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If it wasn’t for the alarming shade of green his hair was dyed, Jaemin is pretty sure he would have stepped on the boy lying on the bathroom floor. As it is he toes at his limp legs, hoping he’s actually still alive.
“Are you okay?”
The tennis ball coloured lump sticks his arm in the air like a flagpole, fist clenched in a thumbs up.
“I’m fine!” he says, his words echoing in the depths of the toilet bowl. He looks up and smiles at Jaemin, bright eyed and far too cheery for someone who had appeared comatose a few moments ago. Every part of his skin is flushed red and his gaze doesn’t quite focus on Jaemin, seems to go straight through him. “Just a brief—”
A considerable amount of vomit the colour of smashed cherries pours out of his mouth, interrupting him. He coughs, gags, groans and holds up his hand as he spits the last of the mouthful in the toilet. “Just a brief break in festivities.”
His face falls for a brief moment when he sees Jaemin's expression, some mix of horror and concern at the fact that it looks like his insides had just evacuated themselves.
“Don’t worry,” the tennis ball says, without a trace of concern. “This is expensive wine! Even coming up it tastes good!”
Renjun is, in Jaemin’s mind, sorely the source of every single problem in his life. If Renjun hadn’t have invited Chenle to this party, he wouldn’t be nursing him while he continues to produce a seemingly infinite stream of puke. He tells Chenle as much and Chenle just hums, asks him what else is Renjun’s problem.
If Renjun hadn't waltzed into Jaemin’s life, he would have continued being a member of the very exclusive never broken a bone club. Sadly, within three months of knowing Renjun, Jaemin had broken his pinky while arm wrestling with Jeno (trying to impress Renjun), fractured his foot by jumping off the third floor of Renjun’s house and landing in the flowerbed (a bet with Donghyuck, trying to impress Renjun) and bruised his shinbone doing kickboxing (with Jeno, trying to learn a skill to impress Renjun).
“It sounds like,” Chenle says, between making noises that wouldn’t be out of place in the tapes they played during church to scare the kids away from hell, “you’re just stupid when you have a crush, and it’s not Renjun’s fault at all.”
Jaemin can't help it. He takes the bait, and bites.
“Who the fuck are you again, you cabbage patch kid?”
Two days later, and he wakes up to the three stooges rehearsing in his living room.
"He's my brother's best friend's little brother." — Stooge one, Renjun, who sounds like he's been gargling cement.
"Say that again three times fast." — Stooge two, Mark, sober driver's privilege of watching his friends stumble around like zombies all morning.
"Would you shut up?" — Stooge three, Donghyuck, his voice rough with the weight of his hangover.
Jaemin groans. Not only is there a cacophony outside his door, he hadn't shut the curtain properly last night. A triangle of sunshine cuts across his bed and sears a kaleidoscopic afterimage into his retinas. He rolls over to avoid it, sheets tangling around his waist.
“Who's your brother again?"
"Sicheng," Renjun sighs.
"Oh right. The husky voiced sexbomb. Can't believe you two are related. Clearly he got all the good looks."
"We're not… actually related,” Renjun says, measuring his words like flour for a cake, “also, fuck you Donghyuck. For the insut, for forgetting his name, and for the terrible epithet."
"Sorry if I don't remember the name of a guy I met once after a pack of vodka cruisers. You're lucky I even remembered my own at that point."
"You didn't,” Renjun deadpans. He’s rewarded by Donghyuck slapping him.
"Nobody asked for your input."
"It's often a fatal mistake that you don't."
Jaemin rolls over again and wiggles his legs to make sure they’re still attached (they are). In the process of doing so he's pleasantly surprised to find that he's still wearing his clothes — though that doesn't tell him anything about where the hangover that’s currently dancing its way through his head had come from, only that someone had tried to clothe him after they did body shots off his abs.
"You were against us putting that cone on top of the fountain in Albert Park,” Donghyuck says, “and look where that got you. Nowhere. We could have gotten so many Insta likes."
"It got you not spending your Saturday night in a police cell for being drunk and disorderly."
"I hate cells so much,” Mark says, drifting into the conversation like an unmoored boat.
"No wonder you failed Bio 107."
“Hey!”
Their voices are like woodpeckers on his skull. He's ready to fucking run out with a leafblower to blast them out. Kick them out of his house and direct them to the comedy club on Queen Street, or the nearest circus. He wonders where Jeno is — sleeping like a rock no doubt, blessed with the foresight of buying earplugs.
Jaemin makes his choice. He might as well be hydrated while he's suffering.
"Okay, but seriously, why are we letting him tag along?" Donghyuck says.
"He's fun. Jisung likes him."
"Jisung likes any boy who can play an instrument."
"Woe and behold that he has taste. Unlike you, who likes anything pretty and with a pulse. First one optional."
"Jisung and Chenle," Jaemin says, ruining his dramatic timing entirely by having to fight a war with the lock on his bedroom door, "are dating."
"Sleeping Beauty," Donghyuck says. He's wearing sunglasses and half of his bright red hair is missing, like he got into a fight with a lawnmower and lost. "How's it going?"
