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Huh, Mingi thinks. He’s high as balls.
The gummy he took must have finally kicked in. He’s not feeling so good, because the mixers Seonghwa brought disagreed with him all the way down, and continues to disagree with him at this very moment, because Seonghwa’s only criteria when shopping at the liquor store is cute packaging. Yunho says he’s being harsh, but Mingi once watched him drink out of a fish bowl on a dare, so he doesn’t think he gets the last say in anything.
The world lurches slightly when he tries to sit up, so he sits his ass right back down. He’s got nowhere to be, anyways.
Tonight is team potluck and Mingi brought his world-famous buffalo dip, which is a hit as much as it is toeing the line as a flagrant violation of their diet plans. Seonghwa implemented these dinners a week into his captaincy citing healthy bonding rituals and whatnot, but Mingi knows he craves feeling like a family just as much as the rest of them. Their captain looks on from a corner now, warmth and contentment rolling off of him in waves, and Mingi would get up to nuzzle him like a cat if he weren’t so goddamn comfortable where he’s sprawled right now.
It’s no novel sight to find Mingi on Yunho’s lap. In fact, it would be stranger if they weren’t bundled together, like seeing a mitten on its own or having Statler without Waldorf. Some things are just meant to come in pairs, and that includes defence partners.
The night is young and someone’s just booted up a video game, but Yunho is rubbing small circles into the nape of his neck and he’s not God’s Most Awake Soldier at the best of times, so in about ten seconds flat Mingi is dead asleep.
The last thing he remembers is a fleece blanket being tucked around him.
—
He dreams of the roiling ocean, a huge yellow sun bobbing over the horizon. He looks to his left and there’s a figure standing next to him, but their face smudges into a blur if he focuses too hard on it.
When he looks back out, the sky is black.
—
While his morning coffee brews, Mingi makes a mental tally of the things he’s grateful for. He read all about the importance of gratitude in Thought Power: A Guide To Spiritual Enlightenment, which is the only reading material at his physio clinic aside from ancient issues of J-14.
(The 1D member who has a crush on him is Niall.)
(He’s always been more of a Zayn girl, to be honest.)
The smell of warm coffee infuses his cold kitchen. He inhales deeply.
To begin, he’s grateful for his job. Mingi was never good at science, or art, or most subjects at school, but he’s lucky enough to do the thing he loves most for a living. He’s not religious or anything, but if he was, he’d give god a fist bump for that.
He’s grateful for his teammates. They have his back, absorbing his pains and sharing his burdens. In this team, it doesn’t matter if you’re on the starting lineup or a healthy scratch. Everyone supports each other. Also, he’s happy to play a supporting role if it means ESPN isn’t writing articles about his grocery habits.
He makes a mental note to pick up milk after practice. He needs toilet paper too. And he’s low on protein powder…
His thoughts skitter out from under him, but eventually they find themselves at their usual terminus.
Yunho.
Growing up he’d heard horror stories of defensemen who couldn’t make it work, who got traded for lack of chemistry with their lineys. When he’d stepped off the plane at JFK he’d been green as a leaf and shaking like one, too. He was awful at pretending to like people.
But when Yunho saw him for the first time, he turned to the rest of the team and said, “This one’s mine,” and then before his first game, talked Mingi down from a panic attack, steadying him like a lighthouse in a storm. Ever since that day, Yunho has been his person.
Somehow, he stuck by Mingi after seeing all the nooks and crannies of his personality, even the parts he normally keeps under wraps. In fact, it only seemed to make him cling harder.
His phone buzzes on the counter. That’s the thing about Yunho, it’s like he can sense when Mingi’s thinking about him. He sent a photo of the two of them last night, clinging arm in arm after the game winning goal against Boston. A fan has edited a cloud of glittering hearts around their heads.
Another one for the collection, the text says.
Mingi grins and saves it to his album.
Yeah. He’s grateful to have Yunho in his life.
—
Just because Mingi wears his heart on his sleeve doesn’t mean he won’t wreck someone’s shit on the ice.
Philly has been antagonising them all night, crowding them against the boards and provoking their forwards between plays. They’re straining to maintain their 3-2 lead, the other team pelting them with shots and drawing penalties frustratingly often. If Yeosang wasn’t having a solid night in the net they’d be sinking faster than the Titanic.
