Chapter Text
By this point in the school year, nearly five months since the freshman had come in and the shining new campus moon had been selected, Kit knew what to expect when he saw Ming Daichapanya’s tall figure approaching from down the hall. Kit’s eyebrows had already slumped down into a habitual scowl as he determinedly looked back down at his textbook.
“Good morning, P’Pha, P’Beam,” Ming wai’ed as he greeted the older boys, voice chipper as always as he smiled down at the three doctors at their study table. Ming then slowly slid his eyes to Kit, one corner of his mouth dropping into a smirk.
“Morning, P’Kitkat,” Ming said, catching Kit’s eyes as they shot up to glare at the younger boy. Kit’s jaw tensed at the childish nickname and he fought back the urge to punch that damn smirk right of the campus moon’s handsome face.
“Ming, don’t you have somewhere better to be?” Kit grunted, “Like sleeping with some girl or winning a beauty pageant?” Beam bumped his shoulder into Kit and gave him an admonishing glance, but Kit ignored him, instead allowing his annoyance with the engineering student to fuel his words.
“Or maybe you have some actual studying to do, since you never seem to do anything other than hang around us,” Kit scoffed, satisfied with his comeback, but Ming just smiled, his eyes almost laughing at Kit.
“Aw, P’! Don’t make it seem like I’m such a bad guy,” Ming stepped forward and Kit had to lean back a bit to continue to look – or rather, glare – at him in the eyes.
“You can’t blame me if I wanted to see my P’Kitty looking so cute,” Ming took another step forward and placed his hand on top of Kit’s head.
“Ow, my Kitty is so small and cute!” Ming cooed, ruffling Kit’s already slightly-mussed hair. Kit was vaguely aware of Pha and Beam snickering somewhere behind him, but he could barely hear it over the rushing in his ears.
“Ai’Ming, You - !” But Ming was already skipping toward the exit, waving enthusiastically.
“Sorry, P’! Gotta go meet Yo for lunch. Don’t miss me too much!”
“Miss you, my ass!” Kit shouted at Ming’s retreating figure, “I’m glad you’re gone, you asshole!”
Kit stood there huffing and fuming for several seconds before he realized that nearly everyone in the study alcove was watching him with a mixture of curiosity and annoyance. He quickly sat down, scowling and trying to fight off the blush that threatened to turn his whole face cherry red.
It wasn’t as if everyone on campus hadn’t seen it all before, though; he and Ming had been going at each other’s throats since practically the first day of the year. Ming had made some comment about Kit’s height, Kit had bitten back a threat along the lines of ‘breaking Ming’s perfect nose’, and the rest was history.
Since then, Ming would find him every day without fail, throwing out teasing, flirtatious lines just to get under Kit’s skin, and Kit would fight back with just as much strength. It had become a part of his daily routine, so much so that on the few days Ming hadn’t been around, too occupied with exams or moon duties, Kit had felt agitated and uneasy, as if something was missing that he couldn’t quite feel normal without.
Kit sighed as he sank down in his chair, grumbling under his breath as Pha and Beam exchanged glances.
“N’Ming seems pretty serious, doesn’t he?” Pha asked as he sat forward a bit in his seat. Kit gave him a curious look.
“What do you mean? The guy’s an idiot, the only thing he’s serious about is his hair,” Kit scoffed, rolling his eyes at the thought of Ming fluffing himself up every morning in front of his bathroom mirror. He wondered what Ming looked like when his hair wasn’t styled. When he was fresh out of the shower and there were still water droplets falling from the ends of his dark hair onto his eyelashes and his full pink lips…
Kit shook his head and looked back at Pha, waiting for him to elaborate on his previous statement. Pha quirked a smile.
“No, Ai’Kit. I mean Ming seems pretty serious about you.” Kit still didn’t get it. “Of course he is, idiot. We’ve been acting like this for months now, catch up,” Kit rolled his eyes but Beam just flicked him lightly in the forehead.
“No, I think you’re the idiot, Kitty. We mean Ai’Ming is seriously interested in you. He likes you.”
Kit’s eyebrows shot up and his brain screeched to a stop for one terrifying second.
“What?!” Kit practically screeched. Beam was surely kidding. There was no way that egg Mingkwan was interested in him. There was no way the campus moon, the most desired guy in the university, was interested in him?!
Beam slapped a hand onto Kit’s back, causing him to jump out of his thoughts and stare wildly into Beam’s face, now stretched widely with a teasing grin.
