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[dokeomi]

shin

he would lose if he left now, because shin hates backing down. but he can’t say that to minsung, who’ll turn tail the moment things start getting worse. “i dunno. i could start, like, a debate club. destroy young hopes and ambitions in the classroom. that’d be fun.” he doesn’t really mean that, but minsung isn’t fond of kids and might think it’s funny. shin presses his side against his. “if your other hand is this cold too, you should take my glove.”

“You can have a color for each day of the week, like some weird cartoon character.” Minsung decides in what would be a very un-Shin-like decision to make. He laughs at the curl of the word under Shin’s tongue, like it tastes bitter. Minsung had been more defensive over cheap fabrics at the start of things, but not as much anymore, he likes the feel of Shin’s cashmere sweaters too much to get worked up over it. Besides, he’d picked out polyester for the joke just because of how awful it was. It dies out between them in that slow, awkward way of an abrupt mood change, where the tail end of it starts sounding a little nervous.

There are lots of things Minsung can’t put into words, and this feeling’s among them. The promise that he’d leave, because there isn’t a word for self-pitying anger wrapped up in relief. So Minsung just nods at him once, like it’s settled, and keeps looking at anywhere but Shin’s face. It’s too much of a lot of things right now that they’d maybe both been holding back from saying.

He knows he should pry apart his jaw and say ‘I love you’ back properly. He’s not angry, that’s not why. It’s hard to explain the why of when talking becomes hard for him. He drops his head briefly to settle near Shin’s shoulder, the press of his nose and a quick, pinch of a bite just above his jacket’s collar. It holds the same essential meaning. 

“You can start a hobby. Like those people really into simulated train driving. That could be you.” Half a joke spoken humid into Shin’s neck before he rights himself. He wants to walk again, standing still’s making energy bunch up in his calves, but he’s not sure whether it’s a better idea to head deeper or start back for the house. “And I didn’t do a good job on the sink, you’re just trying to compliment me.” Minsung says it like an accusation, though not an angry one. Trying to ferry the mood out of the mire it had sunken into. 

“What would you have everyone argue about first?” Minsung asks him, takes a moment to look back and forth, to see if Shin will weigh in on the direction before Minsung slowly starts to wander on the same path they’d been walking down before. “You should put it back on, you’re the one with the baby immune system. I’m scrappy.” Minsung tells him, even if his hand is defrosting with Shin’s added body heat because he’d taken it off.

“We should’ve brought heat packs. There’s a turn up ahead that we can use to double back, the sun’ll probably start leaving soon anyway.” In winter it always leaves faster, and it’s harder to make out its goodbyes from behind all the trees. In the dark and things become a little stranger, moments where even Minsung feels uneasy.

[dokeomi]

shin

“i’ll make it work. i know i can.” and he means it; shin’s adaptable, has always been. “just– you have to be patient. i gotta start a club at the school or something. start ordering people around.” he needs an outlet, really, but minsung can’t provide that.

Goosebumps canvas the small of his back, and he wants to blame it on the wind riding up his coat. It’s not though, it’s because of Shin’s voice saying something in a place it has no reason to be. He cocks a look at him out of the corner of his eyes despite the shudder, “I’m never too good” he defends his own poor behavior because he’s not, at the moment, twisted up in their sheets and worked up to the point where he might be liable to agree. They pause there, near the pines. Minsung focuses on the windburned sting of his lips and the way Shin banters back his little joke like a distraction. “But what if I’m like ‘wait, this is your look. Let’s buy it in five different colors.’ What then, huh?” He asks challengingly, voice tipped high in that way that means he’s being playful, lying for the sake of it.

“Kwang would not come down here, because I’d make sure we didn’t mail one to Kwang, actually.” He says it just to continue to joke, but then Shin’s voice shuts itself off, an emotional spigot. Minsung takes too much time squeezing in quick bursts at Shin’s hand and trying to spot if there are anymore crows left up in the trees, or if he’d laughed them all away earlier. Eventually, he pushes out words that are difficult to say. Eventually, because it always takes Minsung a while to say anything difficult. If he’ll say it at all.

It’s sharp, when Shin responds, and Minsung slackens his grip on his hand. This is why he hates saying things that are difficult, because he hates being misinterpreted even more. And misinterpretations an easy thing to create when Minsung keeps his words so short and choppy. A cycle he perpetuates and only tries to fix by doing nothing. Shin lets go of his hand and Minsung looks over toward him, halfway to being hurt before he sees him yanking off his glove. “I didn’t mean it like a bad thing” he defends, “or that we aren’t a team. I just. Don’t want it to turn into something where you’re so adamant about staying because ‘that’s not how it works with you’ and you just.” Minsung stops and looks at the sky instead of Shin’s face, starts picking at a loose thread he finds in Shin’s pocket now that he has nothing else to grip onto. 

“It’s possible to resent people that you love. I’d rather you leave before that kind of thing happened.” Minsung hasn’t let a whole lot of people into his life, and he’s never really been surrounded by that unconditional familial love in the way that Shin has. He doesn’t doubt Shin so much as know in the reality of people’s minds changing, or problems swelling. It's hard to make shin understand that, he thinks, because it's something you have to grow up knowing to understand. Watching people meant to love you stop trying at it. “I’m not saying that you will.” Minsung adds on in a hurry, before Shin has time to get offended by the implication.

Shin’s hand is warm when it returns, and he can feel his skin stealing it off from him almost immediately. Shin should put his gloves back on, and so Minsung frowns at him, a small tilt of his lips to convey that thought. “I’m trying to be patient.” Minsung’s never been known for having great patience to begin with, but this feels like a different sort of patience anyway. “I’m trying to be the right kind of patient. And I just. I don’t know what to do to make this town seem less fucked. I’m not good at fixing things, not properly at least. All wonky, like the sink.” Minsung sniffs against the cold and balls up his free hand into a fist. 

“I want you to make it work, Shin. I’m just saying, I understand it if you don’t. It’s not like it’s a game where you lose if you leave.” He wants to smoke, but that would likely just make his hands colder, holding them up to the wind like that. “What sort of project do you think would be the most entertaining?” Minsung asks him, more to get him to talk about anything else than the one-off point Minsung wanted to offer him.

[dokeomi]

shin

the air is still, in a way it can only get when it’s this cold. shin laughs, and then his breath catches in his throat, frozen. there’s something swirling in his gut; he shifts, drops his forehead to minsung’s shoulder. they’re still holding hands in his pocket. “i’m trying, minsung. i really am.” out here, there’s not even walls to listen in.

