coffee in his face while he’s at it. But it’s hot coffee that could seriously hurt someone, and somewhere inside him there’s curiosity about what Yunho has to say after two weeks of silence.
So the only thing Mingi does is stand up from his seat without saying a word, waiting for Yunho to lead the way since it’s probably something no one else in the office should hear. Yunho may be an insensitive idiot, but he’s not indiscreet with personal problems.
They walk through the hallways and Mingi can feel the curious looks from Wooyoung and Jongho when they pass their work sections. Even Yeosang raises an eyebrow, equally incredulous when he sees them. He imagines everyone is surprised to finally see them together after so long. Mingi regrets not staying at his desk a little; at least there he feels a bit more in control. Those are his domains.
But Yunho leads them to one of the break rooms that, at that hour, already past lunchtime, is completely empty, closing the door behind them.
Just to have something to do, Mingi grabs a disposable cup and pours himself some water, trying again to swallow the knot in his throat that has been choking him for weeks.
It doesn’t work, but at least his mouth doesn’t feel so dry anymore.
He waits for a while for Yunho to say something, absolutely refusing to be the first to speak. At least the first to speak about the issue that brought them to this moment.
However, time passes and Yunho only seems uncertain, shifting in place under Mingi’s intense stare, which grows more annoyed with every second the older man doesn’t say a damn thing.
"I have to get back to work," Mingi mutters at last, fed up with the silence. That damn silence Yunho has insisted on keeping.
Hearing the younger man finally address him seems to surprise Yunho, who lifts his gaze from his hands, which he had been nervously fidgeting with and staring at far too intently.
"I’m sorry…" Yunho whispers, looking Mingi in the eyes for a second before shifting his gaze anywhere else but his friend.
Are they still friends? Mingi doubts it, he doesn’t think he could ever be Yunho’s friend again. Not with how stupidly in love he’s been with him all these years and how little that seemed to matter to the older man. Maybe his feelings shouldn’t have mattered, but at least their friendship should have. But not even that.
"What are you sorry for, Yunho?" Mingi growls again, the roughness of his voice making the question sound especially dangerous.
Everyone knows that Mingi may be incredibly tall, with a deep and rough voice, but he’s a soft and delicate sweetheart who rarely gets angry or holds grudges. However, at that moment he believes that single question carried more venom than he ever thought himself capable of. And he knows Yunho noticed if the shiver that runs through his body is any indication.
"Everything…" the older one answers again in a soft, low voice, as if he doesn’t want to be heard, and Mingi only feels the anger bubbling in his stomach.
"What is everything, Yunho? If you’re going to say something, say it clearly," Mingi snaps again, using every ounce of self-control not to explode and shout the way he wants to.
He shouldn’t enjoy the way Yunho shivers like that, unused to being on the receiving end of so much contempt. And Mingi starts to scare himself because despite everything that happened between them, the last thing he wants is to despise Yunho.
Yunho, who has been his best friend for years. Yunho, who has been his little crush for almost the same amount of time. One of the brightest and most lovable people he knows.
It makes him so angry that Yunho makes him feel all that right now, as if Yunho were forcing all of Mingi’s good feelings to mutate into something horrible he never thought himself capable of feeling toward anyone on the planet.
Mingi can’t help letting out a loud, frustrated sigh when the silence falls again and, thank everything holy, that finally seems to wake the older man up.
"I’m sorry for how I behaved that night, and I’m really sorry for not texting you or calling afterward. And I’m sorry for trying to pretend nothing happened, like it didn’t matter, because it does matter, you matter, and not saying anything for so long, Mingi, I’m truly so sorry, I was… I’m so embarrassed that I didn’t know what face to show you," Yunho blurts out in a nervous, barely understandable rush that is hard for Mingi to keep up with. Good thing years of listening to Wooyoung ramble prepared him for moments like this. "Wanting to… wanting to pretend everything was normal was incredibly stupid, but the embarrassment eats me alive just thinking that…"
"Embarrassment?" Mingi interrupts, because no matter how many apologies Yunho throws out, he doesn’t understand what the hell he’s talking about. "You were embarrassed about kissing me?" he asks now, hurt. One thing is regretting it and a very different thing is being ashamed of it. What’s so wrong about them kissing? Mingi doesn’t think he’s terrible at it…
"No!" Yunho corrects quickly, alarmed. "No, no, of course not, nothing like that, I really wanted to kiss you… it’s just that… I…"
"You what, Yunho?" Mingi presses when the older man stops talking again.
"I really wanted to kiss you that day. I’ve wanted to do it for a very long time. And everything else. But that night, no matter how much I tried…" he stops again, frustrated, running a hand over his face and up into his hair where he leaves it a mess. "No matter how much I thought about how adorable you looked that night, or how incredible it was to kiss you or see you on your knees, I just… couldn’t…"
The older man makes a nervous gesture with his hands between his legs before letting his arms fall, defeated.
Mingi looks at him in confusion for exactly two seconds before understanding perfectly what he means because, fortunately, he’s a very smart guy.
The laugh escapes him before he can stop it and Yunho would feel very offended if there were any humor in it.
"You were embarrassed because you couldn’t get it up?" Mingi asks incredulously, making a terrifyingly serious face. "You were an asshole just because you couldn’t get an erection while you were drunk?"
"Mingi, I…"
"I was the same, Yunho. We were drunk and making very bad decisions at the time. You could have just said no and I would have understood, because it’s normal, I would never have mocked you or said anything bad about you, I’m not that kind of person, you should know that, but you…"
"Mingi, please…" Yunho tries again, wanting to step closer.
"No," Mingi cuts him off immediately, raising one hand. "No, don’t you dare, Yunho. You chose your damn pride not just that night, but every day after that. Your priorities and what you think of me are very clear."
"Mingi…"
"I have to get back to work," Mingi growls again, knowing that if he doesn’t leave quickly something very bad might happen.