Jaemin flips him off and shuffles to the kitchen, opens the door and shuts one eye at the brightness of the light that floods his vision. "It's great. Beauty sleep is important. Though I suppose you wouldn't know considering you clearly never get any."
Renjun lets out a snort and reaches over to slap Donghyuck, who sinks further into his seat.
"Watch your mouth,” he mumbles. There’s an abject joy in the moment, both from making Donghyuck deflate like a two dollar store balloon, and from the smile that unfurls itself across Renjun’s face, the corners of his lips sharpened with smugness.
“I don’t think I will,” Jaemin says, a spring in his step as he takes a near empty Just Juice carton from the fridge door and sits down beside Renjun in the loveseat. Renjun’s toes tickle his bare leg and his eyes are sparkling like champagne bubbles, offsetting the dark lines hanging on the ridge of his cheekbones.
“You want some?” Jaemin asks, offering the carton to him. Renjun takes it from him without a word, their fingers brushing, upends it and passes it back to Jaemin to finish off.
“Thanks, mate.”
There’s a droplet of moisture on his lip and Jaemin thinks he stares for just a little too long, watching the way it refracts the pink of his skin, the way it shakes as Renjun’s lips part and his tongue darts out to wet them. Jaemin’s stomach does a flip, but before he can process it he’s interrupted by Mark.
“What makes you think they’re dating?”
Jaemin snorts. “A magician never reveals his secrets.”
“Ah, you’re bullshitting,” Donghyuck says. Jaemin throws the empty carton at him, but apparently even hungover Donghyuck’s reflexes are sharp as a thumbtack, and he catches it between his pointer and thumb without much effort.
“I got the info from Chenle,” Jaemin says, settling back into his seat and ignoring Donghyuck's sneer, “because I'm likeable enough to actually make friends at parties, thank you very much.”
“Oooo,” Donghyuck makes a face, “big man with the insults.”
Renjun taps his knee with his foot again, begging his attention and saving Donghyuck from what, in Jaemin’s mind, would have been an epic takedown. He's still smiling, morning sunshine haloing behind the tangled ends of his bedhead, and with the sight of him the war in Jaemin’s head ceases to be.
After Chenle was done — both with scolding Jaemin’s relationship choices and evacuating his stomach — he and Jaemin had gone out to the back deck of the house to find a spot not occupied by any of Sicheng’s Ancient History cohorts (Jaemin swears they keep multiplying). The choice Chenle makes is the one closest to the side door — and the furtherest from Kun — but more importantly is one with the best view. Renjun's family live halfway up Scenic Drive, low enough that their back yard isn't a bird's nest, but far enough that beyond the gulley stretching on downwards through kilometres of native bush, all of Auckland unfolds at their feet — a toy map of traffic lights and highways, the city skyline a backlit cutout against the night sky.
It's pretty. Jaemin doesn't need to be sober to recognise that.
The second he sits down, Chenle forgets how to move his legs. Jaemin forgets the city and instead tries very hard to tell him exactly how walking works, but the more he thinks about it the less sense it makes. You lift your foot and then put it forward? But how do you move? Do you just drag yourself?
He ends up horizontal, lying on top of a pile of beach umbrellas while Chenle giggles into the depths of his cup.
“Hey, you’re Jeno’s friend, aren’t you?” Chenle asks. Jaemin opens an eye to find his face uncomfortably close, looming over him like a neon green sleep paralysis demon. His breath smells like an unholy combo of vomit and wine, and Jaemin’s stomach lurches.
“Please take your face away from mine, tennis ball.”
“Tennis ball? I was thinking more Kermit the Frog.”
Chenle sits up, giving Jaemin space to relax again, shut his eyes and lace his fingers over his chest like a modern mummy, pickled in cheap alcohol. “Yeah,” he says, “I know Jeno. He’s lucky enough to live with me.”
“Oh? You’re Jeno’s flat mate!”
“Yes,” Jaemin says, suspicious all of a sudden of Chenle’s intentions. “Why?”
“I’ve just heard a lot about you. Is it true that you pee in the sink?”
Jaemin groans, his world suddenly flipping upside down, his stomach trying to kickbox it’s way out of his skin. He rolls over and throws up off the edge of the deck, straight into a row of tulips. “Why do you care?” He says, voice rough. “What are you, my mum?”
“God, I sure hope not! I'd be disappointed if I was."
If Jaemin hadn’t caught Chenle with his head in the toilet, he’s sure he’d think he was stone cold sober. All his words are keen edged, sharpened on the whetstone of his mind, not flowing out with no semblance of a filter like Jaemin.
Bastard.
“Who told you I pee in the sink, anyway?” Jaemin says. The taste of bile was unpleasant, lingering even as he spat out the last of his saliva. He considered sending Chenle away for water. “Because they’re a liar, and I don’t want you associating with liars."
“Oh, Jisung did!”
“How the fuck do you know Jisung,” Jaemin says. His stomach lurches again, and he prays to God it isn’t another glass of wine making its way up.
"He's my boyfriend!"
Jaemin groans. It’s almost too much at once, Chenle moving the conversation along at lightning pace. Still, useful information, especially considering Jeno has absolutely no idea about it. Jaemin files it away in the back of his mind for later use. "Jisung has a boyfriend?"
