The stadium was in full attendance, and so the victory counted more than usual. Kibum clapped with the rest of the spectators and even stood up in respect like any regular fan. The striker of the winning team ran a lap of the ground, kissing two of his fingers and holding them up in the air in a sort of salute— a salute he’d always made to his supporters, ever since his days playing for the high school team. Kibum smiled a little at the memory, shaking his head in adoration of the sight before him.
Minho hadn’t changed one bit.
His winning goal today shifted the power of this tournament to their team. And that would probably be celebrated with much fervor among the team-mates. Minho had never been one for drinking and loud music but that was ten years ago. People change. Kibum maybe had a few minutes before his opportunity slipped away with the players disappearing to the changing rooms. His eyes followed the distinct head of curly brown hair, his arms pushed their way through protesting rows of people.
He didn’t even care to stop and apologize to any of them.
Underground passages coiled like in a labyrinth everywhere he looked. The halls were lined with steel lockers painted a pleasant sky blue, gleaming cleanly under the glare of fluorescent tube-lights. Some shelves covered entire walls, holding trophies and photographs of victorious teams on display. Had it not been for the ruckus emanating from one of the broader corridors, Kibum would’ve easily lost his way in such a directionless maze. He grinned at the sound of Minho’s easily recognizable guffaws.
He peeked through a sharp corner, hearing the hiss of showers and the slam of lockers under lively congratulatory banter. His eyes meekly searched through the throng of sweaty and soapy athletes, all in various stages of undress. One of the players noticed him and ssup-ed in his direction before walking off. Another raised a questioning eyebrow and took a few steps to close the distance. Minho himself was busy laughing and joking with a few people, slipping off his shirt and having his hair ruffled by the captain.
"Do you need something, sir?" Kibum was asked, voices slowly dying off around the doorway to look at him. He blinked a few times before smiling and shaking his head, but Minho heard the lull in celebration. And when he twisted his neck a little, when his eyes flicked to Kibum, nothing made a sound.
The look on his face was more shock than surprise. He slowly stood up and hung a towel round his neck, spindly fingers pulling the fabric down from either side. His twin-bumped Adam’s apple bobbed a little, like when he was nervous before answering a question in class. His eyes were sharper, more cutting than they used to be, but his hair was longer and slightly unruly. Completely unlike his prim and proper attire through school. His circular lips pressed together to silence themselves, then unfolded out again indecisively. “What’re you doing here?”
Kibum felt his smile evaporate. “I thought uhm…” he blinked at the rest of the team, the air seeming to dress itself into a tinge of hostility. He shook his head in defeat. So he’d been stupid to come here expecting any better after all. He pushed himself away from the threshold to the changing room. “I’ll go. Sorry.”
“N-no, wait, uh!” he was stopped mid-turn by the words. He looked back with newfound hope, fingers tightening on the cloth inside his pockets. “I’ll… I’ll change and be out in a minute,” Minho permitted. “We can talk then.”
“So you still play, eh?” the conversation was shaky at best.
“Yeah, on and off,” Minho shrugged, playing with his seatbelt strap. “It’s just a local club that meets to play for charity.”
They drove along all the old hangouts. Kibum restrained the urge to point each place out. This is the alley we ran into when it started raining, that is the awning we stopped under for our first kiss, that over there is the place you bought me my first present. Faded graffiti flew past, chipped signboards jogged away, emptied lots and replaced shop fronts whipped in the opposite direction. At one particular signal he smiled at the memory of how nervous Minho used to be crossing the road. His nails would dig into Kibum’s palm and he’d mutter incoherencies under his breath.
When the light turned green a bike vroomed out of nowhere and drove round them to take an illegal u-turn. He slammed his foot on the brakes and gasped when the vehicle behind them started to honk. He raised his hand in the rear-view mirror to apologize before picking the clutch up again.
“I’m so shocked you’re not yelling your head off,” Minho remarked from the passenger seat, a smile evident under his soft tone.
“What?”
