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It’s been a long day. Kibum collapses into the sofa, freshly washed, make-up free, skin care applied, content to relax and card a hand idly through Garcons’ fur while Minho takes his own turn in the shower. He’s been a little odd on the way home from filming – not together, separate shows, but the studios and finishing times were near enough for him to pick Kibum up and go back to his place together. Kibum’s going to wait until he’s washed up and sleepy to interrogate him, though, and orders dinner in the meantime.
They eat in silence. That’s not unusual, there’s a certain comfort they’ve always found in quiet together, but Minho’s silence tonight doesn’t feel comfortable. It feels sulky. He’s even pouting as he clears up the dishes, and Kibum is struck by that familiar mix of fond annoyance that has been the soundtrack to their love story for however long it’s been building.
“Are you sulking?” he asks nonchalantly as they climb into bed.
“No,” Minho replies, sulkily.
Kibum gives him another minute, scrolling mindlessly through his phone, and then he hears a put-upon sigh and the annoyance overwhelms the fondness just long enough to make his mouth move.
“If you were going to sulk you could have done it at your place,” he says crossly, huffing as he drops his head back into the pillow. “So spit it out.”
Minho shrugs.
Kibum raises an eyebrow and waits.
And waits a little longer.
And then–
“Why did you say you didn’t want to marry me?”
It comes out in a rush, like it’s been sitting in Minho’s mouth all day waiting to jump from it. Kibum is baffled, and turns to look at his husband so he can clearly see his face and know that he is baffled.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Minho is frowning, pouting dramatically, and the fondness rises back into contention.
“In that video you did!” he cries, waving a hand a little too wildly for this close to midnight when they haven’t been drinking. “She asked you, and you said you wouldn’t marry me!”
It takes a few seconds for Kibum to understand which video he’s talking about. It’s not like there aren’t plenty, he’s a star after all, and somehow the marriage no-one else actually knows about is becoming a hot topic on at least half of them. And then he remembers.
“You watched that?” he asks, incredulous.
“I watch all your stuff,” Minho pouts at him, and now is not the time to melt over that. They have business to hash out here.
“Let me get this straight,” Kibum says, locking his phone and sitting up in bed, jostling Minho laying on the other pillow. Serves him right. “You’re upset with me because I said– on camera, in public, in response to a joke– that I wouldn’t marry you.”
“Well why wouldn’t you marry me?” Minho frowns up at him, looking deeply offended.
“What the fuck do yo– I DID MARRY YOU, YOU IDIOT! YOU WERE THERE! WE ARE LITERALLY LEGALLY MARRIED!”
“In the state of Nevada,” Minho sniffs.
Kibum continues gaping at him, and then smacks him abruptly on the forehead.
“Well I’m sorry! I don’t exactly run the Korean Supreme Court! If you want to show up there tomorrow with a petition in a briefcase then be my guest! But it doesn’t matter because you! Are! My! Husband!”
He punctuates each word with a thwack of his pillow, as Minho rolls over and covers his head with his arms. The noise clearly worries the dogs, and they come running into the room to witness their dad beating up their stepfather. Commes Des jumps onto the bed and shoves his nose in Minho’s ear, giving him a gentle lick, because of course he’s taking his side in this, and Kibum resets his pillow and flops dramatically back down to lie on his side of the bed. Minho slowly uncurls beside him once he’s sure the attack has ceased, hair a mess from the pillow. He gently scoops Comme Des up and sets him back on the floor, and satisfied his stepdad is still alive and kicking, he and his brother retreat from the room to their own beds once again.
Unfortunately, Minho doesn’t seem to be finished. Perhaps he just didn’t want the kids to see them fighting and that’s– nope, fondness is winning the race, galloping up towards the decision making centre.
“It’s just not very nice,” Minho carries on with an audible pout, “to hear the man you love announce to people that the idea of marrying you is–”
Kibum cuts him off with a kiss that is possibly too forceful, but Minho responds almost immediately, and at least if he’s kissing him he’s not talking any more. Which is definitely the reason Kibum couldn't wait a second longer. Definitely. Once he’s been kissed sufficiently quiet, Kibum pulls back to look at him.