A belief lives in the back of Minsung’s head, where all the other awful thoughts and whims have rooted. The things nobody’s supposed to think about, like how others might react at his own funeral, or about spitting in Shin’s brother’s cup of coffee in secret before handing it over the next time he visits (specifically Kwang). Those kinds of thoughts. That’s where this one lives, that Shin dusts off now, the supposed impossibility of being able to annoy to the point of a real problem. Minsung doesn’t say that he’s wrong, and that he thinks it’d likely be easy if he really tried at it, because then he’d go ahead and annoy him and they’d be stuck out in the forest where Shin was already probably miserable, compounding by the second.

The shameful part of that whole line of thinking isn’t the possibility of it, it's the question of whether or not he will. If it’ll start raking through him like a compulsion because they’ve gone ahead and changed their habitat, like an ornery cat unused to the change and tearing up chunks of carpet to sharpen their claws on. And it’s Minsung’s fault they’ve changed it anyway, and that just makes it worse. 

He presses his lips together when they exchange smiles, the expression thinned by it. “Of course I’m annoying on purpose. But I’m choosing to be perfectly pleasant right now. I could tip my scales at any moment, shove you into a snow bank.” He knocks his shoulder back into Shin’s, not hard enough to send him sliding, something to pair with the devious grin he’s turned his earlier smile into.

It doesn’t last long anyway, hidden behind Shin’s mouth. The kiss makes Minsung’s chapped lips sting, but he presses himself closer anyway. The contact calms the uneasy patter of his heart. Always a little too rough with everything, especially in the beginning. Defensive over it too, in that way where he’d clam up and get angry if Shin asked him too many questions in a voice where it just sounded like he didn’t quite understand Minsung’s thought process. If Shin were to mention it now, about liking  the bruises and marks too, Minsung probably would’ve laughed. Been annoying. 

“What, you think you’ll look irresistible in your little polyester hiking coat?” He bets Shin would never in his life buy polyester anything, even for an outfit he’d never wear, which just makes it funnier. “We could take a picture, send it to your parents as, like, a holiday greeting card.” He laughs again, wide-mouthed  because nobody’s around to see him except for Shin who by now probably knows the exact shape of all his teeth. The laughter is still vibrating in his throat when he feels Shin’s weight fall forward to rest against his shoulder. He stills in place, watches the puffs of his own breath cloud in front of his face as he listens to Shin, every word he says feels uncomfortable. 

Even if he’s gotten better at going through the motions of it, Minsung’s never gotten over the uneasiness that fills him whenever he’s expected to comfort someone. Stiffed up limbs, like he’s gotten putty stuck between his joints. Words somehow even stiffer. And this is an even worse thing to comfort over, because it’s something Minsung’s nervous about, too. He squeezes his hand between intervals that are too fast to be soothing, more like a nervous tick. “Well…if your trying runs out, I won’t blame you.” It doesn’t sound like a guilt trip, or the way that someone talks hoping for a compliment, for someone else to try and scrub away whatever self-deprecating thing was said with a fervor. It’s just that, to Minsung, that length of trying for someone has always seemed finite. Like a rope, used up and fraying and knotted in tangles the more it goes through. That rope for a person can finish. “It’s my thing that we’re stuck out here over. You don’t have to carry it if you can’t, don’t want to. Whatever.”

He’s not being brave. He’s chewing on his tongue so hard he tastes copper.  His hands shake with the energy leeched out from him to say what he did, the fear of staying here alone, though it’s well-hidden by the cold. It’s just, if someone’s trying runs out it doesn’t matter what Minsung’s opinion on the matter is. They just stop trying anyway. That’s how it works.

[dokeomi]

scytold

“in spring you’ll have to start teaching me about the plants out here.” in spring, when the ice in his gut has finally melted away, to

The fabric of Shin’s glove near the knuckle is worn a little rougher in a circle around the bone, in the same way of a dog who tramples the grass dead around the perimeter of a yard. Minsung’s index finger pressing and repressing in that same quick loop that he doesn’t always notice he’s making. Too cold to bite his own fingers, he wears down Shin’s hand instead, even as they’re both tucked away and into his pocket in what should be a reassurance. In what is a reassurance, honestly. The way that Shin has stuck himself to Minsung’s side with the stubborn assurance of industrial grade super glue. Back in the city there were moments he'd gone and proved it, like Minsung, with his cheeks flushed red from the anger instead of the cold, was talking too loud about things that didn't really matter (to the point where nobody would've called it talking except for him).

Shin rolling his eyes and tipping his head back against the rest of the couch instead of storming off properly like he should’ve, Minsung bracing for a door slam that wouldn’t come. That was a reassurance too, that he wouldn’t just fuck off and leave if Minsung’s errant mood for the day settled on self sabotage instead of bulk buying sour gummy worms. Then he’d gnaw at his fingers, like a coyote to a bone stuck in a saw-toothed trap. Only Shin isn’t a trap, so it’s not a one-to-one match. This town is a trap, the forest. Shin’s being a good sport of pretending it’s not. He can’t help the motion of his anxiety though,  finger a merry-go-round around the jut of his knuckle instead of his thumbnail cracked between incisors. 

“Don’t say things you’ll regret, I’ll start being annoying on purpose.” He smiles so it doesn’t read as a genuine threat, he doesn’t mean for it to be. The self-management of his face has proven to be necessary if he wants to avoid misunderstandings. His voice doesn’t carry that natural candor of Shin’s, where he talks like everyone believes they’re in on a joke. Minsung just sounds like a bitch. They walk in deeper, even if it mostly looks the same. Thicker trees, but all just as dead and shivering under the weight of the snow. It feels different though, the further you get in. 

He pauses under a pine, a scatter of needles. They’re far out from the house, the town. They haven’t been this alone together probably ever. He’s not sure if he likes it or finds it unnerving. Probably the former, and he wonders if Shin would tip toward the later. Maybe. He uses the kiss to distract himself from thoughts he shouldn’t be thinking, because the tactile press of a body has always been something he could use to reorient himself. He probably kisses him too hard, but not in a painful way, where he draws his lip into his mouth and bites down sharp. Just too hard.

“Why, do you want to become a regular hiker?” The beginning of the question is a mumble against Shin’s lips before he pulls away enough to be audible. “I’ll get you one of those funny little walking sticks. A vest. Rubber reinforced hiking boots, for the puddles.” All things Shin would never in a million years be caught dead in. Minsung cackles loud enough to startle the crows.

[dokeomi]

THICKET. The forest, crawling toward evening.