But then he overhears one of their forwards spit something at Seonghwa, something hateful and bigoted that turns Mingi’s blood to ice, and he only needs to look up to find Yunho’s eyes already trained on his, a nod of understanding passing between them. Mingi bites off a glove and hauls forth a fistful of orange jersey.
He gets a good number of hits in before taking an uppercut to the nose, the familiar taste of copper pervading his mouth. He doesn’t let go though, keeps his grip solid until the other player is seeing stars. Only when he feels the gentle hand on his shoulder that means Yunho’s behind him, that he’s got his back, that it’s over now, does he release the crumpled material and skates off, getting into the box without having to be asked. He wipes at his nose and it comes back bloody. They’ll play shorthanded now, but defending Seonghwa’s honour comes before anything. That’s what it means to be apart of this team.
Mingi’s nose won’t stop bleeding, so they herd him off to the infirmary before they go into OT. He’s in the middle of having plaster applied to his reset swollen nose, wincing at the soreness, when Yunho pokes his head into the room. His hair is damp from the post-game shower. He brandishes a small rectangle from behind his back that upon further inspection is a box of Pepero.
His eyes light up. “Gimme,” he says, making grabby fists, but it comes out all nasal on account of his nostrils being plugged with gauze. He sits down next to him on the small cot, shoulder to shoulder with Mingi.
”That was good,” Yunho says as he tears into the snack. It’s not strictly accounted for in their diet plans per say, but what the nutritionists don’t know won’t hurt them. “We needed that momentum. You did well.”
Yunho peers at him with the face that means he’s concerned but is trying not to show it. “He didn’t get you too bad, did he? You don’t have to take so many scraps, you know. It’s my job to fight those bastards too.”
Mingi pauses mid pretzel stick. “Jeong Yunho,” he says with as much seriousness he can muster while sounding like a kazoo. “Are you implying that I can’t handle my job?”
Yunho just shakes his head. “I’m saying that you don’t have to do it alone. We’ve got each other’s backs, right? That means you let me pull my weight every once in a while.”
He holds his pinky out, because Mingi has zero resolve when it comes to Yunho, a truth he loathes to have been found out on.
Mingi doesn’t hold back the scowl, but he links them together nevertheless. “Don’t think this means I’m sharing my Pepero,” he mutters while drawing a stick out and placing it between Yunho’s lips. He bites down with mirth in his eyes, and Mingi ignores the fluttery feeling in his stomach.
He insists on waiting for Mingi to shower and get dressed before driving him home, even though he’s completely unharmed from the neck down.
—
As a kid, Mingi was never grossed out by couples kissing on tv or the girls in his class having crushes on him. Love always felt like something lambent and precious, something to be doled out by the armful and accepted with awe and reverence.
He used to daydream about what kind of person his soulmate would turn out to be. A royal prince? A humble farmer? A mathematician, perhaps?
Now that he’s older, the things he wants are much more simple. He wants someone kind. Someone who doesn’t think of him as a burden. Someone who will hold his hand and sit with him in front of water.
—
Goalies are fucking weird. In juniors, Mingi played with a guy who insisted he was a Spanish jouster in a past life. They’re insanely superstitious, awkward as fuck to be around, and always so protective of those tennis balls they’re throwing around.
But if they’re splitting hairs, he’d say Yeosang is, without exception, the weirdest goalie he has ever met.
He lures you into a false sense of security with those crescent eyes and placid smiles, blankets you with the belief that you and him are tethered to the same reality, and then he’ll say some shit like—
“Are you and Yunho going to the wedding together?”
Mingi whips his head up from where he’s straining under the leg press. Fuck leg day, seriously. “What?”
“It’s not like you’ve been seeing anyone. You should take Yunho as your date,” Yeosang says, and it’s all the confirmation Mingi needs to know that he’s not of this earth.
“Yeosang,” Mingi says, shaking his head. “Yeosang, Yeosang. So many incorrect assumptions. Just because I’m not seeing anyone doesn’t mean I don’t have my pick of dates.” He sits up. “And it’s a bit close-minded of you to assume that Yunho and I have to do everything together, actually. I’m an independent man.”
With that, he sweeps around the fitness room, locking eyes with a rookie who looks very much like he would like not to be there right now. Mingi clears his throat.
”Hey,” he says, putting on his most charming smile. “Want to go to a hockey wedding?”
The rookie, bless him, has the distinct look of a deer in headlights. He can’t even meet Mingi’s gaze, staring at the wall behind him.
