Chapter Text
“so, guys,” felix brings a tray of muffins to the coffee table and sits crossed legged in front of the couch. “We need to chat.”
“about what?” comes changbin’s muffled reply around the muffin in his mouth. “these are good, Lix.”
“thanks!” felix beams at him.
“is this about your text?” hyunjin asks as he reaches for a pastry.
“what text?” minho chimes in next to jeongin, who gives him a sigh.
“really, hyung? check your phone for once.”
“hey, don’t be disrespectful,” changbin chides him playfully.
chan looks toward felix, unwrapping the muffin liner from the treat. “so is this about seungminnie?”
“he’s working late,” says hyunjin, fitting himself into the small spot between jisung and minho, “it’s a busy day for him.”
“he’s been working too hard lately,” jisung pouts, leaning his head on minho’s shoulder, his feet draped over hyunjin’s lap, “come to think about it, i’ve never seen seungmin slack off. we should do something special for him.”
changbin chews on his muffin carefully, “have any of you ever seen his diary?”
“diary?”
felix giggles. “well, he calls it his recipe book,” he shifts, gesturing with his hands. “he has all this stationary and he writes little notes in it.”
the room erupts in chatter.
“–that’s so cute, what the hell–”
“that’s the journal he’s always carrying around?”
“wait isn’t that the one i caught him writing in once?” says minho with a growing smile.
“i tried to read it once and he smacked me with it because it’s highly classified apparently. You’d think it was soft because it’s velvet but no.” jisung adds, rubbing his chest as he remembers the time fondly.
“dude, books hurt! especially if it’s our mr. kim wielding it.”
“i know, i was the one hit!”
jeongin grins to himself, “i’d like to see what he has in there. I’m pretty sure it’s not just recipes.”
“well, what are we sitting around for? let’s go find it!”
jeongin is the first one to jump off the couch, pushing past chan and felix as he makes his way to seungmin’s room.
“last one to seungmin’s room has to look under the bed!”
hyunjin is up in an instant, whining.
“innie, you know i’m too tall to fit under the bed! you should’ve warned me!”
“you’re just a sore loser, hyung. i’m almost as tall as you anyway.”
“you little- channie hyung back me up here!”
“that sounds like someone that’s going to be last!” changbin adds, cackling as he slams his way through seungmin’s door. he’d made it third, just behind jeongin and felix. a stampede of feet ended in jisung at the bottom of a boyfriend-pile. he was clearly the last person by a long-shot and he was not going to subject himself to looking under the bed.
“alright, so as you know, the last place has to look under the bed. and that privilege goes to changbin”
“oh come on! i was third! you all know sung was last, this isn’t fair!”
“hyungie, please!” jisung puts on his signature pout, “i need you this once.”
“sungie, you gotta stop making me do all your losing punishments.”
“bin, look under the bed. if not for sung- do it for seungmin’s pouty face.”
“i’m demanding reimbursement, you all do me so dirty all the time.”
despite the pout on his face and the irritation that he seems to be radiating, he’s quick to bend down and crawl under the bed with a “assholes, every one of them.”
“thank you hyung~ i might even give you a kiss!”
“make it jeongin, i want his kiss.”
“ew! hyung, don’t drag me into your soap opera.”
“innie, love bug, give the damn man a kiss. he’s doing us a favour.”
“i’m literally uninvolved with y’all slowpokes. but fine whatever.”
“i owe you one, innie.”
“apparently you owe both me and binnie hyung one. you’re in major debt, hyung.”
minho yawns from the side, “enough of that from all of you. where do you think he keeps it?”
“i can tell you it’s not under the damn bed, where do y’all want me to search?”
felix moves forward with a determined expression. “he’d keep it somewhere secret.” he takes the pillows off, looking under them, then pats down the sheets.
minho stares down the mattress with furrowed brows. then, as if struck by inspiration, he starts to lift it up. Six pairs of eyes round on him.
“what are you doing?” asks chan with worry.
“my dad used to hide money under his mattress,” he grunts, as chan moves toward him, helping him lift the bed.
“min, you’re so smart, gimme a kiss!” changbin sighs dreamily.
“you need to back up, if you aren’t helping me right now, there’s no damn kisses waiting for you.”
“baby, i can move the whole bed for you if you give me a kiss. just say the word”
“the only people deserving my kisses on this night are pets and…”
“and?!”
changbin takes that as his cue. within ten seconds he ripped the mattress from minho’s hands and lifted it above his head easily with puckered lips. “look min, i did it all for you so you can look.”
“i’m not kissing you.”
changbin leans into minho’s space, but doesn’t come close enough to actually kiss him without minho’s approval. chan continues holding up the mattress so changbin takes one hand off, moving to cup minho’s cheek when he sees a blur of blue in the corner of his eye. minho watches in disappointment as changbin tilts his head in confusion and moves away from him, pouting from the loss of warmth.
he turns to pull changbin back in by his sleeve when he sees what changbin’s hand is grabbing for. he lets out a small gasp, watching animatedly as changbin’s hand wraps around a blue notebook that’s bound with a clasp on the front. minho’s hand is quick to reach out and run his fingers along the spine of the notebook, heart skipping a beat at the way his hand looks small in comparison to changbin’s.
“min, i know it’s a stupid question-”
“what?”
“can i get that k-”
minho is quick to shut him up, grabbing him by the collar and closing the distance. changbin squeaks in surprise before pulling minho flush against his chest and lacing his fingers through minho’s hair. minho smirks against changbin’s lips and drops the notebook in favour of deepening the kiss.
suddenly, a small hand shoots out to grab the book, smacking minho on the shoulder, “slow your gay, y’all”
jisung thinks that it’s the funniest thing ever, bursting into giggles, “not in his christian minecraft server.”
changbin smirks, “lixie, you’re just jealous that it was minho kissing me and not you.”