The breath in front of his face congeals and clots into the ice-brick air. It’s just cold enough for snow, and that means it’s a slush of mud and marsh lining the ground instead of anything pretty. If they were painted into a picture, someone might describe it as bleak; muted colors bleeding into seasonal depression. That doesn’t show on Minsung’s face, skin rubbed red like an outlier between the trees stripped bare and the dimming sky. He’s got on a smile, too. In the way that someone walks out of a house with a scarf only half-folded into placed, like they’d forgot they were wearing it in the first place. He should’ve brought gloves, but he didn’t, so he warms his hand against Shin’s, a physical press that’s too hard against his knuckles, like Minsung expects heat to release at a pressure point. 

“Are you miserable?” 

For all the reasons that Minsung had loved the city, he’d always missed this.The slow-sprouting sprawl of the forest and knots of weeds. It’s always been hard to explain the why of it. There’s plenty to look at in other places. Buildings and flowers and people. Cats yowling at gutters hoping to startle the mice. He could have been content with a little garden, or a sun room stuffed with potted plants. That’s what he tells himself, an angry excuse over what his life could’ve been. It’s a lie, one of the many that Minsung refuses to acknowledge. He’s better about some lies, like the ones he’d been so adamant about telling Shin towards the earlier ends of things (and the middle too, if he were being honest, though he finds it hard to be). How he doesn’t believe in love, and if he did, then he’d believe it more if it carved sharp and deep and forced him to care. 

“We can turn back before we get too deep, if you are. I won’t be upset.” He might be upset. It would be that irrational sort of upset that he’s so very good at. He’s also gotten good at hiding unkind smiles behind his teeth instead of starting an argument out of nothing, just to make everyone feel as unnecessarily upset as he does. 

But this isn’t really a question of enjoying the hike. This is a secret admission of: this is my soul, an empty forest in a haunted town. Do you hate it - are you scared of it - do you want to get lost in it? He stops walking near the base of a pine, thick enough around that it doesn’t wobble when Minsung kicks it with a boot. All that happens is pine needles tumbling down like imitation snow, sticky with sap and green against their hair. 

“Merry Christmas.”

[dokeomi]

scytold​:

“you know kwang never needs an invitation.” which is true; kwang just assumes he’s welcome, and then he drops in without warning. like a man who thinks he’s always the most important person in the room. “it’s fine, it’ll just be an afternoon. it’s not like he’d want to sleep on the couch. and if we’re lucky he’ll insist we come visit him next time, we can push it off then.” it’s not that shin doesn’t love his brother, but the constant nagging does get a little annoying. and minsung gets the expression right, too. “he just likes feeling superior. we can let him have his delusions.”

A hum, that quite acquiescence that signifies acknowledgement to that shift in his personality. Something that doesn’t make him quite so uncomfortable to look at now. He finds he doesn’t mind it, or how odd a concept it feels to describe why so many nice things handed over to him had once made his skin crawl, water bugs over the pond scum of his then-psyche.

Minsung knows it is different between them, but then, he also knows Shin and the town well enough to figure out how it’ll likely turn out in the end, entirely fine. That and he’d gone through it in reverse himself. "And it was different for me in the city then, but I'd like to think i turned out alright for it." It might’ve been a little misaligned, Minsung went to the city entirely through his own free will, but he still didn’t have a safety net there to fall back on. No cousins or old friends to pick up the slack and show him around. He mostly just winged it. “And if you hate it that much you can still skip out of town.” Another cackle, though not as light. Likely tied down to the fact that Minsung wouldn’t really be able to follow him. He doesn’t open that can of a conversation fully though.

“You’re right I wouldn’t, she’ll have to think of a cleverer plan to poison me.” Minsung and mothers don’t mix it seems - his own or otherwise. Something he’s come to accept rather than harbor resentment for. He can make it work if they spend time together, positions himself strategically somewhere nearby to Yun if Shin’s mother wants to spirit him off to dote. He’s had enough time to mostly cycle through the frustration and anger and guilt. Now it all just settles like an occasional layer of dust he has to remember to brush away every so often.

"Do you think it's possible to overfeed his ego?" The ego in question being what must be a giant pac-man-ed thing, rolling around and consuming. Treating the wastelands of his interactions like a level up in the game of his life. It is a little funny to bait him though. “If Kwang stayed here he’d kick us out of our own bed.” He snorts at the idea of it, head dropping back against the worn cushion as he listens to the both of them breathe in tandem, only just out of sync.

“Fine, but if I start going insane I’m hiding in the garden house.” It’s hard to twist out from the habit of running when he’s overwhelmed, though he’s at least made progress to hiding out in nearby areas in his best impersonation of a poorly socialized cat. Better than ghosting the world at two in the morning and binge drinking for long enough that the rising sun gave him a migraine. Baby steps. “You can come too.” He cards his fingers lazily through Shin’s hair, “what would he even do if he was in here alone?”

[dokeomi]

scytold​:

“dunno. freaked out a little, i think. they’ll come around.” the setup’s been changed up, but he’s certain they’ll both come out to explore soon. “mum never cries.” shin closes his eyes, lets himself breathe in slowly. the smell of earth seems to cling to minsung out here, never letting him go. or maybe that’s magic, and shin’s nose isn’t trained enough to recognise it. “mad about it, i guess. but the goalposts keep moving anyway. doesn’t matter, i’m happy here with you. my brothers want to drive down to visit in a few weeks.”

It’s nice, knowing they’re not on a set schedule, that they don’t need to maximize their time and shove everything they think might need to be done into that gap of space before they separate. Bemoan whatever they’d forgotten to do later over a video call. Shin will be there in the morning, and the morning after, and the one after that. Knowing that he’ll be there, in their bed, in this house, feels like everything. Like his entire situation is halved in how daunting it had felt from that first morning he’d rolled  in on that crunched up gravel with this house sitting in mourning and weeping out all his mother’s unsorted belongings.

“I’ll take the compliment.” He decides, graciously (he’d been absolutely terrible at it, back then, when they’d first started dating. Until Shin had worn him down to the idea of it with a certainty that Minsung’s reaction was wholly wrong). It had been hard to explain the way those sorts of words liked to skitter around on centipede-legs underneath his skin, but he can take a handful now with a smile instead of gnashing molars.

“Easy for me to say because I know it for fact. I wouldn’t lie to you.” Trust had been a whole big deal at one point, the kind of deal that was easy to twist into misinterpretation and fear. But at least it means now that Minsung trusts Shin more than he thought was possible. He assumes Shin sees it the same, it felt like it anyway, that they both had some turning point. That everything clicked into place with that knowing despite the bags of anxiety or paranoia or fear they both tended to clutch white-knuckled to.

Minsung changes the topic anyway. There’s no use in worrying over the details of it. Not now, not ever (though Shin likely wouldn’t agree with him on that second point). “Let me know if we need anything for them.” His finger finds the seam of Shin’s shirt near the shoulder, traces it absentmindedly as they talk. “Am I evil, did I steal you away? Is she going to send me a lead-based face powder to end me?” He ends it all with a cackle, it’s just a little funny is all, even if he’s not so sure Shin agrees with him on that one, either. The laugh quiets into a near-groan at the mention of brothers, though.

