Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I want to die.”

“No, you don’t,” his best friend replies immediately, a little absently. It is a testament to how much Jeno contemplates his death aloud that Jaemin barely even twitches as he concentrates on his doodle of the dog outside. It’s not a very good doodle, nothing like any of the art majors could do, but it’s adorable. Or maybe that’s just Jeno’s bias speaking.

To be difficult, Jeno presses, “But I actually do.”

At that, Jaemin’s lips pull up into a smile, involuntarily. He looks up at Jeno, who beams because he just can’t help it. Jaemin has that effect on him - always had when they were kids, and probably always will. “You’re so dumb,” he says affectionately.

Warmth bleeds into Jeno’s heart.

“Not dumber than you.” He wriggles a bit, trying to get the feeling back in his thighs from where Jaemin’s legs are propped; Jaemin has long legs, longer than his, and they’re very, very heavy. “Do you even have exams to worry about?”

“Not until halfway through yours,” he grins, teeth gleaming. Jeno sort of wishes it was the afternoon, so that the sun could leave its golden radiance on the features of Jaemin’s face and make him glow, but it’s almost two in the morning, and the two of them are camping out in the dormitory laundromat because Jeno had been so much of a wreck the entire past week that neither of them had bothered to actually clean. Instead, the shitty lighting of the equally shitty fluorescent bulbs washes Jaemin out, swallowing any trace of his natural brightness.

Jeno reaches up and tries to comb through Jaemin’s hair with his fingers, tries to get them from a chaotic evil to a maybe chaotic neutral. Jaemin lets him do as he pleases, turning his face down and concentrating on shaping the tail of the dog. It’s much limper than it should be, that is for certain.

But still, it’s cute. So Jeno tells Jaemin as much.

Jaemin smiles, pretty and a thousand times more brilliant than all of the shitty lights in the rundown laundromat combined. “Thank you,” he says, and presses a brief kiss to Jeno’s cheek, catching him by surprise.

“Jaemin!” he protests immediately, laughing and reaching out to pinch the other’s cheeks fondly. “That’s gross!”

“My kisses are precious!” Jaemin exclaims, indignant. He tries to bite at Jeno’s fingers, but Jeno has always been more agile between the two of them. “Fuck.”

“Language,” he growls, mocking their mutual friend, Taeyong, who likes to baby them just because they’re sophomores and he’s well into grad school.

Jaemin guffaws so hard he snorts, which sends them both into another fit.

The thing is, Jaemin is Jeno’s best friend, always has been and always will be. Jaemin is Jeno’s everything. He’s Jeno’s most precious friend and most precious person. Jeno loves Jaemin.

He can’t help it. How can anyone not love Jaemin?

Someone stumbles into the laundromat, the little, rusty bell above the door signalling their entrance. Jeno and Jaemin stifle their antics to watch a first year from the floor below - or, at least, that’s who they think it is - struggle to do his laundry. He drops a coin, a little dismally, into the change slot, and Jaemin snorts at the way a sock falls off his sizable pile. His shoulders shake with badly-suppressed chortles, eyes squinted in juvenile glee and lips pulled wide into a grin. It was pretty funny, in the way things are pretty funny after twenty hours of no sleep, give or take a few hours, yet Jeno holds back a laugh and smacks Jaemin’s thigh, because that was rude, Nana. The lady at the counter can hear them, still, and shoots them a look, shushing them sharply.

It’s Jeno who almost laughs aloud this time at the offended look on the shopkeeper’s face, but Jaemin is quick to slap a palm over his mouth. “Shut up, man,” he hisses by his ear.

Jeno chuckles and rolls his eyes, pushing Jaemin’s hand away from his face. “I haven’t even done anything yet.”

“Oh, but you were going to.” Jaemin sniffs dramatically. “I know you, Lee Jeno.”

It’s maybe three in the morning and they’re both in their last sets of clean clothes (which, really, are both Jaemin’s hoodies, and some sweats they might have owned themselves, but could have also perhaps switched before Jaemin hit his extra growth spurt and left Jeno behind by an inch). And there is something so hilarious about the way Jaemin looks a little sleepy, and a little sweet, and a little like he’s just rolled out of bed to accompany Jeno. Which he did.

And Jeno’s a little in love with his best friend, because who isn’t a little in love with Na Jaemin?

He can’t help it. No one can. So he leans close and pecks Jaemin on the nose, like a little boop, and smothers his giggles into the crook of his neck. The weight of Jaemin’s hand is comforting at the base of his scapula, the whirr of the washing machines are too loud, the hoodie he has on is a little threadbare, but everything is warm.

Mornings are slow in the Lee-Na not-quite-household.

Jaemin didn’t always wake very easily, but Jeno doesn’t know what is up or down without him, so he always forces himself to move even when he can’t quite feel his own face yet. In the mornings, when the hazy light filters through their too-thin curtains, Jaemin looks cosiest. Sleep soft and messy, something that belongs in the comfort of a thick duvet and a fortress of pillows.

But university is sort of shit, so Jeno never really gets to make into reality what his mind always screams at him to.

When Jaemin leaves the safety of the bed, Jeno is not exactly quick to follow. He lingers in the warm spot Jaemin leaves before it disappears, trying to absorb the remnants of a dream-like evening, then he struggles out of the blankets. Barefoot, he pads to the kitchen, where Jaemin prepares a proper budgeted breakfast with leftover kimchi, a cup of rice, and one fried egg, because neither of them remember the last time they actually went grocery shopping. He clings to Jaemin until either he finds the strength to take a shower, or Jaemin tells him he needs to get ready with a none-too-gentle elbow in the side.

When it’s Jaemin’s turn to take a shower, Jeno lumbers through the room half-naked, trying to sort their things for the day. They have their schedules colour-coded and printed out on the door to their room - it’s something Mark laughs about every time he comes around, because Jaemin lives here, but so does Jeno. He and Jaemin had, during the lull of the first few days of the new school year, taken the liberty of cutting out little matching labels for their reference materials. (It stands to be their only attempt at organising their academic lives to this day.) Jeno uses these to slot their stuff into their respective school bags as neatly as he can manage, which is… passable, to say the least. But Jaemin is infinitely worse than him, so neither of them complain when the wrong pen ends up in the wrong bag or someone has to pass slightly crumpled homework to a professor.

Jeno cares little for how he looks, so he grabs a long-sleeved tee and a hoodie or a jacket, depending on the weather. It’s windy outside, so he grabs a cap to pull over his hair just to look that bit more presentable. While Jaemin is still washing up, Jeno asks through the bathroom door what he’d like to wear for the day so he can lay it out and waits for Jaemin to yell back a reply. It’s nothing too complicated of a task, as Jaemin likes sticking to routine and eight-tenths of his wardrobe is filled with sweaters.

Jeno then goes to pick out Jaemin’s sweater for the day (an oversized, slouchy beige turtleneck with blue accents Jeno loves seeing his best friend in) and heat water for their coffees. While Jeno isn’t very particular, Jaemin likes his drinks four shots too strong. When Jeno is sipping on his for-human-consumption coffee, Jaemin is finally coming out of their bedroom ready for the day, skin healthily flushed from the shower and hair still a little too damp for the weather.

“Your hair’s a mess,” Jeno tuts around a bite of kimchi, as he does every morning.

Silently, childishly, Jaemin sticks his tongue out at him and pettily shoves in a mouthful of egg-covered rice. “Literally shut up, Lee Jeno.”

Jeno only chuckles and leans forward to card his fingers through Jaemin’s tangled fringe, the recently-dyed hair slightly coarse to the touch. Jaemin lets him do as he pleases, eyelashes fluttering, because this isn’t anything new (because he likes it). Maybe if they had more time, Jeno would find a way to lure him back into bed for a few more minutes of sleep, but Jaemin wouldn’t ever shut up if he’s late to class because of him. As it is, Jeno settles for playing with Jaemin’s hair, pushing it away from his forehead and letting it flop over his eyes until Jaemin looks up and frowns at him in faux-annoyance, cheeks filled adorably with food.

They wait for each other to finish with breakfast, leaving their dirty dishes to soak in the sink. They give each other a customary once-over by the entranceway (with Jeno sighing and tidying the neck of Jaemin’s sweater), before they leave their dorm room with their shoes on and their bags slung over their shoulders.

If necessary, they split up after leaving the building to get to their own subject blocks. When possible, however, just like this morning, they walk together, pace slow and sleepy, bumping shoulders and giggling among themselves, to their first shared class of the day.

One of the only pros of being on the registration committee is being able to choose your schedule way before anyone else does. Of course, Jeno and Jaemin used it as an opportunity to sync their schedules as much as possible, down to their free periods. Knowing that, it isn’t unusual to see the two together in the student lounge after lunch, chilling on the sofas pushed to corner of the room.

Jeno sits half-on Jaemin’s thighs and half-off, his legs strewn across the other’s lap. Jaemin’s hands travel to the inside of his thigh and grip him there, keeping him from slipping off. Jeno has his phone in his own lap, texting mildly furiously at rather than with Donghyuck, lips twisted in mild frustration.

“Why isn’t he here yet?” Jaemin murmurs, head leaning against Jeno’s shoulder. Jeno can feel the tension leave his best friend’s body, feel the way his muscles go lax. His hand reaches up to the base of Jaemin’s nape, massaging it soothingly. Jaemin can afford a nap right now.

The arm of the couch they’re on digs into his spine, but he says nothing, continuing to argue with Donghyuck with one hand and make Jaemin relax with the other. “Something about arguing with this kid, I don’t know.” He sends a string of get here now!!!s to Donghyuck unrepentantly. His phone vibrates, and he opens the new text message. “Nevermind. Mark’s just told me Hyuck’s been busy picking a fight with a freshman for taking the last… cake? I think?”

Jaemin laughs breathily, warm air on Jeno’s collarbones. “Sounds like Hyuck.”

Jeno sighs.

“Just,” Jaemin yawns weakly, nuzzling into the soft, worn fabric of Jeno’s hoodie, “just wake me up when they’re here yeah?”

He hums in affirmation, biting down his laugh when Jaemin almost immediately slips into unconsciousness, lax lips gaping adorably. Jeno pushes his mouth close gently with a thumb, but it falls open again. Amused and terribly fond, he turns Jaemin’s head deeper to his chest and, ruffling his own hair with his free hand, covers Jaemin’s sleeping face with his cap. Jaemin doesn’t like it when people see him vulnerable, and the least Jeno can do as his best friend is respect that - even though all he really wants to do is play with Jaemin’s unsuspecting form and maybe take a few photos.

The lounge is usually quiet around this time, only occupied by students either trying to cram for their next class or squeeze in some sleep. Jeno and his friends are the rare exception to that, having always used this period to catch their breaths in the middle of the day when possible. Being so uncomfortably close to midterms, however, has the lounge filled with students scrambling for reference materials and fighting over the last available computers. Jeno has his own work to deal with, a daunting stock of academic emails in his inbox, and a stack of reference books he has yet to read through. Part of him screams at him to get up and do something; his laptop is barely a metre away, perched on the coffee table across him, next to his three-quarters empty tumbler of lukewarm tea.

