HM

His fingers curl around the glass and he knocks the drink down his throat. It slips and slides along his tongue, coiling hot around his throat, and his cheeks flush immediately. He gurgles, the heat balmy and heavy on his eyelids, and he taps his emptied shot glass upon the table, the sharp clatter asking for another dose of liquor.

"That's your sixth glass tonight and we've just run out," a voice says, the sound alike a gentle thrum against his ears. "Changmin-ah."

"Open another," replies Changmin, and he warms as he hears the rustle upon the carpet and he lifts his eyes to see Yunho sitting across him.

They sit cross-legged, a low wooden table between them, and his long legs enfold awkwardly underneath it and his thighs graze against splinters.

He watches as Yunho unscrews an oblong bottle, the rich brown slapping against the glass insides and sliding down thickly, and as Yunho twists a concentrated expression—eyes creased, small lines etched into his cheeks, lips scrunched—a soft giggle brushes against Changmin's throat and he has to blame it upon the alcohol.

Yunho fills their glasses once more, spilling artful drops upon the light wood because Yunho is almost as intoxicated as him and because, well, it's Yunho and Yunho just fumbles.

"So," begins Yunho, lifting his glass and letting his eyes rest upon Changmin. Changmin twists his frame, a little uncomfortable, as Yunho gazes at him both soft and burning: as gentle as in the moments when he cuts fruit and leaves some for Yunho, but igniting just as fiery as when they argue. It meanders and slides somewhere in between, and he's known Yunho for ten years but this reminds him of just how much he does not know of his friend.

He will say he knows everything of his friend, from the way Yunho folds shirts to the different smiles Yunho will curve for different faces, but he only knows Yunho as much as a friend can. Although he has the domesticity—he will never quite be family to Yunho; although he can tease and refrain from the honorific—he will never quite have a grasp upon Yunho or quite be an equal; although he has the intimacy and they've slept with naked chests together—he will never quite know what a lover knows. Changmin has had years with Yunho and knows what to expect—even likes that familiarity—but often, there are things that cleave and split the surface, things he's never known of Yunho: those things thrill Changmin.

And the tender, burning look Yunho plants upon him is one of those things.

"Will you miss me then?" Yunho asks.

The question pushes Changmin from his daze and there's a small pinch in his chest. As the harsh nip lingers in his breast, he recalls that Yunho is leaving in two days for his military service of twenty-one months.

Changmin averts the question and instead, says, "You had to go eventually."

Of course, there was a part of Changmin that considered doing his service as well—considered begging his seniors for it—but he must stay active to the public so Dong Bang Shin Gi doesn't fade quite as much as it already has.

Yunho gurgles with rum on his tongue and laughs quietly. "What will you do without me, Changmin?" It does take a small slice of humour, but underneath, it is genuinely a question and Changmin hears it.

"I'll be put in a couple dramas for a while, do a few duets, perhaps keep our group's name alive a little," he says plainly.

His heart turns a little at that, recalling that he previously said that in the aftermath of those three friends leaving, but now—grown up, with scars that are imbued in his flesh and wrinkles from screwing his face in tears—now, he only says it for Yunho and him: he only cares to keep him and Yunho alive. He's taken long enough to move on from that, and he warms at how the our he says only for Yunho slips from his mouth with ease now.

"But, you will miss me, right?"

There's a brush of uncertainty in Yunho's voice—how he often doubts that Changmin cares for him—and a heavy push of insecurity in the question. He doesn't need Yunho to worry about another friend missing him whilst in service, doesn't need to reiterate how lonely Yunho will become in his two years away, but Changmin feels the dread of Yunho leaving swell thick in his chest, so disarming and overflowing, he says,

"Of course—of course I will." That will be the last of it and Changmin means it, but he's not sure if Yunho will believe it—not sure if he wants him to. Changmin shoots another drink down his throat and nudges his glass forward for another.

Yunho smiles stupidly, gleeful at Changmin's reply, and fills his glass again.

For a while, they simply sit together, tipping heads back one after another as the liquid scorches their throats, and they each scrunch faces after each shot, the intensity wrenching their heads roughly for a moment before dissipating. The night is incredibly still and waits for their every movement.

Changmin gurgles, body swaying a little. "Why're you drinking so—so much tonight?"