Which isn’t entirely fair. Two of them are lovely, it’s just that the third is so very much not that he almost counter-balances them. “What if Kwang’s invitation gets lost in the mail.” The fact that they’re communicating via text is a moot point, really. He can already piece it all together, Kwang will insult his house, Minsung will agree (and this will piss him off even more). The food won’t be right, it will be too hot, he’ll sneer at his cat, and then the mess (a nebulous mess, because Shin will be here to avert Minsung’s propensity to make a mess), and then Minsung will run and Yun might follow. It’s not a new story, just one Minsung doesn’t usually enjoy re-reading. “He just wants to come so he can make that face at you.” Minsung tries his best attempt at it now, mostly judgy with a sharp flair of annoyance to his brows.

[dokeomi]

scytold​:

the village, on the other hand… “i don’t know about the place yet. think i need to settle in first.” he shuffles down, until he can rest his temple against minsung’s shoulder. the position gives him a decent look at the room, with unfamiliar furniture and walls in colours he wouldn’t pick. “i don’t really belong here yet. give it a month.”

“Sure, you’re the only one that matters. But who knows how many are sitting around right now thinking about how much they don’t regret me.” At this exact moment, likely only Shin, but there’s no reason not to commit to the bit to dispel the stick of uncertainty. “That was absolutely the worst joke you’ve ever made.” Minsung nudges a knee blindly at what he guesses might be Shin’s stomach, and it’s mostly because he'd likely prefer if Shin could drag him back by the hair. If the town didn’t already have a taste for his blood, a shark-like possessiveness with the way it snaps its jaws down around him. He might belong here, and it might be his home, but it’s been a long time since he’s wanted it to be.

Minsung shifts himself to the side, enough room for Shin to half wedge himself into the gap of space left behind as he unfurls. If he closes his eyes he can almost pretend they’re somewhere else, back in one of their apartments. Post-exam with the energy wrung out of him, too tired to do much else than lay on top of each other and listen to the hum of a podcast. Almost, except he can’t keep his eyes closed forever and the sweet tang of flowers has a way of wafting in through the windows.

(He admits to that one, he does like having his garden back.)

Minsung breathes in deep at Shin’s answer, worry loosening from their knots around his ribs. “Never? I feel like I must’ve made you feel awkward at least once in my life.” A laugh to let all that air escape him again, and this time he feels lighter for it.

“You’re more likeable than I am, I wouldn’t worry.” Minsung wriggles himself back enough to find the arm rest to prop himself against. “But...really. Don’t get in your head about it. It’s all slow here, nothing matters enough to lend it your energy.” He nudges a thumb to Shin’s forehead like it might be possible to trace a rune there and keep every errand thought he might conjure up at bay. It’s a philosophy that’s been working out for Minsung here for quite a while, even if he’s not all too sure Shin would be willing to give it a real go.

“How’d the snakes take the move?” He changes the topic before Shin has time to think of various instances that very well may need his energy. “Actually, how’d your parents take the move - did you mom cry?” Another prod of his finger, but this time at Shin’s temple. It had always been difficult for Minsung to parse out how he felt about Shin’s relationship with his parents, he usually takes Shin’s lead on the topic. By now and it usually lands on an amused sort of endearing, though that hadn’t always been the case.

[dokeomi]

scytold​:

“for you? i’d never.” shin keeps forgetting that minsung had feelings on this, too. like they don’t fit together quite right anymore. indulgent, shin rounds the couch, shifts his weight onto a knee propped between minsung’s until he can safely maneouver himself down, head against chest. maybe the cuddling is too much, too soon. but he’s been admittedly desperate for this for a long time.

“no neighbours, that’s true.” his fingers find their way beneath minsung’s shirt, tracing his spine, but the touch is innocent. he feels a little too beat to start anything exciting. “how’s it feel, having me here? regret letting me come yet?”

With every neatly-folded stack of pants, watches spilled in a rattle against a nightstand, books wedged into a predetermined order on the spaces left open on Minsung’s shelves, he feels relief. It’s not that he minds living alone, but living alone in a dorm or a one-room flat is so much more different than living alone in This House. A titled thing, because it holds the story of his childhood, memories clumped up in corners and tangled into ignored spiderwebs that he doesn’t feel like confronting.

The edge of linoleum peeled back just so in the kitchen from a wedged in butter knife, a notch in black marker on the edge of a side door from measuring himself, only to realize he’d needed a tape measure in the part-two step of the process and didn’t have one handy at six years old. The old stove he’d burned his palm on, the courtyard he used to lap like a race horse, all jacked up on energy with no real place to go past the waiting for her to get home. And all these childhood memories coated in the bitter tang of loneliness, because he’d been by himself for almost all of them. That’s what living here has felt like. Lonely, the barren kind. Without choice. Every foreign item Shin sets into place erases at that old familiarity in a way Minsung wants for. He’d watch him rewrite the whole house if he could, leave it blank and new and up to interpretation. He almost wants to say it, but ‘thank you for erasing the history of my childhood home’ doesn’t have the right ring to it, really, doesn’t get across the emotion the way he’d like it to. So he grabs at him instead, being physical has always been easier than talking, it’s been that way since forever.

“Who’d regret me? Maybe you’d just want to drag me back to a high-rise by my hair.” Traded back as unserious as the smile he’s wearing. Minsung doesn’t drop the hold he has on Shin’s shirt, feels the fabric twist as Shin takes the more sensible approach of rounding the side of the couch to find him. It’s only once Shin starts laying his body out that Minsung retracts the hooks of his fingers. He smells the same, that one brand of cologne that Minsung knows will be forever linked to Shin in his head. He could be in the middle of Madrid and have someone walk by wearing it  and Shin would be right there with him, half materialized and half back home in Korea.

That warm balm of summer is chased away by Shin’s fingers against his skin, body wriggling against his touch before settling. “I hate living in this house alone, I was counting down the days.” An expression, but Minsung had actually been doing it. The blunted to the skin state of his nails is testament to that, rivaled only by that one semester he’d overloaded his courses and had back to back exams.

He’s sour behind the teeth from his last bite of pickled radish when he kisses Shin, one thumb prodding up the underside of his chin to find his mouth. It’s brief, just that physical proof of what Minsung thinks his words are lacking. “Is it awkward?” Behind his words sit thoughts like, Am I different here, in this town? Does it change me? that he’s not sure he can even answer those himself. He felt a little different, back in the city. But maybe that was just a newer shade of happiness he hadn’t seen before.

