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By coincidence, Yangyang and Dejun get Kakaotalk and Wechat messages from Ten and Kun, respectively, within the same half hour. By the time Yangyang scurries to their usual spot in the Arts Education building’s lounge, Dejun’s already there, brows drawn and lips pursed. They both hold up their phones for each other to see: the messages have the same topic.

“It’s happening,” says Dejun.

“But it hasn’t even been two months!” says Yangyang, throwing himself into the seat across from Dejun.

“Better than one month, I guess,” mutters Dejun. “Tell me the truth. How long did you think they’d last in the same house? Honestly. Really.”

Yangyang pulls at his hoodie strings, trapping his head in the fabric. “Like… I dunno. At first I thought, like, a few weeks, tops? Less than a month. But then--like, their housewarming party. You saw how they looked. Disgustingly happy. I was thinking, holy shit, maybe they’re actually going to last. And. Yeah. It kinda made me happy, too, you know? And them together is way better than when they were avoiding each other while they were on that break. Which was waayyy better than when they used to pretend to hate each other, according to Sicheng.”

Dejun squints at him. “Is this your way of telling me that you wanted them to last forever?”

“No!” Yangyang says incredulously, straightening up. Then he slouches back down. “But maybe. I don’t know. It’s not like I lie awake at night, thinking about the longevity of my friends’ relationships.” He cuts Dejun off just as Dejun opens his mouth to argue. “And they’re not my parents!”

“They’re kind of your parents,” mutters Dejun, with considerably less steam.

Yangyang fidgets with his phone, flipping it around and around, eyes unfocused. After a moment of silence, he asks, “So… should we do anything about it?”

“Do? Do what?”

“I mean, they’re asking for help in assembling a second bed! For a separate bedroom! We could say no? Maybe then they’d reconsider their plans.”

Dejun shakes his head. “If we say no, they’ll just ask Sicheng and Guanheng instead. You think those two will say no?”

“They could,” Yangyang hedges. “If we gave them enough reason.”

“What reason? Because we want Kun ge and Ten hyung to stay together?”

Yangyang blinks. “Well, yeah.”

--

In the sweltering, sweat-dripping summer following Yangyang’s first semester of his second year at uni, his not-dads but kind-of-brothers Ten and Kun finally decided to put everyone out of their collective misery and move in together. The weeks, if not month preceding their decision, everything had been in a state of suspended animation: the weather, as well as their day-to-day, sticky and thick, saturated at 99% humidity, waiting at the precipe for the last little bit of moisture before the clouds finally broke. The muggy heat made everyone operate at half-speed, which is why Ten and Kun’s latest drama felt like it lasted twice as long and was twice as pointless.

The issue had been about housing. Ten and Kun, 96ers both, had graduated that semester, and so naturally had to surrender their dorm placements to a more current crop of needy students. They had decided to stay in Seoul (the final decision to their last bout of dramatics, aka the KT Dark Age), and were looking for separate apartments that matched an extensive list of criteria: within walking distance to a grocery store and metro line (Kun), good neighbourhood running paths (Kun), close to a print shop (Kun), near a decent number of good restaurants (Kun), within half an hour’s commute of his dance studio (Ten), near a florist (Ten), affordable rent (Kun), and most importantly, within a stone’s throw from each other. At first glance, Kun was the rate limiting factor, being so specific about location, but Seoul was a big, bustling metropolis, so there were actually plenty of places that met his needs. It was Ten who ended up being the pickier one because he was particular about the apartment interior: it had to be facing east or west, had to have large windows, enough space for his cats, a kitchen that was big enough for Kun to cook elaborate meals, preferably with two bedrooms so he could practise dance and yoga in one without having to constantly push furniture out of the way, and even more ideally, two bathrooms, so whenever Kun came over they wouldn’t have to fight over Ten taking thirty-minute showers. All of this plus having good feng shui, whatever that meant to Ten, whose knowledge of feng shui (according to Kun) totalled two afternoons’ worth of research on Youtube and one Wikipedia article.

Kun and sometimes Yangyang were forced to visit listing after listing with him, all of them--to Yangyang’s eyes, at least--equally fine as the last, but each of them--to Ten--consecutively more disappointing. Around the third week of this, the three of them were leaving yet another apartment, this one matching practically all of Ten’s specifications except for having only one bathroom and the kitchen being a bit cramped, when Kun got fed up.

“This one is the best one we’ve seen, and to be honest, I don’t think you’re going to find better, unless you want to live in a penthouse or something.”

“Then I’ll live in a penthouse!” Ten argued. “I’m not worried about money.”

“But I can’t afford to live in a neighbourhood that’s full of condos and penthouses!” Kun pushed back. “We agreed to live close to each other! You’re asking for way too much from apartments that normal people can afford.”

“You’re just too used to living in shitty dorm housing,” said Ten. “You can raise your standards a little now that you have a real job, you know.”

“Having a job doesn’t mean I’m comfortable blowing most of my paycheck on rent!”

By this point, going apartment hunting with Ten was near torturous: the heat, the travel, the constant hemming and hawing that ultimately ended up in wasted time, it was all getting more aggravating by the day. Even during regular hangout time, Ten and Kun’s conversations would inevitably circle back to their housing problems, which really put a downer on their Mario Party nights and movie nights and dinner nights--especially if it distracted Kun from cooking. So, in a cumulation of all this annoyance, in thirty-five degree heat, Yangyang that day snapped, “I don’t get why you guys don’t move in together?”

They both cut their argument to stare at him.

“We can’t live together,” Kun gaped.

“Why not? You’re a couple, aren’t you,” said Yangyang, who still didn’t like saying that word aloud while associated with his definitely-not-parents but maybe-brothers. “Were you going to live apart forever?”

“No, of course not,” Kun frowns. “But we were going to ease into it. Like, start with one day a week or something, and move up from there.”

“Why?”

“Ai, Yangyang doesn’t know that we used to live together before,” Ten said abruptly.

Now it was Yangyang’s turn to gape. “What? You two? When?!”

Ten sighed. “Our first year. We were roommates. How did you think we met?”

Yangyang had never actually thought about it. When he started at Seoul National University more than a year ago and was assigned to Ten as a freshman mentee within the SNU International Students Association, Ten had already come prepackaged with Kun. Those first few whirlwind months getting used to a new country, new school, new language and new friends, Yangyang didn’t have the mental bandwidth to wonder how dance prodigy, Mr Popular and Fun, Ten Lee, became friends(?) or rivals(??) or fuck buddies(???) with SISA president and teacher’s pet, Qian Kun. He just knew that Ten was cool, and Kun was… less cool, and the two of them were weird together in the same way that sriracha and peanut butter were weird--an unusual combination but oddly good. Their hot and cold relationship was just another established fact of university life to be noted: the best Chinese food was at the College of Engineering snack bar, the university museum was haunted, there was a chatroom to find students willing to write essays for pay, and, Ten and Kun were a pair. Even when they were on their Break and unwilling to mention the other’s name without grimacing, they still bafflingly held one another in high regard. Some things you just took for granted as being always the case, and for much of Yangyang’s time in Seoul, this included the nebulously-defined but inescapably-present duo of Ten/Kun; he had never thought to ask about start dates.

But of course there must have been one. They met each other here at university, after all, and not, like, in the hospital as babies, in some fairytale fated-from-birth story. And Ten was explaining how that day went down, how they knew within the first week of bunking together in their shared suite that they would not make it as roommates, how they fought all the time, and how badly their habits grated at each other, and once they started not living together, their relationship got infinitely better, to the point that they actually started going out.

“So it would be reckless to just start living together again, out of the blue,” Kun said. “Ten would smother me in my sleep.”

“We would probably break up if we didn’t have our own space,” Ten agreed, patently not denying the smothering accusation.

“So we can’t,” reiterated Kun.

“Definitely not,” said Ten.

But they ended up moving in together anyway.

--

“There’s probably plenty of reasons why couples sleep in separate rooms,” Sicheng’s voice says in Yangyang’s ear, as he shoots at the zombies swarming them with what seems to be a forty percent hit ratio. “Like, for example, if someone--who I won’t name--can snore like a jackhammer.”

“Yuta hyung?” asks Guanheng’s voice. His character tosses a grenade into the pile of squirming bots and bodies go flying.

“No,” says Sicheng.

“He means Kun ge,” says Dejun, sitting at Yangyang’s right.

“Oh,” says Guanheng. “But Kun ge doesn’t snore that much. Right?”

“He does when he’s really tired,” explains Yangyang. “And it’s pretty loud.” He yelps as a zombie sneaks up from behind and takes a bite out of him. “No! Shit! You little--Guanheng! Where are you? Need healing.”

“Give me a sec, I’m healing Dejun,” says Guanheng. “But didn’t Ten live with him before? It’s not like he didn’t know about his snoring habits.”

“It’s not just the snoring. There’s plenty to say about Kun ge. What about his late night snack habit?” says Dejun.

“Or him playing keyboard at three in the morning,” adds Sicheng.

“Or just how noisy of a person he is naturally,” says Dejun. “And when he--wait, five rounds, right? We’re finished? No, there’s another round.”

“There’s ten rounds,” says Yangyang.

“Oh.”

“But it’s not like Ten hyung is the most amazing roommate either,” Sicheng says, then screams, “Aaahh! Ahh! No! Leave me alone!” His character dies, and he sighs. “Didn’t you say before that Ten hyung always sets his alarm but never wakes up? That’s hard to deal with too.”

“Oh my god, that, it’s truly terrible,” Guanheng confirms. “Honestly, being noisy that late at night is pretty bad, but waking me up early only to not wake up yourself? Should be illegal.”

“So they're both hard to live with, is that what we’re agreeing on?” Yangyang asks.

“Guess so,” says Dejun. “I think it’s Kun ge more than Ten hyung, but maybe they’re both--whoops, sorry.” He cringes as his character goes down.

“Yo, can you guys stop dying? You have to keep making ammo.”

“I’m not dying for the fun of it!”

“I have to do everything around here,” Yangyang sighs, and manages to kill enough zombies to get them to round six.

“What I think is, it’s a waste of time to worry about Kun ge and Ten,” Sicheng’s voice says. “You know how some molecules only behave in certain ways around each other, due to their electron configuration?”

“No,” and “What?” everyone says simultaneously.

