Archive of Our Own

It starts with the stupid aegyo-talking that escalates while Minghao is away.

“Myungho-yahhh…”

Seokmin always drags it out, Minghao’s name on his tongue like he needs to keep it there as long as possible, his voice getting all nasally and sweet at the end of it, his vowels warping because of the way his lips would turn up with the force of his smile.

He always gets the reaction he’s looking for, too—fond chuckles at the other end of the line, Minghao’s giggle that only sounds like this when he is particularly tickled about something.

And Seokmin would always fucking draw out the conversation especially when Mingyu was in the room, talking about the most inane shit—that his socks got wet in the rain that morning; or that the pastries he’d brought home from a cafe made him think of Minghao, a flavor he’d like, a scent as warm and comforting as his; or that he thinks the tap on their kitchen sink might be a little broken—things he wouldn’t bother bringing up to Mingyu directly, things that Mingyu should probably be made aware of, seeing as he’s the roommate that’s actually in Seoul with Seokmin.

“It’s getting late for you, isn’t it?” Minghao would always ask at some point, even though there was only an hour’s worth of time difference between them—and thank god at least Minghao had enough sense to cut it off, Seokmin never knew when to quit and Mingyu couldn’t be expected to sit through all of his stupid conversation points all night long—and Seokmin would whine and pout and make noises into the receiver until Minghao laughed and told him, “Ah, uri Seokmin-ah, only three more weeks until we see each other, right?”

It was three now but it was seven at the start; at six Seokmin had finally stopped calling Minghao every day; when six became five Mingyu decided he was going to take his calls in the living room as well; at four Seokmin had started the stupid nicknames, and now at three Mingyu vows to make it as bad for Seokmin as Seokmin was making it for him.

It wasn’t even—it wasn’t fair.

Minghao was unmated and Seokmin had no claim on him—and neither did Mingyu, but that had never been the point of their whole dynamic.

Seokmin might’ve been the one to ask Minghao to join them, but it was Mingyu who’d met Minghao first, all those years ago.

It might’ve been weird—an unmated omega living with two unmated alphas—but all three of them were more desperate to find affordable lodging in a brutal city—an entirely new country, in Minghao’s case—and both Seokmin and Mingyu were not the kind of alphas to let subgenders get in the way of a friendship like this.

At least, that’s what Mingyu had thought. Clearly Seokmin had no qualms in getting closer with Minghao in a way which Mingyu had never seen him do with anyone else, in a way that blurred lines even regardless of subgenders, regardless of whether that intent was romantic or something else entirely—and Minghao had reciprocated immediately, same softness and sweetness and easy reception, something he’d never afforded Mingyu.

But from that moment Mingyu was hooked, Mingyu had something he was pursuing with a singular focus—because Mingyu could be liked, too. What would it take for Minghao to thaw around him? How would it feel, to break through the ice and win him over, to win his affection?

Glorious, apparently.

That first fond laugh he’d gotten from Minghao, the surprised tilt to his head and his eyes scrunching—it’d been so bright and so unexpected that even Seokmin had looked up from where he was sitting in the main room, his eyes trained on Mingyu in the kitchen as his brows furrowed, as he bit at his lip, as Mingyu received the full brunt of Minghao’s attention.

And yes, all this—it was years ago. But that tug of war remained, the upper hand seesawing between Seokmin and Mingyu with each passing month, no real clear winner here—but the two of them were nothing if not dogged, loyal.

Driven by desire and stunted by it all the same.

A desire to have Minghao for themselves—not necessarily in such a simple way as an omega with their alpha, but even just to have Minghao’s attention, to be the one of the two that he was looking at. To be chosen.

So when it came down to it, it wasn't enough just to get Minghao's attention. Not when he was giving it away to Seokmin as well—not if Mingyu wasn't chosen over Seokmin.

Seokmin just thinks it’s funny, actually.

He’d caught the look Mingyu had thrown him last night when he was on the phone with Minghao. When he’d been caught up in how much emptier their home felt without Minghao there to bridge their gaps; their glue, their tether.

“The house feels warmer when you’re here, Myungho-yah,” he’d said wistfully, sighing to really hammer the point home. “No—not just the house. The entirety of Seoul.” And—he really did miss Minghao.

Minghao’s answering chuckle had been drowned out by the volume of Mingyu’s scoff from the other side of the room. Seokmin had purposefully refused to look up but Mingyu’s face was reflected on the black screen of their TV, the way his eyebrows had shot up and his lip had curled, his nose wrinkled exaggeratedly.

And now here Mingyu was in their kitchen, barely 8am in the morning and he’d called Minghao just because he’d wanted to hear his voice.

“You’re taking care of yourself, right?” he’d said at the tail end of the call. “Mmm—okay. Miss you. 내 사랑아…We’ll see you soon.”

My love. Seokmin scoffs quietly. Mingyu doesn’t catch it over the sound of the coffee brewing in the pot.

Once the call wraps up, Mingyu putters around in the kitchen for a bit. It’s too early—Mingyu reeks of morning, and Seokmin himself is sleep-mussed enough to still feel the chill of the winter air, body heat not yet affected by the close proximity of another alpha.

They’re on their winter holidays, which is why Minghao had gone back home in the first place, and Mingyu has been working at a cafe with the spare time they have now.

“Gonna be stopping by the mart on my way back tonight,” he tells Seokmin as he packs his bag. “D’you need me to get anything for you?”

“Nah,” Seokmin says shortly. He pours himself a cup of coffee and leaves the rest in the pot, knowing Mingyu will fill his own thermos to take the rest with him to work.

“Mmm,” Mingyu hums. “Well.”

Seokmin looks up as Mingyu fumbles around in the shinbaljang. “See you later,” Mingyu says distractedly, barely sparing a glance in Seokmin’s direction.

No sweet nicknames for him, huh.

“Yeah,” Seokmin responds, just as lackluster. And then, before he can stop himself— “See you, my love,” the words coming out snarky, only a step away from being a scoff.

Mingyu does look up then, and his eyes are already rolling. “I knew you’d have something to say about that.”

And that’s the problem, that Mingyu and Seokmin know each other too well.

“Of course I do,” Seokmin snorts. “As if you aren’t always—”

“Always what?”

“—so whipped—”

Mingyu is standing at his full height, frowning, and Seokmin is frowning back, something starting to burn near his chest.

This is how it’s been with the both of them for the last five weeks—or at least, it always ends up here, his alpha getting too ticked off too easily where Mingyu is concerned, the apartment too hot and stuffy for the both of them.