”Uhm, n-no thank you,” he stammers, tearing his gaze back to the bench press he’s on.
Mingi pouts, ignoring Yeosang’s shaking bout of laughter.
He walks over to where Yunho is sharpening his skates on the angle grinder. The blade is red hot from all the metal burrs and sparks flying off. He tucks his chin over Yunho’s shoulder.
”What are you doing for Wooyoung and San’s wedding next week?” he asks.
“Nothing,” Yunho says, putting the skate down and turning off the machine. He turns to face Mingi with an easy smile. “Wanna go together?”
He wakes up the morning after the wedding with glitter in his hair, a missing shoe, and Yunho curled up like a cocktail shrimp on the floor of his hotel room, three feet from the bed.
It doesn’t even crack the top five weirdest ways they’ve woken up next to each other, to be honest.
He shuts himself into the bathroom to discover that he also has a notch shaved into his eyebrow. He grimaces at himself in the mirror, less because he regrets the style but more so that he’s dreading explaining to Seonghwa the events that must have transpired in the lead up to achieving this new look. He had even sent out a text to the team Whatsapp the day before, reminding those attending to please represent the New York Rangers with the class and dignity that everyone has come to expect from us.
So much for that, Mingi thinks as he leaves a trail of golden flecks on the bathroom tile while he turns on the showerhead. He makes a mental note to leave a fat tip for housekeeping.
By the time he walks out the bathroom, freshly showered and (mostly) free of glitter, Yunho has moved from his position on the floor to starfishing in the middle of the bed.
Mingi flops down next to him, because it’s his day off, damnit.
Yunho, surprisingly, looks completely normal compared to Mingi’s state upon awakening. He turns to him with a lazy smile. “Lookin’ good,” he murmurs, voice gravelly from sleep.
Out of nowhere, Mingi is met with the image of this being his reality every morning, rolling over to face Yunho and his stupid bedhead and dried drool and pillow creases on his cheek. He swats the thought away like a particularly recalcitrant fly.
“Like it?” Mingi says, sticking out his tongue.
Yunho just laughs, which could mean anything, and trundles off to the bathroom.
—
If you asked Mingi what he’d change about his life, he’d probably say something like—
His back check needs work. He’s still recovering from the hip tear that put him on injury reserve for five months. And, he doesn’t call his mom as much as he should. He can’t keep a houseplant alive to save his life. And well, there’s the small but significant matter that Mingi is doomed to remain single for the remainder of his life.
“Your sad breath is fogging up my windows and I just cleaned them yesterday,” Seonghwa says from behind him, hands on his hips. He’s holding a vacuum, and Mingi shuffles his slippered feet so that he can get to the spot under the couch he’s sitting on.
He often finds himself in Seonghwa’s living room when he starts going down this particular spiral. Their captain has an open door policy which results in his place being a rotating carousel of hockey players, but Mingi definitely abuses Seonghwa’s hospitality the most.
“Then that will be the only mark I leave on this world,” Mingi announces melodramatically, tracing a frowny face through the condensation. The moisture beads up on one of its eyes, forming a small tear. He feels more than hears Seonghwa’s sigh as he shuts off the whirring vacuum, the couch cushion dipping slightly as he sits down beside him.
“Come on,” he says resignedly, patting his lap. “Tell Captain what’s wrong.”
Mingi curls up into a ball and lays his head down on the proffered spot, closing his eyes as slender fingers gently card through his hair. He breathes out, inner turmoil quieting. “I’m never going to find someone who will put up with me,” he says mournfully.
Seonghwa makes a sympathetic shushing noise, the way one might soothe a horse. “Anyone would be lucky to love you, Mingi,” he says in that sage way of his.
He struggles to contain the nuclear-level pout that threatens to break out.
Mingi knows Seonghwa has no leg to stand on when it comes to proselytising about love. His own will-they-won’t-they with Kim Hongjoong has reached legendary status within their organisation, and probably the entire league at this point. There’s a “Seonghwa x Hongjoong” primer floating around on Google docs that gets periodically passed around to rookies and new teammates.
He’s not proud of it, but deep down he feels envious— he knows in his bones that things between those two will work themselves out. He has a head for these things, after all. He can sniff out happy endings like a shark.
Meanwhile, he’s on the brink of thirty with no serious romantic prospects. What does it say about a hopeless romantic who can’t find someone to love? He wishes, not for the first time, that he had something like what Seonghwa and Hongjoong have. A soulmate in his life who was meant for him all along.