The other, much louder, part of him, however, tells him to stay still so Nana can sleep a little bit more. Between the two of them, Jaemin works better in the comforts of their dorm room and is, thus, the cause of why their lights are more often than not on hours past curfew. It is midday naps like this one that help Jaemin get through the week without collapsing, so Jeno sucks on the inside of his cheek and distracts himself with scrolling through his twitter feed on his phone. There isn’t much of anything, really. He only follows Jaemin and his other friends, some idols, and cute animal accounts. He finds himself pausing on a photo of himself Jaemin had posted the other night without his knowledge or consent - not that Jeno minds, really. It is Jaemin, after all.

When more minutes pass by without any sign from their friends, he ends up sifting through his mailbox, replying to his professors and cringing at how much more he has to do each time. At some point, Jaemin squirms, the cap slipping from his face and giving Jeno a perfect view to how he murmurs unintelligibly into his chest, a small annoyed frown pulling at his brow. Jeno snickers quietly, then covers Jaemin’s face again. No one else needs to see that.

It’s almost half an hour later when their friends arrive, in various states of disgruntlement.

“Don’t fuck with me right now, Mark Lee,” hisses Donghyuck as he stomps over to them and squeezes into the space by Jaemin. It jolts Jaemin awake, his head slipping from Jeno’s chest and the hat falling off his face. There are adorable red sleep marks by his temple, and Jeno takes the liberty of covering them up with his hair.

“What the hell, Donghyuck,” Jaemin slurs, rubbing at his eyes. Jeno tugs his hands away before he irritates his eyes like a child. Jaemin pouts tiredly, moodily headbutting Jeno’s shoulder.

“Mark Lee stuck his nose in someone else’s business again,” Donghyuck mutters sourly, arms crossed and lips twisted.

Mark’s brow furrows, the corners of his lips tightening in a show of frustration that comes out all too often around Donghyuck. “You were making a scene, Hyuck! The kid didn’t even deserve whatever shit you were saying just because of a slice of cake.”

“Are you calling me petty, Lee Minhyung?” Donghyuck sneers, shoulders rising.

Oh, Jeno thinks, and his spine straightens, tense. Apologetically, he rubs Jaemin’s nape when he whines.

“I wasn’t,” Mark says levelly, jaw clenched the way it does whenever Donghyuck calls him by his full name. Jeno only wishes they weren’t somewhere so public for the inevitable fallout to happen. “But clearly, you must be aware of it yourself.”

A sound not unlike a growl rips its way from Donghyuck’s throat and he stands up; he’s reminiscent of a tornado, really. Concentrated chaos. He tugs his bag to his chest, and knocks Mark’s leg with his own as he walks by.

“Wait,” Mark calls, frustrated. “Donghyuck!”

Donghyuck pretends not to hear him as he exits the lounge, every bit as dramatic as his entrance. Jeno gets off Jaemin’s lap so the other can gather his things. Absently, he accepts the brief kiss Jaemin presses to his cheek right before he runs after their aggravated/aggravating friend.

Jeno is left with Mark, who stares angrily at Jeno’s tumbler. Awkwardly, because Jeno’s never really learnt how to deal with the aftermaths of Donghyuck’s temper tantrums, he asks if Mark wants some too-cold tea. When Mark only shakes his head in the negative, Jeno sighs and pulls his legs beneath him, propping his laptop on his knees.

He may as well get started with work.

Jeno spends most of his days running between laboratories and lecture halls and classrooms, lugging around a large backpack heavy with the load of his laptop, its charger, and a dozen other things he never actually uses. Pre-vet is really… a demanding major, to put it concisely. He doesn’t remember the last time he’d gone back to his dorm room at the end of the day without sore feet and aching shoulders.

While Jeno stumbles through a large portion of the campus to get to his classes, Jaemin stays locked inside the School of Management with his uber smart blockmates and all the jargon Jeno would never understand. Sure, Jeno’s forte isn’t exactly science either, but he would actually drop out of college if he had to take up a business course like Jaemin. His best friend tells him there’s nothing noteworthy in being a Management - in Honours! - major, but Jeno would like to politely disagree with him.

In any case, that is one contributing factor to how and why Jaemin always comes back home still physically refreshed enough to study late into the next day, while Jeno snores away in his own bed.

Today, however, finds Jeno speed-walking to the Management building rather than the Social Studies building where he should be having his first class of the afternoon. Renjun, who he shares foreign language 1 with, struggles to keep up with him. He can hear the heavy breaths of his friend as they squeeze through people to get to the next block, but Jeno’s on a tight schedule at the moment.

“What the fuck,” Renjun is panting as they finally slow down, the large building coming into view. The School of Management is covered in posters and banners and other things, all promotional tools and memorabilia from successful and large-scaled student projects over the years. It is so much more different from Jeno’s own building which is honestly a tad too sterile for his tastes. Renjun grabs his elbow as they stop at the lobby of the building. “Jeno, what the fuck.”

“I told you you could go ahead,” Jeno reminds him, gently shaking his arm free so he can rummage through his bag for the reason he traversed half of the campus, his other hand being occupied by a warm cup of coffee. He is careful not to jostle the drink too much as he pulls out his laptop charger.

“And go into Wu’s class alone? No thanks,” he scoffs, settling onto a stone bench, crossing his legs at the ankles. Leaning back, he hugs his bag to his chest with an exasperated frown. “Please tell me why we’re here.”

“Oh,” he says, lowering his backpack, a little distracted as he does so. He sets the cup next to Renjun, glares at him to make certain that he doesn’t try to sneak a sip, then pulls out his phone. He sends Jaemin a quick message just to tell him to hurry up. “I just needed to drop something off.”

“Is it so important that you’re risking a tardy in Wu’s class?” Renjun wrinkles his nose. “What if he locks you out?”

Easily, he answers, “Then I’ll have more time to work on my papers.”

Renjun presses, “What if he locks me out?”

At that, Jeno laughs, because he knows Renjun doesn’t really care about his foreign language scores when he’s top of the class. “Then you can go meet that boy you like.”

Renjun blushes, rolls his eyes, then smacks Jeno in the side. “Shut up.”

Jeno’s about to reply when someone suddenly jumps onto his back, surprising him and very nearly causing him to drop his phone. Long legs swing around his hips and Jeno latches onto them instinctively as he sways in place from the unexpected additional weight. When he’s certain he isn’t about to tip over face-first onto the tiled flooring and subsequently embarrass himself even more in front of the entire School of Management, he groans. “Jaemin!”

Jaemin only chortles into his ear then presses a kiss to his temple. Jeno groans again.

His biceps are beginning to strain from holding up Jaemin’s weight, but he isn’t all that heavy, really. He’s actually quite light. Jeno makes a mental note to get him to eat more. They cook for themselves, sure, but Jaemin can’t just survive on the light meals and the calorie bombs he prefers to make.

It’s at that moment that Jaemin evidently thinks it would be fun to bounce on his back, and Jeno’s grip on him tightens reflexively. He hisses, digging his dull fingernails into the flesh of Jaemin’s thighs until he stills obediently. “I’m going to drop you,” he threatens lowly, turning away from Renjun because he has that look on his face that surely means nothing good for Jeno.

Jaemin has the gall to tuck his chin into the junction where Jeno’s neck meets his shoulder. “No, you aren’t,” is Jaemin’s prompt response. He is unfortunately correct.

“I still have class to get to,” Jeno informs him. “Can you just get the charger and let go?”

“Do you want to piggyback me back up the stairs?” suggests Jaemin sweetly.

“No.”

With a snort, Jaemin ruffles his hair, waits for Jeno’s grip to loosen, and then hops off his back. He waves at Renjun genially as he reaches for Jeno’s laptop charger and the cup of coffee. He blows into the little hole in the plastic lid, before he carefully brings the drink to his lips. When his eyes light up, Jeno knows he’s in the clear to leave.

“Try not to forget your charger next time, alright?” Jeno berates him, hitching the straps of his backpack over his shoulders. He calculates how long he and Renjun have been tardy for and wonder if it’s enough for Wu to actually care. “You’re lucky that I actually charged my laptop last night.”

“You’re a lifesaver,” his best friend coos, leaning close. Jeno pulls back before his lips make contact with his skin, making a face at him.

Jaemin is relentless, however, and quickly grabs onto the sleeve of his jacket. “Gimme a kiss!” he pleads, pouting playfully.

Rolling his eyes, Jeno flicks at him. “Gross, back off.”

“Jeno.”

He pretends to think. “Show me something cute first.”

Jaemin pouts harder, annoyed, now. He isn’t really trying anymore, yet Jeno giggles. Cute.

He leans close to press a kiss to his cheek, breathing in the familiar and comforting smell of chocolate and Clean Warm Cotton. Then he pulls back.

“Get to class, dumbass.” And because he can’t help it, Jeno reaches for the collar of Jaemin’s shirt and straightens it. He sighs, “You’re such a kid.”

“Oh, shut up,” Jaemin shoots back without heat. He beams at him, a single brilliant grin that warms Jeno to the core, then he leaves.

It’s Renjun who smacks the back of his head and tells him to get a grip. “Let’s go before we really do get locked out and you ruin my perfect score.”

“Since when did you care?” he retorts, yet follows Renjun out of the Management building.

“Since I saw how gross you were.”

Jeno’s eyebrow jerks up against his own will. “What do you mean?”

Renjun doesn’t pause in his steps, but Jeno can almost physically feel him heave a sigh, as though his whole soul is tired of him. For some reason he isn’t aware of, he finds himself feeling that bit offended. Before he can push Renjun, though, he is told, rudely, to shut up and continue walking. Which, what a bitch, really.

“Renjun told me.”

It’s almost five in the afternoon, the sun sinking slowly in the distance. The wooden interior of the library is steadily being casted in a soft, yellow-orange glow, the metal furnishings looking as though they are made of gold. The warm-coloured leathers of the seats distributed around study tables and low, coffee tables give off a cosy kind of feeling no library has any business to be doing.

The quietness in the air soothes Jeno’s senses, to a point that he lets loose a yawn once in a while. There is a more modern library on campus, with more computers and beanbags, which, quite honestly, looks more like a student lounge than an actual place of study with glass walls, carpeted flooring, and contemporary seats that don’t squeak when you sit in them. But Jeno quite likes the atmosphere of this much older library, likes the natural light and the aroma of aged paper. It is exactly that reason why he doesn’t bother to even wear his earphones and put on some music as he is wont to do.

The old library is always very comforting, that is, until Donghyuck ruins it.

Jeno and Donghyuck don’t actually share any classes together, but they discovered early on that it was always easier to study in each other’s company when their free periods overlap rather than slave away alone back in their dorms after hours. Jaemin can’t really help Jeno when it comes to topics he doesn’t understand, because for what Jeno doesn’t understand, it is highly unlikely that Jaemin does.

