beloved anon, you're so real for this. we need more middle aged fanfic. i personally find stories of people in their 40s and beyond just really appealing, especially when they go into that feeling of being settled, both in your life and in your own skin.

i think a minlix fic that i'd like to write for middle aged them would be both of them (non)temporarily moving in together after the skz disbandment and just kinda....staying this way. they're in their mid-late 20s, all of the members are finding their own avenues, looking for their own space in the world outside of stray kids, and this includes moving out of the dorms. minho is already finalising buying a beautiful 3 bedroom in a quiet neighbourhood when felix asks if he could move in with him for a couple weeks/months until he finds something he likes. getting a good property in seoul is difficult, especially when you're a celebrity and kinda cannot just live Anywhere without proper security. minho hesitates, but ultimately agrees - he knows that felix would absolutely detest living in the dorms all alone until he finds a new home. he also has a pattern of finding it difficult to say no felix, but that perhaps should remain unsaid.

initially felix looks for his own place, minho even comes to viewings with him and points out things that felix might not like. this one looks nice but has structural issues, that one has mostly north facing windows, and this one doesn't even have a garden, is felix sure he wants to live somewhere without a garden? and minho doesn't think he's doing it on purpose, he really swears he wants felix to find his own place on earth. the thing is just that living with felix is just really nice. it's nice to have a smiling face greeting you when you come home, to have someone to cook for, to still live with someone who just understands how absolutely fucked idol life is and all the baggage that comes with it. someone with who you don't need to pretend for even a second.

it's nice to live with felix specifically because he's just....felix. he likes to watch movies with minho in silence and dark, likes to vent to minho about a stupid asshole he dealt with in the company while minho cooks, likes to massage minho when he goes too hard in the dance studio, likes to orbit him like he was always meant to just be there. likes to occupy minho's head every moment of the day.

it's nice to live with someone that you love, even if you don't really say it.

and sure, felix still looks for places, but it's much more halfhearted after around a year passes. at that point minho stops asking felix if he's seen any new properties and quietly, quietly hopes that felix just kind of stays. and he does! for a year, then five, and then after 10 when minho is thinking about downsizing it's not even a question that of course felix is coming, too.

the mortgage they sign on the new place is shared. felix plans most of decorating and as he shows his plans to his mother, she shoots minho knowing looks across their newly built kitchen table. minho sips on his tea and refuses to engage. minho gets them matching keychains for their new house keys and it's supposed to be a joke, but looks more and more like a couple item witch each passing day. felix jokes about getting them matching rings, too, but the joke falls so flat that minho actually excuses himself out of the room to smoke a cigarette for the first time in months. felix finds him, because he always does, and they look out into the night sitting on their porch. how do you say something that you never had to say before?

time passes and their lives only become more and more intertwined, if that's even possible. minho does bring people over times, one-night stands and sometimes short-lived flings that don't fit into his life and only into his bed. felix makes sure to stay out of their house when minho has someone over. they pretend it doesn't happen.

felix doesn't invite anyone over aside from his friends and family. sometimes they host huge dinners that they both cook for. minho looks at stray kids members laughing themselves into stomach aches over wine and then looks at felix and wants to hold his hand, more than anything else. when felix looks back and his eye wrinkles deepen as he smiles, cacophony of laughter in the background, minho doesn't want another life. this one is enough.

maybe they never really truly discuss what this means. maybe they do, at length, over many emotional evenings and substances that lessen the emotional weight of what they are. maybe the pieces just click and nothing really changes. maybe one night they sleep together and it's all so disgustingly enormous and way heavier than they ever expected and they never separate since. it doesn't really matter. at the end of the day, they're together and kiss each other goodnight in their shared bed.