Jinki sat in the swing; his arms slumped over the chains, idly looking at his feet. He hadn’t moved, the amount of time he spent in suspension lost to him. His feet, he noticed were an odd size, not really big, but not small either. His toes were probably crammed in there too. And it was an odd string of thoughts to pop up in his head but he decided that any thought was considerably better than the thoughts he was forcing out with every exhale.
 
This was self-induced torture, he knew that. Something he continually set himself up for every 9^th of the month, if that wasn’t as grossly melodramatic as humanly possible. But he found himself, well his feet, his oddly sized feet, dragging him to this same spot every month as if they enjoyed the lamenting and the more embarrassingly, the tears. No tears had come this month, thank the heavens, because it was cold and cold tears theoretically could be painful with the wind being the way it was. He sighed, deciding that there was no way to freeze any of these feelings in his heart, no matter how chilled the air was. Detaching himself from the swing, he sat up to stretch.
 
Enjoying the crack of his bones readjusting themselves to standing, it took him a minute to realize that his phone was buzzing in his pocket. Briefly glancing at the screen, he saw Kibum’s name flash across, and decided to ignore it. If Kibum knew he was at the park, again, reflecting in misery, again, he’d surely have a word or two for him….again. He slipped the phone back into his pocket, headed for the coffee shop on the corner; he was freezing. He walked in, tipping a friendly hat at his favorite little barista, and turned to make his way towards a back corner, where he’d be left alone when his phone rang again. He didn’t even look at it, sitting down and grabbing the menu.
 
After he’d finished his second cup, he decided he’d had his fill of the off key crooning the singer was oozing all over the microphone, gobs of angsty hippy love songs she was spewing to the crowd; painful stuff. He paid his tab and exited the shop. He was feeling better, as time heals all wounds or some psychobabble he’d heard over and over again in his life. The walk back to his flat wasn’t long, so he knew when his phone rang a third time, it would be Kibum and he would have fewer steps to explain, thus lessening how long Kibum could lay into him.
 
“Yes, Kibum?” He shoved his free hand in his pocket, trying to warm his frozen fingers up.
 
“The purpose of a cell phone is for one to answer it. I call, you answer. I call, you answer. I call, you answer.”
 
Jinki rolled his eyes, resisting the urge to reply with a “Yes, Master. Anything you say, Master”, but decided he’d ignited enough of Kibum’s wrath, so he kept quiet.
 
“So the REAL problem is, I’ve called, and you haven’t answered. Why don’t you just drop your phone off into a lake, chuck it into some river. It’d be more useful there.” The sarcasm was tangible through the phone. But Jinki was used to this, something he’d actually grown to love about the harpy nagmonster of a man.
 
“Are you sitting down?” Kibum jittered nervously on the phone after a beat of silence, something Jinki wasn’t expecting, after the marginally short amount of rant that was executed. He was expecting a full onslaught of cursing and biting remarks, but the apprehensive tint to his voice worried him.
 
“Kibum….”
 
“Just tell me if you’re sitting down.”
 
“Kibum.”
 
“Why can’t you just…
 
“KIBUM.” Placing a little steel behind his words was necessary because Kibum was making him very uneasy. This man was blunt and straight to the point, and for him to skate around his purpose for calling him was beyond odd. “Spit it out.”
 
“Minho.”
 
Jinki sighed irritably, thinking the man was about to shock him with some kind of dire news, He’s apartment was on fire, or even worse, his favorite drama was cancelled. But it was nothing short of fluff; all he wanted to do was berate him for his behavior tonight. “Oh for God’s sake Kibum! I know I shouldn’t do this, you tell me every month, I got it. But I can’t help it, it just happens, I didn’t even decide to go to the park this year, I just ended there. My feet. No, I can’t explain my feet. But I’m no-“
 
Kibum softly interrupted, stopping the older man from rambling himself into an endless void of non connecting thoughts. “Jinki, sweetheart. No. It’s Minho. I’m…” he sighed. “I’m at Seoul St. Mary’s. Minho’s here. He’s….”
 
