SSS 2014: For airedis
For: airedis
From: Your Secret Santa
Title: Can’t Keep Your Mind Off (Me)
Pairing: Onew/Minho
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: -
Authors’ Notes: lots of pointless fluff ahead, merry christmas!!!
It begins with a phone call, one that causes Minho to drop his phone with a loud “clack” on the ground when it rings in the middle of The Conjuring.
“What,” he almost hisses into phone without checking to see who was calling. “You scared th-”
“Minho,” warbles a voice over the light static, and it almost freezes his heart right over. He’s instantly sorry for being so rude over the phone, but why was Jinki sounding like he was about to cry?
“Hyung? Where are you? Are you-?”
“Just open the door,” Jinki pleads back, and Minho is up in a flash, a tangle of feet and sports magazines strewn all over the floor from the earlier afternoon, stumbling to the door.
“What’s wrong?” He demands, immediately taking the elder by the shoulders and looking him over. “Did you get hurt or something?”
“It isn’t me,” says Jinki, in a wobbly voice so uncharacteristic of him that Minho has to blink a couple of times to make sure he’s holding onto his boyfriend, and not some other crazy bastard who’s decided that it was a good idea to knock on the door of a stranger. On his free day.
But it’s Jinki alright. Minho’s frown deepens, one hand going behind the other’s neck to rub at his nape. “Then-”
By way of answering, Jinki looks up at him, wide eyed, shoving a box that Minho hasn’t noticed was between them into his arms.
“I found it in the car park,” says Jinki worriedly, wringing his hands together as his gaze alternates between the doctor and Minho, the latter standing behind him, so when he does that glancing about thing it makes him look like a lost animal himself. “Is it okay?”
It is a kitten, a tiny ball of fur that looks like it could fit into Minho’s palm and still have some space to wriggle around. It is a jet black one, with a white patch of fur just behind its right ear that kind of looks like a star. Minho watches with slight fascination as the kitten whimpers.
“Not really,” sighs the doctor, tucking a long strand of hair behind her ear and probing around the kitten with soft, careful hands. “Little one looks like it’s been through a rough time, see the slightly swollen hind leg? She’s got fleas too, and barely old enough to open her eyes. It’s not looking good for her.”
“Her,” repeats Jinki dumbly. “Well, what happens now?”
“I suppose we could put her down, take her out of her misery,” ponders the doctor, stroking the still-shivering kitten. “It’s going to be really hard to find someone to adopt a malnutritioned, abandoned kitten, let alone leave her be to survive after being separated from her mother.”
“Put? Down? You mean kill her?”
The doctor winces, visibly. “I wouldn’t call it that. But technically.”
Minho is watching the little body take ragged breath after ragged breath so intently that he doesn’t notice the insistent pulling of his sleeve until Jinki calls his name. And then he makes the mistake of looking down, over his shoulder.
Stupid fucking Jinki is looking at him, with That Look. The one where he presses his lips together and frowns a little and stares so sincerely into Minho’s eyes that it kind of hurts to look a-
“Please can we take care of her?”
“Hyung-”
“Please? She’s so tiny and alone and god the amount of feelings that washed over me when i found her sprawled on the road in the car park earlier-” Stupid fucking Jinki is still looking at him, and Minho can feel the weight of the doctor’s dubious look darting between the two of them, as if trying to figure them out.
“Minho are you-”
He holds up a hand, pinching the bridge of his nose with the other, determinedly not looking at Jinki.
“How do we care for her?”
“You do realise that you’re a paediatrician, not a veterinarian.”
“Yes, but the bottom line is that I’m dealing with the sick. Wouldn’t it be about the same?” Jinki has the kitten lying on Minho’s forearm, brow furrowing every time she lets out a pathetic little mewl as he cleans her crusted eyes with chamomile tea.
“Kittens and children aren’t quite the same thing, hyung. And what about us? You work crazy hours at the hospital when they need you to. I’m going to be over at Thailand for a friendly tournament next month. My seasons are- well, seasonal. How’re we going to manage her?”
He’s not prepared for when Jinki looks up long enough to curve a hand beneath his jaw and pull him in for a quick kiss. The kitten whines a little louder at the sudden tremor of his arm. “We’re going to work it out. It’s just like adopting a kid, isn’t it?”
Minho slaps him over the head for that one, even if the tips of his ears flush a little at the comment of domesticity. “I’m twenty-two.”
They work out a schedule between the two of them. She evolves into Ace, affectionately dubbed by Jinki when he shoves a loudly grousing Minho out of the door for his trainings at the nearby university.
“Stop whining, Ace Choi. You decided to stay up at Jonghyun’s to watch soccer.”
“Don’t forget to feed her!”
Jinki usually doesn’t have to get to work before noon during the weekdays, so he’s assigned to caring for Ace in the mornings, cleaning her eyes out and coaxing her to open her mouth wide enough with his little finger so he can give her the tit of the eye dropper for milk. The easy stuff, he does, before laying her tentatively into the basket overflowing with warm blankets by the refrigerator so that he can get ready for his shift. Minho’s currently off season, and with most of his friends working annoyingly regular hours he has to take the liberty of spending most of his time at home, with Ace.
“It’s just for a little while, once your seasons near I’ll put in a request for more regular, shorter hours, hmm?”
Minho had rolled his eyes at that one, pushing out his stomach for emphasis to unseat the kitten currently lying on top of it a little. It earns him a pinch on the forearm, and he resists the urge to push the elder’s shock of a mahogany bedhead off his chest. “At least somebody else is getting your attention.”
“Choi Minho are you jealous- you are, aren’t you?”
That had dissolved into a tickle fight then, but stopped soon after when Jinki’s arm flails, and it lands on top of Ace’s tail, which sends her yowling and scrambling to roll of Minho’s stomach.
“OhmygodbabyIamsosorry-”
“Baby?” Minho gasps, but any bit of annoyance he has within him, pseudo or otherwise, melts away when he sees Jinki crouched over the little thing, gathering her in his arms and scratching her head, whispering all sorts of frantic nonsense until she stops whining and falls asleep, her slow and steady breaths a hypnotic sight against Jinki’s bare chest.
It’s only when the elder pads out of the room to put Ace in her basket and comes back to crawl between his legs does Minho understand the change of mood.
“Oh.”
“I said I was sorry,” Jinki says, smiling, eyes crinkling with the light of mischief that Minho is two hundred percent sure would never be admitted at a gathering with their mutual friends. “I do try to take care of my aces, you know.”
“Well you don’t seem-” whatever that’s meant to come out of Minho’s mouth is garbled, completely forgotten, when Jinki crosses his ankles in the air and takes him into his mouth, hot and wet and full.
Despite all the earlier death threats and exasperated, childish sighs he elicits whenever Jinki pays more attention to Ace than to him, the taller man does indeed grow to love Ace. Okay- maybe love’s pushing it a tad too far, but he certainly is warming up to the kitten, now wobbling only slightly on all fours and adopting the most annoying, pathetic looking expression that can only have come from Jinki. Something, to Minho’s great and frustrating dismay, that he finds increasingly hard to ignore.
“You could’ve said no right from the beginning and none of this would’ve occurred,” shrugs Jonghyun, trying in vain to swipe away with his tongue his developing coffee foam mustache. Minho notes that he’s dyed his hair yet again, a steel-coloured sort of blue, an uncharacteristic change no doubt wheedled upon him by his new artist boyfriend. He mimes at punch at the shorter man, but holds in his comment of it looks good on you.
“What, you really could have. Jinki-hyung’s a smart one though, getting our high school playboy-extraordinaire so neatly wrapped around his little finger.” Jonghyun pauses. “Or fingers. In the literal sens- ow!”
Minho casually pulls his hand back, running it through his own hair and glaring daggers at his friend and everyone else in the coffee shop who has got enough time on their hands to turn around and spare them a few seconds of judgement for the minor commotion. “Shut up.”
Jonghyun holds up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay. Take your pills, old man. Back in high school you’d never have hit me for publicly discussing your sex life.”
Minho doesn’t deign to reply, simply taking another sip of his caramel latte. Fuck what the coach harps on about healthy living, the sugar addict in him is entitled to a couple of treats now and then. “I believe this is not why you asked me out.”
“True. If i wanted entertainment I’d have called for a group gathering and interrogated Jinki about all the nasty that you guys get down to because it’s more interesting to watch him squirm.”
