White Acrylic

Renjun would like to retain the idea that Yukhei should be on the basketball court with Mark Lee and all the dunderheads in their team. He tells himself that the Art Society is his special place away from all the idiots that inhabit this school and all Yukhei is doing is polluting it with his chiseled arms and deep, booming voice. It's safer that way.
Unfortunately for him, fact is often scarier than fiction.

Notes:

For sundazed.

To Patrimonio, I hope life is still treating you well, because I know Johnny and Yukhei aren't.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

There are many things Renjun does not like about Wong Yukhei. First is that he joined the Art Society with all the wrong intentions. For everyone else (literally three other people) it was an important space away from the idiocy of the lstudent body, not joke time with some strangers.

Renjun knew that Yukhei only viewed the art society as a mere stepping stone to a better college application. He wasn’t all that secretive about his intentions. He had asked Jeno specifically to let him in, and in exchange, he would do all the things the other members didn’t want to do. Jeno was out of options; he had no members and Yukhei was a willing candidate. Renjun’s hated him ever since.

(Renjun knows full well that Yukhei has become an integral member of the Art Society and has gained a renewed appreciation for the things they did—but Renjun doesn’t think this information is necessary.)

Beyond that, there’s the fact that he’s a brainless jock with no inhibition or ambition.
(Yukhei is planning to apply for a scholarship in Industrial Engineering when he graduates. Renjun knows this. How? He won’t say.)

(Yukhei is also very respectful to everyone in the Art Society, Renjun especially. Not that he cares.)

Third, is the fact that he listens to Renjun as if the words that come out of his mouth were like spun gold.

Renjun knows he's being petty. Jeno already told him. Heck, even Jisung agrees, and that’s saying something because Jeno and Jisung never agree. Ever. But Renjun ignores them to placate the raging emotions in his gut, the ones that tell him that, no, he does not hate Yukhei. It’s a reality he’s not ready to face just yet.

Renjun would like to retain the idea that Yukhei should be on the basketball court with Mark Lee and all the dunderheads in their team. He tells himself that the Art Society is his special place away from all the idiots that inhabit this school and all Yukhei is doing is polluting it with his chiselled arms and deep, booming voice. It’s safer that way.

“Chiseled arms. Really?” Renjun breaks from his not so internal monologue to find Jeno staring down at him with the look of judgement he normally reserves for Jaemin.

“I said what I said. He has really nice arms; it’s not a secret Jeno. I'm just an honest person. Why are you on my case all the god damn time!?”

Jeno raises his arms in defeat before dumping a new tube of white acrylic on Renjun’s station.

“Chiseled arms got this for you. He noticed you were running out. Since he was buying black paint from the specialty store in Gangnam, he got you a fresh tube as well,” Jeno says pointedly staring at Renjun, “devious of him, don’t you think?”

Renjun flushes at the gesture and looks at his favorite brand of paint that you can only get from that one specific specialty store in some dingy alleyway wedged between a barbeque stand and a tteobokki stall. He glares at Jeno and snatches the paint before dropping it into his satchel.

“What now? Trying to buy my attention?” Renjun snorts, “Well, breaking news: I can’t be bought.”

Jeno rolls his eyes and procures another tube of deep crimson from his bag, “He also got me one because he noticed that I was running low on some reds. Yukhei didn’t just think of you. You’re not that special.”

Renjun shrugs him off and storms out of the art room, leaving Jeno smirking in triumph.
He stops by the corner store to buy a drink, during which he takes another look at the tube of paint Yukhei got him and sighs forlornly tucking it back into his bag. He can’t even hide the disappointment in knowing that Yukhei didn’t get paint just for him. Can’t be bought? As if.

“He doesn’t need to buy something he already owns,” he whispers to himself.

Maybe the thing Renjun hates the most about Wong Yukhei is his ability to make Renjun fall so helplessly without even trying.

Its lunch and Chenle is looking at him funny.

“What?”

“Why’d you ask me to get you white acrylic?”

Renjun furrows his eyebrows, “Because you were at the mall and you asked me if I wanted anything, and I wanted something, so I said what I wanted?”

Chenle shakes his head, “Let me rephrase that. Why did you ask me to get you white acrylic when you have one already?”

Renjun’s voice gets caught in his throat. Their circle of friends is small, and Jeno is a devious asshole, this he expects. All Renjun can do is find a way to get out of the situation unscathed.

“Oh, is that a blush I see?” Chenle smirks, “Looks like your ill-hid infatuation is finally showing. So, will you spill, or will I have to have a good, long chat with your brother?”

“How did you even find out?” Renjun sneers, not looking at Chenle.

“You do remember Jisung, yeah? Good friend of yours. Good friend of mine. Good friend of Lee Jeno.”

(Renjun is right. Jeno is evil.)

“He’s too bored with his life. He should mind his own business.”

Chenle rolls his eyes, “Don’t even lie. You only ever dislike Jeno when he’s more put together than you are.”

“Shut up.”

Renjun hates Chenle with every fiber of his being.

They’re back at Renjun’s house, with Chenle draped on his bed and the faint traces of Doyoung still lingering by the door.

“Hyung, please stop eavesdropping. I know you’re there.”

There’s a bump and a slew of curses before Doyoung is barging into Renjun’s room, “Look here, I have every right to know if you’re getting into any potentially emotionally scarring relationships. It’s my job as your brother to ensure that you’re always safe and happy.”

“How do you even know there’s any gossip in the first place?”

Doyoung shakes his head in disbelief, “I can read the air, Junnie. I know when something’s up,” he says approaching the two, “Also, Chenle told me everything.”

“OUT. NOW.”

Doyoung retreats, but not without saying that he supports any boy that Renjun brings home just as long as they don’t smell like asphalt or lead.

When they’re alone, Chenle flashes Renjun an almighty, pompous, and entirely unnecessary smirk. It’s like he has some forbidden secret that can gain him access into the world’s greatest treasures at will, which, in this case, is totally plausible, because, to Chenle, Renjun’s misery has always been a source of happiness that no denomination of money could ever equal.

“Why, oh why can’t you use the tube of white paint Yukhei got you?”

Renjun simpers for a moment before deciding that at any rate he’s not coming out of here alive, so it’s best just to nip it in the bud and let all these raging emotions out.

“So you know how Yukhei joined the art society because he wanted to make his college app look better? I hated him for doing that because thank you for looking down on us, you know? But turns out he actually wanted to learn, and he’s been such a good addition because he gets so many people to look at our stuff.

Sometimes, even though I don’t want to assume, it feels like he tells people to look at my work like it’s important and stuff. But I’m still mad at him for some reason. That suddenly he’s not that annoying club member, but a friend kind of. It’s only after weeks that I realize that it’s not because I hate him, but because I have a lot of unsaid emotions. Emotions that I don’t like dealing with. But now it’s so--because he’s really--really stupidly hot and touchy and nice and really so smart and caring. He also buys me really expensive acrylic from that specialty store in Gangnam and I just want to kiss his stupid face, but I’m so emotionally constipated that I can’t actually let go of this thing that I started and now I’m a mess of emotions that can barely function because I’m like totally crushing on Wong Yukhei and I want to sing “My Man” because what a man.”

Chenle just looks at him quite mortified. Renjun flushes and turns away so that he can save himself from the embarrassment that Chenle will unleash on him.

“I’ll help you practice ‘My Man’.”

Renjun is painting for their new exhibit on Impressionism when Yukhei slots himself behind him. When he was new, he’d come in like a raging storm, all boisterous, intrusive, and unnecessarily violent (especially for Renjun’s heart.) But life’s greatest teacher--Renjun chucking dried up paint brushes at Yukhei’s direction--was always keen on modelling the newly initiated pupil into a model member of the Art Society, and the first rule (only according to Renjun) is that the art room is a place of calm. Renjun always thought that casual violence was enough to ward away unwanted company. However, he did not account for a horoughly bred third-culture kid like Wong Yukhei—adapting to change ran through his veins.

Soon enough, there no longer swayed the uncompromising storm that was Wong Yukhei, replaced by the gentle balms of spring rain.

Renjun turns to Yukhei’s smiling face admiring his work.

“Beautiful as always,” he says, and maybe Renjun feels a slight heat crawl up his skin.

“That’s what you say about all the stuff I paint. It’s starting to seem like you don’t even mean it.”

Yukhei stands up and scoffs, “What would lying do for me. You’re genuinely talented. One of the most talented people I know.”

“And whom do I thank to not be placed on the top of your list of inspiration. I do hope it’s someone admirable like Professor Park and his one functioning eye.”

Yukhei snorts, “Of course I’m the most talented person ever. How is this even a question?"

Renjun shakes his head and goes back to painting. He takes his palette and observes the pigments that need refilling, he then mindlessly grabs the white tube that Chenle got him and squeezes a generous amount on the board. Yukhei, who’s still standing behind him notices and speaks up, “That’s not the one I bought you.”

Renjun feels his hand freeze upon realization. The white tube of expensive, only available in Gangnam paint still sits untouched in his desk drawer. What Chenle got him wasn’t as nice as the one Yukhei got, but he couldn’t bring himself to use it. Not when he maybe, sometimes, smooches it for good luck.

“Um, yeah it’s not,” he says awkwardly, not looking at Yukhei.

“You didn’t like the one I got you?”

Renjun stills again, unable to bring himself to say anything without letting it slip that he’s maybe saved that tube because he doesn’t want to part with it. It sounds odd, but that’s how it is. No matter what Renjun will tell people, he knows in the deepest corner of his heart that he likes Yukhei in a way that he shouldn’t. But he can’t admit it, not after all the things he’s done to him.

“Jeno said it was your favorite,” he says worried, “did Jeno give me the wrong brand? He swore that was the one. I even sent him a picture and all—”

“It is,” is the only thing that comes out of Renjun’s mouth. He just couldn’t let him continue. Not with that tone. Not with his voice laced with concern and worry. His heart can’t take it—the hope it brings him.

“So, why?” he asks.

The air feels dense like heavy rain is about to descend. Renjun’s lungs are thick and tacky, like tar, and he finds it difficult to breathe. There’s a looming shadow over him, a deep, dark storm cloud approaching. He ignored all the warning signs and now faces a monsoon he might not be able to weather.

He doesn’t dare look at Yukhei, not even a glance. He seals his lips and hopes that things will blow over. They don’t. The looming figure that stood behind Renjun with so much warmth and mirth now stands like a desolate shade.

They still in the silence. Renjun holding his breath in fear and Yukhei in anticipation. They bathe in it, in the muffling, deafening sound of silence, before Yukhei sighs.

“I hear your message loud and clear,” he says before he turns around, leaving Renjun all by himself once again.

Renjun can’t paint after that.

“Am I a horrible person?” is the first thing out of Renjun’s mouth when he gets home. Doyoung is sitting on the couch, eyes trained on his phone when his brother barges in looking like he failed the biggest exam of his life. In typical perfect older brother fashion, he fixes him a mischievous smile, “You’re the kindest bub ever. Why would you even think that?”

“If you’re only going to insult me then I can go to someone with more emotional aptitude.”

Doyoung scoffs, “Reassess your statement then come back to me.”

Renjun pouts, a sigh escaping his lips. He knows there’s no one that can connect to him on an emotional level like Doyoung can, so really there’s no winning with this one, so he situates himself into Doyoung’s one awaiting arm, “I have a crush, he’s nice and funny and driven, but I think I’ve made him hate me.”

Doyoung strokes his hair and pinches his cheeks, “Sounds about right,” he says nonchalantly as he keeps him close.

Renjun pouts, “I just don’t know how to tell him I like him after being cold to him for so long.”

His older brother chuckles lightly, prompting Renjun to hit him in the chest. This elicits a small grunt from his brother, but it only serves to make Doyoung laugh harder.

“I came here to be comforted, not laughed at,” Renjun pouts. Doyoung squishes his cheek lightly.

“It’s really not that. It’s just funny because I went through the same thing,” Doyoung says with an eased smile.

Renjun frowns, “But you’ve only been with Taeyong for forever, and he’d literally build a statue in your name if he asked you to.”

“You won’t believe me, but both of us thought we hated each other.”

Renjun can’t even begin to believe it. Taeyong smiled at every breath Doyoung exhaled, and Doyoung would murder anyone who would even just glare at Taeyong, so thinking of a moment in time when they did not know that they would die for each other sounds universally preposterous.

“Well, I have astigmatism, and Taeyong’s default face looks like he’s disappointed at your very existence, so there were a lot of mixed signals,” Doyoung says with a fond smile, “Turns out Taeyong is just shy, and his face just looks like that. I mean, we eventually did get together, but it was a hard road we had to tread.”

