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Doyoung carefully places the chessboard between them on the floor. The board they’re playing on today is a work of art: the pieces are shaped into utter perfection and sunlight beaming right through only highlights that.
‘You ready, Yongie?’
‘No.’ Taeyong bites into a chocolate chip cookie, hoping each bite will give him more of that very needed brainpower. A stupid little thought, but it motivates.
‘Then why do you keep on coming here?’ Doyoung questions. The chess pieces are placed in their position by him, while Taeyong just munches on cookies and watches how every glass piece clinks against the platform.
After a moment of comfortable silence, he answers, still with his mouth full though. ‘Because it’s your chess club.’
Finally, Doyoung looks up. ‘You’re a clingy boyfriend, you know that? Anyways, with or without timer?’
‘Oh gosh, please without.’
The club has a variety of boards in their collection, with each one of them carrying its own charm. They have ones made of wood, marble, vinyl and somehow also one in which pastel pink plays against baby blue. Doyoung’s favourite is a unique one, but it becomes clear why he loves it so dearly when one looks into his eyes.
It’s open, light and clear - literally. Taeyong can see right through the glass setup and the feeling he gets resembles the way he feels whenever Doyoung sings, or just even speaks. He’s honest, but caring. Singing Doyoung – even when it’s just simply humming along while cooking - is someone filled with emotions that can be bent the way one’s view bends through the curve of a glass object.
Clear glass is playing against frosted glass and the two make a perfectly contradicting pair.
It was hot outside on the open field, too hot for Taeyong’s brain to be thinking about anything else but ice cream. The baseball glove was clammy from his sweaty hand and every attempt to look up made it feel like his eyes started to burn. He decided to stand so far up in the field, that basically no ball could ever even come close to him.
There were only forty minutes left or so, until the teacher would tell the class they could go home. Forty minutes until he was set free and about fifty minutes until he’d have a scoop of refreshing mango gelato in front of him. He should ask Johnny to come along, because then he’d bring Jaehyun and some others with him.
Maybe he shouldn’t ask Johnny at all and instead ask-
A loud and hollow thud echoed over the field right at the moment a rock-hard ball hit Taeyong’s nose. The force of it almost made him fall over, but as he regained balance, he slowly sunk to the ground, covering his face.
It all sounded muffled, the ‘ohhs’ and all other reactions coming from his classmates, including some repressed laughing. Plan’s changed: he should just go get some ice cream by himself.
‘Are you alright?’ It was Doyoung.
Taeyong looked up and was met with a worried expression of the guy with a voice he was so in love with.
‘I’m fine, just got surprised by it,’ Taeyong laughed nervously. He removed his hands from his face, trying his hardest to not look like he was seeing stars (and hearts as well).
‘Oh!’ The concern in Doyoung’s face got mixed with disgust. ‘Oh no you’re not.’ He immediately stood up and ran off to the dressing room, leaving Taeyong wondering why he gave him that face. ‘I’m getting him tissues!’
Tissues? Getting hit like that apparently caused a delay in whatever the brain was supposed to take in, because only then was Taeyong aware of the bloody nose he got.
He looked down at the way his hands and t-shirt were covered in blood, shivers running down his spine. The stares of his classmates burned right through his skull and although most of them were probably just worried, he didn’t dare to look up again.
‘Can you stand up, Taeyong?’ Mr. Park rested a hand on Taeyong’s shoulder, who still had his head hanging down. The boy scrambled up and left his arms hanging as he didn’t know where to keep them now that they were all bloody.
A pair of bright blue sneakers appeared in front of him. ‘Shit I’m so sorry Taeyong,’ Jaehyun said, holding out an ice pack. Of course, how could Taeyong forget that Jaehyun wasn’t his average classmate when it came to baseball. If he hadn’t been hit by the ball, he would’ve probably been running after it while Jaehyun went for a home run.
Taeyong couldn’t really process what the teacher was telling him, because behind Jaehyun, or rather behind Taeyong’s back, people were talking.
‘That sounded hollow, oh my god Taeyong’s head is empty.’
‘Shut the fuck up-’
‘Guys, guys! Please, come on, be a bit kinder to each other.’ Mr. Park turned around to shut the class. ‘And Doyoung, watch your language.’
Doyoung was biting his tongue hard to not swear off the teacher as well. He walked up to Taeyong, handed him the tissues, and led him to the dressing room with a protective arm lightly draped around his shoulder.
