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the-conversation-pod · 2 months ago

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Fall and Winter 2024 Mailbag Grab Bag

AND WE'RE BACK!

Because we got bogged down in life stuff for the back half of the year, we built up more than a few questions in our inbox. Come listen to us talk about genre fatigue, our thoughts on the BL Bubble, and an hour-long discussion about sex scenes.

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00:00 - Welcome 00:01:15 - Introduction 00:02:10 - Inbox: Surprises of the Season 00:07:07 - Inbox: Does Categorization Matter? 00:11:42 - Inbox: BL Fatigue? 00:15:51 - Inbox: The BL Bubble 00:30:26 - Inbox: Sex On Screen 00:41:07 - Inbox: Fave Sex Scenes 00:51:24 - Inbox: Worst Sex Scenes 01:04:24 - Bonus Round: Best Sex in a Bad Show 01:06:54 - Inbox: Critical Philosophy 01:18:31 - Outro

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

00:01:15 Introduction

Ben

And we're back. It has been so long since we've been in the booth together. We are getting to our asks like a regular Tumblr blog—six months late.

NiNi

Sounds about right? Yep.

Ben

We appreciate all of you for being patient with us. It has been a very difficult half year for me and NiNi, but we did get your questions and we did answer them. So sit back and relax and I think we've got, like, an hour of answers for you guys.

NiNi

Almost two hours bestie.

Ben

Oh my God! It is what it is. Shan will be joining us for these, so you will get to enjoy her lovely voice and insights. We will see you in the questions.

00:02:33 - Inbox: Surprises of the Season

NiNi

Let's start with the inbox. Shan, you wanna take us in?

Shan

All right. First question today comes from @wen-kexing-apologist, and they write: “Which show was the biggest surprise, positive or negative, for you this season and what made it surprising?”

Ben

Biggest surprise positive is definitely Tadaima, Okaeri. I was not expecting to love an omegaverse project this much. I was not really expecting to love a show that relied heavily on a toddler to be one of my favorite shows, either. I had such a blast with that.

My biggest surprise negative… I think it's 23.5. I was not expecting that show to feel as disjointed as it was. I was not expecting Fon’s show to have the problems it was gonna have in it at all. I was not expecting perfect, but I was not expecting the confusion I felt from that show.

Ben

All right, Shan, biggest surprises of the season for you?

Shan

I'll start positive. I will shout out Unknown. I did not expect a high quality Taiwanese BL to fall out of the sky and it was quite a delight for me. That show gave me some proper brain rot for a while. I immediately went out and read the novel and I was super into the weekly discussions. That was a super positive experience, even though the end of the show was a little bit disappointing.

On the negative end, it was kind of a rough season [laugh], so there are so many I could talk about, but I wanna give a special spotlight to one of the most baffling shows I've ever seen in my life. It's called Love Is Like A Cat, and—

NiNi

[laughs] You watched that?!

Ben

Man.

Shan

[laughs] I did watch it, bestie! I did, I watched every single episode.

NiNi

Oh noooo.

Ben

Oh my…

Shan

So, Love Is Like A Cat was this Korean and Thai BL collaboration. It wasn't the first time that happened, but it was promoted as if it was gonna be kind of a big deal. I always watch Korean BL and I'm very interested in these cross-country collaborations so I went in, not necessarily expecting a show of all time, but thinking that it would be an interesting project that would maybe make some [laughs] interesting connections across those cultural traditions. No, that is not what happened.

I was baffled every single week of that show about what it thought it was doing and why. The basic premise is that this Thai actor is afraid of dogs and he has to, for career reasons, go on this reality show where he works at an animal shelter.

The thing about this show that is amazing is that they completely neglected the actual romance between the humans. There was never any point where you believed that these two people liked each other. But the love story between this actor and the dog that he was afraid of was [laughs] actually kind of touching?

NiNi

Oh no.

Shan

But also extremely poorly executed. One of the weirdest experiences of my life, I don't understand how that project got made. I can tell that the people who made it were similarly very disappointed with how it turned out because nobody promoted it. They really tried to release it as quietly as possible, and none of the actors in it talked about it.

One of the weirdest flops I have seen, just kind of a big what the fuck to me, like, how did that happen? How did this get made this way? Why was the story about the dog the best part of the show? It was a strange one.

Ben

I'm just gonna go watch the end of Homeward Bound instead.

[all laugh]

Shan

I do recommend, I think you'll be better off if you're looking for good dog content.

NiNi

Wasn't there a Vietnamese cat BL that like—

Ben

We're not gonna talk about it.

[NiNi laughs]

Shan

That one was also real fuckin’ weird. Choco Milk Shake did something cool, and then a lot of other people thought they could get in on that, and no, they cannot. They need to stop.

Ben

Speaking of Korean BL and surprise disappointments, Boys Be Brave is also my near second disappointment, because that was from the director who did Our Dating Sim. So I went into that one super positively disposed towards it and did not have a great time.

NiNi

Well for me, hmm, in terms of things that surprised me positively, even though Love is Better the Second Time Around did not end well, I still was quite surprised by how well the first two-thirds of it held up.

Negative surprise. Yeah. I gotta agree with Ben. It's definitely 23.5. I was anticipating this so much and I expected it to be good. And it just wasn't. And I don't want to say much more about it, ‘cause I think I said a lot about it on its own episode.

00:07:07 - Inbox: Does Categorization Matter?

NiNi

Okay, Shan, what's our next question?

Shan

Next question from @avorbl. How much has the categorization of My Strawberry Film as romance by Gaga, MDL, etc. influenced your reception and rating?

Ben

[laughs] This is such a shady fucking question.

NiNI

I have not watched this one so y'all have to tell me, why is it shady?

Ben

My Strawberry Film is the final outing from Drama Shower. In both seasons of Drama Shower I believe they attempted to do something original. The MBS team decided to do kind of like an indie coming of age type of film, but over the course of eight weeks, 23 minutes at a time… and it was boring as hell. What avor, I believe, is hinting at here is that they released it as a romance. The BL viewing audience is going to be invested in this boy’s closeted crush on his closest male friend and maybe navigating the drama of his friend having a crush on a mysterious girl who shows up. And then there's a second girl who has a crush on our gay boy and they have to sort all of this out.

There could have been some interesting stuff here, particularly because mystery girl might be queer? But, it's boring and it's moody in ways that film types like me can enjoy at a film festival, but not over the course of eight weeks. I don't mind a moody film that just hangs out in teenage malaise for a good 90 minutes. That can be an interesting emotional experience, but My Strawberry Film, being billed as a romance was extremely frustrating because none of the romances are really compelling and none of them succeed in a way that was interesting. It just was not what we thought we were signing up for, and because we were constantly out of alignment with it, it was a deeply unsatisfying experience.

I know Shan suffered through this with me. Shan, any commentary you wanna offer here?

Shan

I watch a lot of drama across all different genres. I can get down with a lot of different types of stories. So for me, the main problem with this show is not that it was miscategorized. The main problem with it is that it fucking sucked.

The entire thing is designed to leave you unsatisfied in a way that I don't actually think supported its themes or ultimately delivered a message that was aligned with it being hosted on a queer platform. There was a backstory with one of the characters’ mothers who had had these feelings for her female best friend that she thought were unrequited. She met a tragic end. She died. Later in the show we find out that her best friend regrets and did return her feelings.

So, in this show about everybody liking somebody who doesn't like them back and a bunch of one-sided loves that all end in failure, the only requited love story was with the dead person who was not alive to know that her love was requited. I don't know what the show was trying to say with that. But what they communicated with the way that the story played out was that being queer is lonely and miserable and destined to end in despair. And I found that just such an [laughs] offensive message in a show—

Ben

It sucked!

Shan

—that was part of Drama Shower. I was like, what the fuck is this? On top of all of that, it also was just so fucking boring. It was such a slog, but because it was part of Drama Shower, some of us hung in there trying to see what it was trying to do, trying to understand how it belonged in this line up of projects. I do not know what the person who created this was trying to say, or if they thought they were saying something different than what ultimately was communicated by their story, but I hated it. Blech.

Ben

And that's all we're gonna say about that. It was an ignoble end for a very cool project.

00:11:42 - Inbox: BL Fatigue?

Shan

Let me change moods. This is from @mynameisnotthepoint and they write “Hi. First of all, I really enjoyed the spring season of the podcast. My question is: because BL is so big now and many of us are experiencing fatigue with some of the stories being told, is there a type of premise or trope or genre in BL that you find yourself gravitating towards, and if so, why?”

Ben

I'm gonna unpack the question a little bit. I am not experiencing fatigue necessarily, with familiarity with BL, I'm experiencing fatigue with BL consistently ending on a shit note. [laughs] I just desperately need them to just take any premise that they're trying to tackle seriously and complete it within the expectations of the character motivations that they're committed to or, but hopefully and, the narrative that they're trying to set up. I just desperately need the shows to be good more often than they are. It is so frustrating that so many of these shows just veer off of whatever course that they try to set us on. Some of them for commercial reasons, some of them for “look how clever I am reasons.” I don't really know, I just really need these shows to stop shitting the bed and I would be less tired.

As for what I find myself gravitating towards, I am far more interested in queer life drama that also features romance than I am in queer romance in and of itself.

Shan, you watch too many dramas!

Shan

Mmm.

Ben

[laughs] What type of premise, trope, or genre are you drawn to in BL currently?

Shan

Similar to you, Ben, it's not really about the genre or the premise for me. I can watch a good story about just about anything. So for me, it's really not about what the concept is, it's about how it's executed. My great frustration right now with a lot of the BL I'm watching is I feel like the story is the lowest priority. So many of these shows are more about promoting something, whether that be an actor or a couple or a brand, more than they're about telling good stories. And that's where my frustration lies.

I will take anything you wanna throw at me. Give me all of your ideas. Give me all of your concepts. I will watch the same basic formulaic romcom eight billion times if you execute it well. I will also watch your super out there weird idea if you execute it well. For me it's just about the execution, so, I just really wanna see BL that cares about story. I wanna see BLs that understand that you need good writing to have a good story. That's where my hopes are right now for the genre.

Ben

NiNi, where are you sitting on this?

NiNi

I think I'm sittin’ in the corner with Shan. I am not somebody who gets fatigued by watching the same thing over and over if it's done really well. So, it's not a question of premises or tropes or genres fatiguing me. It's a question of things needing to be executed. On some level, I do enjoy rewriting [laughs] some of these shots in my head after the fact, especially if the premise was strong to begin with, but I am also kind of annoyed that I have to do it in my head and I don't get to see it on the screen.

So, what I find myself gravitating towards? Something that's well done and written all the way to the end. That would be nice. I just wanna tell everybody: stop trying to be surprising or water cooler worthy and just write a solid show.

00:15:51 - Inbox: The BL Bubble

Shan

Okay, next question! @troubled-mind writes: “I very much enjoy shows that exist in a so-called bubble, let's say Our Dating Sim, and those that firmly don't, like the brilliant Marahuyo Project. Still, I feel like there are cases of shows that want to have a cake and eat a cake in that regard. Keep things on the lighter side as if in a bubble, but also try tackling queer issues like homophobia and prejudice at the same time. This just doesn't sit right with me sometimes. So my question is: what do you think is the most challenging aspect for creators when they attempt to get outside the bubble? And what potential misdeeds would you still forgive and which are too much to overlook?”

NiNi

Ben, you wanna go first or last?

Ben

Probably last ‘cause I feel like I'm gonna go on a rant. [all laugh] We talked about this a lot on the show and I'm probably gonna rehash a lot. Before I dominate the conversation on this, I think I wanna get some of your reactions first, NiNi.

NiNi

Hmm, let's see, what is the most challenging aspect for creators when they attempt to get outside of the bubble? I think tone is a big part of it. I think that's probably the thing that suffers most with, especially creators who are accustomed to working inside of the bubble, trying to either straddle it or work outside of it. They don't get the tone of what they're doing quite right. And it's not to say that it can't be, you know, light hearted or comedic or all of that. But it does, if you're going outside of the bubble, need to feel queer. And it doesn't always do that.

What potential misdeeds would I forgive? Ooh [laughs].

Ben

Be honest. Go ahead. You just thought of an answer right there. [Ben and Shan laugh] Just say it. Say it with your chest.

NiNi

No, I wouldn't actually forgive that. [laughs] I was thinking of something but then I was like, “No, really would you forgive that?” I'm like, no, no I wouldn’t and no, I haven't in the past.

What I won't forgive is getting the sex wrong. Like getting how queer people interact in a sexual way. Getting that wrong, I'm just like “Oh, what are you doing, you don't know what you're talking about, or you're trying to appeal to an audience this is not really for. Stop this, I don't like this.” When we're talking about BL in particular. There's a lot of penetrative sex talk and penetrative sex action that goes on and I'm just like, this is not where boys start. And whenever they start that way in a BL, especially one that's trying to be outside of the bubble. I'm like, no, this does not feel right. I don't like this. This is not correct. This is not how it would go. And it can just kind of lose any sense of authenticity that story may have had. I can't suspend my disbelief any longer, I just. I lose it.

What about you, Shan? What do you think about the challenging aspects and potential misdeeds?

Shan

I really agree with the point that you just made. In a narrative that is trying to be authentically queer, to be a little bit more rooted in a real world sensibility, not understanding how queer people actually engage with sex is a big immersion breaker, I guess? It kinda just pulls you out.

I think it's helpful to give a couple illustrative examples of, like, where we've seen this before. Bad Buddy is the quintessential bubble/not bubble show that actually did it very well. Bad Buddy exists in a world without homophobia, but they layered a very clear allegory for homophobia onto the story. And so you still had Pat and Pran having to deal with a lot of the very same issues that they would have had in a homophobic world because of this rift between their families and the unacceptability of their relationship. That's a very elegant way to tell a story where you don't have to get directly into homophobia, but you are still having the characters kind of experience the beats of homophobia in how it would affect their relationship.

And then you have a show like Only Boo that tried to also straddle this line and did it very poorly. They struggled with, I think to your earlier point, NiNi, tone a lot in wanting to have this kind of like, shiny, happy, fluffy show, but also have real stakes. And then wanting to just ignore those stakes and not deal with them whenever they got in the way. So there was a lot of conflicting information in the show about what mattered and what didn't. And it got in the way of the story ultimately, and derailed the main narrative.

When I think about what is challenging when you're trying to get outside the bubble, in Thai BL in particular, there is, I think, a dedication to keeping these stories relatively light and romance focused and wanting to always deliver happy endings. And that can often be very much in tension with trying to engage with the reality of homophobia. There is still a lot of cultural homophobia, and the shows that they make in the BL space have very intentionally skirted that for the most part, and so, trying to venture into that space, into getting a little bit more real, but then also maintaining that tone of the shiny happy place and making sure that everyone gets a happy ending can often be in tension. That's where shows like Only Boo kind of go off the rails and really struggle. If you're going to deal with homophobia, you have to actually deal with it, and it might mean that the authentic ending of your story is not a typical romance ending. And I think that's a really hard thing for most creators to do in a way that feels satisfying.

I think in terms of what I can forgive or not, I do want to give credit to the shows that try to get outside this bubble more, because they're trying to do something a little bit more difficult. I wanna give credit to these shows for attempting things that have a higher degree of difficulty, attempting to build an authentic romance narrative in a less than ideal world. But, there are certain things that you do have to make sure you get right. And for me it comes back to that narrative integrity piece. It's not that there are specific acts or specific endings that I can never accept under any circumstances. It's more that whatever happens in the story and whatever the resolutions are, they do need to feel like an authentic possibility that springs from the conflicts that the story introduced. And what breaks a show for me is when they introduce conflicts rooted in homophobia, that they then don't take seriously and just brush aside when they get too difficult to deal with. That is what breaks the fictional world immersion for me and makes the show feel like a failure.

Ben, please start your rant.

Ben

The issue when you go outside the bubble is people with money are trying to make money off of BL, which means they're just trying to make money off of romance tropes that they can produce as cheaply as possible to maximize the fan engagement and then monetize the actors into advertising deals and fan events afterwards. That's how the market for this functions.

The harsh way to say this is the audience is here for gay romance, they’re not here for gay drama. They don't actually care about the lives of queer people. They're just here to enjoy some romance and then go about their lives. This is not meant as a sort of chiding for the people who are in the genre for romance exclusively, but it is one of the major contributing factors for me for why we have this tension between those of us who are here for queer drama and often will bounce from romances that are just kind of schlocky, as a result.

@troubled-mind brought up Our Dating Sim. Our Dating Sim is what we might call a technically in the bubble show because they don't say the words gay in that show, but it doesn't feel like a bubble show to me because there's no rationale for any of the movements of that story that makes sense if either boy was straight and existed in a world without homophobia. That story only works if you read them as queer.

Dealing with this tension of, how do we get funding to tell stories? And then how do we balance the goals of the people with money, the audience that they think they're trying to reach, and maybe trying to tell the stories about queerness that matter to us? It's expensive to pay people and hire people to be on these sets, and it's hard to get the distribution deals you need because of some of the rules and such. It's a niche genre. What's, like, a very specific appeal. It does not get a lot of engagement and if the margins are that thin, we're not gonna see bravery that often in this, because how does that translate into dollars for them? Do people who want to sell juice and toothpaste and cars and motorcycles and stickers and chips want to put their products alongside biting social commentary? I don't know. Like, we're in a global backslide into fascism right now, and we can feel money drying up and organizations shutting down and former allies being quiet when we need them. It’s a rough time out here. It's hard when you're trying to juggle the goals of commercializing romance, the goals of commercializing pretty actors, and the goals of telling meaningful queer stories. It's very hard to really serve all of those goals really well. You can usually serve two of them, but not all three. It sucks!

