XI.

Kibum didn’t know how long that ray of sunlight had been peeking through the gap in the curtains before it found its way to his face; nor did he know how long it took for him to become aware of it. He had been having a sweet dream of him and his lovely Minho cuddling in bed, whispering sweet nothings to one another till they fell asleep.

Oh wait, Kibum thinks as he can feel Minho’s bare chest slightly ascending and descending, that wasn’t a dream at all. His lips tug up in a smile as he admires Minho’s flawless features. As he continues to stare he hopes that he and Minho’s relationship will be everlasting and that nothing will come in between them - ever. He sighs, content with his wish as he plants a kiss on Minho’s cheek before disentangling their limbs and slowly makes his way out of the bed so he can go use the restroom.

A couple minutes later after Kibum had left to the restroom; Minho was awakened by his blaring cellphone. He groaned before answering it, for it had interrupted his blissful slumber.

“Yes?”

“Minho! Why do you sound like you just woke up?” In Guk’s voice fill his ears. “It’s almost twelve in the afternoon, son.”

“It’s the weekend. I think I’ve earned myself a good night’s rest.” Minho slowly sits up, stretching, the popping of his bones audible.

In Guk chuckles on the other line, “I heard what went down last night from Daeho. So you have his kid with you right now?”

“Yes, by his mother’s request.” Minho explains, now noticing that Kibum had disappeared from bed. “He’s staying till Sunday; the Kim family should have something arranged by then.

“And if they don’t? I mean, Daeho didn’t mention much.”

“I’m not a ing babysitter,” Minho runs a hand through his messy bed hair, sighing. The light coming through the window was a tad bit irritating so he leans over and adjusts it. “And you know exactly why he can’t stay for long.”

“I know. We’ll figure something out, trust me.”

Minho hangs up and tosses his phone aside. He lay back down, wrapping himself in his duvet to shield himself from the cold. 

Minho felt weird about this whole ordeal. Kibum, originally, was just an annoying student to him, he never did any of the work he assigned, he slept throughout his lectures and he always talked or passed notes, distracting other students. And coincidentally he met the seventeen year old at a gay club. He was blonde, had dark eyeliner on, and these extraordinary feminine looks. Minho didn’t even have a thing for blondes it was just he was so… so sweet. He was so sweet that he could possibly give Minho cavities or something of the sort.

"D-Do you come here often?" Kibum had stammered. He bit his lip shyly as the bartender had served them the drinks he had ordered.

Minho chuckles at the memory. Maybe it was how shy he was that Minho didn't suspect to him to be some drunken bastard who was trying to get him drunk. He succeeded in getting him drunk after only a couple of drink though, only because Minho's alcohol tolerance was horrendous.

"What's so funny?" Kibum jumps back into bed, catching Minho off guard. 

"A-And where were you?" Minho dodges his question. He unwraps himself and invites Kibum, who's giggling at Minho attempt to cover up the fact that he was laughing to himself kind of like a madman earlier, under the duvet with him.

"Bathroom," Kibum steals all the covers away from the older man.

Minho whines, "It’s cold." He steals the covers back and holds them tightly around his body.

"Yah!" Kibum shouts but he's giggling at the same time. He tries to steal it back but Minho's too strong for him. He gives up pulling and begins to kick Minho in the until he rolled off the bed and crashed onto the floor.

Minho groans in pain and Kibum's giggles cease.

"Are you okay?" He demands, hopping off the bed to his aide. "I didn't mean to hu-" He's interrupted by Minho tripping him to the floor and straddling him beneath him as he pulls Kibum’s hands above his head.

"Gotcha," he laughs letting the younger go.

Kibum sighs and then a smile forms on his lips as his arms snake their way around Minho's neck. He brings Minho down to plant an innocent, chaste kiss on his lips. Kibum could feel butterflies rapidly flying around in his stomach - he’s happy. He’s very happy.

Minho pulls away first, a pleased smile on his face. "I think we should wash up now."

"Can I go first?"

"Sure, take whatever from my closet too..." Minho helps the other to his feet and gives him a gentle tap on the lower back. He leaves the room to go check on Jonghyun.

He stretches again as he makes his way down the hall to his roommates’ room. 

Telling Jonghyun about Kibum and him would definitely not be a good idea. Jonghyun's stupid but he's not that stupid; it wouldn't take him much time to put two and two together and realize that the Kim Kibum he’s always complaining about is Kim Daeho's son. And maybe he'd accidently spill the beans about him working as a teacher at Genie High, because he's THAT stupid. 

