these are basically spoilers if you haven’t read the fic so i hope you’re okay with that! but basically, what breaks felix’s fever isn’t seungmin himself, but their dynamic/bond together. in my head, what felix desires is physical intimacy with someone who he loves that loves him in return. he does NOT need a romantic element for his fever to be broken, he just needs to be physically intimate with someone who deeply loves him. that’s why seungmin is able to break his fever (but also why seungmin’s fever cannot be broken by felix, because seungmin needs a very specific type of emotional intimacy from one person). anyone in skz could have broken felix’s fever, seungmin just happened to be the first one there to do so. but of course, by the time chan arrives felix and seungmin are hiding this knowledge, because felix decides to use the pollen as a way to get chan to be honest with him (and himself.) no one ever tells chan, they keep the fact that seungmin and felix were intimate as a secret forever imo!

thank you for asking and i hope this answers your question:D

yes exactly! and the romantic attraction is more of like a, minho could love jisung and be happy with him if it was something jisung was on board with, but since jisung doesn’t feel that way about minho it doesn’t really come to fruition for them—and honestly it would be almost too easy. a creature comfort. especially because the jealousy minho experiences in regards to jisung maturing and branching out to other people would probably eventually stifle jisung and he would grow resentful. he likes having minho around for the comfort but he also likes being able to do his own thing and show minho he can be independent. jealousy is a huge theme in this fic because i feel its such a natural emotion that doesn’t often get explored unless its like, truly plot related? sometimes you’re just jealous of something your friend has and then you move on—it’s as simple as that!

yes of course! omg i’ve been jonesing for someone to ask about this ngl. so seungmin is deeply in love with minho prior to the beginning of the fic of course, and he sort of realizes early on what he needs to break his fever is minho. especially once he and felix fuck and he realizes that it doesn’t work for him the way it worked for felix. jisung is already feeling some type of way about minho having to help seungmin, that very small sliver of jealousy—but as the sex pollen progresses, and minho continues to be an impenetrable wall, seungmin realizes that the only way to break his fever is to get minho to relent, and he uses minho’s weak spot/soft spot against him.

It’s worth noting that jisung is aware minho has feelings for seungmin and seungmin has feelings for minho. he knows both sides, and early on, seungmin already knowing full well what he needs from minho, asks jisung to not speak to him while they’re fucking mostly because he genuinely doesn’t want minho to talk to jisung while minho is fucking him. it’s not very evident because the fic is from minho’s pov, but seungmin also feels a bit jealous at how easy minho and jisung’s relationship is, and part of him wishes that was how he and minho worked too. the three of them have a very deeply loving relationship and dynamic, a very complex bond built upon layers of knowing each other’s existences, which seungmin obviously uses for evil when he picks that fight with minho during sex and uses jisung against him.

now, minho isn’t necessarily starving for jisung’s attention so much as he’s desperate for the safety net, the familiarity of being around jisung and his predictability and how jisung never moves out of the realm of the role minho’s assigned him in his head. he’s safe and easy and like a jumping off point for him, whereas seungmin scares minho because of how deeply he feels for him, and how he wants more than what he thinks seungmin would be willing to give or offer. so cutting minho off from this safety net is almost like, a way for seungmin to selfishly try to keep this experience with minho as something only he can wholly have, even if it’s because of the pollen.

minho like, genuinely is in love with seungmin. he’s just hyper-rationalized those feelings away into other things (roleplay) because he is constantly thinking about the good of the team. they’re both trying so hard to not be selfish, they’re both obsessively thinking about the future.

a lot of what seungmin is dealing with in parallel streams is a confrontation of his own feelings for minho, the sex pollen bringing it fully to the front of his mind, whilst also battling his own emotions and minho’s emotions—and playing into and out of the roleplay. like seungmin plays into it at first because he thinks it will work, that he and minho will fuck once and it will be fine. but then it doesn’t work, and he then has to go down the mental checklist he’s devised—roleplay sex (so fulfilling a fantasy), minho roughly fucking his mouth (fulfilling a want), telling minho he is in love with him (fulfilling a wish), and nothing WORKS. and so that strings seungmin out more and more, because he’s starting to realize his biggest fear (which he hoped wasnt going to be the case)—that the crystalization of his ultimate desire isn’t fucking minho, or minho fucking him, or telling minho he loves him, or even having minho love him—it’s always been about minho just needing him.

And that becomes the sort of internal battle of seungmin in the fic—because he recognizes minho as a hyung who is strong, Independent, self assured. and he needs minho to say he needs him and to mean it. honestly, in this fic, minho is very prideful, very ego driven (even seungmin is). For me, this fic is the death of the ego, actualized. the idea that you must bare your soul in all honesty to someone you deeply love because you love them and trust them to not take advantage of you.

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