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“Goodbye class~” crooned Mister Hong as Seungcheol opened the doors to pick up his class from music. Twice a week, he would bring them to the double doors where Joshua was waiting to greet the students with a hello jingle, and Mister Choi with a smile so dazzling it could kill. He always arrived promptly on time for pick up in order to hear the goodbye routine because it was cute when the students echoed back “Goodbye Mister Hong~” and no , Jeonghan, it’s not because Joshua has a soft beautiful voice, shut up.
The students lined up as Seungcheol ushered them through the doors, catching Joshua’s eye and mouthing “ lunch?” to which Joshua nodded and shooed the class out.
Seungcheol liked to think he was a pretty simple guy. He liked his coffee black and his food mild, and if he could get away with pairing a denim jacket with sweatpants then he would. He did not, therefore, anticipate having such a complex slew of emotions when he heard Soonyoung gushing to Minghao about his latest obsession while he watched over the playground at recess that morning.
“Mister Hong is soooo nice,” Soonyoung sighed dramatically, deep in a dream as Minghao crawled over from his spot opposite him to retrieve the ball that Soonyoung had neglected to roll back. “I wish he was our normal teacher.” Seungcheol, trying not to look directly at him as he eavesdropped, scrunched up his nose indignantly.
“Mister Choi’s nice too,” hummed Minghao, twirling the ball on one finger flawlessly, having completely given up on Soonyoung playing a proper game with him.
Soonyoung laid himself backwards over the blacktop. “Mister Choi is strict.”
“You’re just sad because you wish Mister Hong was your boyfriend.” Seungcheol’s head retracted into his neck. Damn, kid, get in line.
“Shut up, no I don’t!”
Minghao whipped around quickly with the ball still in hand, “Mister Choi, Soonyoung said the S word!”
Shit, right, responsibilities. Seungcheol closed his eyes to collect himself before turning to face the two boys. “Which one?”
Stupid? Shut up? Shit? Soonyoung, maybe? He waved his hands hastily as if to sweep the thought aside, “you know what? It doesn’t matter. You know better than that.”
“Yeah Soonyoung,” echoed Minghao.
The two got up from their spots and ran to the jungle gym together as though nothing had happened, Soonyoung nearly knocking another boy, Mingyu, off his center of gravity as he zoomed by unapologetically. Mingyu, righting himself back onto his feet, briskly brushed down his jacket and spun on his heel to chase after them.
Normally Seungcheol found kid crushes incredibly endearing. They’re innocent and misguided, generally based off of little else than how cute the other is and a shared interest in dogs. Not unlike Seungcheol’s last several tindr matches, if he was being honest. It was easy enough to mindlessly swipe while grading math quizzes or sitting on the toilet, but another thing altogether to follow through and make something happen like some kind of superhuman dating machine. Seungcheol would find himself ghosting around real contact and instead engaged in lovely dates with a cup of ramyeon and The Parent Trap preloaded in his DVD player.
All that being said, he felt the buds of shame nibbling at his back for feeling jealous of a child’s crush on his teacher when he sat down for lunch with Joshua that day.
Might as well waltz right into the belly of the beast. “Here’s something fun,” he began. “Guess who has a crush on you?”
Joshua’s eyes widened over his bite of a peanut butter sandwich. “That’s a loaded question,” he replied thickly, covering his mouth a beat too late.
Kind of a weird response? Seungcheol shrugged it off in self preservation, “I overheard Soonyoung worshipping you at recess today.” He wiggled his spoon in what was meant to be a coquettish manner.
Joshua’s expression softened just barely, “oh, Soonyoung.”
“Who did you think I meant?” he prompted, absolutely aware that he was pushing the limit but unable to stop himself.
“No one.”
“Oh.”
“Mm.”
They chewed for a moment, petrified in the light that they had both apparently forgotten how to have a conversation with another human adult.
“So, Soonyoung?” Joshua swallowed around his words.