"We met at the dessert club."
When Jaemin rolls back over, Chenle is smiling at him, kicking his legs in his seat.
"How does Jisung have a boyfriend and I don't."
"Well, I asked him to be mine,” Chenle frowns. “Hey, you like that Renjun guy, right? Have you asked him?"
"That's a terrible idea," Jaemin says.
"Oh, did he say no?"
"He said no before I was born, Chenle," Jaemin says. His brain is heavy with alcohol, thoughts swimming endlessly like koi in a pond. He lies back down on top of his beach umbrella bed and shuts his eyes. "I'm not his type."
"What makes you say that?"
"What are you, my magical therapy cabbage?"
"I'm your new best friend!" Chenle exclaims, disgustingly cheerful. “Like a genie, except instead of a lamp you freed me from the toilet, and instead of wishes I'll give you advice. Which it seems like you need!"
"I don't need advice from anyone who thinks dyeing their hair green is a good idea."
Chenle laughs. "Yeah, because you're clearly doing so well in life throwing up into your crush's flower bed."
Jaemin remembers wanting to punch Chenle but not having the energy to, and then everything goes black.
When he wakes up someone has moved him away from outside. He's tucked into bed and there's a bucket beside him, a glass of water on the bedside table and a row of paracetamol beside it. The curtains are pulled shut tight and the only light in the room comes from the ajar doorway, illuminating the walls in dull shades of grey.
He groans and scratches at his eyes, stretches like a cat, joints popping.
"Good morning."
Jaemin stops himself from screaming at the last second, clutches his chest where his heart is trying to break out of his ribcage and flips over to see Renjun, lying on his side with his phone in his hand, giving him a bemused look.
"Sorry," Renjun says.
Under the covers, Jaemin pinches himself, wincing at the sharp sting of pain. He's in bed with Renjun Huang, and it's definitely real.
"It's okay," Jaemin says, trying not to let his voice betray the fact that his mind is doing the mental equivalent of burnouts. He half expects smoke to come out of his ears.
"You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I just," he starts. It's an uphill battle to talk, his head sluggish and heavy, like someone has poured tar through his ears. He's suddenly acutely aware of the fact he's shirtless. "What happened?"
Renjun eyes trace the line of his collarbone and he coughs, ears slowly turning red.
"You kept insisting you slept naked. It was a challenge to get you to keep pants on, so in the end we compromised.”
"I—" he stutters. "No, I mean. Why am I in your bed. We didn't…?"
"No!" Renjun says, almost before Jaemin even finishes his sentence. "No, we just — slept. Uh." A rooster crows outside, well and truly late. Renjun's knuckles are turning white where he clutches his phone. "Nothing at all. Do you want me to make you some breakfast?"
Jaemin yawns, heart like a chicken trapped in a box, spinning and jumping around his ribcage. “Sure,” he says, and it’s as casual as he can imagine.
Renjun scrambles out of bed, and Jaemin can’t help but stare at the expanse of his bare thighs. His oversized shirt almost entirely covers his boxers, leaves nothing but skin below it, tanned calves dusted with dark freckles and specks of body hair. Jaemin’s mouth waters a little at the sight and he shakes his head, trying to evacuate the unholy thoughts that follow as Renjun exits the room, no doubt happy to be rid of him.
Jaemin's brain boils like lobsters in a pot, and try as he might be can't piece together the last night as anything more than a few snatches of conversation, as Chenle's dolphin laugh and playing Twister with Jisung until he'd ended up lying on top of him. He remembers Donghyuck and Jeno arguing because Jeno had called himself a pussy for not wanting to drink more (and Donghyuck had seized his face, held him close and told him to never put himself down like that), remembers lying on various objects trying to make them his bed, remembers Renjun's soft voice, his words indistinct. The how of how they got into bed together is still a mystery. He groans and reaches for his phone, turns it the right way up and unlocks it with a shaky finger.
6:03 am.
He leans on the wall as he makes his way out to the kitchen, each step that sinks into the carpet like thunder booming somewhere inside the cave of his skull. He passes Chenle asleep on the couch in the living room, a cushion cradled against his chest like a lover. Jeno is asleep face down on the floor beside him, Donghyuck’s body not so subtly draped over his back, and on the foldout bed Mark is starfished, Jisung almost falling off, covers pulled off his body. The scent of roasting coffee fills his nostrils and he follows it like a child to the pied piper, drifting through to the warzone of the kitchen. There’s half filled cups strewn across the bench, empty beer bottles filling the sink, and grease stained takeout containers and salt rimmed shot glasses piled in a stack on top of the microwave. Renjun has his back to him, a blanket pulled around his shoulders, but he’s still bare legged, and Jaemin has to try his hardest to keep eye contact when he turns to wave at him.
“I figured caffeine was more important than food,” he says, voice a whisper, indicating to the bubbling coffee machine.
“Probably important,” Jaemin says. Renjun gives him the smallest of smiles, but it’s still like a supernova, still blinding in the silence they share. There’s a gentle stillness, born from the early hours, from the presence of their friends still lost in sleep in the room beside them, as if their dreams call back to them.