“Renjun told you what?” he asks, putting down his pen, because he knows that once Donghyuck sets his mind on something, it’s near impossible to deter him. He and Mark are similar like that. Jeno still hasn’t learnt how to deal with it, other than to simply let them do as they please.

He smiles sweetly. “He told me about you and Jaemin.”

Jeno’s eyebrows jerk up of their own accord. Donghyuck always looks brilliant, in his own special way; something about him makes him look like you’d get burnt if you come too close. But you wouldn’t mind, because he’s just so… attractive, compelling. At the moment, he seems like he’s trying to work his way into Jeno’s mind; it’s unnerving. Cautiously, he parrots, “Jaemin and I?”

“Yeah.” He fiddles casually with the ribbon on his hoodie. It’s very cute, something that Jaemin would approve of. Cute things suit Donghyuck, if Jeno is to quote Mark’s drunk messages to him. “Is there something you aren’t telling us?”

He shakes his head in bewilderment. “Like what?”

What could he possibly have been ‘hiding’ from Donghyuck? Donghyuck knows almost everything about the goings-on in Jeno’s life, down to his class schedule. It isn’t so much as Jeno being an open person as it is Donghyuck being an incredibly nosy person. Whenever Donghyuck is curious about something, he always finds a way to wheedle out the information from Jeno in the slyest of manners. It has been like this since they were in high school, and, frankly, Jeno has no expectations of it changing any time soon.

Knowing that, Jeno can tell instantly that that’s exactly what Donghyuck is doing at the moment.

But, bless him, Jeno doesn’t actually have even an inkling as to what Donghyuck is after.

“I’m just saying,” he hedges, “if there’s anything new between you two, any changes or developments or, I don’t know, realisations, I’d be very hurt if you didn’t let me know.” He watches Jeno expectantly, as though he is just going to come out with whatever Donghyuck wants from him. Which he isn’t, because he has no clue as to what he’s on about.

Jeno is getting frustrated. He still has other things to work on and he doesn’t have the time to be playing along with Donghyuck’s confusing mind games. “What do you mean, Hyuck?” He stares at his friend silently, waiting impatiently for an answer that he could comprehend.

Eventually, Donghyuck huffs, evidently tired of Jeno’s attitude when it should be the other way around. He leans back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest and dropping the sly facade. “I mean, Lee Jeno, are you dating Jaemin?”

The question takes a moment - a while, really - to sink in.

He sputters. “Huh?”

Donghyuck rolls his eyes. Faintly, Jeno hears him mutter something unpleasant about his intelligence beneath his breath. “Lee Jeno,” he enunciates, “are you, perhaps, in love with Na Jaemin?”

Jeno? In love with Jaemin?

He wants to answer no. He wants to laugh in Donghyuck’s face and tell him to fuck off because his jokes aren’t as funny as he thinks. He wants to continue working on his dumb paper and forget this conversation even ever happened.

But he can’t.

He can’t because there is something about Donghyuck’s question that scares him, though he doesn’t really understand why. It’s just…

It’s different when he jokes about it with himself, different from when someone else says it and spells it out for him, different from actually hearing it aloud.

Unconvincingly, he chuckles, smiling down at his notes. “What are you talking about?” Even to himself, his voice sounds that bit strained. He knows with a dreadful certainty that Donghyuck’s hypersensitive hearing has caught onto it, as well. “Don’t be stupid, Hyuck.”

His friend hums, obviously not content with his response. Still, Donghyuck is a good friend, so he turns back to his textbook and picks his glittery pen up, twirling it in faux-nonchalance. Of course, he wouldn’t be Donghyuck if he didn’t have the last word.

Jeno hears the soft, half-muttered words that escape his lips; they follow him home. “Maybe you should tell yourself that.”

Chapter Text

Contrary to popular belief, Jeno hadn’t always known Jaemin.

Jeno remembers what his life used to be without Jaemin, but not very well. He doesn’t particularly like to remember it either. In his foggy memory, it is a sequence of the same snapshots over and over again; people much older than him, dance practices, sports training, tutoring sessions, lonely mealtimes, clothes that cost too much and fit too well that he wasn’t allowed to play in. For a young boy, that wasn’t much of a life.

Life Before Jaemin, Jeno believes, was not much of a life at all.

Life With Jaemin was better - is better. Little Jeno adored the fact that he had someone to play with at recess while all the other children would gather outside, someone who would give him the time of the day not because of who his family was, or because of what he could do, but because he was a kid who was just a bit too lonely in a place filled with people. And maybe it was pity that led Jaemin to him, but Jeno is never going to complain. Jeno was never good at making friends, and he still isn’t, but back then, people were scarier than the monsters that would hide under his bed.

Jaemin was the first person who offered to hold his hand and told him he could be brave. He was the first person who sat by his side after school when his parents were running late. He was the first person who told him that it was alright to eat ice cream outside of dessert.

He once told Jeno something that he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget, when they were both eight and Jeno’s family’s cat had to be put down. They were hiding in Jeno’s mother’s garden, crouched between massive bushes that rose over them, because Jeno was sobbing so hard he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t show his face. His parents told him that it was necessary, that their cat tried to hurt him one too many times, that she was detrimental to his health, and Jeno understood, but it still hurt. Killing their cat hurt more than the scars she’d left on his skin.

Jaemin had his small fingers in his hair in an attempt to soothe him. Jeno appreciated the gesture. He shushed him the way his own mother shushes him, quiet and sweet. It’s alright to cry, Jeno. In a smaller, wobblier voice, Jaemin had added, But if you cry, then I’ll cry, too. And that was the first time someone cried with him and for him.

That was also when Jeno decided that crying wasn’t worth it - not if he had to see his best friend so sad. Maybe that was worse than losing his cat, he’d thought then, stifling his sobs almost immediately. Had he told Jaemin that, though, he’d have been smacked around the head, so he didn’t. Even then, Jaemin hadn’t understood just how much he meant to Jeno.

In Jaemin, he found someone he could share his everything with - his happiness, his sorrow, his dreams. And, god, they had so many dreams.

There was a time when they wanted to be idols, wanted to sing and dance and perform for thousands upon thousands of people. It wasn’t for the money or the fame, because what worth do wealth and popularity have to children? It was because they’d been receiving so many offers from entertainment agencies, they’d thought why not? Jaemin is stubborn to a fault; he never backs down from a challenge and trainee life was just another mountain he had to conquer. Unfortunately, though, dreams change when reality forces them to, and a bad incident with a girl who liked Jeno a little too much, too obsessively, closed that door for the both of them.

Then there came the time that they were both invested in competitive sport, so much so that they dreamt of participating in the Olympics together. It was a pipedream at best, they can shamelessly acknowledge, but it was a dream, nonetheless.

They have always been active kids - soft-spoken, yes, but they loved physical activity and just moving. Actions speak louder than words, and all that. They even enjoyed having to take the train to the massive ice rink on the edge of the city, where it was quiet and they could race against each other. Jaemin was the better skater, undoubtedly; he was lighter, quicker, more agile. Whereas Jeno was a bullet on ice, made for short distances and straight courses, Jaemin had the talent for long, sharply-curving laps. It always made Jeno’s chest swell to see his best friend glide over the ice like he was made for it.

They eventually were good enough to join a junior league for speed skating, good enough that they were being carted off to competitions in other districts every other weekend only to return home with a handful of awards each. Jeno recalls the national team offer Jaemin had gotten, how he had been so proud he’d begged Jaemin to take the opportunity. The national team needed more young, promising athletes before the next winter sports season arrived, and their reps thought that Jaemin would be perfect for them. They fought over it, he remembers; they spent a week exchanging bitter words and cold glances because Jaemin hadn’t wanted to go near the Olympics if it meant he had to do so without Jeno. So he didn’t, and that was that.

Some part of Jeno still resents himself for it. No matter what Jaemin says, Jeno knows he was, is, responsible for holding him back. If he had been better, practiced harder, gotten more awards, would he have gotten the same offer Jaemin had? Would it have been possible for them both to represent their country? Would Jaemin have accepted the offer if Jeno pushed a bit more? He doesn’t know.

And a part of him doesn’t want to either. He can't fathom the idea of living a life where he doesn’t see Jaemin’s pretty face everyday, where he isn’t forced to sit through his annoying ois, where he has to wait for Jaemin to pick up his phone before he gets to tell him about his day.

It was never a conscious decision to have his life so entwined with Jaemin’s, but here they are anyway, twelve years later and still horribly attached by the hip. It’s just the way it is.

Sometimes, Jeno misses high school.

In all honesty, he’s never exactly been too keen on high school either. It was too restricting, in a sense, with its strict regulations on body modifications, uniforms, and etiquette. He supposes it was only made bearable by the fact that he’d had Jaemin, Mark, and Donghyuck to suffer alongside him.

In those manners, he can say with certainty that he prefers university.

Still, university life isn't perfect. His classes are sometimes too far apart, his professors unavailable, and his classmates insufferable. The workload, too, is different. It is more intense than he was used to in high school, in the sense that suddenly the details that never came up in exams were all so significant.

Everything is simply bigger, in university, and perhaps that is where his predicament lies.

There are so many students; it is to the extent that Jeno is still unable to recognise the majority of his blockmates. (Jaemin says it’s because Jeno just doesn’t pay attention to people, but he does. He pays attention to Jaemin, doesn’t he?) His professors sometimes forget his name, as well, and, if Jeno’s being frank, he doesn’t always know his professors either.

But his biggest issue with how much larger university is compared to high school is in its most literal definition. High school was one building and limited classrooms. University, on the other hand, is humungous fields and too-vast buildings that take too long to get to from one to the other. It’s a problem because Jaemin had sent Jeno a few worrying messages and he cannot get to him soon enough.

(can u come to me

where? what’s up, nana?

i’m just
i need a hug

where are you

studio 3

be right there.)

The studios are a ten minute walk from the labs, but Jeno, heart in throat, runs and makes it in three.

The sky opens up as Jeno approaches the performing arts building. Only in a thin jacket to protect himself from the sudden change in weather, he dashes for the front doors, trainers slapping against the waterlogged ground. He shakes the moisture off his body beneath the modest awning of the performing arts building entrance, but only barely.

Impatiently, he pushes his way inside and heads for the dance studios.

He is dimly aware that he is tracking small puddles of water wherever he goes, but his embarrassment is easily stomped out by his concern for his best friend. He can clean it up later. Anyway, it’s not going to be a hazard for anyone; it’s late, and no one with half a mind would still be in the performing arts building when it rains what with its history of flooding.

Jeno very nearly walks past Studio 3.

The dance wing of the performing arts building is typically dark at this hour; all of the students who have to use the studios know to keep the lights on only when a room is in use. It is that reasoning that confuses Jeno for a moment. He has to pause in the middle of the hallway, bouncing on the balls of his feet, and read the indistinct labels on the walls.

The door to 3 is unlocked, blessedly, and Jeno pushes it open without any fuss. Being used to practising in the studio with all the fluorescent lights turned up to an almost blinding brightness, the lack thereof unnerves him. He notices the music that fills the space almost immediately - some Western breakup song that’s in Jaemin’s sad days playlist.

