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There were often those long, exhausting days where Dongmin wouldn't have much of a chance to interact with Bin. Those were the worst of days, because Dongmin constantly longed to see Bin, to kiss him and hold him and hug him.
(“Myungjun and I are the same way,” Jinwoo once assured him, after receiving at least eleven missed phone calls from his boyfriend. “But, unlike Myungjun, you aren't insane, so it probably won't come to this.” And then he answered the twelfth phone call fondly, and it took twenty minutes for him to finally hang up.)
On those days, they were just typically too busy to see each other. After his promotion, it wasn't Bin out there on the field anymore with Dongmin, and he was reminded of that in the worst of times. Whenever a break was made in the case, he could no longer turn around and give Bin a giant smooch.
(He hadn't realized it had become habit for him to turn around and give Bin a giant smooch, until he did it one day and realized that Bin was no longer a junior detective, and the day ended with Dongmin apologizing profusely to a sputtering Jinwoo.)
It also meant that they would arrive home at different times. Sometimes Dongmin worked until late. Sometimes, it was Bin who was at the department while Dongmin was free to leave. And, sometimes, work took place off site, and hours would go by with no sort of communication between the two of them.
(Dongmin found himself growing jealous of Jinwoo and his ever-constant contact with Myungjun, especially when he listened in on their conversations. He once mentioned to Bin that listening to them was, “gross and icky, they're so dramatic,” but actually seeing how happy Jinwoo was to exclaim his love for Myungjun as many times as he could in five minutes made him miss doing the same thing to Bin every single day.)
Usually, the only moments they would have together were the nights when one of them (or both of them) would come home after a grueling workday and share some form of intimacy, even if it was as simple as a kiss right before they would fall asleep. It was quick and chaste and not at all the ideal relationship that Dongmin had in mind from the start, but Bin was happy with his new position and Dongmin definitely did great work as a detective (and he felt further need to mold and protect the newest member of their police force – not at all due, in part, to Myungjun's threatening aura whenever he mentioned Jinwoo's safety, because that would entail Dongmin was terrified of Myungjun, and Dongmin was only a little bit frightened, was all), so there was no reason to change anything.
But, just for once, he wished things were back to how they used to be. He wondered if he could convince Jinwoo to take on more solo cases, but he wasn't certain if Jinwoo had been fully and properly trained after just a few months (and he wasn't certain Myungjun would let him live if he put Jinwoo in any danger). He also wished it was Bin that would sit close to him late at night trying to work out mysteries and crimes. He definitely liked Jinwoo, and it was nice to have a friend after so many years, but Jinwoo was short and had a deeper voice and slow way of talking and he just wasn't Bin, and that was the worst part of it all.
Jinwoo also recognized that he wasn't Bin.
“So you can stop staring at me with those sad eyes,” he scolded one night as they grabbed their coats to head home. “Myungjun always told me that you were a hard worker, but I think half of your time tonight was spent giving me these weird, longing sighs.”
Dongmin tried to ignore the blush spreading across his cheeks. “I wasn't...it was just that my thoughts were elsewhere.”
“On Bin?”
Jinwoo wasn't wrong, and Dongmin glanced sorrowfully over at Bin's empty office. He had headed home earlier himself, his work for the day completed, and Dongmin hadn't stopped thinking about him since the moment he bid them farewell.
“I miss Myungjun,” Jinwoo continued, holding the front doors open for Dongmin. “But I don't sit around sighing and whining because I can't see him every single second of the day.”
“But it's different,” Dongmin replied. He hoped his voice wasn't coming out in too much of a whine. “I'm not saying what Myungjun does isn't important or difficult, but his bakery closes at six every single evening, and that's it. He has a set schedule that you know and memorize, and so when you can finally get home, he's always there. Sometimes Bin works late, sometimes I work late, sometimes we don't see each other because we work different times – it's just difficult to get any time at all with Bin.”
Jinwoo gave a slight tsk of his tongue, then wrapped his coat tighter around himself when he felt the cold air trying to force its way to his skin. “He's off tomorrow. Why don't you take the day off, too?”
