Work Text:
It’s summer.
It’s been summer for a while.
It’s like it’s always been summer.
When Minho goes downstairs, he flips on the lights and boots up the computer before going over to the bookshop door to change the sign from ‘closed’ to ‘open’. Through the glass panel he sees the same things he sees every morning: completely deserted streets, a dramatic swathe of sky, and an ancient sign welcoming people to their town that reads, You are Now Entering Odd Ways. Be Careful!
Odd Ways has been called Odd Ways for as long as anyone can remember because the people who live there have, well, odd ways; that is, they each have a unique quirk or attribute, something akin to magic or a superpower, only less flashy and nowhere near as likely to help them save the world. Instead, the abilities of the residents of Odd Ways are on a spectrum of almost useful to mildly inconvenient. Minho’s best friend Changbin, for instance, is unable to speak one word of a lie out loud. Meanwhile, Minho’s mother can teleport but only to the old, stuffy staff room of Odd Ways Library (somewhere she doesn't even work).
As for Minho, he has always been surrounded by a weather system that reflects his moods and whims, a changeable haze of cloud that at any given point could be pierced with sunlight, or bruised with the suddenness of rain. The clouds can be crackling at the edges with lightning, or kicked into a spin by a blast of chilly wind, whistling as they gust around the crown of his head. Whatever Minho is feeling, his weather system will depict it in some way, sometimes before he’s even aware of how he’s feeling himself. He can trick it at times, of course, willing it into something calm and pleasant and nondescript, but no weather system can remain steady for long. Eventually it latches onto something and turns, always following his heart, his every ache and thrill.
A lot of people who are born in Odd Ways leave as soon as they get a chance to. Outside of its boundaries, the abilities disappear as if they were never there in the first place. Minho got to experience this whenever he went on vacation, his clouds evaporating into nothing the moment he stepped foot outside of the town, but though it was bliss to be unknowable for a week or two, for everyone to stop trying to interpret every little shift in the tiny atmosphere surrounding him, he always felt a little lonesome and incomplete without it.
In a similar way, if someone were to pass through the town, or come to stay there on vacation, they become the temporary holder of a random but mostly useless ability. People are drawn to Odd Ways expecting it to be a place where they can escape from the mundane, only to be given an ‘oddity’ that’s usually pretty inconsequential—only ever possessing clean gloves, for example, or having your freckles turn multi-coloured. Minho might go as far to say it’s a gimmick but it’s evidently a gimmick that works, with Odd Ways being crammed with tourists in the summer.
That said, the streets are mostly empty just now because Minho usually opens the shop early. It's a habit by now, one he quite enjoys in the fall and the winter, when it’s still dark out as he drinks his morning coffee and he gets to potter about doing daily admin while the sun gently rises and begins to warm the shelves and floorboards. In summer, though, he can never outpace the sun. Daylight always greets him, even on a day like today when the sky is all sulking, purple clouds and patches of yellow the colour of cloudy lemonade. A storm is coming, he thinks. Not for him, of course, because he’s content, and his clouds are still, but out there something is brewing, he can feel it.
Minho makes his way back to his desk and flops down into his chair, letting it roll backwards and bump against the wall. Then, he yawns, the sound tailending into something loud and indistinct, before he stretches, his back arching deeply enough for something to pop. All the sudden noise and movement makes Soonie, Doongie and Dori, who are all snoozing together in one muddled, fuzzy heap by a shelf of early 00s romance manhwa, blink their eyes open just to glare at him. He sticks his tongue out in their general direction and starts clicking around on his computer.
He doesn’t have any email enquiries, which is boring, because he loves answering those, but he does have an email informing him that his top-up order of all his best-selling mystery titles has been delayed and he won’t get them for another week. He sighs, the clouds beginning to stir above his head, but it can’t be helped, he tells himself. He’ll get the books when he gets them. He closes his empty inbox and then an hour or so passes without anyone visiting the shop.
Minho dusts the shelves (he has a suspicion that one of the cats must have the ability of generating an absurd amount of dust in their surroundings overnight but it hasn’t ever been proven whether the animal residents of Odd Ways get bestowed with weird abilities or not so he can’t be completely sure) and plays with the cats for a bit before picking up the creepy, horror book he’s been reading.
By the time Changbin comes round later that morning, it’s raining. Minho can imagine how hot and heavy the air must be outside. Summer storms are his favourite but only from a distance. When they’re happening around his head, they’re a real bellyache. Changbin shakes the rain from his hair and dumps his soaked-through raincoat on the bookshop’s empty hatstand. Then, he walks towards Minho and hands him a paper bag that’s still-warm and streaked with grease. Minho reaches inside, tears off a strip of sweet hotteok and sunshine leaks all the way down into his eyes as soon as he starts chewing.
“Good?” Changbin guesses.
Minho just hums affirmatively as he continues eating.
“Raining out,” Changbin says, a moody rumble of thunder punctuating his sentence, a formidable full stop.
“Noticed,” Minho tells him.
“‘S a pain,” Changbin grumbles, hopping up to sit on the edge of Minho’s desk.