What misdeeds would I forgive? Bad acting. The first thing I'm willing to forgive in a show that is really compelling is bad acting. Make It Right is the quintessential [laughs] example of that.

Shan

[laughs] No, don’t pick on my boys! [NiNi laughs]

Ben

Look.

Shan

They were so little! Leave them alone!

Ben

They were, they were.

What is too much for me to overlook? Like a specific blend of sexual violence, I think. It doesn't come up as often these days. But I was here in some of the early days where there was a lot of “I can't hold back anymore” stuff that's not very pleasant to engage with. That's one that I just do not enjoy.

Shan

I feel like you also tend to get particularly angry with shows when it feels like they steered away from the more queer direction that they could have headed in.

Ben

That's a good point. Let me define that properly 'cause I did get a little bit lost in my rant. There's a couple of key things, I think, that are at the heart of queer storytelling for me. One is being othered and recognizing that in yourself often times before other people, or immediately after someone else clocks it. Like, a big part of being queer is being queer, literally weird! You are not in step with the developmental progression that a lot of other people around you are on. There is something different about you. And it makes you feel separate from others as a result. If I don't feel that from at least one of the characters, I don't always feel like I connect to them. Another thing is if they're not out, why are they not out? Because part of why you stay in the closet is because you are terrified of the massive social and economic changes you're about to face as a result of being out.

Those are probably the two key things. It has to be the sense of being othered and the real concern about not fitting in and possibly being discarded.

Shan

That was a great question.

Ben

Thank you for humoring my rant, NiNi and Shan.

[Ben and Shan laugh]

Shan

I don't know how much of that you all will get to hear, but it was all amazing.

NiNi

One thing that Ben said that actually made me think what I could forgive. He said bad acting. Sometimes?

[Ben and NiNi laugh]

Shan

You can’t forgive bad acting, NiNi, I don’t think you ever—

[all laugh]

Ben

Hold on. Where's the tape? Hold on. Is this you?

[Ben and Shan laugh]

NiNi

Sometimes I will forgive bad acting.

Shan

Under certain conditions.

NiNi

Yeah, under certain conditions. Well, one thing I will definitely forgive is a certain level of production quality, I will find a way to enjoy low production quality if the story is good enough.

Shan

I agree. We try to meet a show where it's at. We really appreciate that some of these folks are out here tryin’ to make good queer stories on a shoestring budget, and we don't hold that against them.

Ben

We hold everything else against them. Looking real hard at you, Oxin Films.

[all laugh]

Shan

Oh my god, I don't wanna talk about Oxin Films.

NiNi

Yes, but also, My Dear Gangster Oppa. That’s all I'm gonna say.

Shan

Don't even try it!

Ben

Oh lord. Here we go again.

[all laugh]

NiNi

I'm sorry, I will be haunted by that orange scar makeup. Haunted.

Shan

Ben has quoted “quit the gangster life” at me twice in the last 24 hours.

Ben

It’s true.

NiNi

I mean, he's not wrong.

00:30:26 - Inbox: Sex On Screen

Shan

Let's go to the next question, which is quite a humdinger. So, this is long, strap in, folks. I'm going to read it all and then we'll come back and answer it piece by piece. @parralex0889 writes: “I'm reeling from being whelmed by the end of 4 Minutes, so I was thinking about the positives and I really enjoyed how sex was depicted and talked about in the series. Great gets picked up unexpectedly by Tyme, and when they get home, Great very pointedly pauses and says he needs to shower first and they potentially do a redo of that in the finale, as well. Tonkla, a character who openly asks for raw sex twice and eventually gets it. Great having his own condoms and no shame about it. I really enjoyed that these characters are allowed to have ownership and pride and desire and life and characterization through their sex and attraction. Even earlier in the year in Wandee—Wandee Goodday—there's a little moment when Cher exits the bathroom before going to bed with Yei, and to me, I could easily project a certain, ‘the water's running clean and I'm ready for action’ in Cher's movements. So to make this into a question or three, do y’all have any stand out ‘this is how real people engage in sex in reality,’ instead of the perfect TV sex that BL and BL-adjacent shows often lean into? Second, favorite BL sex scenes in general? Third, which sex scenes have been y’alls worst, either in execution or bad chemistry?”

So, that's the full question. Let me take this piece by piece that we can tackle all of. First of all, we haven't talked about 4 Minutes and Wandee Goodday specifically on the pod. So maybe we should just start there. Alex is suggesting that both of those shows were pretty good with their depictions of sex, and so maybe we should just talk a little bit about that first in our impressions.

NiNi

I mean, can I start with a liked it, hated it? [laughs]

Ben

Good. Go for it, girl!

[all laugh]

NiNi

I liked 4 Minutes more, I think, than you two did. The ending wasn't everything that I wanted, but I was still pretty satisfied with it. Wandee Goodday fell off the rails about, what? Halfway through and never got back on the rails, and I'm still pissed off when I think about it because it could have been so good. What was the reason?!

I had to get that off my spirit before I actually engaged with the question.

Ben

Hydrate, baby.

[NiNi and Shan laugh]

NiNi

But in terms of how the sex is depicted in these two, I liked how Wandee Goodday tackled sex in the beginning. How they tackled a friends with benefits relationship and how they tackled them having a sexual relationship and speaking openly about sex and the way that they enjoyed sex and the things that they wanted to do. I liked that they showed them having different kinds of sex. I liked that they joked about sex and they had a good time with it. When things started getting confusing for them emotionally, it still didn't stop them from having sex, which I liked because so often these shows treat sex and romance or sex and love as these separate entities that somehow sex is sex and love is love and somehow love and sex can't be intertwined in that way. And so that was the thing that I did enjoy about Wandee, the fact that they intertwined sex and fun, energetic, engaging sex and love, not just soft focus, tender touching, missionary. [laughs] And then it went off the rails, but not gonna dwell on that too much at this point.

4 Minutes is a different show. It's not so much about the relationship between these characters, and that's one of the reasons I think that I enjoyed it because I didn't see 4 Minutes as a romance or anything involving a romance. These two characters bumped into each other. They had sex, they got way too entangled because of a host of other reasons. Tonkla and Korn had a very interesting dynamic that involved, like, a lot of power dynamics that I feel like the show didn't entirely engage with and I would have liked to see more of. And then Tonka and Win and the way that they had sex also showed a lot of interesting power dynamics that were flipped from Tonkla and Korn’s, and I liked watching that, I liked seeing the show tackle sex sort of outside of the lens of love. So I did enjoy that about it. But to me, 4 Minutes was not about romance so the conversations about sex were in a completely different direction.

I am the sex and story girl. I'm the person who wants to see, like, what is the sex telling us about these characters and their relationship and their power dynamics and their, all these different things. And I got, like, a smorgasbord of that, I think in 4 Minutes. So I quite enjoyed how these two shows actually tackle sex.

Shan

I agree with that. I have many issues with 4 Minutes but none of them were about the use of sex [laughs] in the show. I thought that the show was very smart in how it used sex to inform character. I really appreciate when a show that is about hot young adult men who have sexual desire lets them actually have sex and doesn't put weird purity principles around the context in which they can do that. And so I just appreciated how real that felt. To Alex's point in the question, that they actually did address in some of those sex scenes actual important stuff like sexual health and the way things actually work and having to clean up and all of that stuff that is normally skipped over in romance. I thought they were pretty good about that and that was one of the aspects of the show that I liked a lot, despite thinking that the whole thing didn't hold together all that well.

Wandee Goodday I think a little bit less credit there, though I do appreciate that they acknowledged casual sex as a thing. I thought they also got a little weird about it in places where suddenly the two main characters stopped having sex for reasons that never made any sense to me whatsoever, but they eventually skipped over that, there was just a lot of weirdness in that show in general. But I do agree with NiNi's point about the way that they depicted sex as fun, and I think that's something we don't see enough. We don't see enough either of sex between committed couples and I thought that was a really great part of what Wandee Goodday did with Oyei and Cher, showed them as a long term happy couple that had a really active sex life and really enjoyed that aspect of their relationship together. We don't get to see much of that. I really appreciated that aspect of that show, despite really [laughs] sharing NiNi’s ire about the way that the story went.

NiNi

Bestie, I'm so mad.

Shan

Hee hee we’re gonna be mad forever about that. You have to understand, folks, that NiNi and I were so invested [laughs] in this show being good.

NiNi

So invested.

Shan

We were so excited for it and then when it went bad, it was just so disappointing. Ugh.

Ben, how about you?

Ben

It's difficult. I think I care oftentimes less about the physical mechanics of the sex when there's something interesting happening with the characters in the moment. I feel like I only really get caught up in the mechanics of some of the sexual stuff when they're fuckin’ up the story around it. I do like when the shows represent the kind of sex that guys are probably having with each other. Like I don't mind how much penetrative sex that they want to do if it's like Alex says, where, you see guys dealing with some of the physical preparatory realities of that.

Shan

Why don't we get into some of the other questions, ‘cause we're starting to get more into specifics. The next specific question that Alex asked is, “do we have any stand out ‘this is how real people engage in sex in reality,’ instead of the perfect TV sex that BL and BL-adjacent shows often lean into?”

Shout out to Alex for giving us this chance to talk about Knock Knock Boys!

Ben

Heeeey!

[all laugh]

Shan

‘Cause it is definitely the standout Asian BL of this year for what does sex look like in reality. There was an—what I consider iconic and was iconic to the tiny community of us who watched—this sex scene between the characters Almond and Latte, who were having sex for the first time, and it was just a great and funny and compassionate comedy of errors, of them trying to work through the awkwardness and find the right positions and get comfortable with each other. It was a very charming and funny scene. I haven't seen anything like that previously in BL. Usually they're very preoccupied with trying to make things look sexy. This was not sexy, but it was very loving and I thought that was such a great sex scene.

Ben

That sequence really does a great job of showing people, like, communing in the act and trying to take care of each other and deal with their nerves and all the other stuff that they bring to the table. I also liked the lead up to that where Almond talked to his friends about how he was feeling. It was nice that Thanwa and Peak also finally let go of a lot of stuff that was hanging over them and they were far more relaxed around each other for the rest of the show, clearly having a good time.

Shan

And I like the contrast, their characters are older. They're both sexually experienced, so, like, sex for them was a more relaxed affair all around. They weren't confused about what to do. Almond and Latte are younger. It was Almond’s very first time and it was Latte's first time with someone he was in love with, so they were more nervous.

NiNi

You know me, I'm always gonna go to the Philippines. The ones that really stand out to me, the Gameboys movie. I think that one felt very real.

Shan

Perf.

NiNi

The season 2 cut is a better version of the movie. And then there's a lot of these Filipino quarantine dramas that I think did really well. Quaranthings, Meet Me Outside got me into the headspace of yes, this is how something like this would go.

Ben

To finish off on Alex's question, none of these shows are ever going to have somebody talking about prep in a meaningful way that isn't like a quick line, like, nobody's going to make a booty water joke in these shows.

Shan

[laughs] So yeah, we can only get so close to reality in Asian BL, let’s not get unrealistic with our expectations.

Ben

They ain’t making that joke.

Shan

No. [laughs]

00:41:07 - Inbox: Fave Sex Scenes

Shan

All right. So let's transition to the next part of Alex's question, which is what are our favorite BL sex scenes in general?

NiNi

It's always gonna be, for me, Kinnporsche Episode 7 in the bathroom. The mutual masturbation scene. That's one of my favorites of all time.

Shan

Mmm. That’s a good one.

Ben

That's a good highlight. I have a lot of issues with Be On Cloud, that is not one of them.

Shan

Yeah, Be On Cloud is good at sex.

NiNi

I really liked the way that the scene is constructed and what it says about the characters and where they're at in the moment and how it evolves as it goes along emotionally, and then the fact that it is a mutual masturbation scene and not penetrative sex or an oral sex scene. Which is the most give and take that you can do simultaneously as two gay men. I think it was really good and it's one of my favorites.

Shan

There's some pretty decent examples of really good sex in the genre. I think in terms of other Thai BL, I would shout out the shows from MeMindY, which are made by a person whose name I will pronounce… May [MAME]. And—

[Ben and Shan laugh]

NiNi

Y'all, we got told we've been pronouncing it wrong, but we cannot make the mommy pun. I'm sorry. We just can't do it.

Shan

I'm not calling her mommy, I’m not doing it. So you're just gonna have to live with it.

So, what I love about her shows is, I think that they use sex very well both as part of the narrative and as part of characterization and as legitimately part of the romance arc. Her shows believe that couples who are in love also have hot sex, which might not sound that revolutionary, but is in this genre, believe me, because most shows only allow hot sex scenes between characters who are in a toxic relationship or characters who are about to break up. That is not true in her shows. You see hot, loving sex before and after relationships start. You see casual hot sex, you see committed, loving hot sex in her shows and she really stands apart on that, her shows do, in the genre, so it's something I definitely want to shout out. TharnType, Love in the Air, I thought Wedding Plan’s sex scenes were fantastic. They really allow you to see sex as just a normal part of the romance arc and not something that is separated out and othered in any kind of way.

Ben

We cannot overstate when it comes to the work she does, that in most cases her characters have the best sex after they get together. We don't see a sudden drop off after they get together.

Shan

Love Sea, which we just finished recently, was a great example of that. The sex got better as they got closer and as they fell more in love. And that's pretty common for the trajectories of her romances.

Another example that I'll bring up, and I did clear this already with Ben. You know it's coming, Ben, so brace yourself.

Ben

Let me just mute now. [Shan laughs]

NiNi

Oh God.

Shan

I think we can't talk about good sex in BL without talking about History 3: Make Our Days Count. Taiwan is known for very good intimacy scenes, and it is the pinnacle of what they can do when all cylinders are firing in terms of having sex scenes that are part of character, that are part of the narrative arc, that are part of the relationship development, and that are very well performed between actors with extremely good chemistry. Just all around fantastic and Make Our Days Count has the best sex scenes in Taiwanese BL. It's just true. There's controversy around that show, understandably. It's one of my favorites. I know a lot of people don't like it for very fair reasons, but the sex scenes in that show and its depiction of intimacy between people who are falling in love is just top notch.

NiNi

Man, Sunbo and Zhigang in the gym bathroom.

Shan

Hoo!

NiNi

Quality.

Shan

Bestie, I think about it all the time, still. It just comes into my mind and I'm like, ooh, yes, that happened!

NiNi

I mean, it's so much to it as well. The fact that it happens in the gym bathroom after hours, this, like, this feels like something that could really happen.

Shan

And we talk about Taiwanese BL and its style with sex scenes. It feels very raw, I think in a way that a lot of the more stylized shows don't. It hits harder because it feels like something that could really be happening, and it feels like it's the way that it would be happening.

Ben

There's great examples of that kind of intimacy in History 3: Trapped. There's the bandage kissing scene, which is one of the most intimate scenes we've had in a while. They don't actually have sex in that moment, but man is that one of the most charged scenes in that whole series. And then there's the birthday cake scene after Meng Shaofei’s been gone all day.

There's the We Best Love 2 scene that everybody has feelings about that I think is great!

Shan

I have so many feelings about it and they're all positive. I love that scene.

NiNi

I like that it transgresses the line because it's a discussable transgression of the line—

Ben

Exactly.

—and people who just dismiss it because of that, I think that you're missing out, honestly.

Ben

We’ll try not to spoil it because we know a lot you all haven't seen it.

Shan

And you should.

Ben

It's good.

Shan

You gotta watch We Best Love, both parts.

Ben

What are Sam and Yu doing right now, hold on.

[all laugh]

NiNi

And then, I'm always gonna have to bring this up. A non sex scene that feels like a sex scene is Teh and Oh-aew on the bedroom floor in I Told Sunset About You Episode 3.

Shan

Hoo! Scratching the back! Oooh, I've been transported. I'm gonna need a minute.

NiNi

I can't even bring it up without it entering my brain. It is so ingrained in there.

Ben

You want to know how good that scene is? I have basically memorized all of the trivia around that scene.

Shan

You know everything about how it was made.

Ben

Like they had to film it twice. They filmed the show and then during the edit process didn't like the version that they got and brought the boys back. And that was really stressful for them. They had to redo their homework again. There was a ton of pressure on them.

Shan

It came out amazing, so thank you for your service, everybody on those creative teams.

We obviously gotta talk about Japan here, too, because they are often pushing the envelope in BL on what kind of sex can be depicted on screen. Obviously, the Pornographer series is a prime example of using sex to inform character, to move narrative to tell us something about the relationship and where it is at every stage where we're seeing them engage in physical intimacy. The best sex scenes I have ever seen in a romance, still, in that series.

Ben

All the sex is complicated in that one too. Except for one that wasn't where I was so relieved. [laughs]

Shan

Yeah. The one you were waiting for. [laughs]

Ben

Literally, I watched The Novelist and we did the prequel in Mood Indigo. And I'm like, that's enough. [laughs] I’ve had enough!

[NiNi laughs]

Shan

That’s enough of this dark sex!