“I don’t know about it either,” admits Sicheng, the traditional dance major. “But I think they’re weird like that. What they do won’t necessarily make sense to us. So just let them work it out themselves.”

“It’s not that I’m worried about Ten and Kun exactly,” Yangyang explains. “It’s just that it sucked when they were on that break. I don’t need a repeat performance.”

“No no no,” says Dejun. “Those two won’t be able to withstand another break. Kun ge barely survived the last one. I think if it gets to that point again, they’ll just split up for good.”

"Ten said the same thing," Yangyang recalls.

He’s met with silence, as everyone thinks back to that harrowing time they now collectively call the KT Dark Age.

“It would be a shame if they broke up,” Guanheng says eventually. “For us, specifically.”

“True,” says Sicheng. “They’re much less annoying together than apart.”

“And, like, they actually care about each other a lot,” Yangyang says. “It’s not like I want to force them to be together if they aren’t feeling it anymore, you know? It’s just, like. You all remember their break. They obviously still wanted to be together. But they didn’t know how to do it properly.”

“It is weird how dumb they are around each other,” says Sicheng.

“Hm,” says Dejun. “Maybe Yangyang’s right. We should encourage them to be more forgiving to each other, something like that.”

Yangyang takes a moment to machine gun rail another horde of zombies, but doesn’t make it out alive. He tsks. “Guanheng, hard carry us to the end, let’s go!”

“Oh my god, I’m trying,” says Guanheng.

“Oh, and also,” Yangyang mentions, “let’s not encourage them when they do anything that, like, pushes the other person away. And maybe we can remind them why they like each other?”

“I have no idea why they like each other,” mutters Dejun. Yangyang jabs him in the side. “Ow. I was kidding.”

“Let’s figure it out one day at a ti--whoops,” says Guanheng. He dies. They made it to round seven. “Shall we try again?”

“This is my last game for today,” says Sicheng. “I have an essay due tomorrow.”

“Have you started on it? It’s almost nine,” says Dejun.

“Of course I have,” Sicheng bluffs. From the ensuing pause, it’s clear no one believes him.

“Let’s win quickly, for Dong laoshi’s sake,” offers Guanheng.

Luckily, they do.

--

The next day, Yangyang is at Kun and Ten’s place, polishing off a second dinner from their leftovers, when Kun walks out from the bedroom, pouting at his phone. “Sicheng’s not free to help us set up the bed either. I can’t believe everyone is busy this weekend. Even Guanheng! Can you call anyone?”

Ten, sitting on the couch, cat in his lap, doesn’t look up from brushing Leon’s fur. “Okay, I’ll ask Johnny or Jaehyun.”

“Thanks.” Kun eyes Yangyang at the table, who’s trying to eat as innocently as he can so he is not suspected as a person who told everyone else to lie about being busy this weekend. “What are you up to tomorrow again?” Kun asks.

“NBA finals, man,” Yangyang says. “Gotta watch it live.”

“Why can’t you just watch it later?”

“But I don’t want to accidentally see spoilers beforehand,” Yangyang says, proud of himself for thinking of this excuse. Actually, the finals started in April, a good five months ago, and the Lakers already won the trophy, but Yangyang would bet good money Kun doesn’t know that. The important thing is that Yangyang’s working towards a greater good here. He doesn’t want them to get the second bed. Sleeping in the same bed every night is important to maintain relationship affection, right? He maybe saw some Buzzfeed article about that years ago. “Hey, if you guys are going to get a second bed, then where’s Ten hyung going to do his yoga? And where are you going to move your desk?”

“The desk can stay there; it’ll still fit. And Ten’s already doing yoga in the living room.”

Ten lifts his face from where he was rubbing it on Leon’s belly and grins slyly. “Kun ge found it too distracting if I did yoga while he was on the computer.”

“Shut up,” Kun says, ears going pink. “You kept acting up on purpose! To distract me! I would have been fine if you did it normally!”

“Hey, TMI,” says Yangyang, hoping to cut this conversation off before it gets too gross. Unfortunately, he is learning just how shamelessly Kun and Ten will act within the confines of their own home. It was a very rude side effect of them moving in together that Yangyang definitely did not anticipate. All Ten has to do is to lower his eyelids to half-mast, show a little tongue, and Kun reddens like his cheeks had been physically pinched. Kun’s face would look a little pinched too, like he couldn’t make up his mind between telling Ten to stop, or egging Ten on. If Ten made that move in public, Kun would definitely tell Ten to stop. Here, though--

“If you wanted an audience for your routine, you could just ask,” Kun retorts, and Ten lights up, grinning.

“You couldn’t afford it.”

Kun shrugs. “Ah, I’ve got some savings.”

This, apparently, for god knows what reason, turns Ten on. As the heaviness of their shared gaze increases from Category 3 (extreme cringe) to Category 4 (prolonged suffering) on the Qian-Lee Flirt scale, Yangyang finds it harder and harder to keep from texting Dejun their codeword for situations like this: KT call. They have a buddy system in place to act as a distraction whenever either Ten or Kun start getting too hot and heavy while still in respectable company (namely, Yangyang and Dejun). The system was developed the period after the KT Dark Age finally ended, when, in a full 180-degree turnaround from being repelled by each other to the point that Kun would spin on his heel and walk the other way if he saw Ten down the hall, the two of them seemed physically incapable of keeping their hands off of each other. It was a perilous time, stressful in a completely opposite way from the preceding month of uncomfortable stalemates and staggering denial. Post-reunion, though, Yangyang could walk into his dorm room at literally any time of the day to find Ten and Kun trying to eat each other’s tonsils on Kun’s bed (and once, traumatizingly, Yangyang’s own bed), because evidently, deciding to tack on an extra semester to your schedule freed up a lot of pressure to study. Yangyang understood they felt the need to make up for lost time, and was of course happy/relieved/thankful that they finally reconciled, but there was only so much PDA that he, as someone who was not-their-son-but-sort-of-bro, could take.

But, priorities. This is not the time to discourage that behaviour, despite Yangyang’s reactionary distaste. Since Kun and Ten, pre-Dark Age, were rarely affectionate in public and sometimes cycled through periods semi-avoidance, the ordinary cues one might expect of quarrelling couples did not apply to them. Yangyang had learned early on that them barely interacting during the day was standard operating procedure, and had no bearing whatsoever on how the two of them qualified the strength of their relationship. Outside of a big gesture like a “formal break,” it would be hard for Yangyang (and, he assumed, the rest of the world) to tell if their relationship was going downhill. So if Ten and Kun are giving lovey-dovey eyes to each other over the subject of yoga stretches and savings accounts, then that’s evidence in the positive direction: things must not be as dire as Yangyang had feared. This is good news, because Yangyang had been kinda paranoid before. When he’d arrived at the condo half an hour ago for movie night with Ten, Kun had opened up the door for him with his sneakers halfway tied, clearly on his way out. Ten had been shouting from the inner hall that he didn’t need to leave, and Kun was insisting that it was fine, that he wanted to go for a jog anyway, but then Ten had come into the foyer, hands on his hips, and said, forcefully, “Kun,” and Kun sighed, kicking his shoes off.

Yangyang had immediately assumed they’d had a fight, but they didn’t seem on edge at all while Kun made up a plate of food for Yangyang in their respectably-large kitchen, or as Ten shouted out movie choices from their larger-than-respectable living room. He had noticed, not for the first time, that Kun was walking around pretty quietly--by Kun’s standards, anyway, which meant he still moved louder than Yangyang or Ten--as if he was consciously trying not to make too much noise. Maybe this was some sort of indication that Kun felt guilty for something, like he didn’t want to disturb the peace, or attract too much attention to himself. That was a bit worrying, because Yangyang first started noticing Kun’s mission of Talk Softly and Carry a Light Step weeks ago.

And yet, here they are, edging into Category 5 (imminent nausea; advisory to cover eyes and ears), with Ten standing on his knees on the couch and luring Kun into his arms for a kiss. Several kisses, in fact. Then several more. No traces of animosity at all. The relief Yangyang feels is surprising, and he realizes that he must have been a little more scared than he had expected, imagining the two of them going through a rough patch. So he forces his hand to leave his phone, and puts his attention firmly on Louis so he doesn’t have to witness Ten sidling his hands into Kun’s back pockets and giving his butt a lingering squeeze.

Louis jumps onto the empty chair beside Yangyang, judging Yangyang’s jiggling knees with bored disdain. “How can you live like this, everyday?” Yangyang whispers to him, as the kissing sounds to his right take on a distinctly wetter pattern.

Louis tries to bite Yangyang’s thigh.

But during the movie (Dolittle with Robert Downey Jr., a meeting point between Yangyang’s Marvel obsession and Ten’s animal obsession), more worrisome behaviour rears up. Kun and Ten are on the sectional couch while Yangyang is sprawled adjacent from them on the recliner. On the coffee table sits, as expected, a smorgasbord of snack foods that Ten and Yangyang are pretty ambivalent about but which Kun has in the past assured them are of great and distinguished taste. But Kun barely touches any of it. He gathers one handful of popcorn and puts the kernels one at a time into his mouth, chewing slowly, as if overly engrossed in this pandering family-friendly film. This is weird for him, as someone who has been teased as having the spirit of a wild boar for multiple reasons, and when Yangyang surreptitiously glances over to gauge Ten’s reaction, he sees Ten has noticed it too, and is narrowing his eyes at Kun in clear annoyance. But he doesn’t say anything. The most he does is grab his own handful of popcorn to chew noisily, almost pointedly, in Kun’s ear. Kun’s attention does not shift from the TV, and his steeled expression makes it look like he’s trying very hard not to wince. Then Ten grabs Kun’s arm and forcibly hauls it around his own shoulders so he can tuck himself into Kun’s side, all with the indignant air of someone being forced to do it. But Kun’s hand curls around Ten’s forearm as he presses a kiss to his temple, seemingly by habit, and some tension melts out of Ten’s posture. They both relax.

What the heck was that, thinks Yangyang.

After the movie, which scored alright by Yangyang, bad by Kun, and great by Ten, Yangyang sits on the toilet in their en suite bathroom and texts Dejun a play-by-play of that moment. It sounds even weirder in description, because he isn’t able to convey with words the awkwardness of it, how strangely that interaction had hit him, barely over a minute long, with Kun acting so subdued, Ten confronting him from a diagonal rather than straight on, and neither of them explicitly acknowledging anything was wrong.