“Don’t you complain to me about rain,” Minho warns him around a pout. “Remember when you dumped me and it rained on my head for a whole week? That was a pain.”
“Hyung, we were like, twelve years old.”
“Heartbreak is always worse when you’re young.”
Changbin scoffs and rolls his eyes. Minho’s joking and he knows it. That said, Minho has had his fair share of days where he’s been rained on without end. Not too many to bear, and not for a while, now, but definitely enough for him to remember the sting.
“Someone moved into my building today,” Changbin tells him, changing the subject.
“Oh?” Minho raises his eyebrows. “An out-of-towner?”
Changbin nods and finishes what’s left of his own hotteok before licking syrup from the tips of his fingers. “Yeah.”
“That’s rare.”
“Maybe he got some kind of shit-hot power,” Changbin suggests.
Minho shoots him a look. “When has that ever happened?”
“Mine’s alright,” Changbin replies.
“Yours is awful. We can’t ever play poker.”
“When would we even play poker, hyung?”
“I might be an excellent poker player.”
“Like you don’t have a huge tell of your own,” Changbin retorts, pointedly looking at Minho’s mini weather system.
Minho laughs hard once and then a few times more gently before shimmying forwards in his seat to plant his head on the table. Outside, the rain falls down in one constant sheet, hissing as it goes.
“Remember how we didn’t know what your ability was until you were seven or something?” Minho murmurs.
“That’s because I don’t lie!” Changbin yells the same way he does every time they have this conversation. “It’s not just that I can’t lie. It’s that I don’t and I won’t, as well!”
“Except that one time,” Minho teases, cupping his face in his palms and peering up at Changbin. “When you were seven.”
“I was trying to cover for you, you ginormous menace,” Changbin hisses, outraged. “You struck my mother’s favourite curtains with your damn lightning.”
“I was excited,” Minho says, breathless. He loves this story. “It was the first time I’d had a friend invite me over.”
Changbin shrugs. “Yeah, well. Don’t say I didn’t try.”
“It was hyung that did it!” Minho mimics in his best baby-Changbin voice.
Changbin’s ears flush red. “I wanted to say the lightning came through the window but the words just wouldn’t come out. It was like they got lodged in my throat. I’ve told you this a million times.”
Minho laughs again, delighted, and it’s like he’s swimming in sunlight now. “As if lightning would come through the window without breaking it or causing any other damage. Your lie wasn’t remotely plausible.”
Changbin’s jaw drops. “You- Hey- How am I supposed to be good at lying if I literally can’t even-?”
Changbin’s question trails off as the bell of the shop door dings and a customer enters the shop.
Minho’s blinks across the store at the customer as his amused chuckles begin to peter out. The man looks to be around Minho or Changbin’s age, maybe younger, but he’s unfamiliar, most likely a tourist, someone on their summer vacation who’s grown bored of the town and just wants a good book to read. Minho straightens in his seat and smiles at the stranger warmly as he calls his usual, “Welcome to Count Bookula. Let me know if you need help finding anything.”
The stranger blinks back at him and returns his smile nervously, dipping his head into a nod like he’s embarrassed or apologising for something before hanging his dripping umbrella on the hatstand and squirrelling off down one of the aisles.
“That’s the guy who moved into my building,” Changbin stage whispers to Minho before shouting, “Hey, Han Jisung!”
Minho can see the customer—Han Jisung—slow to a stop from between the gaps in the bookcases. His sneakers squeak against the floor and then he wanders back up the aisle. Instead of saying anything, he just waves.
“We met this morning,” Changbin says brightly. “I’m Seo Changbin, your new neighbour, remember?”
Jisung nods and bows. “Nice to see you again,” he mumbles towards the floor.
“This is Lee Minho-ssi,” Changbin explains to him, throwing his hand out towards Minho. “He’s an old friend of mine who runs this bookshop.”
“The cats do all the hard work,” Minho quips, gesturing to the Soonie, Doongie and Dori, who are still asleep on the floor, this time in a perfectly triangular formation like Minho’s using them to summon a demon or something.
Jisung doesn’t respond to Minho’s nonsense but he does laugh, and for the brief moment he holds eye contact with Minho before he bashfully looks away, his eyes completely light up. Pretty, Minho thinks, and something tingly and faintly electric sparks right next to his ear that he immediately moves to cover up.
“I- uh-” Now he’s the one who’s tongue-tied and he twirls his finger, vaguely pointing upwards. “I get followed around by all this, um, all this weather? It’s my, you know, my thing. My oddity.”
Jisung’s gaze flits to the space just above Minho and he inhales sharply like he’s only just noticing there’s a great big mound of fluffy clouds drifting around Minho’s head. Minho opens his mouth and closes it again. When he glances at Changbin, Changbin is looking between them with a smirk on his face.
“It’s like a, um, a weather system that changes sometimes,” Minho goes on.
“Oh,” Jisung says simply.
