Chapter Text
By the time Jisung looks up and realizes there’s someone looking back at him, the man in question is blinking rapidly at him, a confused but sincere smile on his lips.
“Sorry,” Jisung is saying, already tugging an earbud out before he can finish the apology. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
“I just asked if you mind,” says the stranger, gesturing to the open seat beside him. “I don’t want to intrude.”
Jisung looks around. In the few minutes that have passed since his mother’s name was called and he immersed himself in his phone, music blaring too loud in his ears, the waiting room has filled up. The only open chairs are those that serve as buffers between one patient and the next.
“I can sit somewhere else–”
Jisung shakes his head as quickly as he can manage. “No, no, you’re fine. You’re good. Sorry.” He shifts automatically away from the empty seat beside him, toes his bag to his other side as well. “Busy day for cancer patients, I guess.”
He cringes as soon as he hears his own words–foot, meet mouth–but to his surprise, the man who’s settling in beside him only smiles brighter. “Guess so,” he replies. “You’re not one, I take it, so you must be waiting for someone.”
Jisung nods. “My mom. But they’re hopeful.”
He doesn’t mention that this is their third diagnosis, that this waiting room is practically a second home to him by now. But somehow, he thinks, the stranger seems to guess, or maybe there’s just an inherent understanding, because he softens. “I hope everything goes well for her.”
“Thank you…”
“Minho.” He offers a hand for Jisung to shake. “And you’re?”
“Jisung. Han. Nice to meet you.”
“A pleasure,” Minho answers. His smile still hasn’t gone away.
Is it inappropriate to think the guy next to you in the radiation waiting room is pretty? Because Minho is, now that Jisung’s unfrozen enough to really look at him–soft blonde hair, gone dark at the roots where it’s untouched, a sharpness in his jaw that contrasts with the softness in his eyes. He looks away.
“Are you from around here, Jisung Han?” Minho asks.
Jisung isn’t one to make conversation with strangers in waiting rooms. It’s why he’s usually playing his music so loudly–his anxiety is bad enough as it is, unable to hold his mom’s hand as she gets her cancer blasted, resigned to sitting and waiting and being unable to do anything to help, without adding having to talk to people he doesn’t know into the mix. But he doesn’t know how to get out of this, now that he’s in it, and–well, frankly, usually the people who try to engage him in conversation are at least twice his age and think a conversation mostly consists of complaining about gas prices and politics. He’s not sure yet about Minho, whose gaze is unwavering, who’s looking at him like this is the most important question he’s ever asked.
“Not, like, long-term?” Jisung says. He clears his throat awkwardly. “I mean, um. We’re not far from here, sort of out in the suburbs, but we’ve been there long enough that I guess it counts as home now.”
Minho hums. “So you know all the best places to eat.”
Jisung huffs a laugh. “I wouldn’t say that,” he replies. “I don’t go out much. I can tell you the best places to get delivery from.”
“I’m going to be around, so I’ll take what I can get.”
Jisung waits it out for a moment, for Minho to–laugh, or take it back, or something. He doesn’t know. But Minho just watches, waits. Jisung slowly untucks his phone from where he’d shoved it beneath his leg and goes to open Doordash.
“Oh,” Minho says, and suddenly he’s–there, chin practically on Jisung’s shoulder, glancing down at his screen. “That’s the Celeste soundtrack, right?”
Jisung looks up from his app. “You’ve played?”
Minho laughs softly, shakes his head. “Not at all. The extent of my video gaming is like, Mario Kart. But my old roommate was a huge gamer. Celeste is one of his favorites.”
“Mine, too,” Jisung offers.
“And the soundtrack is great.”
And before Jisung can stop himself–before he even really knows what he’s doing–he’s offering an earbud to Minho. “Wanna listen?”
Minho cocks his head, smile still on his face, and Jisung is reminded forcefully of a curious kitten who’s just found a new toy. Minho reaches out and takes it, slipping it into his ear, and Jisung turns the sound down a notch or two to a more acceptable level.
“Thank you,” Minho says, voice so soft it’s barely audible over the sudden swell of the music.
Jisung swallows again, although he finds it difficult. Nods. Looks back down at his phone. “So, um. Takeout.”
“Takeout,” Minho agrees.
They spend several minutes scrolling through Doordash, Jisung pointing out the places he and his mother have tried and liked and observing which places to stay far away from. Minho hums thoughtfully, asks a few questions, but mostly seems content to let Jisung ramble.
When Jisung has gone through and named every place worth ordering that he can think of, he tucks his phone under his thigh again. “That was–you probably won’t remember all that. Sorry.”
His mouth is dry. He rarely talks this much out loud. He never talks this much to someone who was a stranger ten minutes ago.
And yet.
“Don’t worry, Jisungie,” Minho says, and Jisung finds his cheeks heating as Minho taps a finger to the middle of his forehead. “It’s a steel trap in here. I won’t forget a thing.”
Jisung goes to respond, but the doors open, and they both turn their heads. Jisung quickly looks away when he sees the nurse coming through them alone, but Minho–
“Minho Lee?” calls the nurse, and Jisung’s heart jumps into his throat.
Minho’s a patient.
He hadn’t asked. He hadn’t asked who Minho was waiting for, because Minho wasn’t waiting for anyone. He was waiting to be called.
“Honey, I’m home,” calls Minho, and the nurse and the secretary both giggle, the nurse hiding it behind her clipboard. Minho stands and turns to Jisung.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, probably,” he says. “I’m not going to ask before I sit with you, just so you know.”
Jisung swallows hard, attempting to unglue his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “You can sit wherever you like,” he manages.
Minho beams at him. “Bye, Jisung. It was nice to meet you. Thank you for the Doordash tour,” he says, and he wiggles his fingers and walks off toward the waiting nurse.
Jisung stares at his back, and then at the doors he disappears behind, until his mother comes through them a few minutes later.
She takes his chin in her cold fingers, turns his head this way and that. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, sweetheart,” she observes.
Jisung blinks hard a few times, trying to hard reset his brain. He looks up and meets her gaze. “Sorry, sorry, just–thinking. You ready?”
“Hydration awaits,” she says, and he gathers up his bag and wraps an arm around her shoulders, guiding her toward the elevator.
It isn’t until several hours later that he realizes Minho kept his other earbud.