“If you want to have a blow-by-blow recount again about the time we had sex in your truck-”
“Fine, Christ. Is the lack of basketball twisting your panties a little too tightly around your dick or something.”
Minho rolls his eyes, but good-naturedly. “I’ve got other bigger problems than your inane questions.”
This, makes Jonghyun’s eyes light up with interest. “That kitten you two adopted, isn’t it? You still wanting to squash her with your fat ass? I can never understand you, Choi, if Taemin were here he’d have you in a chokehold by now, Ape is so cute.”
Minho gags a little at Jonghyun’s overly saccharine imitation of his partner, but roots around his jean pocket for his phone anyway. “Ace. Jinki’ll have you in a chokehold.”
“Well, let’s see it. She walking now?”
“Running, actually. At least that’s what Jinki insists, I call it blind stumbling because she knocks into so many things and whines so loudly that I can’t just ignore her and continue watching match reruns.” Minho holds out his phone. “Here.”
It’s a grainy photo of Ace, staring up at him- or rather, Jinki, because the elder’s the one who took the photo and sent it to him- tiny paws scrabbling on his calves, sharp teeth glinting dully in the morning sunlight.
“She’s cute,” Jonghyun breathes, scrolling through Minho’s small, but growing kitten photo collection. The taller frowns, because he’s sure he hasn’t taken so many pictures of the little devil. “Look at you Choi, warming up so well to her.” This picture is one of Minho frowning, the expression only discernible because of the grit of his teeth; the rest of his face is covered by a clingy Ace. It is not one of Minho’s proudest moments.
“She’s tolerable. But I’d have to put my foot down once she starts getting big enough to clamber on tables and shit.”
“You know what they say,” Jonghyun waggles his eyebrows, “the first step is always the pet. Once a partner decides that you’re pussy-whipped enough to handle children, that’s when he’s going to pop the question.”
“WHAT.” Minho is so not pussy-whipped. He tells Jinki off when Ace spends too much time in their bed and ignores the kitten when he can during an important game and-
-and feeds it bits of his breakfast when food is sacred to his existence and lets it ride on his shoulder when he’s in a good mood and doesn’t complain now when she slips into the bathroom and twines around his ankles when he goes to pee.
Fuck.
“I think Jinki’s picked those vibes up by now,” interjects Jonghyun very unnecessarily.
“I’M TWENTY-TWO.”
“That’s not the point-”
“NEITHER AM I PUSSY-WHIPPED. I-” Minho is cut off his hissy tirade when his phone buzzes. It’s Jinki.
“‘Lo?”
“Um,” Jinki stutters into the line, “I think I left Ace by accident at the vet’s and went to work?”
Minho makes the most disgusting growl in the base of his throat and jabs furiously at the screen to end the call. Rude, he knows, but he’ll text back to apologize. After he leaves the son of a bitch behind.
“Need to leave to pick up your little girl?” says Jonghyun, beyond amused.
“It’s a fucking kitten and yes because the idiot’s gone and left it at the vet by accident for the second time this week.”
Jonghyun stands up and stretches, yawning unattractively in the crowded space before reaching over to pat Minho on the back. “I think I should be a prophet about these things. And come on, I’ll give you a ride before detouring to surprise Taemin after school.”
“And you call me pussy-whipped,” Minho sneers, shrugging into his coat.
“Hey, at least I’m not shy about it!”
“OH MY GOD.”
“You had to do it again, didn’t you, you stupid mutt,” Minho mutters, grimacing as he scoops up the hissing and wide-eyed ball of fur, who wastes no time sinking her claws into his forearms in an attempt to get away from both of her owners.
“Kitten, Minho, and oh my god I am so sorry,” babbles Jinki incessantly as he wrings his hands and trails behind Minho, and squeaks when Minho dumps the kitten unceremoniously on the makeshift pile of towels Jinki has put together for when she sneaks in to sleep with them, and starts rubbing her dry.
“I was talking about you,” sighs Minho, the towelling gentler now that Ace has calmed down somewhat. The kitten fixes its large eyes on Jinki, sitting a little ways to the side, knees hunched up and pressed to his chest as he watches Minho work on her. Coupled with Minho’s comment, Jinki wilts visibly.
“It’s not my fault that she has a habit of jumping into sinks and taking a nap in them when it’s hot!”
Later, leaning against Jinki’s chest with his legs outstretched, Minho apologises, head turned and pressed into the dip where neck meets shoulder, a kiss placed softly on the exposed clavicle. In response, Jinki rests his chin on the messy head of dark auburn, and the other knows that he’s forgiven.
“Thank you,” Jinki murmurs into his hair, carefully dabbing iodine at a particularly bad nick where Ace’s claws had sunk into the younger’s skin, a raw, ragged line cutting through his bicep and elbow.
“For calling you a stupid mutt? I didn’t know you were into that kind of kinky stuff.”
Jinki digs him under the rib. “No, idiot. For- you know.” He gestures lamely, and Minho takes the opportunity to grab the free hand and bring the elder’s wrist to his nose, inhaling the faint scent of honey. He knows he’s going to miss this, when he goes. “This whole Ace thing. I know I said a lot of things I promised to do with Ace before we got her, but after this whole month of owning her I just feel a little out of place. You’re so much better at taking care of her than I am.” He starts wrapping the gauze around Minho’s arm, despite the mumbled protests of how he’s big of a boy enough to handle a small cut. “Humour me. The last thing I want for you is to get an infection right now, considering all the amount of sweating you’ll do later on in the day.”
“Is this you panicking right now.”
“No, I- okay, sort of.”
“Babe.” Minho twists himself around, and the bed creaks a little with him maneuvering just so he can face Jinki and entrap his waist with his legs. Jinki adjusts his own to make room for him. “What’s up? I go out of the country all the time, and this trip isn’t even as long as that heinous winter stint in Canada.”
“I know. But. Ace.” The rest comes out in a mumbled rush. “This is so stupid- I know I’m supposed to be the older one and not make you worry about silly things, but I don’t know how I’m going to handle Ace. I mean, look at the amount of accidents I’ve caused her since she started living with us.”
“Oi. You’re clumsy and forgetful, but not stupid. It’s just two and a half weeks, okay? If shit gets tough you can always call Heechul hyung. Lord knows how he deals with his own devil of a cat.”
Jinki just sighs, and Minho frowns because it is uncharacteristic for him to be worrying so much. He takes the opportunity to take hold of his boyfriend by the shoulders, leaning forward until Jinki’s back hits the headboard, and then kisses him once, quick and gentle in the corner of his mouth.
It elicits a small laugh. “Tease.”
“That’s not supposed to be the point you dumbass. The point is,” Minho punctuates with a proper peck on the lips this time, “That you are not useless, and you will survive with Ace. You’re a big boy, aren’t you? What’s Ace. A tiny ass kitten.”
“With a lot of destructive power when left in my hands,” says Jinki weakly, shuddering a little when Minho laves at a spot behind his ear, and his cold fingers find their way up his stomach, inch by inch.
“So? You’re Lee Jinki, multitasking doctor extraordinaire. You deal with me and my dirt and my laziness and my incessant need to fuck your perfect ass when you come home from work and still make it back smiling the next day. What’s a kitten to you?”
“Another-” Jinki stutters, arching his neck to give Minho a little more access. The other smiles knowingly into his skin, teeth scraping gently across collarbones. He loves when Jinki falls apart so easily beneath him, making soft, approving noises that he’s all too happy to scrape out of his throat in louder, rawer forms when Jinki gives up trying to hold back. “life form?”
“Relax,” Minho hums, holding him by the waist to flip them over. His own head bumps against the headboard now, and Jinki’s eyes are a little dazed, too bright against the dull light in their room as he straddles the other man. “You can text me for help, and in the middle of begging for me to come home and fuck you again I’ll remind you of things you should be looking at with Ace.”
“This is really- really warped-”
“If you would like for me to shut up,” Minho supplies helpfully, playfully thrusting up against the tent in Jinki’s boxers. Conversation then morphs into another form.
Jinki has the last overnight shift of the week to make, but he still finds enough energy to drag himself to the airport, head lolling on Minho’s shoulder in the taxi and they speed their way there.
“You really didn’t have to come, big baby. It’s not like this is our first time away from one another.” Jinki reddens in embarrassment as Minho bends down to cup his face and proceed to suck the life out of his mouth in front of his whooping teammates, gasping a little for air when he can finally muster the will to shove his clinging boyfriend away from him.