“I don’t know how this is supposed to help me,” Renjun murmurs.

“It means you're shit at conveying your emotions like your older brother and that you should work on trying to say what you mean rather than closing yourself off from others because you’re scared.”

“Wow, thanks for the detailed analysis of my deepest fears and anxieties, Dr Phil.”

“No problemo, kiddo. Now let’s watch Moomin so you can at least try to smile.”

Doyoung can be a little shit sometimes, but Renjun’s grateful for him nonetheless.
He’ll work on telling him that, maybe sometime next year or century, he hasn’t decided.

“What did you do to Yukhei?” Jeno asks the next day during lunch.

Renjun stops and fixes Jeno a glare, “And what gives you the idea that I did anything to him?”

Jeno rolls his eyes, “I don’t know Renjun, maybe because he suddenly tells me that he wants to take a little break from the Art Society saying he doesn’t want to ruin ‘team dynamics’.”

The way Jeno enunciates team dynamics with what is the gayest flourish of fingers he’s ever had the privilege of seeing sends Renjun into an intolerable fit, it’s a Jeno special.He deliberately says that last part slowly and pointedly. Trying his best to not so subtly imply that yes, it’s fucking obvious that of the three other members in the Art Society, only Renjun could prompt such a response from Yukhei.

“Why me? Maybe Jisung spat on his face or something.”

“He’s not that immature.”

Jeno sits down and gives Renjun a proper glare, “Look, I know you’re finally finding hair in places that they weren’t in before, and I shouldn’t be meddling with your affairs, but this is directly affecting my club and me, so you’d better shape up, Huang, or else I’m sending Jisung after you.”

Renjun groans, “I don’t even know where to start.”

Jeno rolls his eyes, “You’re so predictable. Basketball training ends at 6, the gym will be open. Get in, fix your shit, then get out.”

Renjun gulps as Jeno smacks him brusquely on the back before leaving for class.

He gets to the gym at quarter to six, hands clutching tightly to his backpack. As Jeno promised, the door is opened for him, leading into the court, a bright beam of light from the stadium filtering through the gaps. Renjun gulps as he enters.

When he gets inside, he hears the familiar squeaks and bangs of rubber soles against the waxed hardwood floor. They have a practice game, shirts and skins. Renjun thanks all the fucking higher powers known to man that Yukhei is on shirts.

He suspects it’s a closed practice, the stands empty save for some of the team’s schoolbags. Jeno probably found someone to threaten to do his bidding. For someone who everyone thinks is a silent observer, Jeno had a rather obscure web of connections that he exploited when it necessitated. It’s a trait that binds him and Renjun together—mutual respect and fear.

Not wanting the entire team to notice his presence, he makes a quick sprint for one of the bleachers, away from prying eyes. Once there, he looks through the tiny gap only to find his gaze immediately stuck on Yukhei. He’s ducking and traipsing around the court like he’s skating rather than budging around like a Neanderthal. Now, Renjun’s been invited to many a basketball game, yet has never actually seen Yukhei play. Seeing him flounce about like a sweaty, jersey-clad ballerina makes Renjun feel an indescribable swelling of pride. He guesses this is why all those obnoxious jersey girlfriends were, well, obnoxious. In an imaginary (ideal) world, Renjun thinks that he’d play the catty, obscenely supportive boyfriend of Yukhei who fought referees during timeouts when afforded the opportunity. Renjun tries to compose himself.

Yukhei dances on the court like it’s as easy as breathing; ducking and dipping with a fluence that Renjun never knew was possible for an athlete. Yet here he was, in all his muscled glory weaving through his opponents like silk. Renjun freezes at the sight of the Yukhei in front of him now. Warm gaze and frivolous smile replaced by a steely stare and an undaunting determination. When he shoots a three-pointer, Renjun stops himself from cheering.

The whistle blows, and they stop playing. There’s a chorus of celebration as the shirts begin jumping together in some ungodly ritual of sweat and man. After the chants of glee subside, they greet the other team a good game before they’re off to do their individual stretching. Once he’s away from the clamor of victory, Yukhei sobers up considerably, the intensity on his face waning into indescribable tension. It’s clearly not physical, the way his face creases and his shoulders slump. Yukhei always looked so unbreakable, so strong against whatever life (Renjun) liked to hurl at him. The idea that Renjun had dealt such a crushing blow to the smile the student body loved so much—to the smile he loved so much—causes something in him to twitch in frustration and disappointment.

The boundless energy that Yukhei usually exudes is gone, leaving behind only a shell of himself; smile gone and warmth dulled. Seeing it so up close physically hurts. The atmosphere around Yukhei is tepid and dull, just like the somber atmosphere in the art room the afternoon before.

Renjun reckons that if Yukhei didn’t already know their stretching routines by heart, he would have already gotten lost in the motions. They finish and most of the team spare Yukhei a passing glance as they head over to the shower. They know, obviously. Yukhei wore his heart on his sleeve and right now there were huge, raging streaks of red reading NOT OKAY that stretched down to his torso. They don’t bother him about it, choosing to move about like everything’s normal. The only one who lingers is their team captain, Mark Lee.

Now, Renjun has never formally met Mark, but he knows that he and Yukhei are very close friends, so when the basketball captain pauses at the sight of Yukhei sitting down quiet on the side, Renjun can’t help but plead for him to comfort his teammate. And , as if hearing the silent pleading of a boy too scared to move, Mark takes the tentative steps towards his best friend before placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Good job,” Renjun whispers as he watches the momentary shift in express as Yukhei passes Mark a look of gratitude. It’s a smile that doesn’t soar as it normally would, but it’s a small token of reassurance that he’d be okay. There’s murmuring, and Yukhei glances at Mark one last time before the captain heads back to locker rooms, leaving the boy alone as he unknowingly sits directly across Renjun, who’s standing behind the bleachers. If Yukhei made an effort to glance at the small gap, he would find a boy utterly transfixed in equal amounts of guilt and fascination unabashedly staring back at him.

Renjun’s heart races and aches for the boy. He wants to hold him, to keep him safe, to craft him a smile again, yet he can’t. There’s no reason for Renjun to do that, no connection that would make it permissible to hold or touch. No coincidental bond that could even allow Renjun to talk to him. He’s only brushed him off and given him the cold shoulder. He’s only caused unwarranted frustration and guilt in Yukhei’s life.

Renjun reckons, he’ll just have to appease Jeno by doing something else. Two months of manual labor would probably suffice, maybe find him someone just slightly as energetic, enigmatic, and endearing as Yukhei--someone Renjun won’t have to fall in love with.

So involved in ways to appease his very upset club president, Renjun doesn’t register that Yukhei has stood up and was dribbling a ball in the center of the court. He does some fancy footwork while passing the ball between his legs before he looks at the basket. He grasps the ball tightly and looks at it with contempt as if it’s the reason his life has become the way it is. He sighs at it before he’s bringing down the ball to the floor with an almighty roar of frustration.

Renjun, in surprise, yelps at the outburst, which in turn startles Yukhei. The player looks for the sound of the high-pitched squeal, eyes catching the pair of terrified irises peering from behind the bleachers.

“Renjun?” he gasps.

That’s all that it takes for Renjun to gather his bearings and spring out the door. In a moment he can feel the chill of the night air, and it’s uncompromisingly suffocating, but he runs. He runs as far as his little feet can take him. He doesn’t know how far he gets, but by the time he’s done his legs are quivering in exhaustion, thighs screaming at him for the sudden sprint. He looks around at the unfamiliar location. It’s dark, cold, and he doesn’t know where in god’s name he’s ended up.

He’s about to reach for his phone when he hears the indistinct sound of approaching footsteps and the booming sound of someone calling his name.

He doesn’t need to look back to know whom the voice belongs to. He proceeds to run away, in a direction that he is not entirely sure will lead him back home, but he sprints like the coward that he is. His hamstrings are quivering with every step, calves screaming for him to stop. He doesn’t know how long he’s running when his legs finally give out on him. He falls to onto the grass almost lifelessly, chest hitting the dirt with a soft thud.

As soon as his legs stop moving, he feels his muscles seize up in intense cramps. He convulses on the ground as sharp pangs of pain shoot through his thighs and calves, muscles clenching at the sudden burst of physical effort. Renjun is left lame and useless on the floor, legs feeling like they’re being chewed from the inside. The tears come hot and thick as he whines through the torrid pain shooting through his lower regions. Then the sound of rustling and his name being called again.

Renjun doesn’t see him, but he feels him, skin still hot and damp from practice, voice concerned.

“Straighten your legs for me,” he asks urgently. Renjun, tries to follow, slowly extracting his limbs until they’re splayed out on the grass.

“Good,” Yukhei hums before he’s sitting by Renjuns feet and holding them together. He gently pushes his feet forward, his ankles bending towards him then, and like a switch, the pain is flushed out, and he can feel beautiful release just cascade up his calves and shoot up his thighs. He lets out a long drawn out exhale as he is expunged of all the tension, Yukhei gently pressing into the soles of his feet to lengthen the seizing muscles.

“Are your thighs tense as well?” he asks concerned.

Renjun can’t even lie at this point, his head nodding automatically at the question. Yukhei nods in acknowledgment.

Now, it is common knowledge that Renjun has little to no knowledge of sports therapy, muscle pain or the venerable art of stretching. All the brain space is filled with color theory, alien conspiracy theories, and a whole lot of Wong Yukhei, so when he finds out that stretching the thigh required bending of limbs in a way that allowed Yukhei to lean his flush, toned chest on his leg and his hot fucking sweaty face to come nearer his own, groundbreaking, pulsating, erratic panics rises in Renjun’s throat.

Yukhei lets go of Renjun’s foot and raises his leg and slowly puts pressure on his calf, bending it like a lever towards Renjun. Lower. Lower. Lower.

Renjun wants to curse his parents for making him obnoxiously limber.

“I never knew you were this flexible.”

Neither do fucking I, is what Renjun would have said if he weren’t in all forms of cluster fuck. He feels nausea pool in his gut as Yukhei comes closer, his hamstrings screaming in relief as the tension is alleviated and his brains hollering for Yukhei to please give him a break. What comes out of Renjun is the ungodly matrimony of a groan and a squawk. It’s partially scary, partially confusing, and full disgusting. Like an out of tune parrot screaming underwater.

Yukhei gently lets go. Renjun wants the earth to swallow him so hard. He scrounges around and finds his bearing. Thankfully, the primary stretching done to him had given him—at the very least—the slightest bit of control over his legs. When Yukhei spots Renjun hunched over in pure exhaustion, he dares to laugh at him. The change in emotion is palpable like he wasn’t just growling in frustration a minute prior.

“You okay?” there’s less concern and more amusement, especially when Yukhei manages to flash his phone on Renjun to check if the other boy managed to hurt himself in his great escape.

“You look like you ran a marathon,” he comments out of anything better to say.

Renjun fixes him a glare, “Go suck dirt, Wong.”

Yukhei laughs, but approaches Renjun nonetheless, all tender and gentle like he always is with him. It causes him to turn beet red at the gesture. Good thing he’s already red from exhaustion that Yukhei would take any blush as a mere sign of just how awfully unathletic Renjun is.

He bends down then turns around to offer Renjun his back, “Hop on, I can bring you home.”

Renjun really feels the blush creeping on him like a contagion. Yukhei needs to stop whatever chivalrous bullshit he’s pulling right now and go die in a hole before Renjun does it himself.

“I feel like I ran through coal, you can’t possibly carry me all the way home.”

Yukhei only giggles in response, “I’m only carrying you to school, I never said anything about bringing you back home on my back.”

Renjun flushes deeper, if that’s even possible, voice caught in his throat. Yukhei turns towards him, “I’ll bring you home in my car.”

Great, more close proximity to Yukhei, this is really what he wanted. He pauses for a moment, mulling over his decision and decides that he should be the stubborn boy he’s grown up to be and suffer then die of exhaustion from wandering the chilly streets of Seoul lost and too prideful for his own good. He can imagine it now, Jeno would talk in his funeral, his eyes judgmental and unapologetic as he mentions every stupid decision Renjun’s made leading to his sad, pathetic death.

Sadly, his funeral has to wait, as his thighs and calves make the executive decision for him, giving out after one sad attempt at a step. His body falls, slumping perfectly over Yukhei’s still sweaty back like a disheveled rag doll. Even his limbs are against him, a travesty. A mutiny of the highest order.

“Ew,” he murmurs.