Somehow, they’ve grown reliant on Minghao’s presence to temper them, to bring out the best in them both and let it overflow to the interactions that exist between just them two as well. And now—back to just the two of them, no Minghao in the middle, it isn’t easy to go back to the camaraderie they had before.

What they had first, between them.

Now; they’re two alphas in a 12-pyeong room, fighting to keep from burning each other up.

“You’re just as easy, Seokmin-ah,” Mingyu laughs. “If you’re gonna tell me—do you know how you sound?”

“Ah, it’s ‘being easy’ if I'm just showering my omega with affection?” Seokmin says, tracking the movement of Mingyu’s throat when he says that, sensing the way the tension in the air increases palpably. And yet, against his better judgment, he continues anyways; “That’s a sangnamja quality, Mingyu-yah, you wouldn’t know.’

Mingyu’s face darkens like Seokmin knew it would, his mouth pressed into a firm line.

But—he draws the line where Seokmin didn’t. “I have to leave now to make it to work on time,” he grunts. “Don’t forget to lock up when you leave.”

Seokmin watches the door slam behind him with heat gathering behind his temples, hating how Mingyu always gets the last word. Hating how he can never stop himself from pushing and prodding just for the sick satisfaction it’ll bring him in the moment, that spark of heat in his chest.

It sticks with him the entire day, Seokmin’s comment.

Is it silly that Mingyu lets it get to him? Yes. Will it sour his mood anyways, make his body feel feverish and sweaty as even as he’s walking back home from the mart, crisp evening air battering at his face and whipping tears at his lash line? Yes.

Mingyu has the entire walk to parse through his feelings.

He’s missing Minghao, and they’re two alphas that are already feeding into each other's frustrations anyways, but the name-calling and the back and forth and the surface level tension is nothing new—it’s nothing to get worked up about enough for his body to respond to the other alpha.

No, it’s that—Seokmin had said ‘my omega’ with such an irritating self-assuredness that Mingyu’s palms had started to itch and burn, a growl sitting right behind his teeth as he forced himself to stay cool, to not let Seokmin get to him like that.

‘My omega’, when they’d made it clear already that Minghao wasn’t either of theirs, and neither of them were Minghao’s, either. That’s—that’s what they’d agreed on. They suffered in this limbo because while Mingyu worked overtime to get Minghao’s attention and Seokmin rolled his eyes at it all, Seokmin was allowed to do the same and Mingyu let it be, Mingyu sat by as Seokmin turned his warmth and cheer and sunlight towards Minghao and Minghao bloomed in response and it didn’t matter that neither one of them wanted it to be this way because like it or not, this was an equation that had a spot for all of them.

‘My omega’—like Seokmin was divesting Mingyu of that spot, like they no longer needed him. Like Seokmin no longer—what, that he didn’t consider Mingyu a good enough adversary? Even in this case where they were both fighting a losing game—Mingyu still wanted a seat at the table. He still wanted to be seen.

The heat in the room had gotten so stifling, for a moment, and Mingyu considered letting it be, letting them broil in it; let Seokmin take responsibility for causing this fight for once, let him just come out with all his frustrations toward Mingyu so that Mingyu can just fight back—but, no. No.

Just two more weeks left until Minghao was back, and he wouldn’t want to return to the both of them having thrown all caution to the wind and just going at each other—no, they can behave themselves when Minghao isn’t here.

“Will you make me a meal when I'm back?” Minghao asks them with a crooked little grin on his face. It's his last day in Anshan. In a few hours he’ll be back in Seoul, back in their apartment that feels too small without him, a soothing balm for the rising tension and stuffiness that’s been percolating their space while he’s not been here.

“Anything you want, Myungho-yah, I'll stock the fridge with everything,” Seokmin says.

“I'll make you a five course meal,” Mingyu says at the same time, more loudly.

Seokmin shoots him a look out of the corner of his eyes, turning back to the laptop screen guiltily when he remembers that Minghao is watching. Minghao’s grin has morphed into an eye roll.

“Nothing fancy,” he stresses. Mingyu nods like he’s listening and like he’s going to completely ignore this statement anyways.

“What do you feel like eating?” Seokmin asks. “I'll make it for you.” The left side of his face burns with the intensity of Mingyu's gaze and he resolutely ignores it.

“Mmm…it’s funny, I missed being able to eat my mother’s food for so long while I was there, but now that I've been away for 8 weeks I'm finding myself missing your cooking. Your kimchi bokkeumbap, or, hmm, the braised ribs that you make, Mingyu? Ah, no, but really, nothing fancy, just make what you’d already make and leave some for me. I just miss you both.”

Seokmin can’t help the smile on his face, the instinctual coo and echo of, “Ah, Myungho-yah, we miss you so much too.”

He can feel the way Mingyu melts next to him, his eyes softening. The side of his body that’s pressed up against Seokmin is emanating a steady warmth, not so much overwhelming but rather hinting at something calm, safe.

Seokmin’s own chest feels warm too, and sitting next to Mingyu like this, these signals which haven’t yet veered into hostile—his body is reading them as comforting, as something to feed off of, that same feeling growing within him.

Seokmin can’t examine it too closely. It feels wrong; it surprises him that things haven't gone sour yet—their conversation, their proximity.

That feeling of wrongness should have been foreboding enough on its own to alert Seokmin to the inevitable crash that would follow—yet that night finds Mingyu hogging the kitchen as well as the space in their fridge.

“You could at least let me work with half the space,” Seokmin says, frown furrowing his brow.

“He asked for my braised ribs, Seokmin-ah,” Mingyu looks at him with his chin tipped up, that pride that he can’t quite hide. “It’s fine, I’ll just make this for us, he said he wouldn’t be able to eat much anyways—”

“It isn’t about—” The back of Seokmin’s neck is heating up, his cheeks flushed, his jaw tight. Mingyu’s brow is sweating from the heat of the flame on the stovetop. “I also promised Myungho, y’know.”

“...It doesn’t make sense to—” Mingyu looks up at him like Seokmin is the one who is being unreasonable. “You can make him something tomorrow, this is already halfway done—”

“That’s not the point—” Seokmin has to blink against the sudden heat that is prickling at his eyelids. “I get that you think that this makes you better, cooking for him, providing for him—”

“I’m doing this because I care for him, because I want him to eat well—”

“—do you think I don’t? Do you think I’m incapable of—”

“It isn't like that, it isn't even about you—”

Seokmin can’t help the way he reverts to the childishness of his next statement, “I asked him the question. He was talking to me first.”

“That’s so—Seokmin, that’s silly.”

And god, does Seokmin hate that.