Seungcheol, desperate to stop his heart from racing, coughed into his fist, “right, yeah, he wouldn’t stop talking about how much he’d rather have you as a teacher and how nice and pretty you are.” It took more effort than he’d like to admit to keep the disdain out of his tone.
Joshua let out a surprised, sparkling laugh. “He really said I’m pretty?”
“It was implied.” Total lie. Seungcheol stirred his stew and gently cradled his chin in his palm. Perhaps unfairly, he spoke his intentions through Soonyoung, but the kid didn’t have to know how shameful his teacher was so whatever. “Seems like you’ve really done a number on him.”
“I think he just likes the dancing games we play in class,” Joshua replied, a reassuring note in his voice to placate Seungcheol’s wounded dignity.
Seungcheol grunted and waved his spoon in affirmation after taking a bite. “Every time I let that kid go to the bathroom he basically moonwalks into the stall. I can’t tire him out for the life of me.”
“I guess all you can do is send him out to recess and hope he’ll tire himself out.”
Seungcheol tilted his head doubtfully, “he practically bulldozed over Mingyu this morning and that was with supervision.”
Joshua let out a pitying coo and donned a thoughtful expression over another mouthful of peanut butter. “Mingyu’s so sweet, I’ll bet he said sorry to Soonyoung for standing in his way.”
He wasn’t wrong, really. Mingyu was the type of kid who was extremely eager to please and even easier to motivate, whether that be in a negative or positive fashion, Seungcheol was unsure. It didn’t seem to matter if he showered him with praise or gave him a disapproving, teacherly stare; Mingyu was always prepared to do better. And now that Seungcheol thought about it, Mingyu seemed to respond to Soonyoung in the same way. It didn’t seem to matter to Mingyu If Soonyoung preened under his affectionate attention or spurned him for opening his mouth in the first place, Mingyu would continually return to him like a moth to a flame.
The wheels turned in his head, and he wondered aloud at the precipice of his epiphany. “Do you think Mingyu has a little crush on Soonyoung?”
“Now that’s an interesting thought,” responded Joshua, lips curling with intrigue. “Suddenly I’m in the middle of a love triangle.”
The glint in his eyes and the gentle upward curl of his lips reminded Seungcheol eerily of Jeonghan, and he wondered if perhaps they spent too much time together when he wasn’t paying attention. He tucked away a mental note to probe Jeonghan for more information later.
For the remainder of their lunch, Joshua easily filled the space between them with plans to get Soonyoung to notice Mingyu during their next music lesson, all the while Seungcheol kept strategically silent as he found himself understanding more and more how Mingyu must have felt.
The second graders were in the middle of a unit all about Shakespeare, and Seungcheol’s assignment first thing the next week was to write a marriage proposal as though written by one of the characters from (the extremely watered down version of) A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The final pieces that many of the students produced reflected only a fraction of this prompt, but Seungcheol saw Mingyu’s confusion and thought it best to work with him one on one.
It could be a bit of a chore to get the kid to stay on topic. It didn’t particularly matter where his papers started, but he would typically end with a thrilling call to action about extending recess or how cool skyscrapers were, and therefore Seungcheol used the official directions given to the other kids as helpful yet optional guidelines to reach some kind of common ground with him. It went without saying that Mingyu had troubles streamlining his own thoughts, hopes, and grievances on a good day, let alone the complex, romantic confessions of Victorian era royalty.
It dawned on him that this assignment might have been a bit above the second grade level, but the Springtime put Seungcheol in a refreshing, romantic mood, and the damage was already done anyway, so teacher and student settled together on the rug with a clipboard and a mission.
“So,” he started, “which character would you like to write as?”
Mingyu furrowed his brow. “I don’t know anyone in the book,” he stated.
“What about Lysander?” responded Seungcheol, a thoughtful expression draped over his face. “He’s going to marry Hermia.”
He flipped the pages glumly, “that’s kinda boring, Mister Choi, I don’t even know her.”