Yukhei laughs before heaving Renjun up like he weighs nothing.

“You’re really light,” he says as they start venturing back to the school parking lot. Renjun can’t talk, he knows he weighs the equivalent of a feather with a piece of thread tied to it, so the comment doesn’t faze him all that much. What he does do is hold tighter to Yukhei’s neck. He doesn’t admit it, but hearing the happiness back in Yukhei’s voice makes Renjun’s heart warm in a way that only seeing the cascading hues of color on canvas has given him before.

The journey is swift and silent, Yukhei content and Renjun too embarrassed to function. They arrive at the carpark where a black sedan that has a little dumpling tacked on its windshield awaits them. Yukhei brings Renjun down into the passenger seat and lets him down. Renjun’s legs are much better now, all the tension somewhat relaxed after their walk back.

Yukhei unlocks the car and urges Renjun inside. Once he sits down, the basketball player tosses his keys at him.

“I’ll just get my stuff then we can go, please don’t sell my car while I’m gone,” Yukhei says before he’s sprinting towards the gymnasium, leaving Renjun alone once again.

The car is clean, the interior well-maintained, and the seat cover smelt like some woody air freshener someone probably called spring rain. He looks through the dashboard and, out of boredom rather than curiosity, opens the glove compartment. This prompts the ruffling of brochures that have been overstuffed into the small closet. Renjun sees the glossy paper with pictures of sprawling buildings, an uptight looking girl with a ponytail and a smile that indicates mild neuroticism and loads of anxiety, and some big businessman looking geezer with a balding head and eyes that remind Renjun of the likes of Baphomet or his 2^nd-grade math teacher. College pamphlets, tons of them, most of which from the top universities of Korea, China and Japan.

Yukhei was disarmingly intelligent for all his recklessness nature, Renjun knows this. He was good at math and was gunning for a full-ride scholarship, and it once again framed the furthering divide between him and the owner of the car. The deceit of Wong Yukhei. An empty promise that could only ever ensure Renjun heartbreak.

There, illuminated by the parking lights, was the biggest reminder of why Wong Yukhei was and has always been a bad idea. The stark reminder that love does not always win through. Like being punched in the gut, Renjun is once again filled with undaunting dread.

The simple sweetness of Wong Yukhei was always defined by an immovable deadline. One that inched closer the longer this, whatever this is drags on. Renjun’s measly crush on a senior with an entire future plotted out like blueprints—structured, clear, unchangeable—made him seem like passing scenery in the greater landscape. He was just a stopover, a momentary place of respite in the long, arduous journey ahead. Renjun knew he knew with so much certainty that this was never meant to work out.

He knew what he wanted, though hard for him to admit. He wanted Yukhei so earnestly, so completely. He could never have that, not in the way he yearned for him. There was no place in Yukhei’s life for an emotionally constipated junior with an inferiority complex. Not when he has the world ready for him to take. Not when this frail, weak art kid could only cause him harm.

He can’t do it, the world is once again suffocating, the mere idea of Yukhei was suffocating him. He has to leave, he can’t do this, he can’t face this future. Not when he doesn’t know anything, not when he can’t even decode the illogical beating of his own heart.

He’ll just have to get away from the art society. Maybe he’ll move back to China, away from the threat of a lumbering, fumbling Hong Kong native who offered too much kindness.

Away.

He’s about to let his little legs sprint to their breaking point when a shadow looms over him. Yukhei at the mess of pamphlets scattered on the floor with confusion, then at him with thinly veiled disappointment.

“You’re not thinking of running away from me again, are you?” he asks solemn and quiet, “because if you are, I might just have to let you go for good.”

There’s a finality in Yukhei’s voice that sends chills down Renjun’s back, he should say yes. This is what’s supposed to happen. Renjun should run and leave, he should escape while he has the chance. This is what he wanted, the chance to run away from those warm eyes that remind him of coffee blanketed by the decadence of cream, and that voice that tastes

like deep caramel fragrant against his tongue, running smooth and sweet down his throat. He should run, yet he can’t.

His rationality isn’t the one holding control of him right now. It was the pulsating warmth of his no longer quiet heart.

Yukhei takes the silence as a passable yes and closes the passenger seat before jogging to the driver’s seat. He turns on the car and places his phone on the holder he’s put on the middle of the dashboard. He opens his phone and an app before looking over at Renjun and says, “Address.”

Renjun types in his address quietly. The app spurs to life, the map illuminating the way to their destination. When Yukhei sees the location he snickers, “You live close to my place, could have driven you there after classes instead of you taking the bus all the time.”

He flashes Renjun a small smile that attempts to be lighthearted, but only comes off as bitter.

The journey starts off as silent, the hum of the engine the only sound breaking the monotonous rhythm of their breathing.

It’s on the first stoplight that Yukhei breaks the tense atmosphere.

“I guess Jeno told you and forced you to come and talk,” he says all quiet and solemn, his voice ringing ominously through the air like a gunshot.

Renjun feels like he’s being put on the spot again, something Yukhei’s been doing for the past few hours. Disarming him so badly that he can barely talk.

“Can you stop doing that?”

Yukhei looks at him confused, “Doing what?”

It frustrates him because he has no right to be mad, to be frustrated when he started all this mess in the first place.

“That!” Renjun screams eyes looking at the road, “I can’t even talk to you!”

Yukhei is staring at him in disbelief, eyes confused and hurt and so many things that Renjun doesn’t want to see. It hurts, everything hurts.

“Then talk!” Yukhei says, quiet, “Tell me all that’s on your mind, scream at me, curse me,” he continues, “say something.”

The light turns green, the engine roars. Silence.

Renjun can’t look at him, so he eyes his shoes instead. There’s a streak of mud that runs through the side of his sole, brown dirtying the pristine white of his trainers. He sees a box of tissues to his side but can’t bring himself to ask permission, so he uses the edge of his pants to rub off the dirt off. It works to only worsen the smudge as the mud spreads to the tops of his shoes, leaving him with a bigger mess than when he started.

“You know, sometimes having a bit of dirt on white shoes makes it look nicer. It looks well-worn, used for what it’s worth.”

“Why do you sound like an old Chinese proverb but for a shoe?”

Yukhei shrugs, and here they are again, traipsing around the difficult subjects with small talk and vague attempts at making each other understand something, anything.

A light turns red, the car stops.

“Something different isn’t necessarily something bad,” Yukhe says, eyes trained on the stoplight, “Sometimes different is good.”

Renjun looks at the speck of dirt that isn’t supposed to be there. The speck of dirt that was brown, black and all shades of not white. It doesn’t go with the shoe. There are measures, devices made specifically to keep things as they should be. Clean, orderly, pristine.

“And sometimes it’s just dirt on my shoe,” he says quietly, “sometimes it’s just not meant to be there.”

“So you like your shoe white?”

“Yes.”

Yukhei nods.

“I don’t hate you,” he speaks softly. Yukhei doesn’t do anything, but Renjun knows he’s heard. It’s the easy way out. There’s no hope attached to it, or so he thinks.

“I did when you first joined. Because you were loud and obnoxious and you sometimes smelled like a basketball, but—” he pauses seeing the bright red illuminated before the two of them.

“Stop” it roars. “Don’t” it sings.

“Then I just didn’t.”

The light turns green.

They don’t exchange words after that. Yukhei concentrates on the road and Renjun on not looking in Yukhei’s direction. The rest of the trip is like that, a pregnant silence that looms larger and larger the nearer they came to Renjun’s house. When Yukhei pulls up by the curb, there’s a sense of fear and trepidation still stagnant in the air, wallowing in the spaces that separate the two of them.

“I have a lot of questions,” Yukhei says when he puts the car on park, “but I don’t want to ask them. I don’t know where we stand, but I’m glad you don’t hate me. Because I really like you, Renjun,” he says.

His heart just can’t catch a break. He feels electricity course through his spine, his cheeks darkening once more, together with it his entire body.

“You’re really talented and funny, and—"

Renjun waits, breath caged in his lungs, mouth agape and senses nulled to the cold.

“So can I request for a favor, instead?”

Renjun nods, more so in desperation. Just so that he doesn’t have to feel this gnawing in his gut anymore. This trip has been more emotionally taxing than any other conversation he’s had in his life, and the only thing he wants to do right now is inhale clean air. The sooner he can appease Yukhei, the sooner he can do just that.

“Can we be friends?”

His breath catches in his throat, and he feels the thundering of his heart numb at the words. It’s quiet and sincere, and impossibly hopeful. Renjun wants to snuff it out, that little morsel of maybe that lingers in the deepest recesses of his heart. It’s like Yukhei’s been playing cat’s cradle with his heart, fingers tangled in a mess of emotions he has no idea how to work out. He can’t let himself into the knotted mess. He doesn’t want to weave through it. He wants to cut it, sever it, release himself from its hold.

Yet he nods. His brain has grown weary from the sensory onslaught his beating heart has unleashed. He is so weak for him.

Yukhei smiles, warm and inviting and all the superlatives one can manage to muster. Words like soft puppies, coffee on rainy mornings, and the iridescence of the setting sun. All of that and more all surmised in one smile. Renjun wants to hurl, exactly what he doesn’t quite know.

He steps out and doesn’t look back, doesn’t even muster a goodbye or a thank you. Yet he knows that there is a grin of pure triumph on Yukhei’s face. How he feels about that is still up for debate.

There’s a shift in the air when Yukhei enters the art room again. His smile is disarming, and his movement is less restrained. Jeno eyes Renjun suspiciously, and Jisung is happy he has his ‘tall bud’ back. Yukhei keeps his distance from Renjun as an hour passes. Jisung is teaching him how to use watercolors.

Jisung, for all his clumsiness, was quite adept at the subtle art of watercolors. It’s like he enters a different state when he paints as if he’s practiced yoga or taichi his entire life and has transcended into another level of inner peace. His hands don’t waggle in odd motions, and his eyes do squint in confusion every five minutes. Yukhei soaks it up as best as he can.

It’s only when it’s time to go home that Yukhei talks to him.

“Do you want to ride with me home?”

Alarms are dinging violently in Renjun’s head. The rational part of him going into overdrive trying its best to tell him to stop the involuntary nod of his head, but alas his heart had already found his nerves and had made his assent more enthusiastic than he thinks is necessary.

“I’ll wait outside,” he says before leaving the room.

The wakeup call he gets is a swift palm to the head from a very irate Jeno.

“What is this shit?” he says harshly.

“What shit?”

“What happened last night. I know I asked you to fix it, but I expected at least a week before you found the courage to actually do it.”

“Oh, we’re friends now, I guess,” he says scratching his head. Jeno does not look at all convinced.

“Please don’t tell me you made out in the car because I will lose all my respect if you did.”

Renjun chokes on air as his cheeks turn a deep crimson at the idea of Yukhei kissing him. Warm hands caressing his face, plump lips moist against his.

“Oh my god, you did make out!?” Jeno stammers, “Huang Renjun, you little minx.”

There’s no point arguing with Jeno at this point. There’s an almighty smirk playing on his president’s lips and a challenging glint in his eyes. On any other day, Renjun would have engaged, but right now he didn’t care to fight. So he flips him the bird before heading for the door.

When he leaves the room, Yukhei is leaning by the doorway. No words are exchanged as they go to the car and it only dawns on Renjun that he doesn’t mind the quiet so much. The air around him and Yukhei seems to have lightened considerably now that they were friends.

The journey goes on like that, and once Yukhei is dropping him off at home there no longer seems to be anything hanging in the air. No expectations unmet, just two friends riding in the same car. It felt nice, not having to pretend. And though there were still many barriers that separated them, Renjun can rest on the fact that there was a boundary they’ve chosen not to cross.

When he arrives at his house, he is not greeted by any of his family. Instead, he finds Lee Taeyong cooking what looks like dinner. He’s in loungewear (Doyoung’s) and a hot pink apron (also Doyoung’s) standing over a stew of some sort. It smells like sweated radish and roasted sesame. It’s a sight he’s become familiar to.

Taeyong is all charming frailties and sweet smiles that reminded you that there is still inherent goodness in this world, all of which has coalesced into the being of one Lee Taeyong. Their mother, so awed at the overflow of kindness from Taeyong often wondered (out loud) how Doyoung managed to get him. Taeyong would always hold Doyoung’s hand and tell her he was the lucky one. (Renjun always tried his best not to hurl his food at his brothers face.)

Taeyong’s settled himself into the folds of Doyoung life—and by extension, his family’s— so seamlessly that it’s as if he was meant to be there all this time. It’s come to the point that seeing him here preparing dinner for them has become commonplace, and not seeing in their house at least twice in a week would be a worrying sight.

