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Jeongin is on the couch, and he looks at Minho with a guilty but stubborn expression that says he knows he’s not supposed to be on the couch at four AM but here he is, so what are you going to do about it hyung?
Minho doesn’t ask what he’s doing up, instead shuffling in his too-small slippers to join him on the couch. There is a cup of hot chocolate on the table that Minho doesn’t ask for permission to drink from. Jeongin doesn’t complain, most likely because he has learned when to pick his battles. The hot chocolate has that texture to it that suggests Jeongin added a bit too much of the mix and not enough milk, but it’s still warm and it makes Minho feel a little more like a human being.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Jeongin mumbles eventually, his voice scratchy.
Minho asks, “did you finish your homework?” and Jeongin makes a tiny, distressed sound as he sticks his tongue out. “Yah.”
“I’ll do it on the train.” He’s lying. He’ll sleep on the train, his head pillowed on Hyunjin’s shoulder, like he does most mornings. Minho doesn’t care about his homework, not really. He just has to ask as a hyung. He cares more for the fact Jeongin is wasting precious hours of rest on their lumpy couch. Their schedules are grueling even with at least six hours of sleep and Jeongin looks as tired as Minho feels- the bags under his eyes make him look gaunt.
Between them is about five inches of space. Enough to fit one of the throw pillows that Seungmin’s noona had sent home with him. Jeongin has his legs crossed, sockless feet tucked under his thighs, and Minho can see goosebumps on his arms. It’s not cold enough these days for there to be frost on the window beside them but it’s not warm enough either, even in a magical world where their apartment had any real semblance of insulation.
“Can I ask you a question, hyung?” Minho nods, tilting his head as he watches Jeongin square his skinny shoulders. Take a breath. His voice is soft, pensive but not cautious as he asks, “do you think Yongbokkie-hyung is gay?”
Of all the things that Minho had anticipated Jeongin might ask, this isn’t something that ever occurred to him. Why would it be? They’re busy constantly, two months since officially debuting with a comeback already being written and choreographed. It’s getting hotter outside. Their fridge gave out last week. Jeongin has school in the morning. Minho shoved his own thoughts about sexuality and relationships deep, deep down the minute JYPE called him in. There are some things he knows he won’t be allowed, at least not in the open, and a survival instinct is a hell of a thing. The longer Minho is silent the longer he realises he has no idea how to answer Jeongin’s question, and the quieter he is the heavier he starts to feel. A dangerous subject. Minho who can’t help but ignite, too close to a fuse.
“I don’t know.” A swirl of anxiety emerges from the pit of his stomach, not buried long enough or deep enough into the lining. It’s a blunt and achy kind of worry and for some reason he finds himself asking, “do you think it would be bad if he was?”
“What? No.” Jeongin looks a little bewildered, blinking up at Minho. His lips purse into a line, something cold edging into the edge of his expression, unfamiliar on his soft features. It’s so unlike him that Minho balks. “Of course not, hyung. Would you?”
“No.” Not me, of all people , Minho thinks but doesn’t say. His stomach settles. “We’ve just never spoken about this before.”
Jeongin’s face crinkles up, and that’s more like him now. A little squishy. “I’m not homophobic. Did you think I was?”
“No, Jeonginnie.”
“Good. Cause I’m not.” Jeongin’s shoulders dip. He twists the rosary on his finger, frowning down at the floorboards. His thumb has a ring of green around it, from one of the fake rings a stylist had put on him the night before. He’d forgotten. Not taken them off before washing his hands. “I don’t think it would be a big deal. I wouldn’t treat him any different. I just can’t tell what is him being raised somewhere else and what’s just… him.”
Minho snorts and gets side-eyed in return. “No, no. I get what you mean. Our Yongbokkie is pretty special.”
Jeongin’s sigh is soft, breathy. “Yeah.”
“I’m just kind of worried he might have a crush on Changbin-hyung,” Jeongin continues eventually, hesitant, eyes flicking to and from Minho in fits and starts. Minho imagines he might have been told a secret and is trying not to let it slip. “And I don’t want him to get his feelings hurt. Or- or for something to happen. Or not happen. I don’t know. Yongbokkie-hyung is…” he trails off, and Minho watches his Adam's apple bob in his throat. “Soft.”
Minho goes lax against the lumps in the couch, turning his words over in his head carefully. He’d seen clips of the show obviously, despite not watching it himself. He couldn’t in the end, not at all. He’d seen the hearts and rainbows and dreamy BGM they’d put over Yongbok’s fond gazes and intent expression whenever he was around Changbin when they’d made a whole compilation of it to broadcast on television. And he’d been there by the river when Yongbok had jokingly, gleefully requested a kiss from Changbin, had sat and witnessed it himself and laughed without giving it a second thought. Hadn’t been there when they’d cried together, hadn’t heard that choked out hyung’s sorry with his own ears, but he’d heard about it. And he knows Yongbok. Knows Changbin. Lives with them, works with them, takes care of them. Yongbok is intelligent, and wouldn’t do anything to risk himself or the group when this time it will be permanent, and it’s something he and Minho know better than anyone else. Minho sometimes thinks that maybe, maybe he recognises something in Yongbok that he doesn’t want to acknowledge. At night he privately tries to guess how long survival can trump loneliness and that terrible hope that wonders if he opens that barricaded door he’ll find someone already on the other side.
It all circles back to things Minho can’t risk. Not out loud. Not for himself, or for the others.
“He is,” Minho agrees finally, tonguing the roof of his mouth where the ashy chocolate powder still sits. “But we all have his back, don’t we? He knows we’ll take care of him. Yongbok-ah can be as soft as he wants.”
There’s something tragic about it, Minho feels. Knowing these kids won’t get to really be kids. That he himself might be still considered a kid. Sitting beside his exhausted dongsaeng at the witching hour, legs covered in bruises and his spine still twitching, guilt pooling heavily in his fingertips and dragging him closer to the floor.
“Yeah.” Jeongin’s hand falls out of his lap, and the five inches becomes two. Another chain looped around the door handle, and another layer of dirt in the pit of Minho’s stomach. “Yeah. We do.”