“If I give you a blow-job will you stop huffing about this like a whiny child?”
Minho visibly considers his options, maintaining intense eye-contact, before nodding seriously. And Kibum just brushed his teeth, too. The things one does to maintain harmony in the marriage.
After, when Kibum’s teeth have been brushed once again, and Minho is orgasm dazed and curled around him like an octopus (where he belongs, Kibum thinks viciously), he feels kisses pressed to the back of his neck.
“You didn’t have to be so mean about it,” he mumbles.
“You like me mean.”
“I like you all ways,” Minho yawns, lifting his head enough to shove his nose into Kibum’s cheek. “It would just be nice if everyone else knew you liked me too.”
Kibum holds in the sigh that wants to leave him, because, well. It would be nice, wouldn’t it?
“Go to sleep, jagiya,” he says instead, turning just enough to drop a kiss at the corner of Minho’s mouth, before he flicks the bedside light off and bathes them in darkness.
– – –
It isn’t that Kibum doesn’t love his job– he does, he’s striven and ached for it, to be where he is, he could never not love it, even when it hurts him to– but he's still glad to get home at the end of a day.
Getting home to a house that’s clean, and a dinner that’s already halfway to prepared? Well. That’s something else entirely. The kitchen is empty, but the chopping board full of carefully sliced vegetables, the rice cooker with its blinking light, the bathroom fan whirring on the other side of the apartment, they mean something he wasn’t sure he’d ever have. Soon the bathroom door opens and great clodding footsteps come his way. He’s washed his hands and taken his place to chop the pumpkin when arms wrap around his waist and a mouth makes its home in the junction between his neck and his shoulder.
“You’re home earlier than expected,” Minho says into his skin.
Honestly, they’ve been apart for thirty hours at the most, he’s so clingy. The fact Kibum is melting slightly into his hold is neither here nor there.
“I’m very good at my job, got it done quick.”
“Hmm.”
Kibum’s eyelids flutter without permission as Minho’s mouth travels up the column of his neck, leaving light kisses. If he waits a few seconds longer than necessary before he shrugs him off without mercy, then no-one needs to know.
“Get the kimchi out the fridge, since you’re so determined to eat it with every meal,” he instructs as he finishes cutting the pumpkin, likely far quicker than any of the rest of the vegetables were dealt with. “Is the fish already in the pot?”
A nod. God, he’s got him well trained.
“Get these fried while I go and wash up, then” he says, setting down the knife and turning to leave the kitchen. He makes it about three steps before he's hauled backwards and pressed against a cupboard in a kiss that catches him off guard not by its speed but by its intensity. Anyone would think they'd been separated for months rather than a little more than a day from the way Minho captures his mouth, one hand cradling his jaw and the other clutching his waist. He lets out an involuntary moan as Minho’s nails scrape along the small of his back, and it’s easy to forget where he was going, easy to forget everything that isn’t the way his husband seems intent on consuming him against the kitchen cabinets. When Minho leaves his mouth to attack his neck he’s able to breathe, let the oxygen fire his brain cells back into somewhat working order.
“What’s this in aid of?” he gasps out.
“You,” Minho rasps against his throat, “Look very sexy today.”
Kibum is make-up-less, with half styled hair stiff with product, and wearing sweatpants. But he’s hardly going to argue the point.
“Also–” Minho pulls back to look at him now, though barely leaving an inch between them, his hand still firmly entrenched inside Kibum’s clothes. “They just aired Nolto. You were wearing your ring and I’ve been wanting to jump you since the first minute.”
He takes Kibum’s silence as he remembers– he’d been so caught up in current filming he’d forgotten they were airing that episode today, when he’d worn his wedding ring on the correct finger and nothing else on his hands– as an opportunity to kiss him again. His hand makes its way downwards to grip his ass firmly and haul them together, and Kibum is just about ready to say fuck dinner and start taking his clothes off when Minho speaks again.
“And there’s an Arsenal match on tonight.”
Of fucking course.
He shoves him away and refuses to regret it as he stalks to the bathroom.
“Sort your own dinner. I need to wash my hair.”