Dongmin blinked. “I...I can't do that.”
“Sure you can! Look, right now the case we're working on involves a lot of phone calls and files to go through. I won't do any on-the-field work without you, but I think I'm capable enough of handling myself inside the office, at least.” Jinwoo was already walking, and so Dongmin hurried to follow him. “So take the day off tomorrow and just...surprise Bin! Do something fun and spontaneous! I think both of you will appreciate having all of that alone time, anyway.”
It was a tempting offer, really, to dump all of the boring, administrative work on Jinwoo's shoulders, but Dongmin didn't like forcing Jinwoo to do all of his work. “If we do it together, though, it'll go by faster.”
“Sure it will. But I'll still get it done tomorrow, regardless of whether or not you're there. And then you can make up for it later by doing the boring work of our next case.” Jinwoo shot him a gummy smile before tapping on the passenger seat to Dongmin's car. “So drop me off and then we'd better not see each other until Wednesday, okay? Take tomorrow off, or else I'll take it off and make you do everything by yourself.”
With Jinwoo's support and acceptance, Dongmin finally was forced to agree. He thanked his friend countless times on the drive to Myungjun's apartment, until Jinwoo finally muttered a spell to shut him up for the remaining five minutes of the travel time.
And, even though Bin was fast asleep when Dongmin climbed into bed that night, he still planted a kiss on his boyfriend's cheek and tried to come up with ideas and plans for something fun and spontaneous.
The thing was, though, Bin was good at being fun and spontaneous. When they had time for dates, it was Bin who made it interesting. And even if they only had ten minutes to share with each other, Bin somehow managed to make every single second count.
Dongmin was rigid and like to stick to schedules and plan everything before trying it out. And when he was on more tight on time, he panicked, and ended up doing absolutely nothing of importance, and he would end the couple of minutes he did manage to have alone with a short kiss and a quick I love you.
So what was fun and spontaneous? He couldn't ask Bin, on account of not wanting Bin to, once again, figure it all out, and he wasn't in the mood to get chewed out by Myungjun at two in the morning asking him what he did that was fun and spontaneous, and the only other person he talked to on a daily basis would be of no help, because Minhyuk was just spontaneous in every single thing he did.
Dongmin was on his own.
Nothing was coming to him. Even as he slept, his dreams were more about cases and crimes than about his boyfriend. It was tragic, really, and he woke up to an empty bed and the smell of food wafting down the hallway.
How could he be fun and spontaneous with Bin in the kitchen? And why was Bin up, anyway? He usually slept until after noon on his days off, and from a quick glance at his phone, Dongmin determined it was actually nine in the morning.
That was early for Bin, way too early.
Bin was being fun and spontaneous.
Dongmin needed to find a way to be more fun and spontaneous.
He could go into the kitchen, maybe, with just a t-shirt and boxers. That could work – but, then again, Bin saw him in t-shirt and boxers all of the time. It would be like any other lazy morning.
He could forgo the t-shirt. That would actually work better, and so Dongmin rose from bed and excitedly removed his shirt from his body.
Okay, so maybe entering the kitchen wearing nothing but boxers would be enough.
But then he heard Myungjun's voice in his head, mocking him and laughing and exclaiming that it wasn't spontaneous at all, that it wasn't adventurous at all. And that was his issue, wasn't it? He was rigid and liked to plan and keep schedules. He really needed to do something that no one would ever expect for it to be spontaneous.
So he took off his boxers, and without thinking through anything at all, he exited the bedroom and made his way down the hall.
Walking naked through his apartment wasn't something he did on a norm. He had gone without a shirt before, definitely, but without clothes at all? Unheard of for Lee Dongmin. He kept that sort of thing to the bedroom. He wasn't the sort of person to try anything sexy in their kitchen, especially not with all that food that he was smelling, but, dammit, he was going to make this one day off worth something.
The kitchen was in sight and Dongmin took a deep breath before stepping in fully, leaning up against the doorway and delivering a sultry expression to his boyfriend's back.
“Hey, babe,” he murmured, trying to sound flirtatious and sexy.
He noticed a few weird things then.