“Like, when he’s mad, there’s usually this massive bang of thunder right as he’s glaring at you,” Changbin supplies helpfully, elbowing Minho in the chest. “Super scary.”
“I never get mad,” Minho says through gritted teeth, his voice sweet. “It’s sunshine and rainbows all the time up here.”
Jisung’s eyes keep darting from Minho to the clouds swirling above his head like he doesn’t quite know what to make of it. “That’s . . . really cool,” he says, finally. “Um. Do you have the new Campfire Murders book? I think it’s called The November Nightmares or something like that.”
Minho stares at him, surprised, and then holds up the book that’s currently lying face down on the desk. “Uh, yeah. I’m reading it just now.”
Jisung’s eyes widen. They’re starry again, almost stupidly twinkly, and Minho begins to worry that a rainbow really will spring out from the side of his head and wrap around him like a gay halo. “Really?” Jisung says, excited, taking a step towards Minho and Changbin. “How is it?”
“So gory,” Minho says, grinning. “It’s better than The Orbs of October but not as good as the one before that.”
“A Stabbing in September?” Jisung says, nodding enthusiastically. “That one was my favourite. I loved the part with Jiwoo-”
“In the cabin that’s stuck between worlds?”
“Yes!”
“I loved that part.”
“I did, too.”
Jisung winces slightly and Minho hopes it isn’t because his sunshine is blinding him. He looks away, turning his gaze back to Changbin, and sees that the smirk has fallen off his face.
“Oh my gosh,” Changbin deadpans. “There are two of them.”
Minho laughs sarcastically and turns back to Jisung to continue their conversation but Jisung is looking down at the ground again, fiddling with the hem of his hoodie and looking sheepish.
Minho clears his throat and points towards the back of the shop. “There are a few copies down there in the horror section.”
“Cool,” Jisung says, dithering on the spot for a few seconds before going off in search of his book.
Minho sighs and deliberately avoids looking at Changbin while they both listen to Jisung sift through the books. Eventually, Changbin starts chanting, shoot your shot, shoot your shot, shoot your shot, in this aggressive whisper, not stopping until Minho delivers a knife hand strike to his thigh.
After what feels like several lifetimes, Jisung returns to the desk with a copy of The November Nightmares in hand. As Minho rings him up, Changbin’s words are still ricocheting around his brain. When Minho catches Jisung’s eye again, he hears the dizzying buzz of lightning against his temples and something fluttery and wild swoops low in his stomach.
“So, like, nobody else in Odd Ways has good taste in books,” he finds himself saying as he starts gift-wrapping the book even though he knows Jisung doesn’t need it to be gift-wrapped. “I’d, um, love to hear what you think of it.”
“Really?” Jisung replies, dazedly watching Minho wind a ribbon around his gift-wrapped book and tie it into a perfect bow.
“Yep,” Minho says, sliding it across the top of the desk toward Jisung.
“Okay, then,” Jisung says, putting his hand on top of the book, too.
“Okay, then,” Minho repeats, breathing out.
“I think one of you will have to give the other your number for that to happen,” Changbin mutters.
When Minho glares at him, Changbin just glares back, rubbing his thigh as if Minho actually hit him hard enough for it to hurt.
Jisung freezes at Changbin’s words, his fingers pressing down against the book hard enough to crinkle the pretty, foiled paper.
Minho lifts his head and seeks out Jisung’s gaze and his heart lifts in his chest when he sees that the hope he is feeling is reflected in Jisung’s expression. Minho wets his lips and swallows. He needs to brush away the awkwardness.
“Changbinnie’s right,” he says. “Should we start a book club chat on KakaoTalk? That’ll be cute.”
Jisung shoots him a look as if to say, are you serious? “Is that okay?” he asks.
Minho gives a little laugh and finally presses the book into his hands before picking up his own and waggling it in front of Jisung’s face. “Yeah, of course. I’m dying to talk to someone about this.”
Jisung hugs his own book to his chest and nods. He nods so much that Minho’s afraid he’ll never stop nodding.
Minho takes his phone and goes to create a new contact before shoving that at Jisung, too. “Put your number in?”
Jisung wordlessly types away for a minute and then gives Minho his phone back. He doesn’t say another word, just leaves the shop and walks right out into the rain, eventually turning back to return and grab his umbrella before leaving again. Minho just stares at the door, transfixed, before he shakes his head and looks down at his phone, an urgent sort of laugh bubbling up through his chest to fizz out of him in little bursts.
“Look,” he breathes out, holding his phone screen around five millimetres away from Changbin’s face. “Look.”
Jisung has programmed himself into Minho’s phone as, Jisungie 😘, and Minho feels his clouds fluff up in a warm haze of sunlight.
Changbin squints against the brightness of the screen and then snorts.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he asks, bumping his fist against Minho’s own.
Minho shakes his head and withdraws his hand so he can look at his phone screen again.
Changbin tuts. “You should really put that away before you end up striking something with lightning again.”
Minho just giggles, loud and wild like some cartoon villain on the verge of madness.
-
Minho is tipsy and restless and his curiosity is a seedling thing in the bed of soil of his chest.
