Monsters in his head, like Baekhyun said. But for the first time since his last spark of courage snuffed out, alone in the cold and the dark, Jongdae thinks he might, one day, have a chance of - if not wholly defeating those monsters, maybe at least imprisoning them. It's the monsters that should be locked away, not his heart.

Baekhyun, naturally, is ecstatic about the whole development. He takes to shoving Jongdae out of the café the moment his rostered shifts end, so that he can spend more time with Minseok. Jongdae just can’t get over it. All his worries about how long he’d hidden the truth from Baekhyun have been banished with a simple wave of his best friend’s hand. He knows he doesn’t deserve such grace, but he’s no less grateful for that.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Baekhyun says, when Jongdae tries to express how sorry he is. “It’s fine to have secrets so long as they don’t hurt, Jongdae. I only pushed because I could see how much yours were hurting you.”

There’s a lump in Jongdae’s throat. “I never meant to make you worry. I should’ve told you sooner.”

“Hey, no. I’m just happy things are getting better now.” Baekhyun grins. “Besides, you told me about Minseok first. What more could a best friend ask for?”

It’s been so long since Jongdae dared to step outside of his safe little world that he’d almost forgotten how much more there is out there. He and Minseok do “market research” at the many eclectic cafés, first just in Hongdae, and then venturing further afield, Itaewon and Insadong and over the hill to Dongdaemun. They walk the path that follows the old city wall and through the mural village. They make a shopping trip to a traditional market, armed with a list of difficult-to-find ingredients from Kyungsoo, where Jongdae gets into an in-depth discussion of traditional preservation techniques with the ahjumma selling lotus root for far too long, and Minseok makes firm friends with the tiny overexcited puppy tied up behind her stall.

They coincide their evening laundry runs so that they can hang out at the laundromat while the aprons and tea towels wash and tumble, chatting with Yixing, and often enough Sehun and Junmyeon are there as well. Jongdae sees how often those two touch each other, placing hands on arms or legs or the small of the back, how they interlace their fingers just to walk the couple of metres between the health food store and the laundromat, how much quiet adoration there is in their gazes whenever their eyes meet, and cannot understand how he ever missed it.

Their favourite thing to do, though, is to just be with each other, no distraction or excuse needed. They hang out either at Black Cat Nero with the cats, or upstairs in Minseok’s scarily tidy apartment above the shop, which is about twice the size of Jongdae’s, where they watch movies on his laptop or just lie on Minseok’s immaculately made bed and talk. 

Jongdae learns that Minseok grew up in the Guri district, but his parents, both originally corporate office workers, moved out of the city six years ago, escaping the rat race to start a lifestyle farm in a rural village so tiny that it’s not even marked on the map. Minseok tells him that their goal is to be completely self-sustained, and all about the misadventures he and Lu Han had building them a small wind turbine and hooking it up to their electrical system last summer. It was the village elders who taught Minseok’s mother to make the yuja-cheong Jongdae had been so impressed with.

Minseok came out to his family when he was eleven, already understanding in which direction his eyes and heart were drawn, and they’ve been nothing but supportive. It makes sense, because Minseok’s brand of quiet, confident self-acceptance would be hard to come by without support. 

In return, Jongdae tells Minseok about his family, trying not to mind too much how lacking it sounds compared to Minseok’s. Not in material ways - he had the best schooling and everything else he needed - but Minseok’s happy, loving home makes his own sound terribly cold and sterile. Jongdae is glad for Minseok, but sometimes it makes him a little sad for himself. He tries not to let it show. It’s not that he’s jealous. He just wishes, sometimes, that things could have been different.

As well as helping to socialise the latest arrivals from the animal shelter, Jongdae teaches Minseok how to make more varieties of soup and muffin for his tiny menu, and a few more complicated dishes too, so that he can expand it if he wants. On one such evening, they’re making mandu from scratch in the kitchen of Black Cat Nero, rolling the dough into paper-thin rounds and then preparing a filling of Korean squash, shiitake mushrooms and spicy green peppers.

“What is this?” Jongdae asks suddenly, head down as he focuses on dicing the mushrooms. “Us, I mean.”

