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✧✧✧
Youngho leans back against the uncomfortable wooden chair and drums his fingers against the small table. He grimaces at every second that passes with his phone quiet in his jeans’ pocket, legs too warm beneath the black material. Jaehyun was meant to be on his way to the coffeeshop a good forty minutes ago, and yet there is no sign of him still.
Saying that Youngho regrets choosing a seat outside is an understatement. For some ungodly reason the sun has decided to come back out from behind the clouds at six in the evening, after an entire day full of grey and clouds. It’s not even the slightest bit fair. Not fair for Youngho to be sitting here, sweating through his favorite graphic tee, waiting on his friend. They haven’t seen each other in weeks, and Youngho could have really used someone to talk to at 3 am, when the existential dread hits. But Jaehyun was too busy memorizing body parts that sounded more like Harry Potter spells than something currently keeping Youngho’s feet bouncing with impatience. And that isn’t fair, either.
A waitress passes by to collect empty dishes. Youngho’s smoothie glass barely has any liquid left in it, but she doesn’t even come close. The power of bitter thoughts, he figures. He puts the glass up to his lips, almost as though to prove a point, and scans his surroundings.
The gawky bushes lining the street. The neatly arranged tables and chairs, unoccupied for the most part. Cyclists driving by, muscles in their thighs tensing. Youngho looks on in envy, most of them donning the kind of denim shorts he usually prefers to wear, if it wasn’t for his friends’ (especially Jaehyun) complaints about his “dad from the American suburbs” fashion.
(He doesn’t know why he even bothers listening to them. He is American, and looks after his cousin and his high school buddies too often for it to be considered a favor. No shame in that.)
Anyway. Bushes, tables, bikes. It’s an unending cycle that Youngho hopes will be broken through by Jaehyun finally getting his ass out of his dorm.
As it stands, Youngho gets half of what he wishes for.
The way the coffeeshop is situated has it tucked into the corner of an L-shaped street, the road enveloping it from both sides like an island at sea. On the side Youngho is facing, a traffic light dictates steadily when to cross. Youngho sees him over there already. A man, clad in all red. Red shirt, red shorts. Black knee pads, black sneakers. Red traffic light, he walks anyway.
Closer up, Youngho notices the man’s unkempt hair, sideburns sharp. Grasshalms are tangled in the strands, stuck to his jaw and cheeks. His dark almond-shaped eyes stare ahead of him stubbornly.
Then it hits him. The stains are unnoticeable against the color of the stranger’s shirt, but blood trickles from one of his nostrils and a fine cut on his cheekbone. Some of it has dried up already. If the man wasn’t so harmless looking (and so obviously wearing a football uniform), Youngho probably would have been freaked out, he thinks.
“Excuse me, sir?”
The decision to try and get those stubborn eyes’ attention is made in the fraction of a second.
“Excuse me?” Youngho calls out again, watching the bleeding man walk past his table without even batting an eyelash. “You’ve got blood on your–”
The man finally turns around at that.
Youngho is unprepared for the intensity of his gaze as it focuses, zeroes in on Youngho’s poor, sweating self. But he is especially at a loss when the stranger’s eyebrows pull together, wrinkles forming on his grassy forehead, giving birth to the most adorable disgruntled facial expression Youngho has ever seen.
“Uh, your, uh, everything,” thus he finishes.
Man-in-red blinks. Blinks again, cocking his head to the side like some Vine character. Not that Youngho blames him.
“I can get you a tissue,” he tries to save the situation.
Man-in-red sniffles and wipes under his nose, as if he doesn’t believe Youngho. When his fingers come away bloody, though, a few of the wrinkles in his forehead go away. He still looks at Youngho like he’s a dumbass, and Youngho would be lying if he said he wasn’t just the littlest bit into it.
“I would appreciate that, yes.”
Youngho nods quickly, twice for good measure. His heart slips into his pants for a second. If he pretends it’s because he was worried he doesn’t have any Kleenex on him for the first time in his life – who’s there to correct him?
It doesn’t take long until the tissues are dug out of Youngho’s backpack and pressed into the hands of the stranger. (Youngho doesn’t let himself dwell on the long, slender fingers brushing his.) Stranger throws his head back, willing his nosebleed to stop. As he sits down opposite of Youngho, Youngho giggles quietly; to an outsider, it may look as though this bleeding stranger is the one Youngho was waiting for, here in this coffeeshop, under the beating sun.
“Okay, I think it stopped now,” the man murmurs to himself, making to stand up.
“Your nose, yes. Your cheek is still bleeding,” Youngho points out, a little less flustered after the amusing thought.
Man-in-red sighs, “Seriously?”, but makes no move to dry the cut.
“Sorry. Am I holding you up, do you have somewhere to be? I didn’t mean to, I just figured you might not want the blood to cake up and all.” Lame, Youngho, super lame.
Man-in-red sighs again, but it carries a different weight now. He sits back down in the chair – as uncomfortable as Youngho’s own – and when they lock eyes this time, it feels friendly, almost.
“Not at all,” the stranger says. His voice is smoother when he’s not so tense. “I didn’t even notice I was bleeding, to be honest.”
“Figures,” Youngho responds, half-scoffing, half-chuckling.
Stranger unexpectedly chuckles back, but looks off into the distance again. “Ran off like a goddamn idiot.”