“I know your priorities, Jaemin Na.”
Jaemin sticks out his tongue and Renjun shakes his head, picking through the containers on the bench before dropping them in the rubbish with a soft thud. “Though if you think I’m making the sludge you call coffee for you, you can go back home. These are good beans, they didn’t sign up for that fate.”
“You try taking four 8am classes, and you’ll see the light too.”
“How are you even alive ,” Renjun sighs, throws a glance at him, fondness hanging on the words. “Don’t answer that, please.”
“I’m caffinated and gay,” Jaemin says. “It’s modern living.”
Renjun lets out a wisp of a laugh, a rumble low and comforting like the last notes of a fading storm. The cupboards dig into Jaemin’s back and he forgoes leaning on them, clears a spot and hops up onto the bench to watch Renjun fuss with the coffee machine. He takes out the filter and tosses it into the garbage, pours a cup for himself and leaves it sitting on the bench, pours another and cradles it between his palms as he hands it to Jaemin. “Watch out,” he says, “it’s hot.”
Jaemin breathes in the steam, the bitterness curling across the carpet-like surface of his tongue. Even the smell is enough to wake him up, just a little, just enough that the pounding in his head recedes. “Thank you,” he says. Renjun’s eyes crinkle.
“Any time.”
The thing is, Jaemin didn’t want to have a crush on Renjun. He supposes he doesn’t really want to have any of his weird fits of attraction, but Renjun is something different. Most of his crushes dissipate within a month, either in the wake of a lack of fulfillment, or in his bed, against the bathroom door, on some stranger's couch. Before Renjun there’d been Donghyuck, something that had lasted for less than a week — had been all but pulverised when Ten had walked in on Jaemin with his hand down Donghyuck’s pants, and sat down on the bed they were on, a copy of The NZ Herald in hand. He’d started reading Sideswipe to them, getting increasingly angry every time neither of them had laughed at the apparently hilarious stories he was relaying. It was hard for Jaemin to think much else about Donghyuck after that.
Renjun though. Renjun he wants to know sober. He wants to kiss him and take him on dates, absentmindedly dreams of introducing him to his parents. He wants a relationship with him, full blown, wants to do the dumb romantic stuff he sees in movies, wants to make him blush with gifts and sweep him off his feet. The problem is, he just doesn’t know how. The problem is he's sure there's no way in hell Renjun would actually like him. His only evidence are strange glimmers of hope that anyone else would think insane.
A few weeks ago — a few weeks from now, now being mid December, not late September, which was when he’d first encountered Chenle — Renjun had invited Jaemin out for hotpot. Jaemin had expected to listen to Kun, Ten, Chenle, Sicheng and Renjun talk shit about people (him) in Manadarin all night long, it had ended up being him and Renjun in Korean (not English, not something anyone else would understand) for almost the entire night. Even Kun had commented on it, asked Renjun if he was interrupting something, to which Renjun had shrugged and said he didn’t want to leave Jaemin out.
When their bowls were almost empty, Sicheng had nudged Renjun and said something in Mandarin, to which Renjun had flushed the same shade of red as the chilli oil left smeared on the edges of his cutlery. He’d mumbled something back and turned to Jaemin, lips sealed with a refusal to acknowledge it further.
Being privy to such a secretive conversation where he had expected to be locked out had only thrown fuel onto the fire of Jaemin's ridiculous attraction towards him. Renjun was, in a word, electric, electric in a way that made Jaemin almost envious with how fucking easy it was for him to affect him. He made Jaemin’s brain short circuit, made him giddy and smitten, willing to bend over backwards just to make Renjun smile his way.
Which is why when Renjun proposes they go to Ten’s New Years’ Party, forgoing the one that Jaemin had been planning at their flat, Jaemin says yes without a thought, leaving Jeno slack jawed and holding a half inflated ‘2021' shaped balloon in his hands.
They arrive at six, by which time Donghyuck and Jeno — sitting in the back seat together — have managed to finish a pack of Heineken between them. Ten’s house is a bungalow on a property developer’s wet dream of a section, a patch of grass the length of a rugby field that slopes down towards the stream running along the back side of the street. There’s cars parked on a section of the lawn marked by cones that Jaemin suspects might be stolen from the roadworks they’d hit a few hundred meters up the road, and it’s there he heads to. Christmas lights are wound around the pillars near the entrance, haphazardly draped over the fence like they've been fired from an air cannon, and there’s a flock of two dollar pink flamingos strutting across the worn down lawn. Someone has flipped a barbecue near the rose bushes, and beside it sits enough boxes of brightly coloured fireworks that Jaemin suspects it might be considered an act of terrorism to set them off all at once.
He spots Chenle, Jisung, and Ten’s dog sitting on the swinging seat on the back deck, Kun leaning against the wall beside them with a bottle of beer in hand. They're chatting rather animatedly, Jisung gesturing something that makes him think the discussion is almost definitely about basketball, before Ten comes through the ranch slider and hauls Kun inside. With his brother gone, Chenle wastes no time climbing into Jisung’s lap, his beer held out in one hand and his tongue trying to permanently implant itself in Jisung’s mouth.