Jeno’s heart drops.

“Jaemin ah?” he calls, gently shutting the door behind him. He has to squint a bit to make out Jaemin’s vague form lying eagle-spread in the centre of the room, the silhouette of him only very slightly lined by light from the power button of his favourite bluetooth speaker.

Jeno makes sure to toe out of his soggy shoes and shrug off his dripping jacket before moving to Jaemin’s side. He gets like this, sometimes, when he isn’t in the best of moods. Over a decade of friendship later and Jeno is still uncertain as to how he should deal with Jaemin when he’s like this, if he should deal with him at all.

His eyes trace the features of Jaemin’s face, lingering on the gentle slope of his nose and the bow of his upper lip, lax and exhausted and softened by the darkness. He is not exactly surprised when his best friend’s lips curl into a mischievous smile even unprompted.

“Take a picture,” Jaemin laughs, albeit weakly, tilting his face towards Jeno’s general direction, “it’ll last longer.”

Jeno’s eyes roll heavenwards. “I swear to god, Na Jaemin…”

“Hug.”

Jeno pauses. “Hm?”

“I asked for a hug.” Jaemin throws one arm over his eyes and reaches out blindly with the other. His fingers manage to graze the end of Jeno’s slightly damp tee and twist in it, jerking harshly.

Jeno allows himself to be tugged downward until his upper body is draped over Jaemin’s, leaning an elbow on the ground for support. “Jaemin,” he begins tentatively, when Jaemin swings his arms around his neck and pulls him closer without a sound, “what’s wrong?”

In the quiet moments between his question and Jaemin’s aborted answer, Jeno carefully slips his arm underneath Jaemin’s back and embraces him with all the love he has to give. He noses at Jaemin’s cheek the way he knows Jaemin likes it (the way he likes it) and pulls back when his skin comes in contact with a warm dampness. His eyes take a moment to adjust to the dark and the closeness, searching for the source.

His heart clenches in his chest, stuttering, when he sees tears leaking from the corners of Jaemin’s shut eyes.

He thumbs at the tracks. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” he chances, murmuring into Jaemin’s ear and hoping against hope that he receives an answer that would let him help.

Reluctantly, Jaemin tells him, the words barely escaping him, “My leg.”

Jeno curses beneath his breath and quickly rearranges their limbs as carefully as he can, until he has his back to the floor and Jaemin lies on his chest obligingly. Jaemin whimpers, pushing his face into the hollow of Jeno’s throat, lips pressed against the dip between his collarbones.

“Sorry,” grunts Jeno, smoothing a palm down the line of Jaemin’s spine. “Was that alright?”

Jaemin tugs on the neck of his tee with teeth. “It hurts, Jeno,” he admits, voice weak and shaky. It isn’t a sob, but it’s a close thing.

It’s a long story, they say whenever someone asks about why Jaemin sometimes limps his way to class or why their room is always extra, extra warm even in the summer. When people press, they chuckle awkwardly and explain that it’s chronic pain from a long-since healed injury. The bottomline is, it’s just a bad leg that pulses pain whenever it gets too cold. A nuisance, but not a hindrance.

What they don’t say is it’s all Jeno’s fault.

Jeno cards his fingers through Jaemin’s hair comfortingly, looking up at the unlit fluorescent lights on the ceiling. He feels a slow anger simmering in his bones, one that has been festering ever since he was stupid enough to ask Jaemin to play with him in the rain all those years ago. It had been a thoughtless decision even then, and it only becomes more and more trivial as the days past.

It isn’t even a long story, honestly.

It was a few weeks after they had both quit speed skating, and a few days after their cold war had finally soothed over. Donghyuck says that it was the most awkward term of their whole friendship, when Jeno and Jaemin could sit in the same room together, but couldn’t look each other in the eye. It was even worse than when they wouldn’t keep their hands off each other, Jeno remembers Donghyuck complaining once in Mark’s childhood bedroom, face buried in a pillow, the room empty of people other than the two of them.

Jeno remembers that day, because the pain that began in his chest when he saw Jaemin laughing with Mark over a video game, obviously intently ignoring him, was unlike any he had ever felt before.

It was an acute sense of loneliness, he supposes, in a room full of his best friends.

Perhaps that was what lead him to asking Jaemin to meet him in the park close to his home.

Both Jeno and Jaemin weren’t too fond of watching television, not for the series they liked to follow, and especially not for the news or the weather. It caught them both by surprise when the rain poured that afternoon.

Stomach doing somersaults, Jeno called Jaemin up and ordered him not to come anymore, but Jaemin was insistent. Jaemin hated - hates - the cold, the rain more so.

Jeno was up to his eyes in nerves, because he wanted to make things right with Jaemin, but everything seemed to only go wrong. And then Jaemin had arrived, and the air between them was charged with an awkwardness they’d never experienced before.

Then Jaemin wrung his shirt out and they both watched as it released more water than either of them expected, and they laughed.

And everything was supposed to be alright because it felt fine and they planned to get some ice cream and they were leaving the park - but Jaemin slipped down some steps, both because he’d been laughing too hard and because of the rain. The fall landed him with a visit to the hospital, a cast that didn’t come off for months, and a chronic pain that appeared whenever it got too chilly.

“I’m sorry,” Jeno whispers, because he is. And if he could cry, he would. But Jeno also doesn’t remember how to let himself cry.

“Why are you apologising?” Jaemin laughs wetly, thumps him on the chest for good measure. It’s painful, because Jaemin is a strong person in every way. “Stupid.”

Jeno tries to laugh with him. He doesn’t think it comes out all that convincingly.

“I’ll get out the heating pad when we get home and you can make some tea or something,” he suggests. “Sounds like a plan?”

Jaemin nods, face still smushed into Jeno’s shoulder. “We should get going.”

“We should.”

Neither takes the initiative to actually do something until a long moment later, and it takes them a moment more to untangle themselves without jostling Jaemin’s hurt leg too much. Still, his face contorts in pain as they move and Jeno feels his guts tense in response. His muscles only relax when Jaemin is finally standing upright, favouring his good leg just the slightest.

“I’m sorry I got you wet,” Jeno mutters remorsefully, eyeing Jaemin’s clothes cling to the front of his body in a way that cannot be comfortable.

Making a face at Jeno, Jaemin pulls at the slightly drenched fabric of his shirt. “Don’t be. I was the one who asked you for a hug anyway.”

“And did I deliver well?”

Jaemin’s head tips to the side in mock-contemplation, preciously. He ruins the image almost immediately when his lips break out into a familiar dashing smile that leaves Jeno feeling warm and happy and other things that Jeno doesn’t quite know how to describe, yet associates with Jaemin anyway, and he exclaims, “I’ll give you a five.”

Jeno grins indulgently. “Out of?”

“Ten.” Jaemin sticks his tongue out of him and Jeno yelps, dips his fingers in the puddle he’s created by lying there and flicking droplets of water at him.

“Hey!”

And Jaemin laughs at that, loud and unrestrained and so, so distant from the somber boy Jeno had encountered upon entering Studio 3. This boy is bright and mischievous and unrepentant and so inexplicably brilliant, that Jeno sees him in full-colour even when the darkness leaves everything in a shadowed haze.

Jaemin is enchanting, in all senses of the word, and before Jeno knows it, he is latching on to his wrists and leaning close.

Jaemin goes a bit cross-eyed looking down at him. “Um. What’re you doing there?”

Jeno realises himself, but he isn’t too keen on moving away. “Just.” He swallows. What is he doing? “You’re pretty, Nana.”

And Jaemin beams, face splitting into a dazzling grin that has Jeno feeling warm all over. Some part of him wonders whether Jaemin’s cheeks are flushed pink in the pretty way they tend to do when he’s happy. Jeno moves faster, gathering his still-wet things in his arms and making sure nothing in the studio’s left on, wanting to find out.

He doesn’t forget to swipe a dry rag from the maintenance room and sop up the puddles he’s left behind as they go. Lacking any better ideas, he tosses the soiled rag in the bin right before they exit the building. He’ll make it up to the staff the next time he comes around to practice for club.

“Oh, damn,” Jaemin says despondently, shoulders hunching into himself. “It’s still raining.”

Jeno curses beneath his breath. It’s late enough that the campus shuttles are no longer running and the lampposts that line the paths are turned on. Normally, they would make the trip back to the dorms on foot, but the rain is pouring and they don’t have an umbrella. Jeno knows that the cold rain would only make Jaemin’s leg throb in even more pain and that his best friend has an immune system not unlike that of a newborn infant.

At any other time, Jeno would offer Jaemin his own jacket, but his jacket is still soaked through from earlier and lending it would only be sadly counterproductive.

Catching his tongue between his teeth, he considers his options - not that he has many, really.

“I’ll race you,” Jaemin suddenly proclaims, eyes shining even without the presence of light.

“Don’t be stupid,” Jeno tells him, already reaching for his phone. Jaemin can’t get wet in the rain or he’ll fall ill for certain; Jeno cannot deal with that right now. He wipes down the screen on his phone with the base of his palm and hopes that the rainwater hadn’t fucked it up too much. “Mark has a car -”

He is interrupted by Jaemin’s excited yell. “Last one back does laundry for a month!” The next thing he knows, his dumb roommate is racing across the field for the dormitories.

“It’s slippery! Be careful!” Jeno yells after him. With a strangled groan, he jerks the hood of his jacket over his head. “Fuck!”

Perhaps Jeno is the stupid one between the two of them, because he barely gives it a second before he sets off after the reckless dumbass he calls his best friend.

At the end of his exams, Jaemin catches a virus.

“At least it wasn’t because of the rain!” he had the nerve to tell Jeno after the first time he’d emptied his stomach into the bin by his bed.

It isn’t so inconvenient, really, because he has completed all his work for the semester and he’s even caught up on paper revisions for his professors. It’s just… a sick Jaemin is a needy Jaemin.

He isn’t so strong that he can power through the constant muscle aches and the bouts of fever without help. Sometimes he needs someone to hold his hair back when he releases his breakfast into the toilet. Sometimes he needs someone to pat his back in bed to help him sleep a little sounder. Sometimes he needs someone to reach for his phone across the room because he’d tip over if he tries to stand. Sometimes he feels so weak that he can’t make himself a warm meal, and that’s fine. All of that is fine because Jeno can do it, anything, everything, for him. Even if he doesn’t know how to, he’ll learn, because Jaemin needs him to.

The thing is, while Jaemin’s examinations are blessedly over, Jeno still has tests to prepare for and show up to for another entire week and god knows he’s never been too good at multitasking. He’s asked Donghyuck to come around a few times just to make certain that Jaemin has something in his stomach while Jeno’s in class, but even Donghyuck gets busy sometimes. So Jeno tries to make do. Jaemin is priority, always, even when Jaemin frustratingly does not agree.

