Work Text:
Minho does not partake in vanity searches very often given his hectic schedule that doesn’t allow him time to process his own thoughts much less want to read other people’s, plus the sheer amount of Minho’s in the industry whose content he is too lazy to sift through, and being told too many times from seniors and mentors alike that the Internet can be a scary place for idols. (He believes them whole-heartedly, of course, having witnessed more than once the rise and fall of celebrity figures propped up on pillars of salt and sand, built up and torn down by the same sets of once-adoring hands.)
For the most part, Minho is happy to stick to his highly-curated corner of the web filled only with cat videos, recipe suggestions, and whatever links to things that Jisung thinks to share - trifles to pass the time between sleeping and schedules, switching everything off to just mindlessly consume.
But every now and again, Minho likes to indulge; to keep tabs on what their fans are thinking, or to perform a pulse-check after he kills them dead with a highly charismatic (read: sexy as hell) performance, like the one that has just aired and he is still coming down from the high of watching back. Minho is especially pleased with how their My House cover for SBS Gayo Daejeon turned out and is perusing twitter on a burner account when he comes across a series of seemingly innocuous tweets, the first few in the thread spent praising his visuals and stage presence before it quickly devolves into something...decidedly else.
minho tiddies @lliinnoo 25m
LEE MINHO THE MAN THAT YOU ARE TODAY
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minho tiddies @lliinnoo 24m
THE SEE THROUGH BACK??????,,,,,,I HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO PASS AWAY?????
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minho tiddies @lliinnoo 24m
RENT MUST BE DUE. WHY ELSE WOULD HE BE EATING LIKE THIS?
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minho tiddies @lliinnoo 22m
THIS SEUNGMIN WITH THIS MINHO,,,,IMMACULATE VIBES,,,,A FULL COURSE MEAL
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minho tiddies @lliinnoo 20m
minho with the exposed collarbones and the delicate diamond choker ????? why is he so Boyfriend??? perhaps maybe the most Boyfriend to ever Boyfriend????
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minho tiddies @lliinnoo 19m
Kim Seungmin, please come collect.
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minho tiddies @lliinnoo 16m
since this thread is getting attention, here’s a link to my latest 2min fic!!!! https://archiveofourown.org/works/29994927
Against his better judgement, Minho clicks on the link. It takes a second to load and is a second too long, considering how quickly the doubt and regret begin to settle in. He purses his lips, finger hovering just above the screen about to back out, when he is met with red and white and 12-point Lucida Grande font; and makes the mistake of scrolling, eyes skimming quickly through the tags, flickering down to the summary, before he is consumed by the fic for the next twenty or so minutes (and, indirectly, for the next six months as well).
The premise is simple: Seungmin and Minho are childhood friends on the cusp of becoming lovers, with the bulk of the fic taking place in that indeterminate stage in between. Soonie, Doongie, and Dori make an appearance, before the two of them set off in a camper car along the coastline, admiring the stars. It's tooth-achingly sweet and blessedly angst-free.
In summary: trash. A dumpster fire, he would even go so far as to say.
To clarify, Minho doesn't have a problem with the concept of fanfiction itself. He is not, by any means, ignorant to the fact that shipping exists amongst fans and doesn’t care either way, as long as nobody’s getting hurt in the process. He’s just never considered the notion of shipping being translated into written word; the possibility of transplanting people as characters into entire universes separate from the one they occupy now. Minho thinks it’s kind of cool - the infinitesimal interpretations writers can have when looking at the same group of friends, and the nuances with which they are able to describe the dynamics and relationships that exist between each.
So it’s not so much the existence of the fic itself that Minho thinks is trash, but the fact that it is so grossly inaccurate that he finds issue with.