Nodding his head, Seungcheol countered, “ok, well, would you like to write to someone that you do know?”
It remains a mystery as to why Seungcheol suggested for this kid to write a powerful love confession at the tender age of seven. Call it desperation, as they only ever had a forty-five-minute window to complete their writing assignments, but it happened to strike the right nerve in him that day. Mingyu smiled, wide and toothy.
“I know who I’m going to write to,” he said, beaming at Mister Choi as though certain his teacher had no idea to whom he was referring.
He feigned ignorance. “And who might that be?”
“Soonyoung, obviously,” he replied, his head already down as he got to work. “I’m in love with him but he hates me.”
With no hint of despondency or even wistfulness in the boy’s tone as he said that, Seungcheol was struck with a deep sense of purity. There in front of him sat an example of truly unconditional love, and he found himself rooting desperately for Mingyu’s happiness and success.
He watched him print in his most capable handwriting after that. Mingyu was a firm believer that a letter written to someone as “cute and good at stuff” as Soonyoung (Mingyu’s words, not his) deserved only the finest work, and therefore any mistake made in his permanent red pen would mean they had to start completely anew.
Newly motivated, however, Mingyu’s writing took significantly less time than usual and Seungcheol got up to monitor the rest of the class while he worked. Upon finishing, Mingyu leapt up to show Mister Choi what he had written, and watched expectantly as Seungcheol carefully read the letter over.
Dear Soonyoungie,
You’re the most cutest and beautiful. And I will make sher I will never hirt you.
Your vairy fast like me. Will you be my husband forever?
Mingyu, wiggling energetically below Mister Choi, made to take his paper back when Seungcheol held it up higher out of reach.
“Slow down there, chief,” he said with a chuckle. “I need to keep this with everyone else’s papers.”
The smaller looked taken aback. “How am I supposed to give it to–,” he paused to look over his shoulders and dipped his voice to a whisper, “– Soonyoung if you keep it?”
“That was never really...the point of this…” Seungcheol hesitantly explained, wavering under Mingyu’s shockingly impenetrable gaze.
Under normal circumstances, Seungcheol might not have faltered. Maybe in an alternate timeline he did the responsible thing and emailed the letter to Mingyu and Soonyoung’s parents to enjoy on their own time. But something about the weather lately, or more likely the fact that he and Joshua had discussed this scenario and he wanted some kind of sign from the universe that love was real after all, told him to give in.
The bell for morning recess rang, and the other students filed over to hand Mister Choi their proposals and shuffled outside, Mingyu waiting patiently while they passed until Seungcheol could give his attention back to him once the room had emptied.
“I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do,” he said, voice steady, prudently folding the letter over twice on his desk. “I’m going to keep this in an envelope, and if you still want to give it to–” Mingyu silently cautioned him against blurting his secret in the event that someone was still in the room, “– him by tomorrow, I’ll give it back to you.”
“Why can’t I do it now?” Seungcheol had anticipated this question, but neglected to prepare an explanation for it. How does one tell a kid with such good intentions that this might not go over well? That the other kid might laugh at him or tell all of his friends what the letter said and rip it to pieces in front of him?
“Because,” he started, praying the right words would come if he just got them going, “I want you to really think about what a letter like this means to someone. Or to you, for that matter.” Mingyu squinted up at him, looking still mainly confused but now slightly contemplative.
Taking a breath in, Seungcheol squatted down and rested his arms on his knees, allowing Mingyu’s eyes to follow him until he was looking down at his teacher. He found that even a small shift in physical power made his students more receptive to tougher concepts, and Seungcheol more adept to confronting them himself.
“This is important to you, right?” Seungcheol thoughtfully posed the question with a pause at the end, during which Mingyu nodded. “Okay, so now think about how it might make Soonyoung feel.”
“Happy,” Mingyu offered matter of factly.
“Maybe,” Seungcheol encouraged, “but it might also make him confused or even scared.”