‘He’s in danger.’
Taeyong’s head jerks up at Doyoung’s remark, only to be met with his serious, piercing gaze. They have only been playing for about fifteen minutes or so, he can’t possibly lose to Doyoung within a shorter time frame than their last game.
‘What, where?’ In Taeyong’s eyes, the king doesn’t appear to be in danger at all. As his current strategy is to mostly build defense rather than get lost in attack, his frosted king is guarded by a safe circle of glass protection.
Doyoung leans forward and takes the other’s hand in his. ‘Okay, what’s rule number one?’ He’s still staring, though now with a softer expression.
‘Love yourself, Taeyongie.’
‘No, chess rule number one,’ Doyoung clarifies, holding back laughter.
‘Oh…’ Taeyong is a master at acting with his eyes, so he shoots them up at the open door behind Doyoung and widens them, as if someone just interrupted their little moment. It works, as always.
Whenever frost touches water, it’s clearness instantly turns into cloudiness. Doyoung’s sharpness gets weakened by Taeyong’s charm when he falls for it and turns around.
Taeyong smiles fondly and gives his hand a squeeze. ‘Don’t ever let your opponent distract you.’
Taeyong was the last to leave the dressing room as it took him some time to try to get the blood out his tee. Only after he gave up and threw it in the bin did he remember his mother once telling his sister something about using cold water. It didn’t matter anymore, the soft cotton blouse he changed into felt much nicer on the skin anyways.
While he struggled to get the key in his bike’s keyhole, a hit sounded loud and clear behind him. Doyoung was still there, practicing with the baseball bat all by himself.
Maybe Taeyong should just stick to his plan and ask him to come along.
‘Hey, Doyoung! I’m getting gelato, you wanna come with me?’
‘No!’ Doyoung didn’t even turn around to look at him and just told him straight-up “no”. Great, another little bit of whatever confidence Taeyong had left got stomped on.
But he was always too quick to get hurt by nothing, because when the ball disappeared into the grass, Doyoung turned to face him.
‘No, I want to practice this a little more now that Jaehyun has taught me how to do it right.’ Yet another ball got placed on the stand. ‘And I don’t know if you forgot, but we got a maths test tomorrow.’
‘It’s just ice cream though…’ Taeyong both frowned and pouted. His curiosity about those golden baseball tips took over and made him take a closer look.
The other didn’t seem to mind it. ‘I need to practice this, I want to be able to show Jaehyun that he made me improve.’
‘You really like Jaehyun, don’t you?’ Taeyong laughed.
Doyoung’s eyes widened and all of the colour in his face disappeared within a split second. He looked like he was about to dissolve, but the other didn’t get at all why such a simple remark made him so nervous. Jaehyun was a popular guy, basically everyone liked him.
‘Don’t tell anyone.’ Doyoung’s eyes lowered to a vague spot behind Taeyong before he could mutter out a ‘please’.
It took a moment for one of Taeyong’s brain cells to reach the bell and ring it, but when it did, it rang loudly. Oh.
‘Oh I-… I didn’t mean it like that, I just thought you found him really cool. Not that it’s not okay though!’ He tried his best to give him a reassuring smile hoping he would get a sweet one back, but instead got cold eyes.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.’ Taeyong couldn’t stand looking at that stern expression on his face, so he looked down at his shoes and started kicking the grass. ‘That you like Jaehyun.’ He looked up. ‘Or guys.’
Why would he gossip about that, when he himself also didn’t dare to tell others about who he crushed on.
Doyoung still stared him down: brows furrowed, mouth a thin line. About five thick seconds later he finally turned his cold gaze away from Taeyong to shoot another ball far up in the field. Every ball made it further with how he was putting increasingly more force and swing into his hits. He wasn’t angry, just unsure of whether he should trust those words and probably already stressed out enough.
Taeyong once again promised him to not tell anyone, this time in his head.
One of Doyoung’s bishops moves across the board to knock one of Taeyong’s off the board. More than half of the frosted glass army got swept away already, just like more than half of the cookies in the pack got consumed by Taeyong only.
‘Check.’ Doyoung smirks.
‘Huh? No, no way.’ Not only did the clear glass bishop take out one of the frozen ones, he is also planning to come for the king’s neck. Taeyong’s eyes move hastily from one of his pieces to the other, trying to figure out how to escape.
‘Look for yourself, I’m not gonna tell you where to look this time.’ Doyoung places one hand behind him to lean back on and pulls the other through his hair, making Taeyong want to look somewhere completely else.