First of all, he has a bone to pick with the author’s portrayal of him yearning, because Minho doesn’t yearn. He’s simply too sexy to yearn. And even if he were capable of such a thing (which he’s not), it certainly wouldn’t be over Kim Seungmin, who is arguably his least favorite member in the group and certainly not because Seungmin is ‘the only one who won’t put up with Minho’s shit’ or whatever (honestly, fuck that narrative choice, archiveofourown user leeleeknows - Seungmin’s entire existence is predicated on putting up with Minho’s shit, because Minho would not allow him to live any other way. Fictional world or otherwise, Kim Seungmin is no match for Lee Minho.)
And secondly, the imagery - often lacking when not completely backasswards. It fucks with his immersion to read such inexact and/or blatantly incorrect descriptions. For example, Seungmin’s eyes aren’t even brown. Or rather, they’re not just brown, but are wood barked and Americano-hued and every shade in between; boyhood memories of catching tadpoles in tiny, cupped hands; mandu dipped in soy sauce, and choco bars in the summer. At minimum, his eyes are cicada husks and potting soil and the sensation of sunbeams, streaming through the window to wake Minho up for the day.
Surely, there exist better portrayals of him and Seungmin and their relationship, right?
Right?
Curiosity piqued, Minho proceeds to spend all of the next day combing through the 2min tag in search of the best fic with the best interpretation; doesn’t know if he should be pleased or offended that there exist such slim pickings, enough that he’s able to go through everything that very same day.
The results are this: very few fics come close to meeting his astronomically high standards, falling short of making the cut, unable to capture the correct ratio of push to pull or ascribing character dynamics that make it seem like Minho isn’t the one in firm possession of the upper hand at any given time. 20 pages and 392 fics later, when it becomes apparent that the perfect fic doesn’t exist, Minho decides to take on the Herculean task of writing it himself, because to allow this gross misinterpretation to go unchecked is nothing short of character assassination, as far as Minho is concerned. So for the rest of his winter break, he sets out to write The Best and Most Accurate 2Min Fic That AO3 Has Ever Seen.
And thus, at the tail end of the year 2020, The Liar and His Lover by RhinoLee1025 is born.
🖉
He settles on the classic enemies to lovers trope because it fits their dynamic the best; second only to predator/prey, although Minho categorically refuses to approach anything having to do with vampires or Twilight with a twenty-foot pole.
The plot is harder and takes a while longer to form; a bunch of disparate scenes and events he wants to include swirling around in his head like a washing machine of primordial soup, and which he subsequently dumps the contents of into a word document for Future Minho to build out.
For now, he runs with the concept of two princes, diametrically opposed, and forced into marriage as a means of bringing peace to their lands. Minho stars as the heir to the throne of a smaller, less prosperous nation, bearing the brunt of the responsibility when it comes to keeping his kingdom afloat, while Seungmin serves as his foil in the role of the expendable second prince, chip the size a person on his shoulder, only hidden beneath an impassive and unflappable façade.
Sparks fly (from clashing blades, mind you) and hijinks ensue, with plenty of banter and political intrigue abound, and featuring a well-rounded cast of side characters otherwise known as the other six members of Stray Kids. Although everything is secondary to the reason he undertook this whole endeavor in this first place, which is to ensure that justice is served in the form of his and Seungmin’s relationship done right.
Although justice takes longer than expected to mete. Minho, when he puts his mind to it, can be quite the wordy writer.
In the throes of it, he feels absolutely Byronic, writing by computer light because he can’t be bothered to turn on his actual lights, and borderline crazed as he works into the night. The rhythmic clicking of keys, followed by the accompanying letters appearing on screen, lulls him into something akin to a trance, wholly-absorbing in that he can focus on nothing else but stringing together sentences on a page. Minho writes on and on, not even stopping to massage the crick out of his neck, scared of losing his creative flow should he pause for a length of time longer than the second it takes to habitually yawn as the hour creeps closer to morning than midnight.
His mind is abuzz.
Minho cocks his head slightly off-center, staring down Seungmin seated directly across the table. The younger prince stares back.
“They say marriage is a compromise.”
“But it appears we are at an impasse.”