—
He’s been silent on Yunho’s couch for fifteen minutes now, a new record. From his vantage point Yoshi appears to be driving on the ceiling, because he’s lying upside down. They don’t play Mario Kart together anymore, not after the Rainbow Road Incident of 2018, but Mingi still likes to watch Yunho play solo. It’s relaxing to shut off his brain as Yunho navigates the technicolour tracks with practised ease.
At the twenty minute mark Yunho looks over and nudges at him with his foot, a silent question. Mingi remains staunchly unresponsive.
He pauses the game and sets the controller aside, and Mingi reacts exactly one second too late before all six feet of Yunho are pouncing on him, wrestling him onto the cushions and pinning him in place. Mingi yowls, struggling with no avail to unseat him. Son of a bitch, he was heavy when he wanted to be.
“What’s wrong with you, hm?” He asks, a firecracker grin painting his cheeks. Mingi wriggles like a fish underneath him. The annoying bastard isn’t even out of breath.
Twenty one minutes. He’s going for the long con. Mingi turns his head to the side, remaining stubbornly silent.
“Are you still upset that I got dinner with Jongho without you?” There’s that damned mind-reading. It was equally irritating as it was touching.
The simultaneously best and worst thing about Yunho is his affability. He has the ability to befriend anyone and everyone, and Mingi’s not even allowed to feel jealous about it.
It doesn’t stop him from trying, though.
Mingi lets an answering puff of air out of his nose.
Yunho pokes his tongue into his cheek, amusement highly apparent.
“What to do then? Shall I promise to only hang out with you from now on?”
A petulant nod makes itself known before Mingi can stop himself.
Yunho softens, his grin melting into something gentler.
”Okay,” he says, simply, easily, and Mingi is met with the realisation that he wishes he actually meant it. Yunho flops down next to him and reaches for the TV remote to flip through Netflix, the conversation seemingly over.
But Mingi’s sluggish mind is turning over. He prods at the idea the same way one approaches a wild animal. To possess, to lay hand over Yunho and declare him his and only his. The thought unnerves him to his very core, not because it hasn’t crossed his mind before, but because of the lucidity with which it appeals to him.
Yunho could have put on an indie horror film and he wouldn’t have noticed. As Mingi lies there, bracketed by his arms and pressed against his body, the gears in his head begin to churn.
That night, he dreams of a figure lying behind him in the dark, supine, kissing a line of scorch marks down his spine.
Mingi wakes up half-hard and covered in sweat, the back of his neck still tingling. He barely sleeps for the rest of the night.
—
When it becomes clear that Kim Hongjoong’s increased presence in Seonghwa’s life has a direct correlation to how much patience their captain is willing to exercise, the team comes together in a remarkable show of cooperation to ensure that they stay that way.
If Mingi didn’t already have a job, he’d add Love-Life Meddling to the list of skills on his resume. He thinks of himself as something of an expert, too.
The team watches their captain, their beautiful, intelligent captain, transform into someone who almost spoons oatmeal into their hair because they’re reading texts on their phone. Mingi feels the secondhand fizziness settle in his gut like a seltzer tablet.
He isn’t expecting it, though, when the man himself answers the door to Seonghwa’s apartment one day.
The two of them simply regard each other for a moment. He’s hardly intimidating like this, in woolly socks and an oversized sweater. Without the skates and padding he stands a foot shorter than Mingi and overall has a demeanour more befitting of a disgruntled cat than the captain of an NHL team. He has to suppress the odd urge to ruffle the other man’s hair.
Hongjoong is the first to speak, shifting awkwardly.
“Uhm. Seonghwa will be home soon.” He gestures with his bowl of cereal. “Do you want to come in?”
They’ve spoken a handful of times at training camp and All Stars weekend, and there’s a mutual understanding given they’re both Korean and all, but they haven’t interacted all that much otherwise.
It occurs to him suddenly that Mingi is the closest thing Seonghwa has to a brother.
He draws himself up to his full height and puffs his chest out, tries to look intimidating.
“You and Seonghwa.”
Hongjoong looks at him warily.
“What are your intentions with him?”
Hongjoong looks like he’d rather be anywhere else. He starts throwing desperate glances towards the door.
“Are you going to hurt him again?” Mingi’s protective streak flares up. “He really cares about you, you know.”
