Flowers and ink

Thirteen

Jisung entered Minho's house again, a place he was trying to avoid, helping Minho to his room.

As soon as he had Minho settled in his bed, he closed the door, ignoring the quiet whispers of the other asking him to stay as he made his way to the living room.

He couldn't leave entirely, he didn't want Minho alone in his house alone when he had drank this much, but he hated this.

Jisung sat on the couch, grabbing the blanket off the back of it and covering himself with it. As he stared at the dark ceiling, his brain was running a million miles per hour.

Why would Minho kiss him? Minho didn't want this, he'll wake up and regret everything and maybe he'll hate jisung for letting it happen. Did Minho have feelings for him and was just denying it because he didn't like soulmates? But that's not possible because Minho clearly wanted nothing to do with him past being maybe friends. Why did he like the kiss so much? Did HE like Minho? How would he be able to move past this if he and Minho still always saw each other?

He groaned and rolled over, trying to think of anything that wasn't the drunk man in the room down the hall. Eventually he must've drifted off without noticing because the next thing he knew he was waking up to Minho's door opening.

He sat up, looking over as Minho trudged to the kitchen, stopping to pet one of his kitties, the others were laying on the other side of the sofa jisung was sitting on.

He reached over a scooped one of them up, petting it in his lap as he realized he didn't know their names.

"Minho? How are you feeling?" He asked and Minho jumped slightly.

"Oh, like shit honestly," Minho replied, placing a hand over his heart to calm himself.

"Yeah you were pretty messed up last night, do you... remember any of it?" He asked and Minho shook his head.

"Not really," he shrugged and jisung contemplated not telling him for a moment, but he also knew that wasn't fair to Minho, that was the sort of secret you couldn't keep.

"You kissed me, at midnight, I didn't even realize it was you at first but after that I realized you were probably way too drunk and brought you home, I didn't want to leave in case you woke up sick or something, drunk people can like choke on their own vomit and die or something like that, gross but something you need to watch out for," jisung explained.

"Oh my god, I'm... I'm so sorry, I have no idea why I would do that... I'm so sorry," Minho muttered, looking as pale as a ghost.

"Don't worry about it, genuinely, it's behind us already I'd say, but... I think maybe this friends thing is a little too hard for us, I know there's probably no way for us to stop running into each other completely but this whole 'spending emotionally charged nights at each others houses' thing needs to stop, and maybe the only way for that is if we don't see each other anymore," jisung proposed.

"You're right, we can't keep doing this, thank you for taking me home and for being so transparent about last night, I really appreciate it," Minho said as jisung gathered his belongings and patted the cat on the end of the couch one last time before walking out.

He knew that this was what needed to happen but for some reason it still stung like a breakup as he wandered back to his shop.

He buried himself in orders, even though he wasn't even supposed to be open today, and then he got a text from Changbin.

I see your store lights on, you aren't supposed to be there today? What's wrong?

He sighed, apparently he was an open book when it came to his friends, so he packed up what he was working on and headed across the street.

Changbin smiled to see him, frowning slightly when he saw how tired jisung was.

"What's wrong sung?" He asked, gesturing to the other stool in the room.

"Minho kissed me last night, I helped him get home and stayed the night on the couch but I told him we shouldn't see each other anymore, being just friends is too hard," jisung explained.

"That really sucks man, I know how difficult everything has been for you with Minho, is there anything I can do to help?" He asked.

"Not that I know of... well maybe we could do that tattoo we talked about?" Jisung suggested.

"Hell yeah we can! Do you want to do it right now? Technically we aren't open right now either, I was just here to do some sketches in a good art environment, so we won't have to worry about any other clients," Changbin explained and jisung nodded.

He stripped his shirt off and laid on his stomach on the table, letting Changbin silently start doing things behind him.

Given that they had already decided on a design when they had first discussed doing the tattoo, it was mostly silent as Changbin prepped all of his things and got the stencil ready to transfer.

"Are you nervous?" Changbin asked as he laid the stencil, "torso and back tattoos can hurt pretty bad, especially for a first time tattoo."

"I know, I'm not nervous, I've got a really high pain tolerance, like break bones without noticing high, I'll be fine," jisung said.

"Wait... have you broken a bone and not noticed?" Changbin asked, his eyes wide.

"Yeah, my ankle in middle school, I walked home on it and everything and then my mom pointed out how big and swollen it was and we went to the hospital and I had broken it when I had tripped on the stairs at school," jisung said.

"Holy shit, but still either way let me know if it's too uncomfortable," Changbin said and jisung nodded, looking in the mirror to make sure the stencil placement was good.

"It's great," he said, laying back down.

"Alright then, let's get you started," Changbin said.