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 9:50 pm
hey! hey! hey!
it’s minho
what are you doing?
Jisung replies around ten minutes later with a photograph of himself with The November Nightmares covering the lower half of his face and bright, blue tears drawn in T formation beneath his eyes. He’s captioned it, just finished, and Minho huffs a laugh out of his nose.
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:01 pm
already??
what is there to cry about?
Jisungie 😘 / 10:02 pm
it’s not that it’s sad,,
it’s just that,,
i can’t believe the next one will be the last one, you know?
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:02 pm
hmm
Jisungie 😘 / 10:02 pm
what are you doing?
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:02 pm
well, it’s saturday night so i’m drinking beer, eating low calorie ice cream and reading
obviously
While he waits for Jisung to respond, Minho flops onto his front and takes a picture of the cats, who are crowded round the wifi router.
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:04 pm
[-> photo]
they like warm appliances hehehe
Jisungie 😘 / 10:05 pm
[kakaotalk sticker]
[kakaotalk sticker]
[kakaotalk sticker]
fck!!!
they kinda activate my cute aggression
i’m allergic tho
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:05 pm
oh? so is changbinnie
has to take a pill every time he visits my place
Jisungie 😘 / 10:05 pm
good tip
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:06 pm
???
does that mean you’re planning on coming over to my place
Jisungie 😘 / 10:06 pm
asdfghjkl;
maybe i just meant the bookstore
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:07 pm
hmm
ok
Minho flops onto his back again and sighs. His curiosity grows and grows and grows.
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:07 pm
so, what’s your oddity, then?
Jisungie 😘 / 10:08 pm
oh, well,,
i kind of make music?
well,, not kind of
i DO make music
and last year i went through like six months of creative block and i didn’t write a single song and it was basically awful
but anyway!! eventually i decided to take a trip
to like, refresh my mind or whatever
and i came here and just,, wrote a song per day, pretty much
it just flowed out of me
reminded me of when i started out making music
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:10 pm
oh, so, you think odd ways gave you creative superpowers?
unlimited inspiration?
Jisungie 😘 / 10:10 pm
yeah ig
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:10 pm
that doesn’t sound right to me
it’s not useless enough
it’s more likely to be something stupid like
...
you having a daisy chain in your pocket no matter which jacket you’re wearing
...
have you checked?
Jisungie 😘 / 10:11 pm
[kakaotalk sticker]
no
but it’s the songwriting, i’m telling you
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:12 pm
eh, maybe
maybe you just like the place
Jisungie 😘 / 10:12 pm
maybe
the park is pretty
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:13 pm
the park?
it’s better in the autumn
Jisungie 😘 / 10:13 pm
i bet
autumn’s coming, isn’t it?
you can feel the first hint of it in the air
that smudge of cold in all the brightness
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:13 pm
...you’re not seriously talking to me about the weather now, Han Jisung?
Jisungie 😘 / 10:13 pm
oh!
ha
i forgot about that
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:14 pm
ha
Jisungie 😘 / 10:14 pm
i just like it when the seasons change
every time feels like the first time
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:14 pm
maybe you’re just easily impressed
Jisungie 😘 / 10:14 pm
maybe,, but I don’t think so,,
…
tell me something about you
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:15 pm
hm?
Jisungie 😘 / 10:15 pm
idk,, what’s your thing?
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:15 pm
got my head in the clouds
Jisungie 😘 / 10:15 pm
haha
no
really
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:17 pm
idk what my thing is
books, kitties, yummy food??
...
i’m scared of heights
isn’t that funny?
if i were to be way up high where the real clouds are, i’d be out of my mind
Jisungie 😘 / 10:17 pm
i’m not a big fan, either
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:18 pm
oh?
well, aren’t we just two peas in a pod
you go
tell me something about me
Jisungie 😘 / 10:18 pm
tell YOU something about YOU??
i just met you
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:19 pm
so?
Jisungie 😘 / 10:22 pm
[kakaotalk sticker]
well
you’re very pretty when you blink
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:23 pm
when I BLINK?
Jisungie 😘 / 10:23 pm
Yeah???
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:23 pm
that’s weird
you’re weird
Han Jisung’s being weird
Jisungie 😘 / 10:24 pm
!!!
you were the one blinking so much
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:24 pm
had the sun in my eyes
Jisungie 😘 / 10:24 pm
i see
Minho sits up and takes a swig from the can of beer he’d been drinking before he texted Jisung; it’s warm and flat.
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:24 pm
since you’re finished the book
and i’m nearly finished the book
should we hang out
and talk about the book?
Jisungie 😘 / 10:36 pm
?!?!
yes, that sounds!?
amazing!!
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:40 pm
ok, cool
Jisungie 😘 / 10:41 pm
should we go for real ice cream?
none of that low calorie shit
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:41 pm
haha
sounds good
it’s a date
[kakaotalk sticker]
Jisungie 😘 / 10:42 pm
asdfghjkl;
hahahahahahaha ok
ok ok
lee min ho 👽✌️ / 10:43 pm
[kakaotalk sticker]
ok i’m gonna go finish this book now
remember to check your pockets for daisy chains
goodnight
Jisungie 😘 / 10:45 pm
ha
g’night hyung
-
“Well, if it isn’t my so-called best friend.”