“Back then…” the other explained slowly, a giggle hanging off the hooks in his pronunciations, that endearing lisp persisting through the years. “You’d scream at the top of your lungs when someone cut you at a traffic light. I’d hear it loud and clear even through the helmet.” It was a blush-inducing observation but Kibum just shook his head contritely, having found another thing he wished he could change about the past. They drove on in silence then until Minho perked up again. "Hey, what did you do with your scooter? Do you still have it?"
Kibum shook his head, looking in his side-view mirror before making a turn into a narrow lane. Craning his neck to look for a parking spot he followed Minho’s pointing finger once they reached their destination. “It’s in Daegu. I sold it off to a distant relative. He kept bugging me about it until one day I got fed up and just let him have it. I think he handed it over to someone who collected scraps or whatever…”
“You sound like you miss it.”
The engine was switched off, the car started to beep about the driver’s door being open. They looked at each other and smiled. “I do.”
The bar was a relatively new development, but it was a safe choice. Everywhere else was too painful, too familiar. The first date, the second date, the third date. The date after the first snow of the year, the date when they bunked an extra lecture, the date where they fed each other ice-cream from their cups. Somewhere new, somewhere unrelated would be innocuous and tame. That’s what he’d thought when they decided to have a drink together.
Even indoors it felt like another city.
They took a seat by the windows so they’d have enough of a distraction looking outside when the conversation reached an uncomfortable lull. But Minho was uncharacteristically talkative. “So you were sent to Daegu in the end…” he stated more than asked. “Hyung told me once that your parents were—that you were moving away soon after graduation but…” his voice dropped to a mumble. What was left unsaid still clanged in the space between them. “But since I didn’t see you in school after—”
“How’s Jinki?” Kibum reverted the subject.
Minho sat up straight, looking an odd mix of thankful and casual. “He’s doing great~” he swayed on an elbow, pausing to thank the young girl who brought them their drinks. “He’s helping with research in Japan now, the government approved his grant five years ago. He’s really happy. Much happier than he was here, anyway…” the discussion started to droop away before Kibum pulled it taut again.
“So you were in Japan with him?”
“No,” Minho shook his head and cringed after a sip from his mug. He’d never liked the taste of alcohol and the one time Kibum had pranked him into drinking some secretly, he’d spat the mouthful out without pause and with a lot of yelling. “No, he sent me to America for college. After uhh. After Konkuk took away my scholarship there was no time to apply anywhere else. So I… went with it.” The stretch of his lips was pitiful. “Jinki hyung followed me after a year because he was facing a lot of trouble from the Department of Medical Research and stuff…”
Kibum nodded appreciatively. “So you’re a Migukin now, eh?” They chuckled lightly at that, regardless of how unfunny it was. At least it brightened the mood a tiny bit.
“What about you? What brought you back to Seoul?” Minho asked after a while. The final streaks of light filtering in through the window made his naturally long lashes look longer. Kibum found himself straying off to the times they’d tickle his cheek when they kissed, or the times they’d appear thicker after a bath. Rapping knuckles brought him back.
“Huh? Oh… uhh. Sorry,” he frowned at the grains of wood on the table. “Yeah, I… My halmoni had a childhood friend—an architect. She got me to be their apprentice for a few years until I could go study abroad.” He let out a lingering sigh. “That stadium… a big European firm has been commission to rebuild it. I’m sure you’ve heard.” Kibum shrugged indifferently at the other’s questioning gaze. “I’m one of the structural engineers on the team.”
“Oh…” the other sat back in his seat, a grin slowly blooming on his features. “I thought you hated Physics.”
Kibum grinned back. “That was a long time ago,” he played with the extra coasters advertising a foreign brand of beer. He’d always wanted to be an architect, and he’d often discussed it with Minho on late nights, when they’d have to make do with text messages instead of calls. After he’d failed his college entrance exam though, he’d had to sit through a thousand persuasive fights with his grandmother, her insisting on choosing an easier career path and him stubbornly sticking with his preference. “Besides, engineering has less to do with Physics than basic logic…” he scoffed.
Minho hummed in response. “Ah, right, how’s Jonghyun?”