“Go away.”
“And never come back? You’d be missing me, darling.”
“You never know when to shut up, do you.” Jinki indulges in one last hug, fingers fisting the worn fabric of Minho’s ugly hoodie before letting go. Minho on the other hand breathes in the smell of antiseptic, and the faint scent of home.
“Be good. Call me every day. And don’t forget to pick up Ace from Jonghyun’s before you go home!”
Jinki doesn’t reply, only shoves him a little harder so that he can go on and catch up with his teammates. He watches the figure trail further and further, eyes burning into the lines of his broad back, until he can’t see him anymore.
Well. Two weeks. He would see what he could do about that.
The first four days go by remarkably well, even by Jinki’s standards. Sure, he’s forgotten to pick up Ace from Taemin’s apartment today, and almost collapsed on her tail after a hard day’s work, but at least he hasn’t wet her in the sink again. He tells Minho this triumphantly over skype, eyes a little bleary from the lack of sleep. Minho rolls his eyes good-naturedly, but continues listening as he tears bits of chicken into strips and wolfs them down.
Jinki makes a face. “It’s 2AM and you’re eating? Doesn’t your coach put your team on a strict diet or something.”
Minho only grins wider. “What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him.”
“You’re going to get really fat.”
“Not with the amount of slaving on the court and on the beach we’ve been doing.” To prove his point, Minho lifts up his shirt, obnoxiously holding onto its hem with his teeth as he leans back on his seat a little to let Jinki have a little show.
Predictably, his boyfriend goes pink. “Stop teasing me. I hope somebody walks in on you.”
“I hope somebody walks in on us having webcam sex.”
“Is that all you think about you horny piece of shit.”
Minho shrugs, stuffing the last of his chicken into his mouth and letting out a loud, long burp. “You try doing hours of heaving, ugly sweating and having not enough energy to wank yourself off in the shower or before you go to bed before making fun of me for wanting a piece of your ass.”
“Oh my god good night.”
Thailand is hot. Really hot. Minho doesn’t even have enough strength to curse under his breath for want of a water bottle by the time they finish their afternoon runs on the beach, and his hands tremble a little with the effort of catching a sports drink can thrown at him.
He’s tipping the last few drops into his throat, lying splayed out on the beach with sand dusted all over his calves and wanting to take a picture for Jinki when he notices the number of missed calls on his phone. He frowns; it is 4:50PM and normally Jinki would be running his shifts.
He calls anyway, not expecting his boyfriend to pick up. But the other does, a snappish “Where were you this whole time?” sounding over the line that has the basketballer frowning in confusion.
“My afternoon runs, I told you. What’s wrong?”
“Fuck I just- I’m sorry this is stupid.”
“Stop hemming and hawing like you always do and tell me what’s wrong. I’m not mad at you.”
“I almost let the washing machine run while she was in it, Minho. I don’t know how it happened- she likes sleeping in the oddest places but I’m too forgetful to check before I do anything and I don’t have the faintest idea what to do right now because Ace is mad and trembling in a corner and refuses to come to me.”
“Okay, but at least she isn’t hurt.” In spite of his screaming thighs, Minho excuses himself from his teammates, waving a hand to get them to move along first and walking toward a small thicket of trees to continue the conversation in private. “Is she?”
Another sigh. “No she isn’t, but she just doesn’t want to be near me right now.”
“That’s good. I mean the part where she’s not hurt, not the one where she doesn’t want to be near you. But keep you cool, Jinki. Think of Ace as one of those kids at work who’s had a shock in a near-accident. Your job’s to calm her down, okay?”
“How,” Jinki sighs into the phone again, and Minho can hear the bed squeaking as the other turns over. “I don’t have the faintest idea what to bribe her with, Minho, you’re the one who knows all sorts of snacks she likes to filch from us.”
“Chicken. You can cook early dinner and give her some of that. Ace likes carrot too, for some reason, but don’t give her too much of that. You okay?” He can almost visualise Jinki nodding on the other side, only to blush a little and make a noise of assent into the phone because of the way he replies two beats later than natural. “See, not so hard.”
“Yeah. Thanks, Minho-yah.”
“Anything for the big baby. And by the way, why aren’t you at work?”
“I was going to, until this morning happened. I couldn’t coax Ace to get into the basket to take her over to Sun-young’s today, so I just cancelled.”
“What a good dad,” Minho teases. The wind is cool on his face, making him feel less dirty than he actually is.
“Shut up. You know way more about Ace than I do.”
“You wanted to keep the little shit, not me.”
And then, “I miss you.” It comes impulsively over the line, soft and hesitant, as if Jinki was afraid of the reaction he might receive. It’s stupid, Minho knows, but it spreads a kind of warm in his torso the way the sun shining overhead can’t quite do.
“Idiot. It’s just another ten days.”
“I know.” Another pause, and Minho listens to the faint breathing of his boyfriend. A shout of laughter comes from far away on his end, and it’s really kind of nice. “You should go. I’ll tell you how it went with Ace.”
“Yeah, okay.” Minho is about to hang up, but before he can stop himself, what lets slip is a quick “Imissyoutoo” before he lets the line go dead.
It evidently goes well with Ace, for the day after Minho receives an annoyingly excessive amount of pictures of Ace on KakaoTalk. He minds them a tiny bit less when they’re interjected with smiley, grinning faces of Jinki in various sloppy attires.
“Have you been letting yourself go loose just because I’m not around? I’m ashamed of you, hyung. Here I am trying to get a hotter body for you, and there you laze around with a tummy that gets softer by the minute.”
“Rude.” Minho whistles in anticipation as he watches Jinki wriggle out of his sweatshirt and flex, sticking his tongue out at him. “I’ve been at the gym after work, okay. Making friends with Jonghyun can either be a great lifestyle change, or one of danger for me. I think my eardrums are about to combust from all the talking he does about Taemin.”
“That bastard still head over heels for the kid?”
“Apparently.” Jinki’s voice is muffled as he shrugs on his sweatshirt again, ignoring the disappointed clucks of his boyfriend’s tongue over the shitty speakers. “Don’t laugh though, I think it’s cute. Apparently they’re going on a road trip once Taemin graduates this year.”
“Is somebody jealous?” He winks playfully at Jinki, watching how the other rubs at his neck. He always loves this side of the elder, the side where he allows himself to be so easily manipulated by him. Their relationship compared to Jonghyun’s and Taemin’s are world’s apart when it comes to expressions of love, but somehow Minho can’t bring himself to do more than they already have, comfortable as they are with each other.
Apparently Jinki understands that steady kind grasp they have on one another, because all he provides to give as a response is to pull his quilts tighter around himself. “Nope.”
“We can go on holiday once this season’s played out for me. And then you can use the days of fucking paid leave that you never fail to neglect to go fuck yourself crazy with me in foreign places.”
“I want to visit pretty libraries and museums though.”
“Boring. But I could consider if you give me enough incentives to tag along.”
“Um. Maybe my pretty cock?” This one raises an eyebrow out of Minho, and he settles back on the bed, shifting his laptop a little further out on his lap to watch Jinki palm himself over his pants.
“This is a nice surprise.”
“I”m glad you like my initiative. But I’d like some response too, y’know.”
“We aren’t on holiday yet.” But Minho obliges, hand snaking past the waistband of his boxers and wrapping his fingers around his own length. He’s almost embarrassed at the how quickly he gets hard, watching his boyfriend’s fringe flop over his eyes as he shifts his legs wider apart and tugs his pants lower, lower-
Jinki lets out a little squeak, and Minho sits up a little straighter, watching as the laptop falls on its side as the elder’s legs scoot backward.
“What-”
“Oh my god Ace-”
MInho can’t believe what he’s seeing, as a bushy tail swishes past the screen, and the kitten, cool as a cucumber, clambers on top of a stuttering, confused Jinki to curl up on his chest. And the damn thing promptly shuts her eyes. “What the fuck?”
“Um,” is all Jinki can manage, looking distressed and embarrassed as hell as he tucks himself back into his pants, which Minho can imagine being extremely uncomfortable considering the tent he’s pitching in there. “I forgot to shut the door?”
“Am I seriously being cockblocked by a fucking cat?”
“You wanna go off and, y’know? I can, get to it later.”
“Push that piece of shit right off you and dump her in her basket.”
“I can’t!”
