lessons in caregiving - minsung (extended oneshot)

lesson three: make him eat (if needed, bribe him with pudding)

JISUNG—

   Bored, bored, bored. That's what Jisung was today. That, and in need of attention from his darling Minho. That's why he was currently tracing shapes onto his bedsheets, kicking his feet in lazy circles, waiting for the ringing in his ear to stop so he'd hear Minho when he said: "Hi, Sungie."

   And when he did, a smile tugged at the corner of Jisung's lips as he started, "Hey, hyu— wait, hold on a sec, do I get to call you 'babe', now?"

   In the silence that followed, Jisung imagined his boyfriend covering his blushy face with his free hand. With a flustered, slightly wavering voice, Minho answered, "Yeah, I guess so."

   With his smile growing mischievous, Jisung continued, "Okay then, babe, can we hang with Chan hyung again tonight?"

   "...Sure, Ji."

   ~~~

   Nearly an hour later it was Jisung, Minho, and Chan sitting on Chan's living room couch yet again, chatting comfortably. Jisung had wrapped an arm around Minho's shoulder and felt his heart thump happily when the boy leaned into his side— and they'd sat like that the whole time they'd been here, unmoving.

    With a lull in the conversation, when all three of them had gone quiet for some time (as they'd each gotten their fill of complaining about the continual lack of heating in the Lit classroom), Jisung took the chance to cure his curiosity and ask a question he'd been considering all day. Anxious to keep learning while he was here with Chan, wondering about the frequency with which Minho's shift in headspaces would occur, and hoping to see his boyfriend be all cute some more, Jisung started, "Hey, babe," not missing a chance to finally use some pet names, and to make Minho shy. "When are you gonna little again?"

   Jisung felt Minho stiffen slightly under his arm as he nervously chuckled, "Uh, I'm not sure..."

    Ah— right, Jisung just now remembered, this was Minho's coping mechanism... so it wasn't really a good thing for him to need to slip, right? "I mean— not that I want you to be stressed, but... y'know."

   Minho nodded a little. "Well, I could probably slip now if, um..." While Jisung waited intently, Minho grimaced and looked down.

   "If?" Jisung prompted.

   But Minho didn't answer, so Chan filled in, "He means if you babied him. Isn't that right, bug?"

   Blushing hard, Minho furrowed his eyebrows at Chan, whining, "Hyung, stopppp!" He shifted away from Jisung, shrinking in on himself shyly.

   "See, look at him getting all whiny like that. Ji, when it comes to little space, there are things called triggers— things that cause a little to slip into their headspace. For Minho, pet names are a huge trigger."

   While Minho was busy half facepalming, half embarrassedly covering his red face, Jisung chirped, "Oh~ I see." Removing Minho's hands from his face nonchalantly, Jisung pressed a kiss to Minho's cheek and softly called, "Baby~"

   He watched Minho's eyes get big, glancing back and forth between him and Chan, as if he wasn't sure what to do. Chan just smiled at him— of course, Jisung did the same, but watching a trace of a pout form as Minho's lower lip jutted out slightly, he also reached forward to wriggle his fingers into Minho's side. As expected, Minho couldn't help but shriek with laughter.

   Minho fell back onto the couch and thrashed while Jisung's fingers dug into his tummy and made him squeal— and when Chan joined in he couldn't hold it back at all and fell into a giggling fit while the two of them tickled him mercilessly.