Jisoo hasn’t painted in a long time. The light threads through his bangs still the same, long and getting longer—he lifts it up between two fingers. It’s getting in his eyes; he should ask Minjae to cut it.

  Minjae is the only one allowed to touch him these days.

  He’s still curled up like a cat in front of the window, too-sharp ankle bone pressed to too-thin thigh, and his knee digging into the hard point of his chin. He’s watching out the window on the day that Siyeon and Harin move in.

  Unlike him and Minjae, they’d actually brought some stuff. They use their young-guy muscles to get a ridiculous feathered two-seater up the stairs.

  “You’re not putting that in the living room,” Chaeyong bitches, ‘supervising’ the two of them while helping exactly not at all.

  “And why not?” Harin bristles.

  “We’re putting it in Harin’s room,” Siyeon grunts.

  They get it up the hairpin turn of the quarter nding with a minimal amount of huffing and groaning, and a big scuff on the wall. Chaeyong ends up helping them in the end, the big softie.

  Siyeon’s eyes light on Jisoo at the top of the stairs, a question in them.

  Chaeyong sps him on the shoulder, although not hard. Not mean.

  “Come on, I’ll show you where Harinnie is sleeping.”

  The ugly couch scoots its way down the hallway.

  Jisoo likes having the others around. Really, he does.

  It’s just that they feel so… close. Their breathing, their air and skin and bodies. It’s humid. Cloying. Custrophobic.

  It doesn’t actually matter one bit that they are currently all the way on the other side of the room from Jisoo.

  The loft that Chaeyong and Minjae had picked out for them is big. It has to be, to fit 5 king-sized egos. If they’re quiet now, they won’t be always. Their egos will expand to fill the space, ballooning out to choke them all.

  Siyeon and Harin look at each other, and then they look at Jisoo.

  “Hey, hyung,” Harin says, bouncing the ball against the floor. He bounces it away toward Siyeon, and Siyeon catches it. Dribbles. Doesn’t shoot.

  “Yeah, Rinnie?” Jisoo asks sweetly.

  He’s still sitting perched in the window, bare toes up on the sill. Harin doesn’t think he’s seen Jisoo anywhere else since they got here.

  He knows Jisoo goes with Minjae in the evenings. He can hear their quiet, low voices through the walls, saying things that Harin can’t even pick out and Siyeon tells him not to try—not to be rude—but he’s always awake long before Harin is, no matter how early Harin gets up.

  He’s always back at the window.

  It makes Harin feel weird, and it makes something unsettled twist low in his gut, shitty and worn out like a napkin.

  “You wanna come py with us?”

  This would maybe be more effective if Harin still had the ball in his hand, but he can still make his face super~ cute.

  “Ah, no thanks, Rinnie. Maybe ter.”

  He murmurs it like it’s too much effort to move his lips, and Harin hates it, hates it.

  Harin psters himself to Jisoo’s side, just like old times. He plucks at his arm and wheedles—

  —or at least, he meant to.

  But Jisoo is so obviously disgusted by having Harin touching him. He jolts so violently that Harin worries for a second that he’s gonna go out the window. The window actually rattles.

  “Whoa, hyungie? You okay?”

  Step back. Hands off. Hands up, like a surrender.

  Siyeon’s brows are furrowed, and he steps forward once, silently like he’s not sure if he’s gonna have to step in.

  Minjae sweeps in like a guardian angel. Or an avenging angel. It’s hard to tell with him, sometimes. Even with the maknaes.

  The look he gives Harin isn’t—quite—cold.

  “Can you guys go and find my heater? I thought we could do a chocote fountain tonight.”

  Harin’s brow furrows even further.

  “Sure,” Siyeon says, cutting in and stepping up. He collects Harin with a hand scooped around his arm. “Where’d you see it st?”

  “Ah, should be in with Chaeyong’s stuff, probably.”

  “Got it. C’mon, Harin.”

  And Harin is pulled bodily away.

  “Didn’t have to do that,” Jisoo says once they’re alone, Minjae’s hand already cupping his jaw. He huffs. “Not like they don’t already know we’re together. Unless you’re ashamed of me or something.”

  “Never,” Minjae says. “Don’t even joke like that.”

  “Sorry.”