Changbin tosses Minho’s hotteok at him, narrowly avoiding Minho’s face, and then jumps up to perch on his usual spot on top of the bookshop’s front desk.
Minho rolls his eyes as he takes a huge bite out of the pancake, its sweet paste oozing into his mouth in a way that nearly makes him groan with pleasure.
“I literally see you every single day,” he mutters around the mouthful.
“You see me every single day because you are at Han Jisung’s every single day and he happens to live in my building,” Changbin retorts.
“We invite you to hang out with us sometimes.”
“And you know, if I were able to lie, I would sarcastically say that I love being a third wheel right now.”
Minho just shakes his head. “You’re not a third wheel. We’re friends. We’re all just . . . friends.”
And this is true, in Minho’s opinion. He and Jisung have been hanging out nearly every day since they went out for ice cream that one time, and while they’re flirty and touchy and every other thing that gets warm flutters racing from Minho’s belly all the way up to wrap around his heart, it’s not like either of them have said anything about dating, or liking each other that way, or whatever. There’s the large, unsaid thing between them, a thing that fills the space and makes it shimmer at the seams with possibility, but they haven’t addressed it yet and until they do, they’re ‘just friends’.
Changbin snorts.
“Hey-”
“If you’re 'just friends', tell me why there’s sunshine pouring out of your head all the time.”
Minho scoffs. “It hasn’t been all the time-”
Changbin sighs, cutting him off. He draws his legs up and crosses them, spinning around on the desk to face Minho.
“Look, you- you’re like a blade that’s solely made of air,” Changbin says.
Minho shoves the rest of the hotteok inside his mouth and exhales heavily.
“I’ve known you forever and sometimes you’re this gentle breeze but more often than not . . . you’re a sea wind.”
“A sea wind?”
“Cold and salty.”
“Oh, wow. Thank you.”
“You know what I mean. It’s not bad. It’s refreshing. You’re welcoming, somehow. You’re like home.”
“Ugh, disgusting.”
Minho pulls a face and laughs, hoping Changbin will laugh along with him, but Changbin just steeples his fingers and peers across at Minho with a serious expression on his face.
“The point is, I know you, and I’ve never known you to be so . . . sunshiny.”
“I’m sunshiny all the time,” Minho insists. “I’m sunshiny whenever I laugh at you because you’re doing something stupid.”
“But it’s not every second you’re around me.”
“It’s not like that with him, either.”
“Come on.”
“I mean it-”
“Han Jisung.”
Minho lets out an exasperated breath and attempts another breezy laugh but, just as they were meant to, Changbin’s words make sunshine spike from beneath his clouds. His vision swims with yellow.
“Han Jisung.”
There’s so much sun, a yellow that’s almost white, hot and hazy and reaching so far across the bookshop that it glints against the windows and sends sequins of light spilling across the floorboards. It’s like the shop floor is an ocean, its waves glittering at the edges.
“Han Jisung.”
The warmth spreads through Minho, too. He gets tingles all the way to the tips of his fingers.
“Han Jisung.”
Minho closes his eyes but the light immediately bleeds in. “Okay,” he bites out, annoyed, and there’s a summer storm brewing above him now, a roll of thunder unfolding so that he needs to start shouting just to be heard over it. “Okay,” he yells. “You’ve proved your point.”
Things go still and quiet but when Minho opens his eyes, Changbin is still watching him.
“Okay, no more teasing, I got it,” Changbin says, his voice much gentler now. “But let me say one last thing?”
Minho immediately opens his mouth to argue but stops himself. The thing is, with Changbin, he knows Minho almost as well as Minho’s clouds do. He’s all-seeing, all-knowing, and while it can irritate the life out of Minho sometimes, he has to admit it’s better to have someone in your corner who understands you and wants the best for you than to have nobody in that corner at all. He presses his lips together and nods.
“I think you should let him in,” Changbin says, like he’s measuring his words carefully. “He won’t be like the other chumps you’ve dated in the past. He won’t think it’s weird and leave. And he won’t like, try to psychoanalyse you or read your mind based on what’s going on up there, or get twitchy because it might seem like you’re feeling mad, or gloomy, or whatever, you know?”
“We don’t know any of that,” Minho replies.
“We do,” Changbin insists, “because he barely looks up at it. He’s too busy looking at you , and at your stupid face, and trying to work that puzzle out.”
“So what you’re saying is that my face is . . . puzzling?”
“Your face is a beautiful, confusing masterpiece and you know it.”
Minho makes a disbelieving sort of laugh. “But, what about later, when he can’t help but realise?” he asks, thinking out loud more than anything else. “Will he freak out over every strange, little shift in the weather?”
“Can’t know for sure, but he seems like the type who’d just ask if you want to talk about it.”
“And if I don’t want to talk about it?”