Everyday for three days while Jeno is in the dorm and not a class he has to do work for, they quarrel over it. A lot. There is an indistinct tension in the air, fuelled by Jaemin’s exasperation towards Jeno and muted only by the fact that he actually does need Jeno’s help. In Jeno’s opinion, their petty spats can’t actually be considered as concerning, not with Jeno’s eyes drooping and his body running on little to no sleep for too long and Jaemin’s angry words slurring, mind high on too many prescription medicines for the most of them. They exchange half-meant jabs and try to hit it where it hurts just to get the upper hand - except, they don’t, really.

Neither of them are truly capable of hurting each other. It shows in the way Jeno’s arguments sound more like I love you, please let me take care of you than the you’re so fucking stupid and stubborn, why don’t you listen to me for once with extra venom that he’s been trying to go for.

Jaemin, however, has never been very easily moved by words, even by Jeno’s.

It was inevitable that they would reach this point. It is with no little amount of reluctance that Jeno forces himself to hold back his pout as he watches Jaemin’s mother come pick him up from their dormitory on Saturday morning.

“We’re really sorry Jaemin’s been bothering you,” she apologises. Jaemin takes after his mother, all brilliant smile and demure manner - down to the steel in her eye and the firmness in her tone. Jeno can never win against either of them. He hasn’t tried since he was nine and more stubborn than smart. Honestly, he doesn’t know why he even bothered this time.

Throwing Jaemin’s duffle bag into the back of the Nas’ car, he tells her with a smile, “He hasn’t been bothering me at all.” His best friend elbows him none-too-gently in the side in a way that says stop lying and trying to charm my mum at the same time, weirdo.

Other than slamming the backdoor shut, Jeno can’t even think of anything to say or do in retaliation, because he feels very much like a child whose favourite stuffie is about to taken away because it needs a wash. It’s unfair.

It’s so unfair. Jaemin’s hair is fluffy and sleep-mussed, falling into his eyes and giving him a caramel-coloured halo. He’s in one of Jeno’s old hoodies from high school, one of Jeno’s old shirts peeking from beneath the collar. (Jaemin’s favourite white hoodie is in the wash, because Jeno only does the laundry himself at the most inconvenient times.) His joggers are new-ish, collecting lint everywhere, but still a nice solid black. It’s the only decent thing in his appearance, honestly.

His eyes are puffy, nose pink, lips chewed to swell. He is adorable and Jeno resents every single one of his professors for making him lose the opportunity to coo over and laugh at his best friend. Jaemin rubs at his eyes with the base of his palm, and Jeno sighs in exasperation, grabbing his wrist before he could do more damage to himself.

“I told you to stop doing that,” he berates softly, acutely aware of Jaemin’s mother standing by their glossy SUV. He’s been doing this for years, but he suddenly feels awkward, too small for his own limbs.

The petulant curve to Jaemin’s lips changes to concern in a moment, “Is there anything wrong?” The last word catches on a cough.

“No,” he immediately replies, letting go of Jaemin. “Now, go. I’ll see you when you’re better.”

Jaemin hesitates for a moment - what for, Jeno doesn’t know. It is a foreign feeling, to say the least, not knowing what’s going through Jaemin’s pretty head.

Then Jaemin smiles, a slight curve to his lips. “Don’t miss me too much.”

Jeno laughs. “I won’t.”

The lie is bitter on his tongue.

He can’t explain why he said that, other than it being absolutely mortifying if he acts like a clingy brat in front of Jaemin’s mother. He misses Jaemin as soon as he steps away. The moment Jaemin’s family’s car leaves his sight, an uncomfortable churning begins in his gut.

He refuses to admit it is some form of separation anxiety. Jeno can function normally even without Jaemin. Really, he can. He doesn’t need Jaemin around to survive.

He knows that the moment he suggests otherwise, or something even remotely close to it, Donghyuck will be on him like a hawk and Jeno frankly doesn’t have the energy for that. Now that Jaemin’s left, Jeno has an endless list of things to do he pushes himself to accomplish. The first thing he does as a roommate-less student is gather his gym clothes and head to the studios for dance practice. Later, he can run around completing his society-related tasks. He has a full schedule, today. He might even have to skip lunch and dinner.

He has never personally had the healthiest habits.

Three days in, and Donghyuck is convinced Jeno’s deteriorating.

“You’re being dramatic,” is what Jeno tells him, lips twisted and eyes trained on a textbook.

“You’re being stupid,” is all Donghyuck says in return.

At that, Jeno sighs.

It isn’t as though Donghyuck is bothering him about it out of spite or something similarly vindictive; Jeno knows that somewhere deep in his puny, withered heart, Donghyuck is actually concerned about him. Jeno just can’t bring himself to care, not now. Organic chemistry and veterinary botany are the last of his exams for this term and he still has another paper to power through.

When Donghyuck decides that they’ve studied for long enough, he bodily drags Jeno out of the library and towards the dormitories. With no little amount of disgust, he snatches his hand back from where it comes into contact with the sticky film of dried sweat on Jeno’s forearm from a late dance practice session. “Take a shower, okay?” he barks, swiping his palm down the front of Jeno’s hoodie. “And eat something, Christ. I know you haven’t eaten all day. And then go to bed.”

“Yes, mother,” Jeno murmurs, rolling his eyes.

Donghyuck thumps a fist to his chest, snarling, “I mean it, Lee Jeno. Just because Jaemin’s gone doesn’t mean you should throw yourself away like some idiot. He’s just sick, alright? We don’t need you bedridden, too. Or dead, at the rate you’re going.”

Jeno swats his hand away and watches as Donghyuck leaves for his own dorm with a huff.

His unit is, typically, empty when he arrives. It’s not nearly warm enough without the heater turned to the highest their budget would allow them, and Jeno fights back a shudder as he makes his way down the dark hall. He drops his gym bag by the hamper, then jumps in the shower. A few, icy minutes later, he’s wandering around the dorm in his underwear.

It’s not like he and Jaemin have never seen each other naked before - they have, numerous times over the years - they simply don’t make a habit of doing so at home. It feels oddly liberating, if not cold, to rummage around the fridge in only a pair of boxer-briefs.

After failing to gather the energy to make something to eat on Saturday evening, Jeno has taken to invading Taeyong’s off-campus apartment for dinner. The night before, however, had led to Jeno being unceremoniously kicked out by Taeyong’s roommate, Doyoung, and sent on his way home with an armful of packed food and good luck wishes. It’s the tupperware of kimchi that he takes out and hopes is enough to appease Donghyuck, should he ask the next day.

He doesn’t have the appetite for more.

He brings the tupperware, along with a pair of chopsticks (sleek and metal with lee engraved into their thick ends, almost identical to another pair in the utensil drawer, only labelled with na), to his bedroom and slips into some sweats single-handedly. Taking refuge in his bed, he leans against his stack of pillows and places the tupperware on his lap. He holds onto the chopsticks with his teeth, spreading his notes out before him with both hands.

There is a throb in his neck when he looks down on them, and he hisses emphatically. He knows it’s the result of cramming a week’s worth of dance practice into a few hours right after his classes ended for the day, but he can’t afford to fall behind in anything. Reaching up to massage the tight muscle in an effort to relieve the pain, he jolts at the startling coolness of his fingertips against the skin of his shoulders.

Inexplicably, an awkwardness settles within him.

There shouldn’t be. This is his room, after all. Plus, he’s alone.

But, he supposes he has to admit he isn’t used to studying without company, and definitely not so comfortably on his bed.

Almost traitorously, his gaze moves to bedspace across his, and he sighs. It looks exactly the way it had before Jaemin had left for home, messy and as though a small hurricane had passed through. All of his bedside drawers are wrenched open, fabric and other stuff flung here and there, pillows strewn around, multiple sheets in a tangled heap and spilling onto the floor.

Jeno and Jaemin tend to share a bed when they sleep - Jaemin’s bed, in particular. Jaemin couldn't afford to have a heating mattress in the dorms, so Jeno serves as his human space heater most nights. He doesn’t mind usually; he isn’t a light sleeper by any means, and Jaemin is a great cuddle buddy. The best, Jaemin would sometimes declare.

Jeno’s mattress is stiff, in comparison, barely broken in and smelling more of detergent and fabric softener than either of them. It makes his nose twinge and his back ache and makes it hard to go to bed and sleep like he wants to.

It feels wrong, though, to twist in Jaemin’s sheets and press his face into his pillows when he isn’t around to share them with him.

After a moment’s consideration, and the weight of over a hundred hours of faint hunger and no decent rest, he leans over the edge of his bed and reaches for the blanket that has fallen furthest from Jaemin’s bed. It’s thick and fluffy and covered in constellations, and Jeno smiles. This is his favourite of all of Jaemin’s strangely patterned duvets.

Dragging it into his own bed, the material catches on the leg of Jaemin’s bedside table and jostles it enough that something crashes to the floor. Jeno winces when he recognises it as the bottle of medicine he’d been trying to get Jaemin to take during (before?) their last fight. He slammed it onto the tabletop and stomped to the couch outside to get some reading in, he recalls dizzily. It was before Jeno acquiesced and asked Jaemin’s mother to bring Jaemin home and take care of him.

I’m not invalid, Jaemin had sneered coldly, when he felt that Jeno was becoming too much. I’ll be fine without you.

That stung, he remembers idly, something sharp in his chest. A small starburst of pain the size of a penny in a space above his lungs. That had stung because Jeno knows that. Jaemin doesn’t need him.

Fingers curling into the thick fabric of Jaemin’s blanket, he inhales. Steady, steady. Exhales.

Perhaps it is true on Jaemin’s end, but Jeno isn’t so certain on his own.

Chapter Text

The silence doesn’t last long.

Jeno and Jaemin have known each other for long enough, well enough, that Jeno’s inability to care properly for himself when he’s left to his lonesome is too ridiculously obvious to mention. As a result, Jaemin takes to sending him obnoxious messages at least once a day - all of which Jeno ignores, and Jaemin is none the wiser.

When it becomes apparent, however, that Jeno is being deliberately obtuse, Jaemin takes to ringing him up instead.

Jeno knows that if Donghyuck catches wind of how often he and Jaemin call each other, he’ll never hear the end of it.

He thinks of this as he waits for Jaemin to finish with his shower over the line, face pressed into his pillows. He wants to get up, needs to get up, but he doesn’t have any morning classes for the day and Jaemin isn’t around to forcibly drag him out with either his hands or the lure of breakfast, so Jeno does not budge an inch. Instead, he blindly reaches for his notebook on the bedside table and sets it beside him.

The screen of his handphone has gone dim and the image of Jaemin’s sheets grainy by the time Jaemin comes around and jostles his phone enough to shock Jeno into tapping his own back to life.

There’s a massive window by Jaemin’s bed, Jeno knows, that lets in mid-morning light more often than not. Today, it filters warmth over Jaemin’s sickly-sullen features and washes him in a healthy glow, as though he’s swallowed the sun itself. His best friend grins at him, a little lazy, a little pink, a little sleep-mussed in a way he can’t be around Jeno, not really, because Jeno depends on him more than himself most mornings. His lowered eyelashes are long and thick and curled over the top of his cheekbones, the shitty camera barely catching the glint of dew on them. Even like this, Jaemin is so otherworldly, Jeno’s heart twinges.