Ben

I had enough of this! I need Haruhiko to suck Rio’s dick right now. And within 15 minutes of the movie, that's exactly what happened. In a car! [laughs]

Shan

It was in the special, the 15 minute special. He finished Mood Indigo and he said “he needs to suck his dick right now.” I was like, bestie, hit play. [all laugh] It’s the first thing that happened!

NiNi

Oh my God.

Ben

I was like, Miki Koichiro understands me.

Shan

That series really understands how sex relates to the relationship arc and where the characters are emotionally, and it always got every single beat exactly right. There's a lot of crazy good sex scenes in that series. There’s a lot of wild sex. The one where the chemistry is the most off the charts is maybe one of the ones in Mood Indigo, but my favorite scene in that whole series, my favorite sex scene, is the one at the end of Playback, the movie.

Ben

Mmhmm.

Shan

It is the culmination of those character arcs, and it is so perfectly executed and they chose to not have it be a penetrative sex act. They chose to have it be a moment of very deep emotional intimacy, where hand jobs were exchanged. Ugh, it was just fucking perfect and I can't believe [voice gets intense] how many of you haven't watched it or haven't finished it because you couldn't find Playback! Please, come tell me if you need help. I will give it to you. You've gotta watch it.

NiNi

When Japan is on game, they're on game.

Shan

Right?

NiNi

I think about things like the Utsukushii Kare movie. I think about things like The End of the World With You.

Ben

That has some great scenes. From the same team that did The Novelist and Mood Indigo and Pornographer.

NiNi

For, like, a couple that we saw even this year, like, Love is Better the Second Time Around and Perfect Propose, I think also tackled sex really well. I think about The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese all the time, and that is a dark tale.

[Ben and NiNi laugh]

Shan

A dark tale that uses sex very well.

Ben

It does.

NiNi

I agree, I agree.

Ben

There’s a great one in Jack O’ Frost. The problem with a lot of the Japanese ones is, like, if you're seeing a great Japanese sex scene, the guys are probably about to break up. [Shan laughs] Unfortunately.

Shan

Except Pornographer!

Ben

Except Pornographer.

Shan

Watch. I'm not kidding!

NiNi

And not in The End of the World With You either, because the best one is the one in the car, and that's right before they get back together.

Shan

We owe him so much.

[NiNi laughs]

Ben

Let's put Grand Guignol in the conversation.

[Ben and Shan laugh]

Shan

Oh my God! We reality should, though.

Ben

Issei fucks Mr. Unlucky in that movie!

Shan

Oh, we lost it. Grand Guignol, if you don't know, it’s a horror BL movie, it's on GagaOOLala. If you have watched a lot of Japanese BL, you should absolutely watch it because you will be fucking delighted. [laughs] But, you know, all the usual warnings that come with a straight up horror film.

00:51:24 - Inbox: Worst Sex Scenes

Shan

Let's get to the last part of Alex's question. Which is, “which sex scenes have been y’all’s worst on execution or bad chemistry?”

NiNi

Hoo.

Ben

We have to acknowledge that despite the sheer volume of BL this current panel has watched, they actually don't have sex on screen in a lot of these shows. And so, there are things that I have, take more umbrage with in shows that didn't even have the sex. Like, as much as I love Make It Right, Peak was not a great actor at the time and was clearly nervous to be around Boom for the intimate scenes they had to do. That stands out.

NiNi

I feel like what it comes down to is, do the actors go for it or not, and for what quantity of go for it? There are always actors who’re gonna go for it and go too over the top and it doesn't feel genuine because they're not willing to sit in the moment. So they're goin’ hard, but it just feels like people smashing together. It doesn't feel like it's being acted.

Ben

List them, bestie!

Shan

Name names!

Ben

List them, bestie!

Shan

Name names!

NiNi

Let me finish my thought here. And then there are ones where it's too soft. You're telling me that these people have this welling up of emotion or sexual desire, whatever it is, and the way that they touch each other in those moments just does not feel like that. It does not feel desirous, it does not feel overwhelmed, it doesn't feel any of those things. It just feels robotic. Hate that. Basically, anything where I feel like the character of the scene does not match emotionally and physically, where the characters are, I don't enjoy. As actors, you've taken me out of the scene because I can't buy it anymore. I see the actor at that point, I see the actor hesitating. I don't see the character in the moment.

Shan

All right, name those names.

NiNi

[laughs] I was hoping I could get away from it.

Ben

No, no, ma'am.

Shan

The question was which scenes, you gotta at least name some shows.

NiNi

Y'all go first and I will come back around.

Shan

What about Playboyy, NiNi?

NiNi

[disgusted sound]

Shan

There you go. The gag sound says it all [laughs].

NiNi

There is literally nothing about Playboyy that I ever wanna think about again. Let's forget that that ever happened. And it could have been so good.

Shan

You think about your list. I have an answer to this.

Ben

Go ahead, bestie. Say what you need to say.

Shan

I did not live through Big Dragon and Sunset x Vibes to keep my mouth shut about this issue. I watched both of those shows!

NiNi

Why did you watch them, friend?

Shan

I'll tell you why. And listen, I have no beef with Mos and Bank. They seem like nice dudes. Great for them. I’m happy for them that they seem like they have good lives. They’re out there doing their thing, cool.

But I do have beef with their shows and I'll tell you why. Because both of these shows were marketed to me as if they were going to be mature, dark stories that involved a lot of actually sexy sex, and neither of them delivered on that promise! Big Dragon at least had some halfway decent sex scenes when it started, before it suddenly devolved into being random BL fluff right in the middle. It started as enemies hate fucking and then by episode 2 they were like actually, we're in love. And I was like, what the fuck? This is not what I was promised. So anyway, those sex scenes at least had a little bit of verve to them, even though the story was a mess.

Sunset x Vibes—and I have learned that that's how you're supposed to pronounce it, by the way—

NiNi

Nope.

Shan

Terrible. Just no, if you haven't watched this show, please don't. It’s not good. It is not worth your time. It is a mess and a half. The sex scenes in particular were so disappointing because first of all, they decided to do some weird blushing maiden stuff that felt like it had no business being in the story. Had no idea why they were doing that. And then on top of that, the sex scenes were not particularly tied to character or story. They didn't tell us anything really about who these people were or anything about their relationship. Were just inserted, almost like they were PPL—product placement—breaks. It's like, ope, time for a sex break! They didn't do anything in the story. They were not narratively important, and they also were just not well performed.

Again, I have no beef with these actors. There are many reasons why they might not have performed these sex scenes well, even though they have, in the past, done a better, or at least adequate, job at that. But these sex scenes were uncomfortable. They looked like they were filmed in a rush. There were strange edits in a lot of them. The kissing looked awkward, there were awkward angles being used. It was such a strange show, because it didn't deliver on story, it didn't deliver on the romance plot, it didn't deliver on the sex scenes. I had no idea what it was actually trying to do.

What I'm trying to get at here is that you can't just go out in the world and say, “Sexy BL coming your way, it’s gonna be amazing!” and then deliver this tepid garbage. The audience is not gonna stick around because you say that there are some explicit sex scenes that are poorly executed.

While we’re on the subject, we should mention that another Thai BL just tried this trick. Battle of the Writers suddenly taking a pause to re-edit their episode and put out the longest, most explicit sex scene by far in the show, in an attempt, it seems, to attract an audience back to the show and get people talking about it again. I think people did watch that sex scene. I don't think they watched the show, though.

Ben

We sure did.

NiNi

[laughs] With popcorn, rewound it and watched it again.

Shan

You can't just expect having NC-17 scenes in your show to carry it anymore. There is too much good content in the genre now. That was a rant, perhaps that you didn't ask for Alex, but that's my answer. Big Dragon and Sunset x Vibes failed on this test.

Ben

I am always the worst person to ask about these things, ‘cause if something's not good, I don't catalog it. I don't usually hold grudges against BL for being bad at sex and so, there's a lot of awkward sex scenes that I've forgotten. I don't remember really enjoying the sex scenes in shows like Nitiman because I don't even remember what happened. I remember just going, “hmm, that’s bad.” And I just moved on for my life at that point.

Of the things we talked about on this show this year, probably the like worst one™ was the one we dialed in on when we talked about Unknown. And that isn't because the actors weren't willing to execute the scene with each other, it's that whatever that they were coached into doing didn't translate well into what was edited together in the scene that we got. They didn't really build towards their sex in a way that completed the narrative arc they were on with the older brother. Those are the ones that I tend to remember more than like, “ooh, those actors were, like, biting each other's lips. What the hell?” None of that ever sticks with me ‘cause I watch too much. I’m just like whatever, shuffle on. Maybe like back in the day, you would probably be like What the Duck? because I do not remember the leads, doing a good job on that show at all.

NiNi

Ooh.

Shan

I still haven't watched that.

Ben

[singing cadence] You don't need to!

Shan

And I never, ever will.

[all laugh]

NiNi

I'm gonna go for a quote unquote safe choice ‘cause I just don't feel like having the girls come for me for coming for their boys.

Ben

Uh-uh. I wanna hear the answer. Speak the truth on this show.

Shan

I just trashed MosBank out loud!

Ben

Say what needs to be said.

NiNi

I'ma just lay it out here and the girls are gonna have to come for me. I'm sorry. I love First and Khaotung.

Shan

[excited gasp]

NiNi

They did one good sex scene in Only Friends. I don't think the rest of them were good.

Shan

Yes, bestie speak the truth! Let's speak truth to this powerful fan base!

[Shan and Ben laugh]

Ben

Yes! Kill ‘em, bestie.

Shan

Tell ‘em, say more!

NiNi

I have never enjoyed a JoongDunk sex scene.

Ben

I sure haven't!

NiNi

Nope.

[Ben and Shan laugh]

Shan

I still haven't watched any of their shows. I do not care.

NiNi

Mmm mm mm. And the third one, the safe one, is none of the sex scenes in Between Us were any good.

Ben

Mmm.

Shan

Ooh, okay. Expand on that. I feel like most people think the first couple episodes of that show are its saving grace because of the sex scenes.

NiNi

No, because I don't buy [Ben laughs] either of them really. It's the acting, it's the acting for me.

Shan

Okay. This is great, NiNi unleashed. I love it.

NiNi

Oh my God, I'm gonna get cancelled.

[Shan laughs]

Ben

Good, good. We deserve it.

Shan

Let’s let them try to cancel you. Let's let them try!

Ben

New Siwaj does get lucky sometimes and has actors who do okay together. The couple of times they've had decent bed scenes in his shows, like, I think the My Only 12% one was actually pretty decent.

NiNi

That was a decent one.

Shan

Santa and Earth have good chemistry.

NiNi

I think that the married sex scene in oh, God, what's that ForceBook one? Boss Baby!

Ben

A Boss and a Babe?

NiNi

I always call it Boss Baby. Yeah.

[all laugh]

Ben

Where's my Boss Baby tweet?!

Shan

[valley girl voice] Force and Book were so good in Boss Baby.

NiNi

Let me stop calling this Boss Baby. A Boss and a Babe. New Siwaj hits on one from time to time. Most of the time I don't like the way that he directs sex scenes, but My Only 12% one was good.

Ben

I had a lot of beef with Only Friends, but I do think the car scene between Force and Neo’s characters was still a little compelling sequence.

NiNi

Oh hell yeah.

Shan

In the whole show, that was the best sex scene. People were not ready for that conversation, but it's the truth.

Ben

Followed by the Neo and Mark scenes.

Shan

Yeah. Neo and Mark were good in that show.

NiNi

Because they went for it, but they didn't go for it in like a, “oh, we're going for it” way. They went for it in an actual acting way.

Ben

Yes, you can see them fucking with each other the whole time. Each one was trying to outdo the other one in each scene, and I was like all right guys, I get it. You’re both athletes.

Shan

It’s rare for GMMTV shows, I think, to deliver truly good sex scenes because there's just too much other nonsense getting in the way. But it does happen. I still think one of the best, it's not really a sex scene, I guess, but a prelude to sex scene is Pat and Pran in Episode 11 of Bad Buddy. They just nail the anticipation and the heat of it to the point you don't even have to see the actual sex to feel like you just saw a really good sex scene.

NiNi

That one, and the one night stand in Moonlight Chicken.

Shan

Yeah. That's another one where they just nailed the anticipatory tension that can also create a really memorable scene that doesn't actually have to explicitly depict anything. And I think that's maybe the thing to think about here. It's not just the fact of a scene being super explicit that actually makes it sexy, and a lot of times shows are putting out these scenes that, all they have going for them is that they're super explicit, but they're not nailing the emotions, not nailing the characters, they're not getting the chemistry and the movement and the heat right. And so it's all empty.

Ben

An example of one that had us in a lot of the early part of the sex scene, but maybe not all of it, is the Episode 4 Ghost Host Ghost House scene. That has really good build up tension.

Shan

The legs!

Ben

Another example, they don't actually have sex in the show—a lot of that was because of quarantine protocols again, in the Philippines—is the kiss that they have in Boys Lockdown. I think that has really good building tension to it because of the mask mandate at the time. And I think that carries a really specific gay layer to it that I thought was really compelling.

The problem is, 1, a lot of these shows don't have sex; 2, when they do have sex, a lot of it's kind of bad? The sex being bad isn't so stand out that we keep an ongoing list of grievances.

Shan

Speak for yourself, bestie, I got my grudges.

Ben

You're better at grudges than me. I'm too busy to be having grudges.

Shan

[laughs] I always got time.

Ben

Do not ask for my attention! It’s not good for you.

01:04:24 - Bonus Round: Best Sex in a Bad Show

Shan

NiNi, what question did you wanna ask?

NiNi

What is the best sex scene you've ever seen in a terrible show?

Ben

Oh, interesting.

Shan

Oh. Good sex in a bad show.

Ben

Can I be mean and just say Make Our Days Count? [laughs]

NiNi

[laughs] Oh my god, no you can't.

Ben

I’m still mad! I'll never not be mad.

Shan

You gotta think about an actual bad, like, a poorly made show that does sex well.

Ben

Why r u?

Shan

Yeah, I think that's the answer!

Ben

Not to be mean to the Why r u? team. Why r u? got crushed by the pandemic. Now, that show was probably not gonna be good anyway.

Shan

No.

Ben

But, it's not their fault that their set basically got shut down.

Shan

Yeah, that's a really good answer to that 'cause Saint and Zee, that was a moment. I still think about Saint sucking on Zee’s Adam’s apple all the time. [NiNi and Shan laugh] It's so memorable, and they had such good chemistry. That show is a trash fire, but boy.

Ben

There's also some really goofy montage of sex in Destiny Seeker. Shan got that far in.

Shan

I watched the whole thing! I watched all of Destiny Seeker. It was oddly charming. It wasn't a particularly good show, but like, there were aspects of charm to it, and they did well on the sex.

On that front, I would shout out City of Stars, which a lot of people I don't think have watched. It’s a show from this year, a Thai pulp, and I couldn't really say that it's a good show. The production values are low, it's got some green actors, but the sex was surprisingly great. Really well used in the narrative arc. Really well used in the relationship development and very enthusiastically performed.

Thank you, Alex, for getting us to rant about sex scenes in BL for over an hour.

[all laugh]

Ben

We needed it, get it out of our system.

Shan

We needed to get some things off our chest, clearly.

Ben

I'm gonna end on this particular note. We need to see more people behaving like the MeMindY team. This trend towards really chaste BL or BL that's only willing to use sex if it feels like it's leading into something negative is not satisfying. Especially when sex is part of your storytelling. Do better!

01:06:54 - Inbox: Critical Philosophy

NiNi

We've got a comment, really, that came into our inbox from user @cuntextual.

Shan

And I want to be clear that that’s C-U-N-T cuntextual.

Ben

Oh, yes. Classic Tumblr name. A+!

Shan

Props for a fantastic username. They write: “Just dropping by to say you guys make my life better. [Shan says “Aw”] I listen to all your episodes, even for those shows I haven't watched, and I can't understate how much The Conversation has taught me about media criticism and QL history. So thank you so much for all your hard work.”

Very nice comment. Thank you, cuntextual.

NiNi

Thank you so much for the comment, cuntextual, and we wanted to use it as a frame to talk a little bit about media criticism.

Ben

This is the first time I feel like the BL bubble has really popped. BL hasn't sucked this hard since 2018. A lot of people weren't in the streets with us in 2018. They have no memory of this. A lot of folks joined during COVID. 2019 was a really good year for BL. A lot of people's favs are from that year. 2020 was a good year despite the lockdown. ‘21 was a solid year. ‘22 was a solid year. I had a great time last year in ‘23 and I do not know [singsong voice] what's going on this year.

This is a good place for us to talk about, like, what is the role of a critic. For me, a critic is not a shill. It is not my goal or job to cheerlead shitty shows. My goal as a critic is to have a consistent lens and perspective from which I write that the listeners and readers can understand, so that when they're reading my takes they understand why I'm reacting the way I am. There are quite a few critics who I follow, who I often disagree with. But I like to read their perspectives because they're consistent. I know exactly where they're writing from, and that helps inform whether or not I might want to go see a movie in theaters or wait for it to come home.