“What would you like it to be?”

“I…” Jongdae worries at a flake of skin on his lower lip with his teeth. “We're dating, right?” It comes out in a rush, panicky, even though he already knows the answer, really. 

Minseok puts his knife down on the chopping board and steps closer, lays a hand on Jongdae's chest. “Breathe,” he reminds him. "Yes, sweetheart. We are dating."

Jongdae feels like he might burst into tears, or laugh hysterically, or maybe smash his head down on the counter, everything overflowing as he tries to control his breaths. Minseok carefully eases the cooking knife out of his hand and puts it aside, and it’s only then that Jongdae realises his hands are shaking. Minseok takes both Jongdae’s trembling hands in his warm, firm ones, smiling at him with nothing but affection as they stand face to face. 

“Then,” Jongdae says, voice creaking as he unlocks the cage where these forbidden words have languished for far too long, “am I your boyfriend?”

“Would you like to be my boyfriend?”

Jongdae nods, and nods again, up and down like a jack-in-the-box, biting on his lip and not realising just how anxious he is until Minseok lets go of his hands to cup Jongdae’s face, stilling him. He rests his forehead lightly against Jongdae’s.

“I would like that too,” he murmurs. “I would like that very much.”

Then of course Jongdae has to kiss him, because what else can he do when Minseok looks at Jongdae like he’s something wondrous, when it is Minseok who fills the whole world with wonder. His heart swells even as his body trembles, and Minseok draws him closer, cradles the back of his head and supports him with an arm wrapped around his waist. They taste the salt on each other’s lips, and all the monsters in Jongdae’s head flee.

✽ ✾ ✿ ❀ ❁

Jongdae has been trying to coax Haru to chase the iridescent dragonfly on a flexible wire that every other cat in the café finds irresistible for the last fifteen minutes, but the grumpy black cat has made an art form of the baleful crouch-and-glare, and Lala and Mimi have been attracted from across the other side of the room to pounce at the fluttering toy in turn. Minseok is sprawled on his front over the bean bags taking photos on his phone, ostensibly for the café’s Instagram feed, but Jongdae has a suspicion that some of these photos, mainly the ones taken from directly behind as he crawls around on his hands and knees trying to get the cats to do cute poses for the photos, are not going to be business account-appropriate.

He gives up on getting Haru to join the fun and drops the toy, and Lala and Mimi instantly move in for the kill, doing their best to tear the tough plastic wings to shreds with claws and teeth. Haru gives a drawn-out meow of protest as Jongdae lifts him off the cat tree and carries him into the petting corner, but he doesn’t try to actively escape from his arms, and that’s good enough for Jongdae.

Minseok joins him on the bean bag, wriggling until they’re lying together in a comfortable hollow, and holds up the phone at arm’s length for selfies, but Jongdae is too distracted by watching Minseok pose, pouting his lips and puffing out his cheeks, to pay attention to the camera himself. It should be illegal, he thinks, for a grown man to be this cute.

“Look,” Minseok says after swiping back and forth through the camera reel a few times.

Jongdae tears his eyes from Minseok’s profile and looks. The photo has caught him gazing at Minseok, while Minseok grins through a V of fingers held against his face at the camera. Haru, visible in Jongdae’s lap, glares grumpily off to one side.

“It’s cute,” he says, trying to ignore the way his ribs squeeze in. His heart’s in his eyes in this photo, laid bare for all to see.

“ You’re cute,” Minseok shoots back, grinning like this is some kind of witty comeback, and Jongdae’s creeping panic is overpowered by a rush of affection, and he doesn’t know how his body is supposed to contain so much feeling.

“You know who else is cute?” he asks, and leans in a little closer, so that his breath tickles Minseok’s jaw. He sees Minseok shiver, a trail of down-fine hairs rising along his skin.

“Who?” Minseok murmurs, eyes half-closing.

“Haru,” Jongdae says, and pulls back with a smirk as Minseok’s mouth drops open.

When Minseok has finished chasing Jongdae in circles around the cat tree under the disapproving eye of at least six cats, and Jongdae has allowed Minseok to catch him and pull him back down onto the beanbags to be punished with tickles, and Minseok has let him apologize by pressing little kisses all the way down his neck from hairline to shoulder, Minseok props his chin up on one fist and asks, “Can I post that photo on our Insta?”