"Young love," Donghyuck coos. Jaemin looks back to reverse into the parking spot just in time to see Jeno, face a mixture of green and red, drive his foot into Donghyuck’s shin. It does nothing to shake his shit eating grin.
"Surprised you even know what love is, Donghyuck," Renjun says. He's sitting in the front seat, his foldout lawn chair tucked against his legs. "Sure you didn't get it confused with lust?"
Jaemin turns off the car and slaps the dashboard, pulls the flipper to pop the boot.
"I have a broad range of emotions," Donghyuck says, as they climb out of the car. "Thank you very much."
Renjun tucks his chair under his arm and holds up his hand to start to count.
"Horny. Tired." He looks to Jaemin, who shrugs.
"Angry because Jisung ate the last Toffee Pop."
"Oh, that's nuanced. Jaemin does have your back," Renjun sneers. "Three whole emotions Donghyuck, that's a fucking record."
Donghyuck opens his mouth but Jeno somehow is faster, no doubt still seeking revenge for being subjected to the sight of his younger brother's face being eaten off.
"Don't forget happy."
"Only on payday though."
"Or when he gets his course related costs in from Studylink."
"Everyone's happy then," Renjun sighs wistfully. "The potential of a thousand dollars worth of beer."
Jaemin pulls up the boot of the car and Donghyuck is beside him in an instant.
"You guys are not sleeping in my tent," he says.
"We can always sleep on the grass,” Renjun says. “It’s summer, Donghyuck! I'm sure someone somewhere has done far worse."
Donghyuck almost knocks him over as he walks past, tent cradled in his arms. Jaemin takes a second to admire the curve of his ass in his skinny jeans before he turns and picks up the six pack he’d grabbed from Pak n Save on the way over, and shrugs at Renjun, who smiles back with the devil dancing in his eyes.
"I found Donghyuck," Chenle says. They’re four hours closer to midnight and somehow he’s managed to get glitter all over his face, like he's tried to motorboat a craft store. It’s tame in comparison to Donghyuck: wine coloured lipstick smeared on his chin, fingers stained dark purple, tear tracks carrying mascara down his cheeks. "Kun said he was in the bathroom eating his sister's makeup."
"Eating?" Jaemin asks. Donghyuck starts to sob.
"I just want to be pretty on the inside too."
"Jesus Christ. Thanks Chenle."
"No problem!" Chenle says, cheerful. "Do you have a midnight kiss yet? Ten says he'll pair you up with someone if you don't."
"Thanks but I'll work it out," Jaemin says. Chenle nods and bounces off, yelling something in Mandarin Jaemin is pretty sure he doesn’t want subtitles for.
He wraps his arms around Donghyuck’s shoulders and almost instantaneously finds himself on the floor as Donghyuck tries to jump into his arms. The rug cushions the fall, slightly, but he ends up on top of Donghyuck, his knees digging into Jaemin’s stomach.
“You’re not very strong,” Donghyuck says, pouting.
“You’re not very strong at holding your alcohol,” Jaemin counters, rolling off him and clambering to his feet. The music dives into something laced with bass, sound waves rattling the glass in the window frame, like their want to escape from this mortal realm is much the same as Jaemin’s. “How much lipstick did you eat?”
Donghyuck giggles and lets his limbs flop onto the ground. “Only a little bit.”
“You’re gonna be shitting purple for a week.”
“Oh, that’s something to look forward to.”
Jaemin rubs his forehead and sighs. He really doesn’t want to deal with Donghyuck, who currently has his legs in the air, waving them like he’s on an invisible bike, but he also doesn’t want to leave him here alone, where he might dive into someone’s purse and have another makeup feast.
“Can you just,” Jaemin sighs. He holds out his hand and makes a grabbing motion, to which Donghyuck rests his ankle in his grip. Jaemin pushes his leg away and aims a kick at his ass, the blow bouncing off a little. Bastard. “Can you just not break anything? For a second?”
Donghyuck makes a noise between a gurgle and a laugh. “Sure Jaeminnie. Cutie.” He pats Jaemin on the thigh with the tip of his foot and resumes peddling, eyes focused on the ceiling.
Jaemin groans as he squeezes past where Yerim and Mark are attached at the mouth, hand and waist in the doorway, mentally marking two people off the possible list of babysitters for Donghyuck. In the kitchen Kun is pouring shots, a ‘kiss the chef’ apron tied around his neck and gaudy DIY 2021 glasses pushed up into his hair. Ten is beside him, using a set of bright pink tongs to remove vodka gummies from a large jar and hand them out to a line of people that winds out the door. Jaemin spots Renjun and Jeno somewhere near the back and shoulders his way into the queue beside them, his quest forgotten at the sound of Renjun's honeyed voice.
“ — he reckons he’s gonna fail stats because all he ever does is go in and sleep in the lecture.”
“It’s gonna be him and the psych students on their third repeat,” Jeno says, eyes sparkling.
“Who are we talking about?” Jaemin asks. Renjun turns to him and raises his chin in acknowledgement. He looks good, cheeks warm and glowing, smile loosened with alcohol. Jaemin returns the gesture.
“Do you know Felix?" Renjun asks, "Aussie dude?”
