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“Shit.”
It was 1 a.m., Gally had yet to finish his project (which he hadn’t even started properly yet) and he was nearly dozing off on his desk. And the worst thing?
He was out of coffee.
There was no way he was going to finish this work without his usual reliable caffeine boost, which had saved his indolent ass too many times to count now.
He panically considered his options: he could either go ask the eccentric old Asian woman next door for some, or he could fail his Design class completely.
And so a minute later he stood facing the door of the flat next to his, twitching uncertainly. It was really late and he had never even exchanged a ‘hello’ with this woman before, what if she was some psycho lunatic who started yelling at him for waking her?
He chuckled at his own ludicrous thought, and rang the doorbell.
It was not a wrinkly old lady that opened the door.
It was a boy - or, rather, a young man - who did. He was wearing a tank top with pajama bottoms, yawning sleepily, his muscles flexing in his bronze arms as he stretched.
Gally felt hot all of a sudden; the view sent sparks of an electric something through him that both stilled him and made him feel dizzy.
All electricity disappeared, though, when the brawny boy eventually spoke.
“What the hell do you want?”
Gally blanched, tension returning to his body.
He wondered if it would have been easier if it had been an old woman.
“Uh, I was just…” the idea felt stupid all of a sudden, “I was wondering if you could… uh…lend me some coffee.”
“Lend you some coffee?” the boy looked curiously at Gally through sleepy eyes, and cocked his head to the side.
Gally thought he might actually collapse.
This dude was hot.
“Yeah…”
The Asian boy’s gaze fell to Gally’s lower half, and Gally could have sworn he saw a ghost of a smirk on the boy’s extraordinarily red lips. What…
“I will lend you some coffee,” the boy decided finally, seeming to compose himself from his little private humor. “And also a pair of pants, if you want.”
And then he burst out laughing; the sound a beautiful contrast to the eerie silence of the late night. (Or rather, early morning.)
Gally had forgotten to put on his pants.
“Oh my god! Oh my god, oh my god! Oh my god! I’m so sorry, I’ll just go…” Gally stammered, his hands uselessly trying to cover his front. He made a dash for his flat when-
The black haired boy grabbed the band of Gally’s boxers, smirking triumphantly.
He pulled Gally inside the house, all sleep forgotten, closing the door behind them.
Gally was soon pressed against a wall by the Asian boy’s front, and he was too shocked to move.
“What are you doing…”
“Shhh, babe, I’ll make you some coffee,” the boy whispered in a way that would have been exceedingly disturbing, had it not been so tainted with sleep.
And then he let Gally go, casually sauntering into the kitchen as if he hadn’t just let a random trouserless stranger into his house at this ungodly hour.
Gally almost missed the warmth of the boy’s body against his.
“Do you take sugar?” the boy called to Gally – the blond was still being supported by the wall – who was very confused indeed at the turn of events.
“No, and I don’t take milk, either,” Gally managed in time, hesitantly still.
“What the fuck kind of person doesn’t take milk in their coffee?” Minho asked as casually as humanly possible - as if they had known each other forever.
“Uh… random strangers who turn up at their neighbors’ houses at absurd hours to ask for some?” Gally suggested.
“Makes sense.”
“Mmm.”
...
“You can sit down, y’ know,” the black haired boy added after a while, voice significantly more awake now, softer.
“How do you know I’m standing?”
“I’ve got eyes on the back of my head, that’s how,” the boy rolled his eyes, reappearing with a steaming brown mug in both hands. He handed one to Gally and seated himself on the couch, his eyebrows raised at the blond until he sighed and followed.
“I thought that weird old lady lived here,” Gally stated, trying to make conversation.
What else could he do? This was a new thing for him.
““That weird old lady” is my mother, and she comes to check on me every once in a while. Her baby, living alone and unfed and all. Quite annoying, to be honest,” the boy said, his tone betraying his words for it was fond and filled with care.
Gally smiled, unable to help himself. “I see.”
A pause.
“So.”
“So?”
“So, Blondie, what noise should I make to get your attention?”
“Huh?”
“What is your name.”