Jongdae stills. “Why?”

“Because it’s cute,” Minseok says, “and you’re a big part of this place now, with all the help you give me socialising the cats and teaching me how to cook. I’d like to share a photo with you in it.”

Jongdae tries to ignore the aching tightness of his chest, tries to breathe through it, tries to think rationally. It’s just a photo. It’s just a photo and nothing could really be construed by it, and even if there was it shouldn’t matter. He wants to do better at this kind of thing. He doesn’t want to let the monsters win.

“Hey, hey,” Minseok says. He puts a hand on the side of Jongdae’s cheek and turns his head to align their gazes. “Look at me, Jongdae. You seeing me?” He waits until Jongdae manages to properly meet his eyes and nod before continuing. “It’s okay if you don’t want to. You can say no. I don’t mind.”

"I'm sorry,” Jongdae says shakily. “I’m being pathetic. I want this, I do - it's just -” 

“You are not being pathetic. Don’t think that. You’re scared, yes, but it’s not for no reason. You’ve had a really hard time of it, but you keep on trying anyway, and that is not pathetic at all, Jongdae; that is so, so brave.”

“You’ve got to stop doing this to me,” Jongdae says, hoarse, choking on something intangible. It’s too large, Jongdae’s affection. It’s going to be the death of him. “You’re too good to me.”

“Impossible,” Minseok says, and he grins, and Jongdae’s not sure if he’ll ever understand how a simple smile can make a room so bright. “You deserve all the good things in the world.”

“Like what?” Jongdae asks, somehow, his attention torn between Minseok’s small, soft mouth and the way their fingers interlace, and the faint, clean hint of sage that always hovers around Minseok.

“Things like…” Minseok says, looking at Jongdae through his lashes, and Jongdae’s smiling, knowing what’s coming, eyes closing as Minseok takes the back of his neck and pulls him closer.

It’s a slow thing, the way they melt together. Jongdae takes control of the kiss to slide his tongue against the seam of Minseok’s lips, and Minseok opens for him easily, so Jongdae eases in to at the palate of his mouth and taste the smooth skin on the inside of his cheeks. Minseok moans, using their linked fingers to tug Jongdae closer.

Wanting more contact, Jongdae pushes his fingers deep into Minseok’s curls and pulls him in, tasting Minseok’s gasp at the tug of it and smiling against his mouth.

“,” Minseok mumbles into Jongdae’s chin, and Jongdae just chuckles, breathless, and tugs a little harder.

“Things like this?” Jongdae teases, muffled by Minseok’s cheek, and Minseok swears again, so Jongdae kisses him to shut him up. “If it’s things like this,” he says, “then being scared is worth it.”

“Jongdae,” Minseok moans, and Jongdae’s heartbeat is a thundering in his ears as Minseok chases after his lips every time he pulls back to breathe.

“You can post that photo, if you want,” he says, when they’ve kissed enough that Jongdae’s jaw is sore and Minseok’s lips are swollen and his cheekbones have acquired a high colour, and although the screaming of what are you doing?! in his mind is so loud he can barely believe Minseok doesn’t hear it, the smile Minseok gives him is more than enough reward for his courage.

✽ ✾ ✿ ❀ ❁

Chuseok looms at the end of September like a thundercloud on the horizon, distant and threatening, and seeming to arrive all of a sudden, catching Jongdae not quite prepared even though he’s seen it coming for ages. He leaves Baekhyun in charge of Café Amaranth for two of the three holiday days, because Chuseok is one of the festivals he cannot get out of visiting home for. The café will close early anyway, because of the public holidays, so it won’t be difficult to cover his absence.

He sits in the backseat of his brother’s car for the drive down to Daejeon, because his brother’s fiancée, Eunji, is coming too this time. He feels more like a child than ever as he stares out of the window at the passing fields and hills and valleys with their little townships, while his brother and his soon-to-be sister-in-law discuss the merits of buying an apartment versus a house, calmly discussing the potential number of future children and the likelihood and variety of pets, the zones for the best schools, and other, impossibly domestic things. Jongdae cannot connect to it any more than he can connect to the ten-minute argument Jongdeok has with a prosecutor on his earpiece halfway there, full of incomprehensible legalese.