Prince Minho is suave and handsome and awesome, of course. That much is obvious and easy enough to relay. What comes even easier, however, is writing about Seungmin.
Like second nature, the words and imagery pour from Minho’s fingers with the intensity of a jet stream, characters upon characters being devoted to the curve of his lips or the cut of his jaw. Seungmin frowning, Seungmin smiling; the crease that forms between his brows when he’s thinking, the angle at which he’s bent over his desk before bed, meticulously recording his thoughts or the events of his day. It’s rather strange - the amount of detail, down to the minutiae, Minho is able to recall and utilize to describe Kim Seungmin, which he chalks up to as a function of his superior observational skills and not as a consequence of how much time and attention he devotes to watching Seungmin. Which is, to be clear, a totally normal and completely reasonable amount to spend on someone, Minho thinks.
He even gets really into world-building; finds himself enjoying the process of fleshing out kingdoms and currency systems and capturing the daily mundanities of castle life, ceremonies and traditions, and finally, the wedding itself.
At the end of the chamber hall, Seungmin marches a steady line towards the dias; one foot in front of the other, with all the grace and self-importance his noble upbringing affords. His hair is swept back, his shoulders look wide.
He is a vision in white.
Sometime around 4 AM, Minho’s eyes droop in earnest. His word count reaches upwards of 9,000 words when he starts to run out of steam, coming to a natural stopping point but nowhere near his desired end. Despite being a completionist, Minho decides, ‘Fuck it’ and reads everything back; makes minor edits until he’s satisfied with the quality of his prose, throws it up online under Chapter 1 of ? and goes to bed.
Hours later, when he wakes, it is to a couple hundred hits and a handful of kudos. There's even, surprisingly, a couple of comments waiting in his inbox. One of them reads like this:
DumplingPrince0320 on The Liar and His Lover (Chapter 1) // 5 hours ago
I don’t normally read 2min but this is really interesting so far! Amazing characterizations, although an interesting choice making Hyunjin such a drama queen? TBH, I think he is so much cooler than how you’re portraying him to be. Anyways, thanks for writing! Your sentences are very pretty!!!
Minho rolls his eyes. His characterization of Hyunjin as a gossip-monger with a spider web of informants on both sides of the court is spot-on, if he does say so himself. Which Minho obviously does, since he is the author. (The rest of the comment, though, is rather lovely, and makes Minho feel warm and tingly inside. It also motivates him to continue where he left off last night. Or rather, earlier today. Time isn’t real, he supposes, when there’s writing to be done.)
🖉
Minho spends the rest of break churning out chapters for his fic, which is starting to gain a lot of traction with readers online, and has garnered an overwhelmingly positive response amongst not just the Stray Kids fandom, but the K-Pop community as a whole. It's both incredible and addicting to be given so much positive feedback for writing a bunch of (admittedly) self-indulgent scenes; and finds that posting new updates every week scratches an itch similar to the one that only performing in front of fans used to scratch.
But eventually, all good things must come to end, including winter break. Minho must go back to Seoul.
He spends most of the return trip mentally preparing, not just for the busy new year up ahead, but having to face all the members while holding onto the knowledge that he’s secretly writing fanfic about them as well. Although it’s less about feeling any type of compunction over it, and more out of a concern of how Minho’s going to keep writing underneath their very noses. Eight boys to a dorm offers even less privacy than one already assumes does not exist.
Thankfully, he’s offered a little bit of reprieve upon arrival. Chan and Felix are out and about somewhere bro-ing it the fuck up, so it’s just Seungmin and Minho in the dorm by themselves. Everyone else is expected to be back tomorrow afternoon, which gives him a couple of hours to get some writing done, give or take.
His room is dark when Minho kicks open the door, arms too ladled with bundles to do anything but.
He regrets it, though, when he spots the top of Seungmin’s head peeking out from beneath the covers. Seungmin, who rarely naps and only does so when he is exceedingly tired. He must have been up late practicing his vocals, even while technically on vacation.