“Oh. Oh! It’s, uh… Gally. Yeah. Galileo Brooks,” the boy winced at his first name, he hated it. “Yeah, as in the great Galileo person. My mum loved him, for some reason. What’s yours?”
“Minho. Minho Park,” the boy properly smiled for the first time.
“Well, hello there, mean hoe,” Gally teased playfully, and Minho made a face at him in response, and it felt as if they were back in second grade.
“Where’s your mom, anyway?” Minho asked, setting down his empty cup on the glass table and all but melting on the couch for comfort. Gally had never been so jealous of furniture before.
What the fuck Gally, his subconscious sounded amused.
“My mom… uh… my mom, she… kicked me out. ‘Disowned’ me. I don’t really have a mother right now.”
“What?!” Minho sat up again, his eyes wide. “Wha-”
“Yeah. Calm down, dude. It was because of my sexuality.”
Gally said it so plainly, so matter-of-factly that even Minho had to do a double take to know what he was talking about wasn’t actually wrong.
It was quite self-explanatory, though.
“I’m sorry,” Gally said quietly, voice laced with guilt. Minho didn’t speak for a long time. When he finally looked back up, his eyes flashed with some emotion Gally couldn’t fathom, and he shook his head.
“No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked,” Minho’s face flushed as if apologies were a new thing to him.
“It’s okay, I’m over it now,” Gally shrugged, trying to lighten the atmosphere, "Ben and Newt helped me loads.”
Minho nodded, though he had felt a pang of – of something – when Gally had mentioned his helpers’ names.
Something that angered him because it hadn’t been him who had helped Gally, comforted him, cared for him.
And it felt strange because he’d known the guy for an hour at most.
“Are you close to them?” Minho asked in a strange voice. “Ben and Newt?”
“Yeah, they’re like brothers to me,” Gally smiled. Something inside Minho relaxed when Gally said ‘brothers’, though he would have never admitted it to himself. “I actually even had a thing with Ben before he…”
Gally trailed off, his voice abruptly croaky. His lips pressed together and his unfocused eyes stared at nothing in particular.
“What happened to him?” Minho urged, aware of just how heartless and pathetic he sounded.
But he had to know more about this guy.
This cute guy with crazy eyebrows and a chiseled face - who seemed to have forgotten, yet again, about his lack of clothing.
“He… got some sort of STD,” Gally smiled, a half-sane, spine-chilling smile that made Minho think of pain and hopelessness and loss and death.
“…I’m sorry.”
And Minho was. He was sorry. It seemed like everything he said hurt Gally in some way, hit a sensitive spot, and he didn’t want to do that. He reached out to put his hand on Gally’s, who flinched but didn’t pull away. He looked up at Minho, his dark eyes filled with emotion Minho couldn’t comprehend.
“Wow, this is embarrassing,” Gally chuckled after a while, wiping the side of his eyes with the hand Minho had been holding moments ago. Minho pulled his own hand back embarrassedly, blushing and hoping Gally wouldn’t see. “I think I’ll go now.”
“No, stay,” Minho replied instantly, then, realizing how his voice probably sounded, added, “I mean. If you want to. I don’t mind you. Being here, I mean. I… man, whatever. Just… you don’t have to go, okay?”
Gally was watching Minho, a strange sort of new affection for the flustered mess before him slowly spreading across his chest.
Gally repeated Minho’s action from a while ago, and took his hand.
“It’s okay, baby,” he winked. “I’ll stay with you, and try not to let any big scary monsters get you, okay?”
Minho stuck out his tongue at him, and the electricity was back in Gally’s body.
And Gally had seen enough of life to know what that meant.
Gally hadn’t felt like this for what seemed like forever, ever since Ben. Which made the experience seem all the more new, exciting.
***
That was the first night Minho and Gally fell asleep together, in a long series of them to come. Maybe even a forever.
Somehow they had ended up on a single sofa rather than the original two, and were curled up against each other, breathing the same air. Their two bodies made one bundle of human limbs that fit perfectly together like puzzle pieces.
Maybe soulmates were a thing, because Gally’s project lay forgotten.