They arrive mid-afternoon. Jongdeok presses the doorbell, and their father answers the door, letting them in with a quiet greeting before disappearing back into his study. Their mother is in the kitchen already, with their aunt, and when Jongdae goes into the kitchen and greets them politely and rolls up his sleeves, his mother sighs heavily, but doesn’t comment. They work without speaking, the kitchen filled only with the classical music playing from the radio, and Jongdae loses himself in the familiar motions of preparing the traditional meal.

Dinner is no worse than he expected. His father asks his brother about work, and his mother asks Eunji about all the plans they’re making for their wedding in the spring. Nobody speaks to Jongdae directly beyond things like “please pass the kimchi”, and he doesn’t have the heart to force his way into the conversation. He picks at the dishes he’s spent all afternoon preparing, but he has no appetite, and the little he manages to swallow sits heavy and uncomfortable in his stomach. He stays at the table only long enough to be polite, excusing himself by pretending he has to make a phone call, and exhales only when he’s closed the door to his childhood bedroom.

He curls up on top of his faded Digimon bedspread and puts his earbuds in, letting Melon pick him a playlist as he closes his eyes and presses his face into the lavender fragrance of the laundry detergent. He’s exhausted by the stress of this already. He feels brittle, breakable, like his skin is shrinking down and wrapping straight around his aching bones, with no substance left in between to anchor him into the world.

He’s almost fallen asleep without meaning to when he’s startled by a loud knock, audible over the music, and his brother looks around the door. 

“Okay if I come in?”

“Yeah, of course,” Jongdae says as he sits up and pulls out his earbuds. He scoots backward so he can lean against the pillows piled up against the headboard, hugging his knees to his chest.

His brother closes the door behind him and leans against it, pushing both hands into the pockets of his slacks.

“What’s up?” Jongdae asks.

“Dinner was kind of awkward, huh?”

Jongdae shrugs. “Isn’t it always?”

“Is it?”

“Our parents ignore me because I’m a disappointment, and when I’m here they get that shoved in their faces,” Jongdae explains. “It’s only natural that they prefer to talk to you and Eunji.”

Jongdeok looks crushed, and it surprises Jongdae. He watches his brother rub a hand over his face. “God. I think I owe you an apology,” he says.

Jongdae stares at him. “Why?”

“I didn’t even realise how awful we were being to you until Eunji asked me about it. I can’t believe I didn’t notice before. They treat you like you’re invisible.” He shakes his head. “I guess I’ve been part of that too. I apologise.”

Jongdae feels those hands again, cold fingers tugging at his ribs. He lowers his head to hide whatever it does to his face, wrapping his arms tighter around his legs. His jeans are going a little threadbare at the knees, he notices. “I know why our parents treat me this way,” he says, “but I never understood what I did to you.”

Jongdeok sighs heavily. “I’m the oldest,” he says, “but you were the favourite. You were cute and fun and happy all the time, and you charmed all the right people at our parents’ business parties without even trying. You’ve always had this way of looking at people like they’re the only person in the world who matters, it’s no wonder everyone adored you. You were the golden youngest, and I hated that you got all the attention without doing anything for it.”

Jongdae can barely take this version of their childhood in. It doesn’t seem to match his memories at all. “I didn’t know you felt like that,” he says.

Jongdeok shrugs. “Siblings are always competing for attention. I’m sure it didn’t help that there was never that much to go around in this family in the first place.”

“Maybe,” Jongdae whispers, dropping his gaze.

“Anyway, that’s kid stuff, and I don’t blame you for my childhood jealousies. It was when mother told me you’d dropped out of med school to run that little café that I really got mad at you. I was angry about it for ages. You just threw off the burden without a thought and went your own way, and left me to fulfil all our parents’ expectations on my own. So I was mad about that, and at the same time, I think I envied you. The - the freedom, and the courage it took to do that, I guess. I could never have done it, and I didn’t really want to, but all the same.”