So when I'm reacting to shows on this podcast and on my blog, I am not here as a fangirl for BL. I am here as a queer cinephile. And so I'm here reacting because I want more English speaking people to engage with what's happening in these various Asian communities. As a result, when shit is good, you will hear me screaming “this shit is good!” But you will also hear me saying “that shit is bad.” The critic's job is to communicate to the audience who's listening to them hy shit might be good or bad as a means of helping them decide what might be worth their time to engage with. Anything else is just motherfuckers sittin’ around chattin’ about nothing. And that is not what I'm about.

Shan

I agree with a lot of what Ben just said. I don't really think about media criticism as clearly as Ben does in terms of bringing people to the genre and trying to recommend shows. I do that sometimes, I definitely like to yell about it when I really like something. But for me, I get a lot of personal enjoyment and pleasure out of breaking down stories. How they work, what makes them good, what makes them not so good. I like to approach media through thinking about what the components of the story are and how they're working together. And I get, honestly, a lot out of thinking about and talking about shows that don't work that well because that helps me learn too.

So I don't really have stan loyalty to any show. I could start out loving a show, and if it goes off the rails for me, I'm going to say something about that and I'm going to try to unpack why and talk about it. Even if I really like an actor or a pair that's in a show, that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to think that their show is great. It’s great when that happens, but it often doesn't. And I really don't agree with the idea that the only way to support something is to cheerlead it uncritically. I've never agreed with that, that's just not how I interact with media. Bringing a lens of critique and taking the shows seriously and talking about them seriously is how I show respect and love to the media that I enjoy. I'm always gonna kind of show up that way when I'm interested in any kind of media that I'm watching.

We've talked a little bit about the shift that we've been feeling in the genre. This is not new, it's just maybe the level of intensity feels like it's shifting towards commercialization and just selling product as the primary motive for most of these shows. And has very much crowded out the motive around good storytelling in a lot of cases. That has been the shift that I have most keenly felt. And that has particularly been very pronounced for me in Thai BL. I don't know if that's actually a uniquely Thai media thing. It might just be that that's where most BL still sits. Thai production companies produce vastly more BL than any other BL producing countries at present.

One of the things that I noticed that I was talking with Twig about is that there has been a real dearth of high quality content coming out of other countries besides Thailand. In Korean BL, we have had a significant reduction in output, not necessarily in the number of shows, but in the quality and length of shows that we've been getting, significantly less this year than in the previous couple years. We've gotten fewer good shows from Taiwan. Japan actually, conversely has been producing more BL, but with a steep increase in output there has not been as consistent of a quality, and so we're now getting Japanese BLs that let us down in ways that we're not used to happening with Japan.

It's felt a little bit like a transitional year to me, and this last few months in particular I think there have been a confluence of shows that have started really strong and then gone off the rails. That always feels really frustrating to me because I hate to get invested in something that then lets me down. That's way worse to me than something being just kind of bad from the start, from the whole way through. I'm still happy to be engaging with the genre so much. I'll keep doing it in the way that I always have, and I'm just hopeful that we'll still get a decent ratio of shows that are interested in storytelling compared to some that are not.

NiNi

It's very interesting to hear you all talk about your critical philosophy. I'm kind of all over the map on this stuff. I enjoy watching the shows and talking about the shows and analyzing the shows, and I also enjoy letting some of the shows wash over me. I'm not a consistent critic. Sometimes I do feel like a show is more like me putting on my critical hat and wanting to look at it in terms of, okay, what is this technically doing? What is happening here? And then sometimes I don't want to do that with a show. Either it gets me in the heart place, a place where I don't feel like I either can or want to turn that lens on it. It comes down to me, for me, on what the show is doing for me. There are some shows which I can see are probably objectively not great but I'm enjoying the critical aspect of it because I get to puzzle out in my head. Okay, what exactly is not working here and really get into the integrity of it. There’s stuff that's not great that I don't wanna do that with because I'm just having such a good time. There's stuff that's good that I wanna put my critical hat on and there's stuff that's good that I don't wanna do that either. I'm really all over the map when it comes to the idea of a critical philosophy and it really just depends on the show.

One of the things about getting all this additional volume, all of these stories upon stories upon stories that are happening, is that the more we get, the more diverse and diffuse the audience gets, and I think that's maybe some of what's being struggled with, as well. There are still shows that we are all watching and all enjoying, but increasingly I feel like there are shows that are sort of, okay, this is speaking to this particular person or these one or two or this group of particular people and not this other group of people. Ben was talking about this when he was talking about Tadaima, Okaeri, that once all the people who weren't going to be interested in it faded away he had such a good time discussing it with the people who were there because they wanted to be there. I feel like this is something we talked about at the end of last year as well. The number of shows that is really a full fandom experience is shrinking every time, every season, every year, and things are getting more stratified, more diffuse, more separate. I don't necessarily know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. It’s just a thing that's happening.

There's always gonna be, at least I hope that there's always gonna be those shows that we are all really agreeing on. All enjoying all, like, yeah, this is knocking it out of the park on all the quadrants. The various quadrants that we hold there. And we can talk about them from that space of we are enjoying this for very different reasons, but we are all enjoying it. Rather than sort of talking across each other at cross purposes because we are either enjoying it for a reason that is exactly why another person is not enjoying it, if that makes sense? So that's kind of where I'm sitting right now. Yes, the fandom experience is kind of separating into its little nooks, which is in some ways not as fun, 'cause there's not as many people to talk to about the show when you really like something. But, I hope that we're still gonna get stuff that's gonna let us all come together.

Ben

The hard part about being a critic this way is you have to be there for a lot of stuff. It's hard to do good critical work behind the zeitgeist. You need to be on the front lines with the viewers reacting in real time, like, that's the experience. And so you really want to be there for the shit that's going on. And it is disheartening as a viewer to start a show having a good time and then have your reactions become grumpier from week to week. It's not fun. It burns out the audience, too, like they're not having fun with that either. I don't want that to be the default expectation of the genre. That is not my goal when I start watching a show to rag on it, it's not how I want to spend my time.

I want this to be fun. [laughs] Truly. And I'd like for it to start being fun consistently again.

01:18:31 - Outro

Ben

Clearly we need to rein in questions from Alex. I feel like we spent 50 minutes talking about Alex.

NiNi

Alex got us talking about sex work over an hour. This is ridiculous.

Ben

I just want you all to know that I was silenced on this podcast and not everything I said was allowed to be aired.

NiNi

I mean some of the things that you said, bestie, were a little on the borderline.

Ben

Thank you all again for sending us in your questions. We do look forward to them and they often lead to really interesting discussions for us. If you're curious about more, our inbox will be open after we finish this current season.

NiNi

I mean, how much after are we talking about? I know I've gotten really bad at this. I gotta get better. Okay, we're gonna try to be better about this. Gonna try.

Ben

Like any other blog, we will get to your asks when we get to them.

NiNi

And yet we get to them. But we know that you love us and you will stay tuned and wait.

NiNi

And with that, we out. Say bye to the people Ben.

Ben

Peace!

31 notes · View notes

starlightkyeom · 1 month ago

Text

lost in the west | kmg

(where your best friend pretends to be your boyfriend for the holidays so you can avoid more nagging from your mother. except your whole family thought you were already dating)

pairing: mingyu x f!reader genre: fake dating (kind of), friends to lovers, holiday!au | fluff, smut, romance rating: explicit, minors do not interact word count: 18.1k warnings: eating, drinking, mentions of christmas and holiday celebrations, reference to mingyu being afraid of heights, some minor family dynamic issues, so much kissing, fingering, big dick!mingyu, sex (just plain old missionary), i think that's it

author's note: thank you to the amazing @camandemstudios studios for hosting the winter with you collab! it's been so fun to be part of (even if i forgot for a second that i had to include sunrise sledding, but we're ignoring that). i'm sorry this is a little late as a holiday fic but sometimes life happens and inspiration just doesn't want to strike. i'm not even going to say it's longer than i intended because that's just my brand atp. this is largely unedited.

author's note 2: i think there's going to be an epilogue but idk when that will be possible

tag list: @vitaminkyeom, @tinyelfperson, @dokyeomkyeom, @miriamxsworld, @hongrizon, @klecksstorys, @gyuminusone, @aaniag, @straykidswhoo789, @kimseokgen, @haolistic, @vanishingboots, @babybae-shisui, @harry-the-pottypus, @pyeonghongrie, @nuttywastelandmentality, @writingbarnes, @tomodachiii, @gyuhao365, @jjin-kun, @divinityyy, @dibidibidismynameisleeknow, @tinkerbell460, @aidanjoon, @cookiearmy, @kaepjjangiya (join my taglist here)

“You’re bringing your boyfriend back with you, aren’t you?” your mom asks, which makes you look sharply toward the phone. It’s on speaker because you’re in the middle of folding laundry. Your best friend also looks over towards your phone with a grimace, which makes you wish it wasn’t on speaker.

The thing is…you haven’t told your mom that your ex and you broke up about two months ago. Didn’t want to deal with all the sighing and interrogation while you’re rushing to finish end of the year deadlines at work. Somehow, you know it’ll be your fault. Never mind the fact that he cheated on you in your own apartment. But, that’s another story. Your mother will say something about how you shouldn’t be so picky and everyone makes mistakes. Say that sometimes it’s not your most attractive trait that you’re dedicated to your job. Say that you’re not getting any younger and remind you how many of your friends from school are already married or even having kids of their own. That’s one reminder you don’t really need. You see it every time you aimlessly scroll through your feed. Or when you open the mail and see another wedding invitation.

You sigh. “Well, actually…”

“Oh, don’t tell me,” your mother says with her own sigh. “You broke it off with this one, too?”

“I’m not going to get into it with you,” you say, gentle but firm.

“I don’t understand what could have made you break it off. You said he was like your best friend,” she reminds you.

This earns an eye roll from one of your actual best friends, Mingyu. He takes over folding your clothes for you as something to do and as a way to speed up the whole process.

“Well, he’s not and I don’t see any reality where I will forgive him for what he did to me. So, let’s move on,” you say.

“Maybe that’s okay. You know, one of my friends has a son who’s single and I could just…” she starts.

“No, absolutely not,” you say. This causes Mingyu to stifle his laughter with a hand.

“I don’t understand what the harm in meeting him is. He seems very nice and you’re not exactly getting any younger,” she says.

There it is. The conversation always somehow ends up at the same point. You’re not getting any younger. All your parents’ friends have been planning weddings and getting grandchildren. They all seem to understand the importance of building a family. Why do you have to be so focused on what’s wrong with every person you date? Why are you too wrapped up in work? Your parents constantly remind you how you seem too wrapped up in the city life to realize what you’re missing.

“I just don’t think…” you start but then trail off when Mingyu starts waving at you to get your attention. He’s pointing at himself and mouthing something you can’t understand.

“I know you don’t think, but just…” your mom starts and you mute yourself so you can figure out what your best friend wants.

“What, Mingyu?” you ask, sharper than you intend.

“Take me back with you for the holidays,” he says.

“What?” you ask.

“Take me…” he starts.

“No, I heard you. What are you on about?” you ask.

“You can just feed your mom some line. Tell her you and I just started dating. It doesn’t matter. Anything to just get her off your case,” he says.

“I’m not…what is wrong with you? I’m not going to just fake date you like some weird holiday movie,” you argue.

“Okay, first of all, rude. Those movies aren’t weird, they’re great. And second of all, what do you have to lose? Your mom loves me and she’ll be thrilled to see me. I already know everyone that’ll be at the parties and dinners. My parents are out of the country visiting my sister and her new boyfriend for the holidays, so I was only going to my cousin’s as kind of a pity invite. It can’t possibly fail,” he says.

“There are a lot of ways it could fail, actually,” you point out.

“Wow, are you going to leave me stranded for the holidays? I’m already rethinking this relationship,” Mingyu says through a pout. “My own partner doesn’t even want to spend the holidays with me. Are you embarrassed to bring me around your family?”

“So what do you say?” comes your mom’s voice. You had been blocking it out while talking to Mingyu, yet it still catches your attention.

You quickly unmute yourself and look away from Mingyu. “I…actually can’t, Mom. I’m sort of seeing someone different, but it’s new so I wasn’t going to mention…”

“Oh, you already found someone new, that’s wonderful!” she exclaims.

You don’t have to look at Mingyu to know that he’s wearing a grin that’s entirely too satisfied. Even if he’s mostly kidding about being abandoned for Christmas, you know that it’s been bugging him that his parents decided to go abroad. You also know that he wouldn’t ever dream of inviting himself to tag long even if that’s what he wanted to do. He actually likes your family, sometimes more than you do.

“I’ll have to ask him if he’s willing to come with me, but…” you try to say before your mother cuts you off again.

“Tell him it simply wouldn’t be the holidays without him. I can’t wait to meet him. Oh, I’m going to tell your father. We may manage to get you married after all,” she says in seemingly one breath.

“I still haven’t…” you try again without any luck.

“I can’t wait to see you both! Love you!” she says.

“Love y-...” you say, but she’s already ended the call.

“I guess I have holiday plans after all,” Mingyu says and you fight the urge to throw a pillow at him.

“This is a terrible idea. I can’t pretend we’re dating,” you say and crinkle your nose.

“Oh, wow, have I offended your high standards?” he asks. “Should I remind you of your last two relationships?”

You do throw the pillow at him this time.

Despite all the questions from your parents about just who is coming home with you for the holidays, you insist that it needs to be a surprise. You definitely think that your parents will be surprised when they see Mingyu on their doorstep. Even though you only met Mingyu in college, the two of you have been nearly inseparable since then. He’s come with you to countless family events to keep you company, especially between other relationships. Your parents buy him Christmas presents every year and insist on video chatting with both of you on his birthdays. Your younger cousins ask when he’s going to be coming around again because they look up to him, both literally and figuratively. It’s kind of annoying sometimes because you wonder if they like him more than their own family member. But, you reason it away with them liking him for the same reasons that you do. He’s just so easy to be around, though they get more of his polite company attitude than you do. Around you, he’s much more relaxed and somehow more prone to pouting to get his way.

More unfortunately, the pout always seems to work on you. You pretend to be annoyed with it (well, it’s not always pretending, actually), but you give in every time. Which is fine when it’s just the two of you. It’s less fine when other friends are around because they all have smug looks. Convinced that you and him are end game and neither of you realizes yet. The worst, though, is when he slips into the pout mode around your family and you have to deal with the looks from your family members. It’s all worth it to have someone to act as a buffer, even if you’ll never tell him as much.

Before you get to that point of seeing your parents, you figure that you should stop by to see your childhood best friend first. Of course, he already knows the whole story with Mingyu and doesn’t seem entirely surprised. After all, he’s also known your mom nearly his whole life. Somehow you went from kids forced together when the parents hung out to adults that actually still genuinely love each other, which means he knows Mingyu well too. In his role as best friend, your current situation will not spare you from his teasing. That’s a role he’s happily embraced all your lives.

The smirk on his face is present as soon as he sees you and Mingyu walk into the coffee shop. Mingyu hasn’t even spotted him while he unwinds his scarf and heads to the counter to order drinks. You say you’re going over to sit with your friend and only then does Mingyu notice you’re not the first ones here.

“Hey Kwan, you good on your drink?” he calls.

“Yeah, thanks,” he calls back before his eyes turn on you like he’s got a secret.

You make your way over to his table and try not to react to the look he’s giving you. Typical Seungkwan looking like he’s about to burst with the latest gossip. Even when he knows exactly why you have Mingyu with you and even said, over text, he gets why you agreed. Ugh. You know better than to think he’ll let you live for even a second. Sometimes you think you need better friends.

“Has he gotten taller?” Seungkwan asks, casting his eyes over at your other friend.

“No, but for real,” you say with a laugh. “I swear, I see him constantly and I still feel like he’s getting taller.”

“Constantly, huh?” Seungkwan asks, raising an eyebrow.

“We’re best friends,” you say with a sigh.

“And what am I?” he asks.

“Also my best friend. There’s no rule on having only one,” you repeat for what feels like the hundredth time.

“Are you nervous to head back to your parents’ house?” he asks, entirely switching approaches.

It’s not your first rodeo, though. “Why should I be? They like Mingyu, at least, so there won’t be any of the awkwardness beyond explaining that we’re dating now.”

“Which probably isn’t going to come as a surprise to them,” Seungkwan says.

“I mean, why wouldn’t it be a surprise?” you ask before you clock the look on his face. “Oh, don’t tell me this is more of that bullshit about how often I bring him around. You know my family is insufferable if I have to deal with them alone.”

“No, I just know for a fact that they’ve wondered if you were dating him before,” Seungkwan says as Mingyu finally joins you with two coffees in hand.

“That would mean she would need to have good enough taste to date someone as great as me,” he says when he sets your coffee in front of you.

“I’m so torn,” Seungkwan admits. “I could insult her taste in relationships, which, love you babe, but really? Or I could insult you as not really being any better than anyone she’s dated.”

“That one gets us both, though?” you point out, only a little offended.

“Option two it is,” Seungkwan agrees.

“Okay, enough of that. Fill me in on everything before I have to walk into the lion’s den,” you say.

It’s always the same when you catch up with Seungkwan. He’s thriving even though he chose not to leave the area where you grew up. It’s not that big of an area, but he’s found opportunities. You just found those opportunities a little further away. Just far enough away that your mother can’t easily pop by unannounced. That lead time before she shows up is usually enough that you can mentally prepare.