“Oh,” Jaemin says. He knows him vaguely, only because if Donghyuck gets drunk enough he’ll follow him around, imitating all his words in a terrible Aussie accent until Felix tips his drink over his head, calling him a ‘drowned kiwi’. “You mean Donghyuck’s mate?”
“Yeah, Jeno was saying he didn’t even show up to their midterm test.”
“Why does it matter that he sleeps in lectures then?”
“He might be able to scrape it back together,” Jeno says. “You know, all A pluses.”
“Every uni student’s last glimmering hope, full A plus marks.”
Jaemin knows the feeling. In his first semester he’d bombed his Intro to Engineering course so bad he’d swapped degrees entirely, deciding that rotting in a ditch with a BA was probably more favourable than wanting to commit suicide by calculator. Before that he’d prayed for a miracle, had slept with his textbook under his bed in hopes he’d absorb it by osmosis.
“Right?” Renjun laughs. The touch of his hand on Jaemin’s arm is warm, leaves an imprint as he reaches up and picks a piece of confetti from his hair. “That’s when you give up, honestly.”
“You gotta half ass it from the start, not no ass it then full ass it,” Jaemin says. Renjun’s laughter is bright and loud, a supernova in the tightly packed living room, and he smacks Jaemin’s shoulder, gives him a look that makes Jaemin want to shout to the whole room about the conga line of butterflies in his stomach.
“You learned that the hard way, huh?”
“Didn’t we all?”
“Jeno is still the only person I’ve ever known who’s successfully pulled off full A plus marks.”
Jeno blushes at that, or at least Jaemin thinks he might, he's not really sure because Jeno's face is already red. "Our legendary academic, who pulled it out of his ass for his general ed."
"I didn't want to fail," Jeno says, like it's an explanation for his feat of strength.
"And you're a fucking legend for it, mate," Renjun laughs. He throws his arm around Jeno's waist and squeezes him. The pressure of his grip seems to directly correlate to how much Jeno's eyes look like half moons.
"Well, it's a good legacy to have."
"It's fantastic. You know they're gonna talk about you for years right? You've given false hope to thousands of lazy first years."
Jeno beams. "I'm like the worst deity ever."
"The patron saint of procrastination."
They reach the front of the line and are greeted by a surprisingly sober Ten, doing tricks with his tongs and snapping them at Kun's nose when he starts to ask to set off the fireworks.
"We're waiting until midnight," he sing songs, picking up a bright red gummy and waving it around. "Which," he turns to them and smiles, "I must ask you before I serve you, do you have a midnight kiss?"
"Of course," Jeno says, pausing to allow Ten to place the worm directly into his mouth like a mother bird. He swallows it whole, shivering, then adds: "If I can find Donghyuck."
At the mention of Donghyuck Jaemin becomes very interested in the painting on the wall beside them.
"Good, good,” Ten says, “what about you Renjun?"
Renjun nudges Jaemin. His heart leaps into his throat and starts doing skipping exercises like it's year eight and Jump Rope for Heart is back in fashion, but if Renjun notices he doesn't mention it, just hands him a vodka gummy and tells Ten: "No, not yet."
"Well that's a shame," Ten says. What about you, Jaemin? You gonna leave your plus one kissless?"
"You know my name?" Jaemin doesn't remember ever actually introducing himself to Ten, only in the periphery of nights that tasted like hard liquor and jelly shots.
"Of course I know your name."
"Must be because I'm so handsome," Jaemin says, falling back into the groove of the conversation after the momentary moment of confusion. Ten laughs.
"So handsome and no kiss?"
Kun taps his arm. "Stop being mean to the kids."
The way Ten looks at him when he turns to face him is tender, even amongst the noise, amongst the music that almost swallows him whole. It's like no-one exists but them, and by meeting each other's eyes they carve out a space in the world just for themselves. “I’m not being mean,” Ten says. The corner of his mouth turns upwards and he stands on his tippy toes, presses a kiss to Kun’s forehead, then to his mouth, lips feather light. It makes Jaemin feel like he’s intruding, and he looks away, catches Renjun staring at them with furrowed brows.
“What drinks do you guys want, anyway?” Kun asks, holding up a cocktail mixer, his other hand still lingering on Ten’s bicep. Jaemin coughs and looks to Jeno, who apparently already has his order in mind.
“Do you want anything?” Renjun asks, peering up at Jaemin while Jeno tries to describe the drink he’d apparently seen Mark running around with an hour ago.
“I’m good,” Jaemin says. He has a steady buzz going on, enough that the night seems to be infused with a touch of magic, enough that there’s a giddiness in his heart, inhibitions lowered. Enough that when Renjun tucks himself against Jaemin’s side and loops their arms together at the elbow he feels an arc of electricity across his skin.
“Let's go then,” Renjun says, giving him a look that feels like sunrise amongst the LED bulbs. He glances back at Jeno — currently gesturing rather enthusiastically at a puzzled Kun — and sighs. “This one is gonna take a while.”