Hongjoong starts looking like wet cardboard. The room is silent for what feels like an eternity.
“I know I haven’t always been good to him… but I’m learning from my mistakes.” He looks like each word is causing him physical pain. “Seonghwa means everything to me.”
Mingi softens. Reluctantly. “Okay,” he says, quickly losing steam. “You can expect a scrap from me if you go back on your word,” he adds, but his heart’s not really in it. Hongjoong just kind of shrugs like, duh.
Another awkward silence hangs in the air before the moment passes.
Hongjoong shuffles uncomfortably and mumbles about something or another in the next room, and then that’s the end of that. Mingi doesn’t know how he’s managed to capture Seonghwa’s heart with all this emotionally repressed behaviour. He ought to lend him a copy of Thought Power.
Speaking of, Seonghwa squints suspiciously at the two of them when he gets home, setting his groceries down on the credenza. He ultimately doesn’t say anything, but Mingi’s sure he can sense they’re up to no good.
That night he sends a text into the Meddling group chat—
Betting pool for when HJ proposes marriage? Closest date wins.
The chat moves with a flurry of responses, the ante rising like a hot air balloon. Within minutes, someone creates a spreadsheet with colour-coded cells documenting everyone’s tally. There are two things hockey players can’t resist: data graphing, and a bit of degenerate gambling.
Mingi puts his wager down earlier than everyone else’s. No one has to know he saw a ring box sitting in Hongjoong’s drawer.
—
Mingi’s afraid that something vital has been punctured in his brain.
Sure, he’s always been aware of Yunho’s physicality as an athlete. He’s a great athlete, an even better defence partner. But lately Mingi has spent more time than anything thinking about Yunho on top of him, and he’s starting to worry that his brain is broken.
He can’t get through a conversation without his traitorous mind flashing all the times he’s seen Yunho naked, like the world’s worst powerpoint presentation. Does no one else care that Yunho’s forearms are super veiny, or that his collarbone is extremely biteable? Mingi blacks out the memories of seeing Yunho’s crotch for his own safety, because that’s a box that can never be reopened.
“Is everything okay?” Yunho asks one day, interrupting Mingi’s fantasy-du-jour. Today’s is an elaborate interrogation of the line of Yunho’s neck, and how it might feel straining under Mingi’s mouth. Whether it might leave a pink mark where Mingi would bite down on it. Whether it would taste like Yunho’s grapefruit aftershave.
“Uh,” Mingi says intelligently, and Yunho frowns, leaning in to press the back of his hand across his forehead.
“You feel normal,” he says, the apple of his throat bobbing distractingly in its proximity. “But you’ve been acting weird.”
“I’ve been acting normal,” Mingi says. He wants to unhinge his jaw and swallow him whole. Let himself be swallowed whole in exchange.
Yunho squints at him, and Mingi prays he can’t read his mind.
The thing is, Mingi is excruciatingly aware of how much is at stake here.
This isn’t a passing crush or a casual hookup he can use and discard like a gym sock. This is Yunho. Mingi won’t put their friendship in Jeopardy just because he can’t keep it in his pants. He deserves better than that.
His self-esteem crumbles under the weight of the first real crush he’s had in years. Suddenly all his emotions are at the surface of his skin, scattered and fragile for anyone to see. Mingi hates feeling this way, like he could break at any moment.
He wishes he could tell Yunho about it. He would know exactly what to say.
—
Mingi doesn’t make a habit of making enemies, but if he did, their organisation’s social media team would be on that list
He has been pranked, learned TikTok dances, and dressed up in ridiculous costumes all in the name of “public outreach”. It’s thinly veiled public humiliation, is what it is.
Which is why he’s automatically suspicious when he walks into his scheduled filming block for the month only to be told that he’s getting a massage, of all things. He supposes there are worse ways to spend a Saturday morning, so Mingi just shrugs and offers himself up to the technician, who explains the concept of “muscle scraping”, which sounds like a form of medieval torture, and might as well be one given how much the whole thing fucking hurts, ouch, and Mingi basically forgets there’s an intern in the corner filming on an iPhone with the purpose of broadcasting it on the internet.
He leaves sore as hell, chest and limbs bright pink from the Gua Sha, but his muscles feel nice and loose that night, and Mingi forgets about the whole ordeal pretty quickly.
The video ends up going viral.
Apparently the sight of Mingi half-naked and writhing in pain is worth hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube, and even more on TikTok and Instagram, which says something awful about the state of the world, if you ask him.