“You wanted to incentivise this whole thing for me!” But even as the words leave his mouth, Minho can feel his mood souring, the heat previously pooling in his stomach rapidly dissipating.
“I know, so I’m sorry! I’ll call you back tomorrow or something?”
Minho doesn’t hold back his yell of frustration before he signs off Skype. “What sort of fucking Satan am I being kind to on a regular basis.”
Kyuhyun-hyung finds the apology texts later when they’re horsing around in the suite bedroom of their coach’s, and he howls with laughter as Minho grits his teeth and lunges forward, determined to get his phone back.
“Jinki-hyung’s really sweet, but god Minho are you tied down to the life.”
“Shut up you little>-”
“Minho,” wails Jinki very uncharacteristically, and the other suppresses a huge groan, burrowing his face deeper into the inadequate pillows.
“If it’s about Ace again I’m going to skin her alive when I come home-”
“She’s puking!”
“You’re the doctor! I’m just a fucking athlete!”
“I deal with children!”
Minho gives up in the end and calls Heechul, keeping the phone a good distance away from his ear. It takes all about ten minutes to get solutions from Heechul, irate as hell from being woken up from sleep, and Minho is still wincing as he texts Jinki.
To: Jinki hyung
From: Minho
im goin to send her away when i come back just you wait”
“Hey baby,” Minho half-yells into the phone, the alcohol buzz burning greedily through his system. Behind him is a backdrop of noise and carefree laughter. “Say hi to the crew!”
“Um, Minho-”
“What?”
“Could you please go somewhere quiet so you can hear me?”
“What- why?” The beat is really, really good.
“Just- please?”
“What- okay, okay. Hang on-” He weaves his way through the mix of dancing bodies, shaking his head and sending flashy smiles at people who try to rope him into their circle or pass him a drink to head out to the balcony. It’s still a little inappropriate with a couple eating each other’s faces next to him. but he figures the markedly quieter atmosphere will do.
“Hey.”
“Are- you at a party?”
“Yes,” Minho says again, smiling, and looking up at the sky. A star winks at him in the distance. “Yes. It’s really fucking cool and I wish you could be here, too.”
“Minho..”
“Yeah?”
Jinki gulps audibly into the phone. “She’s missing.”
It doesn’t register with Minho, not at first. “Who? What?”
“Ace.” And then, “I am so sorry I was being a lousy person again I forgot to take her home!” This makes Minho sit up and listen, partly because his boyfriend sounded like he was about to cry over the phone, but another (surprised) part of him dredging up pictures of the tiny ball of fur in his head.
“Woah, calm down, okay? You said you forgot to take her home. So where is she? Isn’t someone holding on to her right now?”
“It’s not like that, Minho I- I took her out today for awhile in the park near our place, and I was reading while watching her out of the corner of my eye as she lazed around some flowers. And then- it rained and in my panic I just got up and left and it took me a whole shower to remember I forgot to take her with me!”
Minho wants to comment on how nobody actually takes cats out for walks like they do for dogs, but he holds his tongue and focuses on the situation. “Have you gone back to the park to look for her?”
“Of course, and I even brought treats and a warm blanket and started calling out to her like crazy but I couldn’t get a response. Minho, what do I do? It’s cold and it’s so dark out there and Minho Ace hates water.”
It’s a little hard to focus after that, with the fading scar on his arm tingling and his head filling with the countless images of Ace and Jinki and him together, even though half the time his face was grumpy as fuck in them. “Hyung, it’s okay. Ace is a smart girl, she’ll take care of herself. She’s going to find somewhere warm to spend the night and when you find her she’s going to hiss at you for being stupid but otherwise come home with you just fine. Okay?”
“Okay- okay it really isn’t okay Minho I’m really sorry but I’m panicking a little right now.”
“More like a lot,” he breathes gently into the phone, grip tightening. All he wants to do right now is fly the fuck home and take care of the idiots he’s decided to live with. “Don’t forget to breathe, okay? She’s going to make it back just fine.”
“That’s what Jonghyun and Taemin told me, too. They backed out of their date halfway to come look for Ace with me, the sweethearts.”
“Thank them for me,” Minho says automatically, but strangely he does feel a sort of indebtment to the two of them. “Are they with you right now?”
“Sort of? Jonghyun’s still out, and Taemin’s making me dinner. Not that I feel like eating at this point of time.”
“Lee Jinki you had better eat before I kick your fucking ass.”
“I will, I will.” Jinki chuckles, just a small one, sounding still not-quite-Jinki, so that Minho’s heart squeezes.
“Update me, okay?” which, in Minho-speak, translates to call me whenever to hold your hand you idiot. Which translates to-
“I love you, too. Go have fun and stop worrying about me.” The line goes dead, but Minho still stands out in the balcony, not really thinking or hearing or seeing anything, even when the rest of the boys come out back to drag him into the party again.
To: Jinki hyung
From: Minho
call me if anyth changes
To: Minho
From: Jinki
yeah :)
To: Minho
From: Jinki
still missing :( going to put up posters today
To: Jinki hyung
From: Minho
no work today?
To: Minho
From: Jinki
nope. need ace back before you come home to skin my non-eating ass
To which Minho responds to with a fiery phone call to Jinki, and Jonghyun, and Taemin and their neighbour whatshername, to make sure the goddamn idiot takes care of himself.
“You really take care of him, don’t you,” marvels Sun-young, and Minho hears the rhythmic clickety-clack of keyboard under fingertips come to a halt.
“Oh shut up all of you.” He doesn’t let Jinki’s coworker get another word in before he hangs up and sprints to their hotel’s indoor sports court to change up before practice.
“I got a phone call,” Jinki says, wringing his hands in his lap. Minho studies the screen meticulously; the elder looks wan, but sounds much happier than he has been since he left Ace.
“And?”
“Someone’s got her. Apparently they found her mewling away under a bush, and scratched them up quite a bit when they tried to retrieve her. Their daughter wanted to keep the cat, but then they saw my ad.”
“See,” Minho says, conversation much easier than he remembers it being on a regular basis. “Why’re you still sitting here, then?”
“I can only get her tomorrow evening, because they’ve kindly sent her to the vet for a check up, poor thing.”
“Don’t forget her this time.”
“Like hell I would never.” Jinki is smiling, grin wide and free on his cheeks again, and in spite of his dead tiredness Minho finds himself smiling, too. “Minho?”
“Hmm?”
“Thank you.”
“What the hell for.”
“For putting up with me not listening to you when you said Ace was a bad idea.”
“So you think she’s a bad idea now?”
“God, no but you know what I mean.”
Minho knows, alright. “Just go to sleep and collect her tomorrow.”
His phone buzzes, the night before the farewell dinner at the hotel lounge. He’s aching all over and in need of more than just hotel takeout, but the picture Jinki sends to him, of Ace looking larger than he remembers her to be and grumpy as heck sitting on the kitchen table makes him feel a little fuller.
The keys jangle loudly in the lock, but not loud enough to wake anyone up. Minho curses as his head bumps against the shelf by the door, a little unused to the foreignness of domesticity. He feels a little too large for a small apartment like theirs, hands and shoulders laden with bags and bags of dirty clothing and a small amount of souvenirs. He’s even too grimy for how clean Jinki keeps everything.
“He didn’t even wait up for me,” mumbles Minho distractedly, deciding to just deal with the complaints tomorrow and leaves his stuff out in the middle of the hallway. He is so, so tired.
The door creaks open as he pops his head in, and in the darkness he picks up a faint sighing, and the squeak of mattresses. He makes out the slight outline of a mound breathing steadily under a mountain of blankets, and inches his way toward it.
It’s a sight that makes his manly, usually unemotional heart go soft, really. Jinki’s hair is a mess, all over his face and sticking up in all directions imaginable, one arm stretched out over his face. Minho peels back the blankets, just a little bit, and it reveals a small mound of fur settled on the elder’s chest, one that curls its tail tighter around itself from the sudden cold.
He’s about to leave them alone, getting up from the bed, but something clings to his wrist.
“Look who’s home.”
“You didn’t even wait up for me, idiot.”
“I’m awake now,” Jinki smiles, eyes a gentle glint against the street lights falling gently through the gap in the curtains. He tugs at Minho’s wrist, a little more insistent this time, and Minho obliges, leaning in despite all the grime on his skin.
Not that Jinki minds. Not at the moment, anyway. “Welcome back, ace.”
