Lego Houses – and little home

He needs to hurry. The renting contract it's about to expire and, alone, he can't pay for it. He blames Jihoon for it; for moving out with Taeil and leaving him alone, in a flat too big for one person, too expensive. He can’t afford it any longer and there is no way that he will move with his parents – not with Dannah and Jhonny, the place would be so crowded that, only thinking about it he gets all stressed, worked out.

He doesn’t trust the estate agency that Jihoon has recommended him – the one that had helped him to abandon him, providing him with another place to call home that isn’t the same space shared with Minho. He doesn’t trust it because “The Dancing Lee” seems more like a dancing academy but, well, is not like he knows any other and, besides, this one is close to his place so it worth a try – because he really needs to find a new house soon if he wants to avoid further problems.

Minho thinks that Jihoon didn’t need to move out; he could have easily bring Taeil in with them; is not as if the boy needs much room and they are always pressed together anyway, no personal space needed between them and that would made the rent cheaper, affordable. But no, Jihoon and his boyfriend  needed their own place, Minho wasn’t invited to share it and was left alone – with a rent too high and a job that doesn’t allow him to keep living in the place he called home for the past four years, the place where he fulfilled his promise to his best friend since middle school; to live together after college – they shared room back then, too, and the memories of those days linger in golden in his mind.

He breathes in and opens the door.

The office looks nice, professional, efficiency – the traces he is looking for. The fella in the front desk smiles at him and, for an instant, the world stops spinning over its axis – he has brown eyes that spark as if alive and Minho feels the air in his lungs expire, he is in awe, blinking at this stranger as if fascinated (he is, temporary, left speechless).

The man is alluring. He isn’t part of the Lee crew; he is reassured, reading the metallic tag hanging on his spotless shirt. “Kim Jinwoo”; even his name is beautiful – he taste it in his tongue and wonders how it would like to kiss him here and now. Instead, though, he smiles polite and tells him what he needs.

Jinwoo takes a tablet with him and offers him a drink, sitting close together on a white couch while showing him different options. Minho pays only half of his attention, his mind split between his gorgeous features and what he is here for – he listens to his voice but all he hears are angels singing so, in the end, he chooses to visit the house that is further away, thinking that, this way, he would be able to spend more time with him.

He makes an appointment to visit the place on offer and he notes it down on his calendar as a date. He smirks, content, eyeing at it, the red mark on the day, three days away from tomorrow, and his heart skips a beat – his heart has been malfunctioning in his presence and it’s now aching, willing to see him again.

The first house that he shows him estates that Kim Jinwoo is an incredible professional – it has all he is looking for. He tours him around, going over all the details and if Minho is listening at it, it is only because his voice is captivating, endearing. But, in the end, the house is perfect but so it’s Jinwoo and he wants to be with him a little bit longer. He asks about the rent, the mortgage – even if he isn’t thinking about buying it, he wants to hear him more and all excuses are valid to get to his objective –, the vicinity and the facilities around. He asks about this and that and Jinwoo smiles, patiently explains everything once more, once again.

Finally, though, Minho tells him that he is unsure and that he would like to visit more places – that this is a hard decision and he doesn’t want to rush, to commit a mistake by compromising too fast without considering more houses -; Jinwoo fully agrees and promises him to display him more options, opening the spectrum a little to fit with what Minho wants and needs (but what he wants and needs is Jinwoo).

Lee Seunghoon greets him next time and he makes little conversation while waiting for Jinwoo to come back from an errant with others clients – Minho counts the seconds, dripping them into his skin where he wants Jinwoo to be. There is another Lee working there and it’s a name that rings a bell – wasn’t a Minhyuk the one who settled it all for Jihoon and Taeil’s new house? He stares at him talking on the phone with sparkles igniting in his orbs (suddenly he loathes this man that has stolen his best friend from his side but then Jinwoo enters the room and he is fully aware of his presence and Minho mentally thanks his friend and this random man instead; isn’t due to Jihoon’s relocation that he has come to meet Jinwoo?

