Minho gave the apartment door a few bangs with his fist, and rubbed at his tired eyes.  It was pushing noon, sure, but he'd had a late night at the office, and hadn't exactly appreciated Jonghyun's phone call, rousing him and asking him to come over.  Still, here he was, standing at the glossy black door, listening to the clicks of the sophisticated electronic lock that followed a muffled, 'coming!'

Jonghyun pulled the door open and stood to the side, gesturing for Minho to come in.  "Good morning, mi compadre."

"Morning, hyung."  Minho pulled the shorter male into a loose, companionable hug, taking in Jonghyun's lazy attire.  "So... what did you need?"

Minho's eyes panned around the apartment.  "All alone?  I thought Kibum-ssi would have spent the night."

"Uh, yeah, w-well, he did," Jonghyun stuttered.  He began pacing, then spread his hands, looking sheepish.  "But, ummm... he... kinda... stormed out on me a little while ago."

"Bwo?  What happened?"  Minho's gaze levelled.  "Hyung.  What did you do?"

Jonghyun tilted his head side to side.  "Nothing wrong, technically.  I just asked him a perfectly logical, legitimate question."

"Which was?"

"Well, I asked if he was, you know, clean.  Like, in terms of, uh, ST--"

"Oh, no..."  Minho half-spun around, rubbing both hands over his eyes.  "No, no, no, hyung!"

"What?!"  Jonghyun asked defensively.  "It was a perfectly logical question!"

"It is logical, sure, but I know you, hyung.  When your tongue isn't silver, it's tin." 

"Well, that's not very nice," Jonghyun moped under his breath.

"But am I right?"

"Er... possibly. But I didn't think it was all that bad."

Minho plopped down on the couch, then shot Jonghyun a sideways glance.  "I guess we'll see about that.  Consider me an impartial judge, and give me a play-by-play of what happened."

Jonghyun suddenly felt much less sure of himself.  From this perspective, even as the words tumbled from his lips, he could feel the wrongness of them.  Each word left an icky aftertaste in his mouth that just got worse and worse.  "I ran Kibum a bath this morning, because, you know, I figured he was... sore."

Minho nodded.  "Okay.  And then?"

"And then, I went in and asked him if he was, er, clean.  He was still in the tub, so I think he was initially confused.  Yeah, yeah, I know--awkward timing, on my part."  He waved off whatever Minho had been about to say, ignoring the growing discomfort in his stomach as he continued.  "So, I clarified that I was asking about cleanliness in terms of STDs, and that's when it got kind of ugly..."

By the time Jonghyun had finished, Minho was wide-eyed.  " me, running... that is so much worse than what I'd imagined, even for you."

Though he was mostly inclined to agree, Jonghyun huffed with insult as he went to make them some coffee.  "You know, Kibum pretty much drew me a picture of what an I was, but thank you so much for coloring it in," he retorted bitterly.

"Well, what the hell do you want, then?"  Minho snapped irritably.   "You're the one that left the situation barely salvageable, and you're the one thatcalled me over here to talk about this; were you expecting me to lie to you?"

"No," Jonghyun said flatly, shoving a mug of coffee into the dongsaeng's hand.  He had the brief pleasure of watching it slosh over the rim of the cup, burning Minho's hand just a little.  "But I was already feeling like a steaming pile of without you rubbing my nose in it."

For lack of anywhere else, Minho wiped the spilled coffee on his pantleg.  Even more piqued, he continued his volley.  "Yeah, well, I'm not gonna tell you it wasn't dumb of you to wait until you'd already bare-backed to pose the question, or that your manner of addressing it wasn't insensitive.  You think you feel ty?  How do you think he feels?  Consider it a dose of your own medi--"

"Alright, alright, stop!"  Jonghyun threw his hands up.  When he opened mouth again, he was quieter.  "I get it, arasso?  My timing and, in retrospct, I could have--should have--had more tact.  A lot more," he amended when Minho cocked a brow expectantly at him.

"It wasn't my intent to hurt his feelings," he continued miserably.  Minho could clearly picture his metaphoric puppy ears drooping as they both sipped their coffee.  "But, that being said, it's not like it was the most unreasonable thing to ask.  I don't claim to know the habits of people in the adult entertainment industry, but they certainly aren't without a lot of ual opportunity.  It's a risk we take."

"Tch.  Speak for yourself," Minho countered, but there was no more ire in his tone.  "Taemin isn't really 'in the biz.'"

Jonghyun considered.  "Yeah, I suppose not."

"Anyway, hyung..."

"Anyway..."

"I guess it's time to figure out what you're going to do next: fish, or cut bait?"

There wasn't much of a choice, so far as Jonghyun was concerned.  He liked Key, and he was the one that ed up.  


He was going to atone.




 

** A/N:

Ok, I know I'm a bit behind on this, but bear with me; I was out of town for a week.

Anywho, there you have it: a dialogue chapter in which our Minho unexpectedly and vehemently chastised Jonghyun and defends Key's honor.  Such love, as it were. ^_^

Not much more to say, and author-nim is very tired.  Hope you all enjoyed.^^  Don't forget to comment and tell your friends! **