The next time his Introduction to Urban Studies class meets, Kibum is met with the ultimate disappointment: a group project. The professor has put a seating map together and so everyone is trying to make sure they’re at the right table. He’s paired with someone named Tiffany and he silently prays that whoever she is she’s nice. His heart sinks even further when he finds his table and discovers that she’s the girl from before. Minho and Jinki are making his phone buzz uncontrollably: Jinki wants to make a set of playlists of all the songs meaningful to them and they’re both trying to think of and organize them all. Tiffany’s attention is elsewhere when he sits down so he quickly texts them about the situation

Group Chat: 💗Three of Hearts💗

Jinki Honey: What’s yalls song again? I know it but i forgot

Baby Minho: I Melt With You

Jinki Honey: (－‸ლ) I was thinking that too

Baby Minho: It’s ok honey
Baby Minho: There’s a lot of songs already

Sweetpea Ki: Uhhh guys

Baby Minho: ???????? yes sweetki ????????

Sweetpea Ki: Remember that girl I told you about, that asked if we were brothers and if baby’s single?

Jinki Honey: Ye

Sweetpea Ki: She and I are paired on a project T.T

Jinki Honey: oh no

Baby Minho: maybe she’ll be nice???

“Oh are you Kibum?”

When he looks up, Tiffany’s facing him now.

“Yes. You’re Tiffany, I assume?”

She smiles. “Yup! Do you have any idea what the assignment is? My internet has been in and out all weekend so I haven’t been able to check the class page unfortunately.”

“If he made an announcement about it I didn’t see one.”

Tiffany lets out a sigh of relief and Kibum sets down his phone.

“So is this your first or second year?” she asks.

“It’s my third, actually. I switched majors my first year and then had an opportunity to take a special topics class that clashed with the timeslot of this one last year so I opted for the special topics.”

“This is my first year. I’m kind of nervous but I’m enjoying it so far. By the way, your presentation last class was really good. I swear you were the only person with a personality!”

Kibum laughs shyly. “He put that in the comments section on my grade.”

“Wow dude, you must be a popular guy.” she says, pointing at his phone. He turns it over to silence it and Tiffany leans in to see his lockscreen.

“Wait is that the guy from last time?” she asks. Jinki had changed it from the picture of the three of them to one of Minho reading. It was a sort of past time of theirs, taking pictures of Minho reading; their chat was full of them. In response Minho had changed Kibum’s wallpaper to a picture of Jinki working on a drawing.

“Yeah it’s my...my flatmate Minho. He goes here too. He’s a literature major.”

“You guys must be really close if you’re taking pictures of him reading in bed.”

She offers a understanding smile but Kibum still feels unsure of the situation. Luckily, the professor starts explaining the project before she has a chance to ask further questions. When class ends, he basically runs out. When he gets home, Jinki’s home working on his project.

“So how did it go?” he asks from his drafting desk.

“It was going fine til she saw my lockscreen again.”

“Did you tell her to stop looking at your boyfriend?”

“No.”

Jinki swivels his chair so he’s properly facing Kibum.

“Did you tell her that he’s your boyfriend?”

Kibum sighs. “Do you think I told her that?”

Jinki smiles fondly and opens his arms to pull Kibum into a hug.

“Sweetpea, I wish I could tell you something to say to her that would both make it clear to her that he is off the market to her and also satisfy your need to not explicitly say that we’re all in a relationship but unfortunately that is not something I’m able to do.”

Kibum’s phone pings and he looks to find a email from her.

Hi Kibum~

This is Tiffany from Intro to Urban. I was going to ask your number after class but you left too quickly ;;; I thinking maybe we could meet sometime soon to figure out a game plan for getting this thing done? I’m taking a light semester so just let me know!

T.

Jinki gives Kibum a kiss on each cheek and pats his shoulders.

“You’re going to have to step up one way or the other, sweetpea. Good luck when it happens, you know that baby and I are behind you.”

***

Two days later Kibum finds himself in the coffee shop in the campus bookstore hammering out project details with Tiffany. He’s relieved that she’s much more easier to work with than he thought she would be. They’ve been there almost three hours but they’ve got almost everything figured out. They’re trying to work out a timetable when Kibum hears a familiar voice.

“Hey, Ki!”

He looks up to see Minho waving from the ordering area. He waves back shyly and waits for the inevitable.

“Is that him?? The guy from your phone??” Tiffany asks excitedly.

