Work Text:
“Yeah, I dated a girl when I was in high school,” Chan says, “It was cool, but I was so busy it just didn’t work out.”
Minho nods in agreement next to him, “Yeah, I’ve dated too.”
Jisung feels a weird twist in his stomach as he pictures Minho out with some faceless girl, holding her hand, smiling at each other.
“What’s it like?” Hyunjin asks, and everyone else chimes in with synchronised curiosity.
Chan smiles slightly, “It’s... nice, you know? My ex was really sweet, and she had this long soft hair, and pretty eyes.”
Changbin snorts, “Sounds like you still like her, hyung.”
Chan rolls his eyes, “Nah, I haven’t seen her in ages now. It was just nice to be close with someone, I guess.”
Jisung thinks about it a little bit, but he can’t imagine dating someone. It sounds nice, like Chan had said, having someone to be close to, but Jisung has seven whole group members that he’s closer with than anyone. He has Minho, who is always there for him. He doesn’t need a girl for that.
“What about you, Minho-hyung?” Seungmin asks.
Minho, who had been quietly looking at his plate while Chan was talking, looks up and raises his eyebrows, “What about me?”
“What was it like for you, dating girls?” Seungmin presses.
“Yeah, did your girlfriend have pretty eyes too?” Jeongin adds, wiggling his eyebrows slightly.
“Uh,” Minho stammers a little, then presses his lips together. He stares at his plate again, pushing the food around a little while the others eagerly wait for his response. “I actually, um,” he says again, eyes drilling holes into the table, “I didn’t date girls,” he finally says, very quietly.
Everyone goes quiet.
After a few moments, Jeongin breaks the silence, “But you said you dated?” he asks, confused.
“Yeah, well,” Minho mumbles, shrugging one shoulder. He’s still staring at his plate, and Jisung sees his shoulders hunch up, curling in on himself. He wants to hug him, but he’s all the way across the table. He can’t tell if the waves of anxiety he’s feeling are coming from Minho or himself, but he does know that his heart is beating faster than it was a few minutes ago.
“Anyone can date whoever they want,” Chan says firmly, “It doesn’t have to be with girls.”
Jisung feels the puzzle pieces click into place in his head.
Boys. Minho was talking about dating boys.
The image from before pops back into his head, but this time the faceless person has short hair, broad shoulders, a hand that envelops Minho’s as he holds it. Jisung's heart thuds loudly in his chest. This image doesn’t make him feel any better.
It had never occurred to him at all that Minho might date boys. That any of them would, or could. It feels like the earth has tilted on its axis a little bit. Or maybe a lot.
“Is that, like...” Jisung finds himself speaking, even though he doesn’t have the words, his voice quiet but cutting through the silence easily, “We can date boys?”
His voice is barely above a whisper, but Minho's eyes snap straight to his and hold his gaze. For once, he can’t read Minho’s expression, has no idea what he’s thinking.
“Yeah, Sung-ah,” Chan says gently, pulling Jisung's gaze over to him, “If you wanted to.”
“Oh,” is all he says in response. He slides his eyes back over to Minho, but he’s gone back to staring holes in the table.
“I kissed a boy at a party once, back in school,” Felix comments casually, and everyone else whips their heads around to look at him. Not Jisung; he keeps looking at Minho.
“What?!” Hyunjin squeaks at Felix, and it’s echoed by the others. There’s no unkindness in it, just surprise.
Felix just shrugs, “It’s not really as much of a big deal in Australia,” he says, like it really isn’t a big deal. The others all start asking him questions, but it all blurs into the background for Jisung.
He cannot imagine a situation where that’s not a big deal.
He tries to think about it, going out on a date with a boy, holding his hand, but all he can think about is Minho. They hold hands, they cuddle up together. Is it really that different from dating someone?
He wants to ask Minho what the difference is, but his mouth is dry and his heart is vibrating against his ribcage.
Minho has seemingly relaxed a little, now that the attention has been diverted to Felix, who seems to have moved away from talking about kissing boys and is now just telling the others about Australia in general. Chan is watching him with a fond smile, but where Jisung's eyes are trained firmly on Minho he sees Chan reach across and gently squeeze Minho's leg.
Minho tilts his head and catches Chan's eye, shooting him a small, half smile.
Jisung wants to go over there. He wants to comfort Minho too, tell him that it’s okay, that none of them mind if he dates boys, especially not Jisung, but he’s rooted to the spot. He can’t move, and he knows he wouldn’t be able to hold on to Minho without his own hands shaking.
Things go back to normal quickly after that, everyone chatting like normal, moving past the dating conversation and onto the next topic quickly, like they do with everything else. No one asks Minho any more questions, but he’s uncharacteristically quiet for the rest of dinner. Jisung keeps stealing glances at him, and he’s quiet too, his brain just turning around and around thoughts of Minho and boys and dating and kissing and every time he tries to imagine it for himself, the boy has Minho's face.
It’s Jisung and Minho's turn on dish washing duty after dinner. Usually, they joke around and have fun, but Jisung is too on edge, distracted by his own thoughts. It’s awkward; he can feel how tense Minho is and it only makes him more anxious and fidgety. The second time that he nearly drops a mug, Minho grabs it and looks at him with a strange expression that Jisung has never seen before. One that makes him want to shrink into himself and hide in his room until he figures out how to be a regular person again.
After another tense few minutes, Minho stills and says “Jisung, if you have an issue with it then I need you to tell me.”