Down the lawn, past the wilting flower beds and the feijoa trees, they gather outside Donghyuck's tent, Jaemin in Renjun's chair and Renjun in Jaemin's lap, bouncing on his knee. The flamingos have migrated to form the boundary of a wrestling circle, and inside it Jeno and Mark are stripped down to their underwear, shouting as they try to pin each other down. Alcohol has taken hold of both their limbs, made their minds muddled, and Jeno keeps having to take breaks to giggle, leaning against Mark and slapping his back.
"Hurry up and slam him," Donghyuck says, though Jaemin suspects he's not as invested as he sounds in the outcome and more invested in seeing Jeno grapple Mark into the dirt. Somehow he's managed to sober up a little and clean the makeup off his face, but Jaemin doesn't doubt they're a whisker away from a similar incident if the opportunity presented itself.
Jaemin removes the can of beer from the cup holder and holds it up to Renjun's lips, waving it tantalisingly. Renjun's hands cover his and he takes a sip, taps him with his pinky when he's done.
"Cheers mate."
"No worries my dear," Jaemin says, giggling as he winds his arms around the narrow curve of Renjun's waist, palm splaying against his stomach.
He could get used to this, the heat of Renjun’s skin a comfort against him, his body small enough that he fits comfortably in Jaemin’s lap. When Renjun laughs it vibrates through him, settles in all the corners of his brain, the sound hazy with the warm glow that dances through the summer night.
"What's happening here?" Chenle asks, appearing with a bright pink drink in hand. Jisung is a few steps behind him, trailing him like a lost puppy. His neck is dotted in glitter and there's a very obvious red mark blooming on the underside of his jaw — one that Jaemin is about two seconds from pointing out — before Jeno manages to finally drop Mark to the ground and lets out a cheer of surprise.
"I did it!" he shouts. Donghyuck, voice thick with barely concealed lust, slurs out something vulgar in Korean that cause the tips of Jeno's ears to turn a violent shade of red.
"Wrestling," Renjun says, dry. Jisung pokes a flamingo with his toe, and when it doesn't run away reaches down to uproot it entirely.
"Hey," Jeno protests, swaying slightly as he stands, "don't take that. That's my flamingo."
"It's mine now," Jisung says, cradling it against his chest like a protective mother.
"You can't steal my flamingo."
"Flamingos don't belong to anyone," Donghyuck says, waving his hands. "They follow the strongest. Jeno is the strongest, so they follow him. If you want the flamingo power Jisung you gotta… " he claps his hands together and makes an explosive noise. Renjun covers Jaemin's hands with his own, and Chenle starts to edge towards them.
"Do we have to fight?" Jisung says, looking down at the flamingo.
"It's the laws of the land," Donghyuck says, solemn.
Jisung looks back at Jeno again. "Do I,” Jisung pauses. “Uh, do I have to take my shirt off?”
Jeno, more dirt and mud than man, slaps his stomach and sniffs. “If you wanna be a true Greek.”
“Didn’t the Greeks wrestle naked?” Renjun asks.
“We’re putting some modern censorship in,” Donghyuck says. Jisung taps the nose of his flamingo against the lawn before he puts it down, cracks his neck and steps into the ring, hands raised like a boxer. Mark is still lying on the ground, but it doesn’t seem to bother either of them. Jeno just steps over him and mutters something about the honour of his flamingos.
“Renjun,” Chenle says, stealing their attention from the brewing battle . Renjun jumps, the muscles of his abdomen tightening beneath Jaemin’s grip. Jaemin gives him a reassuring squeeze and pokes his head out to give his brightest smile to Chenle, a vague attempt to not show weakness at the glint in his eyes. “Jaemin,” Chenle adds.
“Hi Chenle.”
“Hello my lovelies.”
He really, really doesn’t like that look in his eye. It fizzes on his tongue, makes his stomach lurch, makes him bounce his leg like he’s trapped in an earthquake simulator. Renjun puts his hand on Jaemin’s knee to tell him to stop and Jaemin digs his fingers into the fabric of his shirt in retaliation, looking for a lifeline from what he feels like is about to be the verbal equivalent of being caught in a riptide.
“A little birdy told me you two still don’t have a kiss for our lovely new year.”
“What little birdy is that?” Renjun asks, playing with Jaemin’s fingers, voice measured.
“It’s me,” Chenle smiles, eyes folding into perfect lines. “I’m the little birdy.”
"And what does our little birdy want?"
On the lawn, Jisung, Jeno and Mark are lying in a pile, Jisung hitting Jeno between the shoulderblades with a different flamingo to the one he’d picked up at first. Jaemin is not sure how he managed to miss them all hitting the ground, but that's a mystery he decides can be left for later.
"My little birdy wants you to know you've been paired up with each other. Happy New Year's!"
He turns heel, leaving Jaemin with his lungs inside out and his heart lodged in his throat.
"We don't have to do it, you know," Jaemin says. They're alone, or as alone as they can be, Renjun melted against Jaemin's chest, Jaemin trying to control his heartbeat at the prospect of maybe possibly kissing him. Chenle had left with Jisung and his flamingo (which Jeno had knighted him with, dubbing him Sir Lawnbird and transferring the power of the circle to him), and Donghyuck had dragged Mark and Jeno away for 'clean-up' (or whatever it was the kids called that these days).