“Oi, come on, Ai’Kit. You can’t really tell us you haven’t noticed the kid flirting his ass off with you every chance he gets. I mean, his faculty’s building is all the way on the other side of campus, yet he comes here every day just to see you. The kid’s totally into you,”
Kit’s brain must surely be short-circuiting if he it thought Beam had really just said that Ming had been flirting with him. How the hell could all of that have been flirting?! All that damn Ai’Ming ever did was point out his lack of height and call him cute… and bring him food…and ask him to hang out with him…
Shit.
Kit shook his head violently and clenched his teeth. “You two are crazy! All that dumb kid ever does is annoy the hell out of me and then laugh in my face! Don’t think that just cuz you’ve got N’Yo now you’ve suddenly become some expert on love, Ai’Pha,” Pha winced slightly as Kit continued.
“No person in their right mind could call anything that comes out of that doofus’ mouth flirting! Besides, if he liked me he definitely would have given up by now, or at least found a better tactic.” Kit huffed, trying to process the strange bubbly feeling filling his stomach at the thought of Ming flirting with him. Ming trying to date him.
Ridiculous.
Pha smiled at him and shook his head. “That’s exactly why I say he must be serious,” Pha grinned. “Man’s gotta be totally head-over-heels to be trying so long with your oblivious ass.”
Beam barked out a laugh while Kit let out an indignant grunt, standing and gathering his things.
“Whatever, you two are making me queasy with all this bullshit. I’m going to get some food,” and with that, Kit turned and headed toward the exit, slinging his backpack roughly over his shoulder and actively trying not to think about Ming.
__________
Being a fairly large university situated in the middle of the city, there were naturally a fair number of cafes stationed on or around the campus. Each faculty building had one café located closer to it than the others, and the one nearest to the medical building just so happened have the softest, chocolatiest, most melt-in-your-mouth brownies Kit had ever tasted.
So really, it wasn’t any surprise that he, Kit, a med student and lover of delicious chocolatey desserts, would stomp his way to said café after his unusual conversation with the other two-thirds of the Doctor Gang.
What was a surprise was that Ming, an engineering student who Kit had only ever seen consume meat and noodles, would be sitting in the same café, waiting to ambush Kit with his glowing skin, long fluttering eyelashes, and dark expressive eyes.
Kit was just about to step up to the counter to order an americano along with his special brownie when he heard the familiar voice. It sent a strange warmth up his spine and into his chest, and without even telling his body to do so, Kit had already turned to find the source, sitting at a corner table by the window near the back of the store.
Ming was angled away from Kit, talking intensely to Wayo as the other boy listened intently. Despite Kit’s limited view, he could still see the furrow between Ming’s eyebrows, and he found himself struck by how immediately he missed the presence of his smile.
It was only after a few seconds of staring that Kit realized what the two juniors were discussing, and when he did his heart nearly froze in his chest.
“Ai’Yo, I don’t know what to do anymore!” Ming groaned. “P’Kit will never return my feelings…” Return his feelings? What feelings?
“Don’t give up, Ai’Ming,” Yo said in a soft voice, “Have you confessed to P’Kit yet? Maybe he doesn’t even know you like him.” Confess? Kit’s head was spinning and his heart was beating so loud in his ears he wasn’t fully sure it hadn’t already burst out of his chest and flung itself straight into Ming’s lap. So Beam and Pha were right?
Kit stood frozen in the middle of the café, desperately trying to process this revelation, when suddenly Yo’s eyes found his across the room. “Oh, P’Kit…!” Yo’s voice caught in his throat as his eyes darted to the boy across from him.
Ming’s chair screeched against the floor as he pushed back and whipped around, locking eyes with Kit as his mouth formed a small ‘o’. Letting panic take over, Kit turned around and raced out the door before Ming could even take a breath, americano and scrumptious brownie long forgotten.
“P’, wait!”
Ming was calling after him but Kit’s feet didn’t slow as he shouldered the door open and took off around the corner. His mind filled with the details of every interaction he’d had with his junior since the beginning of the year, analyzing every warm smile, every compliment, every affectionate touch that Kit had so easily disregarded as a teasing invasion of his space.
This whole routine between Ming and him, he’d thought it was mutual dislike, but Ming had had feelings for him all along? While Kit was throwing genuine insults and wishing for the junior to leave him in peace, Ming had honestly tried to woo him. Kit was truly blind.
Guilt washed over Kit as he fought to put distance between himself and the café, feeling suddenly responsible for the pained twinge in Ming’s voice as he relayed his worries to Wayo. But more than just the guilt, Kit felt something else bubbling inside his stomach, something he wasn’t quite as ready to admit.