From: Your Secret Santa
Title: Can’t Keep Your Mind Off (Me)
Pairing: Onew/Minho
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: -
Authors’ Notes: lots of pointless fluff ahead, merry christmas!!!
It begins with a phone call, one that causes Minho to drop his phone with a loud “clack” on the ground when it rings in the middle of The Conjuring.
“What,” he almost hisses into phone without checking to see who was calling. “You scared th-”
“Minho,” warbles a voice over the light static, and it almost freezes his heart right over. He’s instantly sorry for being so rude over the phone, but why was Jinki sounding like he was about to cry?
“Hyung? Where are you? Are you-?”
“Just open the door,” Jinki pleads back, and Minho is up in a flash, a tangle of feet and sports magazines strewn all over the floor from the earlier afternoon, stumbling to the door.
“What’s wrong?” He demands, immediately taking the elder by the shoulders and looking him over. “Did you get hurt or something?”
“It isn’t me,” says Jinki, in a wobbly voice so uncharacteristic of him that Minho has to blink a couple of times to make sure he’s holding onto his boyfriend, and not some other crazy bastard who’s decided that it was a good idea to knock on the door of a stranger. On his free day.
But it’s Jinki alright. Minho’s frown deepens, one hand going behind the other’s neck to rub at his nape. “Then-”
By way of answering, Jinki looks up at him, wide eyed, shoving a box that Minho hasn’t noticed was between them into his arms.
“I found it in the car park,” says Jinki worriedly, wringing his hands together as his gaze alternates between the doctor and Minho, the latter standing behind him, so when he does that glancing about thing it makes him look like a lost animal himself. “Is it okay?”
It is a kitten, a tiny ball of fur that looks like it could fit into Minho’s palm and still have some space to wriggle around. It is a jet black one, with a white patch of fur just behind its right ear that kind of looks like a star. Minho watches with slight fascination as the kitten whimpers.
“Not really,” sighs the doctor, tucking a long strand of hair behind her ear and probing around the kitten with soft, careful hands. “Little one looks like it’s been through a rough time, see the slightly swollen hind leg? She’s got fleas too, and barely old enough to open her eyes. It’s not looking good for her.”
“Her,” repeats Jinki dumbly. “Well, what happens now?”
“I suppose we could put her down, take her out of her misery,” ponders the doctor, stroking the still-shivering kitten. “It’s going to be really hard to find someone to adopt a malnutritioned, abandoned kitten, let alone leave her be to survive after being separated from her mother.”
“Put? Down? You mean kill her?”
The doctor winces, visibly. “I wouldn’t call it that. But technically.”
Minho is watching the little body take ragged breath after ragged breath so intently that he doesn’t notice the insistent pulling of his sleeve until Jinki calls his name. And then he makes the mistake of looking down, over his shoulder.
Stupid fucking Jinki is looking at him, with That Look. The one where he presses his lips together and frowns a little and stares so sincerely into Minho’s eyes that it kind of hurts to look a-
“Please can we take care of her?”
“Hyung-”
“Please? She’s so tiny and alone and god the amount of feelings that washed over me when i found her sprawled on the road in the car park earlier-” Stupid fucking Jinki is still looking at him, and Minho can feel the weight of the doctor’s dubious look darting between the two of them, as if trying to figure them out.
“Minho are you-”
He holds up a hand, pinching the bridge of his nose with the other, determinedly not looking at Jinki.
“How do we care for her?”
“You do realise that you’re a paediatrician, not a veterinarian.”
“Yes, but the bottom line is that I’m dealing with the sick. Wouldn’t it be about the same?” Jinki has the kitten lying on Minho’s forearm, brow furrowing every time she lets out a pathetic little mewl as he cleans her crusted eyes with chamomile tea.
“Kittens and children aren’t quite the same thing, hyung. And what about us? You work crazy hours at the hospital when they need you to. I’m going to be over at Thailand for a friendly tournament next month. My seasons are- well, seasonal. How’re we going to manage her?”
He’s not prepared for when Jinki looks up long enough to curve a hand beneath his jaw and pull him in for a quick kiss. The kitten whines a little louder at the sudden tremor of his arm. “We’re going to work it out. It’s just like adopting a kid, isn’t it?”
Minho slaps him over the head for that one, even if the tips of his ears flush a little at the comment of domesticity. “I’m twenty-two.”
They work out a schedule between the two of them. She evolves into Ace, affectionately dubbed by Jinki when he shoves a loudly grousing Minho out of the door for his trainings at the nearby university.
“Stop whining, Ace Choi. You decided to stay up at Jonghyun’s to watch soccer.”
“Don’t forget to feed her!”
Jinki usually doesn’t have to get to work before noon during the weekdays, so he’s assigned to caring for Ace in the mornings, cleaning her eyes out and coaxing her to open her mouth wide enough with his little finger so he can give her the tit of the eye dropper for milk. The easy stuff, he does, before laying her tentatively into the basket overflowing with warm blankets by the refrigerator so that he can get ready for his shift. Minho’s currently off season, and with most of his friends working annoyingly regular hours he has to take the liberty of spending most of his time at home, with Ace.
“It’s just for a little while, once your seasons near I’ll put in a request for more regular, shorter hours, hmm?”
Minho had rolled his eyes at that one, pushing out his stomach for emphasis to unseat the kitten currently lying on top of it a little. It earns him a pinch on the forearm, and he resists the urge to push the elder’s shock of a mahogany bedhead off his chest. “At least somebody else is getting your attention.”
“Choi Minho are you jealous- you are, aren’t you?”
That had dissolved into a tickle fight then, but stopped soon after when Jinki’s arm flails, and it lands on top of Ace’s tail, which sends her yowling and scrambling to roll of Minho’s stomach.
“OhmygodbabyIamsosorry-”
“Baby?” Minho gasps, but any bit of annoyance he has within him, pseudo or otherwise, melts away when he sees Jinki crouched over the little thing, gathering her in his arms and scratching her head, whispering all sorts of frantic nonsense until she stops whining and falls asleep, her slow and steady breaths a hypnotic sight against Jinki’s bare chest.
It’s only when the elder pads out of the room to put Ace in her basket and comes back to crawl between his legs does Minho understand the change of mood.
“Oh.”
“I said I was sorry,” Jinki says, smiling, eyes crinkling with the light of mischief that Minho is two hundred percent sure would never be admitted at a gathering with their mutual friends. “I do try to take care of my aces, you know.”
“Well you don’t seem-” whatever that’s meant to come out of Minho’s mouth is garbled, completely forgotten, when Jinki crosses his ankles in the air and takes him into his mouth, hot and wet and full.
Despite all the earlier death threats and exasperated, childish sighs he elicits whenever Jinki pays more attention to Ace than to him, the taller man does indeed grow to love Ace. Okay- maybe love’s pushing it a tad too far, but he certainly is warming up to the kitten, now wobbling only slightly on all fours and adopting the most annoying, pathetic looking expression that can only have come from Jinki. Something, to Minho’s great and frustrating dismay, that he finds increasingly hard to ignore.
“You could’ve said no right from the beginning and none of this would’ve occurred,” shrugs Jonghyun, trying in vain to swipe away with his tongue his developing coffee foam mustache. Minho notes that he’s dyed his hair yet again, a steel-coloured sort of blue, an uncharacteristic change no doubt wheedled upon him by his new artist boyfriend. He mimes at punch at the shorter man, but holds in his comment of it looks good on you.
“What, you really could have. Jinki-hyung’s a smart one though, getting our high school playboy-extraordinaire so neatly wrapped around his little finger.” Jonghyun pauses. “Or fingers. In the literal sens- ow!”
Minho casually pulls his hand back, running it through his own hair and glaring daggers at his friend and everyone else in the coffee shop who has got enough time on their hands to turn around and spare them a few seconds of judgement for the minor commotion. “Shut up.”
Jonghyun holds up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay. Take your pills, old man. Back in high school you’d never have hit me for publicly discussing your sex life.”
Minho doesn’t deign to reply, simply taking another sip of his caramel latte. Fuck what the coach harps on about healthy living, the sugar addict in him is entitled to a couple of treats now and then. “I believe this is not why you asked me out.”
“True. If i wanted entertainment I’d have called for a group gathering and interrogated Jinki about all the nasty that you guys get down to because it’s more interesting to watch him squirm.”