“What do you mean the hospital? Why are you at the hospital? Why is he at the hospital?”
 
“There was an accident, on set…”
 
Jinki would have reached through the phone to shake the life outta Kibum for the collective offering of UNinformation that he was providing right now, if he wasn’t literally froze to the feet. Screw this. He hung up the phone, turning on his heel sprinting down the sidewalk towards the street, his arms flailing as he tried to get the attention of a taxi, ANY taxi.
 
 
oOo 7 years ago oOo
 
Jinki slid open the window to his apartment, letting the fresh air in and the smoke out from whatever concoction he just tried to brew (supposedly it was suppose to be Rice Cake stew, but from reading Kibum’s recipe, he’s sure he made something completely different). It was New Year’s Eve and he had decided to throw a get together to celebrate the coming of the New Year with friends. A congruous of throwing old things out, bringing new things in kind of celebratory shindig.  He’d clean the apartment, purchased the liquor, cooked (read: burnt) the food and was just waiting for them to arrive in good fashion.
 
It wasn’t long before the first impatient knock came at the door. Jinki hopped down from where he was stringing lights up to run to the door, smiling when Jonghyun appeared with Jinki’s cousin in tow.

“Brought the entertainment.” Jonghyun said cheekily, thumbing at the younger boy he was ushering in.

“Entertainment my , we’ll see who’s laughing at the end of the night.” Taemin ducked from under Jonghyun’s draped arm to wrap his own around Jinki’s middle, squeezing tightly. “Hyung!”

The three continued talking, as the two removed coats and scarves, while Jinki ventured back into the kitchen to finish food preparations. He was anxiously awaiting Kibum’s presence because he needed him to take over this food business and salvage what he’d ruin.

When the next knock came at his door, he heaved a sigh of relief. “Tae! Can you get the door for me? It’s probably Key!” He waited a beat, another, and when he didn’t hear a response, he peeked an eye around the corner. They were wrestling. Again.

Shaking his head, he made his way to the door, cleaning his hands on the supposedly ‘man friendly’ apron Kibum got him last Christmas. It had rabbits and frogs etched across it, hearts littering the open spaces. Manly? Sure.

“I don’t know what took you so long! I think I burned the soup. Well I’m not sure. It taste okay, but then again, what do I know? It could taste like , and because I’ve burned my taste buds off I THINK it taste okay,” he called through the door. Swinging the door open he continued, walking up the foyer and back into the kitchen.

“We can call it soup, if it’s gross. Maybe a plate of to go with it, but I’m sure this doesn’t taste like . Hurry up and taste this.” He whipped around to see Kibum standing there with his hand on his hip, a discomposed eyebrow raised at the older man.

Jinki blinked. Then he looked up. There was six feet of stranger there, a look altering between second hand embarrassment and confusion, a touch of meekness, but nothing strong enough to take from the unadulterated handsome the man was radiating in his kitchen. Then he realized what he said and slowly closed his eyes.

“I assure you I’ve never had a plate of …”

Kibum didn’t look too convinced, stalking over to the pantry to grab another apron. He looked at his company before shrugging. “You’ll get used that. I swear. Only took me two years. We’ve got a song and everything.” Jinki just stood there; not exactly sure of what to do with his hands, since he’d dropped himself in the middle of a plague of embarrassment.

Kibum just shook his head as he made his way over to the stove. “Minho, Jinki. Jinki, Minho. Jinki, the pet doctor. Minho, the TV personality. Glad you two met. Now, move.” He hip bumped Jinki out of the way, rolling his eyes at what smelled like rice cake soup, but looked something completely different.

“God, I’ll be here for a while. Jinki, show him around the place or do something useful with yourself.” Jinki scrunched his nose at Kibum and turned away to do what he was told, not before missing Kibum’s tiny shoo’ing action and wink in Minho’s direction. Weird. He studied them, glancing between the two’s silent communication for a few seconds before turning towards the living area.

He introduced the newcomer to the other two who’d had enough of tearing up and down his apartment to sit down and were in the midst of a very serious game of checkers. They waived amicably but not enough attention was deserted from their task at trying to outwit the other.