He doesn’t even realize how he’s walked up into Mingyu’s space until he’s done it and until Mingyu is staring down at him, his torso straightening up from his natural slouching form until Seokmin does have to tilt his chin up to meet Mingyu’s eyes.

They’re both standing there overheating.

Seokmin feels it in the air, like standing in front of a hot oven, letting all that heat escape into the space between them, curling around the nape of their necks, brushing up their cheeks, turning their skin red with the heat.

When Seokmin’s eyebrows draw together tight and sharp, Mingyu’s jaw tenses just the slightest bit, and somehow there’s satisfaction in seeing that there’s a response that he can draw out of Mingyu.

Seokmin thinks of Minghao and takes a deep breath. Fuck you, he doesn’t say. He steps closer, backs Mingyu up into the kitchen counter, the sound of the slow-cooker wheezing behind him, and—

forgets what he wants to say for a moment, heat clogging up his airpipes. Don’t call me silly; I could care less what you think is silly; it’s not silly to care for someone—

Mingyu’s eyes are dark when they’re trained on Seokmin. He only ever watches Seokmin like this—unwaveringly, fully focused, with some weight to his gaze—when they’ve worked each other up to this level of tension. Seokmin’s palms burn, blood thrumming through him, pulse beating.

“That wasn't a slight at you," Mingyu continues stubbornly, but Seokmin interrupts him.

“Don’t do this again."

Mingyu, for whatever reason, lets him have the last word.

Since Minghao’s return, they’ve started going to the gym together. The fitness center nearest to them isn’t really that great but Mingyu swears now is the time to go, since apparently they’re having deals for the winter season, and since they won’t have as much time when classes start back up they might as well make the most of it now.

Seokmin doesn’t know what compelled him to agree.

Something about Minghao back together with them makes him feel less amicable where Mingyu is concerned, rather than the other way around like he had hoped, but in that same vein—something about watching Minghao watch them makes Seokmin want to be good.

Unfortunately, gymming doesn’t seem to be the best activity for him to show off his best behavior—least of all because Mingyu is a menace.

Mingyu is handsy.

This is something he’s always been; both he and Seokmin are tactile people and Minghao allows them to get away with it because they’re like that with everybody; because that’s how they show their love; because it’s so natural to them.

But it’s a horrible thing to witness here: of the three of them, Mingyu clearly has the most knowledge and comfort with the equipment, how to use it, and how to maximize the efficiency of their workout—and he doesn’t hold back from giving very thorough, hands-on demonstrations.

“Perfect, Myungho-yah, do you feel it in your arms right here?” he asks, his hands cupped under Minghao’s upper arms, caressing the bulge of his biceps, his voice gone all low. “Ah, good form, there you go.”

Seokmin, waiting his turn, is watching with something stormy brewing in his chest, the back of his neck starting to heat up again.

The aircons at the gym run high, knowing that a bunch of alphas and omegas and betas in a room together when they’re already sweaty and running high-body temperatures will only get hotter the longer they’re there—but Seokmin can already feel sweat dripping down the small of his back, heat gathering behind his forehead.

It’s not just Mingyu’s presence—which, granted, is enough reason to have Seokmin’s body temperature rise in the most uncomfortable way.

It’s the way he’s touching Minghao, the way he hasn’t moved more than a couple centimeters away from Minghao this entire time, plastered to his back, his body strikingly big compared to Minghao’s more lithe figure.

“There you go,” Mingyu croons again, that deep thrum of his voice, his hands curved at the point right below Minghao’s shoulders, around the circumference of him, cupping his chest as he pushes him up, helps him lift up with his hold on the pull-up equipment. “Like—like that.”

Minghao’s arms—smaller than Mingyu’s and Seokmin’s but gaining strength just the same—work to heave himself up, and he makes a soft, surprised noise with the exertion, wobbles just a bit. A grunt escapes from Mingyu’s lips when he has to put a little more pressure into his support.

It’s—indecent. It’s obscene. Seokmin feels himself flushing, up his neck, down his chest, his features pinching together with poorly disguised disgust.

Seokmin turns away abruptly.

He isn’t going to just sit and watch.

He moves to the lateral pull down machine, settles below the padded weight and adjusts his grip on the steel bar above his head.

Seokmin also knows how to do a pull-up. This is so—it’s nothing to be impressed about, really. Since when has Minghao cared about how much weight they can lift? Seokmin is strong enough to lift Minghao, if he wanted to. Past a certain point it was really all just—it was unnecessary, attention seeking. Like Mingyu was just showing off.

Seokmin is starting to feel the burn in his biceps, sweat rolling down the nape of his neck. It’s hot in here.

Mingyu’s hands on Minghao’s body like they belong there—let him revel in that for now, this is all he’ll get, Seokmin thinks vindictively. As if—as if Minghao would let him touch more than that—so what, that Mingyu was groping all over—he doesn’t even think it would feel all that good, Mingyu’s hands, his fucking huge, clumsy, rough hands, that can’t be—it must feel so constrictive, so present—Seokmin would overheat with it, probably. Why would anyone want that kind of heat on their body? Seokmin’s own hands would be so much more careful, and intentional, warm you up to it slowly—

“Woah, look at Seokminnie’s back muscles,” Mingyu crows.

Seokmin startles and tries to hide it. It sinks in afterwards, the tone—what’s the need for that much surprise in his delivery?

“Wow,” suddenly the voice is much closer. “You’re doing well, but—”

Seokmin feels something hovering behind him but doesn’t have time to react, thick fingers wrapped around his waist all of a sudden, almost touching at the middle, pushing in at the lowest knob of his spine, and Seokmin’s back arches in response, involuntary.

“—sit up, ‘min-ah,” Mingyu rumbles in his ear.

And suddenly something is bubbling and brewing at the pit of Seokmin’s stomach. Of course Mingyu doesn’t expect Seokmin to be able to do this on his own.

Even here, even now—Mingyu is always trying to prove to him how he’s better, how he knows more; trying to teach Seokmin how to be an alpha, and Seokmin doesn’t need that, he’s never asked for it.

Seokmin sits up, starts to scooch ever so slightly forward in his seat—and then decides, why does he have to move away? Why does he have to curb his reaction?

He stays where he is and Mingyu stays at his back, close and overbearingly warm and present and even a better alpha than Seokmin wouldn’t be able to ignore the presence of another alpha at their back like this.

So Seokmin tenses up at the sensation—the feel of skin on almost skin, save only for the thin fabric of his threadbare tank top, barely a barrier for the heat of the contact to start seeping through to Seokmin’s core—but then intentionally bites his lips on any words he could say.