“He also seems like the type who’d know when you leave you alone.”
Minho drums his fingers against the desk and nods thoughtfully. He knows, too, deep down, that Jisung would give him exactly what he wants. He’s just been let down so badly in the past, always dating guys who made him feel see-through, or made him doubt his own feelings, always dating guys who didn’t stick around for long because hey, it’s weird, isn’t it, once you get past the initial novelty of it? All that disappointment smarts, even now.
“Hey, hyung. You know I can’t lie to you, right?” Changbin asks, drawing Minho out of his jumbled thoughts.
Minho nods and then reaches up to entwine his pinkie with Changbin’s own.
“Can’t and won’t and don’t,” he replies, flashing him a grin.
-
It’s autumn.
It’s been autumn for a little while.
It still feels fresh and new and Minho gets what Jisung meant about things changing and it feeling like the first time.
Every September, Minho and Changbin travel into the city for Felix’s birthday. It’s Changbin’s idea that they drag Jisung along with them, for if they can spread the celebration far enough to include Seungmin’s birthday, they can definitely include Jisung’s as well, despite the fact that it’s passed already, and that none of their friends in the city actually know Jisung, and that they only ever call it ‘Felix’s birthday’ though the festivities have also been for Seungmin’s benefit for years now—before he and Felix got together, even.
They leave Odd Ways just as dusk is seeping into the town’s bones, the night sky turning the same blue as a darkened movie theatre. Changbin is driving, singing along to the ancient mixtape that’s been jammed in the deck for as long as he’s had the car. The words are embedded into them, their mouths rounding to the syllables like it’s some sort of muscle memory. Minho thinks that if he forgot everything else, he’d still remember the words to every song from this stupid tape.
For Jisung, though, the songs are new, as is the way Minho’s clouds vaporise the second the car rolls over the town’s edge, not one single drop of dew left behind.
“Oh, wow. They just vanish?” Jisung asks from where he’s sitting in the back of the car. He vaguely flicks out his hands, spreading all of his fingers, as if to demonstrate something disappearing into thin air. “Like, ‘ka-boom’—all gone?”
“Ka-boom,” Minho replies over his shoulder. “It’s the same for Changbin, and for you, too, whatever your oddity is.”
“Just because I technically can lie now doesn’t mean I’m going to,” Changbin snaps over the music.
Jisung hums. “But how do we know you’re telling the truth about that?”
Minho laughs, delighted, while Changbin glares at Jisung in the rear view mirror. “Did Minho-yah tell you to say that?” he asks.
Jisung stares back at him with wide eyes, puffing up his cheeks; he is a picture of innocence and Minho couldn’t have taught him better. “No?” he says.
“You two- really-”
Jisung quickly changes the subject. “So, Felix is a friend of yours from the town?”
“That’s right,” Minho replies. Beside him, Changbin visibly deflates, all his faux-annoyance melting away as he goes back to singing.
“What was his oddity?” Jisung continues.
“Oh, bubbles came out of his mouth every time he hiccuped,” Minho answers, like what he’s saying is the most commonplace thing in the world. Changbin snorts.
“Shit,” Jisung says, scratching his head. “Is that why he moved away? I would definitely move away if that happened to me.”
“Nah,” Minho says, fiddling with the car’s air con. “He moved away to study. Now he lives with his boyfriend, Seungmin, and they have this tight group of friends who they know through school and work and stuff. None of the others are from Odd Ways, though.”
“Ah, so they’re pretty . . . normal?” Jisung asks.
“Not exactly,” Changbin replies, amused. “They’re a bunch of weirdos.”
“Says you,” Minho quips. “Weirdo.”
“Biggest weirdo,” Changbin fires back.
Minho curls up in his seat, hugging his knees to his chest and putting his feet up on the dashboard. Fondness radiates through him like it’s trapped underneath his skin, a second layer of the stuff. He’s happy here, with Changbin and Jisung, and excited to introduce Jisung to their friends later. It’s going to be a good night, he can feel it. “Maybe we’re all weirdos,” he says.
“Sounds plausible,” Jisung agrees at the same time Changbin nods and says, “Oh, absolutely.”
-
When they get to the BBQ place, the others are already there. Changbin takes charge of introducing Jisung to the others, Jisung looking flustered as he’s dragged around, clasping his fluttering hands together as he bows politely. Cute, Minho thinks, before seizing the opportunity to run up and tackle Hyunjin from behind while he’s distracted.
Minho roughly pulls Hyunjin into a headlock, deliberately messing up his ponytail. Hyunjin squawks as he wriggles free, pulling Minho into a hug afterwards. He hasn’t changed a bit since the last time Minho saw him, except for the stack of new piercings adorning his reddened ears. As usual, he's dressed more for ballet practice than a night out with his friends in an oversized hoodie over leggings.
“Hey, hyung,” Hyunjin mutters into the crook of Minho’s neck. “How’s it going? The last time I saw you, we were both trying to make out with the ground.”