“If you want to have a blow-by-blow recount again about the time we had sex in your truck-”
“Fine, Christ. Is the lack of basketball twisting your panties a little too tightly around your dick or something.”
Minho rolls his eyes, but good-naturedly. “I’ve got other bigger problems than your inane questions.”
This, makes Jonghyun’s eyes light up with interest. “That kitten you two adopted, isn’t it? You still wanting to squash her with your fat ass? I can never understand you, Choi, if Taemin were here he’d have you in a chokehold by now, Ape is so cute.”
Minho gags a little at Jonghyun’s overly saccharine imitation of his partner, but roots around his jean pocket for his phone anyway. “Ace. Jinki’ll have you in a chokehold.”
“Well, let’s see it. She walking now?”
“Running, actually. At least that’s what Jinki insists, I call it blind stumbling because she knocks into so many things and whines so loudly that I can’t just ignore her and continue watching match reruns.” Minho holds out his phone. “Here.”
It’s a grainy photo of Ace, staring up at him- or rather, Jinki, because the elder’s the one who took the photo and sent it to him- tiny paws scrabbling on his calves, sharp teeth glinting dully in the morning sunlight.
“She’s cute,” Jonghyun breathes, scrolling through Minho’s small, but growing kitten photo collection. The taller frowns, because he’s sure he hasn’t taken so many pictures of the little devil. “Look at you Choi, warming up so well to her.” This picture is one of Minho frowning, the expression only discernible because of the grit of his teeth; the rest of his face is covered by a clingy Ace. It is not one of Minho’s proudest moments.
“She’s tolerable. But I’d have to put my foot down once she starts getting big enough to clamber on tables and shit.”
“You know what they say,” Jonghyun waggles his eyebrows, “the first step is always the pet. Once a partner decides that you’re pussy-whipped enough to handle children, that’s when he’s going to pop the question.”
“WHAT.” Minho is so not pussy-whipped. He tells Jinki off when Ace spends too much time in their bed and ignores the kitten when he can during an important game and-
-and feeds it bits of his breakfast when food is sacred to his existence and lets it ride on his shoulder when he’s in a good mood and doesn’t complain now when she slips into the bathroom and twines around his ankles when he goes to pee.
Fuck.
“I think Jinki’s picked those vibes up by now,” interjects Jonghyun very unnecessarily.
“I’M TWENTY-TWO.”
“That’s not the point-”
“NEITHER AM I PUSSY-WHIPPED. I-” Minho is cut off his hissy tirade when his phone buzzes. It’s Jinki.
“‘Lo?”
“Um,” Jinki stutters into the line, “I think I left Ace by accident at the vet’s and went to work?”
Minho makes the most disgusting growl in the base of his throat and jabs furiously at the screen to end the call. Rude, he knows, but he’ll text back to apologize. After he leaves the son of a bitch behind.
“Need to leave to pick up your little girl?” says Jonghyun, beyond amused.
“It’s a fucking kitten and yes because the idiot’s gone and left it at the vet by accident for the second time this week.”
Jonghyun stands up and stretches, yawning unattractively in the crowded space before reaching over to pat Minho on the back. “I think I should be a prophet about these things. And come on, I’ll give you a ride before detouring to surprise Taemin after school.”
“And you call me pussy-whipped,” Minho sneers, shrugging into his coat.
“Hey, at least I’m not shy about it!”
“OH MY GOD.”
“You had to do it again, didn’t you, you stupid mutt,” Minho mutters, grimacing as he scoops up the hissing and wide-eyed ball of fur, who wastes no time sinking her claws into his forearms in an attempt to get away from both of her owners.
“Kitten, Minho, and oh my god I am so sorry,” babbles Jinki incessantly as he wrings his hands and trails behind Minho, and squeaks when Minho dumps the kitten unceremoniously on the makeshift pile of towels Jinki has put together for when she sneaks in to sleep with them, and starts rubbing her dry.
“I was talking about you,” sighs Minho, the towelling gentler now that Ace has calmed down somewhat. The kitten fixes its large eyes on Jinki, sitting a little ways to the side, knees hunched up and pressed to his chest as he watches Minho work on her. Coupled with Minho’s comment, Jinki wilts visibly.
“It’s not my fault that she has a habit of jumping into sinks and taking a nap in them when it’s hot!”
Later, leaning against Jinki’s chest with his legs outstretched, Minho apologises, head turned and pressed into the dip where neck meets shoulder, a kiss placed softly on the exposed clavicle. In response, Jinki rests his chin on the messy head of dark auburn, and the other knows that he’s forgiven.
“Thank you,” Jinki murmurs into his hair, carefully dabbing iodine at a particularly bad nick where Ace’s claws had sunk into the younger’s skin, a raw, ragged line cutting through his bicep and elbow.
“For calling you a stupid mutt? I didn’t know you were into that kind of kinky stuff.”
Jinki digs him under the rib. “No, idiot. For- you know.” He gestures lamely, and Minho takes the opportunity to grab the free hand and bring the elder’s wrist to his nose, inhaling the faint scent of honey. He knows he’s going to miss this, when he goes. “This whole Ace thing. I know I said a lot of things I promised to do with Ace before we got her, but after this whole month of owning her I just feel a little out of place. You’re so much better at taking care of her than I am.” He starts wrapping the gauze around Minho’s arm, despite the mumbled protests of how he’s big of a boy enough to handle a small cut. “Humour me. The last thing I want for you is to get an infection right now, considering all the amount of sweating you’ll do later on in the day.”
“Is this you panicking right now.”
“No, I- okay, sort of.”
“Babe.” Minho twists himself around, and the bed creaks a little with him maneuvering just so he can face Jinki and entrap his waist with his legs. Jinki adjusts his own to make room for him. “What’s up? I go out of the country all the time, and this trip isn’t even as long as that heinous winter stint in Canada.”
“I know. But. Ace.” The rest comes out in a mumbled rush. “This is so stupid- I know I’m supposed to be the older one and not make you worry about silly things, but I don’t know how I’m going to handle Ace. I mean, look at the amount of accidents I’ve caused her since she started living with us.”
“Oi. You’re clumsy and forgetful, but not stupid. It’s just two and a half weeks, okay? If shit gets tough you can always call Heechul hyung. Lord knows how he deals with his own devil of a cat.”
Jinki just sighs, and Minho frowns because it is uncharacteristic for him to be worrying so much. He takes the opportunity to take hold of his boyfriend by the shoulders, leaning forward until Jinki’s back hits the headboard, and then kisses him once, quick and gentle in the corner of his mouth.
It elicits a small laugh. “Tease.”
“That’s not supposed to be the point you dumbass. The point is,” Minho punctuates with a proper peck on the lips this time, “That you are not useless, and you will survive with Ace. You’re a big boy, aren’t you? What’s Ace. A tiny ass kitten.”
“With a lot of destructive power when left in my hands,” says Jinki weakly, shuddering a little when Minho laves at a spot behind his ear, and his cold fingers find their way up his stomach, inch by inch.
“So? You’re Lee Jinki, multitasking doctor extraordinaire. You deal with me and my dirt and my laziness and my incessant need to fuck your perfect ass when you come home from work and still make it back smiling the next day. What’s a kitten to you?”
“Another-” Jinki stutters, arching his neck to give Minho a little more access. The other smiles knowingly into his skin, teeth scraping gently across collarbones. He loves when Jinki falls apart so easily beneath him, making soft, approving noises that he’s all too happy to scrape out of his throat in louder, rawer forms when Jinki gives up trying to hold back. “life form?”
“Relax,” Minho hums, holding him by the waist to flip them over. His own head bumps against the headboard now, and Jinki’s eyes are a little dazed, too bright against the dull light in their room as he straddles the other man. “You can text me for help, and in the middle of begging for me to come home and fuck you again I’ll remind you of things you should be looking at with Ace.”
“This is really- really warped-”
“If you would like for me to shut up,” Minho supplies helpfully, playfully thrusting up against the tent in Jinki’s boxers. Conversation then morphs into another form.
Jinki has the last overnight shift of the week to make, but he still finds enough energy to drag himself to the airport, head lolling on Minho’s shoulder in the taxi and they speed their way there.
“You really didn’t have to come, big baby. It’s not like this is our first time away from one another.” Jinki reddens in embarrassment as Minho bends down to cup his face and proceed to suck the life out of his mouth in front of his whooping teammates, gasping a little for air when he can finally muster the will to shove his clinging boyfriend away from him.