Seungkwan, for his part, really does brighten up the entire space, when he’s not being a demon. He’s got that kind of shine that can’t even be dulled by staying in the same general area as his family. He’s also better at setting boundaries, which he gently reminds you again. He doesn’t need the space and preparation time of his family showing up at his place unannounced because they all know that’s not allowed. It’s not that you’re a pushover, it’s just that it feels different. Even your parents seem to respect Seungkwan more than you at times. You try not to let the cynicism of being a woman seep into those feelings. But, it’s hard. Harder still when Seungkwan gives you the sympathetic look like he wants to agree and knows it won’t really help anything. He’s always been that special brand of ally. The one that actually does want to help and understands the inherent privilege.

Unfortunately, Seungkwan and his family won’t be coming to the events that your parents have planned for the next week, though they’re always invited. They wanted to do something more focused on their family instead. It probably seems like something over the top to anyone on the outside. To you, it just seems normal. This is how your parents always handle the holidays and most events seem to take place at their house.

All too soon, Seungkwan says that he needs to get back to something and reminds you that you can’t put off going home any longer. You’re already getting dangerously close to what your mother considers late. It’s probably not the best idea to test her patience before the week even starts.

Mingyu takes care of getting you over to your parents house. Maybe fake dating him for a week won’t be so bad when he takes care of driving without asking and doesn’t even need an address. Since he also already knows your entire family, he doesn’t need help with getting gifts to bring with him. That includes both something to give them when you get there as well as actual Christmas gifts. You remember telling him that wasn’t necessary and remember the look of horror on his face when he asked what kind of fake boyfriend he would be if he forgot. Despite the weirdness of the situation, you also find yourself far more at peace than the last time you brought an actual partner home like this. Mingyu has seen you through a lot of ups and downs. Knows when to be serious and when to crack a little joke to break the tension, even if it’s something only for your ears.

That all disappears as soon as your mother greets you at the door with a look of genuine surprise on her face.

“Surprise,” you say. It seems a little redundant because she seems shocked. “You, uh, you remember Mingyu, right?”

“Of course, of course, come in out of the cold,” she says, recovering quickly as she steps out of the way. “Let me get your coats.”

“I know this is probably a bit of a surprise,” you start.

“It definitely is,” she agrees as she takes Mingyu’s and your coats. “Your father is just in the family room.”

“I figured it would be a good surprise,” you offer as you start to follow her into the house.

“No, of course it is. We adore Mingyu, you know that,” she says with a soft smile for Mingyu. She’s always loved him. “We just, well, we thought you and him had broken up…”

“Broken…what?” you ask, your own shock now matching your mother’s as you come to a complete halt.

Mingyu seems to just stay quiet through this entire exchange. You’re wondering why until you look over at him to see that he’s barely containing his laughter. Of course he would find this whole thing funny. Maybe he believes Seungkwan that your parents have wondered if you were dating him. Or maybe he’s just quicker on the uptake. Whatever it, it would be annoying if your brain wasn’t working overtime to try and catch up.

“Yes, you said you’d broken up with a boyfriend. Your father and I realized we hadn’t actually met the last person you dated and we just assumed, since you only mention Mingyu. Well, you said he was like your best friend and we knew it wasn’t Seungkwan. Mingyu only made sense,,” your mother says with a shrug.

“Mingyu! What are you doing here?” your father asks, rising from his seat to shake your best friend’s hand.

“Dating our daughter, apparently,” your mother says with a skeptical look.

“Oh, good! I’m glad you kids worked it out,” he says.

“Did…everyone just think I was dating…?” you start to ask, looking confusedly between your parents. “Mom, Dad, I was not dating Mingyu. We were only…”

“Friends?” your mother supplies through her heavy tone of disbelief.

“Yes,” you say, eyes wide and desperate looking to Mingyu for support.

“We really were just friends,” Mingyu says. “I mean, I guess not just friends. But, seeing her go through another heartbreak just made me realize that I didn’t want to see her go through something like that again. I guess it just made me realize how much I do care about her. So, I finally said something.”

There’s a lot that you can count on Mingyu for. Driving, having an endless supply of oversized hoodies to steal, a stocked kitchen, the best meals of your life, 2 am chats, support through break ups, hating the same people, being scared of his own shadow, a perpetual golden retriever energy, endless loyalty, and the list goes on. Something you never expect to count on Mingyu for, though? The lie that spills so easily from his lips to try and get your parents off your case. Sure, he knows just how much you struggle with your relationship with them. This is different, though. The lie sounds so sincere and his face looks so soft when he glances over at you.

“You know, it’s okay if you just got back together,” your mother says, looking between the two of you.

“Oh my god, that’s not what happened!” you say, throwing your hands up.

“Of course, dear, of course,” your father says.

“I should go take our suitcases upstairs. Am I just in the normal guest room?” he asks.

It’s both a deflection from the conversation and a valid question all rolled into one. Whatever the case, it does work for long enough to have your mother refocus her attention on Mingyu to answer. That gives you at least a second to catch your breath. Bringing Mingyu was supposed to give you a break from your parents. And it will, you think, but it’s also bringing up a lot that you hadn’t planned on. You wonder what Seungkwan will say when you tell him about the reception. Probably that he told you so.

“Oh, no dear. We planned to have you stay in our daughter’s old room with her,” your mother says.

Great. Now you’re in an entirely new spiral because, what? She has you and Mingyu staying in the same room where there is only one bed? You can’t remember the last time she was this relaxed with a partner you brought home, which brings up even more questions. Has this really been the plan? Or is only the plan now because of how much they like him? Is this just another way for them to try and nudge you into marriage?

“But, mom…” you start to protest.

“We’ve got a full house with family, dear,” she says as an explanation.

“I know where it is, I’ll just take the stuff up,” Mingyu offers.

“I can help,” you say as a way to get out of this whole thing and to talk to your friend.

“Pretty sure I’m strong enough to get some luggage upstairs,” he jokes and you roll your eyes.

“Why don’t you go up with him anyway? Then you can freshen up before dinner,” your mother says with a poorly disguised look at your slightly wrinkled clothing.

Mingyu insists on carrying the bigger suitcases upstairs on his own, but you grab the smaller bags you had in the car with you. Well, except for his backpack that he also stubbornly carries. You don’t need a personal demonstration, you already know that he’s strong. You also don’t need to hear your mother talking about how nice it is to have such a polite young man around like he hasn’t been around a million times before. Once you’re inside the room and behind a closed door, you round on your friend.

“What the hell was that?” you ask.

“Your mom actually letting you and a boyfriend stay in the same room? I don’t know. It’s crazy, right?” he asks.

“Not that, what was with you?” you ask.

“What do you mean?” he returns, looking up from his suitcase where he had been getting ready to unpack.

“That whole answer you gave my mom,” you say and he looks almost pitying.

“I have to make it believable, don’t I?” he asks like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “Otherwise, she won’t buy it and she’s going to try to set you up.”

“I guess that makes sense,” you concede.

“Kind of wild that they thought we’d been dating, though,” he adds on.

“Yeah, what was that?” you ask with more force than you mean.

He only shrugs. “I don’t know, they’re your parents.”

“Seungkwan said the same thing,” you remind him.

“About people thinking we’re dating?” he asks, eyes back on his suitcase.

“Yeah,” you say.

He only chuckles before he looks up. “Come on, that’s not the first time either. How many of our friends have thought the same thing?”

“They’re just fucking with us,” you disagree.

“And my ex?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Okay, well in my defense, she was insane. The whole idea that people of the opposite sex can’t be friends is an insane take,” you say.

“Yeah, I’m not exactly upset to be rid of her,” he agrees.

“Come on. We better hurry up and get back downstairs,” you say.

The rest of the day is somehow just as weird, but also comforting. As the rest of the family starts arriving, either to stay or just for dinner, you find out that most of your family thinks you’ve been dating Mingyu. Or that it was him that you broke up with and are now back together with. It’s hard to tell if it’s something coming from your parents or just a general vibe that the two of you give off. You can at least acknowledge that you didn’t talk about your last relationship much with your family. Hindsight is always clearer, but you still think you knew something was off in that relationship the whole time. Knew that he wasn’t destined to go the distance. Maybe that’s why the break up didn’t hurt that bad. Honestly, the worst part was thinking of facing your family alone for Christmas.

Mingyu saves you from that as he’s saved you countless times before.

That brings you to the more comforting part of the evening. You can’t tell if any of your family members actually buy that this is a new relationship. At least, none of them seem to think it’s fake. You can probably put up with it if they just think you’re lying about when you actually got together. That makes it all feel much easier. Then, there’s the fact that your entire family loves Mingyu. It’s the first time you can remember joining the dinner to kick off the family Christmas festivities in years. Your family takes the holidays very seriously and it’s Mingyu’s first time experiencing it like this. Yet, he slots right in with everything.

It also feels like he’s thought through this whole fake relationship in ways you didn’t. Sure, you talked about some of the ins and outs since this isn’t just a quick overnight trip. But, mostly, you just decide it’s easiest to keep it as close to the truth as possible. The friendship is so deep that there’s genuine love there. You don’t have to fake that. What you did not consider is physical affection. You’re not the kind of person that drapes yourself all over a partner, never have been. There’s a moment where you worry, as you watch your cousin and her fiancé, that you and Mingyu could be found out for not showing enough affection.

A few minutes later, you’re wishing he would be less affectionate. And you’re not even sure why you worried. The first thing you really learned about Mingyu was that he was incredibly physically affectionate. Tight hugs, random hand holding, an arm around your shoulder, a hand on your arm or leg. It’s all just par for the course with him. It’s gotten even more obvious now that he’s pretending to date you. It seems so innocuous, too. He’s got his hand on your thigh, giving the occasional squeeze, while he’s talking to someone else. He randomly plants a kiss on your temple. He leans over to whisper something to you on the pretense of being close and usually it’s nothing. You don’t even realize that it has most of your family giving each other knowing looks. Like they’re still not convinced you hadn’t been dating before.

By the time it’s late enough to go upstairs, you’re more than ready to have time away from your family. Every time you think that you’re social, your family is there to humble you. Or maybe it’s just that being around them is too draining. In any case, you and Mingyu head upstairs together. Thankfully, your parents house is big enough that it feels like there’s a little bit of privacy in your old bedroom.

“So, how’s this going to work?” Mingyu asks, glancing at the bed and then into the attached bathroom.

Okay, so maybe, even with how big the house is, you haven’t fully considered everything. You’re not really sure what to do. It shouldn’t be weird. You and Mingyu have shared a bed before. This just somehow feels intimate when your entire family thinks you’re sharing because you’re in a relationship and don’t know this is all pretend so you can have a little bit of peace for the holidays. Your gift to yourself. Shaking it all off, you turn to Mingyu.

“I mean, we’ve shared before. It’ll be fine,” you say.

“So are we not gonna talk about the last time we shared?” he asks with an eyebrow raised.

Racking your brain, you can’t really think of anything that would make him say that. Had something awkward happened? Did one of you do something that you should really remember? Just as you’re about to go into a full blown spiral, you feel Mingyu appear before you. He reaches out to smooth out the line between your eyebrows.

“Don’t hurt yourself there,” he says with a laugh. “You whined about me taking up too much space.”

“Oh my god,” you say and swat at him. “It was a tiny bed and you took up the entire thing! You can’t do this to me when I’m already wound tight over my family.”

“Sorry,” he says and throws up his hands. The sparkle in his eyes says that he’s anything but.

“I’m going to change and then start my skincare routine,” you say as you move to grab something to wear to bed.

Without even asking if you’re dressed, Mingyu comes into the bathroom to start doing his own skincare routine while you’re in there. He’s already changed into a t-shirt and shorts, which you know is more than he normally wears to bed. It’s somehow peaceful to go through your routines in silence like this. You consider that it might be in part because it forces him to be quiet. Not that you usually mind his chatter, it’s just that your brain is already tired from one night dealing with your family. You can’t imagine how the rest of the days are going to go and are thankful for the downtime when you’ll be able to get out of the house to do things.

Once you’re back in the bedroom, you both finish off all the little things you need to do. You plug in your phone after checking for any important notifications, grab the TV remote to fling it over to Mingyu, and slide under the covers. Usually you just kind of scroll before going to sleep or sometimes you’ll read. But, you think it might be weird to do those things when you’re sharing a bed with someone else.

“Do I need to make a pillow wall or something?” he asks as he’s flipping through to find something to watch.

Your head whips to the side to look at him. Even though it’s only his profile, you can see that he’s smirking. Purposefully not looking at you because he knows it’ll break the little composure he has. To deal with that, you whack him with a pillow.

“Just don’t drape your entire body over me,” you say.

“Why?” he asks and does turn to look at you now, wiggling his eyebrows. “Afraid it’ll be too close?”

“No, you fucking goober, you’re just heavy,” you say through a genuine laugh.

“How is this relationship ever going to work if we’re calling each other names?” he says, pretending to be heartbroken.

“Same way it has for like 8 years,” you joke back with a soft smile.

“Are you saying you love me?” he asks, hand on his heart. This is one of your favorite things about your friendship with Mingyu because he’s so dramatic that it takes your mind off everything else.

“I don’t know, I’m rethinking it,” you say and turn back to the TV.

“I love you too, you know,” he says, voice soft enough to make you turn back to him.

“I know, Gyu. I don’t think anyone else would put themselves through this for me, so thank you,” you say honestly.

He just shrugs and goes back to a lighter place. “Well, I didn’t have good holiday plans and who can say no to this level of entertainment?”

The next day actually gives you time to catch up with some of your family members more personally instead of everything being such big conversations. That’s especially true for your cousin, Mimi, who’s only two years younger than you and has always been your favorite of your cousins. Even if you go months without seeing each other, it always feels like no time passes. There’s just a level of closeness and understanding between the two of you. You can complain about your mothers since they’re sisters and honestly the same person, just in a different font. It’s easy to be on the same page about things as well.

You’re actually a little surprised to see that she’s here alone, even though you know she recently got out of a bad relationship. Somehow, it seems her mom is more understanding than your own. She was also much more honest about how the relationship fell apart after 3 years and her mom is sympathetic about it. When she says it like that, you understand. Your last few relationships have all been measured in months rather than years.

“You’re not, like, actually dating Mingyu though, are you?” she asks quietly when it’s just the two of you.

“Mimi,” you hiss and look around.

“We’re alone,” she assures you with a wave of her hand. “So, spill.”

“No,” you say hesitantly. “Why?”

“I’m just curious,” she says unconvincingly.

“He was with me when my mom was bugging me about the holidays and bringing someone with me. Then she was going to set me up, so he just offered…” you start.

“He was the one who suggested it?” she asks, far more curious than she should be.

“Yeah,” you say simply. “Again, why?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ve just always thought he was cute and I was wondering if he’s actually single.”

“You cannot hit on Mingyu,” you whisper through gritted teeth. She gives you a look you can’t place before brushing it off.

“Oh, I’m not saying I would. It’s just good to know I could,” she says.

“You can’t,” you remind her. “Everyone thinks we’re dating.”

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t do it anywhere anyone else could see,” she teases.

Of course, another of our cousins picks that moment to join you, so you can’t further chastise Mimi. It irritates you all the same though. How does she think it’s just fine to do something like that when you’re supposed to be in a fake relationship? Could she not just wait to hit on him until the rest of your family wasn’t watching with too much attention?

Normally, Mimi is a respite from the rest of your family. She’s one of the few people that you’re always completely honest with. Now, she’s taken that away. You try to go about the rest of the day with her knowing that the relationship is fake and she seems like she’s trying her best to get under your skin. Every part of you wants to stop her from chatting so much to Mingyu and you can’t. It would seem weird when everyone knows that you and your cousin are close. Weirder still when she always knows Mingyu relatively well from every other time he’s been to some family event.

When you excuse yourself up to your bedroom for a second away from your parents and their incessant hint dropping, Mingyu slips into the room just after you. Which is odd, considering you had not even seen him also slip away. The second odd thing comes when you look at his face. He looks more serious than usual, more tired. It doesn’t fully make sense because he’s incredibly social. Loves to be around people in the way all true extroverts do. Something must be wrong.

“Can I talk to you?” he asks after closing the door.

“You don’t ever have to ask,” you say with clear apprehension.

“Did you tell Mimi we weren’t actually dating?” he asks, still looking at you in a way you can’t place.

You exhale, thinking it’ll be nothing. “Oh, that, yeah. I’m sorry I didn’t mention it to you, I just…”

“Did you also tell her that I’m very single and she should go ahead and shoot her shot?” he asks and you stop short hearing that.

“I - what?” you ask.

“She just kind of cornered me and was laying it on super thick, but she said it was fine because she knows we’re not really dating and that you’d encouraged her to…” he starts and you immediately cut him off.

“What the actual fuck, Mimi?” you say in frustration.

“I mean, if you want me to…” he tries to start again, looking a little like a lost or kicked puppy. It makes you immediately close the space between you and him.

“Gyu, no. I did tell her that we weren’t actually dating, but I absolutely did not tell her it was okay to do any of that, let alone encourage it,” you say.

“So you don’t want me to flirt back?” he asks. He’s still looking Too Serious when he says it and you’re not really sure how to feel.

“Since we’re supposed to be dating, I’d prefer you didn’t. But, if you think she’s pretty it’s not like I can stop you,” you say noncommittally.

“Of course I think she’s pretty. You and your whole family are pretty. It’s like something in a TV show or some shit,” he says and this is a Mingyu you recognize because he’s rolling his eyes.