“Married,” Kibum raised his eyebrows and the other mimicked him. “If you can believe that. He has a daughter too, about this high,” he motioned with his palm, holding it on a level with his hip sitting down. “Takes after him without a doubt. Never shuts up, never falls asleep on time, is a spitting image of him when he was a snot-nosed kid.” Minho giggled at that, a sound reminiscent of the times Kibum playfully tickled him in the school library; trapping him between a cage of arms and a tall stack of books before kissing the curve of his neck. “He named me the godfather for some reason. I never understood that guy.”
They blinked at each other for a few seconds before looking away. “We’re all grown up now, man…” Minho susurrated lowly to the large window.
“Do you ever go back to your family?” Minho chimed as they walked along the river bank. They were trying to search for some restaurant the other claimed he’d been to once and wanted to revisit because it’d been a long while since. The question itself threw Kibum off balance, disturbing the plateaued buzz of alcohol in his head.
“What family?” he simply asked back, steam issuing from his mouth. After Minho had been suspended from school, leaving Kibum to fend for himself, he had clearly told his parents that he wanted to quit. That the place suffocated him because of what it stood for and what it had done to a lot of its students. His parents had been dead set against the idea at first. But when Kibum consciously started to do badly at schoolwork, going as far as deliberately getting into a physical fight, they’d pulled him out and finally shipped him away to Daegu. He’d never turned around again.
“And you?” he inquired when it was his turn.
Minho looked at the ground while they strolled against a stream of night-time tourists. “… What family?” he answered in kind, and while it wasn’t a laughing matter Kibum couldn’t help the loud guffaw that escaped him. The other chuckled at the lights of a bridge spanning across the Han while continuing. “No, I don't. But I met Minseok hyung for a game last week. He's doing well. Much better than I'd expected him to do, at any rate.”
When they finally found the restaurant and were offered a table right by the railing fixed along the banks, Minho retold the story of his dinner here with Jinki. And the silly reiterating of how smitten he’d been by the professor warmed Kibum up some more. He immersed himself deeper in the conversation, exclaiming and chortling at all the right spaces; tracing the shapes Minho’s lips made whenever they pronounced a vowel or elongated a consonant.
“I was so dumb…” the other dismissed himself, taking a sip of his wine and pouring both of them some more. “Ever since then, I daydreamed about him taking me on a date after every working day. It was the stupidest, most teenaged delusion ever.”
Kibum easily shrugged, playing with the food on his plate. “You weren’t the only one. I had some delusions of my own.”
Minho rapidly sobered a great degree then, leaning away from the banter, blinking as if penitently. An abrupt gust played with the ends of his scarf, waving them around hypnotically. Kibum extended out with his fingertips and gently tapped a disordered rhythm on the other’s knuckles. Or at least he thought he did. He may have imagined himself doing it, as drunk and as cold as he was. Because Minho didn’t pull back from the contact, kept his fist clenched and within reach.
“The things I said that night…” he started, but then gave up with a heavy grumble, folding his arms to himself. Someone on another table started to sing birthday wishes but the two of them paid it no heed. They remained quiet through the rest of their dinner, or whatever they could stomach of it after the forcibly expurgated discussion. Kibum finally pushed his plate away with distaste, motioning a waiter for the bill.
“The things you said that night were the sweetest things anyone has ever said to me,” Minho suddenly called attention to himself. Kibum blinked over and over again to readjust his focus on the other’s gradually blurring face, hearing his breath rattle inside his own head. “And because I’d never been… never heard something that kind, that good. I didn’t know how to react.” Minho bowed to rest his chin on his chest. “And it turned out badly, didn’t it? All because I was too stupid…”
Kibum snorted. “If you were stupid we would’ve run away that night.” He raked his hand through his hair, doing nothing to mask his frustration. “If you were stupid we would’ve been together for ten years tonight…” he looked up and pressed his lips in a show of sincerity. “Or not. Who knows, eh? What’s done is done, and we need to live with it.” He picked up the bill and paid for it in spite of protests from the other. “We are living with it,” he grinned, making the waiter disappear before Minho could grab the check from the man’s hands.
“Hey, we could’ve dutched…” the other complained, his pout reminding of days Kibum would and then laugh about it in his face.
“Please, I know you wanted to come here some day with me. You told me so a hundred times.”
“Hundred?” Minho raised his eyebrows skeptically.
“At least,” Kibum nodded.
“So you’re back to working on cancer research?”