“Go away.”
“And never come back? You’d be missing me, darling.”
“You never know when to shut up, do you.” Jinki indulges in one last hug, fingers fisting the worn fabric of Minho’s ugly hoodie before letting go. Minho on the other hand breathes in the smell of antiseptic, and the faint scent of home.
“Be good. Call me every day. And don’t forget to pick up Ace from Jonghyun’s before you go home!”
Jinki doesn’t reply, only shoves him a little harder so that he can go on and catch up with his teammates. He watches the figure trail further and further, eyes burning into the lines of his broad back, until he can’t see him anymore.
Well. Two weeks. He would see what he could do about that.
The first four days go by remarkably well, even by Jinki’s standards. Sure, he’s forgotten to pick up Ace from Taemin’s apartment today, and almost collapsed on her tail after a hard day’s work, but at least he hasn’t wet her in the sink again. He tells Minho this triumphantly over skype, eyes a little bleary from the lack of sleep. Minho rolls his eyes good-naturedly, but continues listening as he tears bits of chicken into strips and wolfs them down.
Jinki makes a face. “It’s 2AM and you’re eating? Doesn’t your coach put your team on a strict diet or something.”
Minho only grins wider. “What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him.”
“You’re going to get really fat.”
“Not with the amount of slaving on the court and on the beach we’ve been doing.” To prove his point, Minho lifts up his shirt, obnoxiously holding onto its hem with his teeth as he leans back on his seat a little to let Jinki have a little show.
Predictably, his boyfriend goes pink. “Stop teasing me. I hope somebody walks in on you.”
“I hope somebody walks in on us having webcam sex.”
“Is that all you think about you horny piece of shit.”
Minho shrugs, stuffing the last of his chicken into his mouth and letting out a loud, long burp. “You try doing hours of heaving, ugly sweating and having not enough energy to wank yourself off in the shower or before you go to bed before making fun of me for wanting a piece of your ass.”
“Oh my god good night.”
Thailand is hot. Really hot. Minho doesn’t even have enough strength to curse under his breath for want of a water bottle by the time they finish their afternoon runs on the beach, and his hands tremble a little with the effort of catching a sports drink can thrown at him.
He’s tipping the last few drops into his throat, lying splayed out on the beach with sand dusted all over his calves and wanting to take a picture for Jinki when he notices the number of missed calls on his phone. He frowns; it is 4:50PM and normally Jinki would be running his shifts.
He calls anyway, not expecting his boyfriend to pick up. But the other does, a snappish “Where were you this whole time?” sounding over the line that has the basketballer frowning in confusion.
“My afternoon runs, I told you. What’s wrong?”
“Fuck I just- I’m sorry this is stupid.”
“Stop hemming and hawing like you always do and tell me what’s wrong. I’m not mad at you.”
“I almost let the washing machine run while she was in it, Minho. I don’t know how it happened- she likes sleeping in the oddest places but I’m too forgetful to check before I do anything and I don’t have the faintest idea what to do right now because Ace is mad and trembling in a corner and refuses to come to me.”
“Okay, but at least she isn’t hurt.” In spite of his screaming thighs, Minho excuses himself from his teammates, waving a hand to get them to move along first and walking toward a small thicket of trees to continue the conversation in private. “Is she?”
Another sigh. “No she isn’t, but she just doesn’t want to be near me right now.”
“That’s good. I mean the part where she’s not hurt, not the one where she doesn’t want to be near you. But keep you cool, Jinki. Think of Ace as one of those kids at work who’s had a shock in a near-accident. Your job’s to calm her down, okay?”
“How,” Jinki sighs into the phone again, and Minho can hear the bed squeaking as the other turns over. “I don’t have the faintest idea what to bribe her with, Minho, you’re the one who knows all sorts of snacks she likes to filch from us.”
“Chicken. You can cook early dinner and give her some of that. Ace likes carrot too, for some reason, but don’t give her too much of that. You okay?” He can almost visualise Jinki nodding on the other side, only to blush a little and make a noise of assent into the phone because of the way he replies two beats later than natural. “See, not so hard.”
“Yeah. Thanks, Minho-yah.”
“Anything for the big baby. And by the way, why aren’t you at work?”
“I was going to, until this morning happened. I couldn’t coax Ace to get into the basket to take her over to Sun-young’s today, so I just cancelled.”
“What a good dad,” Minho teases. The wind is cool on his face, making him feel less dirty than he actually is.
“Shut up. You know way more about Ace than I do.”
“You wanted to keep the little shit, not me.”
And then, “I miss you.” It comes impulsively over the line, soft and hesitant, as if Jinki was afraid of the reaction he might receive. It’s stupid, Minho knows, but it spreads a kind of warm in his torso the way the sun shining overhead can’t quite do.
“Idiot. It’s just another ten days.”
“I know.” Another pause, and Minho listens to the faint breathing of his boyfriend. A shout of laughter comes from far away on his end, and it’s really kind of nice. “You should go. I’ll tell you how it went with Ace.”
“Yeah, okay.” Minho is about to hang up, but before he can stop himself, what lets slip is a quick “Imissyoutoo” before he lets the line go dead.
It evidently goes well with Ace, for the day after Minho receives an annoyingly excessive amount of pictures of Ace on KakaoTalk. He minds them a tiny bit less when they’re interjected with smiley, grinning faces of Jinki in various sloppy attires.
“Have you been letting yourself go loose just because I’m not around? I’m ashamed of you, hyung. Here I am trying to get a hotter body for you, and there you laze around with a tummy that gets softer by the minute.”
“Rude.” Minho whistles in anticipation as he watches Jinki wriggle out of his sweatshirt and flex, sticking his tongue out at him. “I’ve been at the gym after work, okay. Making friends with Jonghyun can either be a great lifestyle change, or one of danger for me. I think my eardrums are about to combust from all the talking he does about Taemin.”
“That bastard still head over heels for the kid?”
“Apparently.” Jinki’s voice is muffled as he shrugs on his sweatshirt again, ignoring the disappointed clucks of his boyfriend’s tongue over the shitty speakers. “Don’t laugh though, I think it’s cute. Apparently they’re going on a road trip once Taemin graduates this year.”
“Is somebody jealous?” He winks playfully at Jinki, watching how the other rubs at his neck. He always loves this side of the elder, the side where he allows himself to be so easily manipulated by him. Their relationship compared to Jonghyun’s and Taemin’s are world’s apart when it comes to expressions of love, but somehow Minho can’t bring himself to do more than they already have, comfortable as they are with each other.
Apparently Jinki understands that steady kind grasp they have on one another, because all he provides to give as a response is to pull his quilts tighter around himself. “Nope.”
“We can go on holiday once this season’s played out for me. And then you can use the days of fucking paid leave that you never fail to neglect to go fuck yourself crazy with me in foreign places.”
“I want to visit pretty libraries and museums though.”
“Boring. But I could consider if you give me enough incentives to tag along.”
“Um. Maybe my pretty cock?” This one raises an eyebrow out of Minho, and he settles back on the bed, shifting his laptop a little further out on his lap to watch Jinki palm himself over his pants.
“This is a nice surprise.”
“I”m glad you like my initiative. But I’d like some response too, y’know.”
“We aren’t on holiday yet.” But Minho obliges, hand snaking past the waistband of his boxers and wrapping his fingers around his own length. He’s almost embarrassed at the how quickly he gets hard, watching his boyfriend’s fringe flop over his eyes as he shifts his legs wider apart and tugs his pants lower, lower-
Jinki lets out a little squeak, and Minho sits up a little straighter, watching as the laptop falls on its side as the elder’s legs scoot backward.
“What-”
“Oh my god Ace-”
MInho can’t believe what he’s seeing, as a bushy tail swishes past the screen, and the kitten, cool as a cucumber, clambers on top of a stuttering, confused Jinki to curl up on his chest. And the damn thing promptly shuts her eyes. “What the fuck?”
“Um,” is all Jinki can manage, looking distressed and embarrassed as hell as he tucks himself back into his pants, which Minho can imagine being extremely uncomfortable considering the tent he’s pitching in there. “I forgot to shut the door?”
“Am I seriously being cockblocked by a fucking cat?”
“You wanna go off and, y’know? I can, get to it later.”
“Push that piece of shit right off you and dump her in her basket.”
“I can’t!”