Changmin has a high alcohol tolerance, but he knows Yunho needs no more than three shots to have him painting the walls with off-pitch singing and running around the apartment. Yunho has had eight shots and can no longer even pour their drinks, and simply traces the logo and begins to sound out the brand in torpid, deep syllables.

But, Yunho replies after a while, "Because I don't want you to leave."

The anger is quick in Changmin now, and he spits across the table, "Aren't you leaving me?"

Yunho shakes his head for a solid half-minute, head swaying with eyes closed and small smile, and it's something Changmin only finds cute for the first ten seconds. "No, I'm talking about now," Yunho corrects.

Changmin doesn't know what Yunho means, so he simply bangs his glass upon the table again.

His friend speaks again. "I like these moments, when it's just us. We hardly get these moments anymore. I want to keep it, like—like—"

"Stop," Changmin interjects, but he has nothing else to say.

Yunho continues anyway. "I want to keep it and tuck it right into the fridge, because then it'll stay alive there. You know, like take-away meals kept fresh in the fridge, or something."

Changmin thinks for a moment—not very well, at that—before he says, "We don't need a fridge," and he wonders if Yunho knows what he means. "We would never grow…" But Changmin can't quite muster up the words to finish.

"I like this, Changmin, I do," Yunho reaffirms, pressing his abdomen close to the table edge, and his hand stretches out across the wooden surface.

Changmin glares at the extended hand for a long while, lithe fingers and slim wrist and pillowy palm. Changmin will ruminate over what he doesn't have, but for this moment, he warms at what he does have—as Yunho will always leave an open palm for him, always be there to hold him. He decides not to ponder over the always. Changmin stares and stares at the hand, liquor still hot on his throat.

He finally reaches out and rests the back of his hand against Yunho's splayed palm, and Yunho's fingertips enfold around the edge of his hand slightly. Yunho holds him subtly, has this small folded hold upon him, and Changmin thinks it has always been like this.

Changmin has saved a small pocket in his heart for Yunho. He's already got pocketfuls of Yunho's brotherly friendship and more of Yunho's leadership and more of Yunho's care for him. But he's got one pocket that he's hidden away, one that he's never shown, one that asks to be filled with something Changmin knows he can't have. Some days the emptiness quivers within him and most of the time Changmin can turn from it with heavy eyes.

He's never looked at the women Yunho's loved with jealousy, but wonderment. Changmin knows Yunho loves him—drinks it up and even teases it—but he can only wonder what it would be like to wake up with Yunho's arms wrapped about him, or to kiss Yunho to shut him up, or to clasp his eyes with Yunho for hours. It's a small curiosity he's held too long for it to be mere curiosity. A selfish part of him knows that Yunho will come home to him at the end of the day, that he knows almost every thread that makes Yunho, but he knows one day he won't have any of that anymore. He'll eventually only have Yunho's stale toothbrush untouched by the sink and he'll have forgotten the rhythm of Yunho's laugh—to be reminded he never had Yunho's lips or heart in his hold.

Yunho drinks because he wants to hold this moment. Changmin drinks so he can forget it, so he doesn't have too many lovely moments with Yunho to miss later in life.

There are rare moments when the pocket protrudes more, and right now, with his hand nestled inside Yunho's and eyes softly embraced with Yunho's, the pocket billows wide in its emptiness. Changmin has built certain blur about Yunho, so he never quite sees Yunho with such striking lucidity that he might be pulled right into love. He smudges it all to push away his quiet flame of love for Yunho, because it flickers and flickers, insistent, but Changmin just can't.

But beyond the sharp scent of liquor and spray of cologne in the apartment, the smell of Yunho hushes into his face—sincere, musky, burning at the edges. His eyes fall upon his friend's face, because he realises he'll never quite grow tired of Yunho's jagged scar by his left eye or the ripe bow of his lips or the soft angles of his cheeks—and he flushes at the embarrassing thought even passing across his mind.

"I love all moments with you, Changmin."

Changmin says, so softly, "I do, too."

He leans a little closer into the air of Yunho, and the smell is both comforting and sends fresh frissons along his spine. Yunho is the only one to him that manifests both the familiar and the unfamiliar, and Changmin wonders what that means.

Yunho is leaning across the table too, and Changmin can now see the print of Yunho's clover mouth and the small flickers in his irises, and they're closer and closer, the warmth rushing and clasping him. The haze Changmin's so finely constructed around Yunho to push the flames down sharpens and clears, and it all falls away, and it's just Yunho. One of Yunho's hands pushes away the glasses between them and the other folded around Changmin's tugs him forward abruptly and—

Yunho kisses him.