When the people on the TV cease playing football for a few moments in order to talk about people playing football instead, Minho leans down to kiss him gently where his head is lying in his lap, an Arsenal scarf folded under his neck as a makeshift pillow.
“Thank you, for wearing it. I know, I know–” he cuts him off before he can start. “I know you always wear it, but you know what I mean. Thank you for making it obvious.”
Kibum hates the way his heart still quickens at that, hates the little knot that still forms behind his breastbone at the idea of being observed.
“Too obvious?”
The closet he resides in is made of glass, at this point, and Kibum has worked hard to be able to be himself, as he wants to present himself, in the public eye. But there are still lines, there are still things that are only acceptable so long as they go unacknowledged.
“No,” Minho says gently, smoothing his eyebrow with a thumb. “Not too obvious. I hate to say it, but I don’t think anyone would ever jump from you wearing a ring to–” he gestures vaguely around the room – “this. But I like it. It’s like an acknowledgement just for me.”
Kibum hums, and turns his face a little into Minho’s hand, letting him prod gently at his nose, his lips, the corner of his eye.
“And thank you for watching the football with me,” he adds as an afterthought.
Kibum snorts.
“I am casually observing fit men running around in tiny shorts.”
“Mourning the timeline where I ended up a footballer?” Minho asks cheekily, and the hand prodding his face gets more insistent, squeezing his cheeks until Kibum has no choice but to nip at his thumb in censure.
“No,” he says decisively. Surprisingly, it’s something he’s thought about before, often with an irrational sense of panic, disproportionate to idle musings of something that will never happen. Minho can clearly hear it in his voice, because he tips his head,a silent request to elaborate.
“I think that in that timeline I would be incredibly lonely. I don’t know if I can imagine this happening if we hadn’t been forced into a room together 24/7 as teenagers. And,” He continues, a little emotional and a lot embarrassed by it, “I don’t think there’s anyone else who would do. For me.”
Minho stares at him, mouth open slightly. And then he ducks down and presses a kiss to his forehead, the bridge of his nose. His mouth.
“I’d find you, no matter what.”
It sounds like a promise, one he needn’t make because alternate timelines might be real or they might not, but either way they’re living in this one and dwelling on maybes and could-have-beens could never be anything but painful for them, after everything. He appreciates it all the same.
And then Minho jolts and swears, bumping Kibum’s head where it lies on his thigh, because apparently someone in England has kicked a ball in a direction they weren’t supposed to.
Well, at least he’s handsome.
– – –
This is where his life has ended up. Truly, it’s shocking. Kibum had spent so long moulding his expectations around a fierce independence that it feels unreal to think he would get to the point of not only willingly entering holy matrimony (how holy is the matrimony if it’s bestowed by an Elvis impersonator?) but being… indulgent. But he has, evidently, and he refuses to be nervous as he fiddles with the ring on his finger, tries not to look across to the other make-up chair and see Minho wearing his own.
It seems such a small thing, to wear them together. But when they eventually release the statement he knows they’ve both started secretly writing and rewriting, it will help to have this trail of breadcrumbs, something to point at and pretend they were never really hiding it at all. When that day will come is unsure. Most of their close colleagues are aware of their marriage (although not, yet, of the intention to go public) but the rest of the company, the PR people, the mess up top, they still need to be told. They still need to be persuaded. Because as much as the idea of opening that door sometimes petrifies Kibum, freezes him in fear, feels inconceivable after a lifetime of half-truths, he doesn’t want to hide forever, not truly. There is only so long they can go before it becomes stifling, before Minho goes crazy from repressing his urge to yell all his business from the rooftops.
It’s not a big, important schedule, nor is it something regular or familiar, they aren’t with friends, and somehow that makes it easier not to worry about it. They read the script, do their job, and Kibum feels ready to deflate and sleep for a week by the time they’re in the car home. He’s glad neither of them have any more schedules today or early tomorrow morning, only a meeting, then lessons and practice at the company. It means they can go back to his place, to the dogs and to– to their home. Together.
“Dinner?” Minho prompts him gently when he emerges from the bathroom, freshly washed and moisturised.
“Hmmm. What do you want?”