While waiting for Dejun’s reply, Yangyang rifles through the medicine cabinet, ostensibly to look for “clues,” but in reality checking if Ten and Kun have bought any new perfumes lately (they haven’t). But he notices a few bottles of nail polish, in sky blue, sunflower yellow, and black, that weren’t here the last time Yangyang came around--which was only two days ago, because Kun had ordered hotpot. Yangyang knows Ten and his hot friend Johnny have been into getting their nails done lately because last week Ten tried to drag Yangyang along too, but now it seems like Ten is levelling up with self-manicures.

His phone buzzes. Dejun has texted back, the way you talk about it makes it sound like kun ge is hiding something, to which Yangyang can only say, i don’t wanna jump to that conclusion BUT……

Dejun replies, :o

Yangyang thinks about it again. Could Kun be hiding something? Qian Kun, of the goody-gumdrop smile and Snow White face? Who couldn’t even play pranks on people (e.g. Dejun) without first giving himself away, willingly even, because guilt overrode his conscience? That time they’d laced Dejun’s matcha tea with wasabi, it had been Kun’s idea and yet Kun was the one who'd preemptively said to be careful when drinking, which of course immediately made Dejun suspicious. Yangyang has always pictured Kun breaking out into hives if he ever had to act in bad faith for longer than two minutes at a time. The guy just has too much of a virtuous streak; he was forever scolding Yangyang about the proper way to act on campus, how they had to set a good example because they were foreigners in Korea, as if Yangyang had no sense, when actually, Yangyang has plenty of sense, thank you very much. He knows where to find free food and expensive perfume samples, doesn’t he?

But then again, Kun is no narc, either. Kun has a very keen ability to keep quiet about things when he cares to, which was the opposite of Yangyang and Ten, who didn’t see the point of holding back good gossip if the reaction would be amusing. And Yangyang has seen Kun employ his wholesome, beaming smile to his own advantage, like that time he played innocent when Guanheng dashed into their dorm room after accidentally spilling coffee onto one of Ten’s paintings, freaking out because Ten was on the warpath. Kun had yanked Guanheng under the cover of his desk, sat back down in front of it, and didn’t even twitch an eyebrow when Ten stormed in, demanding Guanheng’s head.

“I haven’t seen him today,” Kun had said, bland as anything, fingers typing without pause at his lab report. He flicked his gaze up to Ten. “But if I see him later, I’ll let him know you’re looking for him.” Then, that weaponized, blameless smile. “Anything else I can help you with?”

Ten had seethed, even looking at Yangyang and Dejun for corroboration, but they’d shrugged feebly. Kun’s smile didn’t budge. Confronted with this polite-but-firm wall, Ten had decided to retreat.

That had been during the Dark Age, last November. Yangyang doesn’t think Ten would back down so easily these days. But that’s the mystery of the moment, isn’t it? If Kun is, in fact, hiding something, would he be able to hide it from Ten? Or does Ten already know? How much would Ten know?

what could kun ge even be doing that he’s ashamed of? Dejun messages. rmb when he made us watch him play his new train simulator game? A TRAIN SIMULATOR

Yangyang has no answers.

When he finally comes out of the washroom, having helped himself to a few sprays of his favourite scent, Ten and Kun are stirring up some Category 4 trouble on the couch again, with Ten pretending to bite at Kun’s ear, and Kun half-heartedly pushing him away. “I said no, I made up my mind,” Kun is saying, but he can’t help laughing as Ten nuzzles closer to his neck, nearly climbing into Kun’s lap. It’s clear they’re playing. Maybe that weird moment from before wasn’t really anything after all. Yangyang sincerely doubts that Kun is a good enough actor to behave normally if he were truly hiding something. Look at them there, being affectionate and comfortable, as if last year their relationship hadn’t shattered into pieces based, pathetically, on good intentions from either side. At least they have the decency to pull apart when they notice Yangyang standing there.

“I’m going back to campus now,” announces Yangyang. At Dejun’s behest, he adds, stiffly, “And, um. Thanks for always making me feel at home here.”

They both blink at him, alarmed, but in a flash, Ten has vaulted over the back of the couch to crush Yangyang in a hug.

“Yangyang, you never need to worry about that, okay? Our home will always be your home.” He rocks him slightly, patting Yangyang’s head. “Are you okay? Did something happen? You can stay for as long as you want.”

Stupid Dejun! Yangyang should never have taken advice from his sentimental ass. make their place feel like something you depend on! he'd messaged. see how they react! they’ll both lap it up!! He’d insisted that evoking pride in their condo--that is, via Yangyang's appreciation of it--would give Ten and Kun something to bond over--that is, being able to provide for Yangyang. All the adoptive parent jokes aside, Yangyang can’t deny that they both love doting on him. Ten, sometimes (often) too much.

"No, I'm totally fine," Yangyang insists, pulling free of Ten's hold. "Can't I thank you without getting smothered?"

"But you never ask for hugs otherwise,” pouts Ten.

“Because I don’t want them!” Yangyang says. “I’m out of here.” So embarrassing. They always baby him like this and it’s awful. Why does he have to worry about these two idiots? He has better things to do with his time. Many of them, in fact. But then Kun, in his own gesture of worry for Yangyang’s mental state, packs up three whole containers of food for Yangyang to bring back to the dorm, so Yangyang supposes it’s not all bad.

--

On Sunday, despite Yangyang’s efforts (to expend anti-effort), the new bed is completely set up in Kun and Ten’s second room, and when Yangyang and Guanheng come by after lunch, they are led over to take a gander at the final results. The room has been slightly redecorated, with Kun’s desk and keyboard along the far wall, under the window with the thick blackout curtains, his mini fridge tucked underneath the desk; a bookcase crowded with books, electronics, and art supplies in labelled boxes; a cat tower in the corner; and now a full-sized bed with a shifting-colour mood light on its headboard shelf. There are two of Ten’s paintings hanging on one wall, and a framed portrait of Louis and Leon in cute neckties on another. There is a wine bottle holding a sprig of dried flowers on the keyboard. Yangyang realizes, surveying around, that this could be a nice guest bedroom, if the space wasn’t already cluttered with Kun’s stuff. Snack bags, aromatherapy diffuser, iPad, headphones, notebook, a toy bear figurine Kun had gotten from Taeyong ge, all markers of Kun’s territory. So it looks like the room’s been officially converted to Kun’s. Kun eagerly shows off the voice recognition feature of his mood light, his latest step converting the condo to be as A.I. as possible, and Yangyang fails to detect any displeasure in his tone about losing access to the master bedroom. With the sheer amount of stuff that Kun has, it would have been more logical for Ten to move to the smaller room, but no surprise that Ten got to stay put in the master.

“I wanted to put up a Jay Chou poster,” Kun jokes, “but I was outvoted.”

“But there’s only two of you?” Guanheng says.

“The cats,” says Kun.

“Ah.”

It doesn’t seem very fair to Yangyang that Ten can dictate what Kun puts up on the walls of Kun’s own room, but what does Yangyang know. “You’re not upset?” Yangyang asks. “That you sleep here now?”

Kun’s mouth opens. “I mean,” he stutters, ears going pink. “It’s not every night.” His gaze slides away, furtive.

Guanheng pulls a face like he smelled something rotten. “Oh god! Forget I asked,” Yangyang says hurriedly. “Let’s go back to the Lego.”

This was the point of today: they’d won a huge Lego set at their Chinese Students Association’s bimonthly bar trivia (Yangyang covered sports, Guanheng history and literature, Dejun music, Sicheng movies, and usually Kun covered science but since he was no longer a student, they pulled Renjun in to sub, who mainly just argued against everyone else’s answers for the heck of it; luckily there weren’t that many science questions that night) and needed to assemble it in a large enough space, where there weren’t other students trekking in and out and being a distraction every few minutes. Here, in Kun and Ten’s apartment, with the couches pushed towards the wall and the coffee table lined against the TV stand, there’s a perfect area in the centre of the living room for dancing, doing yoga, training cats, painting large canvases, or, in this case, building Lego. Dejun had been livid that he got pulled to attend some last minute audition thing today for his drama class production, but to that Yangyang could only say, sucks to be you. Kun mucks around with his Seaboard and Launchpad from his bedroom and keeps them supplied with a steady stream of food, drinks, and good beats, while Yangyang and Guanheng crawl around the floor to their heart’s content as they contend with 3,306 pieces of the 1989 model Batmobile. Kun even locks Louis and Leon in the master bedroom for safety, which he only gets away with because Ten is busy all day with recital practice for his age 9 to 12 students.

Or, that’s what Ten was supposed to be doing. Only a few peaceful hours after they’ve begun, the car less than halfway built, Kun’s phone buzzes and he picks up, greeting Ten happily. But his voice quickly turns strained.

“Now?” he asks. “You’re coming home now?”

The nervousness in his tone makes Yangyang perk up. He meets Guanheng’s eyes; Guanheng picked up on it too.

“Umm, no, it’s fine,” Kun continues. “No, nothing. Really! Oh, really, that’s awful. Have the plumbers showed up? Yes. Of course, of course. No problem. Okay, bye bye, see you soon.”

He hangs up and comes out of the bedroom looking wary. “We need to clean up. Ten’s on his way home. A pipe at the studio broke and started flooding the first floor so everyone had to clear out.” He goes over to the Lego box and starts pulling out the little baggies so he can shovel their piles of unused pieces back inside.

“Woah, hey! Not so fast, da ge!” Guanheng cries. “We spent a lot of time organizing those piles! There’s a system! You can’t just dump them back in willy-nilly!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Kun backs off. “Okay, you guys do it. But quickly, please. Ten’ll be back in less than twenty minutes.”

“So?” Yangyang says, bewildered at Kun’s urgency. “What does he care if we play with Lego here? Is it because you locked Louis Leon in the bedroom?”

“No--well, that won’t help, either. It’s because I’m trying to keep the place tidy, since Ten has that pet peeve about messes.”

“You don’t need to tell me that, I lived with him for over a year,” Guanheng says.

“Right. So we have to clean up before he sees."

"Ai ya, he won't care about some Lego. Plus, we're still using it. It's not like we won't clean up after we're done."

Kun frowns. "Yeah, but. He might still get a little annoyed. I don't want that."