Minho pinches Hyunjin’s side and groans, wincing as he remembers. Last year at Felix’s birthday, Minho had ended up so drunk that he and Hyunjin had kept dancing in the street after the bar had closed up for the night, inevitably colliding and falling down on the ground and staying there, Minho giggling while blood soaked into the denim of his bust jeans. He’d woken up at Felix and Seungmin’s place the next day limping, a nebulous bruise spilling across his knee.
“Yeah, how about we don’t repeat that this year,” Minho suggests before helping Hyunjin re-tie the ribbon that had been holding his hair up.
“So,” Hyunjin drawls, jerking his head in the direction of Jisung. “Is he Changbin’s date, or yours?”
The question shouldn’t fluster him but Minho panics and stutters, “Nobody’s.”
Hyunjin hums, unconvinced. “Yours, then.”
Minho swats his shoulder. “He’s nobody’s,” he repeats. “He’s just . . . new to our town and lives in the same building as Changbin. He comes to my shop to buy books.”
Hyunjin turns around and the look on his face says he still doesn’t quite believe Minho but Minho runs away to help Chan and Jeongin with grilling the meat before Hyunjin can ask any more stupid questions.
By the time they make it to the noreabang place, everyone is gently tipsy and Jisung has loosened up, laughing and joking with everyone as if he’s known them for years. Minho catches up with him and links their hands, squeezing Jisung’s knuckles and thinking, I’m glad you’re here, because he'd rather fall down in the middle of the street again than say it out loud (Jisung catches his eye and grins and Minho gets the feeling that he understood, anyway).
Felix is suitably hyped up when they get taken to their reserved room. He dumps a bunch of glitzy accessories and a feather boa on Seungmin before dragging Jisung away from Minho because ‘the September birthday squad need to sing the first song, obviously.’
As soon as the song’s intro starts the three of them start doing an impromptu mic check.
“It’s Virgo season, bitches,” Felix yells into his mic. The pineapple-shaped sunglasses he’s wearing slip down the bridge of his nose. “You know what that means?”
“Overthinking,” Seungmin says into his own mic.
“Striving for perfection,” Jisung adds.
“And clenching our jaws,” Felix finishes, right before they need to start singing.
Beside Minho, Chan is laughing so hard that he’s doubled over. Then, Hyunjin is pressing two vaguely fruity-smelling shots into Minho’s hands and telling him to drink up. By the time he’s finished downing them, the song is over and Jeongin is pulling Minho to his feet to get him to sing the next one.
-
They’ve moved onto a different bar by the time Minho does it.
He doesn’t even think it through.
One minute, he’s dancing with Hyunjin and Felix; then, he’s getting Han Jisung to follow him into the bathroom and asking if he can kiss him.
Minho’s got Jisung pushed up against the stall door, his hands all tangled in his t-shirt, and Jisung’s mouth falls open, shimmery and pink from the lip balm he’s been applying all night. Minho’s eyes instantly drop to them and he asks again, watches as Jisung swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, right before he sighs out a breathy, yes, fuck, of course.
So Minho leans in and presses their lips together. It’s a slow bump before a neater slide, Minho’s tongue licking inside just a tiny bit, enough to startle Jisung’s hands from his own sides to Minho’s waist, fingers deftly meandering past the material of his shirt. Then, Minho’s the one who’s startled. He gasps into the kiss and he gasps again when Jisung twirls them around, slamming Minho against the door and pushing up against him and it’s like a pipe bursts in Minho’s brain, all this need flooding out and washing over everything, spreading through him like a leak.
“J’sung-ah,” he murmurs, arching his back to roll his hips against Jisung’s. “What do you-?”
Jisung reaches for Minho’s wrists and presses them against the door. He closes his eyes and breathes out. “Let’s just . . . slow down, okay?” he whispers. “We shouldn’t- not here, not all drunk and weird.
Minho gets the urge to laugh so he does. “Okay,” he says, nodding. “You’re right. Okay.”
Gingerly, Jisung moves his hands from Minho’s wrists back down to his waist. He draws circles against Minho’s skin with his fingertips. The way he’s looking at Minho is intense but Minho can’t look at Jisung for long without smiling.
He grins. “Wanna go back?”
“Um. In a minute,” Jisung says, reaching forward to give Minho one last peck on the lips before taking a step backwards.
“A minute,” Minho repeats, smug. “Okay.”
Jisung just shoots him a look as if to say, you’re one to talk, and Minho supposes he’s right. He laughs again.
“What can we do in a bathroom stall for one minute?” Minho muses out loud. “Wanna graffiti the walls?”
“With what?” Jisung asks.
Minho looks at Jisung’s lips. “Your lip balm?”
Jisung scrunches up his face and Minho thinks he’s going to tell him to forget it but then he reaches into his jeans pocket and pulls out the tube of lip balm. He turns to the wall and starts writing, covering it with his hand so Minho can’t see. When he’s done, he takes his hand away and the gestures to it. “Ta-da,” he sing-songs.
And it’s faint, a baby pink that’s shimmering white in the fluorescent light, but Minho can just about make it out: HJS <3 LMH.