“You wanted to incentivise this whole thing for me!” But even as the words leave his mouth, Minho can feel his mood souring, the heat previously pooling in his stomach rapidly dissipating.
“I know, so I’m sorry! I’ll call you back tomorrow or something?”
Minho doesn’t hold back his yell of frustration before he signs off Skype. “What sort of fucking Satan am I being kind to on a regular basis.”
Kyuhyun-hyung finds the apology texts later when they’re horsing around in the suite bedroom of their coach’s, and he howls with laughter as Minho grits his teeth and lunges forward, determined to get his phone back.
“Jinki-hyung’s really sweet, but god Minho are you tied down to the life.”
“Shut up you little>-”
“Minho,” wails Jinki very uncharacteristically, and the other suppresses a huge groan, burrowing his face deeper into the inadequate pillows.
“If it’s about Ace again I’m going to skin her alive when I come home-”
“She’s puking!”
“You’re the doctor! I’m just a fucking athlete!”
“I deal with children!”
Minho gives up in the end and calls Heechul, keeping the phone a good distance away from his ear. It takes all about ten minutes to get solutions from Heechul, irate as hell from being woken up from sleep, and Minho is still wincing as he texts Jinki.
To: Jinki hyung
From: Minho
im goin to send her away when i come back just you wait”
“Hey baby,” Minho half-yells into the phone, the alcohol buzz burning greedily through his system. Behind him is a backdrop of noise and carefree laughter. “Say hi to the crew!”
“Um, Minho-”
“What?”
“Could you please go somewhere quiet so you can hear me?”
“What- why?” The beat is really, really good.
“Just- please?”
“What- okay, okay. Hang on-” He weaves his way through the mix of dancing bodies, shaking his head and sending flashy smiles at people who try to rope him into their circle or pass him a drink to head out to the balcony. It’s still a little inappropriate with a couple eating each other’s faces next to him. but he figures the markedly quieter atmosphere will do.
“Hey.”
“Are- you at a party?”
“Yes,” Minho says again, smiling, and looking up at the sky. A star winks at him in the distance. “Yes. It’s really fucking cool and I wish you could be here, too.”
“Minho..”
“Yeah?”
Jinki gulps audibly into the phone. “She’s missing.”
It doesn’t register with Minho, not at first. “Who? What?”
“Ace.” And then, “I am so sorry I was being a lousy person again I forgot to take her home!” This makes Minho sit up and listen, partly because his boyfriend sounded like he was about to cry over the phone, but another (surprised) part of him dredging up pictures of the tiny ball of fur in his head.
“Woah, calm down, okay? You said you forgot to take her home. So where is she? Isn’t someone holding on to her right now?”
“It’s not like that, Minho I- I took her out today for awhile in the park near our place, and I was reading while watching her out of the corner of my eye as she lazed around some flowers. And then- it rained and in my panic I just got up and left and it took me a whole shower to remember I forgot to take her with me!”
Minho wants to comment on how nobody actually takes cats out for walks like they do for dogs, but he holds his tongue and focuses on the situation. “Have you gone back to the park to look for her?”
“Of course, and I even brought treats and a warm blanket and started calling out to her like crazy but I couldn’t get a response. Minho, what do I do? It’s cold and it’s so dark out there and Minho Ace hates water.”
It’s a little hard to focus after that, with the fading scar on his arm tingling and his head filling with the countless images of Ace and Jinki and him together, even though half the time his face was grumpy as fuck in them. “Hyung, it’s okay. Ace is a smart girl, she’ll take care of herself. She’s going to find somewhere warm to spend the night and when you find her she’s going to hiss at you for being stupid but otherwise come home with you just fine. Okay?”
“Okay- okay it really isn’t okay Minho I’m really sorry but I’m panicking a little right now.”
“More like a lot,” he breathes gently into the phone, grip tightening. All he wants to do right now is fly the fuck home and take care of the idiots he’s decided to live with. “Don’t forget to breathe, okay? She’s going to make it back just fine.”
“That’s what Jonghyun and Taemin told me, too. They backed out of their date halfway to come look for Ace with me, the sweethearts.”
“Thank them for me,” Minho says automatically, but strangely he does feel a sort of indebtment to the two of them. “Are they with you right now?”
“Sort of? Jonghyun’s still out, and Taemin’s making me dinner. Not that I feel like eating at this point of time.”
“Lee Jinki you had better eat before I kick your fucking ass.”
“I will, I will.” Jinki chuckles, just a small one, sounding still not-quite-Jinki, so that Minho’s heart squeezes.
“Update me, okay?” which, in Minho-speak, translates to call me whenever to hold your hand you idiot. Which translates to-
“I love you, too. Go have fun and stop worrying about me.” The line goes dead, but Minho still stands out in the balcony, not really thinking or hearing or seeing anything, even when the rest of the boys come out back to drag him into the party again.
To: Jinki hyung
From: Minho
call me if anyth changes
To: Minho
From: Jinki
yeah :)
To: Minho
From: Jinki
still missing :( going to put up posters today
To: Jinki hyung
From: Minho
no work today?
To: Minho
From: Jinki
nope. need ace back before you come home to skin my non-eating ass
To which Minho responds to with a fiery phone call to Jinki, and Jonghyun, and Taemin and their neighbour whatshername, to make sure the goddamn idiot takes care of himself.
“You really take care of him, don’t you,” marvels Sun-young, and Minho hears the rhythmic clickety-clack of keyboard under fingertips come to a halt.
“Oh shut up all of you.” He doesn’t let Jinki’s coworker get another word in before he hangs up and sprints to their hotel’s indoor sports court to change up before practice.
“I got a phone call,” Jinki says, wringing his hands in his lap. Minho studies the screen meticulously; the elder looks wan, but sounds much happier than he has been since he left Ace.
“And?”
“Someone’s got her. Apparently they found her mewling away under a bush, and scratched them up quite a bit when they tried to retrieve her. Their daughter wanted to keep the cat, but then they saw my ad.”
“See,” Minho says, conversation much easier than he remembers it being on a regular basis. “Why’re you still sitting here, then?”
“I can only get her tomorrow evening, because they’ve kindly sent her to the vet for a check up, poor thing.”
“Don’t forget her this time.”
“Like hell I would never.” Jinki is smiling, grin wide and free on his cheeks again, and in spite of his dead tiredness Minho finds himself smiling, too. “Minho?”
“Hmm?”
“Thank you.”
“What the hell for.”
“For putting up with me not listening to you when you said Ace was a bad idea.”
“So you think she’s a bad idea now?”
“God, no but you know what I mean.”
Minho knows, alright. “Just go to sleep and collect her tomorrow.”
His phone buzzes, the night before the farewell dinner at the hotel lounge. He’s aching all over and in need of more than just hotel takeout, but the picture Jinki sends to him, of Ace looking larger than he remembers her to be and grumpy as heck sitting on the kitchen table makes him feel a little fuller.
The keys jangle loudly in the lock, but not loud enough to wake anyone up. Minho curses as his head bumps against the shelf by the door, a little unused to the foreignness of domesticity. He feels a little too large for a small apartment like theirs, hands and shoulders laden with bags and bags of dirty clothing and a small amount of souvenirs. He’s even too grimy for how clean Jinki keeps everything.
“He didn’t even wait up for me,” mumbles Minho distractedly, deciding to just deal with the complaints tomorrow and leaves his stuff out in the middle of the hallway. He is so, so tired.
The door creaks open as he pops his head in, and in the darkness he picks up a faint sighing, and the squeak of mattresses. He makes out the slight outline of a mound breathing steadily under a mountain of blankets, and inches his way toward it.
It’s a sight that makes his manly, usually unemotional heart go soft, really. Jinki’s hair is a mess, all over his face and sticking up in all directions imaginable, one arm stretched out over his face. Minho peels back the blankets, just a little bit, and it reveals a small mound of fur settled on the elder’s chest, one that curls its tail tighter around itself from the sudden cold.
He’s about to leave them alone, getting up from the bed, but something clings to his wrist.
“Look who’s home.”
“You didn’t even wait up for me, idiot.”
“I’m awake now,” Jinki smiles, eyes a gentle glint against the street lights falling gently through the gap in the curtains. He tugs at Minho’s wrist, a little more insistent this time, and Minho obliges, leaning in despite all the grime on his skin.
Not that Jinki minds. Not at the moment, anyway. “Welcome back, ace.”