Wow, overreaction much? Ten can be picky about cleanliness but he's not, like, militant with it. Yangyang has never seen him bothered by justifiable messes. But maybe he's more strict in the condo? To the point that Kun feels pressured to clean up so that Ten is met with a perfectly tidy home as soon as he opens the door? It’s hard to picture Ten so stringent. When Ten dormed with Guanheng, Guanheng’s desk was constantly stacked with empty pop cans, the debris of Guanheng, Yangyang and Dejun's gaming sessions, and Ten only really cared if he found any on the floor. If he thought the stash was starting to grow too unwieldy, he would just gather up a bagful to dump in the big recycling bin in the communal kitchen, something that always made Guanheng feel guilty but Ten honestly didn't seem to mind.

So what's up with Kun's preemptive fear of Ten's reaction?

Guanheng nudges Yangyang as they scoop up a few periphery piles of Lego that they probably wouldn’t have gotten to use today--a small compromise. Kun is in the kitchen, fixing Ten a salad, and Guanheng lowers his voice to avoid Kun’s bat ears to whisper, "Okay, I see what you mean now."

"Right?" says Yangyang, that question mark poking up in his head again like a gopher out of his burrow. "It's just weird, right?"

"Very strange indeed," Guanheng agrees. “He’s nervous about something, I guess.”

“I thought he might be trying to not piss Ten off because he was feeling guilty about something, but I’m not sure anymore. It honestly could just be Ten being pushy about getting his own way.”

“True, Kun ge does let Ten hyung walk all over him.”

“But he seems really happy otherwise, so I don’t know. And Ten is--like, he’s not the naggy type at all.”

“Right! Shouldn’t it be Kun ge who’s the nagging one of the relationship?” Guanheng rubs his chin. “I think your first hunch is right. Kun ge must have made Ten hyung mad about something, and is trying to stay on his good side.”

“Okay, right, but it’s not like he’s been acting weird for a few days. When I think about it, it’s been, like, weeks, probably.”

“Uhh,” Guanheng shrugs. “How long can Ten hyung hold a grudge?”

Evidence showed that Ten Lee could hold a grudge between twenty-four hours and several months. Granted, it wasn’t so much angry resentment as Ten just teasing, but his feelings were capricious and biased: the length of the grudge depended just as much on the person as the offensive act itself, just as much as Ten’s mood that given day. Yangyang could show up on his doorstep with a dead body that needed to be buried and Ten would only be pissed if he’d already put on a sheet mask for the night, but once Yangyang had accidentally jostled Ten’s arm while Ten was working on a charcoal drawing, and for the next month he wouldn’t stop bringing up Yangyang’s “sloppy elbows.” There’s no way to backwards engineer the nature of Kun’s offense just by knowing the length of the grudge; Yangyang would need way more information.

But that’s so troublesome. He’d have to care enough to do some digging, and Yangyang’s way more interested in the Batmobile right now. Chenle said he knew a specific set of tags to use on Instagram posts that would take advantage of the app’s algorithm, so, if Yangyang bagged enough traction, maybe it’d result in the Lego company gifting him some free swag. Because his parents are big-time business moguls in China, Chenle knew all these crazy branding tricks, and Yangyang’s been dying to try them out. (When Yangyang asked why golden-spoon Chenle of all people cared about getting free merch, Chenle had said it was the “principle of the thing.”)

“Kun ge,” Yangyang calls. “Can we borrow your fancy camera? I want to shoot progress photos of our work.”

“Sure,” Kun calls back. “It’s in my backpack. By the cat bed.”

Yangyang retrieves the bag and digs out Kun’s new digital SLR camera, snug in its own faux leather case. A couple of items also tumble out by mistake, caught against the case strap--a three-colour click pen, a pair of sunglasses, lip balm, a scrap of notepaper. Guanheng picks up everything to return to the backpack, but his attention fixes on the loosely-folded note.

“Oh, hoh,” he says, leering. “What do we have here?”

The note is written in Kun’s sophisticatedly sloppy hand: a list, short and sweet.

No door slamming
No keyboard playing after 1am (unless on headphones)
No singing in shower after midnight
Walk softly!!
Chew quieter
Avoid messes
STOP NAGGING
JUST! BE!! CHILL!!!

“Jackpot,” Guanheng says, waggling his eyebrows. Yangyang laughs, but immediately cringes, darting a worried glance to the kitchen where Kun is still chopping veggies, humming a Jay Chou song.

“You think these are their house rules?” Yangyang asks in a whisper.

“What else could it be?” says Guanheng.

“But they’re only rules for Kun ge?”

“I don’t know, they’re kind of universal,” mutters Guanheng. “Could apply to Ten hyung too.”

“Just be chill, with multiple exclamation marks? Stop nagging? Ten?”

“Wellllll, you’re probably right,” says Guanheng, pushing his lips to the side. “Anyway, you just wanted to figure out why Kun ge was acting like that, right? So there you go, we were right. They’re trying to curb Kun ge’s bad roommate habits. Mystery solved, Watson.”

And that’s true enough. They return Kun’s backpack to rights, snap a bunch of artsy shots of the Batmobile with his camera, and show Kun their photos. Kun approves of most of them and promises to do some colour adjustments before sending the photos to Yangyang and Guanheng later. Ten arrives home, greets everyone, and barely even glances at the scattered piles of Legos on the floor before turning a baleful eye to Kun.

“Where are the babies?”

“I had to lock them in the bedroom,” Kun says apologetically. “We didn’t want them playing with the Lego.”

“Oh, okay,” says Ten. He points at the salad bowl in Kun’s hands. “Mine?”

“For you,” says Kun, handing it over.

“Thanks, lao po,” Ten says. He makes a beeline towards the recliner, still pushed against the wall, and drops down onto it with a massive sigh. “If the floors at the studio end up permanently warped because of the flooding, I’m going to be pissed. God, now the entire rehearsal schedule is going to be screwed up.” He takes out his phone and swipes at the screen quickly. “Kuuun, can you help me rearrange my calendar?”

“Sure,” Kun yells from the kitchen. “When you get confirmation the pipe is fixed.”

“Ugh. Right.”

Kun comes out and offers Ten a bottle of iced tea. He says, “Sorry about the mess.”

“What? That?” Ten asks, nodding to the Lego. “Whatever. Hey, I have the rest of the afternoon free now. Let’s go to that indoor skydiving place! You’ve been wanting to go for a while now, right?”

This is how Yangyang finds himself in the backseat of Kun’s car, sitting behind the passenger seat, trying not to wince everytime Ten brakes too fast as he gracelessly but doggedly drives them to the recreational centre. The little model airplane hanging from the rearview mirror swings wildly, as if caught in a tiny, invisible tornado. Guanheng, sitting beside Yangyang, has a better view of Kun riding shotgun, and is flicking up fingers every time he sees Kun hold back comments about Ten’s driving skill. Yangyang watches with dread as Guanheng’s count ticks from nine to ten, then starts again on the thumb of his left hand. Guanheng gestures to Yangyang and mouths, “You keep track of the tens digit.”

“Oh, whoops, I missed the turn,” says Ten, nearly stopping in the middle of the road. “Yah, don’t say anything Kun! I know how to turn back.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Kun grits out. His knuckles gripped on the edge of his seat are completely bloodless.

Damn, Yangyang thinks, impressed. You’re trying really hard to be chill, Kun ge. Good job.

“Does that sign say left turns only allowed at certain hours?” says Ten, leaning forward to squint at the upcoming street sign. “Kun, can you read it? I’m not wearing my contacts.” A car behind them honks at them to speed up. Ten honks back. “I’m trying to drive safely here! I’m at the speed limit! Asshole. Ugh, I’ll just keep going forward. It’s fine if we’re a little late for the reservation.”

“Ten…” starts Kun. He swallows audibly. “Ah, never mind.”

Guanheng elbows Yangyang; he’s already nearly done counting his left hand. Yangyang dutifully holds up one finger.

--

Hours later, he returns to his current two-person dorm with Dejun in, thankfully, one piece, just a little achy and a lot windswept. And, oddly pensive. They’d all had a great time skydiving--Yangyang especially since it was his second time, and he found it much easier this go around. It was hilarious watching Kun and Guanheng make all the same gut-heaving mistakes that he’d made his initial attempt, Kun screwing up his face in concentration as he tried to keep his body steady against the rush of wind, and Guanheng just hollering madly as he flipped over and over, half on purpose, half not. Ten had been amazing at it, as expected, even more fluid in the air than last time, which he had claimed was also his first try, but Yangyang wasn’t sure he believed him. After balancing a full two-minutes in artificial freefall (Yangyang had lasted 1:04, Guanheng 36 seconds, and Kun a sad 25 seconds), Ten had hopped out of the chamber to the staff's impressed applause and had stuck his tongue out at Kun.

“It’s not a competition,” Kun had said, rolling his eyes, and Ten cheekily replied, “Anything can be a competition.” Kun had opened his mouth as if to argue back, but snapped it closed just as quickly, and looked away, embarrassed. Ten’s eyes had flickered, an emotion flashing across his face so fast that Yangyang couldn’t process it, other than the vaguely disquieting feeling that it’d left in him. The teasing was normal. Kun’s long-suffering was normal. The, what, two milliseconds of Ten looking--troubled? triumphant?--it could have been Yangyang’s imagination. Or, even if he hadn’t imagined it, not worth ruminating over.

Only… only it doesn’t sit quite right with Yangyang. Because it isn’t just that one fleeting thing, is it? That microexpression was a reaction to Kun backing off from instigating Ten, which Yangyang is realizing is another display of the new leaf Kun is trying to turn. It’s this example, plus Kun’s list of rules, plus Kun having to move into the smaller bedroom, plus the fact that they’re two months into a living arrangement that had once, apparently, ended in unmitigated disaster. All of these little minor nothings piece together to a picture that is very much something: to continue living together successfully, compromise is necessary, and Kun is the one bearing most, if not all, of the burden.