Excitement. Anticipation. Even relief. And he couldn’t make sense of any of it. If Kit had been so sure that this feud between Ming and himself was based only on annoyance and dislike, why did he feel so giddy at the thought of Ming liking him? Why was he getting goosebumps remembering the feeling of Ming’s fingers in his hair, on his cheek, between his own?
Luckily Kit didn’t have long to dwell on these tumultuous thoughts, because in his haste to escape his new-found suiter he completely overlooked an oncoming cyclist as he attempted to cross the street.
The bike swerved, the rider letting out a frantic, “Watch out!”, but Kit was running too fast and he noticed too late; the front tire collided into his right side and Kit flew sideways, landing on his shoulder and scraping his leg roughly along the pavement.
“P’Kit!” Kit hissed in pain as he looked up to see Ming running toward him – had he followed him from the café? – with Yo a few steps behind. The campus moon’s handsome face was twisted in fear and worry as he ran to Kit and crouched by his side, one arm coming around his waist to support his weight while the other hovered nervously above his injured leg.
“Shit, P’…” Ming breathed, “this is bad.”
Kit was breathing heavily as he slowly assessed the status of his body: his shoulder ached from where he had landed and would likely form a deep bruise, but the real concern was the road burn running up the outside of his leg from the bottom of his knee to mid-thigh. The friction had worn through his pants in several places, revealing bits of shredded skin and bloody muscle covered by flecks of gravel.
Despite his medical studies, Kit couldn’t completely contain the wave of panic that washed up from his stomach through his ears, and he swayed back heavily against Ming’s shoulder. He had almost forgotten that the younger boy was there, but he was sure he’d never been so grateful for anything than he was for the feeling of Ming’s warm body supporting him. Ming smelled good, Kit decided, and he breathed in as deeply as his aching body would allow him.
Ming then shifted slightly, adjusting Kit’s body so he leaned back fully against Ming’s strong chest and Kit let out a groan of pain.
“Shh, shh, I’m sorry P’Kit,” Ming quickly hushed, thumb moving in soothing strokes from where it rested against the older boy’s ribs.
“It’s ok Ai’Ming,” Kit grunted, twisting his head slightly to look up at the boy. From this angle the sun shone down through Ming’s eyelashes and created a halo of gold around his deep brown eyes.
“Where’s the cyclist?” Kit asked, finally readjusting to his surroundings. Looking around, he noticed a small crowd of people looking on with varying degrees of concern and confusion. A little distance away, Kit spotted Yo, along with Beam and Pha, kneeling next to a man who was nursing a couple of small scrapes on his knees and elbow.
Kit felt Ming lean in closer, his breath passing over the top of his ear as he responded, “Don’t worry, P’Beam and P’Pha have got him all taken care of. Besides…” Ming pulled away slightly to fully look at Kit. There was something so deep and genuine in his eyes that Kit was suddenly reminded of the events that led to this accident. The thought sent a shiver through his body and Ming tightened the arm around him in response.
“Ai’Ming, P’Kit!” Yo called out, cutting Ming off from whatever he was about to say. “P’Pha’s got his car…Ming do you think you can help P’Kit over? We really should get him to a hospital.” Yo directed his question at Ming, but he really seemed to be asking Kit: Is it ok if Ming helps you, even though you know he has feelings for you and you don’t seem to feel the same way?
Kit frowned at the exchange, but turned to Ming anyway. “Oi, Ming. Help me get out of the middle of the street, why don’t you?” Ming brightened almost immediately, his lips lifting into a determined smile as his arm curled all the way around Kit’s waist and his other hand went to the back of Kit’s good knee.
In one smooth motion Ming lifted Kit off the ground and into the air, jerking a squeak of surprise from Kit as he swung up into the younger boy’s arms. Kit could feel his entire face burn as he kicked weakly in Ming’s tight grip.
“Ai’Ming,” Kit practically whined, “I said help me stand, not pick me all the way up! I’m not a little girl, dumbass!” By this point Kit barely tried to deny that his protests were fueled solely by embarrassment rather than actual annoyance.
Again Ming turned to look his senior straight in the eyes, a warm smile touching his lips. “But P’ is hurt, so I’ll carry you as far as you need to go so you don’t have to be in pain. C’mon, let’s get you to the hospital.”
The sincerity and affection laced throughout Ming’s voice tied a knot in Kit’s throat that he couldn’t quite understand. As Ming carried him towards Phana’s car on the other side of the street, Kit finally allowed himself to relax against Kit’s body and trust in the boy who had undoubtedly given him his whole heart.