kiss from a rose: seal

Their massive home comes into view when Seungmin and Jeongin turn the corner. It almost looks like one of those storybook homes with white cedar siding and brown ts. Seungmin doesn't know why there is such a house where they live, but he supposes everyone like fairytales enough for people to try and mimic the homes.

There's a walkway leading to the front door which is enclosed by two trees whose branches intertwined with each other over the years. While it's nice not to have the sun beating down on their back as soon as they come out of the house, it's a pain to pick up the leaves when winter comes.

Jeongin swings their hands when they reach the walkway before letting go and rushing towards the door. He turns around and sticks his tongue at Seungmin before walking inside and announcing their arrival. Seungmin can't help but find the sight of a playful Jeongin with a giant stuffed animal and a bouquet of flowers endearing.

If anything, the redhead is expecting no one to say anything or even see anyone as everyone was caught up in their own worlds when he left. So when he takes a step into the house, he suddenly has an arm full of a shaking Felix, and he's surprised. The bags in his hands drop when he stares at his lover in his arms before he wraps his them around Felix.

"Lix?" he questions just as a louder call of his name comes from the kitchen.

The sound of footsteps has Seungmin looking up to see a worried and slightly frustrated Woojin. The elder sees Felix in Seungmin's arms and runs a hand through his brown locks. Troubled dark eyes meet confused ones before Woojin turns on his heel and stomps away, each stomp he takes causes Felix to shrink into Seungmin.

Jeongin walks into the foyer, shrugging his shoulders when he sees Seungmin eyeing Felix.

"I'll take the bags, hyung," he says taking them off the ground. "I left the dog on top of the counter."

"Thanks," Seungmin says.

"I'll put your bags in your room, and I'll try not to make too much noise if the others are sleeping. I highly doubt it though."

Jeongin leaves and Seungmin turns his attention onto Felix. Gently, he runs his fingers through the other's orange locks. They stay standing there for a few minutes until the slightly older male grips onto Seungmin's shirt. It's a silent question Seungmin knows too well and grants it when he lowers his arms from Felix's head to his . Felix jumps and wraps his legs around Seungmin's waist and buries his head into Seungmin's neck, taking a deep breath and exhaling a couple of moments later.

Carefully, Seungmin makes his way into the house stopping by the kitchen and somehow managing to take the ear of the stuffed animal in his hands. He knows the stairs are going to be a challenge as he cautiously takes the steps up. He wobbles a couple of times, making sure to tightly hold onto the clinging person wrapped around him. There's a time when he believes he's going to fall, but Felix feels it enough to stretch out his arms and hold Seungmin into place. Seungmin doesn't have time to wonder how strong Felix's stomach and instead looks at the red surrounding Felix's eyes.

“Lix? What happened?” Seungmin asks as the said male envelops Seungmin's neck in his arms again.

“I don’t know,” he mumbles against the fleshy part of Seungmin's neck. “They’re so loud.”

Continuing the careful trek up the stairs, Seungmin begins his process of pressing kisses into the other's shoulder. He starts with the wish that he could change the voices in the Australian's head. To change what they say about Felix and what they say about the others. But before he can press another wish onto Felix's head, he's at his koala's door.

Dropping the stuffed animal in the hallway, he opens the door and places the other on the bed, securing him into a pile of blankets. When he's satisfied with how warm Felix looks, Seungmin nods to himself as he hears a quiet giggle coming from under the sheets.

He lets his gaze move around the room, taking in Jeongin's bed on the other side, a large wooden dresser where he knows Jeongin has way too many clothes, matching side tables where Jeongin and Felix demanded to have the same, and a stargazer light in the far corner. There's a couple of outfits on the floor, but the room seems to be a lot cleaner than the mess he calls his bedroom.

Taking only a couple of steps out of the room, he retrieves the stuffed animal from outside, ignoring the loud whine coming from his room across the hall. He doesn't have to be in the same room as Changbin and Hyunjin to know what the older boys are doing nor does he have to be there to see the pout forming on Hyunjin's face.

Chuckling, Seungmin turns his attention back on the stuffed animal, placing it next to the Felix pile he made, smiling.

"Are you going to lay with me?" Felix asks, his voice small and muffled by the plethora of blankets over his face.

"But you're a burrito," Seungmin says. "I don't want to ruin it."

"Minnie!" Felix whines.

Seungmin breaks burrito Felix, transforming him into pancake Felix.

The elder grabs Seungmin and koalas him again, their face centimeters apart.

Seungmin can feel Felix's breath fanning across his face. He can count the number of freckles that span across Felix's nose and see the chocolate galaxies that are Felix's eyes.