Does Ten have a list of rules to follow to maintain harmony at home? Does Ten have to procrastinate less in order to appease Kun’s proactive nature? Does Ten have to humour Kun’s lame dad jokes and pretend to be interested in whatever gadget-of-the-month that catches Kun’s fancy? Kun loves cooking but hates the chores associated with cooking, so does Ten keep them stocked with groceries and offer to clean up afterwards? Ten can wash dishes, but Yangyang can’t really picture him exercising forethought about their fridge inventory. In fact, knowing Ten, if Kun gave him a rule list, he’d read it once and toss the paper away a minute later. If he even had a list in the first place. Kun’s the one with the personality that worked well with rules, not Ten. Kun’s the one who likes caring for others to the point that it’s almost a fault (Dejun once called him “a masochist with kindness”), and who would a person like that most cater to, if not force of nature Ten Lee? Ten Lee who, despite the careless front he puts up, most definitely likes getting his own way?

It just doesn’t seem fair.

And Yangyang--well, Yangyang is close to both of them, but if he has to choose, and his answer gets to remain private, and he gets some sort of reward for admitting it, he’d say he’s closer to Ten than he is to Kun. Because Ten was Yangyang’s student mentor for a full school year, after all, and they have a lot more in common, and their minds kind of operate on similar wavelengths, too. Ten dotes on Yangyang more than Yangyang’s own sister does. So Yangyang’s defensiveness of Kun absolutely can’t be traced to him being biased. It’s just that someone has to watch out for Kun, sometimes. Kun does so much to take care of the rest of them, but who’s the one taking care of Kun?

Last September, in the second semester of Yangyang’s first year at uni, somehow he managed to acquire a stalker. He hadn’t known she was a stalker at first--he’d thought she just happened to have a schedule that coincided with his. But he started noticing her more and more in his periphery, and she seemed to be standing closer to him each time. Worse, she’d bump into him off-campus too, and also on weekends. Yangyang didn’t even know her name, but was too scared to confront her. It was only when Mark noticed her lurking around the edge of one of their pick-up basketball games that Yangyang learned the truth. She was a stalker. The year before, she’d tailed after Mark for a bunch of months, and he was about to report her, but she’d abruptly lost interest in him and so he hadn’t. Seeing her again actually made Mark frown. Mark! Yangyang had never seen Mark frown before!

So they’d gone to campus security together and reported her, and she backed off a bit, but didn’t go too far. Yangyang did his best to tolerate it, but over time, it got increasingly difficult to ignore her presence. She persisted through September, then into October too. It came to a head during the quicksand weeks of midterm exams, when Yangyang was stressed out of his mind, had slept eight hours over three days, and had chugged two Red Bulls that morning instead of eating breakfast. He was cramming for his economics test in the corner of the Engineering building caf, ignoring his stomachache, when she’d appeared beside him, lowered her meal tray, and sat down. It gave him such a nasty shock that for once, instead of fleeing, he’d wanted to scream at her.

But he hadn’t needed to. Kun was suddenly there, poking at her to get up and asking her to sit somewhere else. She’d argued back, unwilling to budge, but he wouldn’t give up. Their voices rose; heads swiveled around to stare; Yangyang shrank back behind the cover of his macroeconomics textbook, wishing more than anything that he could just go back to bed. The argument stretched on painfully--shredding up Yangyang’s stomach so much that the only thing keeping him back from asking Kun to just leave it alone was the look on Kun’s face. He was so angry. Not pissed-at-Ten angry, not exasperated-by-Yangyang angry, but deeply, genuinely livid. Eventually, that girl realized it too: against the force of that honed, steady fury, she would not win. She’d slunk off, cursing at Kun under her breath. Kun watched her go, then sat down, took Yangyang’s notebook, and quizzed Yangyang on growth models as they'd originally planned. The whispers buzzing around them turned away, back towards their original conversation bubbles.

For weeks after that, ugly rumours about Kun were posted on university forums, under various posts on the SISA’s Facebook page, even once on a bulletin board in the Physics building, where Kun took a lot of classes. Yangyang knows about that one only because he glimpsed the poster back at the dorm, half-scrunched, tucked among the textbooks in Kun’s open backpack. Kun never gave the light of day to any of these rumours, never spoke to Yangyang about it, but they both knew where the harassment originated. That month, Kun stepped down from his SISA presidency early, and said he wouldn’t run again next year. He’d said it was because he needed more time to focus on his thesis, which could be true enough, but there was barely a month left of the school year, so why not just stick it out till then? Yangyang still thinks it was due to the rumours. Kun hadn’t wanted to put the SISA in a tough spot, so he gracefully removed himself from the spotlight. Yangyang couldn’t convince him to change his mind. It made Yangyang feel awful, but there was nothing he could do other than to report the hate comments whenever he saw them.

Kun’s reputation was impeccable though. The rumours rang out in so many directions, but didn’t find enough of a foothold, and so gradually faded to obscurity. The university gossip machine churned on and found new fodder to chew. Yangyang never saw that girl again, and neither did Mark. Yangyang asked Kun once, if he still had to deal with her, and he’d flapped his hand and replied, “That person? Ah, don’t worry about it.” Only with time and reflection did Yangyang realize that this was an answer, but also not an answer.

This is why Yangyang will always be defensive of Kun. Kun stood up for Yangyang, took a huge hit for him, continued to deal with issues behind the scenes, and did it all because “she shouldn't behave that way.” Kun complained about a lot of things, but never, ever complained about that campaign she launched against him. If Yangyang hadn’t been involved in it from the start, he’d be hard pressed to tell if Kun even knew about the rumours. But of course Kun knew; he was one of the most cognizant people Yangyang had ever met. He’d silently accepted the consequences because he believed he’d done the right thing: faced with the repercussions of a choice made to protect someone else, Kun kept his grievances to himself. It was the first time that Yangyang really thought of Kun as someone cool.

If Kun resolutely wants to be the perfect roommate/partner to Ten, then Yangyang is pretty sure he would try his best without fanfare. But how long could Kun keep this up without stressing himself into a heart attack, or worse, getting into a cataclysmic fight with Ten, which might lead to another Dark Age? If they broke up again, for real this time, Yangyang will be so, so, incredibly pissed. He barely survived their break with his sanity intact. If there’s something he can do to prevent it, he should do that, right? That’s what he and the others had concluded. So Yangyang should talk to Ten about Kun’s habit list. Right?

--

“Okay!” Chenle says, clapping his hands twice. “I’m calling this meeting of the Fresh-faced Youths Gossip Club to order!”

“I told you not to call it that,” Renjun whines.

“Then what should I call it? You never suggested another name!”

“It’s called ‘Friends catching up over coffee!’ What’s the matter with you?”

“Oh, so then I guess you don’t have any new gossip to share?”

“No, I do,” Renjun says, and takes an extra long sip of his coffee, while Yangyang and Chenle wait, then lowers his drink, exhaling with satisfaction. “But I’ll wait my turn,” he finishes, smiling beatifically.

A long-standing internal debate Yangyang has struggled with, ever since these semi-regular coffee-related hangouts started this semester, is who is more annoying, Renjun or Chenle? For the first few months of their acquaintance, ever since Chenle stormed into the SISA office that random afternoon, with Renjun meandering in curiously behind him, Yangyang thought the obvious answer was Chenle, because Chenle wears being annoying like a badge of honour. But as time wore on, Yangyang found himself doubting. Because Chenle’s brand of annoying was the type that made your temper flare up fast, then die down pretty fast too. Whereas Renjun--well, Yangyang’s thoughts revolve around Renjun more than he would ever admit, replaying snarky things Renjun says, the loud bursts of his laughter, the way his cheeks rounded whenever he smirked. The memory of Renjun lingered with Yangyang long after the physical entity left, and Yangyang finds that extremely, extremely annoying.

“Okay, I’m going first,” Chenle announces. “I have important news about my son. He finally bought a new phone! His old one kept shutting down randomly so I dragged him to the mall and forced him to buy a new iPhone. It’s not the newest gen, but he got too panicky, so I let him get the 11.”

“Wow,” Renjun says, rolling his eyes. “You must be very proud.”

“I am,” says Chenle, ignoring Renjun’s sarcasm. “He even let me set up the new phone, you know!”

“He let you?” Yangyang asks, shocked that Mark would be so trusting. He should know better by now.

“Well, he didn’t try hard enough to stop me, so that’s, that’s as good as permission. Here,” Chenle reaches into his pocket to extract his own phone. “I made him a Douyin account. You guys should write down the password, so if you ever take videos of Mark, you can upload them on his account.”

“And what if he finds out,” says Renjun, taking another loaded sip of his drink.

“As if he’s ever going to check that account anyway! He’ll never notice!” Chenle argues. He brandishes his phone, the notes app out. “Write it down, just in case. You never know when you might end up taking some prime Mark video content. Better to be prepared than regretful, as my dad says.”

“Your dad?” Renjun accuses. “Your dad who lost track of you regularly in public places when you were a kid? Which led to you breaking your leg while your mom was on vacation that one time?”

“Yeah, so? That was my choice.”

Renjun shares an unimpressed glance with Yangyang. Yangyang’s heart thuds a little heavier just for that one second, then goes back to its normal rhythm. “Yangyang, please tell me you have something more interesting than Mark Lee finally upgrading his five-year-old phone. If not, I’m going to seriously wonder about the company the three of us keep.”

Chenle scoffs. “Didn’t Donghyuck throw one of your aromatherapy diffusers down the hall like a molotov cocktail a few days ago? Mark told me it stunk up the entire floor.”

“Yangyang, you go,” Renjun says, smiling that customer service smile again.

“Right, umm,” says Yangyang. “I mean, I don’t have anything that interesting, it’s been pretty quiet lately. But--!” he says hurriedly, when Renjun heaves a disappointed sigh, “--uh, I guess I noticed something interesting with Kun ge and Ten hyung. I started noticing Kun ge acting weird, like, very quiet? I didn’t know why. And the other day, in his backpack, me and Guanheng found a written list of rules that he has to follow in order to live peacefully with Ten hyung.”

Renjun and Chenle perk up noticeably; Chenle actually rubs his hands together in anticipation. “Oh, please, yes, this is already so good.”

“It isn’t anything you wouldn’t already expect,” Yangyang says carefully. “Like, um, stuff like, ‘don’t make so much noise around the house,’ and ‘tidy up after yourself,’ but yeah, he wrote, ‘Be more chill,’ with several exclamation points.”

Chenle laughs so hard coffee dribbles out of his mouth. “My god,” he coughs, alternating between more laughter and waterlogged hacking, “Be more chill? Jeez louise, Kun ge. I thought he couldn’t get more lame, but he outdoes himself again. Why do I suddenly feel so sorry for him? Was it Ten hyung’s idea? It’s gotta be, right? Wow, why didn’t I hear about this before? Have I really been slacking so much with my Kun ge field notes?”