A light sleeper as it is, Seungmin stirs and then wakes, and upon spotting Minho, can’t help the way his lips turn up into a smile. His eyes are two crescents, distorted slightly by a yawn that escapes, but settles back even softer when he greets Minho, “Hello.”
Minho blinks at the sight, momentarily stunned before his brain catches up to his heartbeat and he manages to look the other way. “Go back to bed. I’ll try to be quieter.”
“S’okay, hyung. I’m awake now. How was your break?” Seungmin turns over so that he’s lying on his side, covers pulled up to his chin, and unmade hair falling into and slightly obscuring his eyes.
Minho narrows his own. “Fine,” he supplies, suspiciously, because he might be projecting his own guilt or because Seungmin always speaks to Minho with an undercurrent that hints at some second, hidden meaning; an inside joke or secret that Minho isn’t and has never been privy to, and which frustrates him to no end. Seungmin, in general, frustrates him to no end.
He turns his back in favor of unpacking his belongings.
“Aren’t you going to ask me about mine?”
“Why would I?” Minho doesn’t care.
“It’s considered polite.”
“Good thing I don’t need your consideration.” He goes to hang up his clothes.
Seungmin sits up, metal bed frame creaking in coordination with the movement. His sleep shirt, stretched obscenely at the neckline, does little to obscure the dips of his collarbones and the smooth column of his throat. Almost alluring, if Minho were capable of being tempted.
Ignorant to the way that Minho swallows at the sight, Seungmin good-naturedly pushes on, “My break was good, thanks for asking. I met up with friends and ate a lot of good food. Did you miss me while you were away?”
The question, along with Seungmin, goes entirely ignored. Minho grunts from the effort of undoing an especially tight knot, fingernails too short to get a decent grip on the silk.
“I bet I missed you more." The sentiment is dripping with mischief.
Why is Seungmin so annoying?
And unrelated, why is Minho’s stomach so unsettled? The weightless sensation becomes quickly uncomfortable, like dropping 50 feet on a rollercoaster, although it reminds him of a scene that he’s been meaning to write.
“Falling, falling, falling,” Minho mumbles quietly to himself, stalking out of the room with his laptop in tow, but not before complaining about how Seungmin should stop leaving the radiator on full blast because he’s hot and it’s starting to feel like a sauna inside of their room.
(The radiator in question doesn’t exist. Minho will later realize that Hyunjin had tossed it out sometime before their break. Seungmin's laughter trails behind him, knowingly, the entire way.)
🖉
DumplingPrince0320 on The Liar and His Lover (Chapter 2) // 24 days ago
Okay so with this chapter, I’ve gone from being interested to now being OBSESSED? I’m so here for all of the bickering and insane sexual tension and the part when Minho is all, “What we have is a marriage of convenience, Kim Seungmin. When you cease to uphold that end of the bargain, I won’t hesitate to drop you like rainfall.” Like lol SURE JAN, he’s deffo gonna be a goner for Minnie soon enough. What an idiot. AN ABSOLUTE FOOL. Anyways, great update, can’t wait to read more!
DumplingPrince0320 on The Liar and His Lover (Chapter 5) // 12 days ago
I know that this fic is, more than anything else, your 2min tour de force but the Chanlix in this chapter though 👀👀👀 My heart is actually aflutter.
Or maybe I’m so attached because Minho and Seungmin are giving me nothing, only crumbs, if that. Like seriously, how dare you? Why is this burn so slow? Why do you insist on hurting me in this way? Etc., etc., etc.?
I can’t be expected to subsist off of long, burning stares across chamber rooms for this long without some sort of relief. What’s a guy gotta do to get one (1) singular scene involving them brushing hands in a slow and lingering manner, in a moment so charged it puts that period piece full of white people and Matthew Macfayden to shame? NAME YOUR PRICE, RHINOLEE1025.
DumplingPrince0320 on The Liar and His Lover (Chapter 7) // 8 days ago
I’M????????? GOODBYE I’VE ASCENDED.