It’d be more satisfying not to rise to Mingyu’s bait.

Seokmin continues his reps, begrudgingly fixing his posture. He’s loath to admit that Mingyu could have anything to teach him, anything to correct him on, but he’s conscious of his form now, conscious of the way he looks, the way he can show it off.

So maybe he is rising to the bait, but he wants to show off to Mingyu.

And to Minghao; Minghao, who is in Seokmin’s direct line of sight now, eyes flickering between the two of them with something in his eyes—Seokmin can’t quite parse what. He doesn’t look upset, though, and every second Minghao’s eyes are on him has Seokmin preening, and every second that they flick back to Mingyu behind him has Seokmin working double time, flexing harder, pushing himself through the reps, trying to hide the sounds and grunts from the strain of it.

His arms burn as he works through the exercise, the weight of Minghao’s gaze and the knowledge of Mingyu’s on him heavier than anything he’s pulling with his two hands, heady and dangerous.

There’s a moment when he clocks that Mingyu is breathing loud and harsh behind him, hot puffs of air at the nape of his neck, stirring the hairs there, a weird feeling against the cooling sweat dripping down his neck and back.

“How’s that?” he asks on his last pull-down, voice tight, still facing away from Mingyu.

Minghao whoops for him, makes a show of it, but he’s smiling wide and genuine. “Wah, Seokmin-ah! Look at you!”

When Seokmin turns, Mingyu is watching him silently. Their faces are closer than he thought they’d be, since Mingyu hadn’t backed away. Seokmin stays in place. “Good form?” he says to the downturn of Mingyu’s lips, tracking the way his jaw has tensed, the heat behind his eyes.

Mingyu flickers a dark gaze up to Seokmin’s own. The air between them is stifling and Seokmin’s blood is hot, rushing through his body.

“Not bad,” Mingyu responds belatedly, and Seokmin can feel the temperature spike in the air between them.

Seokmin doesn't bother hiding the way his lip curls, or the way it grows as Mingyu can't help but track the movement of it.

The post isn’t really more incriminating than anything else Seokmin has done in the past few months, but it irks Mingyu just the same.

Seokmin walks into their living room that afternoon with a stupid little smile on his face, some kind of hazy warmth emanating from him that immediately sharpens into a pointed, uncomfortable heat in the room when he locks eyes with Mingyu.

Mingyu holds the eye contact and watches as the smile starts to drop, as Seokmin’s eyebrows draw and Mingyu’s wolf rears its head, his chest blistering with adrenaline.

But Minghao calls him out.

Maybe Minghao is sick and tired of them. Maybe he expected better; maybe they’ve gotten worse, somehow, since Minghao’s return; or maybe it’s that spring is coming and the apartment has been too hot for winter already.

“You need to stop this,” he says one morning, peering up at Mingyu with disappointment—and that’s worse than anything else.

“Myungho-yah,” he starts fruitlessly, but he shuts up at the little frown that forms on Minghao’s face, the way he isn’t looking away from Mingyu, too honest, too earnest.

“We won’t—we won’t make it a competition anymore, if that’s what’s bothering you,” Mingyu says quietly. “But it’s not like what you think—it isn’t just about wanting—we promised you, you know that—”

“I do know that,” Minghao interrupts gently. “And besides, Wonwoo hyung asked me out last week.”

“—we just want—he what?” Mingyu accidentally shouts the last bit and Minghao makes a face at him. “…And. Did you say... ” Minghao doesn’t even let him break off into silence, peering at him until he finishes the sentence with a pout. “Did you, uh, say—yes?”

“It turns out I don’t need a big, bad alpha, hmm?” Minghao glimmers a smirk in his direction in lieu of an answer.

“My surprise wasn’t because of that!” Mingyu splutters, but Minghao doesn't look offended.

He does however shoot Mingyu another look when Mingyu can’t help but ask, “Does Seokmin know?”

Nonetheless, he answers, “I’ll tell him when I grab lunch with him today.”

Mingyu bites his lips and nods, something weird swirling in his chest. It doesn’t feel like disappointment, but even that confuses him; unsettles him.

Minghao watches him for a moment, something gleaming behind his eyes. “For what it’s worth,” he says after a moment, “you and Seokmin will always be the two alphas in my life, just not in the way that—well.”

Mingyu muffles a sound behind his hand, somehow blushing and feeling a heat pool in his chest—but this is a constant buzz, a dependable warmth, not fiery or passionate.

“We know that,” Mingyu tries to explain. “We can’t help but want your attention, you know. Maybe it’s—maybe even without anything else there, there’s something in us that just wants an—omega’s attention, or—”

“Mingyu-yah,” Minghao says his name with a patience that neither Seokmin nor Mingyu have ever managed to muster where the two of them are involved.

“I don’t mean that as a—”

“There’s a certain level of basic instinct that informs our actions, yes,” Minghao cuts him off mercifully, instead of letting him blabber. “But,” he asks, careful tone, knowing gaze, “are you sure this is about my attention?”

Seokmin and Mingyu are sitting in the living room—opposite sides, one on the floor, the other on the sofa—when Wonwoo posts on Insta.

“So,” Seokmin starts, not quite able to look away from Wonwoo wrapped around Minghao and that wide content smile on Minghao’s face. It doesn’t quite sting like he expected it to, but he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it since Minghao broke the news to him. “Minghao and Wonwoo, hmm?”

“I can’t say I—expected that.” He looks up to watch for Mingyu’s reaction.

He thinks maybe for once, they’d be able to commiserate—for once, they’d both lost. They’re both in the same position, equal, in a way, finally.

And yet—Mingyu just shrugs, not meeting Seokmin’s eyes. "It has always been his choice to make, hasn’t it?”

“I know that,” Seokmin responds sharply, stung at the implication. “I know—why wouldn’t I know that."

“Well,” Mingyu starts, already that supremely infuriating tone, that bullshit thoughtfulness as if he’s simply helping Seokmin out—even though Seokmin has never wanted to hear somebody’s opinion less—“Do you think you’ve always just wanted to be territorial around him for the sake of it? Your alpha just wanted—you know. To feel a certain way around an omega that we care about—”

“God, do you ever—what, so it’s only okay for you, right?” Seokmin growls. He feels so tangibly angry all in a rush, all this emotion rushing through him and bubbling up like he can feel it boiling right below his chest. “I’m just—a stupid alpha, don’t even know what I’m feeling, but you–”

“That’s not what I said,” Mingyu interrupts, frowning now, finally looking at Seokmin. They’re both standing now, some stupid-alpha face-off. “Don’t twist my words—”

“Hanging all over Myungho as if he’d ever let you fuck him—”

“What are you talking about,” Mingyu says, his jaw clenched, his voice low and controlled.