“And?” Renjun asks eagerly. “How well is Kun ge following these rules?”

“Pretty well, I think. Like, I can tell he’s really trying. I’m kind of--impressed? No, not that. But then again--maybe a bit.” He falters, unsure of how much he should reveal, since it’s really none of Renjun and Chenle’s business, but then again it’s none of Yangyang’s business either, and isn’t that the point of this club, to talk about other people’s business? Renjun’s gaze on him is gentle yet relentless and Yangyang’s dumb mouth just opens on its own. “But maybe he’s trying too hard? We went out to an indoor skydiving place a few days ago and Ten hyung drove us there. We nearly crashed into a parked car and Kun ge didn’t even scold him.”

“Wooow,” Chenle says, whistling. “He must have really been holding himself back. Do you guys know? Once--one time Kun ge scolded me just because I texted him while he was driving. Obviously I wasn’t expecting him to check his messages while he was on the road, I just didn’t see the point in waiting for him? But, but then he called me on bluetooth all mad, because he thought it was some emergency. He said it was ‘too distracting’ hearing all the buzzing.”

“Wait, knowing you--how many messages did you send him?” Renjun asks.

One of Chenle’s shoulders lifts. “I mean, I wasn’t counting. Maybe fifty or sixty.”

Never mind. It’s Zhong Chenle who’s the most annoying of course.

“Ah, but it’s kind of romantic, isn’t it? Kun ge’s mission?” Renjun says, leaning back in his chair. “The things people are willing to do for love.”

The word “love” slipping carelessly out of Renjun’s mouth like that makes Yangyang’s skin itch. What does Renjun think about love, anyway? Would Renjun like it if someone bent over backwards to meet his every need, to the detriment of their personal comforts? Probably he would. Renjun makes no mystery of the fact that he knows what he deserves, and is proud of it. What would even be Renjun’s criteria for a perfect roommate/partner? Yangyang’s stomach squirms; he forces still his vibrating leg.

“But, it’s just,” he hears himself say, with zero clearance from his brain, “Is that too much? Like, I get that people have to compromise to live together. Dejun and I did that too, when we dormed with Kun ge. But we never asked him to do as much as he’s doing now. We have to be tolerant too, otherwise how would that be fair? Because at a certain point, if one person does too much, it’d be like work, right? He has to be on all the time. And at home, you should be comfortable. You should be able to relax and be yourself. So--I mean--yeah.”

“Wow,” Chenle says, eyes wide. “You’re worried about him! You’re such a filial son, Yangyang--”

“Hey!” Yangyang interrupts. “You of all people can’t make parent jokes! Kun mentored you last semester! He’s your hyung too!”

“Kun ge’s not my hyung, are you kidding me?” Chenle recoils with exaggerated disgust. “He’s like--he’s like an uncle or something. Or my grandfather!” A teasing smile grows on his face. “And if grandpa Kun feels like putting himself through daily misery in order to keep the missus happy, then it’s just like my real grandparents’ relationship. I’m sure Ten hyung makes it up to him in…” his grin sharpens, “other ways.”

“Yah,” Renjun warns. “Zhong Chenle, I’m warning you. Stop speaking.”

“Why would I do that?”

“And besides, Yangyang has a point. If the two of them are so different that they can’t live together naturally, then maybe they shouldn’t be together in the first place.”

That idea drops through Yangyang like accidentally swallowing a too-big bite--his throat struggles to get it down. “No, that's not my point,” he protests. “They’re not that different, really. I mean, surface level they are, but… like, I think Ten hyung is just--I don’t know. Maybe he got overexcited after the first few suggestions, and kept on going, and Kun ge felt too awkward to say no? And we talked about it before, that Kun ge isn’t a great roommate, so it’s not like the suggestions on the list were bad, exactly. It’s just--I guess it just… seems kind of… strict,” Yangyang finishes feebly.

Renjun considers him for a moment. “Have you ever considered,” he asks mildly, “that Ten hyung doesn’t know about the list?”

Yangyang stares back. No, actually, he hadn’t.

--

Yangyang would like to submit for the record that the current Ten and Kun situation does not hold the majority share of his brain cell conglomerate. They’re two people Yangyang likes a lot and relies on at least a little, but at the end of the day, Yangyang has his own life to live, and that life is chock full with too much gaming, a healthy dose of procrastination, going to classes, eating, playing basketball, hanging out with friends, watching NBA games, trying not to think about Renjun in ways that edged a little too close into crush territory--which Yangyang simply does not have time for right now thank you very much, because lastly, he still has to study occasionally to keep up his GPA. His jie had threatened he wouldn’t be allowed to come home for the holidays if his grades dip too low--a patent lie, because Yangyang has his parents wrapped around his little finger and always would--but although he has no fear of losing a plane ticket back to Germany, he definitely can’t deal with his sister’s trademarked “I told you so.” So Yangyang plods through midterms like the good student he is and continues his ongoing side research project of finding the optimum balance between energy drink consumption and sleeping enough to avoid hallucinations. The next time he drops by Kun and Ten’s place, it’s over two and a half weeks later and Kun is MIA. Ten explains he’s on his first business trip with his engineering firm, which Kun had apparently touted as a whole big affair, even though he’s an intern and isn’t expected to do anything but stand there and nod in understanding as his seniors pointed at things.

It was a short, three-day excursion to an aeronautical part production facility in Busan, but Kun, beleaguered by “I’m a new recruit and I must make a good impression or they will fire me immediately” nerves, had overpacked, filling up two full-size suitcases and a large backpack. Ten had taken charge to unpack and repack for him, culling down the volume of unnecessary items to a select handful that maybe, possibly, on the off chance, might be useful, like the wooden massage roller Kun’s mom had foisted on him last year.

The leftover suitcase and backpack are still on the floor by the couch, with Louis snuggled inside the haphazard bundles of clothing, and Leon scratching at the thick linen of the backpack.

“They miss him, I think,” Ten explains, giving both cats a pat on the head with his foot. He melts further into the couch, waving an indolent hand towards Kun’s things. “So I just left his stuff open for them.”

“What time’s he back tonight?” Yangyang asks, scrolling through Netflix on Ten’s iPad.

“Around seven.”

“Aw, it must have been nice to have the place to yourself for a few days though,” Yangyang says.

“Yeah, it was,” Ten agrees. “But to be honest, I wish he hadn’t gone.”

“Oh? You miss Kun ge too?”

Ten squints at Yangyang, unimpressed. “I don’t have the chance to miss him at all. He hasn’t been gone very long and he calls me at night. And sends me photos during the day. It’s more that I don’t trust his coworkers.”

“What? Why?”

“I went to a dinner party with his company after he got hired. There were maybe, like, fifteen other employees there, and I counted four that wanted to sleep with him.”

“No way,” says Yangyang, putting down the iPad. “You’re exaggerating. How can you tell?”

Ten’s expression turns even more unimpressed. “Of course I can tell. It’s how they look at him.”

“So... you think they’ll hit on him on this trip?”

“I’m pretty sure they already hit on him at the office, just too subtly for Kun to pick up. He just says they’re being friendly.” Ten sneers. “I don’t think they’ll go too far during regular work settings, but on business trips, people usually go out and drink together, right? I guess they already do that here--ugh, but it’ll be more informal, because they’re in a different city.” He tugs at an earring absently, eyes drifting out of focus.

Yangyang picks at one of the rips in his jeans. “If you’re, uh, worried. Kun ge wouldn’t--” he starts, but hesitates, feeling utterly awkward. Ten’s attention snaps immediately back to him.

“Of course he wouldn’t,” Ten moans. “I just don’t want him to have to deal with those uncomfortable situations in the first place.”

“Oh, so it is jealousy after all,” Yangyang laughs.

Ten glares at him and snatches his iPad from Yangyang’s lap. “Give me that, you’re taking too long. I’ll pick the movie.”

But barely time into the film (The Old Guard, for Ten’s fascination with Charlize Theron), Ten’s cell phone buzzes on the coffee table, lighting up with a picture of a mountain by the sea. For someone who says he doesn’t miss Kun, he sure dives for the phone rather quickly.

“Hi hi,” answers Ten in Korean. “Yep. You’re on the train? Okay. Wait, I’ll put you on speaker.” He presses the screen. “Yangyangie’s here, we’re watching a movie. Say hi, Yangyang.”

“Hey Kun ge,” calls Yangyang, pausing the movie stream. “How was Busan?”

“It’s sooo nice here, my god,” says Kun’s voice, accompanied by the background noise of the humming train. “The mountains are so beautiful. I wish I had time to go hiking. The previous times I came I didn’t stay that long either.”

“Wait, wait. You went to Busan before?” Ten demands. “Without me?”

“Uhhh,” says Kun. “Yeah, I went my first year in Korea, just to--how do I say it, just to see the country. And I also went once with Sicheng for a weekend, remember? It was, uh, during our break.”

“Right...”

“We’ll visit together next time,” suggests Kun. “Spend a week here or something. We can go to the beach.”

“Okay, you’re promising, then. No take-backs.”

“Of course not! Who do you take me for?”

Yangyang watches Ten trying to suppress his smile. “Yah, and did you buy me crab?”

“Fresh caught,” says Kun. “They wrap them up in leaves and pack them in a cute styrofoam container. We can’t let the cats get the box, they’ll shred it to pieces.”

“Okay. Oh, wait, let me show you.” Ten turns on his camera and swivels the phone towards the abandoned suitcase, where both cats are peacefully snoozing. “Look! They keep napping here during the day. I think they really miss you.”

“Wowww,” says Kun approvingly. Yangyang catches a blurry view of his face, adjusting his ear buds, the dark circles under his eyes almost purple under the train’s overhead lighting. “They know exactly how to leave the most amount of fur on my clothes. Very impressive, very impressive.” There’s a pause. “Sorry for leaving it all there. I’ll clean it up when I get back tonight.”

“No, Kunkun, I'll do it. You’re going to eat dinner with Yangyangie and me, take a long shower, and then go to bed early. I know you haven’t been sleeping well the past few days.”

“Really, I--”

“Kun! Stop, it’s fine!”

“Okay, okay, I get it. Ah, I should go, but I’ll see you soon.”