“You have to forgive them. Ever since Taemin won a series of footraces… don’t ask, they’ve been at this never-ending contention of games. It’s been going on for two years and it’s surmounts to something like this. Desperation will win out soon, and Jonghyun will call for something ridiculous like a thumb war as a tie breaker, Taemin will do something equally ridiculous like tackle him when Jonghyun wins (because he cheats) and the cycle will begin again.  They’ll do this until I either get them drunk enough to where they start making out, or Kibum wops them upside the head with a spoon.”

 Minho raised an eyebrow at this, a small grin appearing, but said nothing.

Jinki showed him the condo. The pictures, the art in the apartment. The peculiar collection of solved rubix cube (No I didn’t peel the stickers off, I solved them, he says). They eased into this momentum quickly, almost shutting of the outside world as them concentrated on the idiosyncrasies that amazingly pulled them tighter instead of distancing them.  It was actually quite easy. As more people filled Jinki’s apartment, he found it harder to pull himself from the lull of their conversation. How they both knew Key, what they loved about their jobs, what they hated about their jobs, foods, weird obsessions, Minho’s affinity for cats, the fact Jinki didn’t own a pet at all, the scar on Minho cheek, Jinki’s natural enemy; gravity. They ended up on the fire escape, staring at the sky, their parlay of talk drifting now into companionable silence
.
“I have a confession…” Minho started, glancing at his watch before setting his cognac down.

“A confession? Already? And here I was thinking you’d stay mysterious all your life.” The corner of Jinki’s mouth slinked up, but his concentration never left the sky above them.

“I’ve confessed half of my life to you in one night.” He nudges him slightly with his shoulder. “I think the mystery is gone, Jinki.”

Jinki hummed slightly in response waiting for Minho to drop whatever slice of confident information he’d been withholding into his lap. The man did have a point though. He was comfortable with this relative stranger which was something that Jinki had never been at ease to do in the past. Friendship was just as, if not equally as important as love. It couldn’t be gained or given away without a deep connection, one that was warm and tingled in the right places at the right times. That’s what he’d always believed. So he didn’t understand, and somewhere deep inside, frankly didn’t care, why he felt as if he’d know this man his whole life.

Which was ridiculous, he could tell Minho was more complex to learn that a night of conversation (really good conversation, might I add) wouldn’t be able to appease. But right now despite the cold nipping at his neck, he felt warm. He turned and smiled when the younger man continued his silence. He placed a soft hand over Minho, assuring him that it was okay to confide in him.

Minho exhaled, the warmth of his breath curling tendrils of condensed air around his mouth. Leaning back against the rail, he turned his palm upwards under Jinki’s, his fingers itching to curl and grasp, to continue the bravery that began way before the night started.

“I….knewwhoyouwerebeforeIcamehere.”

Jinki waited a beat before squinting in confusion. “Iddawhoddawhatta?”

 Minho laughed, the tension he felt coiling up his spine dissipating into the night air. “I knew who you were before I came here.” He studied the silence, willing the statement to be enough, but knowing that it wasn’t. “I knew who you were. I’ve known for months. You visited Kibum frequently on set, usually for lunch, I gather. I used to…oh, god. I used to wait for you every day to visit. I’d station myself somewhere near, somewhere completely obvious, hoping you’d see me one day.” Minho stopped to laugh at himself.

“I’m this famous TV personality and I couldn’t catch the attention of one man. It was driving me up the wall. Kibum would laugh, telling me I was entirely too cool for my own success; that I should just walk up to you and…”

He’d sighed enough tonight to fill the quota of some cheesy romance novel. He mentally rolled his eyes.

“The problem with that is, you’re this oddly fascinating person, you compel without even knowing it. You’ve got this smile, and your laugh. God. Your laugh. You can’t just WALK up to that and just start talking. Hell, me getting through this night without my brain seizing up and goofballing my way through this conversation was hard enough. I mean…”

Maybe he shouldn’t have drank so much. Maybe he should have declined Kibum’s request to follow him to the party, where he could try some up close and personal stalking as oppose to the creepy loitering he’d done for months. But sitting here, with this mancrush of all things, his feelings apparent on his sleeve, and trying to decide if he’d fulfilled his creepiness max for one night, but not caring because if none of this worked out, he could say he tried. He could say he’d spent a night with the man who was haunting his daydreams and supplying pleasure to his dreams at night. He could say that. He couldn’t say much, but he could say that.