Their next destination is also great but, again, Minho finds out flaws and defects – it’s too noisy, the neighbours are too far away; his favourite shop is not that near. Jinwoo giggles and brush away all his lame excuses, reassuring him that he will look again at the options available for him that, together, they will make it work for Minho.

Minho doesn’t care how long will take it, he has no haste to move, it is not urgent – not when he is working in ways to get to Jinwoo.

He brings Jinwoo coffee and stares at the man driving – he is focused on the road and he is free to eye him as much as he wants; his hands on the wheel are big and manly and Minho wonders how they will feel under his bones, touching his skin. Jinwoo bites his lips in concentration and he is tempted, lured into biting them as well but then Jinwoo pouts and tells him that he is lost. Minho finds it so endearing that he has to refrain the necessity to hug him tight and never let him go.

They arrive at the spot two hours and a half later but Minho has learned so much about Jinwoo that, when he apologises to him for the nth time he is thankful instead of mad – he assures him that it’s alright, that navigating in this big city is hard and complicated and that he won’t expose him to the jibes of Seunghoon.  

Again, the house is spotless, flawless – Minho can perfectly picture him living there – but he pretends to be unconvinced yet and Jinwoo sighs the smallest – Minho caught the gesture and smirks at himself for being the most demanding client of Jinwoo (the thought that he is a mere client, though, hurts his pride).

At this pace, refusing every house that Jinwoo brings him to see, Minho has to move out – the renting has lessened already and he has been kicked out, back to his parent’s place where he pretends to settle for as long as it will take him to make Jinwoo fall for him.

It has been two months and, by then, Jinwoo calls him by his name and texts him about house hunting, about the movie he has just seen with Minhyuk and Seunghoon or the last episode of the drama he is invested in. In response to it, Minho tells him everything, from his childhood to what he does for a living to the invitation that his best friend has delivered to him and that contains his wedding date inside – Jihoon is going to get married next fall and Minho kind of expect Jinwoo to be his “plus one” and something else.

By now they are more like friends obstinate to find Minho a new house to call home – they walk the streets and talk and laugh while searching for the perfect place that seems impossible; Minho’s high standards just keep on changing and any of the buildings they have been in aren’t appropriate.

“How is it all going with your real estate agent?” Jihoon wonders, sitting in the waiting room, looking all expectant and nervous.

Minho blinks at him gobsmacked before realising that Jihoon keeps in contact with one of the Lee – he isn’t sure which one is, if Minhyuk, Seunghoon or Seungri, for him they are only annoying voices to hear whenever he has to wait for Jinwoo, he hasn’t paid them much attention, too caught in Jinwoo to care.

“Come on man, Minhyuk hyung told me the other day that you had hearts all over your face, staring obliviously at him. What’s his name?” he asks, sharply, pinching him hard to force his answer. Minho kind of pray for Taeil to come out from the fitting room but with not such a luck – Taeil doesn’t show up to save him and, thinking about that it might be for the best; it’s bad enough having to fight Jihoon and the both of them combined make a terrible, stubborn pair, becoming the biggest pain in the Minho has ever had to face and suffer.

“It’s Jinwoo” he reveals only because darn Jihoon keeps on bothering him – he is as persistent as Minho is trying to convert Jinwoo into his boyfriend.

“Oh, I hear a big deal about him!” Taeil’s pitch voice comes from between the curtains and Jihoon stays still all of a sudden, waiting for his fiancé to show up with what might be his wedding dress.

It isn’t – because it doesn’t fit with the hat he is going to wear despite everybody’s opinion – and so they move into another shop with the same luck. The day goes on like this, the happy couple bothering Minho with infinite questions about Jinwoo and his plants to make the former one to fall in love with him – and instead of giving him ideas or help him out, the only thing they give him is a headache.

When his next appointment with Jinwoo is due to be, he shows up earlier and, as expected, he finds out that the Lee have exposed him; that they are aware of his plan to win Jinwoo and none of them are very impressed about his technics. Minhyuk peeks at him from over the computer, Seungri sits beside him and Seunghoon brings him coffee, telling him with a glance that he is a loser – that Jinwoo is totally out of his reach.