He thinks of the stories the two of them make up when Felix needs some inspiration for his art projects. Tales made of water and fire, where they proclaim their love under the stars and twin moons, where they hold hands and soft kisses that speak nothing but of promises of forever.

Everyone knows of these moments, and everyone keeps their distance when the two create different worlds. There are moments, however, when no one cares and joins their fun to which those instances become the time where the nine of them create vast lands of dragons and separate events of them meeting in these fantasy lands.

It’s the thought of devising another world which has Seungmin pushing a kiss against Felix's lips and trying to pry the other away from him. The pout on Felix's face is deadly when he finally releases Seungmin from his death grip. His pout erases itself when he sees the giant stuffed dog, it's beady eyes staring at Felix. There's no hesitation when his arms shoot out for the stuffed animal. Seungmin gives it to him happily.

Seungmin knows that creating a world with Felix isn't going to take the thoughts away, but maybe it'll give him a few minutes away from the pain of his head. Sitting up and pulling Felix into his arms, he leans back with the other's head on his chest.

“Lix?” Seungmin asks carding his fingers through soft hair. “Do you want to make a story?”

Felix inhales against Seungmin’s chest and exhales. It’s a couple of seconds before he’s nodding and hugging the stuffed dog tighter.

"Please," is all Felix has to say.

"The remote?"

"Table."

Seungmin tries not to knock Felix's skull with his knuckles as he reaches Felix's side table. Blindly, he searches for a thin remote which would turn off the bedroom light and turn on the stargazer he had bought for moments like this. He finds it and presses the button, the once bright room engulfed in a sea of darkness. Seconds tick by when stars form on the ceiling, each white light sparkling like the light Felix's eyes used to shine in.

That's a thought he doesn't need at this moment.

He continues to card his fingers through orange locks and pictures Felix hunched over the kitchen table with everyone around him but, he’s not paying attention. Instead, he’s pouring his heart and head into the paper in front of him. Lines form the same creatures Seungmin had described a few nights prior before they’re colored and put on Felix’s art wall.

“Where are we going today?” Felix asks after a couple of moments of silence.

“How about a planet with an infinite night sky?” Seungmin says. “Where people go to with their loved ones so they can see true stars.”

Seungmin doesn't have to look down to see Felix’s eyes sparkling the more he begins to make up a world of night skies and stars.

"And the creatures who live there?" Felix questions.

"They'll have skin colors of blacks, purples, and pinks," Seungmin answers, "with eyes as bright as the stars in their sky. These people will be kind and spread the thought of wishes and the hopes of dreams to the people who come to their world." He pauses. "Maybe they'll fight off the negative emotions that come onto their land. This is a land of hopes and dreams. There's no time for negativity."

Felix hums. "A world like that sounds beautiful."

And it does.

It sounds like a dream to Seungmin's ears. A place where he knows would toss away the horrible emotions his lovers feel. A place where all problems would be gone with a snap of a finger and a couple of wishes. But a planet like that cannot exist. It's too perfect, and humans are far from perfect.

But just because a place like the one he's made for Felix doesn't exist, doesn't mean he can't continue to press soft kisses of hope into his lover's head.

Continuing from where he left off in the hallway, Seungmin begins his hopes and dreams for the other again. He presses a kiss filled with warmth away from the cold voices in his head. Another kiss. He wishes he could be like the aliens he created who fight all form of negative emotion, only leaving the happy ones. Another kiss. He hopes for Felix to know how much he loves him.

Felix laughs softly when Seungmin presses his last kiss on his head and looks up, his eyes holding a tiny sparkle in them.

He puckers his lips for a kiss to which Seungmin presses a quiet kiss against. He smiles against Felix’s lips while knowing his wishes may be tiny, but Felix knows of them.
The door opens, and light shines through the crack. Jeongin peeks his head in and smiles brightly at his hyungs. He slips in holding Woojin’s flowers and holds them out.

“I want cuddles too, Lix hyung,” Jeongin says.

Felix says nothing while he pushes the stuffed dog away from his body, opening his arms for the youngest to crawl into. He holds out the flower as Felix rolls away, taking a giggling Jeongin and the stuffed animal.

He looks at the flowers and takes a whiff of the beautiful flora. The look of hurt and disbelief crossing his features when he walked into the foyer, finding Felix in Seungmin's arms.

Seungmin gets up and presses kisses to each of their heads before leaving the room and looking for his eldest lover. He closes Felix’s door with Jeongin’s question of what he named his new stuffed animal.