---

For the rest of the night and early morning, it's hard for Jongin to fall asleep (well harder than usual anyway) as he replays his conversation with Kyungsoo over and over again.

And it ends up taking way too long for him to bypass his own mind repeating how stupid he is, and how he's rushing and how he messed everything up etc. Then, it's not until after Jjangah pops her head into his room and whines to be picked up by him, that he ends up falling asleep with her resting on part of his pillow.

---

Two days later, when he's back at work, he tries getting some advice from Victoria and Taemin only to be met with laughter and dramatic pity. Then, as Hyoyeon joins the conversation and asks what happened, Taemin tells her while laughing before getting swatted by an embarrassed Jongin.

In the end, Jongin gets the same advice from her that pretty much everyone else he talked to about this gave him.

Just roll with it.

So, Jongin, with his sleep-deprived mind, decides to invite Kyungsoo over to his family home by text to watch a movie with him tomorrow afternoon. (They've been texting like usual after Saturday, so he figures that maybe he didn't completely mess things up. However, he still just wants to clear the air on everything.)

Everything's gotta be perfect, he thinks.

Because in the end, he's gonna do things the Jongin way.

-------

The next day, Kyungsoo rolls up to Jongin's home--practically sweating bullets and trying to take in deep, calming breaths while his stomach rumbles around with bumblebees, and multiple questions run through his mind as he sits there in his car.

Questions of what this means and will Jongin's puppies be there? Will they like him or will they hate him? Does he smell good? Yep, like flowers. Ah, he's so glad he bought this new cologne. But wait, what if Jongin's allergic to pollen?...But no, cologne wouldn't have the same effect...

It's literally just a cycle of thought after rapid thought before he thinks about how long he's been sitting here and decides to shut the engine off and get out already.

He knows that he shouldn't have to feel this nervous--he's hung out with Jongin numerous times now. But, there's just something about getting invited over that makes it seem like it could be an invitation to anything, really.

Anyway, as he makes it to the front door and rings the doorbell, he stands on the porch with his hands clasped together tighter than usual and tries to prepare his mind for anything. Once the door opens, instead of being greeted by Jongin though, he's greeted by an older woman who looks...kinda similar to Jongin actually.

The woman, who he assumes to be Jongin's older sister, smiles at the sight of him and then turns her head to call out, "Nini! It's your boyfriend~!"

The tips of Kyungsoo's ears burn red at that and she gestures for him to come inside before locking the door after him.

"Well, make yourself at home. And don't worry," she says before heading off. "I won't tell him about how you sat in your car for like three whole minutes hahaha."

Kyungsoo blushes even harder at that (while also marveling at how even their laughs sound similar) and decides to sit on the nearest couch as he waits.

He hears a bit of the other two's conversation as they get closer, and stands up when Jongin enters the room with his sister returning too. Jongin's eyebrows rise up for a second and Kyungsoo unknowingly mirrors his expression before he shyly adjusts his own glasses.

"Hey," Jongin greets, giving a slightly shy, half-smile.

Kyungsoo grins despite the nerves. "Hey."

Jongin's older sister looks between the two of them before smirking a bit and saying, "Ooh man, I just remembered...I haven't walked the pups yet today."

Jongin turns from gazing at Kyungsoo to say, "Wait--wha? But they're asle--"

"Anyways. I guess I'll just get like a mani-pedi then." She then turns to Kyungsoo and smiles. "Was nice meeting you." Then she scurries to another room to presumably grab her things to go.

Kyungsoo and Jongin end up smiling some more at each other after that and naturally start a light conversation as Jongin joins him on the couch. All too soon though, they pause when Jongin's sister returns and says Remember, Monggu, Jjangu and Jjangah are here too~ before exiting and locking the front door behind herself.

And just like that, what seems like an awkward tension builds and makes Jongin inwardly panic as they're both suddenly at a loss for words.

"Um aheh..." Kyungsoo says.

Expecting the worst, Jongin lets out a sigh and buries his face in his hands.

Kyungsoo's eyes widen at this and he reaches a hand out to place on Jongin's back, and just blinks when Jongin lifts his head to gaze at him. Because once again, his mind has gone blank as he looks into Jongin's deep, wistful eyes.

Then, Jongin brings his hands up to cover his face again and lets out a little whine and Kyungsoo does what feels right. That is, he starts to rub Jongin's back in a circular fashion.

"Hey," he murmurs, his hand moving a bit slower. He blinks as he tries to think of what best to say. "W-What's wrong?"

Jongin groans through his hands, and Kyungsoo can't help but be amazed at this completely whiny side of his boyfriend.

But then Jongin whines, "Me? This? You...?" He starts scratching behind his left ear. "I-I dunno."

Kyungsoo freezes at that, his hand completely still, while his heart suddenly beats super fast as he tries to make sense of that statement.

"W-wha?" he breathes, trying and failing to school his expression into something other than fear. Jongin removes his hands from his face to look at him again. "Is...i-is it us?"

He doesn't want to voice his subsequent thought of Does he wanna break up with me? with the fear that it could somehow come true. Already?

"No! I...ugh--" Jongin ruffles his own hair a bit. "--why does this feel like a soap opera right now?" He glances at Kyungsoo's lips for a moment. "I just--I don't wanna make you feel un-uncomfortable with anything, ya know...I..."

"You're just...literally so amazing to me Kyungsoo, like I don't even know why you agreed to being with my head- in the first place. And I--" He takes a breath. "--ugh it's just--I don't--I don't want you to misunderstand anything or think I'm tryna do this or do that just for this and--" He starts blinking rapidly. "--hey, w-woah, are you crying?!"

With wide eyes, he watches as his boyfriend wipes at his eyes, his glasses sticking high up on his face.

"Oh my gosh I'm so sorry," Jongin breathes, placing a hand on Kyungsoo's cheek. ", I'm such a in--"

"Jonginnie..." Kyungsoo croaks.

Jongin instantly cuts himself off, his heart doing somersaults at the cute way his name just sounded coming from Kyungsoo, and because Kyungsoo's smiling now.

---

After talking some more ab