Is that what it looked like to his brother? Jongdae supposes it would have, though he could never apply glorious concepts like courage and freedom to what had happened to him. 

“I never wanted to be a doctor,” he says. “I only chose it to try and please our parents.”

“Well, I didn’t particularly want to be a lawyer, either, but working in something you don’t love isn’t so bad,” his brother says. “You get used to it, and it just becomes what you do. I’m not unhappy.”

“I thought I could do that too,” Jongdae says. “But then I realised that if I went through with it my life would be unbearable.”

“Why would it be unbearable?” His brother pushes off the door and crosses the room to sit on the edge of the bed. “I’ve heard medical residency is awful, but you would’ve gotten through that. You would have found a nice girl, gotten married, had a family. That’s what I’m aiming for. My career is going to let me take care of my wife, give our future kids the best.”

Jongdae nods. “I guess a lot of people count on that, and if I had that in front of me, a family, a life outside of work, maybe I could have done it too, but I don’t, and I can’t. I'll never marry or have a family.” His breath catches, his chest too tight.

“Of course you will.” His brother looks confused. “Why on earth wouldn't you? You're good-looking, smart, kind. There's no reason you won’t find the right girl and settle down."

Jongdae might have laughed if he didn't feel so sick. 

“Yeah, hyung, there is.” His voice sounds awful. Brittle.

His brother looks slightly alarmed now. “Why do you say that?”

“Because there is no “right girl” for me, and there never will be. I’m gay.” 

He’s never said it like that before. Not even to himself. It feels like the words have been wrenched from him instead of given, torn straight out of his chest to fall with a bloody splat into the space between them.

His brother stares at him, face slack with shock. “What?”

“I’m gay,” Jongdae repeats, and he’s left hollow, all his substance scooped out from the inside, with nothing left to do but wait for the impending disaster to unfold.

Jongdeok is silent for a long time. Jongdae picks numbly at the threadbare knees of his jeans. It feels like an eternity, but it’s probably only a minute or two until Jongdeok speaks again, and that’s when all the missing feelings slam into Jongdae at once. His heart quickens and his skin prickles, and he starts to shake. 

“I need time to think,” his brother says. He gets up and walks to the door, then turns around again. “Look - don’t get me wrong, okay? I just need to process this.”

“I get it,” Jongdae croaks, as his brother hesitates with a hand on the door handle. “I’ve had more than ten years to process it.”

“Christ, Jongdae, how do you keep something like this a secret for ten years?” 

Jongdae cannot look up. “Because I thought everyone would hate me when they found out,” he says, voice shaking, “but I’ve found someone who means more to me than the fear that people might hate me now.”

The silence is thick enough to choke him. It’s broken by the sound of his door closing, and he looks up and sees that his brother has gone, and he is left alone in his childhood bedroom with far too many familiar fears crushing him from the inside out.

He brings a hand up to cover his mouth, to hold in the pained noise that wants to escape him, bubbling up from his chest and clogging his throat. He feels so sick, and he lies down and curls up on his side for a while, but it doesn’t help, and suddenly Jongdae can't move fast enough, up and out of his room, across the hall and shutting himself in the bathroom. 

It hurts as he throws up, sweat crawling cold down his face and back, his chest on fire, his throat burning. When it's over he finds he can't stand up, so he stays on the floor, skin clammy, curled up with the smooth cold stone against his cheek and the chill seeping in through his sweater and jeans.

For twenty minutes, Jongdae lies there, blocking out the world with his arms curled over his head as he tries to pull himself together. The familiar grip of panic squeezes in on him, and his ears are ringing so loudly he can barely hear his own gasping breaths. He’s suffocating, desperate for air but unable to make his lungs expand and contract the way they should as the hands of terror and heartbreak wrap their chains around his ribs and slowly tighten.

Time crawls by in slow motion as he curls in on himself. Each breath is a battle as he tries to remember how it feels to have Minseok's gentle hand resting on his chest, tries to breathe through the desperate pounding of his heart as it hurls itself over and over against his ribs.