“Oh yeah, says the guy who looks like that,” you say and vaguely gesture at him.

“I…did you just compliment me?” he asks, totally off track from wherever he was going.

“That depends, did you compliment me first?” you deflect.

“You’re such a shithead,” he grumbles and you tsk at him.

“Now, now sweetheart, should we really be name calling?” you tease.

He fixes you with his attempt at an unimpressed stare, but he’s nowhere near as good at it as you are. Like every other time, he relents first. “I’ve probably told you how beautiful you are hundreds of times in our friendship.”

“Which I’ve always returned,” you lie.

“Be so for real. I have to pull most compliments out of you,” he says through a snort. When you open your mouth to protest, he cuts you off. “Most compliments that are not about my cooking, I should say.”

“People fall all over you,” you say with a good natured eye roll of your own. “Do you really need to hear me also say you could easily be a model?”

“Doesn’t hurt,” he mumbles through a pout.

“Oh, beautiful Mingyu,” you start, taking on the silliest voice you can muster. “You’re so pretty that I could cry. Your face breaks hearts every day, your smile lights up the room, your hair…”

“Okay, okay, enough,” he says even though he looks pleased.

“I cannot believe Mimi, though,” you say.

“I’m glad you’re not trying to push us together,” he admits.

“Why? Not interested?” you tease.

He answers seriously, though. “No. She’s pretty, sure, but no, I’m definitely not interested, even if I wasn’t pretending to date you.”

That honest answer strikes something in you. Not that honesty is unusual between the two of you. It just feels like there’s also an element of vulnerability in the response as well. Like he’s saying something that you just can’t quite decipher. You just brush aside for now, though, since there’s nothing else you really can do.

Mingyu, as it turns out, has one winter time tradition that he’s always wanted to try and never had the chance to do: sledding. He’s never lived in any place where it’s snowy enough or there’s enough free space. But, up here in the relative mountains where your parents live, sledding is a way of life. It’s something you’ve done countless times growing up with friends or family. Part of you is even a little thankful that he wants to do it, too. It’s been years since you’ve gone sledding and getting to see his face when you go for the first time feels special. Feels like something that’s just for you.

Which is why you’re up before the sun.

Last night, when you talked about sledding and getting an early start, Mingyu was on board. Now that it’s time to actually get up, you can see it written all over his face that he’s regretting every decision that’s ever led him to this moment. Like the true best friend that he is, though, he’s keeping the actual grumbling to a minimum. You’re not sure why you’re not also grumbling. You’re not a morning person. But, you’ve never gone sledding at sunrise either and something about it just seems like it’ll be magical. Like it really will make it an entirely new experience for you and him to share.

The house is quiet as you grab the bag of snow pants and winter jackets that you packed the night before from the closet in the entryway. Everything feels so peaceful in the house and just as still when you leave. Like even the soft sound of the door is too much while the whole world sleeps. You can hear the slight crunch under your feet as you trudge over to Mingyu’s car and take care not to be too loud getting in. Thank him again for driving when you know it’s way earlier than he wants to be awake. All he does is smile like there’s nowhere else in the world he would rather be.

The drive to the hill where you’re going to sled is quick and also tranquil. Even the music is soft like Mingyu is afraid of disrupting the peace. Or maybe you’re both just appreciating something different than the normal bustle of life in a city. It’s never this kind of quiet there and there’s something kind of beautiful about it. Even the parking lot is empty when you get to the small hill that you used to sled down as a kid. You’ve never seen it empty before. Then again, you’ve never been before the sun rose, either. Mingyu takes care to unload the sleds before you both bundle up. It’s not terribly cold, but you make him put on the waterproof gear anyway.

He stops at the bottom of the hill and looks towards the top. “We’re going all the way up there?”

You can hear a little bit of nerves in his voice. Mingyu has never been a fan of heights. This isn’t that high, though, and you nudge him playfully. Well, it doesn’t seem high to you. “I think you can manage. Come on.”

Climbing up to the top is always your least favorite part because it uses the most energy. Not that you mind the activity, it’s just a lot of work for a relatively short ride back down the hill on the sled. At least this hill has stairs built into the slope off to the side to help you. Once you’re at the top, you plop down with Mingyu right beside you. It’s less about catching your breath and more about appreciating the view. It seems like you can see for miles even though you’re not that high up. The sun starts to rise and you know it’s all worth it. All the shades of orange and pink stretch across the horizon as the sun makes its way over the distant mountains. There aren’t any words that come to mind to really capture how beautiful it is. The colors are more vibrant against the white of the snow all around you. Everything feels magnified in the quiet space. All either of you can do is utter out a soft wow to express your awe.

And then the quiet really is broken.

“Okay you expect me to slide down that on a piece of plastic?” he asks with a hint of panic in his voice.

You follow his gaze and look down the hill, because it really is only a hill. Not anything crazy. It always looks a little more intimidating from the top, but it isn’t anything all that high.

“Oh come on you giant baby,” you tease and nudge him. “We got all the way up here, how else are you going to get down?”

“Walk back down the stairs they so nicely provided?” he offers.

“That’s crazy,” you say.

“I’m afraid of heights!” he shouts, more panic in his voice.

“I know, Gyu,” you say, instantly softening as you approach him to put your hand on his arm.

“I didn’t really think this through,” he admits.

“Why did you agree to sledding down a hill?” you ask, genuinely curious.

He’s quiet for a moment as he looks out over vista before him. You watch as a calm comes back over him. The kind of calm that can only come from a setting as pretty as this one. Watch him take a couple steadying breaths. Even though you’ve been friends with Mingyu for years, you’ve never really seen his fear of heights firsthand. Couldn’t have imagined it would kick in for something as seemingly innocuous as a small sledding hill. Though, admittedly, it is a pretty decent size. It’s definitely not just the kind of hill people sled down in their backyards or local parks.

“Because I wanted to try sledding and do something new. And this hill seemed important to you,” he says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I’m not going to say no to something you ask me to do when you get that look in your eyes.”

“What look?” you ask to avoid considering a deeper meaning to his words.

“I don’t know. You get all starry eyed,” he says with a shrug.

“How about this? We can go down together and check it off the list. You don’t have to sled again,” you offer.

“We came all the way out here,” he says, unsure.

“And I got to see the prettiest sunrise of my life with my best friend beside me,” you say easily.

“Okay, okay. I can at least try,” he says.

You get up and send the smaller of the sleds down the hill without anyone on it in case you really only take the one ride. It would be a hassle to have to come back up and get it. Then, you position yourself on the bigger sled that’s meant for two people (or three kids sometimes when you were younger). Once you’re in place, you motion for Mingyu to settle in behind you. Point out where he can put his legs on either side of you, which already feels closer than normal even with how affectionate Mingyu can be. You adjust so that your back is pressed against his chest. It’s about the right balance to the sled so that you’re less likely to topple over on the way down. Mingyu has to crowd into your space to wrap his arms around your middle because he’s bigger than you are, something you hadn’t considered when suggesting this. You can almost tell that he’s considering burying his face in your hair, but stops short.

At least, until you push over the edge with a combination of wiggling and using your hands to push your forward. That’s when he buries his face. Then, you’re slowly picking up speed as you slide down the completely untouched snow. It’s always best like this, in your opinion. Before there are lanes carved into the snow. Yes, those lanes pack the snow down and can make you go faster, but you can also catch an edge and topple over more easily.

None of that is really on your mind once you start descending though. All you can think of is the way Mingyu’s body feels pressed against yours. How it’s very foreign but also very comforting. How you can understand why your whole family so easily believes that you’re together. The comfort is effortless, something you don’t ever think about. It just exists. You focus on how funny it is to have this giant of a man wrapped around you like a koala with his head buried in your hair now because he’s nervous. You don’t even consider any other way that it might make you feel. When you let out a squeal of delight as the sled picks up more speed, you feel, rather than hear, him grumble by the tickle of his breath in your hair. It only makes him cling more tightly to you.

It’s almost disappointing when you feel the sled level out at the bottom of the hill and slow down. It’s been the perfect way to relive one of the parts of your childhood that you loved the most. Getting to do silly little things like this really was one of the best parts of winter. You’re fully stopped before you realize that Mingyu is still clinging to you with everything he has. So, you carefully place a hand over his and feel him untense the tiniest bit.

“It’s okay, we made it to the bottom in one piece.”

Slowly, he loosens his grip on you and actually looks up. Again, you feel this rather than seeing it. You feel the absence of his body heat and only then realize just how tightly he was clinging to you. Mingyu pulls his face out of your hair and seems to look around, as if testing that you’re really at the bottom of the hill. Like he’s not sure it’s over that quickly.

“That wasn’t so bad.”

“No, it was a lot of fun.”

“Do you think…could we maybe go again?”

Both of you are standing up again now and it makes you whip your head around to look at him because you can’t believe this scaredy cat actually wants to go down again after how much it took to get him down the first time. His face is hopeful, though, and you’re not about to start saying no to that face now. Not when you never have before. So you match his smile.

“On one condition,” you finally say. Mingyu only looks at you like he’s waiting for you to continue. “You have to actually keep your eyes open this time.”

“You don’t know I had my eyes closed,” he insists with a pout.

“Gyu, your face was in my hair,” you say through a laugh.

“Okay, fine. Eyes open. But, I have my own condition, too,” he fires back, still kind of pouting.

“Yes?”

“I want to ride together again.”

It’s easy to agree to that. Even though you don’t say it out loud, it’s kind of fun riding with him, especially when the hill is so untouched. He’s tall and muscular, very helpful when it comes to carving a path and also picking up speed. He adds to the momentum and you like going faster. You don’t consider telling him that he wouldn’t go quite as fast without you because you would be losing on as well. It’s not a bad deal for either of you, really. Mingyu gets to work a little on a fear of heights on something much more manageable and you get to live out your best sled dreams.

Each run gets a little bit easier. Mingyu holds up his end of the bargain and actually opens his eyes, which is more entertaining to you than it probably should be as he curses all the way down that first run. But, he keeps wanting to go and you’re not going to stop him. Don’t realize that maybe he also keeps going because he loves to see the way your face lights up each run. Neither of you makes an effort to get the other sled again either.

By the time the sun is fully risen, yours and Mingyu’s cheeks are rosy from the cold. And also from the way you’ve taken to running back up the steps to the top like kids. You have to admit, even if it means he’ll get a big head, this is the most fun you’ve had in your hometown during the holidays in a long time. Honestly, it might actually be the most fun you’ve had anywhere in a while. It’s nice to get back to something simpler without worrying about anything else. Life can get busy back in the city between work and chores and endless responsibility. Sometimes it’s nice to just take a break from it all. Remember that there are more important things than just working all the time or being stressed about things you can’t really control. Maybe there’s something to simplifying life a bit.

Now that the sun is rising, it’s a more acceptable time for people to be out and about themselves. Kids can convince their parents to take them sledding as well. At the first sign of people approaching, you and Mingyu agree that it should be your last run. You’re starting to get a little tired and you know it’ll get loud. You don’t mind having the kids around, you just know it gets harder to avoid everyone and you have to wait longer between each run. Besides, you planned something post sledding as well. It catches you off guard that he actually seems a little sad to be leaving.

That is, until you take him to this little hole in the wall of a breakfast place. It’s something new because you’re not usually in this area when he comes with you to family events. Not that it’s far, it’s just a few towns over and there are closer places. Until winter comes around again and the elderly couple that runs the place roll out their secret recipe for hot cocoa. Honestly, you could probably just drink that without even ordering anything to eat and be the happiest person in the world. The food is amazing too, though, and you didn’t eat before leaving to go sledding. You and Mingyu order a few things to share and laugh all the way through it, talking about sledding and the trip so far.

“Thanks for this,” he says as breakfast is winding up.

You’re a little surprised at both his words and the gentleness of his tone. “For what?”

“Taking me sledding like this. That sunrise was amazing and I, well, I guess I didn’t think I’d have as much fun as I did,” he admits, a little more shy than you’re used to.

“I’m glad you trusted me,” you say and can’t quite place the look he gives you.

“I think I’d trust you with just about anything.”

The day before Christmas is always the same. By then, you’re in desperate need of a break from your family and you think they may be in need of a break from you as well. So, each year you get together with Seungkwan and some of your other friends that still live in the area. Anyone with a partner brings them along and you have a nice, boozy brunch. This year, Seungkwan is hosting because his place is spacious and the group seems a little bigger. It’s also nice to get to really spend some time at his place since he’s only been there a few months.

Typically, a few people in the friend group will bring over some pre-made things to warm up the next day as well as everyone bringing whatever they want to drink and share. That’s the same for this year with a slight change. Mingyu, once he sees the kitchen, says that he just has to make some food as well. After taking an inventory, he heads back out to buy more things that he needs, ignoring any of your protests and only agreeing to take your card so you can sort out the cost with your friends. (You’re not going to do that because you don’t mind just covering it, but you don’t want him to cover it either.)

When he gets back, he immediately goes into the kitchen and your friend Vernon’s girlfriend offers to help. She drags Seungkwan’s sister, who doesn’t usually come around, with her as well. Mingyu only leaves the kitchen long enough to bring you one of the mimosas that he made, insisting there’s a special ingredient. Then, it’s back to fully focusing on the food. Not that you really mind. It’s nice to just be in a low stress environment with your friends to catch up, have some drinks, and laugh a lot.

Vernon, after looking around to make sure nobody else is listening, shows you and Seungkwan the ring he’s been walking around with for the past few weeks. Apparently, he’s finally settled that he’s going to propose to his girlfriend tomorrow on Christmas Day. You’re thrilled because they’ve been together forever and she already feels like family. Seungkwan nearly bursts into tears, which you have to quickly cover so nobody realizes what’s happening. You love that your best friend is like that. It’s just not the time if you want to keep it a secret that Vernon wants to propose.

It also feels nice to be in a group where you don’t have to pretend. Nothing changes all that much for how you and Mingyu are together because he’s always affectionate with you. But, you get to trade any of the not-so-subtle comments about when you’re going to get married to the relentless teasing about how he passes as your boyfriend so easily. It’s nice to have someone joking about it and you find you don’t even mind. Especially when Mingyu chimes in with his own little comments from the kitchen. There seems like there’s a lot of laughter in there as well.

“You’re going to have to dress him better if he’s going to keep posing as your boyfriend,” Seungkwan jokes and you look over at the kitchen.

Mingyu is wearing this kind of awful green zip up sweater. It’s not even that nice, soft material. But, he insisted on wearing it because he wanted to wear something with Christmas colors and it was the only thing he had apart from his outfit for tomorrow. It makes you roll your eyes again remembering it.

“I know,” you sigh. “Usually he dresses so well and then there’s that.”

Your eyes drift back over to him in the kitchen again and you kind of wish you hadn’t looked back. You catch him as something falls off a spoon he’s using to taste test and onto his skin. And, without seeming to think about it, he sucks it off his hand. Then, licks along his finger for good measure. It makes your heart stutter a little in a way that’s completely foreign to you. Why are you so entirely transfixed by someone who’s supposed to be your best friend and fake boyfriend doing that?

“Hey, you good?” Seungkwan asks, snapping in front of your eyes.

You shake your head to clear it before turning back to him. “Yeah, sorry, zoned out for a second.”

“Uh huh,” he says skeptically, but you catch his eyes darting over to Mingyu.

“Don’t,” you warn him, causing him to throw his hands up in defense.

“I won’t,” he says. “But, if you decide you want to talk about it…”

“Talk about what?” Mingyu asks. You hadn’t even seen him leave the kitchen.

“The issue she’s having with Mimi,” Seungkwan lies quickly.

Mingyu rolls his eyes. “She won’t leave me alone.”

“And that seems to be driving both of you crazy,” Seungkwan observes.

“Well, yeah, our bestie is just being a good friend and she knows I’m uncomfortable,” Mingyu says before you can answer. Is that all it is? For the first time, you’re not sure.

“I’m not sure how I feel about sharing a best friend,” Seungkwan says with feigned distaste.

Mingyu tries to give The Look again, but fails even worse than with you. Nobody can outdo Seungkwan and so he gives up. “Food is ready.”

“Oh good, I’m starving,” Vernon interrupts.

The rest of brunch goes by without Seungkwan making any other comments. To you, at least. You don’t see him sit down next to Mingyu after the food is done like it’s casual and unplanned. Nothing that man ever does is either of those things, though. What you do notice is how easily he fits into this group of friends. Sure, he knows Seungkwan pretty well and he’s met nearly everyone there. But, he doesn’t get to spend much time around them. Not really, in the grand scheme of things. It isn’t really surprising, if you think about it, because they’re all close friends of yours and he tends to think you have good taste where friends are concerned.

It is a little weird, you think as Mingyu sits on the other side of the room, that he seems to be a little glued to his phone now that things are getting closer to wrapping up. He checks it mid conversation and furrows his brow at whatever he sees. Both seem unusual. Mingyu is always one of those people that gives his full attention to a conversation. Unless it’s an emergency, he likes to be present in a moment. It’s one of your favorite things about him. It’s also unlike him to be so upset by something on his phone. You can’t think of any person that would be creating that reaction from him. Or anyone that he wouldn’t just ignore until later. You try to put it out of your mind as best you can. If it’s something serious, he’ll talk to you about it. At least, you hope.