He laughs into his hand. “Oh, that’s so . . . gross.”
Jisung laughs, too. “Right?” he says. “But you’re smiling.”
“What about it?”
“You’ve been smiling a lot tonight.”
Minho shrugs. “My friends are sort of okay.”
“True,” Jisung says. He sits down on the closed toilet and looks up at Minho. “Have you ever thought about it?”
“About what?”
“About leaving?”
“Ah, that.” Minho pauses. He’s still leaning against the stall door and he rocks his head from side to side. “Sort of? I kind of always thought I would, eventually. I could come here, I could start dancing, maybe. I used to, with Felix, at school. Hyunjin could help me. It wouldn’t be too late.”
“But?” Jisung prompts when Minho trails off.
“I’m not unhappy in Odd Ways,” Minho says, shrugging. “I like the routine, I like the quiet. I’ve got the bookshop and the cats and-”
He stops again, deep in thought.
“You don’t have the . . . quirk following you around, either,” Jisung says. “I imagine it could be kind of freeing not walking around with this literal window to your soul, or whatever.”
“It’s hardly a window to my soul,” Minho says, shaking his head. “But you’re right, in a way. It is a kind of freeing but . . . I’ve lived with it for so long it’s also like it’s a part of me. It’s not like Felix’s thing, which was occasional. Mine is constant.”
“Yeah,” Jisung agrees.
“Does it bother you?” Minho asks, finally, the question taking its weight with it.
Jisung shakes his head, and stands up. “Nothing that’s a part of you could bother me,” he says. “Let’s go back, yeah?”
-
A few days later, back at Odd Ways, Minho treats Jisung to sushi.
He’d intended to talk to Jisung about the kissing but hadn’t been able to force himself to be serious enough to bring it up, so he didn’t, and Jisung didn’t either, even though the memory of it sat wedged between them like a partition.
Afterwards, bellies full, they head to the park to walk around, Jisung occasionally singing a bit of some random song, or yawning exaggeratedly, or awkwardly commenting on the weather. Minho’s own weather is confused, a shy wind looping through his clouds.
The leaves on the trees in the park have fully turned and are now the yellow of warning signs. Minho notes that he and Jisung are the only two people walking around without a dog on a leash.
“You’re a cat person, though, right, hyung?”
Minho nods. “I am, but I like most animals. Cats, dogs, bunnies, lizards. Imagine me walking a lizard on a leash.”
Jisung laughs and fiddles with his scarf. “I think that would suit you.”
Minho rubs his eyes and he stops walking; he just stands there right in the middle of the footpath, forcing the dog-walkers to go around him, but the truth is he’s tired of tiptoeing around the subject and he just wants Jisung’s lips to be against his own again.
Jisung looks at him questioningly.
“Jisung-ah,” Minho says, fists still shielding his eyes. “Take me back to my place?”
Minho uncovers his eyes to watch Jisung’s hands dart from his scarf to the buttons of his jacket and then up to his earmuffs. “Yes?” he says, pitching it like a question even though Minho’s certain he’s already given him the answer to it.
“Alright, then,” Minho says, starting to turn on his heel. “C’mon.”
Minho had left the electric heater on for the cats when he’d left earlier and his apartment is too-warm. He lets Jisung strip him of a few layers of clothes before leading him to the bedroom and then Jisung is kissing him every place his skin feels flushed and tingly from the sudden temperature change. And it’s lovely, Minho has to admit; it makes him feel lighter than air, like he might float away, but a yarn ball of fluttery nervousness tangles in the pit of his stomach.
Here’s the thing: Jisung makes Minho feel like he’s on fire but Minho’s been burned so badly before. Minho might act cold sometimes but he tumbles into love easily and quickly and there’s nothing he hates more than not being loved in return.
He nips Jisung’s lip as he pulls away. “This- this isn’t just a one time thing, right?” he asks.
Jisung draws back, too. His gaze is searching as it flickers across Minho’s face, every pinprick star in his eyes quivering. “No,” he breathes out, brushing his thumb over Minho’s bottom lip. “Of course not.”
Minho smiles, pleased, and loops his arms around Jisung’s neck to pull him close again.
-
The next morning, Minho wakes to an empty bed.
Before his clouds can start raining down on him, though, the front door opens, clicks shut, and Minho hears the chirps of three happy cats. Jisung wanders into the bedroom carrying two cups of iced coffee and Minho hopes Jisung mistakes his own sunshine for the morning light that’s pouring through the window in one, continuous golden haze.
Jisung hands him his coffee and Minho sits up in bed, drawing the rumpled blankets tightly around himself while Jisung sits down, takes off his beanie, and runs a hand through his bedhead.
“In case it weren’t obvious,” Jisung starts, “I really, really like you.”
Minho bites down on the straw of his coffee and smiles at Jisung around it.
Before he can work out how to tell Jisung he likes him, too, Jisung stands up again.
“Look, hyung,” he says, reaching into his pocket and then pulling something out, a wreath of green and white and yellow.
“Look,” he repeats. “A daisy chain.”