[dokeomi]

BEGIN. Home, evening.

There are still boxes stacked around the living room, some are cut open with clothes spilling out onto the floor like multicolored viscera. Others are hiding the rest of Shin’s sweaters and rolled up jackets (deemed too hot to wear, and so currently irrelevant to the immediate reclamation of his belongings). It’s all half-done, the unpacking and the settling and the remembering of what it’s like to exist as two people constantly orbiting each other. The subtle bumping and touching and expectation of encroached on space. A slight adjustment, from the start Minsung had always been the one more accustomed to his own independence (to the point of detriment), but not unwelcome.

It feels more like relief, even if he has to shake out latent childhood anxiety and re-find their routine again after the gap year. The town is odd. It’s always been odd. It melds together into a tacky-grime feeling of unnatural and nostalgic. Almost wrong, in the same way that looking back on snapshot memories of days spent with his mother feels like a comfort when she’d been anything but. Shin is a physical reminder of the city, of a place far away from where they are. That more exists outside the dense walls of trees and inhabitants too used to believing in folktales and abnormalities to treat it like anything unbelievable. He’d found it fond once, how Shin had almost seemed willing to roll his eyes at the ideas of magic or ghosts. Such a stark difference to how he was raised, what he’d escaped.

Shin, unlike Minsung, is less likely to leave everything half-done. So when he rounds the door jamb to make the same loop around the perimeter of the room and toward the boxes for the fifth time that day, Minsung hooks him by an arm cast out over the back of the couch and reels him in by a fistful of his shirt. “We can do more later, there’s time.” It almost feels too rich to mention, that overflowing of time that they hadn’t had access to for so long. Weeks traded based on holiday schedules and bracketed by train rides shuttling Minsung out of the countryside and back into the city. It almost made him feel like two separate people, like he left behind his shadow whenever he went.

(But maybe that was just the ley line already staking claim on him with the tiny amount of blood he’d let drizzle out in offering).

He pulls again, a little harder, though leaves it up to Shin to find his way around the awkward angles of his second-hand couch. “So anyway, what’s the verdict? Regret trading down from the high life yet?” It’s tossed out like a joke, his voice wry behind the tilt of a smile. But the way his eyes search Shin’s seem almost frantic, too intense, a mismatch. So many years in and there’s still always that fear waiting for Shin’s interest to dry up, a dwindling pool in the desert landscape of himself. He’s never figured out whether or not he should count it as irrational, but that’s not fair to Shin, and so he’s also never shared it out loud. "No noisy neighbors at least.”

[dokeomi]

haze.

scytold​:

“i’m not fishing, am i? seemed to me, you were, not me.” and there’s no need to look further when he has minsung right here. besides: shin is a hypocrite, and not making a secret of that. “besides, you’ve got, what, two tattoos and your teeth. that’s less work than my mum.”

“The more you do it, the better you get.” Minsung knows through experience, it’s not like the ability to spider-crawl over a fence in under a minute is innate. “You the type where if you’re not immediately god-tier at something you call it quits?” Minsung prods at Shin’s ankle with his toes as he says it. He’s half-joking, because Shin kind of seems like the type, but it’s not said in bad faith, or like he feels it’s a terrible quality to have. More just connecting the pieces Shin’s eventually handed over to him, trying to puzzle together Shin as a person behind the image he immediately throws up at the world. Minsung can’t judge him for that, he probably does it too. 

“Well, if you’ve decided I’m a pity fuck to everyone else, then what does that make you for deciding to fuck me for the sake of it?” Minsung, when he says it, laughs. A quick noise that scrapes out across his tongue, not unkind, though perhaps obnoxious on purpose. “Decent? You guess? I’m devastated. Absolutely. I’ll have to go join a palates class.” he rolls his eyes as he talks, and this is despite the fact that he’s only about sixty percent sure about what people even do in palates. But he knows Taeja has a class she goes to religiously, so probably it fits. 

Shin’s head goes back, propped up on the old, crushed velvet of the booth. He looks more relaxed now that Minsung’s ever seen him before, which is funny, given the setting. He was expecting a wadded-up ball of nerves and maybe a dig at the menu in some insult-based defense mechanism of the unknown. It could be the screen helps in blocking them off from the rest of the world. It could be that Shin’s not even properly relaxed. Maybe he’ll never actually see him like that, needs to be over the wall and lounging poolside on some heated, salt-water amalgamation teeming with tropical fish (real, holograms are so passé). Minsung follows suit, only he winds his body sideways and lays his temple on the fabric so he can still watch Shin. 

Eventually and the conversation picks back up, even if it’s not a conversation Minsung particularly enjoys. At least, not this facet of it, mods in general and that can be interesting. Taeoh talks to him about them in a near regular interval. “I can count on one hand how many people don’t have mods, and probably that’s just you. There’s not that many horror stories comparatively. Especially not up with you lot, all your above-the-board tagged implants.” Minsung shrugs, there might be more of a point on the underground black market jobs, but even then and he thinks the ratio isn’t terrible. Not from his perspective anyway, though by now and he’s learned his perspective and Shin’s don’t often sit at the same table. “If someone wants to hack my brain, then whatever.” he says this despite not having a chip implanted into his brain, who hasn’t even gotten around to implanting in contacts yet, still reliant on his outdated phone. “Sure, it’s half his job. I’d say he’d give you a mod on a discount, but he wouldn’t. And also you wouldn’t get one. So.”

He picks his head up from the bench and shakes a chunk of hair that’s escaped his ponytail out of his eyes. “You think I was fishing for an over the wall hookup when I said I’d work with you?” Minsung shoots him a look that involves a curl of his brow that’s trapped somewhere between disgruntled and admonition. “I’m just saying, you talk a lot of shit about how I look or dress or whatever and then keep coming back to fuck. I’m sure there’s plenty of people over the wall who dress in suits and have appropriately square teeth, if that’s your thing.” The toothpick is fruit-less now, but he twists it between his fingers. “Yeah, sure. That’s what I got.” he’d pull out a tooth now before opening himself to talk about his other mod. The illegal slide of metal under under his skin is something that feels almost vulnerable from the experiences attached to it. He thinks he might hear talk of irresponsibility to his health, or more of that sentiment about scars, where they shouldn’t stay stuck to a body if he were to thump his arm down on the table and show him. He picks at his nail under the table instead, eyes sliding to his empty glass. 

“You want another drink or are you tapping out?” he asks, mostly because he wants another, and also because he wants to force out words that don’t revolve around mods. 