Any other time, you would be thrilled to have your favorite cousin staying at your parents’ house for the holidays. She’s always been your confidant and one of your safe spaces. Now? You can’t stand it. You really wish she would be literally anywhere else. Just the sight of her is getting to be enough to set you off. It seems like she’s really taking it to heart that Mingyu is single. You’re not sure what her game is and you hate it.

Of course, she manages to corner you the second you’re back to your parents’ house. You’re not exactly paying all that much attention, though. The end of brunch with your friends had been a little weird, even if nobody else noticed it. Mingyu accepted all the praise for the things he made, but was distracted by his phone. Someone, you’re not really sure who, kept sending him messages. Whatever it was didn’t seem to be making him happy. Not that you really have any right to ask him who’s blowing up his phone. It’s just a little weird. Usually he’s so present in events like brunch. It’s odd to see him constantly checking his phone. Odder still that he had headed off to the bedroom as soon as you got back. You’re a little buzzed from the mimosas. Mingyu, on the other hand, is very sober.

“There you are,” Mimi says, appearing as if out of thin air. It makes you jump back, hand on your heart.

“Jesus,” you gasp out.

“No, Mimi,” she jokes. Any other time, it would make you laugh. You’re not so entertained with her now.

“What are you sneaking up on me for?” you ask instead.

She rolls her eyes and looks around. “I’m not sneaking up on you. I was just trying to catch you away from the others.”

“Why?”

“Why do you have that fake boyfriend of yours on such a tight leash?”

Out of habit, you look around to make sure nobody is listening. Everyone seems too busy, though. “I don’t have Mingyu on a leash.”

“Then explain why he’s basically refusing to answer any of my texts,” she says, arms crossed.

“I don’t know why…wait a minute. Was it you texting him while we were at brunch?” you ask.

This, somehow, seems to satisfy her. “Oh, so he’s not telling you who’s texting him.”

“I didn’t ask, honestly.”

“Well, I don’t see why he’d be ignoring - “

Your brain catches up then. “Hang on. How the fuck did you get his number?”

Mimi rolls her eyes again with a huff. “Please. You’ve had the same passcode on your phone for ages. I just grabbed it when you left your phone out.”

“That’s so fucked, Mimi. You can’t just go through my phone or take his number,” you say.

“You’re no fun anymore,” she says with a whine.

You’re not interested in hearing anything else she has to say because you just want to talk to Mingyu. This is getting insane that she’s going to this amount of trouble just to try to get to him. Yet, it’s also weird he kept it to himself that she was texting him. The two of you have talked a lot about the shit Mimi pulls in order to get close to him. Why is it different now that she’s texting him while he’s out with your friends? Is he starting to get worn out from dealing with the insanity of your family? Every other time he’s been around, it’s been really chill. This time, not so much.

Up in your room, you don’t initially see Mingyu. You’re not sure what you’re expecting. Maybe him on his phone texting or else complaining to another friend about how this whole trip is going. Or even talking to his sister about getting out to see her instead of staying here. None of that happens, though. Instead, you find him in the bathroom applying a face mask. It’s a little ridiculous and definitely the last thing you expect. But, you also know that it’s a sign he’s carrying some amount of stress.

That’s the thing about being as close to someone as you are to Mingyu. To most people, he’s got this unfailing streak of energy and kindness. He’s the kind of person that lets himself be bullied by all his friends even though he could definitely take them. It’s all part of making sure everyone is enjoying themselves and most things just roll off his broad shoulders. There are hidden depths to him, too. Sometimes he gets a little worn out because he’ll keep things to himself instead of burdening someone else. He takes so much onto his own plate and you wish he wouldn’t. At least, not always. He’ll go until it feels a little unbearable and then finally speak up. He’ll force a smile even when he doesn’t feel like it just to make sure nobody else realizes anything is wrong. In a way, he folds in on himself a little. But, you’ve been friends for years so you know his tells. Know how to spot the signs. It takes you a little longer this time surrounded by family and some friends. This is one of those signs, though. Taking the time to do a face mask, even if it’s in the middle of the day, to just give him an excuse to be quiet.

You’re not usually the one to initiate physical contact with him. Not because you don’t want to, he just never really gives you the chance. He’s like a human koala most of the time. With his back to the door and his eyes closed to enjoy the feeling of the mask, he doesn’t even hear you approach. Your hands wind around his waist, hugging him tightly from the back and your head rests between his shoulder blades. For the briefest moment, he tenses and you worry that he’s using this as a break from you. Then, he realizes it’s just you and his entire body relaxes. He puts his hands over yours and sighs softly. After a moment, it doesn’t seem like it’s enough because he turns in your arms and pulls you tight against his chest, wrapping you so tightly in his own arms that you would complain in any other situation. Not now, though. Not when he’s putting himself through all of this just so you don’t have to have a stressful holiday experience.

When it’s like this, you don’t dream of pulling away from Mingyu. There’s so much that he does for you and it’s so rare that you can do anything for him in return. So, you’ll stay tightly pressed against him as long as he wants. You won’t be the one to break the hug first. If you can take even a little bit of whatever he’s feeling onto your own shoulders, you will. This trip has been so much better than you could have expected in most ways and you’re determined to be more conscious of his needs. Eventually, he does pull away and let you look up into his face. He looks much more at peace than you expect. Maybe your hugs do have healing powers like he always says. Mingyu turns to remove the face mask and wipe his face before turning back to you.

“I��m sorry,” you say softly into the space between you.

“For what?” he asks.

“For the whole drama that is my family,” you start. “Mostly, for Mimi, though.”

“Ah,” he says and his face falls a little.

“Gyu, I would never have put you in this position if I had known she would be like this,” you say earnestly.

“I don’t think anyone could have guessed she’d pull all this,” he says with a humorless laugh.

“You should’ve told me that she was texting you and bugging you like that,” you say without any accusation. You just want to be able to share in his burden.

He only shrugs. “We were with your friends and you looked so happy. I didn’t want to bring it down. How did you even find out she was texting me?”

“She told me,” you say with an eye roll.

“Really?”

“Well, she cornered me and asked why I had you on such a tight leash…”

“Kinky,” he interrupts and it nearly makes you choke.

“And then, when I asked how she even got your number, she told me she’d gone into my phone and taken it,” you say to avoid thinking too deeply about Mingyu and any kinks he might have.

“Bold,” he observes.

“Do you like that?” you ask before you can stop yourself.

The second the question comes out of your mouth, you wish you could take it back. What is going on with your brain today? First you’re losing your train of thought watching Mingyu lick something off his finger. Then, you’re wondering about his kinks. Now, you’re wondering if he likes someone that’s a little bit bold. It’s got to just be the atmosphere that you’re in. Or that you’re pretending to date him. It’s messing with your mind and you’re not responsible for the way you act.

The worst part is that Mingyu’s entire face changes. He gets that knowing look on his face when he meets your eyes. A little cocky. The look that says he knows just how attractive he can be. It’s not usually directed at you and you’re not really sure what to do now that it is.

“Sometimes,” he says. “Not necessarily from someone I’m not actually interested in, though.”

“Good to know.”

Mingyu arches an eyebrow and okay, that’s devastating. Maybe you’re still a little under the influence of the mimosas. There’s no other explanation for the way your knees go a little weak at such a simple movement. “Is it?”

“Huh?” you ask, shaking your head to clear it.

“You said it was good to know and I asked if it was,” he repeats, smirk only deepening.

“Oh, sure,” you say and he seems momentarily surprised. “You know, so I can tell Mimi.”

You’re actually not entirely sure what makes you say it. It’s not like you would ever want him to consider Mimi. It might actually drive you crazy if he went for her. He gets that look on his face that you’re all too familiar with. Affection mixed with exasperation. Nobody seems to get it more than you.

“Too bad for her that I’m very much not interested,” he says.

“Shame. I don’t know how I would get over the loss.”

“Luckily you don’t have to because you’re stuck with me.”

“Until you actually have a crush on someone again.”

Even though you say it, you want to take it back as soon as it comes out of your mouth. Images come rushing into your mind of Mingyu falling in love with someone that actually lasts. Someone that could take your best friend away from you. Which should be what you want, right? You should want him to be happy. And you do. You just can’t really stand the thought of a life where he’s happy without you being right there by his side. This trip makes you think about a lot more than you bargained for.

“I do have a crush,” he says softly.

“Oh, of course,” you say and look away from him. That’s fine. This is all fine.

His finger is under your chin the next second to pull your face back around to his. It’s the look of patience that you also see a lot. Especially when he’s trying to teach you something in the kitchen. Or explain something from work. Or really just talk about anything he’s passionate about.

“The crush is on you, dummy,” he says softly.

“What?” you ask, not sure you heard him correctly.

With a shake of his head, he steps back to lean against the bathroom. “Of all the times I pictured telling you this, I never considered telling you in the bathroom attached to your old bedroom at your parents’ house.”

“We don’t…” you start and he shakes his head again.

“No, this probably fits,” he says with a light laugh. The kind when he’s just a little caught off guard himself. “I thought I wanted to tell you after brunch with your friends and, I don’t know, I could be misreading the whole thing, but I think you’re ready to hear it now too. I like you. I’ve been more than happy just to be your friend because I didn’t want to say something before we were both ready. I’m happy to be here as your friend that’s only pretending to date you because I’d do anything to make life easier for you.”

“Mingyu,” you say, so low it’s barely above a whisper. Like you’re afraid to break the quiet in the limited space between you.

“You don’t have to say…” he starts, only to be interrupted by a loud knock at your bedroom door.

Your senses are entirely overwhelmed and you wonder what he sees as you look up at him, eyes wide in wonder. Before this, you would say that your brain could process too many things all at the same time. That it always had a million things going on. Now, you can’t seem to do any of that. Can’t focus on anything other than your beautiful best friend before you and the fact that apparently he has feelings for you. You see his mouth move, assume it’s to answer the knock, and have to shake yourself back to reality. Need to come out of this day dream so that you can react to whoever is at the door.

“Too bad, lovebirds, you have to come downstairs. Attendance for games and cookie decorating is mandatory on Christmas Eve,” your cousin calls back.

“Mimi, just…” you start to call out to her and Mingyu shakes his head.

“We’ll be right down!” he cuts across you. He waits, seeming like he’s listening for the sound of Mimi walking away from the door. How he can hear anything over the pounding of your heart seems unthinkable. Somehow, he must hear something because he turns back to you with soft eyes and speaks in an even softer voice. “It’s okay, we can talk tonight after dinner or when we come to bed. There’s no pressure for you to even say anything. Our friendship is the most important thing in the world to me.”

With that, he gives you a quick peck on the top of the head. Something that’s immediately gentler than anything you’ve experienced with him during the entire course of your friendship. The smile he gives you as he steps around you to lead the way down to interact with your family has you go weak in the knees. Has he ever smiled at you like that before? Or is it a new smile? Once upon a time, you would have said that you had every facial expression of his memorized from years spent in each other’s company. Years spent sharing private jokes, going on adventures, complaining about work and family and everything in between. But maybe, you think, there are still things that you can learn about Mingyu. Maybe there are still things that you can learn from him as well.

When you don’t immediately follow after him, Mingyu turns around to grab your hand and pull you along with him. There’s something about the way he threads his fingers through yours and squeezes that makes your heart pound again before settling down. His touch is gentle, like it always is, and filled with complete care. You don’t notice the way he glances back at you every few steps. Not with concern, but with curiosity. He would have bet he knew your every facial expression and can’t fully place the way you look now. Somehow, even though he can’t completely tell what you’re thinking, he knows that he made the right decision. Knows it was time to tell you what’s been on his mind. Knows that, no matter what, he’s still going to have his best friend on the other side of this trip.

It’s chaos once you and Mingyu get downstairs, like it always is at your parents’ house on Christmas Eve. Though, this definitely seems a little busier than years past. You’re not sure why that is either, but everyone seems to want to join in on the traditions that your parents cling to. In any case, it’s a good thing for you because it lets you just blend into the group of people without your parents paying entirely too much attention to you. Mingyu uses your hand intertwined with his to pull you into him, the way he has countless other times on this trip, and presses a kiss to your temple. Then, he’s off into the kitchen, throwing a joke at your mom about how he’s here now and she doesn’t need to worry. He looks over his shoulder and winks at you as your mother puts him to work mixing ingredients. You honestly don’t even know how you react in response. It must be okay, though, because he smiles back at you.

You love to decorate the cookies and will happily help make them in other situations, but there are already too many cooks in the kitchen. Instead, you help to set up some of the card tables that your parents keep for times like these. It gives people the chance to figure out what they might want to play and who they want to join them. It really is a nice tradition, no matter how you feel about your parents. And since your mother usually spends more time on baking and decorating the cookies, she doesn’t notice if things get a little too competitive between you and the cousins. Or if your father eggs the rest of you on while he watches. She has her favorite parts and lets everyone else do whatever it is they want to do. As long as everyone takes a break to help with decorating the cookies. Not that it’s ever a concern, that’s most people’s favorite part.

Once the tables are all set up, you settle into a board game with some of your cousins. Usually, you’re one of the more competitive ones. Board games come pretty easily to you and you pick up on the strategy quickly. If your cousins notice that you’re not nearly as invested this time, they let you have it. And they do notice it, pretty quickly, but let you have it. It’s easy to see you’re distracted and to see that you keep glancing into the kitchen at Mingyu. They just let you have it. It’s in their best interest, anyway. It’s nice to get the chance to win without you being fully committed to beating everyone around you.

This kind of setting really gives you a chance to think without shutting yourself away in your bedroom. That’s too obvious. You can’t just say that your best friend confessed feelings for you and now you need to figure out what your own feelings are. Not when he’s pretending to be your boyfriend already. Not when your whole family already thinks you’re lying about having just gotten together with him. And not when your mother would probably kill you if you missed out on traditions that may be older than you are.

All the spiralling in your brain is just cover, you realize, for the bigger picture. Mingyu likes you and he thinks this is the right time to have a conversation about it. He also knows that your friendship is the most important. You agree. He’s one of the most important people in your life, but is he more than that to you too? Is it possible that it’s more than friendship? That’s not something you ever considered. When you and Mingyu met in university it was through someone you were dating at the time. The relationship was, fortunately, very short lived. But the friendship with Mingyu, that was the stuff of stories. That instant connection that survived the breakup. The two of you always joke that your friendship was meant to be and that’s why it lasted when the relationship didn’t. Why others could come and go from your lives but you two are forever. Especially when either of you has dated someone that had an issue with the friendship. It’s insane to think that men and women can’t be friends. A completely archaic way of thinking.

That makes you think about your friendship with Seungkwan, though. Someone in your life who has also always been a constant. Someone who supports all your rights and your wrongs, even if he gives you a hard time too. And that’s when something else clicks. Your past partners haven’t objected to your friendship with Seungkwan nearly as often as your friendship with Mingyu. It’s not that he’s not attractive, because he definitely is. It can’t be that you’re not as close. Seungkwan has been with you through a lot. It could be that there's been more distance between you and him since you moved away, but you’re not sure that’s it either. He’s a constant in your life even from a distance. When you can’t see him, you regularly FaceTime him. So, no, he’s still present even if he’s not in the same city.

And then it hits you. You don’t watch Seungkwan lick something off his finger while he’s cooking. You don’t get jealous of your cousin hitting on him, regardless of what else is going on. You don’t seek out physical affection in the same way. Don’t find yourself looking over at Seungkwan for his reaction to everything going on around you. Don’t want to know his thoughts on something before you make each big decision. Seungkwan is your best friend and he means the world to you, but the thought of him constantly kissing you on the cheek or the temple or forehead or even the back of your hand doesn’t unleash butterflies in your stomach.

Holy shit. You’re in love with Mingyu. Definitely in way over your head with feelings that should have been obvious to you. It’s impossible to pinpoint when it might have happened or how. Maybe there isn’t a specific time. Maybe it’s something that happens slowly over time. You know that when you first became friends it was only that, a friendship. Someone that you could be yourself around and feel at home with in a very foreign environment. Somewhere along the way, it’s morphed into more. He really is the person you want to share all your news with, the person that you look to for support first. It’s so clear to you that your feelings are there now that he’s confessed and gotten you thinking about it. When you meet his eyes across the room, you wonder if he can see the realization on your face.

Now that you realize that you also have feelings for Mingyu, you’re not sure how you missed it before. If you consider the traits you’re looking for in a partner, he ticks off every box. And if you’re being completely honest, he’s been the reason for adding some traits to your list. So, not that you’ll admit this to any of your most recent exes, but maybe they had a point when they questioned your relationship with Mingyu. Not a big point. They still had shitty reasons for disliking Mingyu, but a small point nonetheless.

The rest of the evening seems to go by entirely too slowly, even if you do enjoy yourself. Much to the dismay of your cousins, you’re no longer distracted and you proceed to kick their asses at any game they suggest. You do go a little easier on them than normal, though, and avoid any of the trash talk. Thankfully Seungkwan isn’t there to point out that being in a good mood makes you soft. Even decorating the cookies is more fun than you can remember. You try not to think about whether that’s because Mingyu sits right next to you the whole time, trying to sabotage your cookie designs or make you laugh with his own. Spoiler alert: it absolutely is and you’re already down horrendous. It’s even easier to act like a cute couple in love now than it was before. And you also ignore the realization that it being so easy to pretend to be in a relationship with your best friend should have also been an indicator. Nobody ever said you were the most observant when it came to your own feelings.