Before Kibum can answer Minho’s already made his way over.

“I know you already have a drink but I bought you another one.” he says, putting a coffee down in front of Kibum. He’s relieved that Minho is toning down his normally affectionate behavior.

“Actually it’s empty and I was just thinking about going to get a new one. Thanks.”

Minho smiles and glances at Tiffany.

“Oh, yeah. Tiffany, this is Minho. Minho, this is Tiffany. We’re partnered for that project I have in Intro to Urban.”

“Nice to meet you, Tiffany,” Minho says with a smile before turning back to Kibum. “I’ve got a meeting after class today so I’ll be home a little late today.”

“Ok, I’ll see you then.”

When Minho walks off, Tiffany smiles at Kibum.

“So are you guys dating or does he look that much in love with everyone?”

Kibum’s taken aback at the question and quickly tries to buy time with a sip of coffee.

“It’s ok, you guys aren’t the only gay couple here.” she says quietly, pulling out her phone. She shows him her lock screen, a picture of her and another girl with an almost sickening amount of heart stickers.

“Oh? I just thought....since you asked....with my phone...” Kibum stutters.

“Oh you thought I was interested in him?” she asks with a laugh. “He’s a real cutie, but no, I was asking for a friend actually.”

Kibum sighs in relief. He doesn’t know how to bring up Jinki, but at least he can be partially honest.

***

When Kibum comes into class, Tiffany’s waiting for him. By the tense look on her face and the way she’s tapping her pencil on her desk something’s obviously wrong. She starts talking before he has a chance to say hello.

“I saw Minho with someone at the bookstore today!” She says.

“Hello to you too. Who was it?” Kibum already knows it’s Jinki; the latter had to get a few greenbooks today and Minho -- who would never miss out on a trip to any bookstore -- had gone with him.

“I don’t know, it was this other guy but they were acting really weird and I think I saw them holding hands and maybe even kissing and I just, I’ve been cheated on before and I didn’t want you to not know and-”

“Was it this guy?” Kibum asks, holding out his phone.

“Yeah! So you know him?! Is he cheating on you with a friend?!”

Kibum laughs and decides that Tiffany’s too emotionally involved in Kibum’s love life not to know. He lowers his voice to a whisper and leans in before revealing the truth.

“No, Minho isn’t cheating on me. It’s Jinki. We’re...we’re in a poly relationship. All three of us are dating. We live together. I was going to tell you the other day but....I mean being gay is one thing but being poly isn’t always viewed as kindly as being gay can be.”

“Oh.” Tiffany looks relieved but doesn’t say anything more since class is starting. Throughout the lecture, Kibum wonders if he made the right decision. He could’ve just played it off somehow else, that Jinki and Minho were close friends or something. He’s bother eager for and dreading the end of class.

When it does end, he goes to quickly pack up just in case she doesn’t want to talk anymore.

“Listen, Kibum. It’s no big deal that you guys are that way.  I just didn’t know.”

“Most people don’t know.” he says quietly.

“So how did you guys.....get started?” she asks.

Kibum starts looking around at all their classmates.

“I don’t mind telling you about all of it but is there any place we can go that’s a little less...public? Just because you’re okay with it doesn’t mean...”

“Oh! Yeah, of course! Um, I live right across from campus if that’s fine? I know we were going to work on the project anyways so we can kill two birds with one stone that way.”

“That works.”

Group Chat: 💗Three of Hearts💗

Sweetpea Ki: Apparently you guys were too gay at the bookstore so I ended up telling Tiff about how gay we all are.

Baby Min: She was at the bookstore???

Jinki Honey: careless_whisper_sax_solo.mp3

Sweetpea Ki: ˋ_ˊ

Baby Min: I’m sorry, sweetpea ;;;

Sweetpea Ki: She took it ok. We’re going to work on our project at her house because she’s curious about our romantic gayscapades.

Baby Min: Ok! Have fun! Love you!

Jinki Honey: SwEeTpEa No ThAtS HoW yOu GeT yOuR oRgAnS hArVeStEd
Jinki Honey: jk have fun i gay you

It doesn’t take long to get to Tiffany’s apartment and soon they have all their work spread out on the table.

“Ok. So before we get started tell me how you guys met. Also would you like a drink?” Tiffany says.

“Uhh I’ll take a sprite if you have any or just water.”

“I have lemonade if you want that.”

“That’ll be great, thanks.”