He folds himself neatly onto the sofa and accepts the dog handed to him, Minho holding the other. Reminds himself that this is what the rest of his life is going to look like, and that discomfort in the nudges they have to make to get this without hiding it are worth it.
“Oxblood stew?” Minho suggests, and Kibum fixes him with a look. “I can order you something else instead, keep your hair on. What do you want? Chicken? Sushi? Or do you want to cook?”
“Do you want to have sex before dinner?” He finds himself asking suddenly.
He’s not quite sure why. Not that he doesn’t want to, he’s married to the most handsome man in Korea, he always wants to, but it wasn’t exactly in his immediate plans for the evening. But he finds himself needing to just lock the world away and lose himself for a bit. Needs to touch as much of Minho as possible, needs them to be as close to each other as they can.
“I mean, yeah, obviously, but why? All of a sudden?”
Kibum shrugs.
“I just love you. That a problem?”
Commes Des is gently lifted from his hold and set down on the floor, and then Kibum finds himself in the air.
“What the fuck? Choi Minho, put me down!”
“Nope!” Minho says cheerfully as he marches into the bedroom with Kibum over his shoulder and drops him on the bed, kicking the door shut behind him.
He reaches one hand behind his head and pulls his t-shirt off in one motion, flinging it across the room as though it’s offended him. It’s a sensible idea, because Kibum is generally a lot more forgiving of Minho’s transgressions if he can see his abs and remind himself that there are parts of his husband he will miss if he snaps and murders him. Minho crawls onto the bed, cages him in in the way Kibum pretends to either hate or be indifferent to, on alternate days, both of which Minho can see through and so does it even more. He kisses him once, quick and desperate and dirty, and then his hands are everywhere, roaming Kibum’s body like he’s never touched it before, following with his mouth until he sinks a sharp bite into his waist.
“What the fuck are you, an animal?" Kibum yelps. "Jesus Christ, Choi Minho, what has gotten into you?”
Minho lifts his head from where he’s been laving his tongue over Kibum’s belly, something wild and hungry in his eyes, which fades just a little. It’s replaced by that look, the look which means Minho is pleased with himself and is about to say something that is either going to make Kibum want to fuck him silly or smack the shit out of him, often both simultaneously.
“I just love you,” he says, smirk giving way to a far-too-proud grin, wide and dorkish and so wonderful Kibum really might just smack him. “That a problem?”
He fucks him hard and fast and stays inside after, arms tight around Kibum’s middle where they lay on their sides.
“Tomorrow,” he says, when he’s caught his breath back, which happens far too quickly for Kibum’s liking. “Tomorrow, I want to tell our team that we’re thinking of going public, and start to strategise.”
Kibum clings tighter to him. He’s scared, but he wants the world to know. He’s scared of bursting their bubble of peace, of inviting judgement, of the inevitable effect this will have on their careers. He’s scared that their company will turn around and laugh in their faces, although he knows they have enough… leverage… to deal with that.
It’s more than just that, though. Because he is good at his job, he’s good at being famous, he knows how it works and he knows how to do the P.R and the fan management, and he knows all of the preparation and the good will building and the perfect statement writing that this is going to take. Hell, he’s already started on the statement, and he hates it.
He is, at his core, just resentful. Resentful of the public that frowns on people in their profession settling in general, resentful of the society that has made it harder for him, specifically, and for the both of them together, resentful of all the explanations and the pacifying and the best behaviour they will have to display.
Most of all, he hates the way his statement, in every draft he has written and discarded, starts with an apology.
A hand combs through his hair. Minho presses a kiss to his temple, gentle and loving.
“What’s going on in that beautiful brain? You don’t look as happy as you should be after an orgasm like that.”
Kibum rolls his eyes and squeezes down on Minho’s spent dick, making him yelp and twitch inside him.
“Wow, ok, mean,” he pouts, then smooths his face out serious. “Jagi. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I’m just thinking,” he says honestly, sagging a little into his husband’s arms. “I’m already tired from the preparation and we haven’t even started yet. I’m just– I’m mad. I’m mad that we have to do it at all.”