“Hi, Yong,” Renjun says sitting by the counter. Taeyong turns around and flashes him that bright, brilliant smiles he has and Renjun still manages to get shocked at how acutely beautiful Taeyong is. Chin handsomely defined, eyes glistening, and mouth feathered like the finest cotton, only superlatives can manage to describe him. Why he chose Doyoung, he still doesn’t know.

“Junnie, you’re early,” he pouts in disappointment, and Renjun has to stop himself from feeling bad because it’s normal that you have an inner debate within yourself to figure out what you might have possibly done to upset Lee Taeyong. As Doyoung would put it, “If Taeyong pouts at you, you either beg for forgiveness or give him all the love humanly possible, there’s no in between.”

“I wanted to get a snack done before you arrived so that you could munch on something before dinner. I hope you aren’t too hungry, this will only take, like, five minutes.”

“Yong, it’s fine! I’m not hungry.”

“Are you sure?” He pouts again. Renjun feels like he’s fighting a losing battle.

Taeyong has a habit of looking like the most horribly beat up puppy pleading for forgiveness when he does something remotely unsatisfactory to his very rigid standards of nice. Contrary to Doyoung’s initial impression of his current boyfriend, Taeyong is not in the slightest bit a grumpy person. Taeyong has a naturally gaunt face that exudes solemn dread, but one word out of him and all the initial apprehension you might have harbored all but vanishes into a dust cloud of pink fluff. It’s probably why Doyoung showers him excessively with gifts for doing the bare minimum.

(One time, Taeyong forgot to make Doyoung lunch because he overslept, so Doyoung brought him to the beach to make up for it. Renjun still doesn’t know how Doyoung came up with ‘take him to the beach’ but it stands testament to Taeyong’s inimitable charm.)

(Renjun wonders if Yukhei would ever do that for him.)

“Did you run here? You looked flushed.”

Renjun, quick to snap out of his pipe dream of Yukhei driving him to the beach because he whined.

“Someone drove me.”

Taeyong glances at him for a moment before stark realization fills his face.

“Oh,” he says slightly embarrassed before turning around.

Renjun flushes harder, if that was still possible, “What’s that ‘oh’?”

When Taeyong faces him again, he’s trying his best to keep his face still—which is to say that he’s not doing a good job at it. For all his charm, Taeyong is terribly obvious hiding his unscrupulously excitability at just about anything.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he says, eyes never quite reaching Renjun.

“But you want to so, so badly,” Renjun deadpans out of resignment. There’s no battling Taeyong when he’s whiny and shy like this. It would be an affront to the human race.

Taeyong smiles, knowing he’s already won, “Well, is that the guy Doyoung told me about? The one you like?”

Renjun forgets that Taeyong is not one to beat around the bush, and by the way, his eyes light up at the topic, Renjun assumes that this conversation is going to end up with a list of ‘10 things Renjun loves about Wong Yukhei’.

“Yes, he is,” Renjun says quietly, almost inaudibly. It’s at this moment that acknowledging something mentally was so drastically different from verbal confirmation. In his mind, it was safe, secure and controllable. Out here, with something so undeniably out of his hands, it feels like a gamble. He feels bare in front of Taeyong, it’s disconcerting.

“Do you have a picture?” he asks eyes wide with genuine curiosity, “Doyoung always just says that he’s tall and nice looking. An image what tall and nice looking meant would be nice.”

Renjun would usually outright refuse, but Taeyong has that sparkly anime eyes that make him look like he’s been deprived of love for ten thousand years, so at this point, the choice has been forcibly taken out of his hands by the sheer power of Taeyong’s charm. He takes out his phone and finds the picture the art society took after Yukhei joined. The lumbering giant stands at the far back enveloping three people with his impossibly long, toned arms. His smile is bright and joyful, just how Renjun likes it.

Taeyong looks at the picture. His smile radiates warmth and awe, “He looks dashing.”

“He is,” slips out of Renjun’s mouth like a caged bird that found a crack in its prison.

When Taeyong looks up at him, it’s in tender realization, “Isn’t it lovely?” he asks while he reaches over with his impossibly soft palm and sweetly caressesRenjun’s face, “the way your heart dances in your chest. The way it feels like a constant dance. Isn’t it exhilarating?”

Renjun looks perplexed as he blinks up at him, eyes trying to understand what odd mechanism churned behind the deep thrumming black of Taeyong’s smile.

“So much like your brother,” he says with a fond chuckle, “Your eyes are the same shade of confused. It’s uncanny.”

Renjun keeps silent as Taeyong turns aways, warm hands leaving his flushed cheeks. He brings out a bowl filled with rice dough and another with a fine brown powder that looks of fine sawdust. He peels the dough onto a clear board. It sinks ever so slightly, its body as if suspended in thin air, like water caught in freeze frame. The brown dust is sprinkled over like rain as the scent of roast sesame scrounges the air like a warm swarm. Fingers, with practiced deftness, move the dough around like ebb and flow until it reaches an acceptable figure.

“A bowl of injeolmi for our favorite injeolmi,” Taeyong says after slicing the pastry.

Renjun thanks him and takes a bite. It’s immaculate. Tender and tacky, like the first chew of gum but with much more give and much less mint. He’s too preoccupied with the snack that he momentarily forgets about his and Taeyong’s conversation.

It’s only when Taeyong descends upon him, head resting on his shoulder, does he recall.

“Speaking from experience, don’t overthink the way your heart behaves. Don’t fight it. The problem with you and your brother is that you think too much and feel too little,” Taeyong whispers into his ear, “Let your heart free, it spends too much time beating in your little chest. Can’t you hear?”

“It wants to dance with somebody.”

Life changes slightly over the next few weeks. Yukhei brings Renjun home every afternoon and tries to lighten the thick air that had settled between them. It’s slow and meticulous, yet pleasantly normal, like the gradual ascension of an incoming tide. They only realize how bad it’s gotten once they’re neck deep in it.

They begin with favorite colors, blue for Yukhei and white for Renjun. Yukhei was not satisfied with the answer, argued that white wasn’t a color.

“It’s like saying asking for true or false and getting a maybe,” he had said.

He let it go eventually, but Renjun felt the nauseous quake in his gut nonetheless. The echoes of ‘maybe’ resonating with the muted dancing caged between his ribs.

They eventually move on to ‘how was your day?’ Renjun doesn’t recall how it got there, but he expected it. There was a reason Renjun was so hellbent on hating Yukhei in the first place. He was so easy, too easy to get along with. It felt like falling into a pit of joyous laughter and bright smiles. Such caustic warmth deserved a warning sign: ‘Do not touch, harmful to your heart’ it should read.

And to Yukhei, whose physical acumen is only rivaled by his social graces, asking something as mundane as ‘how was your day?’ may seem like a regulatory practice, but to Renjun, it meant so much more. It’s an opening, albeit small. A baring of his life he usually keeps to himself. He’d always been hard to crack and harder to openly love, but it felt like Yukhei had barely broken a sweat thundering down through all the walls Renjun’s built around himself.

And just like a riptide, Renjun was hooked in. Violently.

Everyone takes notice of the changes to the once alien individuals, the way the spaces that separate them reduce with every passing day. The way they trade smiles, small, fleeting, longing for one another.

Looks of curiosity turn into those of slight worry. What looked so tempting hidden behind hushed stares now seemed too tender for eyes to bear witness. No one could truly understand what was happening between them, more so Renjun whose heart felt close to starting a revolt each time Yukhei so much as smiled his way. What started sweet soon became sour. The words they share turns terse with unspoken yearning. Just like that the tender tension that made it so easy to coexist broke without anyone knowing.

There’s a weird period in transition that only gushes doubt and unpredicted anxiety. For a week they don’t speak, and it’s not weird. Renjun minds the gap between them and takes it as a moment to reflect, to veer away. For a while he’s okay, the sound of his laughter does not die in his heart, nor does the brilliance of his smile, but it wanes in prominence.

There’s a moment, during the great divide, when not even empty words of amicability could span the distance between them that he sees a seething regret in Yukhei’s eyes. But Renjun doesn’t meet his eyes. He’s too afraid that he’ll catch his attention. That he’ll catch on and write another smile that Renjun will grow to resent. So he looks away and wishes that some grace can fix them.

It comes; eventually. It goes by the name Park Jisung.

“Are you and Yukhei boning?”

Jisung never was one to be graced with gentleness or subtly. He prances about life with the relative grace of a landed whale.

“No.”

Jisung nods, but he doesn’t look satisfied just yet.

“Oh, so like friends with benefits?”

Renjun can’t tell if Jisung was coerced to interrogate him or if he’s doing this out of genuine curiosity. However, what he does know is that the kid is relentless. For all his nonchalance about essentially anything in life, Jisung is surprisingly undaunted when it comes to things he wants or is forced to get (a perk only Chenle has the privilege of abusing).

“Just friends.”

Jisung doesn’t miss a beat, “Bullshit.”

Renjun is mildly surprised because Jisung likes to drawl about and retain a consistent level of annoying to get what he wants. Violent reactions were more of Chenle or Jaemin’s thing. Jisung didn’t have the aptitude for senseless rage, or so Renjun thought.

“Yukhei literally never shuts up about you, while you keep sighing whenever you look at him, and you’re not together? Not even bonking each other in the parking lot like normal hormonal teenagers!? You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Renjun flinches at the sudden outburst. Jisung is as mild-mannered as they came, but seeing him flare up so intensely like this brings a different type of fear that Renjun doesn’t fully understand.

“Why are you so affected?”

Jisung looks at him like Renjun’s supposed to know exactly why he’s screaming his head off, “Because I’m trying not to be invested in this bad novella you and Yukhei and trying pull, but it’s getting depressing. I thought this ended with all the melodrama Mark and Donghyuck pulled over my ass, but no you and Yukhei are the absolute worst.”

Renjun looks at Jisung’s flared nostrils, his hair intensely disarrayed, and his eyes slightly manic.

“Donghyuck and Mark are a thing?”

Jeno: You broke Jisung

Jeno: I can’t believe you broke him

Jeno: I’ve been trying for five years to break that elongated gremlin

Jeno: and you come here without even trying

Jeno: I’m filing for a restraining order Huang

Jeno: DON’T TALK TO ME I HATE YOU

Renjun is used to walking home by now. The rumble of Yukhei’s black sedan with that dumpling sticker no longer haunting his heart. He’s just about to exit the gate when a familiar voice calls for him.

“Do you need a ride home?”

“Apparently Jisung had a meltdown,” Yukhei says from beside him. They’re on their way home from school, and the news of Jisung’s proper meltdown had spread to every far corner of the school. The reason why still a mystery amongst the student body. It seems Yukhei was one of those who wasn’t in on the secret.

“Yeah, crazy huh,” calm as a cucumber, he’d like to think. They haven’t talked in weeks and like they’re so used to they instead veer away from the problems that plague their relationship if one could even call it that.

“He’s such a calm kid, it’s weird seeing him go batshit crazy over the possibility of us dating.”

Did Renjun say cool as a cucumber? Well, scratch that, he’s a cucumber being shoved into an industry-grade blender, the kind that has a setting above liquify.

“What do you think about it?”

Renjun looks at the window, “I don’t know.”

Yukhei doesn’t say anything for a while. Odd how all these awkward conversations happen in his car. The heavy atmosphere of the night Yukhei first brought him home rattles in the air again, the pungent scent of unresolved emotions filling the space between them like they’re sinking in water.

“I guess I should phrase that better,” Yukhei says quietly, “What do you think about dating me?”

Renjun stills and continues to look out the window.

“I guess you not looking at me will make this much easier. Look away like you always do.”

Renjun complies, gaze trained away from Yukhei to the splatters of green and grey that dot the road. To crimson cars that have difficulty parking, to bus stops with a solitary student waiting for the next shuttle to arrive, to anything that didn’t dare to threaten the seeming equilibrium of his life. Yet there thundered a presence so powerful that even Renjun’s insecurities could not keep at bay. A thumping, beating, a thrumming tune that yearns so deeply to be free.

His head shifts, slightly, slowly until he faces Yukhei. His face is stern, features drawn in deep contemplation. Fine lines trace the edges of his skin, faint whispers of unkempt tension.

“You never look at me,” he repeats, jaw tense and lips quivering as he lets out a shaky breath. “I’ve tried so hard, and it feels like I’ve been trying to scale a wall that has no end.”

So many things are going through Renjun’s head. Floods of emotions, insecurities, and overwhelming guilt course through him like a raging storm. An unrelenting maelstrom of too much. Just too much.