SM0922 on The Liar and His Lover (Chapter 7) // 8 days ago
Interesting.
DumplingPrince0320 on The Liar and His Lover (Chapter 8) // 2 days ago
hOLY shit I refuse to believe that Minho is this dumb. Like, SO DUMB THAT EVEN BRICKS WOULD BE OFFENDED TO HAVE THEIR INTELLIGENCE BE USED AS A COMPARISON POINT.
He’s so clearly in love with Minnie???????? And Minnie is equally in love with him back????????? Sky is blue, fork found in kitchen??????
I would say great job on another chapter, except this is the 8th chapter in a row you’ve done Hyunjin dirty and at this point, I’m starting to think it’s personal.
HanQuokka on The Liar and His Lover (Chapter 8) // 2 days ago
😮😱😲🙌💦🔥❗
NICE 👌👌👌👌
🖉
A few more weeks pass with Minho moving like Bang Chan in that he spends every waking moment when not in the midst of a schedule working on his fic. Although he can’t do it as out in the open compared to when he was back at home, in the comforts of his own private room, and is instead relegated to painstakingly typing out sentences and plot points and metaphors in his Notes app, attached at the hip to his iPhone while his iPhone is attached perpetually to an outlet in the wall.
The members all tease him for it, with Jisung wondering aloud if he’s found a new side piece that requires more regular maintenance, to which Minho unkindly asks for him to shut the fuck up. Seungmin, meanwhile, stares at him, tight-lipped, with something unreadable in his eyes that makes Minho’s stomach churn out of guilt. In private, Seungmin’s asked Minho multiple times what’s got him so distracted these days, only Minho evades the truth at every turn, trading off between being deflective and dismissive and is sometimes both things at once. Seungmin can’t mask the hurt every time, yet never presses the issue beyond the initial inquiries he tries to play off as indifferent.
Minho feels bad, but it sure beats the alternative of ‘Embarrassed Enough to Commit a Heinous Crime As a Diversion.’
Over someone else’s dead body will Minho ever allow Seungmin to find out that he writes fanfic about them, and that it has morphed and mutated into something way beyond Minho’s original outline, at some point crossing the line between platonic (or, as platonic as a fic about an arranged marriage can get) and planting itself firmly inside of wish-fulfillment territory, complete with sickly-sweet dialogue and sweeping paragraphs waxing poetic about every positive feature and characteristic that Kim Seungmin has ever possessed.
Real Life Minho is not nearly as dumb as Fictional Minho, who’s still stuck in a neverending cycle of attraction, denial, and suppression- compared to Real Life Minho, who has long-since come to terms with the fact that he's probably in love with Kim Seungmin, and falls even deeper with every word and chapter that he writes, because it’s increasingly obvious every time Minho’s forced to re-read those words and chapters just how much it’s true. The proof is literally right in front of his face - it’s actually unbelievable, how in love Minho is with Seungmin.
A fact that is already embarrassing in and of itself, without having to throw what is essentially his fucking ♡dream journal♡ into the mix.
Although Fate has other plans, it seems.
March arrives and with it comes a marathon filming session for Kingdom. They’re waiting for some of the other groups to finish up their segments in their dressing room when it happens: Hyunjin screams.
Not a sharp gasp of air or a slightly louder but still subdued outburst of surprise - Hyunjin does, in fact, fully scream.
“What? What’s happening? What’s wrong?” Chan turns around in his chair, a streak of eyeliner from the pen in their coordi-noona’s hand tracking the movement as he glances over at Hyunjin. The matte black line stretches from the corner of his eye all the way to the shell of Chan’s ear.
Hyunjin only looks up from his phone when he feels the entire room’s gaze piercing into the crown of his head and has the self-awareness to look sheepish when he realizes what he's done.
The resulting smile is bashful. “Sorry, hyung. It’s nothing. I just reached a really dramatic part of this story I’m reading.”