Wanting to avoid planting the seed of doubt, he quickly backtracked a step. “No matter what, and I don’t want to scare you out of telling someone how you feel because that’s a wonderful thing to do, your relationship with Soonyoung will be different after you tell him.”
“Relationship?”
Seungcheol hummed, searching for a suitable answer. “How you think about each other.”
Mingyu looked into the space past his teacher’s head and nodded gently, not grasping the idea fully but clearly making the effort to.
That was probably enough projecting for one day, he thought, and made to wrap up the discussion, “just promise me you’ll think about why this feeling is important.”
“Ok.” Mingyu’s eyes darted back to the letter as Mister Choi stood up to his normal height, knees cracking along the way. “Where are you going to put that?”
Smiling affectionately down at him, Seungcheol responded, “someplace safe, don’t worry. Now grab your snack and go to recess.”
“Someplace safe” ended up being his back pocket until the next day when he realized he had left it there, and he hastily placed it in the top drawer of his desk before the students arrived and started the hectic morning bustle of heading directly to music for the first block of the day.
Parked obediently in front of the door, Seungcheol greeted Joshua with “would you mind if I sit in on your class today?”
Joshua, caught off guard, shot him a quizzical look over the heads of the students walking through the door. “You don’t want to use this time to prep anything?”
“I’m all set for today,” Seungcheol replied, suddenly hotter in his clothes than he was before he decided to ask.
Now skeptical, the music teacher leaned in, “Did Seokjin ask you to peer audit me? It’s about that time of year, right?”
“Wh– no of course not!”
Why did he feel like he was caught in a lie? Did their principal even implement a system like that? Was he going to be peer audited? More importantly, can’t a guy watch another cuter guy’s class for no reason at all except to be there?
He concentrated all of his charm into laughing the nervous energy off, “I just want to see what you guys get up to in here is all.”
It seemed to have worked, as the dubious air around Joshua dissipated and left an almost delighted look about him if Seungcheol allowed himself to look too much into it. “Be my guest,” he chirped, gesturing to the rafters at the back of the room.
The class, he observed, fell into a neat circle around Joshua, Soonyoung rushing past the others to nab a seat next to the teacher and nestled in close. The kid couldn’t have looked more proud of himself if he had won the Nobel prize, his face alight with the satisfaction of claiming territory.
It was that moment when Joshua glanced over to Seungcheol with an impish twinkle in his eye, lighting both the flame of a plan about to be set into motion as well as the embers searing fervently in his throat when Joshua looked at him like that. Maybe he shouldn’t have joined the lesson today after all, fuck.
“Mingyu,” Joshua called out, “come sit next to me today, bud.” He patted the spot on the floor of his Soonyoung-less side and waited for the boy to slide over on his knees into place. All the while, Seungcheol watched Soonyoung's innocently confused expression and worried that the action would start something closer to a rivalry than anything else.
The lesson began with a musical Copy the Leader type game, and Joshua started by tapping gently on his criss-crossed legs until the students followed in rhythmic succession. The baton passed to Soonyoung, who chose to flick the hollows of his chubby cheeks, earning a rich giggle from Mingyu who had been watching his movements attentively. Soonyoung puffed up from the praise, and Joshua’s interested gaze shot up to meet Seungcheol’s, clearly impressed that their master plan was working so quickly.
Seungcheol continued to observe the class from his spot against the wall, every so often catching Joshua’s attention while he strummed his guitar and lent a genuine, dimpled smile. It was no wonder the kids liked going to music so much. Mister Hong, as it turned out, was something of a freak. A lovable one, if the laughter from the class was any indication, but definitely a Kidz Bop brand of weirdo. The second he stopped plucking at his guitar strings, the class would fall silent and look over to see him, struck in a different pose each time for them to imitate.
“Mister Choi, you need to do the pose,” Junhui whispered as he froze in place beside where Seungcheol sat.