“You’re handsome,” he says and means it - means to say nothing at all, frankly, but he doesn’t mind. He is aware he can’t control himself around Jaemin, but he has never been able to. And he’s never wanted to, or had to. Jaemin is Jaemin, after all, and embarrassment is close to nothing in the face of the brightness in Jaemin’s eyes after he is fed a compliment Jeno means with his entire soul, no matter how small.

“You, too,” Jaemin says, and it’s not what he would normally say, but they’re miles apart and Jeno’s too tired to care.

Jaemin’s naked, spare a pair of disgustingly brightly coloured boxers Jeno is pretty sure was a joke gift from one of his cousins. He stares blankly for a bit at the blurry outline of Jaemin’s thighs before he tells him to get dressed.

“Your cold’s only going to get worse at this rate,” he sighs, sinking deeper into his pillow. It doesn’t smell like anything to him. “Seriously, Jaemin.”

Jaemin snorts and disappears from the frame, returning moments later with the oldest pyjama bottoms he owns slung low on his hips.

“Shirt, Jaemin.”

“You’re no fun,” Jaemin gripes, reaching for his phone. His voice comes through warbled, but comfortingly close. The camera is too close to his face, Jeno can’t see more than a portion of his face, a pimple on his cheek, and his wet hair. Jaemin’s fingers brush through the sopping strands, shaking them out. Everything seems to move dizzyingly as he clambers back into bed, tugging his blanket over him and leaving the screen dark.

“Dry your hair before you go back to bed,” Jeno says, frowning. “Your fever just broke.”

“Stop nagging, Jen,” he sighs. The momentary static makes Jaemin sound fonder than he has any right to be. “I’m a big boy.”

“Tall? Sure,” Jeno snorts. “Big? Not so much.”

“Hey!”

“I’m just saying. You’re already ill, you don’t need to make it worse.”

“You know what?”

Jeno almost asks what, except the screen pauses on Jaemin’s furrowed brow then turns dark. Bewildered, Jeno taps on the call back icon, only to be rejected.

After a few more tries, he moves to his favourite contacts list and gives Jaemin a ring.

He bites back the smile in his voice when Jaemin finally picks up. “Did you just hang up on me?”

“You wouldn’t shut up,” he huffs.

Rolling his eyes, Jeno muses, “So you just… hung up on me?”

“Shut up. It’s your fault I’m looking for the hair dryer, now, when I could be sleeping.”

Drowsily, Jeno hums.

He can go back to sleep, he thinks. It is hours before he really needs to be up and about anyway; and he can manage skipping breakfast and lunch.

“Hey, Jeno?”

He stamps down a yawn. He doesn’t think he quite manages it, though, when it presents itself in half-formed vowels as he replies, “What, Jaemin?”

There is a beat, two. “Are you going home for the midterm?”

It takes him a moment. “You mean the break? To Incheon?” He doesn’t form full sentences, but he trusts in Jaemin’s uncanny ability to read between the very short lines.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think so.” He turns over, tugging the duvet to his chin and pinning his phone to the pillow beneath him with his cheek. “It’ll be easier to just stay here. It’s only a few days, anyway.”

“Will your family be home?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? My sister’s not in Korea, so.”

“Do you…”

“Yes, Jaemin?” Jeno can feel his eyes drooping. There is a thump thump thump that goes through his entire system, and he wonders if that’s the celebratory music some fuckwits are playing throughout the building or it’s his own organs failing on him.

Jaemin inhales. “Do you want to come down here?”

“To your place?” Jeno cannot keep the surprise from his tone. He doesn’t think he’s visited Jaemin’s home since they moved. It has been a very, very long time.

Jaemin hums.

“I don’t know, Nana,” he says, smiling wryly. “Do you miss me that much?”

“If I say yes, will that make you come?”

Jeno laughs, more breath than sound. Jaemin is always so persistent. “Don’t worry so much, okay? It’s just a few days.”

“But it’s your birthday,” he says softly, sadly, and Jeno crumbles.

He turns onto his back and thinks.

Jaemin’s at home, resting, and, in his absence, the dormitory feels so impossibly empty. Exams have ended for almost everyone, and it’s evident in the constant thumping of bass throughout the building. The occasional jolt wracks through his room, making the water in the glass by his bed quiver.

“How about this,” he starts slowly, staring up at the bleak ceiling of their room. He has never really felt that their dormitory was too bland, but it always seems so lifeless when Jaemin isn’t around. He tries to gather his thoughts. He’s so tired, it feels like catching mist with his bare hands. “No promises, but… maybe I can come down for a day?”

“Can you really?” Jaemin makes an attempt to sound doubtful, but Jeno is his best friend. He can hear the hope shining through.

Jeno still has a paper he hasn’t finished and another he has yet to revise. Other than that, he still has pre-vet society duties to attend to and an entire choreography to study for club. He’s also promised to meet his parents for lunch sometime in the next week and start consultations with his professors for a summer internship.

“I’ll try,” he finally says, rubbing a hand over his face because fucking Na Jaemin, “try, Jaemin.”

Jaemin hoots down the line, making that annoying oi sound he does when he’s pleased. “Yes! There’s a new ice cream parlour around the corner and they’ve got all kinds of weird ass flavours I know you haven’t tried yet. Some of them are pretty strange, but also pretty good, and -”

“You went home to get better, not worse,” Jeno snorts. It’s just like Jaemin to forget about his illness at the thought of something as stupid as ice cream.

“You’re such a worrywart,” grumbles Jaemin petulantly. Jeno can imagine the childish pout on his face and can’t help the unbearably fond feeling that creeps all over him as a result. “You’re coming down for sure anyway.”

He holds a hand to his face to hide his smile, because even if Jaemin isn't around to see him, he feels… weird. He sighs, watching the shadows on his ceiling dance with the movement of the clouds outside. “But you have to get better soon, Nana.”

He can hear the smile in his best friend’s voice. “That won't be a problem!”

Because Jeno is a professional procrastinator in all things personal unless it comes to Lee Donghyuck, he tells him about his plans with Jaemin over lunch.

“Are you sure you’re not dating?”

Jeno blanches, chopsticks slipping in his loosened grip. “Dating?”

Donghyuck is unimpressed. Jeno tries not to wither under the glare he receives; Donghyuck always looks at people like they’re stupid, and, frankly, it does hurt a bit. For Jeno, though, who’s been on the receiving end of all of Donghyuck’s vitriolic stares for the last decade, he is only very faintly cowed. “Don’t be daft.”

“I’m not trying to be,” Jeno frowns. He picks at his kimchi for a moment, then sets his chopsticks aside. He doesn’t have much of an appetite.

“Okay, then.” Pushing aside his bowl, Donghyuck folds his hands and elegantly places them over the table, the line of his shoulders following. “Use your big brain and think about it before you answer me: are you absolutely sure you’re not dating? You and Na Jaemin?”

Humouring him, Jeno gives him a dry smile and leans into his own seat. His mind spins. He isn’t stupid, not with books and certainly not with people. He understands the question, and what it entails. To be dating would mean they have a romantic relationship, harbouring romantic feelings for each other. That isn’t true. He would know if Jaemin had any romantic inclinations, especially towards himself, because Jaemin has never been one to shy away from declaring his emotions. He wears his big heart on his sleeve and is proud of it. Jaemin is the type of person who messages Jeno at three in the morning just to let him know he had a stomach ache and had to use the toilet.

Really, Jeno would know if Jaemin liked someone in that sense.

On Jeno’s part, well. He always says he’s a little in love with Jaemin, but that is only because he believes everyone is. And isn’t that normal? To be a little in love with your best friend? How else will they really, truly be your best friend if you don’t love them that much? Jeno doesn’t believe it’s possible any other way.

But that isn’t Donghyuck’s question.

“We’re not,” he answers, finally.

Donghyuck’s eyes slip shut and he heaves a deep breath. Jeno burns.

“We’re not dating,” he insists, trying to ignore the confusing warmth of his face. “We’re best friends, Hyuck.” He almost wants to ask are you and Mark dating? just because he knows they aren’t and it would prove his point. But it feels like an injustice to Jaemin to compare their relationship to Mark and Donghyuck’s, so he doesn’t.

Jaemin likes to call Jeno-and-Jaemin soulmates. The best best friends to ever best friend. They are unparalleled.

Jaemin wouldn’t like it if Jeno compared Mark and Donghyuck’s baffling cat-and-mouse chase to their quiet nights and asphalt-tasting coffee.

“We’re -” To say they’re just best friends would also be insulting. Jeno’s mouth snaps shut. He tries again. “We’re best friends.”

Seemingly done with him for the moment, Donghyuck lets out a heavy sigh and tugs his bowl closer once more. Picking up his chopsticks and gesturing importantly for Jeno to do the same, he says, “If that’s what helps you sleep at night.”

Jeno figures it would be too childish to respond with: It does.

When Jeno gets on the first train at around a quarter to six in the morning, he feels dead on his feet. He’s grateful that there are barely any passengers and he can sink into a cold seat without guilt or judgement. His duffle bag is on the ground, clamped between his legs. He doesn’t have to worry about anyone inadvertently tripping over it when the only other people are a few tourists on the other end of the carriage with their suitcases and an old lady with a basket of food, so he tips his head back and rests his eyes. He keeps his ears open for the train announcements.

It would be funny, and not in a good way, if he misses his station.

He feels a yawn climbing its way out of his throat and covers his mouth with a hand. He is exhausted, and he thinks anything who looks at him for longer than a second can tell. Touching the skin beneath his eye, he feels its tenderness and winces. He hasn’t slept in at least thirty hours, now, powered purely on fumes and the massive jolt to his system that is Jaemin’s four espresso shots too-strong-for-humans killer coffee. His heart is beating too fast for his chest thanks to all the caffeine like he knew it would, but he took it anyway, if it meant that he would manage to complete all of his exams and reports for this half-term. And it did.

Now, he thinks, staring at his hand on his thigh and the way it trembles, almost buzzing, he’s free as anything – at least, until school starts back up again.

Sadang station. It’s only been two stations. It’s a shame he couldn’t wait for the shuttle. He likes taking it, some mornings.

His hand curls into a fist, steadying.

He gets off on the ninth station and picks a bagful of coffee buns up on his way. The heat of them is pleasant, combating the cool April air in the softest of ways. The metro is busier, now, quietly bustling as compared to the ghost town-esque ambience of maybe half an hour or so earlier.

The Nas’ family home isn’t much of a long walk from the station, but Jeno boards a bus anyway. He reads the familiar numbers, 4318, and it feels for a moment like he never even went away. He strolls the long way around the closest stop to the Nas’, passing through the pocket park and kicking at the pebbles on the street. His old home is somewhere close, but he doesn’t go looking for it. He doesn’t know if it would be as they left it, and he doesn’t know if he would be able to recognise it on sight. He doesn’t want to find out.

There is something sweetly nostalgic about Jaemin’s neighbourhood. Perhaps it’s why Jeno doesn’t let himself visit often.