Minho swung his body childishly. A drunken snigger fell from him as he walked beside Kibum, who floated on his own personal cloud of inebriation. They’d had to leave his car back at the bar because they were both too drunk to drive anymore. So they made their way to the railway station on foot, bumping shoulders and giggling senselessly at absolutely nothing. Some other ramblers gave them a wide berth, often circumambulating them altogether. It felt like they were young irresbonsible teens again, and it felt good.
“I’m my own boss now~!” Minho threw his arms to his sides. “No one tells me what to do!” He suddenly stopped and looped around, poking a finger at Kibum’s nose. “Except my lawyer… I have to do whatever he says or I’m going to be in deep trouble.”
“…” Kibum insulted, and Minho covered his mouth to muffle his laugh. “When will you ever grow a spine, eh? You let everyone push you around long enough, now you probably can’t even go to the loo without asking someone first…” He nudged the other off himself as his long limbs started to drape around his shoulders. “Ah, get off me you big baby…! And walk faster or we’ll miss the last train.” He looked at his watch and groaned when none of the flashing numbers made any sense.
“I should’ve learnt that from you, right?” Minho wagged his finger, trying to look serious. “I should’ve learnt to—to not give a , and do whatever the hell I wanted.” He slurred, swiping his hand in wide motions, accidentally bumping into the wall running along beside them. “I should’ve seen you more closely. I was an idiot not to study harder when I was with—with you.”
“Ah we’re here, we’re here,” Kibum pointed at the subway entrance, hauling Minho along. The other tried to wriggle out of his grasp but failed, scratching his head and tutting in an irritated tone about how he wanted to just go to sleep, and as they descended he only got noisier. Once or twice Minho lost his balance on the escalator, so Kibum had to hold him tight, almost hug him close to his stomach. And that delicate scent of cherry blossoms invaded his senses again, after years of trying to search for it in crowded malls and teeming buses.
He took in deep lungfuls without the other noticing.
Beeping through the gates that led to the platform, Kibum bodily carried Minho to the large board indicating the two tracks on this station. They slumped their sides against it, cringing at the brightness of overhead tube lights. “That’s you…” he pointed to one line of stops. “And that’s me,” he tapped the other with his nail. “Which means this is where we part. We have to go our separate ways again, man…” he held his palm out for a handshake.
Minho swatted him away. “What if I say I want you to come over?”
“What if I say I want you to come over?” Kibum retaliated like in a juvinile game.
A lazy set of fingers wiped the air between them. “Too far, too far.” Minho twisted to look at the LED board showing arrival times of both trains. It was amazing that the other could still make head or tail of the blinking red display because Kibum most certainly could not; no matter how much he squinted. “And your stupid ride will get here much later than my beautiful chariot,” he was informed. They snorted in unison. “So…?” an elbow dug into his ribs and he winced, almost doubled over. “What do you say?”
“You want to blame it on the drinks?” Kibum asked with the remaining residue of his sobriety. Because the underlying meaning of the invitation was not lost on him in the face of his smashed state. “When we wake up tomorrow—”
“We’ll see when we get there.” Minho tugged him forward by his wrist, waddling over to stand before a sliding door, humming something completely out of tune. They could already hear the train’s rushing engine. “When we wake up tomorrow we probably won’t remember anything anyway.” he hushed. “So we might as well do something worth forgetting…”
Kibum scowled at that. The train screeched to a halt and the doors to the compartment before them hissed open. Once again he was pulled forward but he resisted this time, with more resolve than the last. Minho's grasp mindlessly slipped off of him as if expecting him to follow on his own. And he almost refused with what little logic he had left in him. But then he swiped his head clean and thought what the hell, it’s just another night. He took a precarious step towards the threshold of the compartment, looking at Minho hang off a pole while grinning mischievously at him.
But then the glass partition slid shut.
Kibum jumped away in confusion, the haze inside his brain crackling off. Minho flew to the door from the inside of the train looking shocked. His palms flattened on the glass. His breath fogged on the surface, his knuckles struck against it, lips mouthing something inaudible. And with the tick of each little second, just like that afternoon ten years ago when Kim aboji placed a one-way bus ticket on Kibum’s study desk, the train started to hum louder before pulling them apart.
