lessons in caregiving - minsung (extended oneshot)

push and pull

MINHO —

    Minho and Jisung were at a party, yay.

    It was advertised as a frat party, and it was decidedly not a frat party. ...Unless Minho was very misinformed about the meaning of the phrase. (It wasn't even in a frat house— it was just in a regular house that happened to be in his neighborhood, for goodness' sake.) And Minho was glad for that— don't tell anyone, but it would've been his first, and he just wasn't sure that it was his scene. 

   Why did he even plan on going in the first place? Because Jisung said he wanted to go and, of course, Minho had to follow, though not without first acting as if Jisung was twisting his arm as he asked if Minho would accompany him.

   Now, they were here, in this relatively quiet living room (with only a handful of conversations going, and not much music to speak of— definitely not the deafening, feel-the-base-in-your-chest situation Minho thought he'd find himself in), sipping at red solo cups filled with soda, rather than the expected alcohol, and Minho was sitting on the couch while Jisung stood close by, finishing up a conversation he'd been having with one of his friends for the past two or three minutes.

    "Babe~" Jisung (now facing him and heading for the couch) chirped, tone light and half-joking, clearly hoping for some lovey-dovey attention as he sat himself on Minho's lap and pulled the boy's hand over his waist.

    Minho was already rolling his eyes at just the nickname. Jisung gave a subtle, sullen pout.

    "Shut up~," Minho groaned, teasing (somewhat), turning his head toward his boyfriend's, tilting it upward to meet Jisung's gaze in a bothered sort of way.

    "Okay, grumpy pants." Jisung settled himself with his back snugly pressed into Minho's chest and shoulder, and with Minho's free hand perched gently upon his hip. Jisung, finding that Minho was in the mood to not accommodate him, began to repeatedly pick up and drop the hand he had a hold of, patting his own stomach with Minho's hand.

    Quite frankly, Minho was getting antsy. He thought, after more than two months of dating, that he'd be used to Jisung being close to him by now but... nope.

   Nothing about this was how he thought it'd be. Dating was so much harder than he'd expected.

    Minho and Jisung had been dating for just under three under months and there remained a rather long list of things they hadn't done. Minho wondered if they were going too slow or not (he wouldn't like to admit it, but he'd never done this whole... relationship thing before).

    They hadn't kissed, they hadn't slept over at each other's houses, and they hadn't said 'I love you'. Just a few of the main things off the list. Did it matter? Was this how it was supposed to go?

   Shouldn't he have been comfortable with Jisung by now?

   Wasn't there some undeniable tension between them, so no matter how close they pressed their bodes together, they were still far apart, like mismatched magnets, unable to touch?

   Well, in any case, he was anything but comfortable when Jisung changed his position.

    Jisung scooted off Minho's lap and wandered away for a moment to peruse the gathering of snack foods littering the counter in the kitchen, and he came back with a donut hole for each of them— one that he'd just stuffed into his mouth, and one to offer deep-in-thought Minho, who was distracted enough to actually allow his boyfriend to feed him. Tasting powdered sugar, Minho came back to earth and pulled back slightly, startled to find that something had been placed between his teeth.

   Jisung beamed at him, quite surprised that Minho hadn't just taken it out of his hand first to eat it, as he normally would have, and fell back onto the couch, draping his arm over Minho's shoulders and pulling him in to his chest... which was something Minho wasn't used to (on purpose). ...Which was something Minho couldn't have him doing, because it caused his heart rate to go sort of... embarrassingly high. Rapidly. That's when he got wildly uncomfortable.

   See, deliberately, if one of them was to be holding the other, Minho was the one who ended up doing the holding. It was Jisung on his lap, Jisung lying on his chest— but more commonly, his hand on Jisung's shoulder or hip. That's why he shrugged off Jisung's arm, and instead, hooked his hand under the boy's knee and dragged it over his.

    Jisung seemed to get the picture, and scooted over to place himself back on Minho's lap.

    He wished he'd just let Jisung pull him in like that and hold him... but at the same time, he didn't; he was afraid. This stupidly frantic heartbeat betrayed the persona he'd been working hard to build for the past dozen or so weeks— it kept doing that, over and over. And every time it did, he ended up pushing Jisung away.

    Jisung was supposed to be the cute one in their relationship. He was the cute one— with features so much softer than Minho's and mannerisms that could only be described as 'babygirl'. That's why he wanted to be with someone like Minho, the tough guy, the stud. And, well... maybe Minho was terrified that if he faltered, just one little bit— let Jisung pull him in just once, he'd end up blowing it and exposing the side of him that he kept hidden from everyone but Chan.

   Suddenly, Jisung pressed in close to Minho's ear, whispering "You're zoning out a lot— you tired?"

   "Yeah... kinda." Minho purposefully left out the part where he was contemplating their seemingly stagnant, vaguely tense relationship.

   Jisung gave a little half-smile. "You walked here, right?" 

   Minho nodded. His house was only a five-or-so-minute walk away, after all. He hadn't felt it was worth wasting gas on.

    "I'll drive you back."

   And he breathed a silent sigh of relief, because he'd been worrying Jisung would suggest them both going back to his house and watching a movie or something... maybe spending the night over to fall asleep together on the couch... and, well... Minho was afraid of that.

   He was afraid of getting too comfortable; forgetting to keep his guard up— because who knows, maybe all it would take would be one night, falling asleep with Jisung's arms around him, warm and secure, and poof, he'd wake up little, and his life— the one he'd just built in the past handful of weeks, a life with Jisung in it—  would fall apart, just like that.

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