“Why?” comes his almost inaudible voice. He’s looking at Yukhei with an expression of utmost contempt, “Why are you doing this?”

“What do you mean why am I doing this?” Yukhei retaliates, eyes still trained on the road, “isn’t it obvious?”

Renjun doesn’t want to hear. Not when his heart has the advantage. He’ll cave, the great temptation baiting him so seductively like low hanging fruit. Skin golden, flesh tender, and juice so utterly sweet. Yukhei was a grand buffet, and his heart was hungry for even just a morsel. It only wanted a taste, a crumb of what it can offer, but he knows even the slightest hint of an invitation and his heart will devour everything that he has to offer. It would consume them both and leave them hurting. He should keep silent and lead a cowardly retreat from the situation. He was good at expeditious escapes from feelings; this should be a cinch.

Unfortunately, this matter would not be decided by his rationality. The beast had been unleashed. The end is nigh.

He shakes his head.

“I can’t believe Jeno asked me to be subtle so that I wouldn’t spook you, said you were fragile,” Yukhei scoffs, “you’re denser than a rock.

Silence once again.

Yukhei inhales, “I want to be a special person. I want to be important to you.”

Renjun laughs. Cackles at the sheer absurdity of it all; at him, at Yukhei, at everything. He laughs because how delectably fortunate that the person whom Renjun thought would only think of him as a face to bring home was here worrying about Renjun regarding him as special. Yukhei looks both offended and concerned at Renjun’s less than graceful reaction to his confession.

“Sheesh, the least you can do is let me down gently.”

Renjun laughs harder. He’s all but hollering at the Yukhei at this point. His lungs are tired, and his abdomen might get a cramp from all the physical exertion. Slowly he finds his breath, Yukhei looking dumbstruck the entire time.

Yukhei flinches in surprise, “Wh-

“I don’t know why I’m laughing,” he murmurs with brokenness and a seeming incomprehensibility that maybe only his heart could ever discern. Maybe it was not only Jisung who was scheduled to break.

Heat ignites deep within his lungs, releasing an almighty, confused welp. The snickers of confusion fade, replaced only by tear tracks drunk on cocktails of emotion too strong for his little body to take. His chest swells with fears too sincere to let out, overflowing like a dam in a storm.

The entire time, Yukhei looks confused, concerned and still unbearably calm.

“Let’s go somewhere,” he murmurs for a fraction of a second before they’re zooming to a direction that Renjun does not care to know. As long as it was somewhere far, he was fine with it.

Renjun doesn’t know how long he cries. Even though he’s the one hurting Yukhei, he’s still the one being taken care of. He feels like he should say something, to reassure Yukhei that he was special, so special. Yet the words won’t come out. His brain was still trying so hard to stop him from doing something reckless, something stupid. It still wanted to hinder him from making a decision that didn’t make sense. That didn’t add up in the long run. That didn’t fit into the structured life Wong Yukhei set out for himself.

Yukhei stops in a national park near the outskirts of Seoul. The sun almost at the end of its journey. The final dregs of its brilliance littering the sky in a haze of gold and orange. Yukhei looks at Renjun and offers a comforting squeeze to his thigh.

“Come out when you’re ready.”

He leaves and strolls into the park, the crisp foliage and faintly illuminated reeds of grass keeping him company as he threads through the weaving pathways. Yukhei looks ethereal in the soft light of the afternoon. His figure as if waning with the withering flickers of the setting sun. His outline graceful, peaceful and all times steadfast in its journey forward.

Renjun looks and looks and looks. Yukhei’s figure is far now, most of it obscured by the thick, gnarled trees curling grotesquely into deformed arches. It seems so easy to let go, to let this moment pass and look away like he always does. But with each step, Renjun feels himself yearning for him to come back. Asking for him not to go. It hits him, so overwhelmingly. He does not want to look away. He wants to reach out and touch the infinite beauty of the sky in front of him. To feel the cadence of the gathering breeze. To see spring bloom. To run to him.

So he does.

He gets out of the car and sprints as fast as his little legs allow him. He almost trips on the way, but he doesn’t care. He surges forward until he collides with Yukhei. They tumble into the soft grass like that; Renjun clutching onto Yukhei’s waist like a lifeline.

Yukhei grumbles as he tries to find his bearings, all while Renjun holds onto him mumbling, “Please don’t go,” into his back. He repositions them so that they’re both sitting on the grass, with Renjun facing him properly. There are dried up tears lining his cheeks and creases of desperation embossed on his delicate skin. His lips tremble as he manages a final, “I’m sorry.”

“I come here whenever I’m stressed with life,” he replies taking out his handkerchief and wiping Renjun’s face, “It’s special to me.”

Renjun looks around and sees, peeking from the cover of foliage, bushes and straggling tufts of clouds, shines the dying embers of the sun. It casts the world ablaze in a warm embrace as if painting its own canvas with a final goodbye before the night begins its own tenure in the sky. It’s a special passage when the sun is barely peeking from the horizon, the delicate transition of time. An end and a beginning.

Twilight.

“It’s beautiful,” Renjun says. He then meets Yukhei’s gaze, and his expression turns sour once more as the guilt overrides his body once again

“I’m sorry.”

Yukhei chuckles in response, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Renjun doesn’t know if he’s ready. There are too many things he has to consider. He likes to think that he trusts Yukhei enough, but there was something that still gnawed at him.

Yukhei, as if sensing the mental processing whirring in Renjun’s head, extends a soft palm to his thigh, “Don’t blow a gasket again, we’ve had enough breakdowns for today.”

Always so caring despite all the things Renjun has done to him, so considerate and tender.

“You’re special,” Renjun murmurs shakily, eyes trained at Yukhei with intent, “You’ve always been special to me.”

The warm hand stops rubbing comfortingly on his thigh. Yukhei’s lips upturn into a smile. It’s nothing that Renjun has seen before. Equal parts relief and unbridled happiness rushing through his smile so clear that not even the growing night could blunt its shine.

“But I’m afraid,” he says frowning, “of so many things.”

Yukhei’s eyes crinkle in fondness, “I’ll help you fend them off,” he says, “I’ve got the muscle for it.” Renjun chortles in response, Yukhei joining him not long after. They both chorus in genial laughter until twilight fades into darkness.

“I used to worry a lot about my future, what I’d be when I finish school,” Yukhei says a little while later. The stars have begun to dot the sky now, the chill gathering with the gentle breeze.

“That’s why I come here a lot,” he says gently, “because I didn’t like being unhappy. It hurt the people around me and me.”

“So I hid. I hid my feelings away. That is until my mom found out. She was always very perceptive about these kinds of things. Mother’s instinct, I guess.” Yukhei’s voice doesn’t strain or wain at the thought, it doesn’t wither at the memories. As if honed against the pitfalls of emotional trauma, Yukhei navigates his story with relative ease—with serene confidence.

“She helped me see. That’s why this place is special to me. It’s where I found peace.”

Renjun feels something in him change when Yukhei holds his hand. There, in the presence of the illuminated sky, they touch. Something, odd, new—invigorating.

“Let’s get you home.”

Renjun smiles and accepts the hand up. It’s the first time he’s accepted him so willingly. So easily. It felt nice.

When he gets up, Yukhei doesn’t let go of his hand. Renjun is about to ask, but he gets no verbal answer, only a tight squeeze. Renjun does not protest. The hand that clasps his is big and warm. Some calluses line the rivets of his fingers and patches of dry, peeling skin that covers his palm.

“You should put on lotion,” Renjun says once they get to the car, “Taeyong works part-time at Mamonde, I’ll ask him to buy some for you.”

Yukhei smiles, and for the first time, it’s bashful and reluctant to be set free. Renjun wants to see it more often.

The ride home is peaceful, Renjun and Yukhei basking in comforting silence. It feels like the first intake of clean air.

Right before Renjun leaves the car Yukhei calls out to him, “Hey.”

“If you ever find life too difficult and you just need a place to breathe, tell me,” he says almost in a rush, “I’ll bring you there again.”

“But it’s your special place,” Renjun whispers into the night as if reluctantly challenging fate to bend for him, daring it to give him the answer he wants to hear.

“It’s ours now,” Yukhei says gently. He’s unsure if he’s too forward with these things, still trying to balance the words he says and the gestures he does.

To Renjun, he’s cautious yet daring, while never being overbearing. Yukhei rides through the precarious trail of Renjun’s tumultuous emotions with deft precision, and as such, his bravery is rewarded. Renjun wants to do that too--learn to be brave. To match Yukhei in generosity not because he feels indebted, but he wants to see him happy. He wants to reciprocate no matter how scary it seems because it makes him happy.

“Ours,” Renjun says, “I like the sound of that.”

Maybe the answer to the questions that rage in Renjun’s heart was never his to give, but for him to learn.

On a Monday Renjun walks into the art room with a tube of rose-scented lotion. Yukhei is seated beside Jisung observing as the sophomore finishes up his latest commission, a large portrait of Chenle commissioned by Chenle.

Unlike the abbreviated interactions the two have had over the past month, Renjun grabs a chair and settles himself beside Yukhei. There’s a silence that settles in the room as Jisung and Jeno both cast their gaze at the proximity between Renjun and Yukhei, so confused that the former has not descended into fits of utter panic at how close the two are.

Yukhei only looks mildly surprised but smiles as the junior sits beside him. What does surprise him—and the rest of the room—is when Renjun clasps his hand and places it on his dainty lap. Jisung’s eyes, which normally look like slits with eyeballs forcibly inserted into them, grow double in size as he sees the interaction, his mouth going slack as he feels the tenderness in which Renjun holds Yukhei’s hand. Jeno all but drops his paintbrush in utter shock.

Renjun pays them no mind and squirts a generous amount of lotion on Yukhei’s hand before gently spreading it across the parched skin, fingers gliding along parched skin until even the fingertips had been moisturized. He then intertwines their fingers together, as if testing the effects of the lotion, rubbing his palm against Yukhei’s ever so slightly—just enough to test the amount of friction between them.

“That’s much better,” he says sweetly, smiling up at Yukhei—who was battling a very prominent blush that had invaded his face.

“Put it on every day, it’s my favorite scent.”

Yukhei nods almost in complete bafflement at the forward showing of affection from Renjun.

He does not pay any mind to anyone else for the rest of the club period.

Like moths to bright lights, Chenle flies into drama while throwing caution into the wind as if were trash from last week.

“Spill it before I kill you with a fork.”

Then there’s Jaemin, sweet, caring, overdramatic Jaemin.

“I cannot believe you did not care to inform me,” he all but screeches, “me--the most important person in your life—that you got a man. I blame Jeno, he could never be trusted with something as delicate as matters of the heart.”

It’s lunch, and the two have made it a point to all but physically harass Renjun for answers. Sadly, the maniacal interrogation would end up fruitless, because there was nothing to say. Nothing to share, because what happened between him and Yukhei was theirs. The flower that had bloomed in the desert would remain in the verdant oasis, their oasis. When they agreed to weave their delicate vulnerabilities together, they made an unspoken promise to each other.

“Nothing has happened,” Renjun says before walking away. Chenle and Jaemin look at each other incredulously then at the retreating figure of their friend.

Days turn into weeks, and Renjun discovers fragments that made up Wong Yukhei. He grew up in Hong Kong, then in Thailand before settling in Seoul. His father does something with auditing and standards that Yukhei doesn’t like to explain because it’s long and complicated. His mother’s a housewife who made mad tom kha gai and raised her child with as much love that spoke in the tenderest of intonations. He likes to do things out of impulse. More often than not, he learns to love the products of his instinctual decisions—the case for both basketball and the art society. He knows how to knit and makes socks when he has the time. He’s learned to navigate social situations because living in three different countries necessitated it. He likes learning about people and their stories. He likes Renjun’s stories the most.

Renjun unfurls the mysterious figure that always stood before, beside and in front of him, and found a boy who laughs too hard, smiles too much and made the world a better place—someone so genuinely special.

Sometimes Renjun would sit on Yukhei’s lap because it was convenient. His friends had all just agreed to define their relationship as ‘dating but, like, not.’ Maybe two weeks ago Renjun would have gotten angry at them, but he couldn’t care less at this point. They held hands a lot now, and Yukhei had become a pseudo member of their friend group, the senior now splitting his lunches between Renjun’s and his own friends. Renjun had told Yukhei that they could hang out with his basketball friends as well, but the senior would always decline. ‘You don’t need an uncut session of boys being stupid.’

Renjun would stare at him upset, that little morsel of negativity rearing its ugly head again and whispering doubts into his ear.