“Ok. So back to the gay.”

They both laugh and Kibum goes through his phone to search for pictures until she comes back.

“So we all met my second semester of freshman year. It was Minho’s first semester and Jinki’s second semester of his second year. Anyways we all ended up in this ‘Victorian housing, architecture, and towns’ class. We all got put together on a project where we had to design a house based on what we’d learned in the first third of the semester.”

“Are you guys all the same major?”

Kibum laughed. “Oh god no. I took it for the city part in a exploratory way, Jinki took it for the architecture part since that’s his major, and then Minho’s a literature major who just took it for fun to count as an elective.”

“Oh wow.”

“Yeah. Originally we all thought we wouldn’t get along. Jinki and I thought that Minho’s major was, well, useless. Minho and I thought that Jinki was too much a detail oriented . Apparently Minho and Jinki thought I was a control freak. Anyways, about halfway through the project we discovered that we all have an ungodly love for cute boys and 80s music. So we started hanging out pretty often after that and it just kind of developed from there.”

“So who fell first?”

“Minho did. Being a literature major, he’s, quote, ‘entitled to being the dramatic gay.’ We were hanging out one day and like honestly all three of us had been lowkey flirting for a while and he just comes in like ‘I have something to tell you guys. I think I love both of you in the most gay way and I feel really guilty because I feel like I should at least be able to commit to one of you but I can’t, my love is a two for one deal and I understand if you guys hate me now but I just had to get it off my chest because I feel like I’m going to die!’ or something dramatic like that. So Jinki told him to come sit in between us and we all talked about it and decided to just kind of let things happen and see how it went and now here we are, living together and gayer than ever.”

Tiffany nods, intrigued with the story. “So how do all your parents react to it? Are they okay with it or...?”

“Jinki’s parents were okay with it. It’s his apartment that we live in, they helped us get it. We also go to their house for holidays and that kind of thing. I was already pretty independant from my parents so they don’t really talk to me anyways. They just kind of willfully ignore the romantic aspect. Minho’s parents...they’re okay with it but not like actually okay with it. They don't like that it's three guys together but they like that they don’t have to bother with him now, that someone else is taking care of him. They send a little bit of money at the holidays, but always quietly and always just to Jinki and I. There’s almost a feeling that it’s like a ‘here’s the money we would've spent on him thanks for babysitting.’”

“Well at least you have Jinki’s parents. Taeyeon and I aren’t out to our parents yet so we’re not sure with that yet.”

“Ahh. Well if it ever gets to a point where you do, let me know. The five of us can have a really gay party, either in celebration or in pity.”

Tiffany laughs and starts pulling at papers.

“Thanks, Kibum. I’ll let you know. Before that though we should get started on this project.”

***

Kibum’s first to class next meeting and he eagerly waits for Tiffany to come. It’s the first time in a long time that he’s had a friend that was more than alright with his romantic situation and he’s eager to make the most of it. She waves when she comes in and hurries over to their table.

“I have a question for you but before that I have to show you this picture of my girlfriend because I’m really gay.”

She holds out her phone and Kibum instantly laughs at the picture. It’s of Taeyeon in her pajamas, pouting to no end, with a piece of paper that says
‘I tried to make my girlfriend late to class by turning off her alarm because I wanted her to stay in bed with me’.

“That’s amazing! Hold on, let me show you this.” Kibum says, going through his phone. He goes into his and Jinki’s groupchat and scrolls through the seemingly endless stream of pictures of Minho reading until he finds the one he’s looking for. It’s of Minho, also in pajamas, laying on his side in bed with his arms crossed and full pout going, with a piece of paper on top of him that reads ‘I wouldn’t let my boyfriend get out of bed this morning and started whining when he threatened to get my other boyfriend to rescue him.’ He shows it to Tiffany, who almost starts crying with laughter.

“Oh my god that’s so funny. Taeyeon’s such a baby about getting up in the morning. She has an altered sleep schedule so she goes to bed a lot later than I do and is always upset when I leave.”

“Minho is the biggest baby on the planet about everything. We literally call him baby for that reason.”

Tiffany raises her eyebrows and leans in. “Really? He seemed like such a suave guy when I saw him at the coffee shop?”

Kibum laughs. “Yeah Jinki and I thought he was suave when we met him too. But no. He’s just a very tall and very handsome baby. He's like those videos you see of like full grown majestic Siberian Huskys that are crying becuase the floor is too cold or they want to take a bath. Jinki’s actually the suave one out of the three of us. He’s a real dreamboat of a man.”