“Oh, sure, right,” he fumbled, looking at Joshua’s position and mimicking it with his hands stretched in the air and one leg pointed out before him.
Assuming he’d had his fill after seeing Seungcheol struggle, Joshua switched gears. “Now, I’m going to partner everybody up and I want you to come up with a dance that lasts for four measures.” He demonstrated the length, tapping on the edge of his guitar still hanging from his shoulder.
Seungcheol knew which coupling Joshua had prepared before he ever uttered the words, and watched knowingly when Soonyoung and Mingyu were pushed together as the teacher made all the pairs around the room before coming to rest on the seat next to him.
The room buzzed with the sound of brainstorming and Seungcheol leaned over, speaking out of the corner of his mouth. “Could you be any more obvious, cupid?”
“They’re kids,” Joshua shrugged, on the verge of a laugh, “they wouldn’t know a gay setup if it hit them between the eyes.”
“Alright fine,” he added, slightly huffy, after a moment, “but a little more cold shoulder couldn’t hurt if you want them to pay attention to each other instead of you .” He gestured at Soonyoung and Mingyu for emphasis, which backfired, as the two were completely unaware of anyone besides themselves as Soonyoung choreographed their moves and Mingyu clutched onto his arm excitedly when he performed it correctly.
Absolute traitors, the one time he wanted to make a point...
“Aw, are you jealous?” Joshua’s eyes crinkled up in time with his giggle and fuck that was cute, fuck .
Stealing his nerves, Seungcheol thought he’d be daring for once in his miserable, bi life and leaned in ever so slightly. “I’d almost think you liked the attention, Mister Hong.”
For the briefest moment, the air hung static between them and Seungcheol thought perhaps he’d gone too far, read too much into the things Joshua had said and done up to that point. Then blissfully, blessedly , Joshua hummed through the press of his lips to keep from smiling and the oxygen flooded back into Seungcheol’s brain. In lieu of providing an answer, the man dawned a lofty demeanor and rose to his feet, hand pressed on Seungcheol’s thigh for leverage, “if you’ll excuse me, I have a class to teach.”
Seungcheol, using everything in his power not to burst into flames right then and there, playfully widened his eyes and matched his tone. “Oh, do you?”
“Yes,” he replied, eyes sharp enough to hold his focus and something indescribable behind his voice, “and I expect your full attention, Mister Choi.”
He turned to address the students as they completed the prompt, leaving Seungcheol in his wake for the remainder of class to wonder what exactly he could have meant by that.
“Okay, everyone grab your lunches and head out to the tables– Mingyu stay behind for a minute please.”
The class let out a collective “ooooooh” and turned to face Mingyu, who looked suddenly frightened for his life.
Seungcheol, life draining from his eyes, looked at the class. “He’s not in trouble,” he sighed, “would you all please relax and go to lunch?” It was more of a statement than a question, but the kids hustled toward the door and Mingyu shuffled over to Mister Choi’s desk. Soonyoung lingered behind the group to tap Mingyu on the shoulder with an unassuming, almost sheepish expression.
“Want me to get a basketball so we can play together?” he asked, much to Seungcheol’s surprise and apparently Mingyu’s as well considering the size that his eyes grew to upon hearing the question. That Mister Hong really knew what he was doing after all.
Mingyu, snapping back to reality, let out a shaky “y-yeah, I’ll meet you by the hoop?” The hopeful glint in his eye was enough to make Seungcheol hold his breath for the response in solidarity.
“Ok!” he chirped, and the strings holding Mingyu’s shoulders tensely upright visibly released.
The very second Soonyoung scooted out the door, Mingyu turned swiftly on his heel to face Mister Choi. The grin on his face was unmatched in the modern era as far as Seungcheol was concerned, and he beamed back down at him with optimism for the future and an agenda of his own on the tip of his tongue.
“Well that was nice of him,” he began, trying not to put too much pressure on Mingyu while he looked so hopeful. He only nodded speechlessly in response, so Seungcheol carried on, a little bolder, “do you remember what we talked about yesterday?”