It was Donghyuck, on a balmy Wednesday afternoon who quelled his fears and said, without much fanfare, “You’re so fucking lucky Yukhei shields you from that barbarian of a team. The amount of pure shittery is on a level so severe that society as a whole should consider it a breach of human rights.”

Oh yeah, he and Donghyuck now had this budding friendship of sorts. The only two people who managed to bag a basketball player who wasn’t mentally at par with a rusty nail, the two shared something even they couldn’t put into proper words. Donghyuck had always been Jaemin’s friend more than he was ever Renjun’s. He was the president of the drama club and operated with a respectful distance from everyone else in school except his vice-president, also Jaemin. He moved with a distilled grace that made him seem like an otherworldy specter rather than their classmate. Between running the drama club and hindering Jaemin from possibly killing himself, there wasn’t much to else known about him. From all the theatrics Jaemin liked pulling, it was hard to imagine that Donghyuck of all people would be called his best friend. More perplexing, perhaps—thanks to Jisung—is the fact that ice king of campus managed to end up with Mr. Congeniality #2 Mark Lee. As such, he and Renjun shared the uncanny title of ‘most introverted significant others of the loudest people on campus.’ They connected on their shared solitude and budding distaste for the scent of sweaty man.

“Mark smells like a canal after he practices, it’s disgusting.”

“Yukhei knows he needs to take a shower before he holds my hand,” Renjun says, “He always makes sure he smells like a bed of roses.”

“Why did you get the thoughtful one, I just got a manbro who still accidentally calls me ‘dude’ while making out.”

Donghyuck was all bronzed skin and sunswept hair that bled in the color of moistened rust. Despite his hardened exterior, his voice rings cherubic and bright. He was all soft edges and plump cheeks that reminded Renjun of a plum tomato. He keeps a respectful distance and commands attention with a regal refinement that could withstand the boundaries he’s set. Donghyuck spoke with reverent kindness, and hidden mischief like there lingered a hidden message in his words—as if he knew something you didn’t.

Renjun rarely pays attention to the events that transpire during basketball practice, choosing instead to talk to Donghyuck through topics that do not revolve around shooting a ball. However, this particular practice was interrupted by the presence of the cheerleaders coming towards the end of practice when a group of cheerleaders come into the gym.

Yukhei, as he does, welcomes the group like relatives into his home. So large and imposing he stood, yet so earnest he pulsated. Yukhei’s smile is intoxicating and infectious, the incoming party greeting him back with as much vigor as he gave.

Yukhei’s popularity always surprised Renjun. The effortlessness in which he could connect with other people had always been a source of insecurity for Renjun. It made him feel like a commodity in his vast web of connections of seemingly more interesting people. But as of late the feeling had changed from erratic anxiety to something that feels like pride. What caused him to shy away from Yukhei now drew him in and made him want to learn to navigate social situations with more practiced ease. He does not aspire to become as open as Yukhei, but talking to someone new without causing a minor panic attack seemed like a nice prospect.

“Oh honey,” Donghyuck sighs, “she’s doing it today. ”

Renjun takes his gaze away from Yukhei to glance at Donghyuck, who’s face has morphed into a quiet sadness.

Renjun follows the direction of his gaze to one of the cheerleaders standing at the back. She looked nervous and seemed to be eyeing Mark. The furtive glances and body language was so blatantly obvious that Renjun could taste the sad attempts at emitting pheromones from where he sat.

“Is she trying to hit on Mark?” Renjun asks Donghyuck confused.

“She’s going to confess,” he says sadly, “her friend told me a week ago.”

Renjun looks at her as she tentatively prods Mark on the shoulder. The nerves are so pronounced in her movements that Renjun can’t help but feel himself want to cheer her own even if he knew full well the cruel outcome.

“I can’t watch this,” Donghyuck says, but his eyes don’t leave her. They’re kind and consoling as she works up the courage to talk to Mark in private.

“She said it was for closure. He’s her first love.”

Renjun wonders how it feels to come into a situation knowing full well the end. Knowing that whatever you did, however intricate you strategized, you would end up the loser. Realizing that this game was and has always been out of your hands, that someone’s heart was never yours to claim.

Renjun looks at Donghyuck and sees his unyielding humanity and the fortitude of his and Mark’s love. Then he looks at her, with her shaky hands and frazzled hair. Renjun’s head keeps shouting at her to back away, to run away from the situation while she still can, but something else wants to hold her hand as she goes through this ordeal. To give her strength to hold her head up high. She’s beautiful, with wavy shoulder length hair and eyes shaped like almonds, big and bright. Her lips look soft and plump and colored like ripe peaches. Any guy would like her. Yet as she draws her hands in and looks to the ground, her hair covering her face, she looks paces away from the beauty she should helm with confidence.

They watch as silent words come out of her mouth, as feelings unreturned gets pushed into the open for the world to see.

“Hug her you, idiot. Let her down easy,” Donghyuck whispers as she succumbs to silent tears. Mark does, his face is sad yet kind as he engulfs her in a tender hug.

“Good boy,” Donghyuck says, pride swelling in his word and expression softening at the gesture.

Mark whispers words into her hair and consoles her through soft tears. When he lets go, he places a tender kiss on her forehead, to anyone that was looking it seemed like a showing of affection, but they knew better. It was of final parting.

She bows and rushes out the door with clenched fists. Two of her friends follow and slowly the group dissipates, leaving Mark looking flummoxed and confused about the events that have occurred.

Donghyuck rises from his seat without another word and jogs down to where his boyfriend is standing lost and unsure. He presses a gentle palm on his cheek and places a soft, almost fleeting peck on his lips before he’s barging out the door.

Renjun waits there with emotions he can’t properly describe. He regards the girl, nameless and innocent, yet so carelessly to throw herself against the volatile arms of rejection and pain. She who stood against the unchangeable breath of fate only to come out empty-handed. She tempted the hand and had gotten her just reward, a gaping hole that only time could mend.

When Yukhei picks him up a few minutes later, Renjun holds his hands as if afraid he will float away. As they walk out school they find Mark standing by the gates, arms folded and expression serious.

“Mark, we’re heading out,” Yukhei says, slightly startling Mark out of staring intently at something in the distance. He fashions a smile that doesn’t quite reach his cheeks and waves goodbye before looking away again. Renjun looks in the direction and finds two figures hunched together by a bus stop.

When they’re in the car Renjun keeps silent.

“Mark doesn’t like hurting people,” Yukhei says after a while when he’s concluded Renjun is overthinking again.

“He’s probably as hurt as the girl who confessed to him.”

“Why did she do it?” Renjun says without thinking, “She already knew that Mark was dating Donghyuck. What was the point?”

The distress that comes out shocks Renjun just as much it does Yukhei. There’s pleading in his voice, a desperate need to know, to understand why she invited pain so openly.

“She couldn’t win,” Renjun whispers, “so why?”

Yukhei smiles and reaches for Renjun’s hand, “Sometimes you don’t play to win.”

“Coach likes joining us in competitions with stronger teams because it tests our mettle and our perseverance. We don’t win, but we get to see how better teams play. We learn how to be better, and maybe that’s what it is.”

“Learning how to fall and get back up again,” he says.

“She’s brave,” Renjun says holding Yukhei’s hand with both his of his own, “I wish I could be as brave as her.”

“You are brave,” he replies indignantly, “the bravest.”

“You’re too kind to me,” Renjun says placing a gentle kiss on his hand.

“You’re just not kind enough.”

Renjun doesn’t reply, only holds Yukhei’s hand tighter.

It’s a Sunday and Taeyong is in their home. When he sees Renjun, he shoots him a knowing smile.

“You seem different,” he says, “less stifled.”

“Really he looks as stuck up as before,” Doyoung says entering the living room and squishing himself onto Taeyong’s side, “but I will say that he is glowing. His boy making super happy lately.”

Renjun hurls a throw pillow at his brother, while Taeyong admonishes him for being annoying.

“Stop being mean to your brother, unless you want me to share with him all your blunders when we first got together.”

That effectively silenced Doyoung, who made a show of mumbling something before laying pliant against Taeyong’s side.

“We’re good, really good,” he says to Taeyong.

“According to Chenle, they act like they’re dating, but they’re not actually dating,” Doyoung says. His brother likes to act all coy and nonchalant about these things, but he always hid it so horribly. It takes growing up with him to decrypt the messages hidden deep within his contrite speech. Renjun knows there was more concern than bite in the jab, but he won’t call his brother out on it. He’s not that cruel.

“Where is he now?” Taeyong asks.

“Um, I think he’s at home.”

“Do you think he’s busy?”

Renjun knows that tone of voice. Taeyong might be sickeningly sweet, but he knows how to use his charm to get what he wants when a situation required. And when Taeyong knows what he wants, not even the full force of Doyoung could stop him.

Renjun feels like he should lie, but Taeyong has his eyes trained on Renjun ready to catch even the slightest hitch in his voice. This is Taeyong giving him a choice—come willingly or forcibly.

“I can ask him.”

Renjun prays that something is watching him from high above to maybe take Yukhei for the afternoon when he phones the number he’d affectionally assigned ‘Xuxi <3’. However, not even lady luck is on Renjun’s side today (or maybe Taeyong had deep astral magic that not even Renjun could fight against) when he finds himself in a car—not Yukhei’s but his brother’s—headed to a bbq with Doyoung and Taeyong, Yukhei awaiting only Renjun.

“You’re really in for it today, bub,” Doyoung says from the driver’s seat, “Yukhei’s going to go through ‘Trial of Taeyong,’ and he isn’t even your boyfriend yet.”

“Ignore him,” Taeyong admonishes, pinching Doyoung’s side, which prompts a squeak and ‘IM DRIVING,” from his older brother.

“There’s no test, I’m only here to see if he treats you right,” Taeyong says with a pout.

Renjun wants so badly to trust Taeyong’s smile.

When they arrive in the restaurant, Yukhei is seated alone, his eyes trained on the menu. His usually flyaway hair has been coiffed so that it arches into a delicate wave that frames his face really well. Renjun doesn’t even have time to compose himself as he marches up to Yukhei and tenderly touches his hair, “When did you get your hair fixed?”

Yukhei smiles, looking from the menu to cast his gaze on Renjun’s excited face, “Yesterday, do you like it?”

“It makes you look really dashing,” Renjun smiles before settling by his side. Yukhei instinctively reaches for his thigh and gently squeezes as he looks back the menu. Renjun is about to join him in perusing the offerings when he hears a very distinct clearing of the throat.

“Not dating, huh?” Doyoung says sitting in front of Yukhei without invitation. Taeyong follows him, his smile is radiant while he looks at the two, “The pictures don’t do you justice, you’re absolutely breathtaking,” Taeyong says in quiet awe.

“Hey, hey lay off you’re taken, “Doyoung snips from beside him, which causes Taeyong to giggle.

“He’s so cute, Doie,” Taeyong says as if Yukhei was a puppy up for adoption. Taeyong then reaches for Yukhei’s arm and gives it a genial squeeze.

“Wow, he even has muscles,” Taeyong coos with the slightest tinge of envy, “You should get muscles baby, it would make you super hot.”

“I’m already super hot, it would be unfair for everyone else.”

Taeyong’s cackle is absolutely manic.

“Um, Junnie, who are they?” Yukhei asks looking at him with the most confused expression Renjun’s ever seen on his stupidly handsome face.

Renjun flashes him a nervous smile, “Um, this is my brother, Doyoung, and his boyfriend Taeyong,” he says pointing at the two, “they wanted to meet you.”

“Why? Did I do something wrong?” Yukhei asks, his hand slowly shying away from Renjun’s thigh. The loss of warmth bothers Renjun, his hand automatically reaching to put it back where it laid. Yukhei looks wary at the action but does not protest. Renjun caresses his cheek ever so gently and almost whispers, “You have nothing to worry about, they just wanted to meet the person who’s been making me happy all this time.”

His face changes from confusion to relief, as his hand slackens on Renjun’s thigh again, “I make you happy?”

“So happy,” Renjun reassures. The look of relief and renewed confidence returning to Yukhei’s face is a sight he rarely ever sees. In the delicate development of their relationship, it was always Yukhei’s outstretched hand that offered the promise that everything would be okay. In his words and gestures, Renjun often found the kindest bravery. Being that source of strength and assurance for Yukhei was new. It filled him with happiness that he had never known he would feel.

Yukhei stands suddenly, slightly shaking the table as he rises, causing all eyes to train on him. Standing at full attention, he bows a full 90 degrees to Doyoung and Taeyong.