Minho enters Jonghyun's room without knocking and finds him in his towel, squinting at the TV because he probably didn’t have his contact lenses in. 

"C-Can't you knock?" Jonghyun demands. He’s a bit flustered because of Minho's sudden arrival. 

"This is my condo why should I?" Minho jokes, shrugging. He crosses his arm as he leans against the door frame. "Does your head still hurt?"

"I'm fine. I know how to take care of a hangover." Jonghyun replies. 

"I kind of wanted to talk to you." Minho scratches the back of his neck nervously.

"Can I change first?" Jonghyun huffs. “I have to fill in for someone today at work.” He picks up his phone off the bed to check the time.

"Okay, but this is won’t take much of your time."

"Okay, okay, just don't look please."

“Why are you being so shy?” Minho laughs.

Jonghyun glares at him. “I don’t want you to see me change… is that so wrong?”

Minho rolls his eyes and turn around. "Whatever. Ten...nine..."

"Are you serious?" He hears Jonghyun mumble to himself.

"Very serious. Seven... Six..."

He hears a bunch of clothes being thrown around and he was certain Jonghyun tripped over something in the tussle. 

"Three... Two... One..." Minho turns and Jonghyun is decent. He successfully managed to throw on his khaki pants he always wore to work with and just pulled on a black tank top in the nick of time.

"Okay," Jonghyun whips his wet hair out of his eyes. "What do you want to talk about?"

The question is at the tip of Minho's tongue. When were you certain that you were gay? He wants to ask, but it’s not coming out and he doesn't know why. He’s thinking Jonghyun would take offense to the question or maybe he'd think he was gay. He was never attracted to men, but then what made Kim Kibum any different? Minho exhales, his head hurts from all this thinking.

"Minho?" 

"Never mind, forget it. It’s stupid." He decides it’d be stupid to ask and quickly departs from Jonghyun’s bedroom.

Jonghyun stares at the door, confused as ever. 

I wonder what that was all about. It’s kind of odd of him to approach me like that…

****

Jonghyun had gone off for work. Usually he had Saturdays off, but he was covering someone's shift. It didn't bother him because apparently he'd get an extra pay.

In the meantime, Minho was attempting to make himself a sandwich, reason "attempting" was said was because of one; he didn't even know where the ingredients were when it was his home and two; there was Kibum on his right hand side, following him everything, rubbing against his arm occasionally and he kept looking up at Minho and giggling and being cute and it caused a great distraction.

"Will you quit that?" Minho snaps when he gets tired of it. "Can't you see I'm trying to make a sandwich?"

Kibum covers his mouth as he laughs for the nth time. "How can this be a sandwich when there is no turkey or ham in between? You don't even have lettuce or even tomatoes."

"I do have it, it's just..." Minho mutters. "It's just I don't do the cooking around here."

"How about I make you one?" Kibum takes apart Minho's "sandwich" and begins to look around the kitchen. 

Minho pulls himself up on the counter. "How would a kid who's born with a silver spoon in his mouth going to make me a sandwich? I mean - isn't everything done for you anyways?"

Kibum scoffs, giving Minho an "are-you-kidding-me" look. "I had a sudden interest in gaining culinary skills so I requested to be taught." He pulls out some tomatoes from a drawer in the refrigerator, grabbing a cutting board afterwards. "It's a shame a twenty-seven year old man can't even make something as simple as a sandwich."

Minho couldn't tell if that was a joke or it was meant to hurt his pride. 

"It was a joke, Minho." Kibum says as he skillfully cuts the tomatoes.

Minho says nothing. He just watches Kibum as he makes his way to and fro about his kitchen. 

About three minutes go by and then Kibum was finished. "Here you go, enjoy." Kibum sets down a plate in front of Minho and then one for himself.

Hungrily, Minho takes one big bite out of it. It feels like a bunch of wonderful flavors were having a party on his taste buds as he chews. Kibum is looking at him intently, waiting for his comments.

"It's great," Minho says, taking another bite. "You're good."

"Thanks, but please don't talk with your mouth full that’s bad table manners." Kibum jokes. Minho sticks out his tongue while food particles were still on it, earning another fake disgusted look from Kibum, but it’s immediately covered by his cute and gentle laughter.

A couple of big bites later Minho is finished with his sandwich. He notices Kibum hadn't finished his sandwich and wasn't close at all in finishing it. He says nothing of it because he has some other things he wants to talk about with Kibum.

"Do your parents know that you're...gay?" Minho takes a swig from his bottled water.

Kibum shakes his head. "They can't know, either."

"Why not?" 