[dokeomi]

haze.

scytold​:

minsung starts talking about feet and shin pulls a face, which is answer enough. minsung’s mostly got him figured out by now: what shin gets hot for, what he doesn’t care about. it’s not like they’ve done anything under the sun in bed (or outside of it), but there’s been plenty, and the general trends are pretty clear. “i think you’d fuck up your knuckles with that. doesn’t sound all that practical with, what, metal under your skin? uncomfortable, too. just get fake nails instead, if you’re really into that all that much.” shin strongly doubts that minsung is, but it doesn’t hurt to complain about the idea of it. “and nobody would get that reference anyway.”

Minsung takes down another large mouthful, lets it swell at his cheeks before he forces it down. It’s nice, he supposes, the conversation. The easy nature of it. But it seems like there’s always part of himself that wants to help tip himself over the edge, like standing on the bank of something terrifying - an objectively bad decision - and wanting to take one more step anyway. He’s not sure what to call it, that constant thrum of a longing, but now and he wants to order a line of shots and throw them all back while Shin, what? He doesn’t think he knows him well enough to make a guess. Frown? Or look on in amusement until Minsung says something to make him frown? He chews on his tongue instead of reaching out to tap the menu back into life, like he’s trying to rend whatever alcohol’s left clinging to it.

“Skateboards? Yeah, sure. They’re good for getting around, police hate ‘em though.” Minsung had always figured the neighborhoods he ran in were broken enough to where to a skateboard grinding over pavement wasn’t going to change much of anything, but then, the police he grew up around weren’t known for being all that kind. 

He attempts to get Shin to jerk with fingers dug in at the joint, only mildly put out when it doesn’t seem to affect him. “So what, you’re telling me I’m a pity fuck? Is that why you slept with me too?” Minsung may not be filled to the brim with self confidence, but he has enough stock in what he looks like, acts like when he’s fishing for attention, where it only comes off as sarcastic. He does pull his hand back to himself, gives up on trying to find a spot that’ll make Shin’s face twist up. Smears a clear line on his glass through the condensation instead, though it already starts splotching back up in the wake of that heat.

“I’m not surprised.” he isn’t, Shin just gives off that sort of vibe. Acts out that sort of vibe, like he could read it off his skin, that too many people had thought the world of him through his formative years, and then it just became part of him. That knowledge that he was either better or envied. Minsung’s still not sure if it counts more as a positive personality trait or a a flaw. He’s long since given up, often lets people’s traits pile up in an unsorted heap, decides to just deal with what’s presented with him. Sometimes it works out alright, and sometimes it doesn’t. He doesn’t find any reason to try and change his mindset though.

Shin makes a face, but he doesn’t tell him where else to stare, so Minsung turns his attention back in front of him, tries to spear out diced and dethawed frozen fruit from his glass with a toothpick. “Who cares about metal under your skin? Plenty of people have mods more elaborate than that.” he doesn’t sound defensive, but he does sound blasé. He’s already got metal under skin and it doesn’t affect him all that much, but at least this moment gives him enough room to make a tally on where Shin might reactionarily land if Minsung told him about it. So he doesn’t, just slips the fruit he’s managed to stab between his lips. “Taeoh’d get the reference.” Minsung corrects him, though he does bite back the ‘or do we just count as nobody’ that he wants to tack on in his own off-brand humor just because he knows Shin doesn’t really find it funny. “I guess if you want that prime, un-modded hookup bait you should stop fishing underneath the wall.” he cracks out a laugh that splits at his grin.

[dokeomi]

haze.

scytold​:

but then he laughs, jerks his foot out of minsung’s grasp when his skin is pinched, settles back down moments later right where he was before. “like what? my foot?” because that’s so decidedly unsexy that he really doesn’t think minsung would go for it. shin takes his drink back, makes sure the buzz keeps going, then shrugs. potential claws sound like an empty threat. “then how would you prep, minsung? stay practical, here.” nevermind that it’s usually shin doing that part of the work.

Sit him down, pry open his skull, and feel through the contents of his mind and there’s likely a conclusion that could be pieced together on why Minsung so regularly places himself in situations that aren’t deemed safe so casually. A laissez faire handling of his life, the scale refusing to tip one way or the other, just an indifference that takes a perpetual backseat to whatever whims he constantly prioritizes. This among them is added to the list, and there’s that reassurance that Shin already carted him over the wall once and he ended up fine for it. What’s a second time matter, even with a pool shuffled in? Point that out to him and he’d say that he’s been in plenty of worse of situations, like that would someone make it okay. It doesn’t, but it does show the ungainly way Minsung navigates his lack of personal safety.

“Yeah, so, we were low enough where if it died we wouldn’t fall all that far. I imagine being on a nice one would be sick though.” He can sort-of tell from Shin’s face that he doesn’t agree, so he counts it on the probably not end of Shin whipping out whatever fancy gadget they’re talking about from the garage of his family home and offering the experience to him. “Sounds neat.” he finds himself agreeing without knowing too much about gliders. He knows about those intense warp speed-seeming jets that crack across the sky in what he assumes must be military drills sometimes, but that’s the end of it.

“Hey,” Minsung starts once Shin’s voice creeps into sly and he starts needling at his statement. His own voice matches, the same edge that pulls any seriousness from his “shut the fuck up,” that follows. The kind of thing he might lob at Dojin all good naturedly as he tries to convince him into a new statement piece. His hand sneaks high as he says it, and not for what might’ve been an expected reason. Instead he digs his fingers behind Shin’s knee in that way that makes it hard to pull away and hopes he’s ticklish when he starts at it. “I get compliments about them.” he defends before he bothers to stop. It’s soon after though that he still his hand, lets it drop away from his joint. 

He hums again at Shin’s explanation, a quiet sound, nearly inaudible under the music. He understands it, but he finds it hard to relate to on a personal level, likely because drinking’s become such a big aspect of what he and his friends do when they all get together. “You’re like the kinda person parents compare their kids to growing up, I think.” it’s good natured, the comment. No bitterness to back up that punch, Minsung had never had that experience. But the light-drinking, drugs-aversion seems like it’d paint the picture of a golden child well when added on top of how put together her seems.

Minsung rolls his eyes, pinches him again when Shin sets his foot back down. “Well you’re the one who implied I was focusing too much on your mouth, so pick somewhere better. Unless you’re, like, really into feet?” his gut pulls him in the direction of no, but he says it anyway and then grins self-satisfied over at him. “Whatever, I’m sure there’s a mod for weird retractable claws by now, maybe I’ll do that. Like, ah, what the fuck. Wolverine.” Taeoh and his old-school superhero obsession paying off for once. He won’t actually, the idea’s unappealing. But it’s similar to a dog with it’s jaws locked around a ball refusing to let it go, even when there’s the prospect of playing fetch all over again on the line (though god forbid Shin with his dog jokes ever make that connection).

