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There are two facts about Huang Renjun that Jaemin holds dear to his heart: one, he speaks with his fists and two, he can read minds.
One of the two he had to learn the hard way, of course, and it’s not the fact related to violence. The first time Renjun had befriended him, walked into their school and friend group with the Jillin air still around him, Jaemin almost immediately had crushed on Renjun. Hard. It’s not until Renjun harshly shoved him in his locker after one particular thought that he found out Renjun knew about his crush. And that he could, in fact, hear Jaemin’s thoughts perfectly. Even the uh, distasteful ones.
Even this? Jaemin had thought in a fuzzy haze, quite distracted by Renjun’s proximity. If you can hear this, kiss me.
Students still talk about it a year later. Legend has it that Huang Renjun, with all his might, kissed Na Jaemin in the hallway without a sound.
“Incoming!”
Somehow, probably by some sort of divine intervention, Jeno avoids the three-second carbonated disaster and manages to catch the already-open cola Jaemin chucked his way. Narrowly, though, but it counts. Another bullet added to the reasons why Lee Jeno is unfairly perfect list.
Jeno says, “A little warning next time, maybe?”
“What, the heads up not enough for you?” Jaemin smirks. He crushes his own empty cola can in his left hand, shoots it to a nearby can. It clangs against the rim and rolls sadly to the floor.
“Great that you bailed out on basketball tryouts,” Jeno snorts, joking. “You’d be a disaster out there.”
Jaemin laughs good-naturedly. “Nah, it also wasn’t my scene anyway. Thankfully Renjun made me realize it.” His smile widens when he sees Renjun running down the hallway. “Speaking of the devil.”
“The devil is your boyfriend.”
“By some heavenly miracle, yeah,” Jaemin says. You could be too, he thinks offhandedly. “Or is it a hellish miracle? Are there miracles from hell? Whatever.”
Renjun’s breathing is uneven when he gets to them. There’s a breath of icing on his face. “Problem. We have a problem.”
“What is it?” Jeno’s eyebrows furrow. “Why do you have icing on your face?”
Jaemin watches Renjun’s face spasm and his mouth open and close when Jeno wipes the icing on Renjun’s cheekbone. “U-um, Chenle. He and Jisung were playing around and he accidentally bumped into me while I was designing the cake. So we both fell.”
“What, you and Chenle?” Jeno asks, and Jaemin watches in amusement as Renjun avoids Jeno’s gaze.
“No,” Renjun says, pointedly looking at Jaemin. Gaze as if to say I know what you’re gonna think even before you think of it. “Me and the cake.”
“Oh, shit.” Jeno’s eyes widen.
“That’s bad. Very bad,” he says, tearing his gaze away from Renjun to blink at Jeno. “Mark-hyung’s arriving in 10 minutes. What are we gonna do?”
“Um, I can run to the shop to buy a new cake?” Jeno offers. “It’ll only take 5 to 7 minutes, give or take, with my bike.”
“Oh, will you do that?” Renjun says, groaning, “God, you’re an angel.”
He is, huh? Jaemin cackles. Renjun’s eyes flash to him, murderous.
“Yeah, it’s not a problem,” Jeno says, gulping the last of his soda and two-pointer shooting it to the bin. He scores. “I’ll be quick,” he says, jogging backwards to smile at them both. A hundred thoughts all synonymous to he’s beautiful race in his mind. “Be back later!”
Renjun punches his shoulder when Jeno finally turns his back and runs. “Shut up,” he mutters grumpily, “Shut up, you’re so annoying.”
“What?” Jaemin laughs at Renjun’s retreating back. “I didn’t say anything!”
Sometimes, Jaemin wishes he could read minds as well. He’d gain so much from all that blackmail material but that’d probably be a sin to the god of mind-reading or some superpower god or any other types of gods out there. Unfair to some people, too. Jaemin could list a hundred pros of being able to read minds but Renjun had tiredly argued once that the cons are, realistically, double that number.