“We don’t,” Minho says quickly. “Not ever, if you’ve changed your mind, we don’t have to, it’s no-one’s business–”
“I want to. And you want to, I know you do, I know how much this is killing you. So we’re doing this, and you’re right, let’s just get the ball rolling. I just resent that telling people is going to feel so much like begging for forgiveness.”
– – –
Something jazzy and christmassy and slow starts up, groups clumping together, talking over the music, waving at fans. There's a slight commotion at the other end of the stage when someone lifts a small woman in the air and promptly drops her, though from the raucous laughter Kibum can only assume she's unhurt.
And Minho's looking at him.
"What?"
He doesn't reply in words, just holds a hand out, dramatic enough they can both play it off as a joke if they need to. Kibum glances surreptitiously behind him, but Jinki is lost in his own world and Taemin has disappeared, somewhere? He places a distracted hand in Minho's as he scans the stage, only quite relaxing when he spots him crowded in with Jongin and a few of their friends towards the back. It takes him by surprise when Minho's free arm settles at his waist, but it's instinct to put his other hand on his husband's shoulder.
"Really?"
He raises an eyebrow and Minho grins, arm creeping round his back to tug them further together. Kibum scoffs to hide the way his stomach flutters. It takes a few moments to get themselves into a rhythm, but soon they're swaying and stepping in time to an instruction to, appropriately enough, "make the yuletide gay". He doesn't laugh, but it's a close-run thing, and a welcome distraction when Minho suddenly twirls him, nearly sending him off balance.
"Bastard," he hisses as he steadies himself on his husband's chest. Minho just snickers and pulls them close again.
"Sorry jagi."
"No you aren't."
As always, in Minho's arms, the rest of the world ceases to matter quite as much. He plays idly with the soft hair at the nape of his neck, out the way enough to escape the product suffocating the rest of it. Minho sighs, and then looks him in the eye.
Kibum wonders how many years of marriage it will take for him to stop being flattened by this, for the full heady force of Minho's gaze to dim in its effect, if he'll ever get used to it. He can't decide whether he wants to.
There's a hint of a smile playing at the corner of Minho's mouth, wistful more than amused.
"I want to kiss you," he whispers, which. Gross. Kibum can't believe he likes this dork.
"Oooh," he retorts, just as quiet. "You have a crush on me, that's so embarrassing for you."
"Brace yourself, I'm actually in love with you."
"Oh, terrible," Kibum laughs softly.
"Mmm," Minho agrees under his breath, eyes laughing now.
"Probably okay,” he offers gently. “Since we're legally married."
"In the state of Nevada."
"And to everyone who matters."
Their feet have stopped moving. Minho's eyes have gone wider, a bit darker.
"Stop making me want to kiss you," He grumbles.
And Kibum– wants. He wants so much. More than he thought he did.
Fuck it.
Fuck.
It.
"Who says you can't?"
His heart is beating as he says it, as Minho's smile goes slack and his eyes widen.
"Do you– don't joke, jagi," he says, choking on the words, still quiet enough they can't be overheard.
Kibum's heart is racing. He's an idiot. This is the best idea he's ever had. Fuck waiting for the right moment, fuck negotiating with the company, fuck making statements, fuck trying to explain themselves to anyone, within or without, who thinks they have to. They're in love, and they've worked damn hard to get here, and everyone who matters knows already.
They deserve more than whispering. They deserve better.
"I'm not joking." He can hear in his own voice the tinge of desperation. "I'm not– I'm not joking. Minho. Yeobo. Kiss me."
Minho closes his eyes and takes one deep, shuddering breath. He brings their hands up between them and presses a reverent kiss to Kibum's knuckles, right over his wedding ring, a habit he's picked up with increasing frequency since the honeymoon. And then he tips his head the few inches down to bring their faces level, locking eyes with Kibum.
"I love you," he whispers into the space between them, and Kibum just smiles and rocks up to capture his mouth.
— — —
The most domestic scandal of all time : SHINee Key and Minho’s marriage, everything you need to know
On the off-chance you’ve been living under a rock for the past week, the headline of this news article may have given you something of a shock. No, it’s not clickbait. Yes, it is one-hundred percent truthful.