He staggered backwards till he hit a column, the corner of an advertising display digging into his hip. “Minho…” he breathed out with disbelief. His eyes flashed around in search of something that could help him but even he didn’t know what he wanted anymore. A station master walked across his view and asked if everything was alright you don’t look too good, sir.
“Minho…!” Kibum whined before running up the steps and out of the subway station, but looping back a ways in confused urgency. “Minho Minho Minho…” he clawed at his hair and felt an angry yell bubble out of his throat. Resentment, then panic started to coil around him as he helplessly turned round and round in place as if looking for an exit from this situation.
The sound of feet pattering on the ground thudded against his headache. He scratched at his own face, feeling his body weigh downwards when someone whirled him around brashly.
Minho huffed, bending forward as if trying to ease a stitch in his side. Kibum gawked at him.
“Why didn’t you get on the train?!” When the other straightened up his face was still red. “Why didn’t you come look for me before you went away?” he went on, his questions suddenly veering into Kibum’s chest like prickly accusations. “Why didn’t you answer my texts for a whole month? Why didn’t you ever pick up the phone? Why didn’t you try harder when you said you loved me? Bummie…” Minho gulped, clenching at the front of his shirt like it was choking him. “Bummie, why didn’t you take me away with you? Why didn't you come away with me?!”
He shook his head. “Y-you…” he pointed towards a random direction. “You ran back from…”
“Back in that bathroom when I came to tell you I don’t want you to get hurt. Why didn’t you stop me?” Minho relentlessly attacked, pulling him by his collar, shaking him a little. “Why didn’t you say— Hoho, you’re so stupid, why would you do that to protect me? Why would you take the fall? We’re supposed to be together idiot... Why didn’t you say that to me again when you had the chance?!”
“, Minho you ran back from the next station...” Kibum stayed fixated on that, his brain working too slow to process anything else.
“I would’ve done anything for you,” Minho admitted. “I’d still do anything for you. I just didn’t know how to say that at the time...” he squatted in exhaustion. Kibum kneeled next to him, the roughness of paving stones biting into his knees. “And you would’ve done anything for me too, right?” he was asked, but he just smoothed over the other’s back as his respiration leveled again.
“You made me wear that stupid helmet all the time but you never had one for yourself,” Minho alleged. “You readily looked like a fool just so you could make me laugh on a bad day. You followed me around school trying to keep me company because you knew I had no other friends. You took up pathetic jobs with pathetic pay just so you could buy me dumb gifts. Gifts that I loved so much I still have them stored carefully in a box at home,” he sobbed. “But you’re such an , because you never even expected anything back from me, did you? You never took anything from me, you just gave and gave and gave till I was so deep in debt I had to leave you.”
“I didn’t want you to leave…” Kibum sighed, drawing ellipses and bulbs on Minho’s spine.
“Then why didn’t you make me stay?!” the other demanded.
“I… I didn’t want to hold you down,” he shook his head, retracting himself into a ball. “Back then… I wasn’t so good for you. I know you'd leave eventually. So I wanted to catch up at my own pace. I wanted to come get you when I was good enough for you. When I thought I could match up to your standards. But it took me too long. I wasn't even qualified to try and be good for you.”
“That’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard!” Minho wiped his face on his sleeves, still sobbing like a little boy.
Kibum snickered and nodded, reaching out to run a thumb under Minho's pretty brown eyes. “I know, right?”
“So... so what if I say I want you to come over?” Minho sniffed and looked at him with much expectation. A throng had started to gather in a circle around them, staring and whispering. Kibum paid them no heed and neither did Minho.
“What if I say I want you to come over?” he repeated himself.
“I’d say screw public transport. Let’s just walk till we can’t feel our feet.”
“Seconded,” Kibum grinned.
And kkeut~!
Thank you for reading and if you thought this was a cool story bruh then well bonus points for all of us right?
Please continue to support MinKey (and OnHo... and OnTae and JongKey and JongHo and OnKey and JongYu and JongTae and TaeKey and 2min and basically every other SHINee pairing ever tbh) with all your heart eyes.
Drive responsibly my childern.
~IQ
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