And that’s even worse, the control—even when he’s spitting out insults Mingyu is always controlled, and Seokmin is the only one that acts out, that throws something or lets his voice grow too loud or bursts into tears. Mingyu stays at equilibrium no matter what he’s feeling, tethered no matter what direction he’s pulled, steady alpha core in all the ways Seokmin is still trying to learn to be.

And it always fucking smarts, to be reminded of it, all the ways that Mingyu is a better alpha. All the ways that Mingyu has him beat; and maybe Seokmin never really stood a chance at all.

“It was always just about me not having him, right?”

Mingyu doesn’t back up when Seokmin moves forward, holding his lips in a grimace and breathing down on Seokmin’s face.

“What, I’m not good enough?” Seokmin snarls. Blood pounds near his temples, at the tips of his fingers. He’s itching to get his hands on something. “I'm not alpha enough?”

“Seokmin,” Mingyu scoffs like he’s too good for this conversation. “I haven’t once said anything to you about not being ‘alpha enough’—”

Seokmin has had enough of holding back, of biting back his words behind an uneasy smile, of pretending that he wasn’t constantly dwelling on Mingyu's words and opinions past the snippy conversations they would have, past the moments of snark. Mingyu, on his mind, for longer than he’d like to have him there; taking up more space than Seokmin wanted to give him.

Seokmin slams forward, hands at Mingyu’s chest. Mingyu’s breath leaves him with a whoosh as he topples back down onto the couch, his eyes widening just a fraction—before he schools his expression, his jaw clenched and his hands coming up to Seokmin’s wrists to restrain them.

“But you told Myungho, is that it?”

If Seokmin were looking at this with a clearer lens he’d see the way he was reacting on impulse, alpha rearing and making him hot-headed and defensive. But he can’t get that feeling out of his head, discomfort squeezing his chest as Mingyu stroked up Minghao’s arms that day at the gym, crowded into his space, got close close close—

“Told Myungho?” Finally, some frustration is seeping into his tone, catching up to Seokmin. His fingers press against Seokmin’s wrists.

At this angle, he has to tilt his chin up to meet Seokmin’s gaze. Seokmin looms over him, a taste of Mingyu’s daily point of view.

“What are you talking about, Seokmin-ah? What—what’s wrong with you?”

“Don't act as if—” Seokmin makes to twist his hands out of Mingyu’s grip, blood boiling a path through his veins, down his arms. “Were you both just talking behind my back—”

“Do you really think that of Myungho?” Some of that protectiveness creeps back into Mingyu’s voice, and he’s frowning again, like he's trying to figure Seokmin out. The longer he looks at Seokmin the more some other emotion creeps onto his face, sharp and cold—and Seokmin can't stand it.

It's the look—cold anger, and—pity, always the pity—

“No. Of you,” he spits, twisting free of Mingyu’s hold.

Mingyu looks for the first time as if he's been slapped.

And Seokmin—he just doesn't understand what Mingyu is trying to do, what he wants from Seokmin—why he always cares so much.

“What is it to you, Mingyu?” he asks, and he hates that some of the desperation bleeds through, the way his voice cracks midway through the words, the way that makes Mingyu’s gaze flit to his mouth like he can’t help it. “You always have so much to say to me, about me, but—who are you to say it?”

“That’s your problem?” Mingyu is still watching Seokmin’s mouth. “That it's coming from me?”

Is that his problem? The question echoes in Seokmin’s head. Seokmin hasn’t let himself think about it, but he knows there’s something that sparks in him fire-hot whenever Mingyu is in the picture.

If Mingyu was someone to Seokmin—more than just an acquaintance, a roommate, a once-friend—then it wouldn’t sting to be taught by him, to hear each of his suggestions, to live with his overfamiliar ways. If Mingyu were more to Seokmin then Seokmin would gladly let him get so involved in Seokmin’s life, let him in and get involved back with him, and—

Something stutters in Seokmin’s brain, like he’s rebooting, and then it whizzes through him, sparking and zinging.

All of a sudden—is that what he wants? Mingyu to be someone who could care like that? To be someone who was interested in him, to—to hold his own interest in that way?

The thought is so sharp and unexpected and stark as it sears through Seokmin and he reacts on instinct to unfamiliarity—he pounces, hands at Mingyu’s body, heat on burning heat, and Mingyu meets him in the middle—somehow ready for it, always ready to fight back—

Seokmin's hands are at Mingyu's collar, fingers digging in until they can find skin, and he doesn't know if it's to scratch and hurt or to feel all that warmth under his fingertips.

His own lips are bleeding and Mingyu has a scratch on his cheek. Mingyu’s hands are at Seokmin’s hips—holding him back, pulling him close—Seokmin can't tell and Seokmin can barely get himself to care.

The blood is pounding through his body again, and this time the heat feels urgent in a different way, all expansive but burning brighter at his core, inciting his wolf—it's all that base instinct, emotion so pure that this feels—primal, almost, something that he can't curb or refine, something that takes over him, turns off his brain to everything except sensation.

The heat of Mingyu’s skin under his palms. The way Seokmin can feel his heart pounding in his chest, all the way up to his temples, in the pulse of his wrist. Mingyu’s hot breath at the bridge of his nose—their height difference highlighted by this—and when Seokmin increases his pressure on Mingyu’s neck, Mingyu is forced into a hunch, bringing him to eye level, his gaze trained on Seokmin’s lips even as his brows are drawn into a frown.

One of Mingyu’s hands, dislodged as his body crowds closer to Seokmin, slips from his waist down lower, right below the curve of his ass, then to the part of his leg where his thigh meets his hip. When Seokmin growls in response Mingyu’s mouth draws tighter and he digs his fingers into the meat of the flesh, squeezes, like he’s trying to leave a mark, and—

Seokmin’s breath gets caught in his throat as his own hands tighten involuntarily at Mingyu's neck.

“Fuck—” Mingyu makes a sound like he’s choking, the pressure at his throat too much, maybe, and for a moment Seokmin spares a thought—not concern, not for Mingyu; but hesitation—because the sound Mingyu made wasn't tinged with pain.

“What are you doing—”

Mingyu doesn't even let him get all his words out.