Must be hard for him sometimes, Jaemin had thought. He’d made sure to think of dancing Moomins the whole day that time to give Renjun a break from all the burden. The way Renjun shook his head at him and gave him a silly smile all the way across the classroom when he realized what Jaemin was doing still makes him warm all over.
Still, burdensome or not, there are times when Jaemin strongly wished he could read minds too. Times like this when all three of them, Renjun and Jaemin and Jeno, are quietly studying in a library. Times like this when everyone’s quiet and all you could hear are your thoughts and nothing else. Times like this when Renjun is flushing because of something as he distractedly turns the page to his book. Times like this when Jeno’s face is unreadable but there are whole storms in his eyes.
Times like this when Renjun suddenly slams his hands on his book with the most delightful shade of red on his face and says, “Shut up!”
“What?” Jaemin blinks confusedly, and Jeno looks like a deer caught in the headlights. “What? What’s wrong?”
“You’re so noisy,” Renjun growls but it’s clear he’s embarrassed. “Stop thinking!”
Is it me? Was I annoying you with the wishful thinking? I’m sorry—
“No, Jaemin,” Renjun says, looking down at his clenched fists. “I’m not talking to you.”
Then who—oh.
“Oh,” Jaemin says out loud, looking at Jeno. “Oh.”
“I don’t,” Jeno furrows his eyebrows, “understand?”
“You’re, I don’t know,” Renjun says frustratedly, “You keep acting as if you don’t care but you have the loudest thoughts and it’s driving me crazy. I don’t—we don’t hate having you around, okay? You were friends with Jaemin long before I came around and that counts for something.”
Jeno still looks confused, blinking furiously. Jaemin slowly understands.
“We don’t hate you, okay? Stop thinking that every time you hang with us. We want you around. We like having you around. If we didn’t then we would’ve left you out long ago,” Renjun grumbles. “Why do you think we let you tag along in our supposed dates if we don’t like you back? Read between the damn lines, Jeno.”
“Like me—I don’t—” Jeno gapes, “How? What?”
“Long story short, Renjun can read minds. We’ll explain it to you later,” Jaemin tries comforting Jeno despite his own high but Jeno only looks like he’s breaking more. Heartbeat doubling, tripling, Jaemin looks at Renjun and says, “You should’ve told me. How long have you known about this?”
“A month.” Renjun wrinkles his nose, face still pink, “We were both present when he realized he liked us both. He has the most insufferable, lovesick thoughts sometimes. Almost as bad as you.”
Oh, wow.
They both look at Jeno. Jaemin feels unreal, like he could smile to heaven and back for the next few hours. It’s a full minute of Jeno malfunctioning when he finally processes things and speaks up. “What the fuck?” Jeno squeaks appropriately, and he must’ve thought of something because then Renjun impossibly flushes more and he stands up.
“I’m done,” he croaks, “I can’t handle you both anymore. I’m leaving.”
“Wait. Wait, so you both like me too?” Jeno grapples, voice dripping with disbelief and maybe a little bit of hopefulness. Jaemin can’t control his gleeful string of thoughts, reaching for Jeno’s hand to twine their fingers under the table to make him understand. “Am I—” Jeno looks down on their hands, “Am I reading this right?”
Probably another thought again. From him or Jeno, he isn’t sure but Renjun yells, ears red, “Stop thinking!”
The librarian shushes them and manages to give them the deadliest look even with her coke-bottle glasses but even that couldn’t take away Jaemin’s giddiness. This is the best day of my life, he thinks, and Renjun’s glare rivals that of the librarian’s.
Jaemin laughs kindly, pulling Renjun down to press an affectionate kiss to the corner of his mouth. Jeno’s grip on Jaemin’s hand tightens. Jaemin tangles his and Renjun’s fingers too, revelling in the way Renjun and Jeno’s hands feel warm on both his own.
“Knucklehead,” he says happily, tugging Renjun back to his seat, feeling like he’s dancing on clouds, “You can’t go just yet. C’mere.”