[dokeomi]

haze.

scytold​:

he could change the music, but that’d mean having to get himself up, and shin’s ankle is caught in minsung’s hand, so he just shrugs. their taste differs, which minsung knows because they’ve been in shin’s car often enough. “so you’ve been focusing on my dumb mouth, huh?” there’s multiple things he could point out here, but he doesn’t. if minsung wants to be the one to admit that he wants to make out, then so be it. “you know, i’m kind of surprised you haven’t had your nails filed into claws yet. to keep with the theme.”

If Minsung were getting up to his old habits, wandering out when the mood struck him to some overcrowded club rife with people hunting for a hookup, then he wouldn’t be so weak to the suggestion, but he hasn’t been. It’s not like it’s off limits, they haven’t talked about it, exclusivity. He just hasn’t had the time (that’s what he’s been telling himself). It’s also played a part in a few not so great situations in his past relationships, truth be told, but he figures he’s grown somewhat from old mistakes. Swimming as a whole doesn’t seem like a bad plan, even if he’s going for the wrong reasons. “Alright, message me the night before though, so I can make sure I sleep.” there’s a lot of things Minsung is willing to try sleep deprived, but attempting to swim is not one of them.

“Maybe if we could’ve gone up higher, but Taeoh had built it out of scraps, and the engine was a little wheezy, he didn’t trust it enough to take it up too high. That and we didn’t want to get caught on radar.” the only people left in the city with hoverboards or some kind of hovercraft equivalent are cops, and they’d definitely have been outstripped if they caught their attention. “I wouldn’t mind trying it out, going up real high. But,” he pauses to shrug, “hard to do that without getting noticed.”

He finds himself grinning a little wider at that comment, maybe just to show off his teeth some more. “One person at this table, maybe.” Minsung corrects him. There’s a whole array of cosmetic mods, popular enough at this point where Minsung and his teeth look nearly benign. Even Dojin had told him it looked cute once he’d seen the little heart pattern Minsung had picked out to go along with it. “Of course there’s more.” he flicks his thumb down against Shin’s ankle. “I look hot.” Minsung’s not so self-assured about everything, but he knows that much, especially if he detangles his hair before going out. 

“Why’s thinking so important? We’re not taking a test.” Minsung points out, rolls his head back against the edge of the bench to glance up at the ceiling. A lantern of a light hovering above them, the fluorescent of it blocked out by the thick paper wound around it, leaves everything cast in an off-orange glow. Minsung, one for constantly trying to escape the tangled and unending thoughts in his head, can’t bring himself to relate. 

“Should I focus on some other part of you instead?” Minsung rolls his head to the side as he talks, drags his eyes away from the light to Shin’s face. He pinches at the skin near his heel, not enough to really hurt, but enough for him to feel it. Minsung pulls his hand back to himself at Shin’s comment though, hovers his hand in front of his face and fans his fingers out, brows crumpled up all faux concentrated. “You know what, you might be onto something there.” he doesn’t mean it, it sounds like it’d hinder the potion making process, but he hopes that it brings a brief flicker of horror to Shin’s face at the thought.

[dokeomi]

haze.

scytold​:

getting drunk really is nowhere on shin’s list of priorities, but minsung knows that by now. it’s a control issue, probably, but he just genuinely doesn’t like the feeling, how uncoordinated he gets. “not drunk, no. tipsy’s good.” it’s a fine line to walk, but experience has shown that it keeps shin happier than overdoing it. a little haze, but not so much that he can’t think straight. shin’s always worked best with a sharp mind. “it’s nice here.” he slides down a little in his seat as if to demonstrate just how comfortable he is – the result is a more lazy sprawl – but what he’s really achieving is the slide of his foot further up. “now if only your taste in music was better.”

Minsung opens his mouth like he’s about to list off three better things to do than watch him flop around clueless in a pool, but then Shin’s broadening his statement in a way that breaches clarity across Minsung’s understanding. Because that does align more with Minsung’s idea of fun, and it would check some boxes on why Shin would want to schedule it in too. He balances his elbow on the table and fits his chin to his palm as he hums, thinks it over. “Fine, let’s try it.” he decides, and it shouldn’t be so easy to trick him into these sorts of situations, but it does point to how Minsung managed to get himself stuck in such compromising state of business-collapse despite him being (relatively) smart.

“Yeah, but I mean, outlawing things doesn’t always stop them from happening.” In fact, there’s quite a long laundry list Minsung’s compiled of outlawed things he’s done just because he’s wanted to. He’s halfway to sure the capacity in which he slings his magic around might be on there too. “Teaoh made one, and then we rode it around a scrapyard. We didn’t go high enough to set off any radar. And anyway, fuck those bullshit laws. They just didn’t want anyone drifting over the wall, I bet.” he laughs it out around a joke.

Minsung finds himself running his tongue just underneath the edge of his tooth. There may have been ulterior motives past purely aesthetic, but Minsung’s still been cautiously stepping into that line of research. Definitely not far enough down that path to talk about it with any kind of certainty, especially when he knows how Shin feels about blood. It probably wouldn’t set the mood right to start delving into the topic of experimental blood magic, he’s pretty sure he’d earn a side eye for that, even if Minsung has gotten his patch-job healing salve down to a science. 

“I might, but this good for now. Or what, you want them sharper?” he teases out, can remember the tensed way Shin hisses when he scratches a tooth down against his throat. It’s a nice sound, but it’s certainly a sound that seems like he’s had enough of Minsung and his tooth-sharpening appointments. He picks up his drink, lets the remainder slide down his throat and then shakes the glass enough for another ice cube to slip free. 

“Do you ever get drunk?” Minsung finds himself wondering, trying to figure out if it’s a being under the wall thing or a life choices thing. Minsung clearly can’t relate. His thighs drape open a little wider at the slide of Shin’s foot, quirks an eyebrow at him before leaning back himself. Keeps out of a slouch, but he does let his shoulders loosen. “I thought you’d want me to focus on your dumb mouth instead of lyrics. Change it if you want.” he nods to the same screen they’d used for the drinks, a tab to switch to music hanging near the corner. It doesn’t sound angry, or like the beginnings of a fight, his tone is too loose for that. Despite it, he curls the blunted edges of his nails just under the cuff of Shin’s pants, presses half moons into the thin skin near Shin’s ankle. ��

[dokeomi]

haze.

scytold​:

at the question, he shrugs, takes a moment to down more of his drink. shin’s not too bad of a lightweight, but he can feel it getting to him now. “i didn’t come here with a plan.” mostly he’d just planned to go with the flow, or pick up on minsung’s cues. “do you want to get drunk?”