His entire body shudders—and there's no way that it's just pure reaction; it must be exaggeration, calculated to throw him off, because Mingyu has been the perfect alpha all along and this is too—

Mingyu’s fingers close around the wrist of the hand that Seokmin has at Mingyu’s neck. Seokmin feels a snarl work its way to the front of his lips, but then—Mingyu holds him in place, straining into the touch.

His eyes are bright and wide, moisture glistening at the corners as he palms Seokmin’s ass again, cups his fingers around him and pulls him in closer, the mess of their limbs forcing Seokmin to readjust so that he’s basically straddling Mingyu’s thigh.

“Seokmin-ah—” he gasps, and it’s all breath, a little hitch at the end, and when Seokmin tips forward he can feel just how much Mingyu is liking this, burning skin and something pressing hot and hard into his muscle.

“You’re seriously—” He’s driving Seokmin crazy. This can’t be—how could Mingyu react like this?

But Seokmin’s fingers are tightening around Mingyu’s neck even before he can consciously think about doing it.

It’s a rush of power. It’s—alpha conquering alpha, and he’s simultaneously confused by it as much as he realizes with a sudden jolt that he wants it. When he realizes how he wants this.

Mingyu’s pulse skitters under Seokmin’s unsure fingers and warmth snakes its way up Seokmin’s spine, his pulse beating at his wrist, the tips of his fingers prickling like he’s touching an open flame.

He wants this, skin-on-skin contact and the burning in his chest, the pinpricks of heat at his fingertips—that’s lust.

Mingyu jerks and his thigh pushes up against Seokmin and Seokmin lets him do it as he leans lower to hear the way Mingyu is losing his breath under Seokmin’s hands and Mingyu’s rumbling groans reverberate through Seokmin’s body.

That heady feeling is back and finally, suddenly, it’s like something slotting into place. Why does he feel more alpha now than he ever has?

Or—is it just that the niggling feeling swirling within him—green and heavy and acrid—has finally quieted down with Mingyu below him, baring his neck to him?

Seokmin pushes and Mingyu tumbles horizontal across the sofa, belly up, defenseless, his big strong alpha form all gathered under Seokmin’s thighs, the only sounds from his mouth a gasp and bitten-off thing, even as his body heats up like a wildfire beneath Seokmin.

His cock presses into the curve of Seokmin’s ass, hot and hard just from this roughhousing, just from letting Seokmin assert his strength.

And—alpha aggression means everything is a hair trigger—the ache in Seokmin’s core and the very physical reaction at his own groin is not new, nor uncommon—but with Mingyu under him like this, everything in his body is screaming for him to build on it, to see it through to an end.

And that—is new.

Seokmin is straddling Mingyu, encasing him, looming over him, alpha in every way and every single thing about this is so unlike anything Mingyu has ever experienced before.

An alpha doesn’t get to be made to feel small. An alpha doesn’t get to feel surrounded or held.

See, the hands clawing and tearing and pushing, skin against skin, sweat dripping down their spines and smoke gathering at their throats, the aggression and anger and frustration from earlier—that was a long time coming. That was expected, that’s what happened when you set two alphas next to each other and let them erupt.

That was Seokmin and Mingyu.

But then—that fury morphed into a different kind of fever and suddenly the heat that spiked up Mingyu’s veins was molten and electric and—he wanted more of it. It felt good.

It still feels good.

Mingyu’s alpha is simultaneously rearing its head with lust and with anger at being caged in but maybe there’s something wrong with Mingyu—he can never read the signals right, and this is lighting him up in all the wrong ways—molten heat at his core, his cock straining thick and heavy in his pants.

And Seokmin—Seokmin is giving Mingyu his undivided attention. Seokmin is looking at Mingyu, only at Mingyu, and Seokmin is matching his gaze, and Seokmin is letting Mingyu lay beneath him and yet even with that physical unbalance, even with all the ways this isn’t alpha-like, Mingyu feels finally like he’s an alpha that’s been chosen.

Minghao had said—Minghao had asked him, is this about my attention, and Mingyu knew it was about being seen, he knew it was about recognition somehow but he’s had the time to dwell, and now he’s already traversed half of the way there to the revelation—he likes this.

He likes that it’s Seokmin above him. He likes that it’s him under Seokmin.

And at that moment, as if in response, Seokmin ruts down again, all strong thighs and fluid movement, and Mingyu feels it against his dick, hard and throbbing, and the friction feels so wonderful that a moan falls from his lips, high-pitched and uncontrolled, drawn out when Seokmin swivels his hips, moves against Mingyu in a way that could only be to chase his own pleasure.

Seokmin rears back at the noise, at that first unabashed, wanton sound to enter the space between them.

He’s still wearing a frown. He gets this expression sometimes when he’s facing Mingyu, closed-off and pinched and tense, nothing like he shows Minghao, nothing like Mingyu knows he’s capable of being.

Or rather—perhaps Mingyu is the only one who really knows how Seokmin is capable of being, the entire spectrum of it.

But that means he can read the nuance—Seokmin’s lips are held tight and his eyes are half-lidded and there’s red gracing the high points of his cheekbones, a flush that sits alluring and tempting on his features, a look that tells Mingyu clearly that Seokmin wants to do something about this situation the same way that Mingyu does.

With the same methods.

Mingyu can take the plunge, can’t he? He can be the braver one of the two of them.

‘You wanna fuck me,” he says, his voice hoarse with disuse, with lust and temptation and the way the air feels sweltering around them.

It’s not a question, and he doesn’t ask; just reads it on the curve of Seokmin’s brow and the way he’s got his bottom lip bitten between two rows of teeth and the way they feel so hot at each point of contact, the kind of warmth you want to burrow into, the kind that seeps into your skin, lights you up from inside.

Seokmin goes still above him. His next exhale Mingyu can feel on his skin, like getting too close to an open flame.

It’s hot. It’s too hot and Seokmin feels it too.

The fire is going to consume Mingyu whole.

The points at his back which are pressing into the ground are sending shivers through his whole body—the unfamiliarity of it, the novelty of it. Alpha with his back on the ground, the stench of another alpha’s sweat and lust and heat in his nose and his heart only pumping harder because of it, his cock only straining even more with the thought of it.

“Do it,” Mingyu says. He watches Seokmin’s eyes dilate. “C’mon, Seokmin-ah, I’ll even beg if you want me t–ungh, yah—”

In a smooth motion, Seokmin rolls off Mingyu’s body and grabs both his legs with his fingers curled around the back of the knees, hikes them onto his shoulders and leans down with his torso, pressing Mingyu’s thighs up, opening him up, forcing Mingyu to present to him, such a vulnerable position even though they’re both still clothed.

“Seokmin—” Mingyu chokes.