“So what I’m trying to say is-“

Jonghyun plucked his head out the window at that precise moment, because he was a champion of timing. “Hey, Frodo, Samwise. I really hate to funk up this atmosphere you two got going on out here but there’s like handful of seconds until midnight and half The Shire has been asking for you.” He stepped outside to usher them back inside, pushing them into the group of people huddled around Jinki’s grandfather clock in the living room.

Jinki turned to Minho. To say he’d been surprised by the confession would be a monumental understatement. He mentally giggled. Oh gosh, he called me fascinating. There’s nothing fascinating about me. But he called me fascinating. Then it clicked; maybe this was that thing. What the New Year would bring in; no matter how cliché and full of fairy tale fluff. The kind of unmitigated sugarcoated bull that he’d find on the back of magazines and in the crevices of fortune cookies. The type of stuff that was so true for everybody but him, the kind of happiness reserved for the world surrounding him, but never just for him. So he decided; cowardice, fear of new experiences, unwillingness to take risk and he would just throw them out.

He smiled cheekily.  “So you like me, huh?” He rocked back and forth on his heels like a kid in a candy store, anxiously awaiting his chocolate bar; the one with the golden ticket wrapped snugly inside.

Minho sputtered for his answer, the slightly shorter man upending him with the directness of his statement, but as he gazed (oh, god he was gazing at the man) and found a look of bottle rocket happiness on Jinki’s face, he laughed. “Yeah. I do.”

“Good. I think I might kinda like you too.”

“Yeah?”

The older man just smiled in response.

“So since you like me, I don’t see any objections to kissing you at midnight.” He a tendril of hair at the base of Jinki’s neck. “I’m sure you won’t mind.

“Oh ho, ho! Quite sure of ourselves, aren’t we?”

“Not 100%. But we’ll see here in a few seconds if I’m right or not…”

The clock struck twelve.
 
oOo Present Time oOo
Jinki flung open the door to the cab before it completely stopped, throwing money at the cab driver before running towards the hospital door entrance. He rounded the corner, and approached the nurses’ station, pointing wildly in no particular direction. She eyed him cautiously with a bemused frown trying to decipher the man’s erratic behavior.

“Sir, can I help you?”

Jinki, completely out of breath tried to pace out his words, struggling to inhale and speak at the same time. “I’m…I’m Dr. Lee. Choi. Choi Minho is here. I….“ He stopped to catch his breath.

“Are you family? Because if you aren’t, visiting hours are-“

“No! I’m not family! I’m more than family! I’m a doctor damn it! Let me see him! Where is he?!”

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave until the morning. I can’t allow you to go back there, and you should know that. We have a series of doctors looking after him as it is.”

“Oh yes the hell you can!” Jinki shouted, his patience snapping. Didn’t she know what the hell was going on? It was Minho. Minho. He was hurt and instead of being here, Jinki was at some damn park, in a stupid café moping around. And now that he’s here, she won’t let him see him? His eyes darted around the station looking for a list of rooms he could snatch, a map, a legend, anything. He didn’t notice her reaching for the telephone in an attempt to phone security either.

Before he could get a good enough plan together, two firm hands were placed on his shoulders. Confused, he snapped his head up to look at the two officers attempting to guide him out the doors. His face softened as he looked at the nurse, willing her to understand.

“Yah! Wait! Wait!” a feminine voice cut through the air, stopping Jinki’s second off the top of the noggin plan to escape the cops by wiggling with the strength of Thor; maybe a hand would slip and he’d be able to flee (it sounded very effective in  his mind, very). He turned towards the voice, and everything that’d he'd forgotten since Kibum called him came crashing back, almost painfully as he focused on her.