Mingi can admit that the noises are a bit intimate, the tips of his ears turning pink as he lowers the volume of the video. But he still doesn’t deserve the relentless chirping his teammates flood his messages with, their feeds covered in screen-grabs of Mingi’s face contorted in pain. Yeosang sets one as the group chat cover photo.
Yunho, thank god, remains blessedly quiet throughout the whole thing.
—
He’s in the car with him when the engagement ring photo lands in their group chat.
Yunho almost swerves into traffic because of the ear-splitting screech he lets out. It takes a solid ten seconds to assure him no one’s life is in imminent danger.
Giddiness fills the car, and Mingi makes him pull over so they can video call Seonghwa together. He picks up on the fifth ring, bare-chested and tousled-hair.
The three of them just squeal at each other for a minute, the camera quaking with their excitement. They make Seonghwa show a closeup of the ring, and they ooh-and-ahh at the diamond, tastefully set in a polished platinum band.
“Where’s Hongjoong?” Yunho asks after a bit.
A little head pops up into the frame. Hongjoong’s hair is sticking out in a hundred different directions and he looks incorrigibly smug.
“Did you defile our captain’s virtue?”
“He did that all by himself,” he says with a smacking kiss to Seonghwa’s head. There’s a thud as he’s shoved off of the bed.
After a small scuffle, their captain’s serene pink face fills the screen.
“So I hear that there’s a betting pool. I’ll be getting a cut of your winnings, right Mingi?”
The two of them exchange a panicked look. Mingi starts making whooshing noises into the phone speaker. ”Oh no, I think the connection’s cutting out!”
”My venmo is p-a-r-k dot—“
“We’re losing signal, talktoyoulaterSeonghwabye!”
The dial tone sounds right as Hongjoong starts cackling in the background.
For lunch, they spring for extra guacamole on their Chipotle, and as they eat in silence in his car, Mingi feels himself reach a sort of amicable truce with his crush on Yunho. He decides that he’s going to live with it like one might tolerate fruit flies, occasionally swatting away at the strongest perverse urges, but otherwise peaceably co-existing.
It’ll be chill.
It’ll be so chill.
—
A month later, by some sacrosanct miracle, the Rangers end up in the grand fucking Stanley cup finals.
At this point in the season, exhaustion has set into the deepest marrow of their bones, but all of New York is watching them with bated breath. The guy at Mingi’s deli starts making his breakfast sandwiches for free. They pour out everything they have and find more once it’s emptied. They’re so close that Mingi can taste it.
—
They tote that giant silver cup onto the ice and Mingi is half convinced they’re going to take it back, just because it’s them. It was never actually supposed to be them.
Royal blue floods the stadium. The very foundation of the ice they stand on, shakes.
He catches Yunho’s eye through the scrum and feels something settle in his heart.
—
Mingi is soaked with more champagne than sweat.
He’s pretty sure he’s agreed to get matching tattoos with four different teammates, and there’s a patch on his tongue where he can’t taste anything. It’s all Mingi ever wanted.
At least, he thought it was.
—
He finds Yunho where he always does, waiting for him.
“We did it,” he yells over the melee. He has no idea if Yunho can hear him.
“Yeah,” he thinks Yunho yells back.
And maybe it’s alcohol, or the adrenaline, or just the fact that he knows Yunho won’t be able to hear him, but Mingi yells, “I think I’m in love with you,” into the void.
Suddenly, he’s standing on his own, teetering on a cliff’s edge that won’t catch him, ready to fall when the whole thing crumbles. Because the thing is, Yunho must understand him, the way his brows knit together, an ‘O’ forming on his lips, but then he has a body pressed against his, and a pair of steady arms around his waist, and a soft warm mouth on his, and it’s—
It’s everything.
Yunho pulls away, and his lips are moving, but Mingi can’t hear him over the roaring wave crashing in his chest, bubbling seafoam and gritty sand rushing forwards and spilling out of him, and oh, oh. This is what was missing.
They leave the party early.
—
He doesn’t know how, but they eventually make it back to Mingi’s apartment.
“Six years?” Mingi exclaims in shock. “You’ve been holding out on me for six years?”
Yunho just shrugs, a bashful sort of expression on his face. “I wanted you to be sure. It was worth the wait.” The shade of pink hasn’t left his face since they stumbled in through the door, hands glued to each other’s sides. “There isn’t anyone else for me but you,” he says, and Mingi feels himself physically swoon. Red love-hearts are going to start bubbling from his head any minute.