“Hello, my name is Wong Yukhei, Renjun is my special person. I will try all my best to keep him happy from now on,” he says in the stiffest introduction he’s seen of him. The social butterfly had been caged into this nervous wreck, Renjun could only giggle in amusement.

Doyoung and Taeyong look at Yukhei with matching looks of surprise. Doyoung morphed with a hint of embarrassment and Taeyong touched by affection. Yukhei returns to his seat and places his hand on Renjun’s thigh again.

“Is he your special person too, Injunnie,” Taeyong asks after smiling affectionately at Yukhei.

Something in him swells, this odd and beautiful emotion that he can’t place. This powerful need to be there, always, by his side, giving him strength. Lending him—

—love.

“He is.”

When Renjun looks at Yukhei again, everything is different.

The theatre of their school is nothing to write home to. The curtains were fairly used, some of the older seats were rickety, a few even coming unhinged from depreciation. The waxed panels of the stage are scratched as if clawed by large cats for years on end, while the equipment was a few years too young to be called antiquated and a few years too old to be called modern. To Renjun, the theatre was a series of forced attendances to all of Na Jaemin’s plays. Not that he didn’t like supporting him, it was always the matter of Jaemin—the one in charge of choosing the plays—having the most eclectic of tastes and Renjun (and Jeno, his companion in this torrid affair) barely had any taste at all. Some plays they enjoyed, however, others left much to be desired. Something about Jaemin all but maiming them to watch all opening nights even though they did not know who the fuck Godot was and why people were waiting for him made coming to the school theatre an abrasive experience.

However, today he comes on his own volition, looking for one person, in particular, he thinks can help him with the new development in his life.

“Renjun?” a voice calls from the balcony. Renjun looks up to the sound and finds Donghyuck staring down on him much like Juliet did Romeo from that balcony, except there weren’t idiotic declarations of love, and Renjun had no plans of getting into Hyuck’s pants.

“Why are you here?”

Renjun clasps his hands together and looks tentatively at Donghyuck’s commanding figure from above, eyebrows arched in mild interest. It’s obvious he’s trying to read through the million layers Renjun had wrapped around himself. He’s usually confident about his guile against prying eyes, but ever since he’s become closer to Donghyuck, there was a constant feeling of being watched and weighed. Something was unsettling about the way he looked at him, but still, he never felt threatened. So overly detached as he was, Donghyuck knew so well the art of emotional infiltration. Renjun guesses it comes with the territory.

“I need advice,” Renjun says unsure. He doesn’t know if he’s built a relation with Donghyuck that would allow something as intimate as what he’s about to do. Yet when he did a run through of all the people that he’d ask for advice, Donghyuck had placed on top. Maybe it was how Donghyuck carried himself despite the entire school gossiping about him and the captain of the basketball team. Perhaps, it’s the way he’s studied and perused through every interaction with Renjun. How he effortlessly waves his hands to reel out things Renjun doesn’t give out so freely. Donghyuck had poised an invitation, to what he was still very much unsure of.

“Ah, this seems like a basketball boy problem,” he says with an impassive expression, “wait there, I’ll be right down.”

When Donghyuck reaches him, he offers one of the theatre seats that aren’t rickety or rusted, while he perches on an armrest a chair away, his legs propped on the empty seat like a plank.

“So you have a problem that’s 6 feet tall?”

“Not really a problem.”

“More of a predicament?” Donghyuck asks with some sort of rehearsed surety. Renjun can’t even call himself surprised because he has inferred this much of Donghyuck—perceptive and straight to the point.

“I love Yukhei,” Renjun says without further prompting. He’s run through the conversation many times in his head. He’s rehearsed and assessed how a Lee Donghyuck would respond and react to stimuli, and all his rehashes have yielded the same result: get it done, save yourself the prolonged pain.

Maybe it’s conditioning to how all his friends have reacted to Renjun and his feelings, but he expects some sort of snort. He expects the inexorable drone of sarcastic congratulations as if sorting out his emotions came normally to him. As if being brave was easy. Yet it never comes. Donghyuck smiles instead. It’s in the micromovement of his lips, in the twitch of his ever so bountiful eyes, and the sonic giggle that Renjun sees the makings of a grin forming on his sunswept face.

“I’m happy for you. It must feel relieving to finally say it.”

“It’s always been really hard for me. Feelings that is.”

Donghyuck gives him a reassuring nod. It’s wonderous how, with so little words, he can communicate so easily so much unconditional acceptance and understanding.

“You’re really surprising,” Renjun utters, gathering the strength to fashion a smile himself.

“What do you mean?”

“My friends always make me feel like it’s the most obvious thing.”

Renjun remembers the way Jaemin and Chenle giving a knowing smile whenever he so much as looks Yukhei’s way, “it’s just been hard.”

“They mean well,” Donghyuck says with an understanding smile, “but I just knew that you were trying to figure things out. It was so obvious that you didn’t need prodding. You needed time.”

Donghyuck moves closer and places a gentle palm on his own, “You’d already figured out that you loved Wong Yukhei, Renjun,” he says quietly. There resounds a pulsating relief in the words like he’d been holding himself from saying it for weeks.

The distance he’d forged between himself and the rest of the world dissipates. Lee Donghyuck has closed the gap and has reached out for him, beckoning him to partake in his candor.

“You needed time to realize that you deserved the love back.”

He steps off the armrest and fully sits beside Renjun, “He’s good for you,” he says with so much sincerity and enthusiasm that Renjun almost doesn’t recognize the person before him.

“I’ve known you for years, Renjun, albeit in passing, but it’s only with Yukhei that you’ve been this alive. I don’t know if anyone has said this, but you’ve becomes so much brighter. Like you’ve realized that it was okay to just be you, all the quiet, odd, loving you. To see so much confidence from someone who’s tried so hard to just hide under his palette and easel—”

Donghyuck giggles, “—it’s endearing.”

Renjun doesn’t feel the tears until they start falling down his cheek. Donghyuck coos and flicks them away one by one with his finger.

“God, I can’t believe I’m crying over a guy again.”

Donghyuck laughs like the brightest sunrise, “Better doing it in front of me than him,” he says, “saves you the eventual blackmail.”

Renjun chuckles through the fresh wave of tears. Dongyuck gathers them in his fingers, clear drops glistening like crystals on the surface of his finger.

“They say that there are different patterns of tears depending on the reason they are being shed.”

He raises a single tear he’d managed to collect on the surface of his digit, “What do these tears mean, Huan Renjun?”

Renjun looks at Donghyuck and there in his eyes reflect a choice. Stay or run?

“Love,” he says with confidence, “for Yukhei and me.”

“Good answer,” he says before he offers a crumpled up tissue he got from Starbucks. He apologizes at its state, but Renjun accepts it without much grievance. When Renjun wipes all the tears off, Dongyuck leans back on his seat and moves his head to observe his friend again.

“So what did you want to ask me?”

“Have you told Mark that you loved him?”

Donghyuck has always been prudent with his expression. Calculated and vapid in most cases. It’s obvious that he doesn’t like giving much away. However, when Renjun asks the right questions, there blooms a brightness in his cheeks and a lilt in his smile. The formulae he executes on social exchanges are ignored, replaced by an expression of fondness, of warm familiarity, of bountiful love.

Seeing him like this, so effortlessly smitten for Mark is unheard of. To anyone else who heard Donghyuck talk about Mark, it would seem like he hated the very ground he walked on, but a close reading of his dialect for the basketball captain would unearth a delicately veiled monologue of love.

‘He’s such a loud snorer.’

‘He never eats his vegetables, that slob.’

‘I have to tell him to take a shower all the god damn time, the idiot.’

In his words lies a tale of vignettes so domestic and wholesome that Renjun is surprised they aren’t pegged to wed in the next five years. Donghyuck likes keeping his private life to himself and Mark, so public inflections of affection are few and far between. So seeing Donghyuck utterly, unabashedly smitten like this is a sight mere mortals like Renjun could only behold in awe.

“Yes,” he says with a blush, “I said it to him after he drooled on my shoulder for two hours.”

Renjun can’t help but giggle at the image of Donghyuck looking so awfully in love with a drooling Mark Lee who probably had just come from basketball stinky and sweaty.

“Sounds romantic.”

Donghyuck kicks Renjun lightly, “I admit, it wasn’t my best moment, but the goob was so stupidly asleep that after I told him, he proceeded to snooze on my shoulder again for, like, five minutes before going absolutely ballistic.”

“Cute.”

The image of Mark flailing around after he finally realizes that Donghyuck had said the L-word would be something.

Donghyuck shoves him lightly, “Whatever, what big pronouncement of love will you pull off for Yukhei?”

Rnejun shrugs, “I’m still conducting tests.”

“Never one half-ass something, I see.”

“It’s like you don’t know me.”

Renjun is sitting by the bleachers with a new art book he and Yukhei picked up the week prior. Donghyuck was beside him telling him which ones he liked and which ones he thought looked like barf on canvas.

“I’m going to confess today.”

“Wow, look at you all grown up and ready to get your man?” Donghyuck says pinching Renjun’s cheek, “Any grand plans for the big reveal?”

“Nothing really, he likes things with us to be quiet.”

Donghyuck nods, “Well whatever you do, good luck. Not that you need it.”

Renjun smiles, “I don’t.”

“Yukhei, can we go to the spot?” Renjun asks when they’re on the way home, “I want to watch the sunset.”

Yukhei smiles and Renjun grabs his hand and holds it close to his chest.

When they reach the park, the sun is about to set, and the leaves are highlighted in shades of pale yellow. There’s a gentle breeze that whispers through the trees, blowing stray leaves as it combs through Renjun’s hair. He’s leading the walk through the park, Yukhei following behind him quietly. A small bench sits just by the edge of the park that they like to sit on when they visit here. It gives them the perfect view of the sunset and of Seoul.

When they settle by the bench, Renjun looks at the sky it’s all beautiful gradations of blue, golds and purples dancing across the sky.

“Have you chosen the college you’re going to?”

It’s a taboo topic between them so Yukhei is more than surprised that Renjun would bring it up now at this place when everything was going so well.

“I don’t know yet, it’s been difficult.”

Renjun nods.

“I’m proud of you for getting into all those fantastic universities. You’re in the best predicament,” Renjun says, eyes trained at the gentle descent of the sun on the horizon.

“You have choices abroad right?”

“Tokyo Institute of Technology and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.”

Renjun nods as he feels the grating weight of the little tube of white acrylic sitting in his pocket. His first memento of Yukhei, the one that put this love affair into motion; the Firestarter (and yes, it’s a love affair.) He takes a deep breath and lets the afternoon’s final canticle wash over him, allowing the sound of the growing night lead him forward.

“Can I ask you a favor?”

Yukhei observes Renjun and finds a serenity that he had not seen ever. His eyes don’t look at him, but they don’t look away in fear. They’re settled where the sky meets the earth, where time moves with certainty, where change resides in Perpetua.

“Anything.”

“Don’t forget me,” he says looking him straight in the eyes. There’s no fragile begging, no shaky gasp for assurance, only a vulnerable whisper and risk in the night.

Yukhei’s hand snakes around Renjun’s like they always do. They slink and crawl against until every surface is encased in his warmth.

“Never.”

“Good,” Renjun says as he reaches unlatches his hand from Yukhei’s and unclenches his fist. He traces lazy circles along the planes of his palm before he reaches for the small tube in his pocket and drops it into Yukhei’s waiting hand.

“This is—”

“The tube of white acrylic you bought for me in that specialty store in some dingy alleyway wedged between a barbeque stand and a tteobokki stall, the same one you thought I wasn’t using because I disliked you. The same one I’ve kept in my drawer because I thought this would be the only thing I could keep that reminded me of you.”

Renjun’s eyes glitter like the stars that sprawl the night sky. Not with tears, but with a touch of fantastical resolve, with beautiful and genuine emotion that sung so sweetly in the deepest of darkness. This was the delicate, raucous dance of his heart that beat so ardently for Wong Yukhei.

“Wong Yukhei thank you for seeing the best and worst in me and choosing to stay.”

Renjun doesn’t expect the tears that fall down Yukhei’s face. The strong, confident Wong Yukhei who carried him through the night, drove him home every day and offered the most reassuring smiles. The one who taught him kindness to others and himself, shedding tears in the dusk. It’s utterly beautiful.

“I love you Yukhei,” he whispers quietly as he stands to place a gentle kiss on his forehead, “You can have it back if you want. I don’t need this to remind me of you because I can never, ever forget someone as special as you. My Yukhei.”