Yuri.

oOo  Ten months ago oOo

“Jinki. I need for you to understand. That’s your problem. You don’t listen. You won’t even let me explain. If I could just get ten words out of my mouth without you yelling, then you’d understand. ”

“You want me to….wait. You want me to UNDERSTAND? Understand what? I don’t have to understand , Minho.” When Minho reached out to grab him, he forcibly shook the hand away, fearing he’d vomit if the man touched him again.

“She…”

“She WHAT?” The venom dripping off Jinki’s tongue was enough to make Minho shudder. “She’s a she right? Woman? Girl? Female? Not your freakishly MALE boyfriend? Is that what it is?” He stalked closer until he was right in Minho’s face, a rigid finger pressing into his collarbone. “You pursued ME, Minho. You came after ME, Minho. If at some point, appearing normal for your ing audience was a priority you should have thought about that before you came to me.”

Minho pressed towards him, apparently frustrated where all of this was heading. He’d never in his life seen Jinki this upset, this vulgar with him and it hurt. He was actually YELLING at him, and he hadn’t heard the man raise his voice above room temperature in years; his demeanor was always lukewarm.  It wasn’t real, is what he wanted the man to know. It wasn’t real. He was real. What they had was real. So real he could tangibly hold it in his hands if he concentrated hard enough. But he couldn’t get past his own feelings to understand how the logic of the situation and his feelings existed on two different planes and would never meet.

“But I need you to understand. I love you.”

Have you ever seen what happens when you drop a Mentos in a bottle of Cola? It bubbles and surges, the candy creates a catalyst and reacts with the cola, causing an eruption. It’s something that you have to sit back and think about as its happening, not expecting such a violent reacting, but scientifically knowing that an explosion was inevitable. That’s what Jinki felt like when he pulled back and punched his boyfriend in the face with as much force as he could.

“Stay THE away from me. Don’t appear in front of me. Don’t speak if you see me on the street. Wave, nod, NOTHING.  If you’re smart, you’ll find some way for me to never hear your name again.”

He almost wished he’d broke his nose, but didn’t care enough to check as he stepped over the man and headed towards the door. He was so mad, he felt as if some kind of madman had taken over his body. The words, his actions, they were all foreign. But they were real and justified. When he felt an arm reach out and grab, his first reaction, in all of his anger, was to turn around and swing again, but stopped short when he noticed it was the hand of a woman wrapped foolishly around his wrist.

“Jinki, please. I…. don’t be mad. I mean, BE MAD, I understand you deserve to be mad. But… oh god.”

As gently as he could without hurting her, he pulled her hand away from him. “If you two didn’t want me to be mad, I should have heard about this from YOU, instead of all over the news. It’s a little too late to be concerned about MY feelings.” He stepped back and bowed, willing every atom in his body not to break down, and sob like a child in front of the couple who was collectively chewing his heart like it was a piece of useless meat. He tried to smile. He tried to be the happy forever smiling Jinki that everyone thought he was. So he swallowed all of it, pasting the most fraudulent of all smiles on his face.

“Congratulations on your engagement. Enjoy your life together.”

OoO Present Time oOo

“He’s family, officers. You can let him go. I apologize for any confusion. Please…” she said as she placed a hand on Jinki’s shoulders, “just let him go.”

The officers shared a look, recognizing the woman’s face and slowly let Jinki go. He flexed his shoulder when he was released, wincing in slight pain; their grasp was pretty tight. Yuri silently looped her arm in his, leading him further into the hospital. He allowed this for show’s sake, but as soon as they were out of sight, he airily detached himself from her.

Clearing his throat, he bowed in thanks. “I owe you for that, Yuri.”

“Please. You owe me nothing.” She smiled wanly before holding her arm out in front of her. “Minho’s room is this way. They moved him out of the critical care unit after they ran a few test.”

“So he’s okay?” Jinki slowed his gait, almost stopping. Now that his senses were cleared, he silently remembered his vow and his threat. He wasn’t to appear in front of Minho, he promised himself. It was how he planned on staying strong for the remainder of his life without him. “I mean, because if he’s okay, then I can leave.”