Mingyu’s eyes fluttered to the door and back, “I think so.”
“About your letter,” he probed, sitting down in his chair. Seungcheol reached his hand inside the top drawer to pull out the envelope, tucked neatly on the top of a stack of folders and papers.
“Is that where you kept it?” the boy asked, somehow shocked to see that his teacher hadn’t forgotten about it. It’d been literally a day, did this kid have no faith in him at all?
“I told you I would keep it in a safe place, didn’t I?”
“Yeah.”
“Ok, well, here it is,” he pushed, foolishly expecting thanks for a thankless job. “Safe.”
Mingyu eyed the envelope calculatingly, his smile falling only slightly to give way for a look of vague contemplation, and Seungcheol mentally patted himself on the back that he got him to think anything over at all. Unable to read his expression with certainty, he dove right in. “So, did you think about what this letter means to you?”
A beat, then a quietly determined, “yeah, a little.” Seungcheol raised his eyebrows as indication to carry on.
“I think….like, ok, I love him and I just...I think I want him to...know? Maybe?” His eyes looked down to his fidgeting hands during the whole struggle to get the sentence out until he finally finished, looking less confident in the words he chose than he had a few minutes ago, but somehow assured by what he actually meant by them. “He’s just...special.”
Seungcheol sat back in his seat and crossed his arms. He could stand to learn something from this too, couldn’t he? God, sometimes working in education fucking sucked.
“Well that’s good enough for me,” responded Mister Choi, and he held the letter out for the boy to take with a thoughtful smile. “Go gettum, tiger.”
Mingyu, envelope in hand, drew his lips into a small smile and tucked the letter into his back pocket on his way out.
Seungcheol let out a warm chuckle and swiveled his chair back to his desk, only then noticing one Mister Hong wordlessly leaning against the doorframe on the other side of the room. The sound he made, he would later argue, was no more than a gruff rumble, but Joshua would hold strong that it was much closer to a pitiful, withering yelp.
“Joshua!” he blurted, no lack of surprise in his voice. “How long have you been there?”
“Just got here a minute ago,” he replied, possibly lying but Seungcheol wasn’t about to challenge it.
“How much of that did you hear?”
“Enough.” Joshua’s expression was soft and amused as he spoke, moving forward into the room to set his lunch down on the table. “I didn’t know you were such a love doctor, Cheol.”
Was he aware of the way he spoke? Maybe Joshua was one of those people who was just flirty by nature, or maybe he found it entertaining that Seungcheol seemed so flustered by him. Part of him selfishly relished that the other man would even lend him that much thought, and he hung his head in woefully aroused shame.
“I really wouldn’t call it that,” he said, already feeling feverish.
Joshua sat himself down at a nearby work table to face him, slouching just so and delicately propping his chin in one hand. Seungcheol had never seen him pull such a face before– almost like he was trying to see through him, like he didn’t quite know how to continue but something was on the edge of his tongue, mirrored by his position at the edge of his seat.
A charged silence vibrated between them before they both spoke out at once.
“I–”
“So–”
All of the confidence it took to start speaking was blown out in an instant, but Joshua, as gracious as he was weird, gestured for Seungcheol to say his piece.
“Go ahead.”
He cursed the man for being faster and more polite than him.
“Oh I just,” he began, unsure of where to go from there or how to breach how he was feeling about their whole situation at all. Maybe he should’ve just written a letter like Mingyu did and gotten back to this after 2-3 weeks when the letter arrived and he could already be safely out of sight in a foreign country. He forced himself to continue.
“What, uh...what was that? This morning?”
“What was what?”
“During your class,” he said, willing the wobble in his voice to die down before he said anything more.
Joshua pursed his lips before answering, choosing his words as carefully as Seungcheol was. “The...attention thing?”
“Yeah,” he ushered out in a breath that felt like he had been holding for months. “You have it. My attention.”