He turns his head against Yunho's mouth and he's pulsing heavy with warmth. His hands are thick through Yunho's hair, pressing him closer and holding him. The silent air about them is touched by the their dry lips twisting, and it's Yunho who opens his mouth a little, capturing Changmin's lips between his own. Changmin's chest throbs so violently it aches, and his friend tastes of rum but with creamier wisps of Yunho and it's all he ever wants on his lips. Their mouths clasp with such ease, but with such heavy urgency, and Changmin thrums. The roll of his tongue brushes against Yunho's and the wet drag of their tongues weakens his limbs. One of Yunho's hands is enfolded around his neck and the other soft against his cheek. They breathe heavy and dense against one another's mouth: they breathe each other.

He's still madly intoxicated but a spike of clarity poleaxes right through him: Changmin loves Yunho, and that's it. He loves him in the way he wants to be able to enfold Yunho in his arms, in the way he wants to wake in the mornings with their sweat mixed, in the way he wants to be filled with innumerable pockets of Yunho's love.

They suckle one another's lips and make an artful mess of each other's hair, and delight lights Changmin up as Yunho's kisses are as desperate and breathy as his. He's kissed many women and two of his male friends before, but it's never quite been like this: Yunho's not the most skilled kisser he's had against his mouth but somehow, with his slow, thick slides and the way he presses into Changmin, Yunho is by far the best he's had.

He's unsure how long they kiss for, but time melds away and he knows this is a moment to be imbued in his mind and it whispers forever. His lips begin to throb in a bruise and he pushes because he wants to press his name right into Yunho.

Then, one of their elbows knock a shot glass, and the sound snaps loud in their ears. Both their eyes flash open, and suddenly it's odd to be holding Yunho and for their lips to be so close. Their limbs slip away: a hand untucking from an ear, enclosed hand releasing a neck, the brush of a thumb off a cheek. Uncertainty builds with pressure behind Changmin's throat and he opens his mouth to say nothing.

He still throbs, still has Yunho all over his lips and wound in his hair. Yunho's eyes are shot wide open, tresses of hair scattered over his forehead, and lips flushed a deep roseate.

Their heads turn away, in shame, and Yunho collects the glasses, folds the bottle of rum into his palm, and walks away to the kitchen. Changmin breaks a little within, and he lifts his legs out from under the table and his knees buckle as he paces to his room.

He collapses onto his bed, and listens all night for shuffles of sound around the apartment. Changmin perhaps even waits for the patter of footsteps outside his door, for the hesitant breath, for the metal twist of his doorknob, for the creak of the partition.

But, the night remains silent.

The next day, Changmin wakes up with a chilling air rushing through his chest and he remembers it all.

When he walks to the living room, Yunho sits there readily dressed and silent—handsome even if terribly cold to Changmin. He sincerely wishes Yunho didn't remember last night; he would be happily selfish to keep the night to himself. But, Yunho meets his eyes only barely and his voice is odd, and Changmin knows they're in a deep morass of shit.

It's Yunho's second last day and they've been scheduled to have a final performance and fan-meet for Yunho's farewell.

Changmin feels every thrill of performing sharpened and he can't help that his limbs move more impassioned as he remembers Yunho's mouth heavy against his, because it was either so terribly wrong or too right to kiss his friend. Yunho remains impeccable, grace in every glide across the stage. There is a moment in which they stand across from one another, shove each other a little and smirk, and they follow the choreography, but Yunho only touches him fleetingly and Changmin splays a hand on Yunho's chest for too long.

They later sit before the fans, thousands of heads with placards with bursting hearts and waving red light sticks. The two have the same banter, Yunho laughs the same way, and Changmin replies with the same curt, witty responses. But, it's only uncomfortable around the edges, as Yunho uses the same intimate appellations, like "Changminnie" but it has an odd inflection at the end—and he wonders if it's only him that notices.

They part with a soft "bye" and nothing more, as Yunho spends his second last night with his family. Changmin reads a novel that night but his eyes continue to run off the page and he wears himself out as he sits there with neck craned, and he sleeps early.