This seems to garner some sympathy from Jisung, who is relaxing with Felix and Jeongin on the floor. “Oh dude, I know exactly which part you’re talking about,” he affirms. “I stayed up for hours last night just thinking about it.”
“Story? What story?” Chan asks reluctantly, with the resignation that he might regret it later. Nothing good can come from any of Hyunsung’s shared interests (including and especially this one).
“This fanfic I’m reading about us. I’ve been obsessed with it for weeks.”
Now Minho is the one looking up from his phone, only half-paying attention since he is all but immune to Hyunjin’s dramatics, but the mention of fanfics makes Minho’s blood run cold, because it’s one thing for the members to know he writes fanfic and it’s another for them to actually read it as well.
It can’t be his that they’re talking about…right? When there are so many other fics out there…
...Unless?
Jisung confirms Minho’s worst suspicion. “It’s called The Liar and His Lover and it bangs. 10/10.”
“You read fic about us?” Chan seems shocked.
“Bro, Hyunjin admitted to watching two hours worth of Seungjin edits on VLive. You really don’t think he’s the type to read fic about us?”
Damn it. Minho knew he shouldn’t have added that 'Minor Kim Seungmin/Hwang Hyunjin' tag for the latter to stumble upon.
Their leader merely shrugs. “I guess I'm just surprised you do it too, Hannie.”
“Not normally, but I read a little bit of it over Hyunjin’s shoulder on accident and got sucked in.” He waves his hand in demonstration of the fact. “Like trying to escape a black hole; I binged all eight chapters in a couple of hours and now Sundays are my favorite because that’s when it usually updates. Plus, my character is like this totally awesome master thief and jack of all trades. Truly the backbone of the whole heist operation they’re undertaking right now.”
“Sounds cool?” Chan raises an eyebrow. “What else is it about?”
Hyunjin butts in. “Minho-hyung and Seungminnie, enemies to lovers, slow burn, currently at 100K words. They’re two princes from competing kingdoms in an arranged marriage to bring peace between their lands. Right now, I’m dying for them to move past this dumb mutual pining stage and admit their feelings already.”
As if things couldn’t get any worse, Seungmin chooses this exact moment to re-enter the room. He overhears the last bit of Hyunjin’s response with a frown. “Are you talking about that fic again?”
“Of course I’m talking about that fic again, Minnie. It’s truly the only thing that anyone should be talking about ever.”
Well, shit.
Minho wants to dig a hole and bury himself in it; even does a visual sweep of the room for a good patch of Earth to do just that, because not only are they definitely talking about his fic, it appears that Seungmin definitely knows about it too. Has maybe even read it.
Oh God, Minho could die; could physically pass away right then and there.
At least there is the anonymity of it all, his saving grace being the safety of believing that no one else but Minho knows that the story is written by Minho.
At least.
🖉
“So when were you going to tell me about your fanfic?” Seungmin asks the very next day. The weather is nice enough that most of the dorm has escaped outside to enjoy the beginnings of spring. Minho, predictably, has holed himself in his bed with the curtains drawn to write.
He thinks his heart stops beating as he quickly switches over to the smokescreen that is the YouTube playlist he has running in the background, just before Seungmin’s fingers pull back the black material and Minho’s met with sunlight and an inquisitive, puppy-like face.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he replies, unconvincing.
Seungmin ducks his head and climbs in, forced to fold his long legs beneath him in order to situate himself comfortably at the foot of Minho’s bed. “You’re not a good liar, hyung. Your ears have already sold you out.”
Minho pinches the traitors between his thumb and pointer fingers, already warm and warming hotter to the touch. Fuck. “Who do you think you are that I would have to tell you every little thing about my life?”
“Your boyfriend, hyung. I am literally your boyfriend.”
Minho kicks him gently as a reminder to not get too comfortable. “For now, Kim Seungmin. You are my boyfriend for now.”
Seungmin rolls his eyes. “It’s been over a year, Minho-hyung. If you were gonna chuck me, you would have done it by now.”