After sixteen years of being SHINee, Key and Minho announced (well, sort of) that they had embarked on a new relationship together. However, it wouldn’t be our favourite scandal of the decade if it hadn’t been revealed in quite such a peculiar way. Those who follow the field of Korean celebrities, particularly K-Pop idols, know there is a general formula to these things. First, either fans or press spot evidence– this may be in the form of spotting people on dates, noticing lovestagrams or couple clothing, a few too many coincidental hangouts in the same place at the same time, or, less common, rumours from within the industry. Second, if this has built enough, one of two things happen– either the people involved address the rumours themselves, to deny or confirm it, or their agencies release a statement saying they are checking with their artist, usually followed by a corresponding, matching set of statements denying or confirming (Link!: check out a few notable exceptions where the relevant agencies clearly did not talk to each other at all. Awkward!)
This particular relationship reveal was launched in, perhaps, the hardest of all launches. We have put together a comprehensive timeline, with all the information the curious need:
1. A video released by an American magazine, advertised to contain the three members of SHINee who had attended an event in Las Vegas, in fact only contained one: leader Onew. The missing members? Key and Minho, of course.
2. There were, between the event and the video’s release, unconfirmed reports of fans sighting the pair at three airports: Las Vegas, Incheon and Jeju City.
3. Upon his return from his military service, youngest member Taemin made several cryptic comments in a livestream about having been left out of big events while he was serving.
4. Key appeared on his regular spot at Nolto, sporting a very beautiful ring on the fourth finger of his left hand. After investigation by fans, it was discovered that he had worn it before. One eagle-eyed fan managed to track the ring down to its origins at a high-end jewellers in, you guessed it, Las Vegas.
5. A few months later, both Key and Minho appeared on another program. Key was wearing the same ring again, with no other hand accessories and this time Minho was wearing a matching one on the same finger, again with no other accessories.
6. Now for the big one: At this year’s KBS Gayo Daechukje, after all the artists had performed and were gathered onstage as the credits rolled, dancing and celebrating, Key and Minho shared a kiss while slow-dancing to the final song. The scene did air live, but was immediately cut away from, although it was hard for the poor camera directors to ignore it when every idol onstage was reacting. Some cheered (One might have thought the Stray Kids/Twice contingent were watching Korea win the world cup rather than their seniors locking lips). Some simply stared, open mouthed (the more hilarious examples including Enhypen’s Niki, Mamamoo’s Wheein and ex I-Zone soloist Choi Yena.) Some, of course, got emotional (we feel you Hoshi). Despite KBS' best efforts, videos of course began spreading like wildfire on social media, both screen-recordings of the broadcast and fancams from within the venue, revealing a few more kisses , the adorable way Key collapsed shyly into Minho's arms after and the emotional congratulatory hugs the pair then shared with their members and friends (SNSD'S Taeyeon, the evening's MC and Key's longtime bestie, was particularly heartfelt in her interaction with the couple).
7. Of course, it was immediately the top trending topic on every social media platform available, with reactions varying from sincere celebration, unintelligible yelling, the patented fandom deep-dive into their history and the unfortunately inevitable homophobic backlash. The videos were everywhere. Fan organised hashtags celebrating the couple and calling for their removal from the group battled it out for the top trending spot. Above all, calls for their agency, SM, to release a statement confirming their relationship status were rife.
8. The statement did not come, not even a preliminary short release to say they were looking into it. It seemed SM were refusing to acknowledge the matter, but our new favourite couple did what they do best, and took it into their own hands. Both Minho and Key posted the same three photos, with the same caption, on instagram, which was quickly reposted by their bandmates. The photos were a close-up shot of their left hands, complete with rings, a picture of them sitting on the couch cradling Key's beloved poodles Comme-Des and Garcons, with Minho kissing a lightly annoyed looking Key's cheek, and a shot of them on the couch with Onew and Taemin, while a framed photograph of late member Jonghyun sits on a table right beside them. The caption was the same statement repeated in Korean, Japanese and English:
Kim Kibum and Choi Minho were legally married in a private ceremony in the US nine months ago. When it becomes possible, we will have another ceremony to legally recognise our union in our home country of Korea. My husband and I have loved each other for a long time, and will continue to for a long time more. We thank our family, friends and fans for their continued love and support.