On Yunho's last day, Changmin wakes up pulsing with warmth, and he wonders if every morning will feel like it's been permeated with the glorious shame of Yunho's lips on his from a night before. He walks down the hallway to find Yunho's door closed, and figures that Yunho must have arrived early in the morning. He walks slow past his friend's door, and hears the intermittent shuffle of paper but he doesn't knock and enter. He walks to the kitchen and waits for his coffee to brew.

He stands against the kitchen counter, palm coiled around the warm mug, and perhaps he waits for Yunho to fly out from his room and ask Changmin to make him ginger tea. But Changmin finishes his whole cup alone, leaves it in the sink, and walks back to his room, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Moments after he's enclosed in his room, he hears Yunho's door burst open outside, and it hurts to know Yunho is avoiding him—on their last day together. It all pushes a little deeper as he remembers months before Yunho, exuberant, had exclaimed to him that he would spend his last day before service with Changmin. Changmin had not believed him then.

Changmin spends the entire day in his room, sometimes browsing the Internet, flicking through novels, calling a few friends, and at odd moments, just sitting, quiescent, and listening for Yunho around the apartment. He hears drawers sliding out, cupboards snapping open and shut, frantic steps around the floorboards. He assumes Yunho was packing and wonders if he should ask if his assistance is needed, but cowardice takes over and he remains huddled in his room like an intolerant, stubborn teenager.

Once evening comes, the shuffling around the house stops and Changmin exits his room with car keys wound in his fingers. He finds Yunho zipping up a large backpack, and Changmin says, "Ready?"

"Yeah, let's go," replies Yunho, still never looking at him closely, and he lugs his bag onto his shoulders, following Changmin out the door.

As Changmin drives, knuckles tense on the wheel, Yunho looks out the window for the entire trip. It's another moment where they're enclosed together in silence and only within each other's air, and as awkward as it is, the dread of no Yunho twenty-one months is sharp in Changmin's chest, so he cherishes the twenty minutes they have, the engine humming and odour of leather rough and Yunho just sliding above it all.

As his knees judder and tremors shake him within, a little anxious, Changmin still pulls in the air of Yunho whilst he can. It's the familiarity, it's the friendship, it's the comfort, it's the humour—it's Yunho he will miss, and he's not sure if he wants to let Yunho out of the vehicle. He wants to embrace Yunho, wants to kiss him in the backseat, wants to tell Yunho how he loves him a little—but instead, he says simply,

"Stay safe, hyung."

Yunho doesn't flinch, but turns to look at Changmin languidly. Gentle and placid, Yunho says, "You know I will."

Changmin slowly slides the car into a spot, and he leaves the engine to hum as they sit there for a good minute. Maybe he waits for Yunho to say, "Wait for me while I'm gone, won't you?" with a warm smile, or for Yunho to give him a final, disarming kiss, or even for himself to lean across and take Yunho's lips, hot and dirty, and say, "I'll be waiting, soldier,"—maybe he does wait for it.

Yunho hovers at the open car door, enormous backpack thrust on his back, and he ducks his head to look at Changmin.

"I'll see you then, Changmin," says his friend, voice deep and Changmin tells himself that he did not hear a crack in Yunho's throat.

"See you," he mirrors, and he bites his lip to swallow something pushing at his throat.

Yunho hesitates for a moment—pauses—and looks at him directly, and Changmin jolts as the last time they clasped each other's gaze so clearly was when they had their mouths together. Yunho looks for a good moment, and the air between them slows, until Yunho says quickly,

"I'll miss you."

And the door slams shut, and he watches Yunho disappear into the building. Changmin does not go in with his friend, does not watch him buy a ticket, does not wait for Yunho's bus with him, does not send Yunho off with a wave. No, Changmin simply pulls back onto the road and turns up the radio as he drives to the apartment.

Changmin swallows.

He doesn't think he'll miss Yunho too much, as he'll finally have the apartment to himself, with no stray shoes lying about or messily squeezed toothpaste tubes or milk lying about the counter.

Changmin swallows, throat tightening.

He doesn't think Yunho should miss him either, as he knows Yunho enjoys large groups of friends, and Changmin is only that single, staid friend of Yunho's.

Changmin swallows, a little deeper.

He doesn't think twenty-one months without Yunho tumbling about the house and in his life will be too bad.

Changmin's vehicle slips into the underground car park, the ignition abates, and the lanky boy inside cries.