“Wow, that's surprising. So my question, before I forget, is do you guys go on dates as three or as twos or what? I was thinking about that last night and was just kind of wondering.”

The classroom is louder than normal today, so Kibum doesn’t mind talking. “Sometimes we go as three, but we also try to keep like two way relations strong. So like when we first started dating, obviously things were strong between Minho and I and Minho and Jinki, because he was very adamant on being romantic and was trying to make sure that he wanted both of us. Things between Jinki and I were still flirty but it wasn’t nearly as strong, so when Minho would leave there was an almost awkwardness between us. Jinki got Minho’s permission for just the two of us to go on a date and he pulled out all the stops and really swept me off my feet. I’m talking fancy dinner, romantic walk by the river, romantic drive, everything.”

Kibum goes to tell another story but is interrupted, per usual, by his professor. When class ends, Tiffany leans in as she’s packing up.

“Second question, who’s the can’t drive gay and who’s the bad at math gay?”

“I’m the can’t drive gay, Minho’s the bad at math gay, and Jinki is a next level fully functional gay who learned to drive and do math so that he can have both the bad at math gays and can’t drive gays.”

Tiffany starts laughing and Kibum’s phone starts vibrating like crazy.

Chat: No Babies Allowed

Jinki Honey: Kibum. Sweetpea. Sweetki. Please. Hurry home.
Jinki Honey: That guy that baby lent that one book to dogeared one single page and now hes just laying despondent on the floor
Jinki Honey: Bummie i need that floor to work on my project (T_T)

Sweetpea Ki: I thought he didn’t like that book?

Jinki Honey: He didnt but here we are (ーー;;)
Jinki Honey: KiBuM pLeAsE i HaVe To GeT tHiS dOnE (T_T)

Sweetpea Ki: Honey, class just ended I’ll be there in a few ok?
Sweetpea Ki: is he crying or just lifeless?

Jinki Honey: Just lifeless but in the middle of my project space

Sweetpea Ki: ok, heading home now.

Jinki Honey: thank i love you please hurry

Kibum sighs and turns to Tiffany.

“While I enjoy talking to you and would love to know which type of gay you are, Minho’s having a moment that I have to go take care of. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.”

They quickly say goodbyes so Kibum can run home. When he gets to the apartment, Minho’s still facedown on the floor. Jinki’s in the kitchen, probably trying to coax him off the floor with food. Kibum and Jinki share a knowing glance and Kibum walks over to Minho’s semi-lifeless body.

“Hey baby.”

There’s a muffled hey from Minho and Kibum struggles not to laugh.

“Baby, we’ve talked about this.”

There’s a huff in response.

“Baby, you can’t do this every time. You didn’t even like the book.”

“That’s not the point!” Minho exclaims, dramatically rolling onto his back. “I gave Changmin the book and he said he would take care of it! And yet! There’s a dogeared page!”

Kibum squats down so he’s closer to Minho.

“I understand that it’s upsetting to you that he did that but that doesn’t mean you can take up Jinki’s project space or skip classes, baby.”

Minho juts his chin out and crosses his arms, refusing to make eye contact.

“Baby, if you go to class, I will do my best to straighten the corner out for you. If you don’t go to class but move, I will leave it there and you can figure out how to straighten it yourself. If you don’t go to class and don’t move out of Jinki’s space, I will personally go and dogear 2 more pages.”

Minho gasps and sits up. “Sweetpea, you wouldn’t!!”

“Try me.”

Minho’s on his feet in an instant; he grabs his backpack and starts collecting his materials, all the while grumbling about betrayal and something about how he thought this was a kind and loving place. He gives Jinki a proper kiss and gives Kibum half a peck on the cheek. When Minho leaves, Jinki turns to Kibum.

“Wow, that was pretty bad cop, for you.” he says, handing Kibum a sandwich.

“Tiffany was asking me today what he was like. She thought he was a real suave guy.”

“So did we when we first met him.”

“Yeah, that's what I told her. I just kept thinking about how much we baby him.”

“I mean we do call him baby for a reason.”

They both laugh and Jinki gives Kibum a kiss on the cheek.

“Thanks for sorting that out, sweetpea.”

Kibum hums and both get to work, Jinki on his design project and Kibum on straightening out Minho’s page.