“I bet you’d love to beg, hmm, Mingyu-yah?” Seokmin asks him, his eyes lidded, his tone dark. “I wasn't even gonna ask you to. You can if you want to, though, since you seem to be gagging for it.”

There’s a moment, a lull, the two of them hazy in the heat, glaring at each other, taking each other in. The way the blood is pumping through Mingyu’s veins still renders him warm in a way that makes him feel alive, energized.

And then all in a rush: Mingyu struggles to a seated position, pushing at the waistband of his sweats, and Seokmin is shucking his shirt off and throwing it down somewhere on the ground, grabbing at Mingyu’s tank top and almost ripping it off, and so Mingyu paws at Seokmin’s hips too.

Then finally—glorious skin-on-skin in full, no more barriers, and they’re almost immediately back to their earlier position, Seokmin atop Mingyu, pressing him into the seat cushions, encasing the length of Mingyu’s body with his own limbs.

“Let’s hear you beg, then,” Seokmin taunts, diving back in, and there’s a hunger in his eyes, like now he’s just given in completely to whatever is raging through the both of them, the desire like a spreading flame.

“Just fuck me,” Mingyu growls, grabbing at Seokmin’s wrists, pulling him towards Mingyu’s own body.

It feels good to grab, it feels good to move Seokmin to do what he wants. Even if at the end of it, Mingyu is gonna be the one with his ass up, laid out bare for the taking.

Seokmin props a hand at Mingyu’s chest as he’s jolted forward, and then it’s immediate retaliation—“Myungho wouldn’t have been able to do this for you,” he says, and his voice is clipped, tense.

And Mingyu knew it would end up here.

Mingyu knew it—and he doesn’t want to bring Minghao between them again, this was supposed to be the end of it, and Seokmin still hadn’t explained what he meant earlier, and Mingyu is about to ask but—

Seokmin has got a finger pressed to Mingyu’s hole already, and Mingyu startles. Mingyu’s an alpha. He’s not gonna be wet enough on his own.

“You can’t just—” he starts, but Seokmin leans back, his stomach taut as he holds himself up, and—he spits, dirty and efficient, the saliva stringing and pooling at his hole, and Mingyu feels a white-hot flash of lust spark through him.

His cock twitches, precome leaking a puddle onto his belly.

Seokmin’s fingertips circle Mingyu’s hole again, soothe at the skin—then he bypasses it completely to cup Mingyu’s balls lightly, hold the weight of them in his palm while Mingyu gasps like he’s been shot, then trails fingertips up the length of Mingyu’s cockhead as if he isn’t just a wrong touch away from coming too soon.

“You bastard—” Mingyu barks. Seokmin pays him no mind, leans back again to meet his eyes as he spits this time, his lips shiny with it, obscene, ridiculous.

Sweat trickles down the side of Mingyu’s head, falling into his eyes, clumping his lashes together as he stares at Seokmin, open-mouthed and stupid. He didn’t realize Seokmin had it in him.

Seokmin’s body is a furnace atop him.

“You need it more wet?” Seokmin leers. Mingyu watches his Adam’s apple as he swallows, as the red flush works its way down Seokmin’s neck, as his thighs feel like hot brands against Mingyu’s body.

Seokmin is worked up too. He’s just as affected as Mingyu is.

“Maybe you would've eaten Myungho out, hmm? 'S that what a good alpha does?”

“You’re cute,” Mingyu says, keeping his voice level even as he wants to snap, just to watch Seokmin’s jaw tense, to indulge in the way Seokmin shows his annoyance on his face so obviously. He can’t hide anything from Mingyu, his face gives him away so easily every time. “You gonna keep imagining Myungho here with us? What, on my behalf or something?”

Seokmin grunts and pushes at him again, one of his hands creeping slowly from Mingyu’s chest higher to his neck. Mingyu feels his heartbeat stutter in anticipation, but—no, he doesn’t want to give this away that easily.

“You don’t need to eat me out, ‘Min-ah.”

Mingyu grabs the hand that’s almost at his throat and stops it in its path; he brings it to his lips instead, then slowly, making sure Seokmin has no choice but to watch, opens and sucks, gets Seokmin’s fingers nice and wet.

Seokmin’s eyes dilate as his fingers burn in Mingyu’s mouth, the weight of them heavy on his tongue. Seokmin’s cock is hard and ruddy too, red like his cheeks, the tip of his nose. He’s rocking forward, rubbing up against Mingyu’s opening.

Mingyu can’t hide the hitch in his throat as he lets go of Seokmin’s fingers.

“That should be enough,” he mumbles—though it probably won’t be, but fuck if he’s going to ask for Seokmin to get his mouth on him—and Seokmin’s eyes flash.

“Even here, you just can’t help it, huh,” he mutters, shaking his head after a moment. He’s complying, though, his slender fingers at Mingyu’s hole, pressing in with barely any delay, no sympathy.

Mingyu’s back arches as Seokmin presses two fingers in, and he’s holding back a choked whine, the feeling sharp and pointed. The slide is still rough, and Mingyu isn’t made for this, but—

”Always wanna tell me how to do everything.” Seokmin draws away from him, and Mingyu’s hole gapes around the loss.

Mingyu feels his heartbeat somewhere in his throat. It’s sweltering.

“Didn’t I just say—" Seokmin continues, "who are you to tell me—”

“I’m the alpha you’re fucking,” Mingyu retorts.

“You’re an idiot,” Seokmin spits back, just as fierce. “You obviously need more than this.”

“You wouldn’t have needed to eat Myungho out,” Mingyu says. His mouth tilts up at the corner, and he’s grinning because he feels like he needs to, because he knows it’ll piss Seokmin off, but even saying the words aloud makes something uncomfortable and heavy sink to the pit of his stomach, burning like coal.

He doesn’t like the thought of Seokmin’s mouth on Minghao.

No—he doesn’t like the thought of Seokmin’s mouth on anyone but him.

Seokmin doesn’t bother gracing him with a response. His mouth is busy doing other things, anyways—

“Oh, you bitch—” Mingyu makes a broken sound, a drawn-out whine that splinters with every other pass of the broad strokes of Seokmin’s tongue at his hole.

He thinks he feels Seokmin chuckle, the sounds muffled against his thighs. He doesn’t have the mind to complain, to try and retaliate—he doesn’t give a fuck about anything other than the way Seokmin’s tongue feels in him right now, drawing out his pleasure with an ease Mingyu couldn’t have imagined him capable of.

But then again—Seokmin never had a problem getting messy.