They stay silent for a few moments, man-in-red remaining wistfully in his thoughts, Youngho wondering if he will voice any of them of his own accord. He doesn’t, and though Youngho isn’t sure he’s allowed to ask, he does so, anyway.
“Ran from…?”
“Off the pitch. Game just finished, team’s lost by a gigantic margin, and the captain is–” he spreads his arms, gesturing to their surroundings, then lets them fall on his knees with a slap.
It’s a lot more information than Youngho expected, so he just chooses to elaborate with a nod and a quiet: “Football?”
“Football,” man-in-red repeats, dishing the syllables inbetween his pouty lips. Voice carefully neutral, but Youngho picks up on the bitterness in the way he swallows, defined Adam’s apple bobbing.
“I used to play, too,” he tries to distract. “Wasn’t awfully good at it, but I didn’t want to stop, anyway.”
“It’s hard to stop,” the stranger nods. “It’s a special sport.”
Youngho laughs. “Good thing you didn’t, then.”
“Oh no, I did. Professionally, that is. I just play with my university’s team now, but none of them are really trained or. You know. As into it as I am. Motivated.”
“That’s a lot of burden to bear, captain.”
“Dongyoung,” he huffs. “Call me Dongyoung. I’ve had enough of that captain business for a while.”
Youngho nods in understanding, introduces himself. Something in him possesses him to reach over the small coffee table and man-in-red– Dongyoung looks at him like he’s dumb again, at first, but then laughs, all bunny teeth and gums, and shakes his hand.
By the time the waitress comes by again, to pick up Youngho’s empty glass and Dongyoung’s order, Youngho has embarrassed himself four more times and made Dongyoung laugh five.
✧✧✧
They exchange numbers. Dongyoung tells him he’s an accounting major, whilst Youngho recalls the few years he spent on trying to become a veterinarian (just because dogs make him really happy) and concludes that his current history major probably fits him better.
On the next day, they get into a texting dispute about Ronaldo and Messi. During lunch break, they decide that Neuer beats them both (even though he’s a goalkeeper and thus not really comparable with a forward).
A week later, Dongyoung sends Youngho a picture of the freshly cooked breakfast he made for himself that day. Youngho replies with a string of drooling emojis. He has to leave for class then; it’s one he genuinely wants to pay attention in this time. When it’s over and he strolls the busy halls of the building with phone tightly held in hand, the last message from Dongyoung reads: Maybe you should come over one of these days and try it for yourself.
Two weeks later, Youngho talks to Dongyoung about that genuinely interesting lecture on the phone. It throws him off a little, feeling comfortable enough to talk for minutes on end and not have to worry about whether what he’s saying is the universally interesting kind of knowledge, or just something that appeals to his inner nerd. Surprisingly, Dongyoung has something to contribute to the topic, as well. Math, football, history – is there anything you’re not good at? Youngho asks. Plenty, Dongyoung says. It’s silent again, just like in the coffeeshop. That’s okay, Youngho asserts. You don’t need to be able to do everything. You’re good enough as you are . Dongyoung laughs incredulously. Youngho worries he’s gone toodeeptoosofttoosoon. But Dongyoung goes off on a rant about societal pressures right after, and if that’s not reassurance they get each other, he doesn’t know what is.
A month later, Dongyoung invites Youngho to one of his matches.
“What should I expect?” Youngho asks. “Do you play dirty a lot?”
“Only when I feel like I need to,” Dongyoung retorts. “Don’t worry, I won’t embarrass you.”
“I’ll stock up on tissues then.”
Both of them live up to their promises. Dongyoung throws himself on the grass a lot – not to dive, but to intercept the ball – and he makes Youngho clean the grime off his face and neck afterwards. For some reason, before that, he decides to swap jerseys with the opposite team’s captain, and not wear it. Dongyoung’s shoulders are broader than what his loose jersey makes them look like, and his skin is a little tanner than Youngho remembers it being the last time they met. He can’t make out the blue veins underneath it, but his eyes latch onto the spots he thinks would bruise the quickest, anyway.
A month and two weeks later, Dongyoung shows up at Youngho’s dorm, only hours after receiving the text about Youngho having the suspicion that he’s coming down with a cold. Instead of making him chicken noodle soup, Dongyoung cooks a potato cheese stew, going on about drawing inspiration from American YouTube tutorials. Youngho doesn’t have the heart to tell him that said stew is native to Wisconsin, a state he’s never set foot in – can’t even think of it, when Dongyoung tucks him into bed and feeds him, spoon for spoon, almond-shaped eyes trained on him and him only.
✧✧✧
Two months later, Youngho comes to another one of Dongyoung’s matches. This time, a camera hangs around his neck.
He doesn’t cheer as much, choosing to take in the details. Dongyoung’s intricate footwork as he dribbles past a player of the opposite team. The goalkeeper’s save. Dongyoung squinting against the sun before shooting a cross. Dongyoung sinking to his knees when his teammate (#7, Moon Taeil) clumsily transforms the cross into a goal.
Youngho only takes one photo and hopes it isn’t too out-of-focus. The decision to run down the tribunes is made in the fraction of a second.
Dongyoung is already there, waiting for Youngho with a smirk on his face. But his eyes are staring off into the distance, as he murmurs breathily:
“I’ll score one myself next time, for you. Yeah?”
“Sure,” Youngho says, and pulls Dongyoung flush against him, forgetting the camera digging into his chest.