For once, Seungcheol felt as though this was a conversation he was ready to have. His eyes locked with Joshua’s, unwavering and sending a surge of something electric to his restless fingertips, which he ran through his hair whilst he waited on the other’s reply to quell the nervous energy.
Joshua, eyes following Seungcheol’s hand through his hair and laying to rest at the nape of his neck, gulped.
“I’m not sure I know what to do with it now that I have it.” A fluttering, uncertain laugh escaped with the admission, and Seungcheol felt his heart clench behind his ribs. If he didn’t explain himself in at that moment he feared he may never be so brave again, and he wheeled his chair to Joshua’s side of the table to better convey his sincerity.
“Listen, I know work may not be the right place to talk about this, and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable–”
“No! It’s–” Joshua hastily added, reaching a hand out to rest on Seungcheol’s knee, “really, it’s fine. Here is good.”
Seungcheol looked down at the hand presently burning a hole through his jeans and slowly, hesitantly, laid his own over it. Joshua’s hands were quite a bit bigger than his own, but he felt an abyssal need to envelop and keep them safe in his grasp as he continued to speak, fueled by the fact that Joshua hadn’t yet pulled away from his touch.
“Okay, maybe all this stuff with Mingyu and Soonyoung was something of a catalyst, and maybe I shouldn’t look to a child’s example of love for a model, but I’m already going with it so hear me out.
“You are,” he paused to search for his words, “ stupid cute.”
Okay, probably not the words he would’ve chosen for a final draft.
Had Seungcheol been a less lucky man, a line like that might not have been so endearing. Favor would have it that Joshua, a man of admittedly strange humor and taste, thought it was sweet and laughed wholeheartedly, covering his mouth with his free hand to contain his relief.
“Not what I was expecting to hear, if I’m being honest.” There was a light, airy tone behind his voice. “You’re...pretty stupid cute yourself.”
“I’m certainly one of those things,” Seungcheol replied, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. “I should’ve said something sooner, I guess.”
“Hush, loser” Joshua replied, more fondness in his tone than the words would suggest, “I’m just glad you said anything at all.” He gave Seungcheol’s knee an affectionate squeeze.
Maybe it was the contact, or maybe it was the way the light cradled itself gently over Joshua’s cheeks, or more likely it was the fact that he had had this crush for so long and he was experiencing the relief that he may not have misread everything after all, but Seungcheol felt something unstoppable bubble to the surface. His hand, as though of its own volition, maneuvered to weave its fingers together with Joshua’s, who responded in kind.
The weight that had been sat in Seungcheol’s chest instantaneously lifted, the doubts and frustrations that had once rooted themselves so deeply into his lungs that he couldn’t breathe when he saw Joshua released as he finally allowed himself to exhale.
“To be clear,” he hummed, instinct leaning him into the other’s space, “I like you a lot, Joshua.”
That smile and the just-right look from under his lashes was all the go ahead Seungcheol needed, quickly glancing to the doors on either end of the classroom to ensure their privacy before closing the space between them.
The ghost of a breath feathered over his lips before the two sets slipped together, gently, elegantly– absorbing the warmth of one another’s sheepish certainty during the moment alone before pulling away almost as quickly as they had started.
It would have been foolish on their own parts to allow it to last any longer, and the two men released a chuckle on the tailend of a purr as they were reminded of where they were and the lunches they had abandoned entirely up to that point.
“So,” Joshua pulled away to mutter, righting himself in his chair but still clutching Seungcheol’s hand with renewed purpose, “did you think about what this encounter means to you?”
“Oh m– shut the fuck up, Mister Hong.”
Seungcheol would later find out that Mingyu never did end up giving the letter to Soonyoung. The boy reached for it when as he saw the other under the hoops waiting for him, beaming an unbelievably bright smile, and it was only as he smiled back, running to catch up and play, when something instinctive told him to leave the envelope where it was as it may be better to see where this would go on its own with time.