“Is that how you want to spend your next Saturday or something, teaching me how to swim?” his voice tilts into teasingly incredulous, a close-lipped expression that nearly shows how Minsung isn’t sure of how to answer, how to navigate this particular proposal. “Well, I guess sure, sometime.” he amends, and assumes in the process that eventually the offer will be forgotten, swept in the undertow of both their heads and traded out for something more pressing. 

“I tried that one in VR too, same day. Less fun than a hoverboard.” Minsung decides, granted “well, scrapyard hoverboard. But I imagine a real one’s even better than that.” Courtesy of Taeoh, and while he was too unsure of it to go up all that high, they’d still had fun. He can’t help the huff of a laugh at the prospect of including a helicopter on someone's list of ‘tools needed to have a fun day.’ “Busy, busy.” Minsung notes, but it fits him. Explains for the wiry muscles roping his arms and the way his body doesn’t seem to resent him for not providing it enough sustenance. Minsung can’t entirely relate. 

He doesn’t fully understand Shin’s desire to keep himself mostly mod-free. Minsung can appreciate things from the past, but he still buys into the hype of now. If he had more disposable income he’d probably get some more mods. Not that he minds it either, just finds it hard to bridge that gap of understanding. At least it doesn’t seem like an all too important one to get. “You’ve got enough fun gadgets where it doesn’t seem like you’re missing out all too much anyway.

A deflection, not all too serious, and Shin’s voice rising up to meet him. It’s here that Minsung could grab this moment by the throat and twist it up into a genuine argument if he really felt like driving something terrible into their half-baked something. Not even a necessary fight, because he doesn’t really care about it, but that’s how most of the fights Minsung starts go. The fights he brings up because he’s scared of all those blotted out unknowns of the future. But he doesn’t want to fight, he’d already decided that, chews at the edge of his tongue instead and ignores that impulse. “They’re coated in something. He told me, but I forgot - it’s on a doc-file somewhere. Keeps them mostly sharp for a while. Maybe in some odd years I’ll need to.” there’s a whole packet about it he’d sorted into some starred-as-important folder in his email. 

“I always want to get drunk. But you don’t seem to match with that mindset, so...” he trails off in a shrug. “We can do what you want to.” it’s not as much fun when only one person gets smashed, and he’s got enough self control that he’s able to cut himself off if Shin doesn’t want to. Now that he’s thinking on it, he’s pretty sure he’s never seen Shin properly drunk, so maybe that’s a no. “We can go somewhere else, if you want.” he adds on, just in case.

[dokeomi]

haze.

scytold​:

he’s teasing, and it’s obvious in his smile, the way he’s adding a little more pressure against minsung’s thigh. initially, he had sort of planned on sliding his legs further up, but now there’s a warm palm against the skin exposed between sock and jeans, and everything’s turned into something easy, languid. “i don’t think i’ve used an actual brush in years,” he muses, because there’s mouthwash now that does the job just as well, and quicker. “i like having my hands free. means i can multitask.” it’s not like they’re out of fashion, but sacrificing minutes for it had always felt more like a necessary evil than a well-worn routine, so shin had adapted to change the moment he could. shin nods at his own drink, pilfered by minsung. “that one’s pretty good. but i don’t really mind it, for kissing.” it fits minsung, who puts up a tough front but rescues stray cats. “what’d that dentist of yours say about the fangs?”

There’s a list, because of course there’s a list. One of those things he really shouldn’t be surprised by (Shin owns a submarine, after all), but is anyway. He does take a moment to think about all those places though, dotted points on a sprawling map that Minsung doesn’t have access to. He’d expected Shin offering to foot the bill on an entire rent-out of a gym pool or something. Or to snap his fingers after a quick web search and tell him that some unbelievably expensive hotel up near the east side had a pool they could go to. Not so much his family’s place, or his friend’s. Shin’s apartment when they were both drunk and wanting made sense, but most of those don’t. Not to Minsung’s current working picture of the two of them anyway. What would he do, haul him up by the scruff and introduce him as his lowborn criminal information hound? Or would he skip business and make knowing eyes at his friend, a non-verbal exchange of my hookup. None of these things are inherently bad, but Minsung clutters his head up with too many unnecessary thoughts regularly. He finds himself chewing at the corner of his thumb nail. 

“I don’t think your parents would buy me as a lost contact friend from university.” Minsung hedges out only after he bites too hard at his nail and lets the sting of it remind him that he should be talking. He finds it hard to ask him outright if extending an invitation that might just die out into nothing means much of anything. Minsung can throw himself headlong into situations that can only bring harm, but these are the types of things he’s really scared about, that make him pause. The knowing that he’s allowed vulnerability to grow, and that someone could hook their fingers in and press down hard if they really wanted. Until shame or hurt or rejection burst through like bloodied pulp. Is that supposed to mean something, or are you smuggling me in because it sounds a little fun? Minsung doesn’t say that, but he thinks it real hard. Instead, he allows a “maybe.” 

The topic switches, something lighter and without any potential subtext attached. Minsung finds himself relaxing, doesn’t return his chipped nail back between his teeth. “I went skiing once, only in VR, not actually. Fucking hated it though. I ran into a tree and nearly had a heart attack. And then Dojin’s just laughing at me, the dick.” he assumes Shin’s experience went better. Could be that it’s easier in reality, but Minsung doubts it. He’d probably run into a tree there, too.

Shin doesn’t pry about his guesswork, which he appreciates. His thoughts often slip out unbidden around Shin. The ones he’s been bottling up, pulling them out at night when he can’t sleep to overthink, to rake their ragged edges across his mind until he feels raw with it. He can’t tell if it’s luck or something that shows on his face that Shin hasn’t picked out one of those remarks to deepen into a conversation yet. 

“Maybe sometimes.” Only his expression is wry and far from serious when he says it. Without Shin laying a base of things, Minsung would probably start edging toward awkward. Either that or picking a fight, because that’s what he’s good at. Inviting in anger at a loss for how to figure out anything else. He feels the inseam of his jeans indent against his skin when Shin sinks his toes a little deeper into muscle. It adds to the pleasant warmth, and Minsung’s fingers tap out an unkempt rhythm overtop Shin’s ankle. “Well I’m broke, so I have a toothbrush.” he also has a phone and piles of books at home, so maybe in conjunction to being broke Minsung just has a quiet interest in most things outdated. “Don’t bitch about what I’m drinking then, if you don’t mind.” he closes his lips back around his teeth, hands Shin his drink back. “He was surprised at how well done they were.” He’d gone to a real mod-worker and everything, one that specialized in all things mouth-related. There was a sale, and he’d found a coupon. 

“Anyways, we looking to get drunk or just a little...” he flicks a few fingers in between them, an approximated motion he uses as a stand-in for tipsy.��