Don’t ever let your opponent distract you. ‘I know where Doyoung, I’m not that stupid.’ There it is, his knight can leap over one of the pawns and strike at the other’s bishop.
Doyoung doesn’t seem to be fazed by it and moves his rook forward. ‘Check, again.’
Well fuck, now Taeyong doesn’t see how to get his king out of this and it makes his throat dry of nerves.
‘I’m thirsty.’
‘Are you serious?’ Doyoung lets out a chuckle, thinking that he must be joking. After all these years together now, he should’ve known that Taeyong almost never really makes sarcastic jokes.
So when he tries to push himself off the ground, Doyoung gently places both hands on his shoulders to hold him back.
‘I’ll make you tea.’
Apparently practicing hits to be able to impress your crush was something they both did, because Taeyong found himself at the same spot as Doyoung stood a week earlier.
The main difference between them was that Taeyong’s hits were so weak that the ball never made it past the pitcher. Whilst Doyoung had managed to shoot the ball further into the field with every hit, Taeyong’s hits seemed to do the reverse of that.
‘Wow, that’s like, four whole meters,’ Doyoung deadpanned. He then walked up to the ball with long, measuring steps. ‘Nope, it’s three.’
Although the weather was moody and the temperature had cooled down quite a bit compared to the previous week, Doyoung offered Taeyong to help him become better at baseball. They were going to get graded during their next lesson, but that wasn’t actually why Taeyong said yes. He just wanted to be with Doyoung, regardless of what they’d be doing.
Doyoung just stayed there on the field, holding up his glove and easily catching ball after ball. After about seven times, he didn’t roll the ball back to Taeyong.
‘Your technique is terrible.’
‘Well then show me how to do it. Don’t just stand there catching them,’ Taeyong whined. He started feeling raindrops falling down on the crown of his head.
As soon as Doyoung stood there so close behind him, Taeyong regretted saying that. He started to feel every emotion he didn’t want to feel at all at that moment, not because he didn’t like it, but because he didn’t want Doyoung to notice. It was outright embarrassing how every cell inside his body started panicking at the touch of Doyoung’s hands positioning his hands correctly on the bat.
Doyoung did notice. ‘You’re stiff as fuck.’
‘It’s okay it’s whatever, I’ll just settle for an insufficient mark for P.E. then.’ Taeyong shrugged and let his arms down. ‘I don’t really care.’
The bat fell on the grass with a muffled smack. Rain started pouring for real; Taeyong looked right up at the sky and let it hit his face.
‘I’m sure there’s at least one sport you’re good at. I can teach you how to play chess if you’d like.’ Doyoung pulled his hoodie up and dragged the other off the field by the arm.
‘Chess is a game.’
‘It’s a mind sport!’
Taeyong laughed. ‘Will my brain get really muscular then?’ He abruptly stopped laughing, because he didn’t like the way it sounded at all. If only Taeyong knew that that laugh of his hit Doyoung’s soft spot every single time.
‘If you practice hard enough, you’ll become a brain bodybuilder. A brainbuilder.’ Doyoung’s smile was gorgeous. It brightened the mood, despite them literally getting soaked by the rain.
‘Sure, teach me how to become a brainbuilder.’
Although this always happens, Taeyong still freezes in shock when Doyoung takes away his king.
‘I won, again,’ Doyoung says, while already putting the pieces back into the box.
‘Well of course, I’m playing against the head of a chess club. It’s unfair that we keep on making bets.’ There are no cookies left for Taeyong to ease the pain of losing, and his tea got cold as well.
‘You don’t have to agree on it, but you do it every time. And every time, I win.’ Doyoung annoyingly holds up the frosted king in front of Taeyong’s eyes before putting it back together with the other pieces.
‘What do you want from me this time then?’
Doyoung sighs as if he’s getting tired of winning all the time. Suffering from success, one would say. ‘I don’t know nor care, just give me a kiss or something.’
‘I give you kisses all the time,’ Taeyong says.
‘What, you rather wash the dishes for a whole week?’
Absolutely not.
Taeyong immediately scoots over to his boyfriend to plant kisses all over his face. One on both cheeks, one on his forehead, one on his nose. Another one on his left cheek, just because he can. All the while he does that, Doyoung makes this fake disgusted but funny face.
Then Taeyong glances at his soft lips, and decides to go for it.
‘Checkmate.’