Minho cocked his head to the side as he studied the man across the bar, akin to the way a cirrus cloud would clutch at the sky, wisped though undeterred in its substance. Around him, people chattered, and they didn’t just ​talk, for Minho supposed people didn’t do that; they laughed and spluttered and glimmered and shone, more than just the jaundiced skin and taut, purple lips they were inclined to. Hands that often held cigarettes now grasped to enthusiastic gestures, and the swap from smoke to amusement would have been encouraging had Minho been sober enough to catch it. He was chaste in such discoveries however, a to seeing by simple aesthetics and facades, like most of the patrons around him.

 

Bringing the small bottle of beer to his lips, Minho allowed the archaic taste to stain his throat and leave him as a little more than intoxicated. He wasn’t ​drunk, definitely not, yet he wasn’t inherently opposed to some form of stupor - whether it be seen as a subtle haze or a tipsy illusion was up to perception. Glazing his gaze across the dingy bar, that was intermittently laced with its customers like the finest of filigree, Minho finally settled his narrowed sights on the man he'd been reluctantly watching since his arrival.

 

The young man was small, and, though young indeed, Minho figured him to be a year, or two, or three, older than himself. There was a certain maturity to the attitude he exuded, as he conversed openly and warmly with the friend beside him, never once becoming distracted, never once becoming bored. His rounded eyes spoke a plethora of fragmented emotions – joy, wonder, curiosity, distaste, dismay, concern – and Minho felt it was as if watching a spinner twist, each colour a new sensation. Alongside the melodramatic expressions – for Minho assumed, however polite they were, the expressions were somewhat staged – the man boasted a tanned complexion and tousled, brunette hair, exposing the fearlessly gaunt cheekbones and strict jawline, so straight not even the polished surface of the bar counter couldn’t match it. Every time the young man clenched his jaw, Minho could feel his own muscles tense, his biceps strain slightly beneath the light fabric of his grey shirt, knuckles burning white around the glass he held. It was so attractive. ​So damn attractive.

Finishing his bottle, Minho shifted slightly on his stool, twisting his neck tiredly. The scent in here was a decrepit one, ridged with age and the alcoholism of the night-before. The walls were a candid yellow, like nicotine-stained nails, and the floor was a miry brown, like rotted teeth. A few of the floorboards even jutted upwards slightly, like a cracked tooth from gum, and in this way, Minho supposed it was the serial smoker’s paradise, reflective of their image, reflective of their taste. He hated smoking. He really did. The voices surrounding him continuing to blossom yet unable to infringe on coherency, Minho returned to his watching, uncaring how he may appear to any who could have noticed.

 

The young man gently swiped at the man he exchanged with, and Minho couldn't decipher whether it was a gesture borne of flirtation or simple friendship. Either way, Minho supposed that such qualms bored him. He preferred to focus on the imaginary, the fabrications, and to ponder over the sensations he knew such a man could bequeath to him, if willing. He imagined the young man’s small hand wrapped around his own bicep, feeling the strength of the muscle there, warm fingers inspiriting a deeper heat within Minho as they roamed. Posture stiffening slightly, Minho with the label on his bottle, trying not to search too much – certainly not regarding a stranger.

 

But when he glanced back up, and saw how the younger man parted those plush, pinkish lips of his, Minho imagined how they would feel against his own lips – or, better yet, across his skin, the pulse-point on his neck or the toned expanse of his chest. Soft, more-than-likely, and with the imprint of mere flutters. Subconsciously, Minho’s tongue darted across his lower lip as he thought about darkness he dared not catch directly, lest he be blinded. The man laughed airily, handsomely flushing with his ardent giggle, and despite the innocent implications of such a motion, it only deepened Minho’s wanton exploration further. He wanted to hear more than laughter from the stranger, he wanted to hear more than joy; he wanted to hear rapid rasps for breaths, the sound of skin-on-skin, the dulcet moans for more and the wretched cries for fulfilment.

 

"Can I get you another?”

 

Minho’s eyes quickly flinched to the source of the saccharine-toned interruption, as he regarded the bartender with little more than annoyance. Her amiable smile didn’t waver, however, as she flipped her long, black hair behind her shoulder and offered a radiant countenance to a man so rude. Minho nodded despondently, and within seconds, he was paying for another beer to add to the myriad. When she departed, his train of thought had been derailed, yet it only took him mere seconds to reassert it in the station.

 

Amidst the dim lighting of the gingerly obnoxious bar, the young man had acquired a penchant for underrated beauty; if one were to simply cast eyes to the fray, they probably would have missed the vigorous ethereality of the brunette. However, if, as Minho, they were fox-eyed and keen, then they would be drawn in like lichen to rock, clung tightly to the image and unable to let go.

 

Minho hollowed out his cheeks as he toyed with his new bottle, somewhat delirious, somewhat oblivious. Whilst the tumult around him swayed and the people yawed and drifted, he was stuck, marooned, to his rickety, little stool. So long as the young man stood parallel to his sights, then he would stay placed, lustful and tentative. If the man were to move, to flit through the waves, then ​maybe he would follow – but Minho would do no more than that. He wouldn't force his opportunity, he would simply swim towards it, and if he drowned in the process, then he would sink without a trace.

 

Tilting his head, Minho could just about catch the edge of the stranger’s defined collarbone. The sweater the young man wore was over-sized and baggy, entrenching his narrow frame and hiding most from Minho’s spiralling fancies. Despite this, the widened neck-line merely exposed the slant of bone, and the elegant sweep of his shoulders. Minho wondered what it would be like to nibble that flesh, to run his teeth along it and on the skin, leave trails of tiny marks to assert his willing dominance. It would be heated; it would be rushed; it would be brutal; it would be ​perfect. Minho practically shivered at the thought, as the young man rolled up the sleeves of his sweater to his elbows, revealing small, yet strong, arms.

 

The lewd crispness of Minho’s imagination could not be quelled as he pictured what further removal of the sweater would reveal. A tanned chest, a body riveted with the perspiration of his endeavours, and a pathway of skin for Minho to trample his lips all-over. His eyelids flickered shut at the thought, and he had to bite his lip to stop the protruding groan. The thought of the young man’s body pressed against his, searching, wanting, trying, ​needing, every inch of him, the sensual musk of Minho and the inclinations of his primordial instincts, the rushed breathing and stunted gasping and the rugged blessings of each and every scant touch-

 

Minho opened his eyes again, and across the bar, the young man noticed. Friendly and thoughtful, he offered a wry, compelling smile.