“and what if i was? how’re you gonna fix that?”
“don’t worry bubby, there’s enough of changbin to go around. i’ll kiss everyone”
jeongin makes a disgusted face.
“innie, get your gay ass over here, you owe me a kiss bitch. i went under the bed, remember?”
“this is a wendy’s, hyung. go bug jisung about it.”
“innie!”
changbin looks at jeongin with the saddest face jeongin has ever seen, tears threatening to fall.
“if you don’t want it,” a voice cuts in from behind, seungmin’s arm slides across the shorter’s collarbones, “i do.”
there are seven people sitting in the living room, bumping shoulders and knees as they talk about everything under the sun. there should be eight, but one of them has been out of the house for some time now- and nobody wants to admit it, but they miss him.
“it’s been such a long time since it’s just been us.”
felix hums, lapsing into one of his reflective moods, “i miss minnie, like a lot.”
jisung rotates in his spot on the sofa, feet now skyward, “me too. yeni? you’ve known him since you were little, right? has he changed a lot?”
"seungmin-hyung? hm,” he mulls over the thought, huffing out some quick laughter. “he’s still... a menace."
"jeongin–" felix laughs.
"what? it's true."
changbin speaks up softly, “i can’t speak for change but i can say that he’s endearing, especially when he wants to learn something just because we’re interested in it.”
“you just say that because you’re whipped for him, changbin”
“none of you would be here if that wasn’t the case.” chan declares from the kitchen, “i think he’s really diligent and honest.”
“ew, hyung, you’re so sappy.”
“he’s sincere,” felix says, nodding to himself. “and he gets this really cute smile on his face when he’s happy.”
“he’s like a dog,” minho adds.
“you mean a puppy.”
“that’s what I said.”
“i think i like his smile better when he’s not covering it up with his hands”
chan brings in the tray with cups and puts it on the coffee table, “he’s kinda an unexpected type of graceful.”
“oh no,” felix laughs as he presses a kiss into jisung’s hair, “he’s just as clumsy. it makes him feel very loveable.”
“i can attest to that, once he accidentally got my sweater stuck in his braces when he hugged me”
“can’t believe i’m in love with him, honestly. it feels really unreal being with someone that responsible.”
“what are we, chopped liver?”
“perception is a lie, you could be. i wouldn’t be surprised.”
“always seungmin this and seungmin that, what about changbin, huh? you are all so mean to me all the time.”
“seungmin doesn’t do this to us. i would never dream of dating you if seungmin wasn’t in love with you.” jeongin scoffed.
changbin pouts at that, leaning towards chan with tears threatening to fall, he knows jeongin is joking but it still hurts regardless.
“yang jeongin,” chan scolds, “we do not say things like that to our boyfriends.”
jeongin pauses in contemplation, “fine. i’m sorry bin-hyung.”
changbin is quick to brush it off with a small, “it’s okay” as he plays with chan’s fingers, refusing to look anywhere but at his own lap.
jeongin doesn’t quite like that answer and moves away from his comfy spot toward changbin
“hey, hyung, look at me? please?”
changbin doesn’t budge until jeongin tilts the older’s chin toward him, “hyungie,” he says barely above a whisper, “i love you.”
changbin lets out a little squeak followed by a low “innie, you don’t have to-”
jeongin doesn’t let him finish his sentence, giving changbin one of the iciest glares he could. “not another word. i know i don’t have to do anything, but i want to.”
“but innie-”
“you need to know. even if we joke around or pretend we don’t care, we do. we love you, hyungie. i love you. a lot.”
jeongin cups both of changbin’s cheeks with his hands, keeping him in place as he leans in. he wipes the tears that fall and then pulls changbin’s face closer gently. changbin looks at him then with such a look of fondness that shines through the tears.
“innie-”
“i’m gonna kiss you now, is that okay?"
“yes.”
jeongin sends him the sweetest smile then, leaning in until their lips brush. jeongin waits until he can feel the shuddering breath changbin lets out and then finally, finally connects their lips. it’s nothing more than a sweet peck, letting changbin know that he loves him more than anything in the world. it’s changbin that pulls away, but jeongin pulls him back in for a second kiss because changbin’s kisses were like no other and he knew that this would be the last time for a long time that he’d succumb to changbin in front of others like that.
the tender moment is not missed by the others, who end up just missing seungmin even more.
someone releases a long sigh.
“we have it bad, don’t we?”
“you could say that again.”
It was a blue notebook with velvet wrapping given to him a couple of years ago by his mother.
“It’s good to write things down. Important things. That way you don’t forget,” she’d said to him before handing it over with care. “Treat it with love, it might become important.”
For a long time, he hadn’t known what to do with it. There was no purpose important enough in his mind.
Seungmin flipped through the pages, letting them fall through his fingers as he tapped his pencil on the desk. Something important. Things he needed to remember. Significant things. Timeless things
At first, he could only think of the practical things. Birthdays, events, maybe even a wishlist. Even those would be swayed over time.
But all of those things didn’t feel like enough. He wanted someone to devote those pages to.
What he never anticipated was who those someones would be. Maybe it was hard to fathom what made him feel whole. The pieces that completed his puzzle. It was them and no one else, they were the only ones who could fill what he could not fill himself.
They were the people he’d tell ‘if I get separated from you, then I’ll be separated from myself.’ They were his peace and pain, the ones that he felt attached to with every breath.
His awakening, beginning, and his everything.