“Okayyy,” Ten sings. “I’ll order delivery for us. Noodles?”

“Yes please, thank you.”

“Okay, bye bye, see you.” Ten waves at the camera.

Kun waves back. “Bye bye.”

Ten’s frowning again, just a little, once he puts the phone down. Renjun’s voice rings out coyly in Yangyang’s head: “Just talk to him about it, dumbass. What’s the worst that could happen?” Logically, Yangyang wants to, but easier said than done. It’s daunting. What if Yangyang shrivels up out of awkwardness--becomes a corn husk of a human being? What if he cringes to death because they end up talking about emotions? What if he gets scarred finding out more about Ten and Kun’s private life than Yangyang ever wants to know? You can’t unlearn shit like that. While Yangyang can say that he’s slightly (just slightly) invested in the continued wellbeing of their relationship, he doesn’t actually want to involve himself in the mechanics of it. And on the other hand, what if they're both perfectly happy with what Kun's doing? How can Yangyang even judge? It’s not like he has a lot of experience with boyfriends.

“Yangyangie,” Ten says, flicking his gaze towards him, assessing. “You’ve lived with Kun. Have you noticed anything weird about him lately? Behaviour-wise.”

Oh god, thinks Yangyang. So he doesn’t have a choice in this after all.

“Uhh,” Yangyang says. “Like what kind of things…”

“Ai ya, if you don’t know, then never mind,” says Ten.

“No, wait. Actually, um. I know what you mean,” confesses Yangyang. “The tiptoeing around and stuff, right? Yeah, I've noticed. Kun ge’s not exactly subtle.”

“No, he’s not,” Ten agrees. “Was he like this last year, when you guys lived together?”

“Um, no. Not really. But it’s not like he was trying to impress me and Dejun.”

“And he wants to impress me?” Ten asks. For some reason, he sounds sad about it.

“Well… yeah. Guess so.”

Ten groans, head thunking on the back of the couch. “He’s so stupid,” he sighs.

“Why, are you upset?”

Ten rolls his eyes. “Upset? At Kun? How could I be upset? He’s a thousand times easier to live with than I remembered. A completely different person than who he was four years ago. He’s never made me feel genuinely frustrated with him since we moved in. How could I be upset with someone who tries so hard to meet my every need?”

Yangyang purses his lips. “Yeah, sounds like you're pissed.”

Ten scoffs. “Obviously I am. You know, it makes me sound crazy. I can barely explain it to myself. If I ask him, Kun, how are you such a good roommate now? You’re driving me a bit insane with how you’re acting. Can you just go back to how annoying you used to be? Loud noises and hoarding and all that crap?”

“Yeah that--wait, hyung, are you sure you even want that? Sounds like a rough deal to me,” Yangyang jokes.

Ten smirks. “The sad thing is that I’ve thought about it a lot, and I do. That’s completely dumb, isn’t it?”

“I mean, it’s not that dumb,” shrugs Yangyang. “You want him to be happy, too. It’s a good thing.”

Ten looks away. “Yeah,” he says quietly. After a moment, he says, “I don’t know how to bring it up to him though. He’s satisfied with what he’s doing, I can tell. Or at least self-righteous about it, ugh. I don’t want him to think I’m mad at him or anything! I just want him to be himself.”

“Just say that, then. Or, you know, you can bring up his list. Uh, do you know about his list?”

So Renjun was right: Ten did not know about Kun’s list. But in very short order, he does know about Kun’s list, and he immediately runs into Kun’s bedroom to find Kun’s regular bag. Not even a minute later, he comes back, brandishing that folded piece of paper like an indictment, trying but failing to read much of it. He shoves it at Yangyang and Yangyang dutifully reads through the entire thing. The list is the same as the last time Yangyang saw it, with only that short list of items, but by the time he’s done, Ten’s eyes are shining over like wet glass.

“Oh my god, are you going to cry?” Yangyang yelps.

“No!” Ten protests, hurriedly wiping at his eyes. “You know what? Movie night’s over. We’ll finish it next time. Kun will be home soon, so I’m kicking you out.”

It’s barely even six o’clock, and Kun isn’t due for an hour yet. Yangyang opens his mouth to ask about dinner, but at the scathing glare on Ten’s face, reconsiders. There’s always ramen back at the dorm, anyway.

He returns to campus. Dejun’s curled inside Yangyang’s beanbag chair (nowhere near as comfortable as the sectional couch) reading Twilight for the nth time, when Yangyang lets himself into their dorm. He looks up, surprised. “Hey. I thought you had movie night with Ten hyung.”

“It got derailed,” says Yangyang, flopping down on his bed. “He got emo for Kun ge and needed some privacy.”

“Huh,” says Dejun. “So they’re not on the path to imminent break-up?”

“Guess not.”

“So that means you’ll shut up about their relationship now, right? Because it was getting ridiculous.”

Yangyang flips him off. “If I weren’t here to do the heavy lifting, then it’d be up to you to keep tabs on Kun ge’s love life, so be thankful to me, okay?”

Dejun shudders. “You’re right, it’s better that it’s you. It’d be too dangerous for me to get in between the two of them. They’re afraid to mess with you.”

"Because I'm smarter than both of them."

"Don't think that's it."

“Then they just adore me too much,” simpers Yangyang.

“God knows why,” Dejun mutters.

“Because they see me as a cute and lovely little brother,” says Yangyang. And, because that’s enough sincerity out of him for the day, he lures Dejun away from his stupid book and proceeds to eviserate him on Tekken.

--

The jokes about Kun and Ten being Yangyang’s dads started early on. Rewind a year and seven months. Yangyang winces now picturing the way he used to be--a shy, scrawny, scrap of a man-but-still-a-teenager, in his baggy hoodie, ripped jeans, and brand new Timberlands, standing at the edge of Seoul University’s campus, thumbing wildly at the campus map downloaded on his phone. He couldn't have looked more freshman or foreigner if he'd tried. A sea of people churned around him like waves against rock, all eager to get where they needed to go, which was no different than him, only he couldn’t because he was lost. There was chatter in every direction, names being called, excited bursts of friends finding friends, laughter whipping up and then fading away in the din; elbows and shoulders occasionally knocked into Yangyang, a solitary statue paralyzed with indecision, a poser kid who convinced himself he wanted the challenge of going to university in a new country and was now paying the price of his hubris.

Yangyang’s parents hadn’t wanted him to go to Korea. They didn’t see what he would get from schooling there that he couldn’t get in Europe, or the US, or even Taiwan. His older sister, the only person who could never be swayed by Yangyang’s innocent act, thought he was just looking for trouble. Yangyang wasn’t looking for trouble per se. He knew it would be troublesome, that it’d be the hardest thing he’d do in his life thus far, but something inside him pulled at him to go. Although he didn’t think he ever achieved full koreaboo status, for sure he had been into Korea media a lot the past few years: k-pop, k-indie, underground rappers, and of course, k-dramas. He put enough effort into his gymnasium Spanish classes to get 9 points but got a high 14 points for Korean. When it was time to apply to university, he dutifully sent in applications to schools in Germany, London, and National Taiwan University, and then secretly sent one to Seoul National University too. To his shock, he got into SNU as well as NTU, and by the time his parents found out, Yangyang had already made up his mind.

He couldn’t blame his family for their reservations. Of course it was a huge risk. Huge, and in their eyes, unnecessary. But it wasn’t unnecessary to Yangyang. Ever since he woke up from his shoulder surgery after that basketball accident, he knew in his bones where he was meant to go. It sounded crazy, but somehow, during that gauzy delirium of anaesthetic recovery, he saw with supernatural clarity an image of him in Korea, with new friends, walking with a confidence he didn’t have before. He saw himself laughing. His hair was dyed pink. The sky was blue. There was music in the background. When his mind finally sobered, he didn’t remember the song played, nor the conversation he’d been having. But the feeling of Korea stayed, and called to him like a siren.

He had been scared but also not scared. How do you describe that flavour of fear you get when you’re doing something you know you need to do? It’d be the first time he would live on his own, and he decided to do it in a country in which he had no roots. His Korean was functional, but nowhere near native fluency--thank god that there were lots of business courses available in English, too. The time difference would make it hard for him to call home. He couldn’t cook for shit, so he’d be reliant on the school cafeteria for most, if not all his meals. He would have to be one hundred percent self-motivated for every element of his life, not just academics. At night he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, cracking his knuckles over and over, not even really worrying about everything that could go wrong, but simply mulling in anticipation of the oncoming agony. But his thoughts always returned to that dream like a magnetic pull, that vision of his future self, the Liu Yangyang that he wanted to be, and the knots inside his stomach would loosen. Sometimes a man just had to take a chance to try something new for himself. He wanted to grow up, and this experience would, if nothing else, force him to stand on his own two feet.

His journey to Korea wasn’t smooth. He was supposed to arrive the previous week, have some time to settle in and get all his course materials in order, but at the last minute, his grandmother in Taiwan had gotten sick, and his mom, fearing the worst, had whirlwind-packed up the entire family to Taipei and they’d spent a few days in the hospital, until the doctor said his grandmother’s condition was finally looking up. Yangyang was shipped off to Seoul from Taiwan, which, while a much shorter flight, was also much more harried. He arrived the day before the semester officially started with one less suitcase than he’d planned, and was still kind of reeling from everything that had happened the past week. His body, lagging two timezones behind, was still operating on Central European Time. Now he was standing disoriented at his new campus, because he’d never had a good sense of direction, and he was going to be late for his first class, and he knew he should just ask someone for help, but he still wasn’t that confident in his Korean, and he hated talking to strangers anyway, so he just couldn’t seem to dredge up the nerve.

“Hey, are you okay? Are you lost?” someone said, tapping him on the shoulder, and Yangyang startled. He turned to see an earnest-looking guy in an oversized jean jacket, frames, hair a faded blue, messenger bag slung across his chest, exuding an easy confidence layered under a friendly disposition. Yangyang's high school stereotype radar, still unwittingly active, pinged GOODY-TWO-SHOES with a hint of STUDENT COUNCIL NERD. But he was Yangyang’s knight in shining armour, arriving in the nick of time. Yangyang didn't do well with starting conversations out of the blue, but the guy's tone was so encouraging he felt himself respond naturally.

“I don’t know where my class is,” Yangyang said in Korean, the best he could. The guy tilted his head, and smiled.