The honks and hollering on the street seem to agree. All of New York is cheering for them, apparently. Mingi grabs the collar of his shirt and pulls him in for another kiss.
When they come up for air, a new thought crosses his brain. “So you’re saying we could have been having sex this whole time?”
A sunrise dawns on Yunho’s face.
—
“Such a good friend,” Yunho pants from above him. “So sweet, so caring. Would’ve waited a lifetime for you to come to me.”
Mingi wishes he was coherent enough to say something, but he’s currently being railed six ways from Sunday and isn’t exactly in the most lucid state of mind. The most he can manage is a pathetic sounding whine as Yunho thrusts just right into him, his brain turning to putty as Yunho showers him with praise.
“The best fuckin’ teammate I’ve ever had, that any of us have ever had. The entire team would commit murder for you, you know that right?”
Yunho gathers his ankles into one hand and switches the angle. Mingi’s vision slants as he warbles out a moan in response.
“Ungh…”
His vision is blurring and Mingi isn’t sure if it’s tears or from the pleasure. All he knows is that this is everything he’s ever wanted and more, and also that if Yunho doesn’t get a hand on his dick in the next ten seconds he’s going to explode.
They don’t manage any sleep until the sun comes up.
—
He wakes up to his phone buzzing against his cheek. It’s afternoon, judging by the angle of the sun coming through his window. Yunho is still dead to the world at his side.
It’s a Facetime call from Seonghwa. He squints at it blearily, debating whether to answer. There’s dried drool on the screen. The call connects with a chime.
“Mingi-yah,” Seonghwa sing-songs. Mingi doesn’t know how he’s managing to stand upright, much less have such a chipper disposition. He thinks he kind of hates him right now.
“Buzz me up baby, I brought coffee,” he croons into the camera, and Mingi remembers that Seonghwa is actually an angel sent down from heaven.
Five minutes later he swans into Mingi’s bedroom with a bedraggled Hongjoong trailing behind him, holding a carton of hot drinks. He takes in the sight of the two of them.
“Well,” he says brightly, clapping his hands. Hongjoong looks like he’s just tasted something sour.
Seonghwa types something into his phone, and then puts it away. “I take it you two had… fun last night?”
Even though his stomach is growling and his head is pounding, his heart has never been fuller. Mingi looks at the lump of blanket next to him, curled up like a cocktail shrimp, and feels peace, maybe for the first time. He smiles at Seonghwa. “Yeah.”
His captain’s smile shifts to something smaller, more genuine, and for a moment it looks like he might start crying, but it seems Hongjoong senses it as well because that’s the moment he decides to step in.
“So we’ll just… leave you two to it, then” he says, gingerly sidestepping the trail of clothes they left on the floor, corralling Seonghwa out the door, who looks like a mother gazing upon a litter of newborn puppies. To his left Yunho snuffles into his pillow, because no amount of noise could wake him from a REM cycle.
“Thanks for the coffee,” Mingi says, raising it in mock cheers, and Hongjoong just salutes him and shuts the door before the waterworks can start.
—
No one on the team says anything, but Seonghwa shows up to the cup ceremony with a ludicrously expensive new watch on.
Yunho swears up and down that he doesn't know anything, but Mingi has his suspicions.
—
1 month later
“I just… don’t think this is what Lord Stanley had in mind for our day with the Cup,” Yunho says nervously, darting glances towards the door where the stern man with white gloves in charge of keeping the Stanley Cup safe is standing outside right now. The shiny silver monument is standing erect at the foot of their bed right now, lending a real momentous feeling to what is otherwise a normal Sunday afternoon.
“Shh, don’t worry about him, babe,” Mingi says, stroking small circles around Yunho’s knee. He pulls at the tie around his bathrobe, shucking it off his shoulders, relishing the way Yunho’s eyes go round.
“Don’t you wanna hoist this pair of cups?” Mingi winks, nudging the lacy balconette his associate at Agent Provocateur picked out for him.
He doesn’t even get the chance to laugh at his own joke before Yunho is on him, burying any nerves about, ahem, doing it before Lord Stanley.
Mingi can’t walk for three days, and he’s pretty sure the Cup Keeper is permanently traumatised, but it’s totally worth it.
Yunho seems to think so, anyways.