When he reaches the Nas’ home, the sky is much brighter than it was when he emerged from the metro. He marvels at Jaemin’s home; he’s always thought that it was so homey. Comforting and welcoming and everything Jeno’s own house didn’t feel like, some days.

It would be perfect, he tells himself, if Jaemin’s parents would allow Jaemin to adopt a puppy. Or some kittens. Jeno would certainly come over more often.

It’s still too early to ring on the doorbell and his phone isn’t in his pockets. He stares at the front door contemplatively. There is a long scratch in the wood, obvious even through the new layers of paint. Jeno vaguely remembers Jaemin’s uncle getting him a toy helicopter one Christmas and Jaemin flying it straight into the front door. The deep laceration next to it is when Jaemin struggled holding his skates while he tried unlocking the door; in his failed attempt at multitasking, the guard on one of his skates fell off and the exposed blade made its mark in Jaemin’s mother’s memories, permanently. It’s a miracle that Jaemin didn’t cut himself that day, Jeno muses fondly.

He’s about to fish for the spare key he took from Jaemin’s underwear drawer (empty of underwear, because Jaemin hadn’t bothered doing laundry the entire week before he left), when the door swings open and Jaemin occupies the space with his brilliant smile.

Jeno’s been weary since before he’s even stepped foot out of their little dorm, but he has also survived getting to another corner of the city without any unfortunate incidents. Still, the moment he sees Jaemin, he goes boneless and his head pounds.

“Shit,” Jaemin suddenly spits, jerking forward to grab at Jeno’s bicep before he tips over. “When did you last sleep?”

Jeno forcefully blinks the fatigue from his mind. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s allowed his eyelids to feel so heavy; he’s gotten so good at managing his time, too. When he’s more or less stable, he pulls away from Jaemin and gives him a careful once-over.

“You look better,” he observes.

“Of course. You said you weren’t coming until I was,” Jaemin sniffs. His voice is better, too. With colour in his cheeks and only a muted pink nose, he appears to be much healthier than when he was under Jeno’s care. It is somewhat ruined when he sneezes right in Jeno’s face.

Jeno sighs, wiping at his cheek. “Man…”

“Whatever, just come in.” Jaemin tries to reach for his bag, but Jeno waves him off. Jaemin’s still sick, after all.

“Are your parents out?” he asks as he kicks off his boots and lines them up neatly next to Jaemin’s shoes. The slippers he’s provided with are the same pair he’s been using for years. Wearing them, he notes stupidly, feels like coming home.

“Mum’s still here,” Jaemin says, rubbing at his bare arms and watching him. “Are you sure you don’t need any help?”

“I’m fine, Jaem,” he insists. “It’s just been a long -” morning, day, days? “Trip.”

“You didn’t answer my calls yesterday,” Jaemin grouses as he leads him to his room. Jeno eyes the massive window, the lack of a futon, the mess of things that’s so Jaemin, and he leaves his things by the wardrobe, shedding his clothing as he goes so he can tip onto Jaemin’s double bed and sink into it. He doesn’t normally worry about outside-things in inside-places back in their dormitory - but he knows that it’s Jaemin’s mother who does the work around the house.

Jaemin tugs at the duvet until Jeno’s wiggled off it, and he gently piles it onto him, tucking him in. “C’mon,” he coaxes, tapping at Jeno’s shoulder, “up.” Containing a moan of defiance, Jeno inches upwards until his forehead rests on the end of one of Jaemin’s many pillows.

“I’m supposed to be taking care of you, dumbass,” he slurs. And, oh, he’s more burnt out than he thought.

“Well, I wasn’t the one busting my ass until I could literally drop and didn’t notice my best friend in the world calling, like, twenty times,” Jaemin mutters sourly, flicking at Jeno’s ear. “Dumbass.”

Jeno thinks back to the day before, and is unsurprised to not remember most of it. He doesn’t recall touching his phone once, if only to let Jaemin know through a confusing text message that he was taking the first train in the morning. His phone was shoved into his bag afterwards during his haphazard packing. He doesn’t know if there were any messages or calls he hasn’t seen yet. Nothing seemed important yesterday anyway, other than the work he had to do and telling Jaemin to expect him.

Jaemin runs his hand through Jeno’s hair soothingly, and it lulls everything in Jeno. After a minute, he leaves his hand on the back of Jeno’s neck and gives it a faint squeeze. “Sleep.”

Jeno’s heart is still going too quick. He fits a hand beneath himself and presses it to his chest. He’s certain its cause is Jaemin’s coffee; it can kill a man and it’s probably going to kill Jaemin someday. He makes a mental note to tell Jaemin to lighten up on his caffeine intake - even if it’s only by a single shot of espresso - just as he drifts off.

“I can’t believe you left without me!” Donghyuck is whining. The phone is so close to his mouth that all Jeno sees is his eye and the acne scar on his cheek; he sounds like he’s yelling.

Rumpled from his nap that lasted most of the day and only in his boxers, Jeno isn’t under any delusion that he isn’t a hot mess. In the miniature viewfinder, he can see the way his hair is sticking out on one side of his head obnoxiously and pink crease-marks are crisscrossed all over his chest. The tuft of hair determined to resist gravity tugs on his scalp as he moves, and he reaches up to flatten it. He smiles sheepishly as he does so. He knows it makes him appear ‘boyishly charming’, in Donghyuck’s words. He also knows that Donghyuck hates that he can’t hate it.

Jeno knows when to take advantage of the good things on his side of the field.

“You said you were going to wait for Mark,” he explains patiently, still smiling. “That would have taken forever.”

Donghyuck appears stricken.

The image blurs as Mark snatches his phone out of Donghyuck’s grip and sets it on the console between them. The camera points at the underside of their chins, with Donghyuck’s knobby knees occupying most of the screen. Jeno stares at the scabs there, wonders how many of them were from scuffling around with Mark and how many were from doing that knee-sliding thing on his dormitory flooring when he felt like ‘a superstar’. “Shut up, I’m going to get us into an accident if you keep shrieking.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t be like this if you let me drive.”

“Maybe I should have let you walk, then.”

“Mark Lee,” says Donghyuck very seriously, “I’m this close to selling your guitar online for two thousand won.”

Mark’s voice is impossibly pitched. Donghyuck is the only person in Jeno’s memory who’s gotten it that high. “What? Why?! What have I done this time?”

“Ah,” Jaemin huffs a laugh, settling in beside Jeno on his bed. He has a bowl of cereal in his hands; it’s too colourful for Jeno to even want to try a bite despite the faint rumbling of his stomach. “They’ve forgotten us again.”

Jeno only smiles and lets Jaemin lean in until their arms are brushing against each other. Jeno gives him a playful sniff, then jerks back, howling, “Dude, when was the last time you showered?”

“I shower regularly!” Jaemin returns, indignant.

“As if,” and Jeno keeps his palm teasingly over his nose, wrinkling his brow at Jaemin, who doesn’t smell bad, but can definitely smell better. “Get in the shower, dude.”

“I’m still eating,” he huffs.

“When you finish, then.” He moves close again, nudging Jaemin’s shoulder with his own. “You smell like - like you just laid in bed for a day and rotted there.”

Jaemin gives him a sour look and slurps the rest of his cereal into his mouth. Jeno grins.

“Oi, Lee Jeno. Na Jaemin. Ugh, Mark! They’re ignoring us again!”

“I mean… if you weren’t so annoying, Hyuck…”

“Annoying? Me? How dare you.”

“Are you happy, now,” Jaemin asks flatly. The cereal in his bowl has been drained to only a few, broken bits and maybe two spoonfuls of milk.

“Very.” He pushes at Jaemin with his knee. “Now, get.”

Jaemin grunts, goes. He strips as he walks, dragging his feet on the ground and his tank top over his head. The neckline catches on his hair and sends it pointing every which way. Definitely second day hair. Maybe even third day hair.

“You don’t smell too nice yourself, too, you know!” Jaemin exclaims childishly as he slams the door to the bathroom behind him and cuts off Jeno’s reply before he can even formulate it.

Jeno sniffs at himself; he’s fine, if smelling a little of Jaemin’s fabric softener. It’s not a bad scent, by far. Jaemin’s just being a brat.

He leaves Jaemin to wash up, reaching for the discarded bowl and his phone. Mark and Donghyuck are still arguing. They’re so loud. How aren’t they exhausted yet?

Jaemin’s mother is out, now. She went to meet with some co-workers while Jeno was knocked out. Embarrassed by himself, he steels himself and picks up around the house. Jeno’s been here enough times that he knows where everything goes, and if there are some unfamiliar aspects to the decor or the furniture, he doesn’t let it dissuade him.

There isn’t much to do, though. He helps himself to a cup of ramyeon - the only thing he allows himself to even attempt in another person’s kitchen - and, after finishing his quick meal, he tasks himself to washing the dishes. As he prepares to do so, he places his phone on the spice rack above the sink and smiles at Donghyuck and Mark with his eyes. Then he gets to work.

“What are you doing?” Donghyuck asks, abruptly cutting Mark’s stream of expletives off with a confused expression. His palm obscures the camera for a moment, before the focus shifts to his one eye. “What are you doing, Jeno?”

“Dishes,” he answers simply, returning his attention to the modest pile of dirty ceramic ware. He’s careful with them, because he can tell from the beautiful china and crystal on display, a little dusty from being left alone for so long but lovingly organised around their most precious family photos, that Jaemin’s parents love these wares. The silver edges of the bowl in his wet hands are interesting, the bottom of it streaked grey from too many undesirable scrapes along the porcelain with a metal spoon.

In this family’s home, there isn’t a shortage of beautiful and rare things. His parents love them; they hoard them like dragons. As a child, Jeno never really understood why he had to always play at a distance from the pretty pots and things in their shiny glass cases, but he understands, now - knows more than he’d like to care about, too. Noritake, Spode, Royal Albert, Lenox. There’s also a Versace set somewhere. They keep them in tall antique cabinets, polished glass looking into them neatly lined and stacked and propped. Perfect displays, perfect conversation starters when they have guests over. His parents’ pride and joy is the Joseon era porcelain bowl. One of their collector friends called it a National Treasure. It probably costs billions - Jeno doesn’t let himself think about it; the hypothetical price already makes his stomach turn.

The bowl in his hesitant grip is nowhere nearly as expensive, but it’s the same bowl Jeno’s seen a hundred times before.

“Why are you doing the dishes?” Donghyuck sounds both knowing and put-out at once. “You’re spoiling him, you know.”

Mark’s voice is less judgemental, more thoughtful. “But Jeno always spoils Jaemin, doesn’t he?”

Lips pulled tight, Jeno ducks his head and scrubs more vigorously. He isn’t a fan of the feeling of soggy food slipping beneath his nails, but he isn’t so bothered that he can let himself commandeer what seems to be Jaemin’s mother’s gloves.

This is not his house, and this hasn’t been his neighbourhood for a long time, and yet –

As the grime reveals the glistening porcelain beneath and the suddy dishwater sinks into the drain like a tired whirlpool, Donghyuck and Mark’s bickering filtering through from miles and miles away, he realises he has never felt so much at home.

