The fur beasts’ enthusiastic sniffing gives him away before he is ready to knock. He is busy texting Minseok to turn down yet another makeup date when Jongin yanks the door open, jamming a foot into the crack to keep his dogs from escaping into the hallway.

“You’re the best,” Jongin gushes, pulling him inside.

Jongin has his hair styled up and has—Kyungsoo suspects—a thin layer of dewy BB cream applied over his face. He's wearing the grey shirt that Kyungsoo bought him last week, and a pair of ratty, old shorts. God help him, Jongin looks so ing cute tonight.

“So,” Jongin intones, pulling at his own fingers as he paces in front of Kyungsoo, “they've already eaten. I just walked them. You can give them treats if you want, but no more than five pieces. They need to go potty in an hour, and then you can just let them tire each other out after that. If you want to play with them—”

“That's not really my thing—”

“—If you want to play with them,” Jongin continues loudly, “don't use anything with squeakers. One of my neighbors filed a complaint last month.”

His eyebrows furrow at the thought, “Which one?”

Jongin shrugs. “Doesn't matter. Just don't get me fined.” He pats himself down to find his phone, simultaneously locating it in his back pocket and remembering that he's indeed still wearing shorts. He makes a face at Kyungsoo before whirling around and dashing off for the bedroom.

“So which fur beast would you say you'd miss the least?” Kyungsoo calls out after him, smirking at the unamused shriek Jongin makes.

“I’ll chop you into tiny, tiny pieces, Do Kyungsoo!” Jongin yells back. “These are my babies!”

He's too busy staring at Jongin's legs when he comes back to the living room, dressed in ridiculously tight skinny jeans. The loose flannel shirt looks even softer now.

“—yeah?”

“Huh?” Knock it off. Goddammit. Focus.

“I said, there's food in the fridge. I know you just got off work, and you probably skipped eating lunch earlier, so be sure to eat. ‘Mi casa, su casa’ and all that. Do you want me to bring you back anything?”

Kyungsoo gulps, swallowing away the bitter taste in his mouth. “No, I'm good.”

“Awesome.” Jongin beams at him, eyes shining as his cheek dimples. He squeezes Kyungsoo's shoulders briefly. “Thank you so much. I'll be back as soon as I can.”

The words leave his mouth sounding way too convincing: “Don't worry about it. It’s not like I was doing anything anyway. Have a great night. Take all the time you want.”

Only a dozen or so more words exchanged, and then someone is knocking on the door, and Kyungsoo has to plaster on a smile as Sehun waves at him and the two finally leave together. Finally, he can breathe.

Collapsing onto the couch was a terrible idea. Immediately, three balls of excited fur hop onto his lap and squirm, nudging at his hands for pets. Kyungsoo scowls and stands, brushing his pants off. These are work pants, and he doesn't want to have to wash them until Sunday, dammit.

The fur beasts follow him into Jongin's room and bounce off his shins as he loots through Jongin's dresser for a change of clothes. One of them still hasn't gotten over his presence in their domain, and starts zooming around the room in circles, leaping onto the bed each cycle.

“If only your dad was that happy to see me,” Kyungsoo mutters, skipping around on one foot as he tries to pull a pair of sweatpants on. He nearly faceplants, and catches himself on the desk, leaning against it to adjust the waistband and leg holes properly.

Something catches his eye as he turns to leave. He glances back to search for it, and finds a picture of himself, beaming proudly at the camera as he holds a plate out toward it. The photo is small, affixed to the open page of a notebook with scribbles and doodles all around it.

'Made omurice!!! It's so good!’ the caption underneath it reads. Their little lunch thing from yesterday. He recognizes the familiar binding. This is Jongin's planner.

Today's entry has a to-do list, a reminder of Jongin's date tonight, and miscellaneous notes for his class. The previous entry has a similar format before the photo and comments.

He's just...there, though. No preamble. No 'dear diary, this is Kyungsoo, my...best friend.’ How often does he get casually featured in here?

This is private. Sort of? It's really just a checklist and some random memories of the day though, it seems. Kyungsoo glances around, watching the dogs preoccupy themselves with wrestling each other, and quickly flips to the previous page. Just once.

A grocery list. Some more planning for school activities. A dentist appointment reminder. Pretty banal. There's a doodle of a monkey with a caption underneath: 'Dreamt a monkey wanted to sell my hair to buy bananas. What should I have done????’ He laughs, remembering getting a text the other morning of Jongin explaining the same dream verbatim to him, lamenting on how hair could grow back, but he would've just bought it some bananas?

Another page. A picture of Jongin's lunch, it looks like. Jongin doesn't have Instagram. Or any social media. So he shares food pictures with his planner, it seems. He spots his name under 'chicken chicken chicken this place is so good bring soo here next week’. Again, nothing new. They just went there the other day. It was good.

A petty thought trickles in: If he knows everything in here, would Sehun as well? Sehun, the boyfriend? So far, he's been mentioned twice, and Sehun only once, and really more of an appointment reminder than a mention.

The next page makes his stomach drop. The photo on the left page is Sehun, hair in disarray, one bare shoulder visible on the corner of the picture, sleeping soundly in Jongin's bed. The caption underneath reads 'A Giant Baby’.

At least it's not some lewd, detailed exposition of them ing. But Kyungsoo feels like anyway, seeing proof of their relationship so casually displayed. It doesn't even seem to matter that Jongin has told him, on multiple occasions now, of his ual journey as he relayed the same. Seeing it is just too much.

To take his mind off of the picture, Kyungsoo reads through the entirety of the page on the right. Some memories of cute things his students have said to him, and a couple of receipts taped onto the page with washi. More lists.

...Technically, they're tied. Two mentions for Kyungsoo, two mentions for the boyfriend.

He's actually seen the next page before. Jongin had sent him a picture of it last week, and going by the date, it was possibly right after he finished it. Among the notes and lists and to-dos is a doodle of Jongin's babies. He was so proud that Kyungsoo couldn't even bring himself to for it.

Jongin's actual fur babies are huddled around his feet, abandoning the comfort of the bed to snuggle each other on top of Kyungsoo's feet. It makes no sense. They're ridiculous.

‘Had to take a nap today. I needed it, but had another dream that the thread was whole again. Except I don't think it was him on the other end. Like one of those feelings I guess. Would that mean he got a new soulmate too? I would hope so… I think. What if he has a new one already, and he hasn't told me, because he didn't want to upset me?—’

Reflexively, Kyungsoo looks down at the hand keeping the pages splayed open, at the frayed end of the red thread, and feels a pang in his chest. It's taboo to talk about. They can talk ual partners and bowel movements and literally everything else under the sun, but soulmate discussion is brought up maybe once or twice a month, and only on the most shallow levels and quickly abandoned. He runs his thumb over the phantom thread, feeling only skin. Like always.

His phone vibrates, and Kyungsoo slips just enough of it out of his pocket to confirm that it's not from Jongin before chancing another look at the page. Jongin elaborates further on his dream for a few more sentences before making another to-do list. Below that are more doodles.

The dogs jump up eagerly when he scoots the chair back and stands up. They paw at his shins, asking to be picked up and petted, and Kyungsoo reminds himself that he is supposed to be dogsitting. They need to be taken out to go potty.

It takes an absurd amount of time to fit them into their little, complicated harnesses, and strap the leashes onto those as well. Kyungsoo heaves a sigh as he herds them all into the elevator and heads to the ground floor on autopilot. His mind is still back in the room, in Jongin's planner. Back to Jongin's dream.

It never occurred to him that that could even be a possibility. It wouldn't make