"What do you mean 'why not?'"

"I mean, my roommate's gay and his parents are A-okay with it."

"Well, not all parents are the same." Kibum slumps in his seat. "Nobody knows that I'm gay actually. Not even at school. I go to Genie High by the way. I have this reputation that I have to live up too."

"Ah,” Minho quickly changes the subject. He doesn’t want to talk about Genie High. “What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"A doctor," Kibum says. "I want to help people. Save lives... that kind of thing. But I can't do that if they know I'm a homo. People are very closed minded, y’know?"

Minho nods thinking it'd be pretty easy for Kibum to have such a difficult occupation, seeing that he was honestly very intelligent.

"How about you? Have you told your parents?"

"What parents?" Minho jeers to himself, walking towards the fridge. Kibum watches him grabs another bottled water with pity in his eyes. "And two, honestly I..."

"Ugh!" Kibum exclaims, suddenly. "Please don't tell me you were looking for an experience? Is that why you were at the club?"

"No, no, it just so happened that you came along. I was handling my own business till you came." Minho answers, trying hard to say something that made sense and the angry and confused stare Kibum shot at him didn’t help. "I was just there for... Look, men really aren't my... I just liked you... I guess, okay? Is that a good enough answer?"

"You like me?" Kibum's eyes nearly sparkle.

"No, I mean… I guess," Minho covers his face, completely embarrassed. He was not used to talking about such a cheesy subject.

Kibum raises an interested eyebrow at Minho's sudden behavior. His ears were reddening and he finds it kind of cute to see the older man get so flustered like this. 

"What did you like about me?"

"Can we talk about something else?"

"No! We are talking about this." Kibum laughs, but there’s a hint of seriousness in his tone. He scoots his wooden chair closer to him and beams at him. "So, tell me, what made you decide not to run off?"

"I don't know, you were nice," Minho shrugs. "You were different... I don't know. I really don't know why I like you! Why do you like me?!"

Kibum giggles. "You were cute and you looked sort of out of place. My sixth sense was telling me something about you..." He traces Minho's beautiful features with his eyes and smiles, dreamily. "And when you stood up, you were really tall. I have a thing for taller guys."

Minho laughs at that silly comment.

Kibum rests his forehead on Minho's shoulder. "I still don't understand why people would want to harm my family and I…" 

Minho just grunts in response. He doesn't really understand either but he knows he’ll figure it out eventually.

"Can we do something?" Kibum lifts his head.

"Do something?" Minho questions. "Like what?"

"Like go outside, go get fresh air."

"I'll open the window if you feel stuffy..." Minho suggests. Just "going out for air" was exactly something he did. Kibum doesn't object, but that doesn't stop him from asking more questions.

"So do you just stay in your condo all day?"

"Yes, I like being in the comfort of my home."

"So you don't like going out?"

"It's not that I don't it's just-"

"You like the comfort of your house, got it. So you don't have any friends?"

"I do." He has Jonghyun.

"When's the last time you had a relationship?"

"I was never interested in relationships..." He really wasn't. When he needed to fulfill his libido it wasn't hard for him to do. He didn't mean to brag but he had to give it to himself - he was pretty good-looking. He thanked his parents, wherever the they were, for blessing him with such looks.

"But now you are?"

"You ask a lot of questions."

Kibum shrugs. "Just trying to get to know you…"

"Can I ask you something for once?" Kibum nods. "What were you doing in a club when you're under aged?"

"It was something fun I guess," Kibum shrugs. "Good thing I was there huh?"

Even if he wasn’t there he technically already knew him, but he just wouldn’t have these weird feelings about him… “Just promise me you’ll never go again, that’s not a good environment for a little kid like you.” Minho instructs, ruffling the younger’s hair harshly.

“I’m not a little kid and okay I promise…” Kibum grumbles. “So, you have a job right? Of course you do, you live in such a nice home.”

“Yes. I think that’s enough questions for now,” Minho states as he migrates to the living room. He lay down on the couch and moments later Kibum is crawling on top of him, resting his head on his broad chest. Minho smiles as he hears Kibum’s steady heart beat against his stomach.

All of this was new to Minho; smiling genuine smiles, holding someone in his arms, getting shy and embarrassed when talking to them, kissing someone with unexplainable emotions…

Minho had to admit (as much as he didn't want to admit it), he kind of like it… a lot.

ooohh. minho's cold heart is perhaps melting? PERHAPS?
don't be silent reader, kay?
oh and don't forget to upvote

i'll have another chapter up in a few hours... if not then definitely tomorrow.

-MinhosAegyo