“Are you just gonna sit there all day?” Sehun frowns, a large cardboard box in his arms. “You could at least make yourself useful, like Minseok.”

“I don’t see you being any more helpful,” Kyungsoo says, flicking a piece of lint off Jongin’s bed.

“Um, hello?” Sehun gestures to the box with his chin. “I’m carrying this box.”

“You can fool Jongin and Minseok, but I’ve been sitting here for half an hour and I know for a fact that there is nothing in that box.” Kyungsoo picks up a sweater draped over Jongin’s chair and tosses it at Sehun’s face. “Make yourself useful, you hypocrite.”

“I thought we were supposed to be packing, not yapping,” Minseok quips, sticking his head through the doorway. “Jongin’s almost done loading the boxes. I came back up to see if you two had gotten any filled…” Minseok surveys the room, eyes landing on Jongin’s laundry chair. “I see no progress has been made.”

“Yeah, Kyungsoo. You should’ve been picking up Jongin’s dirty clothes,” Sehun says.

“Why can’t he pick up his own dirty laundry?” Kyungsoo groans, getting up. “I’m not touching that pile anymore. Who knows what’s growing in there? Give me that box, I’m gonna put away his books,” Kyungsoo huffs, snatching the cardboard box out of Sehun’s hands.

“Oh no,” Sehun laments, clearly not bothered at all. “I have no box. How am I supposed to help? I guess I’ll just leave now,” He says, moving towards the door. “So sorry.”

Minseok grabs Sehun’s side firmly, lifting him clean off the ground momentarily before situating him next to the chair.

“Not today, you slippery little fox,” Minseok chides, handing him a box from the floor. “Clothes in here.”

“Oh, why didn’t you say so? Of course,” Sehun says, beginning to take his shirt off. Minseok laughs and punches him on the shoulder.

“Have fun, you two,” he says, leaving the room once more. Sehun pulls his shirt back down.

“This is your fault,” he complains, throwing a pointed look at Kyungsoo, who looks mildly disgusted.

“Please don’t talk to me.”

A week before Sehun and Jongin are due to leave for college, everyone gets together for a going-away party. It’s hotpot and bulgogi for everyone, on the hyungs, and then karaoke with more food until everyone’s lungs give out.

Yixing knocks back three shots in a row and falls asleep on the floor halfway through a song that Chanyeol finishes after prying the mic from his cold, not dead hands. Sehun and Jongin get a few drinks in their system too, having an impromptu dance battle with Chanyeol as the background vocalist.

Even Kyungsoo drinks, after much wheedling from Minseok. The night is pretty much over once Sehun and Jongin collapse on the couch and Chanyeol remains awake and very much drunk, crooning slow songs into the microphone as he sways back and forth.

Minseok returns from the bathroom to find Kyungsoo nursing his glass of soju and pushing Sehun’s head off his lap.

“Still on your first drink?” He whispers, amused as he takes his seat next to him.

“You don’t have to whisper,” Kyungsoo says, gesturing towards Chanyeol. “He’s so wasted I don’t think he’d notice if I threw my drink at him.”

Minseok laughs. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Kyungsoo takes another sip from his glass, hyperaware of Minseok’s thigh pressed against him and the way their shoulders touch every other second.

“So…this is really happening,” he begins, vaguely gesturing at the passed out forms of their friends. “College, I mean.”

Minseok sighs and Kyungsoo feels it even before he hears it. A head drops onto his shoulder, hair brushing against his neck, and the tension in his form melts.

“They’re all grown up now,” Minseok jokes. He lifts his head up when Kyungsoo doesn’t respond. “You still there?”

“Hmm? Yeah, I am.” He purses his lips. “You know…this isn’t actually my first drink,” he admits.

Kyungsoo turns his head towards Minseok, opening his mouth to say something else, but he closes it once he sees the steady rise and fall of Minseok’s chest. Under the artificial lights, Minseok looks almost unreal, the curve of his lips calling out to Kyungsoo, soft skin begging to be touched.

He remembers his eighteenth birthday suddenly, how Minseok had dragged him out of bed early in the morning with promises of an adventure and how he had let himself be swept away, his phone and jacket the only things on him. They had stood beside the road for nearly half and hour, thumbs stuck out until a truck pulled over and they had piled into the back.

They sat in silence, watching the road grow smaller and smaller, and Minseok had put his head on Kyungsoo’s shoulder. After much deliberation, Kyungsoo had draped his arm around Minseok’s shoulders in response, pulling him closer.

There was a soft breeze on the beach that day, enough to bring relief from the sun but not enough to disturb the sand. Minseok had bought them ice cream and pretentious drinks in mason jars with a paper umbrella and wedge of lemon on the side. They kept the paper umbrellas, Kyungsoo tucking them into his jacket as they laughed about how ridiculously expensive everything was.

The rest of the day was spent on the beach, making sand castles and treading water. Their hair and clothes were still damp when the sun began to set and they climbed into the back of another truck, kicking off their shoes.

All Kyungsoo can remember about the ride home is an intense desire to kiss Minseok, intertwine their hands and let his actions say what his words couldn’t.

He doesn’t end up kissing him. And in the dingy karaoke room, surrounded by friends and Chanyeol humming sadly into the microphone, Kyungsoo wishes he had the courage to.

At the end of Sehun and Jongin’s first year of college, when everyone is waiting for them to come back, Kyungsoo receives a call.

“Hello?”

“K-Kyungsoo?” Jongin chokes into the receiver, and Kyungsoo freezes in the middle of wiping his hands on his apron.

“Jongin? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“It’s not me,” Jongin whispers, “It’s S-Sehun.”

“What about Sehun?”

“He…He…” Jongin stutters, voice shaking.

“Breathe, Jongin. It’s okay. Tell me what happened.”

“Oh God, I—I don’t know, I don’t know what h-he tried to…” Jongin draws in a ragged breath. “I’m…we’re at the hospital, he wasn’t, I didn’t know who to call first,” he rambles.

“..The hospital?”

“Y-Yeah,” Jongin swallows thickly. “It’s…It’s been really hard here. You know? We miss home. Especially Sehun. Even if he didn’t want to admit it.”

“Is that why you’re at the hospital?” Kyungsoo lowers his voice. “Did Sehun try and..” He trails off, not sure how to approach the subject. Jongin starts sniffling.

“Please don’t tell M-Minseok. Sehun will be so mad at me,” he pleads.

“Are you…Are you guys still coming back?”

Silence.

“Sehun has to stay in the hospital for another week or so. I’m…going to stay too.”

“Okay,” Kyungsoo nods. “We’ll see you when you get back then.”

“Kyungsoo?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t..don’t tell anyone, okay?”

“Okay.”

Kyungsoo sets the phone down and looks at Minseok, his face pale and holding back tears. He had heard everything. Minseok buries his face in Kyungsoo’s shoulders, arms tight around his waist, shaking from head to toe as he cries. Kyungsoo guides him to the couch and they sit, pressed against each other and silent until the pie in the oven begins burning.