Renjun sighs at the words, the sound tinted with something between contentedness and a colour that Jaemin can't quite place his finger on.
"I know," Renjun says, measured. “Do you want to, though? I’ve never had a midnight kiss.”
“I—” Jaemin starts, but there’s no end to the sentence, no real beginning, just a lump in his throat that’s shaped like Renjun’s name. He’s so close and yet he feels paralyzed, unwilling to just reach out and grab the opportunity. There’s something about Renjun that disarms him, dismantles his confidence and leaves him laid bare.
If Renjun notices the hesitation he doesn’t react, just climbs out of his lap, spills onto the ground and picks himself up with a groan. “God, I think everything just hit me at once.” He glances back at Jaemin, and his throat loosens, just slightly, at the sight of his small smile, of the fairy lights reflected in his eyes, the phosphorescence he shimmers with. “I mean, it’s your choice,” he tilts his head. “But we should at least move somewhere better than here. Ten’s gonna start setting fireworks off soon.”
Jaemin’s breath is shallow. “Renjun,” he says, catching his wrist just before he turns away.
“Huh?”
“When I,” Jaemin pauses, and Renjun watches him, gaze sharp. “When I woke up in your bed. That one night. What happened?”
It’s hard to tell in the dark, hard to tell when he’s already coloured red by the alcohol, but he thinks Renjun blushes, his shoulders folding in on themselves like origami. “Ah,” he says. “Well. You — Chenle told me you were trying to sleep outside. I tried to get you to come in, you know, sleep on the couch, but you refused to sleep anywhere that wasn’t a bed. And I gave you my bed, and you refused to sleep without me.”
“We didn’t do anything?”
Renjun laughs, shedding all hesitation with the sound like bells. “No, Jaemin. You’re a very sound sleeper, do you know that?”
“I’ve been told so.”
Renjun wraps his hand around Jaemin’s wrist and pulls, jerking him from his seat. “C’mon, dumbass,” he says. “Now tell me your choice when you see Ten blow up a small part of the country.”
He doesn’t wait for Ten to set off the fireworks, doesn’t wait for the sky to be painted gold and green. He crowds Renjun against one of the oak trees clutching the embankment, hides between the long shadows and strokes of torch light that intersect on the parched grass.
“You know,” Jaemin says, nuzzling at Renjun’s jawline, the curve of his words causing him to vibrate beneath his lips.
“What do I know, Jaemin? More than you, that's for sure.”
“I was just going to say maybe adopting Chenle wasn’t so bad.”
“Oh,” Renjun says, “it was terrible.” Ten’s voice, siren loud, rolls across the lawn as he struggles with the lighter, his words sliced by Kun begging him not to burn himself. Someone, somewhere, is counting, three or four voices, more joining them.
Sixty!
“Why?” Jaemin asks. Renjun’s skin is warm where he dips his hands under his shirt, soft and comforting. The alcohol is gentle on his tongue, and Renjun’s answer seems to bloom in the summer night between them, in time with the rocket that goes off with a scream, scattering sparks across the clear sky.
“He’s an agent of chaos,” Renjun says. “And our agendas don’t align.” Jaemin jabs him in the stomach and Renjun doubles over, laughter glowing, hands coming up to protect himself.
Fifty!
Kun curses at Ten, well and truly drunk for his tongue to be that loose.
“What does that mean, Renjun Huang?’ Jaemin says, fingers poised for another round of jousts at the soft surface of Renjun’s stomach.
“He has an agenda! That’s all I’m saying.”
“ You have an agenda?”
Renjun shrinks away from him, still laughing, joyous as ever. “What, you think I don’t have an agenda? It’s to stay the fuck away from you, Jaemin.”
Forty!
“Our proximity says otherwise,” Jaemin says. Renjun straightens up again, though he still looks small, caged in, the biggest part of him the smirk that cracks across his face.
“Agendas change.”
“Because of mystical matchmaker vegetables?”
Renjun is coy, the slope of his mouth like the surface of a pool inviting Jaemin to jump in.
Thirty
"Because," Renjun says, eyes alight with the fireworks arcing above their heads, "sometimes we get information that changes the plan."
"Like?" Jaemin asks.
Renjun leans in, breath sweet, his bare feet sinking into the cracked dirt below them.
Twenty
"Someone tells us the boy we've been crushing on for a whole fucking year might just like us back —" he fists the neck of Jaemin's shirt and pulls on it, so their faces are level "— but, despite his supposed confidence is too chicken shit to admit it."
Fifteen
He closes in on Renjun, flattens their bodies so they meld together in the shadows, crowds into his personal space. Renjun’s hands wind around his back, curve themselves against his shoulder blades, blunt nails digging into his skin.
Ten
"And what do we do with that information?" Jaemin asks, breath snatched from his lungs. Renjun stares up at him and he could be anywhere in the world, it wouldn't matter as long as the were together.
“We take a calculated risk.”
Five
The sheer heat that comes off Renjun is like all the pyrotechnics in the universe, the real manmade disaster here, and Jaemin takes a breath, shuts his eyes, sparks dancing across every part of him.
“Happy New Year’s, Renjun.”
One
Someone screams twenty twenty one.
Renjun kisses him.