Finally, you get a free moment to go upstairs. It’s time to get changed for Christmas Eve dinner and that gives you both the chance to excuse yourselves. The only person who seems to be tracking the movement with some amount of interest is Mimi. You’re too caught up in reaching out for Mingyu’s hand to notice, though. His smile at the action is immediately familiar and new. Familiar because you know his face better than your own and new because you didn’t expect to see him looking at you like that.

“I didn’t expect your mom to have me working so hard in the kitchen helping with the cookie dough,” he says once you close the door.

“Oh, I did,” you say through a snort.

“How was the - “

“You were right.”

You both go to speak at the same time and Mingyu’s mouth closes the second he realizes what you said. Whatever he wants to ask dies on his tongue over three words from your mouth. They might just be the second best three words you could say to him right then.

“About?” he prompts.

“It was the right time to tell me,” you confirm for him. It’s clear that he’s biting his tongue to let you say whatever you need to. Even if he knows by the look on your face. “I like you too.”

“Thank fucking god,” he says with an exhale. “When Seungkwan told me that I should tell you because he caught you watching me, I thought he was being a shit and…”

“Wait, what?” you ask. Fucking Seungkwan. Of course.

“Oh, yeah, at brunch earlier he said that he noticed you watching me while I was cooking and that if I liked you like he thought I did, that I should probably tell you,” he says a little sheepishly.

“You know what? Forget Seungkwan. I need to see something,” you say and close the space between you.

Before Mingyu can ask anything, you’re on your tiptoes, hands cupping his face and lips pressed to his. He wraps his arms around your lower back to pull you tighter against his body without missing a beat. And that really is all you need to know. Everything is in that first real kiss. Any lingering hesitations slip away. You can feel his promises and the answers to the questions you know you’ll have to actually ask in that kiss. For now, it just feels like coming home. Like you found the person that can get through all the bullshit and remind you about what’s actually important in life.

“Wow,” you say when you pull away.

“Yeah,” he agrees.

“Is that what I’ve been missing out on?” you wonder.

“Just how long have you liked me?” he says with an all too knowing smirk.

“I only realized today so I’ve got some catch up to do,” you joke.

“We both do, I think,” he says.

Without having to say a word, both of you get ready for Christmas dinner since your mother insists that you get dressed up. Every few seconds one of you seems to catch the other looking. It feels exciting, but you’re also a little shy. There’s a lot to talk about and a lot to navigate. You know you can’t put it aside. It just doesn’t feel as time sensitive now. This is one of the most important people in your life and it’s going to work out. At least, if you can get through the whole drawn out affair that is dinner first.

Which you do. Through all your mother’s courses and all the formality that she insists on following, you have Mingyu by your side. You’re not even distracted by Mimi on the other side of the table. She can’t seem to take her eyes off you while you and Mingyu can’t take your eyes off each other. More than once, you entirely miss a question and Mingyu has to nudge you to prompt you. It’s not your fault, you reason. He’s just so insanely attractive and made all the more so because you know that he’s a genuinely wonderful person.

Every part of you wants to skip the after dinner drinks and go back upstairs with Mingyu, but he quietly insists that you should stay. Even laughs when you turn his signature pout back around on him. If he makes a good point that you have nothing but time, you still want to take advantage of some of that time right now. Instead, you sip on your rumchata and curl into Mingyu on the oversized armchair by the fire. Despite trying to leave a little bit of space, you’re basically sitting on his lap at his own insistence.

Once the first people start to call it a night, you look at Mingyu with nearly pleading eyes. That gets a light laugh out of him as he nods to agree that you can go upstairs to your bedroom. You say your goodnights to everyone in the room, wish people a Happy Christmas Eve, and lead the way back up to your room even though he doesn’t need the directions

It’s nice to have uninterrupted time to figure everything out with Mingyu now that your feelings are out in the open. And once you’re both changed and through your skincare routines, you get into bed just to talk. It’s remarkable how much can fall into place so easily. It’s obvious that he figured out his feelings first. You insist that yours are already just as strong. The two of you depend on each other in everything without realizing it. Turn to each other for support. Share in all the best news. Suffer through any heartbreak together. In the years of friendship, there’s something deeper than either of you ever expected.

Honestly, it’s not even something either of you just held onto or harbored for years. The feelings really came suddenly. Mingyu shares that he wasn’t just waiting around to tell you that he had feelings for you. He also shares, though you already know, that no part of him felt entitled to your returned feelings. Had Seungkwan not said something, he’s not even sure if or when he would have said something. The last thing he would ever want was to make you uncomfortable. As much as he cares about you and wants to explore the relationship, you’re also the best friend he’s ever had. You feel the same. It’s a little scary and exciting at the same time. You trust Mingyu with your heart in a way that you’ve never trusted anyone else.

It’s entirely too late into the night by the time you and Mingyu fall asleep. How the two of you have so much to say at this point in the friendship is something to be studied. But, eventually you drift off, completely intertwined with Mingyu. He’s been a cuddler this whole trip and you’re not sure how he’s gotten himself even more attached to you. Yet, he does. It’s like any space between you would be too much. It’s too much satisfaction to give him that he’s right. He can tell anyway.

When you wake up, it feels too early. A fact only confirmed when you check your phone. None of the little cousins or your cousins with kids are staying at your parents’ house. So, you know that it doesn’t have to be an early start to the morning. You consider if you can drift off back to sleep. In the night, you ended up with Mingyu spooning you. His arm is loosely draped over you and your back is pressed somewhat lightly into his chest. When you go to adjust to think about drifting back off, your ass brushes against his hips, you feel something press into you. That stops you for a moment. Obviously, you and Mingyu talked about sex the night before. About how you wanted to try to take it a little slower since this means so much to both of you. And obviously you know that it’s relatively common for a guy to wake up a little hard. Your brain knows all those things. Knows what you should do. You should just reposition and go back to sleep.

That’s not what you actually do though.

So carefully that it could be an accident, you wiggle against him, a little harder this time. You yawn like you’re actually just adjusting to get comfortable and fall back asleep. He might let you get away with it, too, if you didn’t do it more than once, pressing further back into him each time. You know he’s awake by the sharp intake of breath and then the way he moves his hand to grip your thigh. The way his fingertips dig into your skin there makes you grind back harder without pretending it’s anything else.

Mingyu puts his lips to your ear. “Are you trying to drive me crazy?”

“No,” you whisper.

“I thought we said we were going to take it slow,” he says with incredible difficulty.

“I can move slower,” you answer immediately. It feels gratifying when he snaps his hips into your ass.

“You’re teasing me,” he whines.

“Not if I follow through,” you say. “I want you, Mingyu. I don’t want to wait.”

“Fuck,” he hisses as you continue to grind into him. “I want you to.”

“Then…” you start and immediately cut off as his hand winds back around to your front. He grabs your pussy through your shorts that suddenly feel too flimsy. Runs his long middle finger up your core and you immediately know you started something that he’s going to finish.

But his hand is gone entirely too quickly. Worse still, he pulls back. It’s only long enough for him to turn you towards him and then pull you on top of him. Your brain catches back up once you’re straddle over him and he pulls your face towards him. You kiss him like you haven’t yet. Full of desire and desperation. Nothing like the first few kisses you share. Those kisses were to make sure this was right. This kiss is to ruin him. Maybe to ruin yourself as well. His hands are on your hips, anchoring you to him, not that there’s anywhere else you could possibly be.

It’s never been like this with anyone. Just some heavy kissing and you’re already getting turned on. Already wondering what’s next. What it’s going to feel like. If Mingyu is the type of person that will take his time with you. It’s hard to imagine when he seems just as desperate as you are. At least, he tries to anchor you in a certain position so that you can’t grind too much. Maybe he does want to savor it. You really are down horrendous for this man because you think you could just kiss him like this forever and never quite get enough.

All too soon, Mingyu rolls the pair of you over again. Now he’s hovering over you and nobody has any business being that hot. And then he pulls back, somewhat straddling your legs without putting too much weight on you. In one movement, he pulls his shirt over his head and casts it aside. Okay, now you really think that nobody has any business being that hot. And sure, you’ve seen him shirtless before. This is just different. You don’t even realize as he’s reaching for your shirt until you feel his fingers brush the skin of your stomach. He’s looking for permission, but you’re a little impatient and pull the shirt off yourself. You’re not sure that anyone has ever looked at your body with so much love. Like he’s just as amazed as you are. He peppers your chest and your chest and your stomach with kisses. Showing you just how much he loves every bit of you. It’s the safest feeling in the world and you’re not really sure how you got this lucky.

Mingyu is so gentle when he pulls your shorts off. Trails kisses along your thighs as well and makes you shiver. Chuckles when he pulls his own off and you swallow at the sight of him. He’s a big guy and somehow you’re still not expecting his dick to be big like it is. Haven’t ever really thought about it in all the time you’ve been friends. You expect him to be all confident seeing your reaction. There’s something else there too, though. Like he’s a little nervous about this. You’re not really sure what to say to reassure him, so you just pull him back to you to kiss him again. He adjusts into you almost immediately, half laying on top of you while still making sure that he��s not crushing you.

This time kissing him is very different, though. He moves one hand between your legs. It’s gentle at first. He only runs his finger up your center a few times. Catches each moan with his kisses. Slowly works a finger inside you and pumps at a languid pace. It turns you into a whiny, squirming mess entirely too quickly. Empties any thoughts or worries out of your head. You know you can’t be too loud and you hate it. Nobody should be able to kiss this well while also hitting the perfect spot with each pass of his fingers. He adds a second finger and you’re sure that you’re done for. Sure that nothing else will ever feel as perfect as him again. You reach to stroke him and he pulls back.

“What’s wrong?” you ask, unable to hide the concern in your voice.

“No, nothing,” he assures you quickly. “I just, um, well I really want to fuck you and I’m not sure I could handle it if…”

“Do you have a condom?” you ask, already ready to say it doesn’t matter if you have to.

“I might?” he says more like a question and gets off the bed to cross to his bag with too much speed. In any other situation you might laugh. Now, you just want to feel him. A moment later, after rifling through his bag, he comes back up with one.

He’s moving back to you, unwrapping the condom, and then he looks up at you. There’s a question in his eyes.

“Yes, Mingyu, I want this. And yes, I want it here,” you assure him.

Thankfully, that’s the only confirmation he needs. In the next second, he’s pumping himself a few times and rolling the rubber onto himself. You move to reposition, but he doesn’t let you. He gently presses you back and gets between your legs. Carefully, he lines himself up and presses in.

“Oh fuck,” you hiss out, trying to stay quiet.

“Too much?” he asks and stills.

“No, Gyu, just move, please,” you whine out, pulling him into you.

He does exactly what you ask and snaps his hips so he’s fully buried inside you. It’s a stretch in the best way. Like this is exactly how it’s supposed to be. You can’t help it, you moan out the first time he thrusts and he catches the second moan with another bruising kiss. Probably better to have bruised lips than to have your family hear the screams you let out as he fucks you. Probably better than having them hear his moans as well. They vibrate through his chest and it gives you a sense of pride. Mingyu is a taker in every sense of his life. You know that it must be killing him to keep quiet now.

The two of you fall into a perfect rhythm without even trying. There’s nothing awkward about it being your first time. Knowing each other as well as you do as friends seems to translate here. Or maybe Mingyu just pays much closer attention to you than you realize. You run your nails down his back and his thrusts stutter so you do it again. That seems to get to him. He picks up the paces of his thrusts. Pulls his dick almost all the way out of you before quickly snapping his hips to bury himself in your pussy again. Never in your life has sex as simple as this position felt so good. Never has anyone you’ve dated felt this perfect.

When Mingyu’s thrusts start to stutter, you reach down between your bodies to rub your clit. Seconds later, your pussy clenches around Mingyu and your vision whites out. You can feel Mingyu release and try to pick up the pace to work him through his own orgasm. He half collapses on you, breathing heavy. Both of you have to catch your breath from all the kisses to muffle the noises as well. He tries to roll over so that he’s not on top of you and you cling to him, not ready to lose contact just yet.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he assures you.

“I know.”

“That was…”

“Better than I was expecting.”

You can feel his eyes on you even without looking and it makes you smile. Can imagine what he’s about to say before he even opens his mouth.

“Oh, you didn’t think I’d be any good?”

You laugh at that as you turn to face him. “No, I thought you’d be good. I just didn’t expect our first time where we had to be quiet because we’re in my parents house to be that good.”

He considers your words for a second.

“I guess I can take that,” he concedes.

“Come on. We have to clean up and get downstairs,” you say and he sighs dramatically. But, then he gets up and helps you up with him.

Half an hour later, you’re downstairs at the kitchen table sipping on a peppermint mocha latte and picking out your favorite pastries from the spread your mother has out. Mingyu has his chair pulled close to you and his arm along the back of your chair. Your cousin is sitting on your other side, cheerily humming under her breath. In a strange move, she isn’t even trying to speak to Mingyu. Just as you’re trying to figure out what’s going on with her, she turns to you.

“Have a good morning?” she asks knowingly.

“We’ll talk about it later,” you hiss back, casting your eyes around.

“No need,” she waves off and shoots a smirk at you. “I got exactly what I wanted.”

“I don’t…”

“Seungkwan and I have been talking a lot. Plotting, I guess you could say. Seems like it finally paid off,” she says and your jaw hangs open.

“Are you…did you just…” you stutter out.

“As long as it’s real now,” she says and doesn’t wait for confirmation. Doesn’t need it, when it’s written all over your face. “We can talk about it later but I am sorry.”

“You and fucking Seungkwan,” you grumble.

It is a weight off your chest, though. Mimi has always been your favorite. A safe space in all the insanity of your family. It’s good to know that she’s still that for you. The two of you can argue about her methods, or her alliance with Seungkwan, later. It’s hard to ignore that it did actually help. You’re in this place because some of your favorite people meddled to help you and Mingyu see sense. Maybe you can say all is well that ends well.

In between all the chaos of breakfast and making sure the presents are under the tree, you manage to tell Mingyu about what Mimi had really been up to. He seems relieved. Not even annoyed, just happy that things can settle into whatever the new normal looks like for you and him. You also find time to whisper all the things you want to do to him when there aren’t prying eyes around. It may be cruel, but you delight in the way the blush rises up his cheeks and the way he shifts in his seat. You’re going to have a lot of fun playing with him, you already know. He’s so easy to rile up. Now you have brand new material to use on him.

Your mother works to corral everyone into the living room where the Christmas tree is so that people can start opening presents. You always hold back and watch at first. Don’t even make an effort to find anything that might be for you. It’s more fun to see people’s reactions. Does your mother like what your father picked out? Are your cousins humoring their parents? Did someone manage to get something that’s genuinely a surprise? There’s never a dull moment. In fact, you’re so lost in thought watching that you don't notice wasn’t beside you until he plops back down and nudges you. Hands a small, beautifully wrapped box over to you.

“Go on, open it,” he urges you softly. It’s clear he’s trying not to draw too much attention.

Exchanging gifts with Mingyu isn’t new. It’s something you do every year. This is unexpected though. Usually you exchange gifts away from other people because they can be a little silly. Nothing about this feels silly, though. With a final questioning glance at him, you pull the ribbon off and carefully ripping the paper. It’s immediately clear that it’s a jewelry box. That makes your heart hammer. You can’t even look over at him. Surely this is something he had already. It’s not like there’s been any time to go out and get something in the midst of all your confessions.

There’s a necklace inside the box. Something that looks old, important. The kind of thing you can tell has been well worn and loved without looking cheap. There’s a pendant hanging from the chain with your favorite stone in a setting that you instantly love. It’s the most perfect gift that anyone has ever given you and it makes you a little emotional. You turn to Mingyu, tears welling in your eyes, and want to have the moment just for the two of you. Unfortunately, your mother and several other family members watch your reaction.

“It’s beautiful,” you say softly.

“Do you like it?” he asks, still unsure.

“I love it,” you say earnestly.

“It was my grandmother’s that she got from her grandmother before her. She told me to hold onto it and that I would just know when I should give it to someone,” he says and that does you in. Any last resolve disappears.

The only response you can think of is to just kiss him. A real kiss pressed to his lips full of all the words you can’t say about how much a present like this means to you. How sure you are that you two are making the right decision. It’s so meaningful.

“I love you,” he says quietly, trying to keep it just for the two of you. Which doesn’t happen. Not that it matters. Your parents have heard you saying you loved each other this whole trip. It means something different now, though.

“I love you, too,” you say back. “So much.”

“It’s a beautiful necklace,” your mother offers as Mingyu helps you to put it on.

“I thought it would look good on her,” he adds to your mother.

“Almost as good as a ring,” your mother says. It’s the least subtle comment in the entire world.

Mingyu doesn’t miss a beat. Just smiles and nods a little. “Well, maybe you’ll have to invite me back next year and see what the gift is.”

“You have a deal.”

For the first time, you’re not upset with your mother for bringing up marriage and the idea of settling down. You’re just basking in the affection coming from Mingyu and appreciating your new necklace. Soon, you’ll have to leave this little bubble. Trade the idyllic snow covered scenery where everything moves a little slower for your life back in the city. But, you’ll be taking a different relationship with Mingyu back. You think that maybe he’ll be the key to you finally figuring out how to balance it all. Maybe he’s been the answer all along.

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