When Seokmin finally deems him wet and open enough, when Seokmin finally pushes into Mingyu, finally feeds Mingyu what he pointedly hasn’t been begging for—he does it ruthlessly, a steady motion in and then an immediate, consistent pace, rocking his hips less with the finesse of a practiced motion but more with the fervor of something so driven by lust, such a basic, instinctual desire.

“Tell me now,” Seokmin’s voice breaks on a particularly deep thrust when Mingyu clenches around him, when Mingyu tightens his grip on Seokmin’s waist. “What do you have to say to me now, huh?”

“Did you, you-ah-want him this much, Seokmin-ah?” Mingyu can’t help but pant as Seokmin pounds into him, as his cock splits him open. “You—you wanted Myungho—this badly?”

“No, I—” Seokmin cuts himself off with a groan when Mingyu drags his hand down Seokmin’s back—blunt nails, no force, but the act itself seems to incite something in him, seems to spur him on. Mingyu hooks his feet together at the back of Seokmin’s neck and the angle eases up, though Seokmin continues that relentless pace.

Mingyu moans again. The feeling is like hot oil, slippery and spreading fast, lust and energy throughout his entire body. Seokmin is making him feel so good.

“Not him,” Seokmin is saying insistently, angrily, “It’s not him I’m fucking right now, is it?”

And Mingyu knows now, with certainty, that he wants this, that he wants Seokmin, and he feels delirious with the simple truth of it.

“Your hands,” he lets himself ask, pushed to a rare moment of vulnerability. Seokmin peers down at him, nonplussed, a stubborn drop of sweat clinging to his nose.

“Gimme—your hands—” Mingyu ends up grabbing for them himself, but Seokmin works with him, curls his fingers around him just right—one at his throat, the other at his poor, neglected cock, and Mingyu comes just like that, easy and feverish, hot white stripes across his own abdomen and onto Seokmin’s body, too, like an irrefutable possession, you in me and me on you.

“Will you take my knot?” Seokmin pants from above him, his voice tinged with desperation, still fucking into him, still holding out despite the way he’s shaking with minute tremors, with the effort of having held back for so long. “‘S that alpha enough for you? Did I—am I—”

“Alpha,” Mingyu mutters, knowing that this is what Seokmin wants, feeling benevolent enough to give it.

He’s right. Seokmin moans then, unabashed, pressing deep, his hands a vice at Mingyu’s throat, Mingyu’s jaw.

“Alpha, knot me, c’mon, fill me up, just like that—”

Seokmin comes with a loud cry, burning up like a star, a supernova, all white-hot brilliance under Mingyu’s hands, and his knot blooms within Mingyu, fills him up, impossibly big and tight and he’s so fucking full, Seokmin taking up all the space that Mingyu can possibly give him. Seokmin existing only in relation to Mingyu for a stark moment.

“You, you asshole, Mingyu-yah, a-ah, fuck,” Seokmin is mumbling into Mingyu’s neck, having collapsed onto him—over him—in the aftermath of his pleasure, his body still trembling minutely.

Mingyu himself is still so sensitive, and he feels lightheaded with the heat of their bodies and the sweat they’ve worked up; Seokmin’s proximity and his presence, his knot in Mingyu and his hands on Mingyu’s body, his nose at Mingyu’s jaw.

Mingyu’s mouth burns with a phantom feeling, forgotten all this time, while the rest of their limbs got all the attention.

“Kiss me,” he tells Seokmin. “Seokmin-ah, kiss me, pl—”

It’s the beginnings of a plea that gets Seokmin to raise his head, something akin to alarm on his features. And maybe it’s out of character for them but it’s not out of character for Mingyu and his track record of oral fixations—

Seokmin’s mouth is on his before Mingyu can process it.

“Oh—mmmmphhf—”

Seokmin rears back—he’s limited in his range of motion, still tethered to Mingyu—but he manages to level Mingyu a look regardless. Annoyance, comforting in its familiarity, though not so vitriolic this time around.

“At least do it properly,” Seokmin says, and for all that he holds that unforgiving expression so strictly on his features, his voice has lost so much of the bite from earlier.

Something warm fizzes through the heart of Mingyu’s chest. He leans up just to nip at Seokmin’s lower lip.

Seokmin’s sharp hiss of pain is still a little too satisfying.

As is the way Seokmin closes the gap again just to bite at Mingyu’s tongue, lick into his mouth and ravage his lips; the way he leaves them pulsing with blood and swollen—a stinging reminder that will last on his body even after Seokmin’s knot dies down, as a proper kiss should, in Mingyu’s opinion.

Even with everything, Seokmin and Mingyu have never needed to apologize to one another.

They have their disagreements, their alpha stand-offs, their bouts of posturing—but it doesn’t linger.

They don’t dwell on anything for too long because they’re usually already fighting over something new, and so anything in between is an isolated moment of camaraderie, amidst all the cycles of antagonism.

But now—come still cooling on his stomach, Seokmin letting him rest here, his knot gone down enough for him to retreat to the armchair across from him, still on display, still flushed red and beautiful—Mingyu wants to extend an olive branch.

“It wasn’t about him,” Mingyu admits.

Seokmin glances lazily over at him, one eyebrow raised. “…what?”

“It wasn’t about Myungho.”

The rapid blink-blink-blink tells Mingyu that he’s got Seokmin’s attention.

He gives it a while. Waits for Seokmin to let it sit, to steer the conversation as he sees fit. He’s the one that had broached it first, after all.

The atmosphere in the room still feels cozy, the warmth of the summer in its mildest days, the most comforting parts. Mingyu takes that as a good sign.

“It,” Seokmin says pointedly, pauses as if to say, so you acknowledge the tension, that it was a two-way street. Mingyu stays silent in acquiescence. Seokmin seems to accept that more readily. “Then—what was it about? For you.”

“It wasn’t—I thought it was about an omega because I—I don’t know.”

Seokmin watches him intently. He’s biting his lip again, fingers resting on his stomach, but the tapping gives him away, how important this conversation is to him.

“I’ve been led to think that any time I felt like—I’ve been linking all the heat and the warmth and the…fever to the only omega in my life, y’know. But it was always just—”

Seokmin looks like he knows what Mingyu’s going to say a split second before he’s about to say it.

He looks like he’s realizing in real time as Mingyu speaks the words aloud, as his lips go slack, his eyes widen a fraction; and the way he looks, like he's hooked onto each new word of Mingyu’s whether he wants to be or not, spurs Mingyu on to finish properly, to tell him what needs to be told.

He can do that for Seokmin.

“—it was you, Seokmin-ah.”