  Minjae feels like crap as soon as he said it. How could he, when Jisoo barely even jokes at all anymore?

  “They still following us?” Jisoo asks.

  “Yeah. Probably.”

  Jisoo worries at his bottom lip with his thumb, rubbing back and forth over the thin skin until it starts to feel like rug burn. He nods, once.

  Then he huffs at the look on Minjae’s face. It’s not a nice noise, exactly. Raw. At himself. “C’mon, I’m not that bad, am I? Promise I’m not gonna freak out,” he murmurs.

  * * *

  So here’s the thing, they’d run away from home, all five of them.

  So here’s the thing, some of them had it worse at home than others.

  Minjae is so sweet to Jisoo, and Jisoo knows it. Treats him real nice, this captain-of-the-football-team, 6-foot-2 man who looks at him so heartbreakingly.

  And Jisoo just soaks it up like some kind of evil pnt. He can’t help it.

  “Jisoo wants me to fuck him tonight,” Minjae says, leaning in the doorway of Chaeyong’s single room.

  All the babies have gone to bed.

  “So?” Chaeyong asks, his face incredulous, noodles paused halfway to his mouth.

  He’s eating Cup Noodle at midnight, so sue him.

  The light from his Switch bres up from the ground. He’s got a big, soft fluffy bed—the best bed out of any of them, really, although the rest are no slouches—but of course he’s hanging out on the floor. Frank Ocean croons through the speakers, twining around the room.

  From here, it feels hard to believe that any of them could be on the run.

  He slurps them noodles up and raises his eyebrows disapprovingly at Minjae still standing there, hulking in his doorway. “So hurry up and go fuck your boyfriend, then. What’s this gotta do with me?”

  Minjae huffs. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  Chaeyong snorts. “Okay.”

  Minjae lets himself into Chaeyong’s room, flopping himself down on one of the cushions atop the retro shag rug, and Chaeyong doesn’t even try to kick him out.

  Whatever, now he’s within range for Chaeyong to prod at him with his foot. Muahaha. And he does. Digging his socked toes into Minjae’s middle—it’s rock hard as usual, no fat on him even though he hasn’t worked out in a year, the bastard.

  “So go fuck your not-boyfriend, then. What’re you doing in here with me?”

  “Doesn’t it remind you of high school?” Minjae suddenly says out of nowhere.

  He flops onto his back, his sleek bck hair spreading out like a pool of ink.

  “Kind of,” Chaeyong says. “Except if it was high school, Yuna would be yelling at me to turn the fucking music down.”

  “You should turn the music down.”

  Chaeyong flips him off.

  He lets Minjae have it—this whole ‘not talking about it’ thing.

  Minjae will tell him when he’s ready—or he won’t.

  “Found any work yet?” Minjae asks him.

  “Wooow, haven’t even been here a week, and you’re already on my ass to provide. Yes, dear. Didn’t know I married such a taskmaster.”

  Minjae huffs. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

  “I know.”

  Chaeyong reaches out and pushes the hair off Minjae’s forehead. The skin below is so clear and smooth.

  “I have a couple of auditions a little ter this month. That what you wanted to hear?”

  Minjae nods, closing his eyes like a cat and soaking in the feeling of Chaeyong holding back his hair. It’s really comfortable.

  “He doesn’t feel comfortable with me,” Minjae murmurs, still with his eyes squinted closed. He shifts on his side to face toward Chaeyong without looking. There’s still a worried look on his face. Always a little worrier, this one.

  “Minjae-ya…”

  “He doesn’t want to be alone with me, I can tell.”

  Minjae opens his eyes. Fuck, they really are pretty up close like this. All grey and shit. They make Chaeyong’s heart hurt.

  Minjae interrupts Chaeyong before he can say anything else. Sits up on his elbow so he doesn’t feel quite so horribly vulnerable— “Can you just come… be there with us? Be there for him.”

  Chaeyong ughs, and this time it sounds a little angry. A little incredulous. “You want me to watch you fuck him? Minnie, what—”

  “Yes,” Minjae says quickly. “Please. It’s selfish, I know it’s selfish. I don’t mind being a little selfish for him. So. Will you?”

  “What the fuck,” Chaeyong says, and then: “What the fuck.”