With the sun dangling low in the sky, they get a very late lunch in a cafe they used to frequent. They would come here after practice in the ice rink, lugging their gear and their skates as they went. The tables closest to the window-walls are the best; the warmth radiating from outside is something to be cherished after long hours locked up in a massive freezer. 

The café is still as he remembers it. It has been at least two years, now, since he sat on the same flat chair on the day of Jaemin’s high school graduation. The scuffed wood panelling, the creaky seats, the lingering aroma of new-old leather and good food. As Jeno wraps his fingers around his cup of tea (not his usual order, but it’s a kind that Renjun persistently bugs him to try, and so he does; it’s good), he feels oddly grateful. Like he could sit there and stay there as the world went by and that would be just fine, because someone would always remember that he’s right there.

He isn’t the best with words, but that is what this is, he thinks.

Across from him, Jaemin takes mouthfuls of his pasta in between sentences. The mismatched seats of the café puts him on a higher level than Jeno - they’re barely the same height, but sometimes Jeno has to lean back to look Jaemin in the eye. Jaemin, at this moment, seems like he’s sat on a pedestal. The image blurs momentarily from a snapshot of the same joie de vivre, just - four or five years in the past. For a heartbeat, Jeno sees two Jaemins.

The Jaemin of his childhood and early adolescence is small. Scrawny and awkward-limbed in a way that not even Jeno or Mark experienced with their growth spurts. Jaemin had always been the tiniest of the four of them; back then, it seemed fitting, because he’s their youngest. His eyes and his smile were too large for his face, his fingers too long for his hands. Jeno sees a Jaemin who’s never had to deal with a broken leg or a best friend who brought him down. He sees a Jaemin who wanted to go to the Olympics in the winter and who wanted to volunteer in local animal shelters until then. He sees a Jaemin who would walk three minutes in the pouring rain just to hold Jeno’s hand.

He’s not too different from Jeno’s Jaemin.

And yet - greater in every manner, the Jaemin of the present glows. He is still not at his best, the remnants of disease lingering in his dark circles and the paleness of his lips, but his is still irrevocably radiant. His hair lights up, his irides turn into molten disks, and his skin shimmers. His shoulders are broad, muscles filling in and wrapping snugly are bone. Wiry and strong. His cup - a minute or two ago filled with five shots of espresso - stands abandoned before him, his fingers splayed in the air as he tries to tell Jeno why it’s so important that he investigate his student organisation’s funds himself.

“They have to get to the beneficiaries on time,” he’s saying, vexed and fervent and something else, all at once, “or the beneficiaries will never get the help they deserve!” Jeno isn’t even particularly sure who the beneficiaries are, in this conversation; if they’re orphans or homeless students or rescued animals. Jaemin tends to try to help everyone.

Jeno believes it’s his noblest quality and his fatal flaw.

He remembers, vaguely, literature class. When they were still in high school together, they’d push their tables together and share notes. They’d been discussing heroes and their tragedies, and they learnt a new word: Hamartia. Failure, flaw, guilt. The sole reason why the greatest heroes fall.

Jeno thought that Jaemin’s selflessness was this, is this. Since then, he’s been, perhaps, afraid, that Jaemin would give too much of himself away and Jeno wouldn’t be able to help put him back together.

But Jaemin is strong, stronger than most people.

Jeno reaches over the table and grabs one of Jaemin’s hands in mid-air. Jaemin’s speech grinds to a halt, and he blinks at Jeno in stunned confusion. Jeno smiles at him.

“It’s nothing,” he says, and lowers their linked hands to the edge of the tabletop. “Go on.”

By the time both their mugs are drained and their plates are cleared, Jeno is more than ready for dinner. Jaemin’s mother isn’t much of a cook, but his father is, and they’d been informed via sticky notes on the fridge that he plans on making them a wonderful feast tonight. Jeno expects samgyetang, Jaemin’s father’s specialty worthy of a Michelin star. In his anticipation, he is even tempted to cut Jaemin’s spiel off and tug him quickly back to his home, but Jeno doesn’t know the way back anymore.

So he patiently waits Jaemin out.

“So there,” Jaemin finishes importantly, and Jeno nods agreeably.

“I hope it works out for you,” he tells Jaemin honestly. Jaemin’s trying to do a good thing here. And Jeno has finally parsed that this effort is for rescued animals. “If it’s a medical drive you want to accomplish with the funds, I can ask our home organisation for help. They would probably love to collaborate on one.”

Jaemin beams at him, fingers spasming around his own in one tight, grateful squeeze. “Thank you.”

On their walk home, Jaemin stops in the middle of the sidewalk and tugs on Jeno’s arm until they’re both tracing back their steps and taking a turn into an unfamiliar street.

“Jaemin, what?” His brow furrows, shoulders hunched. It’s late enough in the day that their fleece jackets are a little too thin for the weather. “We should get back. It’s only going to get colder.”

Unbidden, his eyes dart to Jaemin’s leg.

Jaemin doesn’t notice, determination colouring his every feature. “The ice cream parlour’s just around here, and - there!” They stop before a quaint, narrow establishment squashed between the local supermarket and a laundromat. Twilight paints it in a complementary wash of purple-pink.

He stares at Jaemin, unimpressed, then shakes his head. He doesn’t make it a habit to deny Jaemin of anything, but. “It really is late,” he tries, rubbing at his elbow. “Your parents are probably wondering what’s taking us so long.”

Jaemin only steps into the parlour. The blast of air that hits Jeno is even colder than it already is, and he bemoans everything as he follows Jaemin inside.

The ice cream shop is even prettier from the inside. Eggshell white walls and round cream tables with lace trimmings, pink-and-white tiled flooring, a variety of photos placed just about everywhere. Everything smells sweet.

Jeno allows himself to be dragged to the display counter, watching in mild bemusement as the staff greet Jaemin with brief exclamations of his name. He’s only been back for a week and he’s already managed to charm everyone in his general vicinity.

Jeno isn’t surprised.

Jaemin gives him a brief rundown on the ice cream they serve and how they’re all non-dairy and even vegan. He runs through the list of the most common ingredients their tubs contain, and before Jeno knows it, he’s been pulled into a conversation about the chemistry of food products and the nutritional benefits of vegan recipes.

Why does Jaemin have to be so knowledgeable about everything? Jeno sighs when Jaemin finally steers their conversation away from the molecular breakdown of supplemental fibre in the ice cream to the actual ice cream. He’s pushing the menu into Jeno’s hands before Jeno can even blink.

“Look at this!” he’s saying giddily. “You have to try this!” He’s almost vibrating. “They all sound really good and it’ll be fun, and you deserve it! Especially because it’s -”

Because it’s your birthday , he seems to say, though his eyes flick guiltily to the ground.

Jeno swallows. He’d forgotten. Did his mother call him earlier in the day to send her well-wishes? He doesn’t know.

“It’s my treat, but, I mean, if you really don’t want to, we can just -”

“No,” he interjects, throat dry. He swallows for a second time. “I’d love a scoop.”

Soft-eyed, Jaemin begins enumerating the many flavours available for their picking. He ticks off the flavours he’s already had before, and Jeno is amused to note that he’s gone through nearly half of everything there.

He inhales. He says, “Surprise me.”

Jaemin beams, nudging his shoulder with a boyish glee that makes Jeno’s knees ache. “Got it. You’ll love it.”

“I’m sure,” he murmurs, slumping onto a tall stool.

Jaemin seems to already have had something in mind, because it isn’t even a minute before he returns with a massive scoop that looks like sunset in a cup. Jeno’s eyes blow wide, because it’s wonderful already.

“Thank you,” he tells Jaemin sincerely and takes the cup into his hands with a reverence that isn’t misplaced.

Jaemin settles into the next seat over and props his elbows on his knees. Jeno gives him a look, then tilts the cup in his direction invitingly. Jaemin shakes his head. “Aren’t you going to get your own?”

“After you,” he says, then pokes at Jeno’s hand. “Go on.”

The first spoonful he takes of the dessert is too big. It sends a shock through his teeth, through his head. He clenches his jaw and swallows. He offers a sheepish quirk of his lips and tries again.

The second spoonful is much better. The flavour melts on his tongue; he can’t figure it out and Jaemin doesn’t want to tell him what it is, exactly. But it’s good, really good. It’s the best ice cream he’s ever had, and he tells Jaemin this and relishes the proud little smile he’s awarded for it.

He really is being truthful about it, no sugarcoating or anything. But it’s a weird flavour, not something he remembers having ever tasted before. He can’t help but wonder about it. He thinks about it then, thinks about it through dinner, thinks about it through his shower and his nighttime ablutions, and thinks about it until he’s climbing into bed with Jaemin. Then he forgets.

It rains that evening.

Their dinner was samgyetang like he expected. It is awkward to know, though, that this is only because it’s his birthday today and everyone except him seems to be aware of it and the fact that he adores Jaemin’s father’s cooking. Jaemin doesn’t let his parents realise that Jeno had no idea of the date and guides them through a smooth meal. Conversation is easy, as it always seems to be with Jaemin’s parents. They treat him like their son.

Jeno’s cheek still feels warm from the kisses they pressed there before they went to bed themselves.

Mother Nature sobs outside the protective bubble of Jaemin’s home. It is almost surreal. It didn’t seem like weather for heavy downpour, until it was. Jeno can’t even see it. He can only hear the pinpricks of water beating down on the shillings of the roof and on the asphalt down below.

It is so dark outside the window, that it seems like a rectangle is cut in the sky and looks directly out to the infinite space beyond the earth’s atmosphere. He can’t see a thing. Breathing heavy, he realises he can’t even see Jaemin and presses closer and closer until he can note the bare outlines of Jaemins face.

His heart settles.

Then Jaemin stirs, a hand coming up to flop onto Jeno’s cheek. He recognises, then, that they may be too close, now. There’s perhaps just a finger or two’s width between their noses. Or maybe not. There’s never really been too much of anything between them, before.

“Jeno?” Jaemin murmurs, and Jeno feels the puff of his breath against his own lips. Jaemin hasn’t been asleep for too long; his mouth smells, and likely tastes, of the mint toothpaste he favours. “What…?”

Jeno shakes his head, making a negative noise in the back of his throat, and nudges forward until their noses touch. He watches Jaemin’s eyes flutter open, watches them take shape in the dark where Jeno can see little else. He looks confused, still more asleep than not.

They can kiss like this. It is a thought that swims through the haze of his mind, then disappears into somewhere he doesn’t wish to follow.

He leans back. “It’s nothing, Jaemin.” He holds Jaemin’s hand in his own, then gently peels it off his face and lets it rest in the new space between them. “Go back to sleep.”

Jaemin’s eyes slip shut at that, unconcerned and soothed. “Okay,” he mumbles, and, halfway under, adds, “love you, Jen.”

Jeno shuts his eyes and turns onto his other side. He clutches his hands to his chest, ignores his beating heart. To Jaemin’s room, home, world, he says, quietly, “I love you, Jaemin.”

It is only the truth.