“No!” she turned to reach for him; his eyes look like he was ready to bolt from the corridor at any moment, like a startled doe. “You… you can’t leave without seeing him Jinki. He’s been asking about you. Actually you leaving wouldn’t be conducive right now.”

Jinki rolled his eyes, the thin layer of ice keeping this conversation in the present and disconnecting it with the past cracked and splintered. All of the forced congeniality that he wore on his face faded. “You two, I swear. You haven’t figured out anything, yet. If he’s fine, that’s all I need to know. The fact that I still care this much is embarrassing. I don’t need to sit down and have some kind of chit chat with the man about how happy you two are, how life has been. I know. I see it on TV.” Jinki turned to leave because this isn’t what he came here for. He’s not entirely sure what he expected when he pulled in front of the hospital, but he would have avoided having this conversation for all of the peace in the world.

“You don’t get it! He needs you here! He’s been asking for you. Literally. He’s unconscious.”

THAT stopped him, midstep. He tried to control the confusion writ apparent on his face, but failed. “What do you mean, he’s unconscious? How can he ask for me, if he’s not conscious?”

Yuri quickly looked around, before she eyed an empty room. She grabbed the younger man by the wrist, pulling him in and closing the door. The stress of the evening dubiously cracking her shell, as she collapsed in a chair. She scrubbed her face tiredly before turning back to him. She waited for him to take a seat, but he just stood there with his arms crossed looking back at her, not unkindly though. Tired, maybe. Confused of course. But not unkind. Jinki didn’t have an unkind bone in his body; that she knew. He was her friend once.

“They were doing a run through for the show this morning, like they do every morning; Key was there. He said one of the grip guys wasn’t paying attention to where he was swinging a boom and almost took Minho’s head off with it. He has a basilar skull fracture. That’s how HARD he was hit.”

Jinki winced; he was a doctor after all and knew the force it took to cause that type of fracture.

“Thankfully it’s not life threatening. But….”

 She her brow in frustration.  “When he was brought to the hospital, he was awake. For a second, in shock, he didn’t recognize me. He wouldn’t let Key go and kept calling for you. Over and over and over again. I told him you probably weren’t coming and he looked at me like I slapped him and oh god. It was terrible. There was blood everywhere.”

Jinki sat there confused, and that was the only word he could think of that came anywhere close to the level of pure delirium his brain was experiencing. Her words didn’t compute.

She sighed at his silence. “The doctors think that if you go and talk to him – I don’t know- maybe he can hear your voice. Wake up? Be okay? Something. “

“Because he was asking for me?” Jinki stated slowly, as if he were talking to a child. What kind of harebrain scheme was that?

Jinki exhaled. Refused to inhale for a moment. He needed complete still. There was no way he was going to be able to walk away now and he wanted to kick his own because of it. He was going to have to encourage some kind of bravado from some place inside of him he’d ignored for months. He’d have to face it, literally, stare into its face, battered and bruised and remember not to care and care enough at the same time. Walk a short leash, do enough to save this man and sacrifice himself to this monstrous feeling that he’d numbed on purpose.

.

Without a word, he opened the door and gazed out into nothing, his mind somewhere between panic and overwhelming sadness.

“I don’t have a choice. Take me to his room.”

oOo Two years ago oOo

“Surprise!!!”
Jinki opened his eyes excitedly once Minho lowered his hands from in front of his face, anxious to see what the man had dragged him out into the middle of nowhere for. It was Minho’s birthday after all, so it made no sense for him to be the one doing the surprising. He’d insisted, saying there was something he just had to show him.  But all he saw was open space, tall grass and the road off in the distance.

He blinked in confusion, turning to the man beside him who had the largest eating grin on his face.

“Yeah so….”

“It’s huge right?”

“I know of a couple of huge things that are in my company tonight,” he stated staring out the corner of his eyes to the taller man, “but other than that, I’m not exactly seeing what you’re talking about.”

Minho almost giggled. Jinki’s confusion allowed him the opportunity to work out the dramatics of tonight. “This is our future.”