Firstly, Bin was completely dressed. His hair was fixed and he wore his nicer clothes.
Secondly, when Bin turned around with a shocked expression (and his eyes definitely widened when he saw Dongmin's current state), Dongmin realized there was a lot more food for just two people.
Which brought him to the third and final point that stuck out – they weren't alone in the apartment. Two older people, a man and a woman, sat at the table in the kitchen. The woman gasped out in shock at Dongmin's lack of clothing before slapping her hands over her eyes, and the man rose from his seat and pointed at Dongmin.
“Is this the head detective you're dating, Bin?” he demanded. “You told your mother he was respectable!”
Mother?
Which meant that the angry man was Bin's father, which meant Dongmin had just flashed Bin's parents.
“I'm sorry!” he exclaimed hurriedly, and he bowed as deeply as possible before scurrying back down the hallway and into his bedroom.
The door was shut and locked and, after getting dressed again, he barred it with heavy stacks of Bin's old college textbooks.
He would live in the bedroom. He would never again leave. Perhaps he could convince Sanha to come visit him and bring him food. Sanha could turn into a bird, couldn't he? He could keep Dongmin fed and alive and well.
Or, better yet, he didn't have to, and then Dongmin could just die.
He felt like dying. He flung himself into the bed and hid his horrified moans and curses into his own pillow. He flashed Bin's parents. The parents he had been begging to meet. The parents Bin assured him would love him.
And he flashed them.
He showed off his naked body for both of them to see. He was acting sexy to their son, which would imply certain activities and, god, he was certain Bin's mother wouldn't be pleased with that at all.
They were only one the second story, and when he glanced out of the window, he realized the fall wouldn't actually kill him.
Damn it.
He contemplated death up until the moment Bin arrived again, an hour or two later, pushing open the door and knocking over Dongmin's beautiful barricade of books.
“What the hell?” Bin mumbled as he stared at the mess. “What's all this? Are these my books?”
Dongmin didn't get up from the fetal position he had assumed on the bed.
Bin sighed and tried to clean up a little bit. “My parents are gone,” he mentioned. “I told them that you weren't feeling well and they should probably come back another day.”
“Christ,” Dongmin whispered, mostly to himself, but Bin snorted anyway.
“I really would like it if you put on underwear before coming into the kitchen.”
Dongmin glanced over with a glare. “And I really would like it if you told me your parents were coming into town.”
“Hey, don't blame me!” Bin gave up on tidying the room, and instead sat on his side of the bed. Dongmin felt the dip, but he didn't move. “I had no idea. My mom woke me up with a call this morning, and I hurried to shower and prepare them some sort of breakfast. I figured it would be fine, that you'd come into the kitchen, all cute and sleepy, and I'd introduce you as my hot and capable detective boyfriend, and they'd fawn over you. And, um...yeah, I don't think I expected you to be naked and try to make me all hot and bothered.”
Dongmin moaned again, miserable and humiliated.
“I don't think my, uh, my mom is as pleased with you as she would have been.” And then, “God, though, I'm glad my little sister wasn't with them! You caught a lucky break, Dongmin, that she's studying abroad right now.”
“Regardless,” Dongmin replied, “I think it's time for me to pass on. I hope I am reincarnated as a frog or something that doesn't feel embarrassment and horror and-”
Bin draped himself over Dongmin's back with a giggle. “Calm down, babe. Mom probably will forgive you next time she meets you-”
“Next time?” Dongmin cried out, trying to scramble back up. Bin held him down. “I don't want to see them again! I'll ruin that meeting, too!”
“Nope, I told them they can come back in two weeks and you'll have put on your clothes by that point.”
Dongmin whined and gave up dispelling Bin from his back. “I won't come out of this room ever again.”
“Not even if...” Bin bent forward, his breath hot against Dongmin's ear. “Not even if we continue what you wanted to-”
Dongmin smacked Bin's face. It wasn't Jinwoo's magic, but it shut Bin up, at least.
(“I'm never going to be spontaneous again!” he whined to Jinwoo the next day.
“Same here,” Jinwoo mumbled, nursing a bruise on his cheek.)