He’s only brought back to the present by his phone buzzing against his thigh through the black denim of his jeans. He pulls it from his pocket with trembling hands, almost dropping it as he brings it up to his face. The screen blurs, and he rubs his burning eyes and blinks hard to see who’s calling him. It’s Baekhyun, so he forces himself to push against the floor and sit up, propping himself against the wall before answering the call.

“Hey, what’s up?” Baekhyun’s familiar voice is like a lifeline in a storm. Jongdae grips his phone so hard his hand aches, presses it against his ear like he can press himself right through it. “I saw that picture Minseok-hyung put up on their business Insta, the selca with you and him and that cat, Haru or Maru or whatever it’s called.” Baekhyun pauses, like he expects Jongdae to say something, but when Jongdae stays quiet, he speaks again. “Are you there? Jongdae?”

“No, a ghost answered the phone,” Jongdae replies. His voice is shockingly calm, if a little hoarse from throwing up. He feels disconnected from his body, like he’s floating way off somewhere and there’s only a shell of him left to do the talking.

“Minseok-hyung came over today, asked where you were. I told him you were visiting your parents, didn’t you tell him you were going?”

“No.”

“He kind of freaked out about whether you’d be okay or not, at your parents’ house, when Kyungsoo and I were talking to him, but…” Baekhyun makes a frustrated noise. “When I saw that picture, I wondered if that was why you hadn’t told him, because you always push people away if they get too close.”

“No, I…it’s not that. I told him he could post it.” Jongdae’s head feels so clouded. He can’t get his eyes to focus properly, or his brain.

“Jongdae, you sound kind of weird. Are you okay?”

I’m fine, he wants to say, but you always push people away is almost as loud as the need to do the pushing, and Baekhyun doesn’t deserve this from Jongdae, he never has.

“No,” Jongdae says, and now his voice shows the cracks. “I’m not okay.”

Baekhyun’s startled inhale almost makes Jongdae laugh, but amusement is something inaccessible to him right now. He traps the phone between his ear and his shoulder to free his hands so he can rub them up and down his arms. He’s freezing, but he’s not sure if his shivering is from the panic or the cold.

“Jongdae.” Baekhyun’s tone has gone sharp, which is how Jongdae knows he’s worried him. "Talk to me."

Jongdae stares at nothing. “I...”

“Shall I come get you?” Baekhyun asks. “I can come right now, I know Junmyeon-hyung will let me borrow his car if I explain, I can -”

“No,” Jongdae says, heart filling at how ready Baekhyun is to drop everything and make a two-hour drive in the dark on a public holiday, just for Jongdae. “I can’t keep on running away.”

“Away from what? What’s happened?”

“I told hyung,” Jongdae says, and his inhale catches, like a sob. “I told him…”

“Oh, Jongdae. Did it go badly?”

“No, not - not as badly as it could have. I just...”

“I don’t like this,” Baekhyun says. He sounds so, so worried, and it makes Jongdae want to cry. “I don’t like you being alone there like this. Can’t I come get you, bring you home? Or I’ll stay over. Your parents won’t mind too much, will they? You know I’m a charmer, they’ll adore me.”

“No, don’t. I’ll be better soon. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon anyway.”

“I hate this,” Baekhyun says fiercely. “I hate that I can’t do anything about it. That you won’t let me do anything for you.”

“That’s not it.” Slipping the fingers of his free hand into his hair, he pulls hard enough to hurt. “I’d let you come, I promise I would, but let’s be rational here.” He’s shaking, his voice is shaking, he can’t control it. “It’s after eight, you wouldn’t be here till ten or later, and I don’t want you having to drive in the dark for two hours when I’ll be fine soon enough. Nothing’s going to happen to me. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Baekhyun sighs. “Okay. At least you’re talking to me this time.”

“I am,” Jongdae says. “I am talking to you.”

“It’s a big thing for you, Jongdae. I know that.” Baekhyun’s voice softens. “You don’t have to do this alone, you know.”

“I know,” Jongdae says. “I know that now.”

Baekhyun talks to him for a while longer, tells him about how the day went in his absence. Sooyoung brought Lala over to Amaranth on a little cat harness and leash, and she charmed all the customers. Kyungsoo let Jongin decorate the song