“Future of…”

Minho slipped his fingers through his boyfriend’s hand, dragging him deeper into the open space that stood before them. “This is our house, and there’s enough space here for you to open up your own practice back there” he said pointing excitedly to the some plotch of air towards the back of…air “….and I wanted to build like an indoor gym with a basketball court. Extravagant, I know but-”

Jinki groaned. “Oh my god, you’ve been watching those American dramas, again! What? Am I Derek and you’re Meredith? Well, you’re more alpha male then neurotic, although you can be when it comes to your hair. So I would be Meredith because I’m two shades from being insane-“

Minho used the distraction to play out another scene from the drama since Jinki “knew” so much. He grabbed him by the lapel of his jacket, closer to him, meeting Jinki’s plush lips. Jinki hummed in surprise before curling his fingers into the fringe of Minho’s hair at the base of his neck. They stayed that way for a moment, just enjoying the feel of lips and fingers, touches.  Minho pulled back a bit because he didn’t want the moment to be lost. “Hyung. This is our house,” he repeated. “Ours. I want this to be the future… our future. Do you understand that?”

Jinki looked back up at him, his toes curling a little at the softness of Minho’s eyes, the sincerity of his words. “You’re serious aren’t you?”

“Yes. I am. And seeing as it is my birthday, I’m not accepting any gifts other than you saying you agree.” There was no smile. Just hope and stars and open space with tall grass. Jinki took a step back out of Minho’s embrace just to gather his senses.

“Minho…what is this?”

“What do you mean, “What is this?” It’s an empty lot, a huge empty lot that we can-“

“No. “He searched his eyes again. “What…is this?”

The taller of the two cocked his head to the side for a minute reminiscent of a lost puppy before it dawned on him. He grinned before reaching across the space to pull Jinki back into his. Pull him back into his everything. He reached in his pocket, his tongue hanging out of his mouth until he found what he was looking for.

“You don’t like wearing rings; your fingers…. I remembered that. Sooooo….”

He pulled out a necklace, a thin wire of white gold that caught the lights of the cars zooming past them in the distance. At the end was a ring, made of the same material. Unclasping it, he strung it around Jinki’s neck. He worried his bottom lip waiting as the other man the ring.

“The inside of this says Ontokki?” He questioned wondrously, the nickname Minho used the first time he confessed he loved him. Suddenly Jinki’s hands flew up, covering his face, alarming Minho. He sat there for a while, with his hands on other’s shoulders, feeling them shake. “Oh my God, Jinki… are you crying?”

Muffled by his hands, Jinki shook his head. “No, fool. It’s like a runny nose, except its runny eyes. I’m allergic to all this fluff in the air.”  He moved his hands away to reveal he was laughing so hard that he was indeed crying. Minho dropped his hands from Jinki shoulders, annoyed that all of his hard work was being ridiculed. He turned to head back to the car, when Jinki reached out and tackled him to the ground.

“Oomf!”

As he tried to recover the wind that was momentarily knocked out of him, Minho stared up into the eyes of a madman who was gazing at him like he was the very center of the world. Jinki reached out, cradling his face in his hands. “I don’t know why you chose me. You could have had anybody. Anybody. Yet, I’m here…”

“This is the place where you belong. Right here in my arms. Without you, something is wrong.”

, he’s a cheeseball is what Jinki is thinking, but it doesn’t stop the mile wide, every tooth is shown, somebody help him his face hurts smile on Jinki’s face.

Minho reached out, flipping them both over until he hovered over Jinki, letting his forehead touch lightly against the other. “Is that a yes?” His voice was gruff, full of need and emotion.

Jinki answered sliding his arms around the neck of the only man he would love from this point. It was impossible for him to be any happier than he was right now. This man, this perfect embodiment of love and warmth and everything Jinki needed to survive, he was like air and water and that feeling Jinki got when he watched his favorite carton or ate warm cookies with cool milk. He had ruined him, spoiled him for any other person and it took everything he had in him not to explode into layers and layers of unadulterated love in this open space they’d call home.