“And? So what? Just because I haven’t done it in practice, doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it in theory,” Minho huffs.
“No,” Seungmin drawls, and his grin is too wide, too bright, and too earnest to be anything but Minho’s downfall. “In theory, you’re so disgustingly in love with me, you’re actively writing fic about it.”
A direct hit. Seungmin has effectively sunken Minho’s battleship.
He splutters, “What? I’m? I mean - And you! When exactly? It’s just-”
Seungmin cuts him off, merriment embodied as his shoulders shake with laughter.
The sound of it softens Minho’s defenses, attacking not just the chink in his armor but collapsing the entire structure altogether. He can only sigh as it crumbles. “How did you find out?”
Seungmin doesn’t respond right away; carefully closes Minho’s laptop and sets it gently on the ground, pushing it underneath the bed in case it gets forgotten about and is accidentally trampled underfoot. In the empty space that forms, he pulls Minho’s body close to his own, front to back melding as his arms encircle, affectionately, around Minho’s waist; close enough to smell the sugary breakfast cereal and the mint toothpaste it's mostly washed away with on Seungmin’s breath.
“Who else would know about my mole?”
“Your mole?” he repeats.
“You know, the one down near my-”
“-Okay!” Minho abruptly cuts him off. Suddenly, he’s able to recall the mention of that particular mole in his fic and the way it only appears during this one particular scene...
...He shakes his head, as if the movement were capable of clearing away his abject embarrassment as well.
Seungmin rests his chin in the crook of Minho’s neck, pressing a feather-light kiss to his cheek, before remarking, “You write well, hyung. I’m impressed.”
“Not really,” Minho mumbles, but is flattered nonetheless.
“I’m serious. You’re a very good writer. Even Hyunjin thinks so and he’s extra picky when it comes to fics.”
“That’s surprising, considering how half of his comments are just complaints about the shit I put his character through.”
“Did he really deserve almost dying of dysentery in the last chapter? Don’t you think that was a little harsh?”
“Not harsh. It’s realistic.”
Seungmin scoffs. “Changbin-hyung is a dragon hybrid with wings, so you don’t really have a foot to stand on when it comes to realism in your fics, FYI.”
“You gotta draw the line somewhere,” Minho replies, sagely, and feels the rumble of a chuckle working its way up Seungmin’s chest, the vibrations of which transfer and tingle pleasantly throughout his back.
Seungmin decides to give in, as he often does when it comes to their silly, little squabbles; smart and seasoned enough to realize that logic rarely wins over the eccentricities of Minho’s mind, the leaps and bounds he makes with his mental gymnastics for the sake of winning an argument. Over time, Seungmin’s learned to see it as one of Minho’s more endearing traits.
He laces their fingers together in Minho’s lap, the warmth and weight of it serving as an anchor because Seungmin’s next words are teasing enough to make Minho want to flee. “You know, if you wanted me to be lovey-dovey and touch you more, all you had to do was ask.”
“Shut up. Shut up.” His face is reddening exponentially. His ears feel like magma. “Don’t twist this. It’s not about that! It’s about me being annoyed that people weren’t writing my character correctly!”
“Really? Truly?” Seungmin sing-songs.
“Really, truly.” Minho insists.
It’s a trap.
“If accuracy matters so much,” Seungmin says and nuzzles the tip of his nose along the underside of Minho’s jaw, trailing kisses in his wake, and presses another against his pulse point. The cadence of it stops and stutters beneath his lips. “Then as the titular Lover, should I give you something to write about in the next chapter?”
Sugar water and honey.
An expertly-laid trap.
Minho should have seen it coming.
(Or maybe he did, and allows himself to be ensnared anyways; forever, in between Seungmin’s arms.)
“Just shut up and kiss me, you idiot.”
🖉
Everyone always says to ‘write what you know’ and so he does.
Lee Minho knows that he loves Kim Seungmin, in this and every universe that exists.
A disgusting amount.
Enough to write fic about it, even.