Yukhei stills for a moment before he lets the tears wash over him. He cries messily, and Renjun wipes his face gently, patiently. He hugs Renjun like that, dried tears matting his face and snot threatening to fall off his nose.

“I don’t want to move again. I don’t want to have to find myself in a place where I don’t belong anymore,” he whispers into his hair like a plea.

“It’s been hard, but you made it better. You gave me hope.”

“I was ready to walk away, but you told me—”

Yukhei sinks further and hugs tightly against Renjun’s waist. There are streaks of gold and the memory of approaching twilight. There is the soft touch of overgrown grass against his arms and the feeling of Yukhei’s eyes filling with the sincerest love. There is the choice to let go and the inexorable need to run to him. To choose him.

Renjun feels his chest tighten, “Don’t leave.”

“In every country, in every city I left, nothing held me back. I thought for a time that you were the thing to push me away from Seoul. You held me here so fiercely in ways I could not understand. I thought you were like my siren.”

He pauses and fixes Renjun a soft gaze, “But I was wrong, you were calling me back because this is where I belong.”

Renjun gently pries himself away from Yukhei and holds his face tenderly in his hands, soft cheeks warm against his small hands, “Then I’ll be your home.”

Yukhei looks dashing in the moonlight. His eyes are still pink from the tears, highlighting his large piercing eyes. His golden skin still glows with the pale light, the slopes of his cheeks and the ridges of his strong jaw hewn like fierce shadows.

“Can I kiss you?” Renjun finds himself saying, “I’ve wanted to kiss you for a very long time.”

Yukhei scoffs at him, “I’ve wanted to do it since I first met you, so I win.”

Renjun flicks him lightly on the forehead, “Way to ruin the mood, you idiot.”

“It was too romantic for my taste,” Yukhei replies, “I’d rather start our relationship on a lighter note.”

“Whatever,” Renjun says settling himself on Yukhei’s lap, “but honestly can I kiss you now, I’ve been itching for your lips since this morning?”

“Oh wow, you’re honest.”

Renjun shrugs, “There’s no helping it anymore, you already know I love you, might as well go the full yard.”

“God, I love you,” Yukhei says before bending down to plan a delicate kiss. It’s salty and messy and could be better, but Yukhei feels like dawn in the cold. His lips taste like the promise of a coming spring filled with bluebells, tulips, pansies and cherry blossoms.

Like love blooming.

When they separate Yukhei leans his forehead on Renjun’s and smiles that overwhelming smile of his.

“You know I always had a dream about us,” Renjun says.

Yukhei smiles, “You dream of me?”

“All the time.”

Yukhei’s cheeks bleed crimson as he buries his head into Renjun’s chest, “You’re killing me.”

Renjun, ignoring Yukhei’s existential crisis, smirks and cradles his big boy in his arms. His big boy sounds absolutely delectable.

“One time my brother brought his boyfriend to the beach because he was sad, would you ever do that for me?”

“Of course I would,” Yukhei moans into his chest, “I’ve been planning to bring you to Hong Kong for so long, I already have the dates. We’ll go eat hot pot every other day.”

“I can’t believe you’ve been planning all that when we weren’t even together yet.”

“Either way, I still wanted to. You’re my special person, kissing you is just a plus.”

“You’re sickeningly sweet.”

“Get used to it, because I’m going to pamper you more than I already do. You’ve opened the floodgates, Huang, get ready to get owned,” he says rising up and placing a wet kiss on his cheeks, “by my love.”

Renjun groans as Yukhei leans in for another kiss. Renjun doesn’t mind losing to him in that regard, not now, not ever.

Renjun forgets that he and Yukhei haven’t actually told the others that they were officially a thing, not that it would mean much difference to them. However, when Yukhei accidentally places a peck on Renjun’s lips as a greeting instead of the normal, friendly wave of the hand, the table goes ballistic. Jaemin is in absolute shambles, while Jisung enters a catatonic state of pure happiness and relief. Jeno looks unfazed, but Renjun catches the subtle smile that graces his lips as the others all but ransack the courtyard with a visceral display of whatever relief and happiness they’re feeling. Yukhei looks fairly embarrassed at the sight but holds Renjun’s hand throughout the entire ordeal. From across the yard, seated with the basketball team, Donghyuck sends him a thumbs up and a proud smile.

The day inadvertently becomes their official coming out as a couple.

Sharing the news with his brother and their parents is less of a spectacle. Doyoung, already having acquainted himself with Yukhei, gives him a generous pat on the back saying, “Good luck.”

His parents already kind of knew who Yukhei was from the various stories Doyoung had told them without Renjun’s consent. They were slower to warm up to him, but by the time finishes Yukhei had managed to melt away the initial apprehension with his charisma and charm. He’d even asked his parents permission for the Hong Kong trip he was planning for the two of them. They weren’t immediately swayed, but a little prodding from Doyoung, and Renjun was approved for a flight to the Hong Kong islands. Taeyong came after dinner, engulfing the two in an almighty bear hug before sharing his congratulations.

Last stop was Yukhei’s parents. Renjun had never met them, he had initially thought they were a bunch of overbearing grade conscious tyrants who put more credence on their child’s grade rather than his happiness, but as he learned more about Yukhei, that image became more his pessimism’s wishful thinking. He made the connection with how utterly carefree Yukhei already is, which should reflect on how charming and lovely his parents are as well.

Renjun soon learns that Yukhei gets his perseverance and work ethic from his father, who is by all means and purposes a straight up man. When they arrive, he’s in a crisp sweater vest over a white polo shirt, thick khaki, and a pair of black fluffy slippers. His thick-rimmed glasses made him look like a stern businessman, but the soft smile that paints his face as soon as Yukhei introduces Renjun is reminiscent of the resplendence of his son. And while he’s all kind graces and warm words, Yukhei’s mother, Renjun later finds out, is a woman of life and exuberance. She’s wily and witty and all the times charming as she invites Renjun into their home. She gushes and beams and hugs so tightly that you feel your arteries constrict at the pressure.

When the night has finished leaving Yukhei and Renjun to stare silently at the stars before they bid goodbye. Yukhei takes Renjun in his arms and plants a delicate kiss on his lips. It’s in that moment he finds peace.

“I’m going to Seoul National University next year, I’ve already told my parents,” Yukhei says one afternoon while in Renjun’s room. Yukhei is sprawled on the bed like a ragdoll, while Renjun tries his best to get a decent painting of him looking in the right hue of haphazardly graceful.

Renjun looks up at him and holds paint brush accusingly, “Please don’t tell me it was because of me.”

Yukhei smiles warmly in reply, “I told them Seoul is the first place I’ve ever called home. They understood.”

Renjun puts his hand on his hips like a parent preparing to scold their child, and Yukhei stands to attention.

“I’ve decided, love. Seoul is still one of the best universities around. I lose nothing.”

Renjun doesn’t say anything. His heart swells with love for Yukhei, but he feels like he’s holding him back. The world awaited him; infinite opportunities outstretched before him. He didn’t need to stay when he was made for things much greater than what Renjun could offer.

“I want you to be the best that you can be, Yukhei. If it means you have to go, then you should go.” His voice is strained as he tried to sound intimidating, but alas he can’t act his way out how much this affected him.

“You don’t want me to stay?”

“Of course, I want you to stay! Of course, I do!” he all but shouts. He would want the love of his life to stay within his reach, but his wants aren’t Yukhei’s to fulfill. These are the burdens he had accepted to bear when he made the decision to be with him.

“I just don’t want you to limit yourself for me.”

“This is why I didn’t want to tell you. I knew you’d just feel guilty,” Yukhei says sinking back on the bed.

“You weren’t going to tell me?” Renjun says with a severe raise of an eyebrow.

Yukhei doesn’t budge. They’ve been together for what seems like weeks, but the senior adapted so well that even Renjun’s sly attempts at intimidation fell on deaf ears. He suddenly knew him too well and now Renjun’s finding new ways to keep Yukhei on his toes.

“Yup, I admit not my wisest moment, but you hold on to guilt so easily when you shouldn’t. Renjun, I made this decision because it made sense. Mom and dad like where they are, all my friends are here, and you’re here. Seoul is my home now, I want to make my life here, not in China, not in Japan.” Yukhei looks determined and resolute when says these, his eyes imploring, asking so sincerely for Renjun to understand.

“I chose SNU because it made the most sense. Keeping you close is just a really awesome bonus.”

Renjun tries. He tries his best not to look guilty, but Yukhei catches on without a hitch and covers the distance to pinch his cheeks, “Don’t be sad or I’m bringing you to the beach to make you feel guilty that you feel guilty about me staying here with you and everyone else,” he says in the most annoying attempt at being cute (he still succeeds, but it’s still incredibly annoying).

“This is emotional manipulation,” Renjun says with a pout. Yukhei smiles knowing he’s won as he rises to engulf his boyfriend in an almighty hug.

“It’s the only way, love. You’re going to beat yourself about it if I don’t.”

Renjun sticks his tongue out at him in a futile attempt at a retort.

“I love you too, but let’s get this done before Doyoung thinks we’re boning or something.”

“Hmmm.”

One would think that Yukhei, with how intensely striking his looks are, would be the one in the relationship more inclined to more risqué tristes. If only everyone knew that Yukhei had the sexual drive of a five-year old who’d just discovered the wonderous world of toys that don’t constantly ask you to name a fucking shape even though it only knew four.

It’s quiet art kid Renjun who enjoys sitting alone and enjoying the silence of the world as he paints that instigates their more secret escapades into the park. It’s not like Yukhei complains.

“Don’t get any ideas, Huang. I’m not tempting your brother’s rage.”

“I mean, a little hickey on my neck would send him to a proper frenzy. I can dishevel my clothes a bit, then there you have it, a faux sexed up Renjun ready to get Doyoung into a hissy fit.”

Yukhei lets go of him and paces away, “Get away from me you demon!”

“Coward! Come and please me!”

Renjun goes into grab at him, but his boyfriend is a goddamn fucking star athlete so he gets out of the way with ease. They go on like that until finally Yukhei notices that Renjun is tired so he just lets himself get caught. It’s that same time that Doyoung comes in to complain about all the noise they’re making only to see Renjun pinning Yukhei on the bed with his little arms and grubby hands all sweaty from their chase. Doyoung blushes and almost faints on the spot before leaving the couple to proceed with their business.

In the afternoon with the Yukhei whining on the bed, Renjun realizes that he’s finally got him. That the great journey Wong Yukhei ventured was not one that swirled in certainty, but one that bends in great increments and forks with fallacious predictability. Something was exciting about the great unknown that lied ahead of him, of them, yet Yukhei remains unbothered because learning to accept the choices he’s made has always been a cornerstone of his daring philosophy. Learning to love has always been his motto, and Renjun stands to learn a great deal from it, from him.

Renjun still has ways to go in uncovering every nook and cranny of Yukhei’s fascinating psyche, but he knows that when he read the clear divide between them at the beginning, he misunderstood. For Wong Yukhei was not the journeyman Renjun had initially taken him for. He did not tread mountains and traverse great plains to find a bountiful adventure. No. His epic was not to find a sweet escape but to find a place to rest his weary head. He was a displaced traveler trying his best to find where his heart would settle. A home in which he could always return. A place where it felt safe to stay. Renjun knew he could never offer a grandiose adventure into the great unknown, because he was stubborn and liked to linger where he felt grounded.

But a home?

That Renjun could be. That Renjun could promise. That Renjun would give.

And if fate wills that their journey end through circumstance or by choice, then Renjun will accept that, because he knows that whatever life had ahead for them, Yukhei would always remain a special person. That through heartbreak or sorrow, the boy who smiled too much, laughed too loud and loved too hard would always have a home in him.

Notes:

Before anything else, I'd like to thank my lovelies who helped me so much while writing this. Gio, Val, Shan and Caro, you guys are the best.
Lastly, I'd like to extend a uber special showing of gratitude to Bell for all the constant support and love throughout this writing process. She is truly a godsend. Thank you so, so much.
This has been months and months of on and off writing, but it's finally here. My first, and hopefully not my last, luren fic. It's awfully cliche and expanded beyond what I thought would only be 5,000 words, but here it is with all its catastrophic metaphors and odd emotions. I really liked exploring Renjun and Yukhei's relationship and the ups and downs of their journey to getting together, so I really do hope you guys enjoyed the ride as much as I loved writing it.
As per usual, please leave comments and kudos and be kind to one another and till next time, this is Dreas signing out!
P.S. Hi Luren folk, please treat me kindly.
You may reach me on twitter or curious cat.

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