His voice is hard, unfamiliar, and Jisung’s whole body freezes up. He turns to look at Minho, but he’s staring straight ahead, and his hands are gripping the edge of the counter.
“Issue with what?” Jisung asks, his voice small and nervous.
Minho swallows, “With- with me being gay.”
Jisung’s heart drops to the pit of his stomach, “What? No, of course I don’t!”
“You’ve been off since I said it, and you keep looking at me weird. Just say it now, Jisung, because it’s who I am and I’m not going to wait around for my best friend to realise that he can't deal with it or something.”
With every word, Jisung can feel his heart breaking more and more. He reaches out and puts his hand over Minho's, “Hyung, no! No, I promise. I just... I didn’t know. I was surprised, but I don’t have any issue with it, I promise.”
As Jisung speaks, Minho's grip on the counter relaxes, and Jisung threads their fingers together. When Minho finally turns to look at him, all the hardness is gone from his face and Jisung can see the tears that have built up in his eyes.
“Are you sure?” Minho whispers.
Jisung nods immediately, “I promise,” he repeats again, and pulls Minho into a hug.
Minho hooks his chin over Jisung's shoulder and leans into him, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” he murmurs, “I wanted to, but...”
Jisung squeezes him gently, “You don’t need to be sorry. I’m glad you told me now, though.”
“Me too... I honestly didn’t see the Felix curveball coming though,” Minho says with a chuckle.
Jisung laughs with him, and it feels like everything is back to normal between the two of them.
Well, everything except the butterflies behind Jisung's ribcage.
He can’t stop thinking about it. He lies in bed that night, wide awake thinking about Minho. Minho dating boys. Minho dating boys who are not Jisung, stirring up a whole whirlpool of conflicting feelings in him. It’s ridiculous, really; he’s never thought about Minho this way before, but now he can’t stop, and it scares him.
Because what if he wants to date Minho? What if he wants to kiss him, like Felix did with that boy in Australia?
Chan said it was okay, but is it? Really?
There’s only one person that Jisung wants to talk to about this right now.
He slides out of bed and pads down the hall to the room that Minho shares with Felix and Jeongin. The main lights are off, but as Jisung quietly opens the door he sees a gentle glow coming from behind the blanket that Minho uses as a curtain for his bunk. He must hear Jisung come into the room because his head pokes around the blanket and he blinks at Jisung.
“Jisungie?” he murmurs quietly.
Jisung tiptoes over, trying not to disturb the others, “Can I sleep here tonight?” he whispers.
Wordlessly, Minho pulls his blanket curtain back and lifts his covers up so that Jisung can climb in. As soon as Jisung is under the covers next to him, Minho snakes an arm around his waist and Jisung snuggles into his side.
Only once he’s settled down, pressed against Minho in the small bed, does Jisung realise just how nervous he is. He knows he can talk to Minho about anything, especially after everything that happened today, but if he says it out loud then it’s real, not just thoughts anymore.
“Is everything alright?” Minho asks gently. Of course he can tell, he can always tell.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Jisung mumbles.
Minho hums in response and strokes his back. It would be so easy for Jisung to just fall asleep like this, like he has so many times before. But he can’t do that when he has things he needs to ask Minho.
He takes a deep breath, “Hyung, can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” Minho answers simply.
Jisung’s heart is beating so hard that he’s sure Minho must be able to feel it, “Is it really okay?” he asks, his voice small and quiet, “To date boys?”
Minho's hand stills, just for a fraction of a second, where it’s stroking gently on Jisung's back. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, but when he does speak his voice is gentle, without judgement, “You’re still thinking about this?”
Jisung wants to burrow his face into the pillow, hide away somewhere where he doesn’t have to explain himself, but he forces himself not to. “Yeah,” is all he whispers in response.
“It’s really okay, Jisung-ah. It’s more than okay,” Minho says, and he seems so sure, and Jisung wants to believe him.
“And it- it’s okay to like boys, too?” Jisung asks, even quieter than before.
Minho stills again, and this time he pulls back ever so slightly to look at Jisung, eyes searching over his face. Jisung just looks back at him, pressing his lips together nervously.
Eventually, Minho takes a deep breath and his hand comes up from where it was on Jisung's back to brush some of his hair away from his forehead, tucking a loose strand behind his ear.
“Yeah, that’s okay too. Some people don’t think it is, but they’re wrong. It’s- it’s not just okay, it’s a good thing, I think, if that’s who you love,” Minho explains earnestly, and Jisung can tell he really believes what he’s saying, that it’s important to him, and that he wants Jisung to believe it too.
Jisung nods, and smiles a small smile at him, blinking back the moisture that he didn’t realise had formed in his eyes. “Thanks, hyung,” he says quietly.
Minho smiles back at him softly and then pulls him back in close, pressing a kiss to the top of his head, “Any time,” he murmurs, “Is there... anything else you want to ask?”
“No,” Jisung shakes his head, “That’s it.”
Minho clicks the light off and they cuddle up, the same way they have fallen asleep together so many times, Minho’s arm back around Jisung’s waist and holding him close.
There is one more thing that Jisung wants to ask, but it’s even scarier, so he waits until Minho’s breathing is heavy, until he’s sure that he’s drifted off to sleep.
“And is it okay if I like you?” he whispers.
He’s definitely imagining it, because Minho is asleep, but Jisung could swear he feels the arm around him tighten, ever so slightly.
It’s a while before Jisung manages to fall asleep.