Or maybe it’s only that Minho is feeling rather insecure because none of his progress is working out the way he is longing for – Jinwoo doesn’t take any of his insinuations and he has tried to hold his hand twice, only to be left brushing the cold air.

Seungri’s hand falls on his shoulder and, in a conspiratorial tone, he reveals that he knows it – that it’s painfully obvious for them and that he needs to upgrade his game.  

“Jinwoo is going crazy looking for your perfect house” he tells, half explaining and fully disappointed, “he is not going to stop so you better confess. Or chose one and keep being friends, whatever, but he is losing sleep for your fault and, as his boss, I can’t accept so. Also he is always with you, all the time, so we have to deal with the clients he can’t take due to you. It’s bothersome” he complains eagerly.

“Also, if you don’t tell him, he won’t take the bait. He is so naïve and innocent. You must be direct, it’s the only way to his heart” buts in Seunghoon, much more amiable. Minhyuk looks at them with a face that says that he doesn’t want to be related to them – but his fingers are busy fidgeting on his phone’s screen and Minho is sure that he is gossiping about him with Taeil and Jihoon.

Another month passes by without any traces of Minho moving into a new place, even though Jinwoo has shown him every single house in the market – all of them, even those that Minho can’t afford to pay. By now they laugh together at Minho’s eccentricities and Jinwoo tells him his secrets as if best friends – Minho has gone to his dorm to play video games with him and his roommate Jaehyo and Jinwoo jokes about how his friend dotes on him, saying that he has gotten an admirer (Minho is surprised by how observant that Jaehyo guy is, how he has also noticed his feelings for Jinwoo; maybe it’s not a secret anymore. Maybe it has never been. Maybe the only blind and unable to see is Jinwoo).

 Seunghoon comes up with a plan; it’s the weirdest idea but with Minhyuk’s help, who meddles even when he has told them to have zero interest on it, they build something that sounds like success – like the most ridiculous way to be rejected.

Minho has asked Jinwoo to show him again that expensive house in the hill down the road, the one where they have sneak in later on to drink soju and take a bath on their private pool – where Minho had has a contemplating Jinwoo’s pale torso, those abs where water sunk and that he wanted to , taste the chlorine of it.

Despite the fact that both know that Minho can’t pay the exorbitant sum the owners are asking for, Jinwoo complies – he drives there, the sun caressing his eyes, making them shine. They talk about nothing in particular, Minho’s heart beating too fast, too suffocating; he can’t wait.

Jinwoo tours him again like a professional, ignoring that they have been there before. He does his job the best he can and Minho follows him around, mustering the courage to do what he is about to do next.

“Hyung, I can’t afford this place, but neither can I afford to have you. But I love to. To have both of you” Jinwoo’s eyes look at him, gleaming, the waves that the wind creates on the surface of the pool reflexed in his orbs clear as crystal.

“What are you trying to say?” he asks, still unsure, as if nothing said has reached his mind, as if unable to believe that he has been in love with him since the beginning.

“I’m trying to say that I’m in love with you, hyung.”

Jinwoo smiles the biggest and Minho is captivated all over again. When he grabs his hands and stares into his soul Minho feels like in a movie – he feels like a star about to burn in the sky, brightening the night and the day with the force of all his sentiments that belongs to Jinwoo.

When Jihoon’s wedding arrives Jinwoo is, as expected, much more than Minho’s “plus one”. After the ceremony is over, Jinwoo is even more than his boyfriend – he is now his fiancé, the silver ring shinning on his finger and tears shimmering down his face beautifully (he kisses them and tastes the saltiness of Jinwoo’s love).

In the end, they can’t afford the big house up the hill but Jinwoo keeps the keys and makes sure that nobody else rent it – they keep sneaking there to celebrate every year and any other day. It's just their lego house where they come to play - because Jinwoo is his only home.