“Your accent is familiar,” he said. “Are you Chinese?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Yangyang. “You can tell? I was born in Taiwan.”

The man’s smile broadened and a dimple peeked out of his left cheek. “I’m Qian Kun,” he said in Mandarin. “I’m from Fujian. I’m a fourth year. I can walk you to your class.”

So Kun walked Yangyang to class, introducing him to various buildings and leaving him directions to his subsequent class too, as well as his phone number in case Yangyang needed his help again. He told Yangyang to call him Kun ge if he felt like it, and seemed very pleased when Yangyang did. They parted ways and Yangyang had no plans to contact him again, except in dire emergencies. He came here to be independent! He was an adult! But he couldn’t deny that a small, quivering part of him had relaxed now that he had Qian Kun’s number in easy reach. There, he reassured himself. Day one wasn’t going so badly. Sure, you were helpless back there, but it actually turned out in your favour. Tomorrow you’ll know better. Survival is a learning process, and some luck doesn’t hurt.

Yangyang muddled through three courses and then a late lunch as he streamed an NBA game on his phone to decompress. He texted his family chat that he’d excelled in his first day of school, then dragged himself (after only two wrong turns) to the SISA office on the second floor in the Dure Cultural Centre. He didn’t really want to sign up for a mentor, but his mom, worried that he was going to spiral out into delinquency or asociality (or both) without a few guiding hands, had made him promise to at least check out the program. And Yangyang didn’t really have any other bright ideas for how to start making friends.

The door to the club office, decorated with polaroids, stickers, event posters, and a whiteboard doodled with greetings in an assortment of languages, was half-open when he arrived; Yangyang knocked and poked his head inside to see someone sitting at the last desk in the far corner of the cozy, cramped room, rifling furiously through its drawers. His head jerked up when he heard Yangyang’s knock and his eyes narrowed. Yangyang noted his sly features, the plethora of earrings dotting his ears, and the black vape pen (not on) tucked elegantly between his lips, which he plucked out to say, “Hi hi. New? Office hours are over for today.”

“Oh,” said Yangyang, awkward. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” the guy said, waving him in. “Since I’m here, anyway. What are you looking for?” His arm was still wrist-deep in a drawer, but his tone was amicable enough. There was a folded cardboard standee at the front of the desk that said PRESIDENT, written with black marker, in both Korean and English.

Yangyang cleared his throat. “I, um. I heard about the mentorship program. I’m a first year. In Business. Uh, I’m from Taiwan. But I moved here from Germany. So yeah. I don’t know anyone. Or much of campus at all, actually.”

“Oh, fresh,” the guy said, brightening. He opened another drawer and started digging through that. “There’s like this form that you can fill in, just some basic information about yourself, which helps us match you to someone you’ll get along with. I think there’s some pamphlet with FAQs too, but I don’t know where those are.”

There was a metal filing rack right on the desk that was neatly labeled with PROGRAM PAMPHLETS, but Yangyang didn’t mention it. This wasn’t his desk. Maybe this guy had a system.

“Oh wait! Found something! Finally,” the guy said, snatching out a glossy paperback book with a triumphant smirk. Which wasn’t an intake form at all. Yangyang saw the cover, surprised that the title was in Chinese: Nature Photography Made Easy! Small tips, big impact! The guy flipped through it, face glowing. “I fucking knew it,” he muttered in English, which surprised Yangyang again. “I knew he was looking off something.”

“You speak English!” Yangyang said in English.

The guy laughed. “Oh, nice! You do too? Where did you say you were from again?”

But Yangyang was interrupted by the thunder of footsteps behind him. “Ten, there you are!” cried a newly familiar voice. “What are you doing to my desk? Get out!”

Ten’s grin stretched wide. He waved the book at Kun, who was striding into the office, cheeks puffed with irritation. “Look what I found, Kunkun. How interesting that you have this, when you said that you just had--what was it?--an innate eye for photography. You wanted that badly to impress me?” He pulled the book out of Kun’s reach as Kun tried to grab it.

“Shut up, Junhui gave that to me a few days ago! I wasn’t consulting it secretly or any--oh.” He blinked when he noticed Yangyang standing there, partially hidden by the ajar door. “Liu Yangyang, right? From this morning?”

“Hi, Kun ge,” said Yangyang, not sure if he should be relieved or not.

“Kun ge?!” Ten shrieked in delight, and Yangyang watched with growing amusement as Kun flushed pink. “Already?! He’s brand new! It’s the first day of school! Kun, come on!” In slightly accented Mandarin, he added, mockingly, “Sorry, my mistake, Kun ge.”

“Please get out of my office,” scowled Kun.

Ten flipped back to Korean. “It’s my office too. Or did you forget I’m also a member of the executive committee?”

“In name only! What do you do around here?!”

Without missing a beat, Ten said, “I’m mentoring this dude,” pointing at Yangyang.

“Me?” said Yangyang, so shocked he slipped into English.

“Him?” asked Kun incredulously, in Mandarin. “You are?”

“Yep,” said Ten, sounding completely sure of himself.

That was how it started. It took Yangyang another few weeks to learn that actually, no, Ten and Kun weren’t academic rivals dealing with incredible tension that may or may not be related to unresolved sexual frustration--they were actually a couple with incredible tension that may or may not be related to being rivals. They expressed their relationship so strangely. Prior to their Break, in the (as Sicheng put it) Second Stage of their Social Development (Sicheng had never taken a social psych course in his life), they rode the line between friends-out-of-necessity and secret-in-denial-soulmates: their average day-to-day consisted of a lot of teasing, some silent communication, and a near complete hands-off approach to each other’s interests. They had the kind of security and tacit understanding you found in friendships spanning years, only, like, during those years, you and your friend grew apart and developed different life trajectories? Occasionally they had days where their only dialogue was bickering, Ten haughty and Kun exasperated, and they sat at the same table like they barely knew each other. Extremely rarely did they indulge in PDA. But in more private settings--in someone’s dorm, or at the movie theatre, or in the battered residence kitchen at 11 pm, watching Kun stir his simmering bone broth--Ten would reach for Kun’s arm, Ten would call “Kunkun” with a softer tone, and Kun would smile at Ten like Ten was emitting sunlight. A few times Yangyang caught them in their own world, heads bent towards each other and talking without pause, arms pressed in a line, Kun’s hand gently resting on Ten’s wrist.

Yangyang picked up on all of this because his life suddenly became inundated with both of them. Being Ten’s mentee exposed Yangyang not only to the ins and outs of university life, Ten’s established social circle, and the local animal shelter, but also to Kun, who became a background fixture to Yangyang’s everyday while Ten took up centre stage. Although Yangyang spent the most amount of time with Ten, who honestly became sort of obsessed with Yangyang’s personal growth, Yangyang still saw Kun regularly. It turned out that Kun lived in the same residence building as Yangyang, just one floor down. They had individual rooms there, for which Yangyang was thankful. Unfortunately for them both, by the first week of October, the out of sight, out of mind cockroach problem in the building had exploded to untenable proportions, thanks to some dumbass first years who were leaving too much food lying out. Their entire wing of the building had to be fumigated, and the students there were scattered via first-come-first-serve basis for whatever empty dorm rooms remained on campus. In short order Yangyang found himself living with Kun and his arts-major friend Dejun in a three-person suite, closer to Ten’s residence, where he shared a room with Guanheng, a business student one year up from Yangyang. Yangyang’s new place, although bigger on the whole, was more crowded: Kun had so much crap, and Dejun liked decorating the walls, and often Kun and Ten’s other arts-major friend Sicheng would drop by to game or watch movies with them, so some of his stuff was just randomly hanging around too. Life swelled up with people and things, but as the days passed, Yangyang felt himself get increasingly comfortable with it, like wearing in a new pair of shoes: this shared space with Kun and Dejun, his classes, playing with Ten, making new friends, living in Seoul, and being on his own, but not alone. His mom would ask how he was doing, perpetually worried, but although university came with its ups and downs, on the whole, Yangyang could truthfully say that he was very happy.

Within that school year, Yangyang knew he changed a lot. He became more outgoing, more expressive, faster to say the jokes that fired in his head, bold enough to answer questions in class; he and Ten went to a salon and got their hair dyed--platinum blond for Ten, and a pastel pink for Yangyang, just like his dream self. On Facetime his jie cooed over how much more self-assured he was now, how she barely recognized him. Ten lent Yangyang one of his designer blazers and his mother teared up when she saw him in it, saying that her little boy was growing up too fast. Yangyang was pleased with his progress. He’d always known his own potential for growth, but just lacked the motivation to push himself. He had felt like a measly sprout for so long, twiddling his thumbs for the right conditions, the ones that would nurture him to just bloom and bloom. And Seoul’s conditions, as Yangyang’s post-anaesthesia dream had predicted, were ideal.

Living away from home in a foreign country was a big part of it, but Yangyang wasn’t dumb--he knew it was the company he kept too. Kun and Ten were, as embarrassing as it was to say, good influences on him. It’s not that Yangyang wouldn’t have been able to muddle his way into a respectable, cool, smart, kind adult without their help, but their presence sped up the process, like street signs marking the way. Yangyang watched Kun make speeches at SISA events and found himself wondering how he could have worded things better, run things smoother. He watched Ten enthrall the entire audience at a freestyle dance show and pictured himself on that stage too, keeping up with Ten’s every move, or even excelling past him. Ten caught the gleam of interest in Yangyang’s eye and signed him up for a modern pop dance class at the gym, and Yangyang loved it. When Kun stepped down from the SISA executive committee after that nasty stalker business, he casually asked if Yangyang would consider running one year. Yangyang said, “Maybe,” but in his heart he already knew he would. The only thing that Yangyang didn’t care to learn from them--or rather, Kun--was cooking. Well, whatever. He had better things to do with his time.

If the others want to make fun of Yangyang’s concern about their relationship’s well-being, then fine. Yangyang knows they all feel the same way: that Kun and Ten have become two pillars of strength for this group of wayward Chinese foreigners--strong alone but even stronger together. Dependable Kun to solve any practical issue under the sun, and laid-back Ten to encourage them to develop their own strengths and keep Kun from getting too bossy. Ten’s social skills and artistic talent inspired Yangyang to express his creativity too, and Kun’s adeptness at managing his time and energy made Yangyang more responsible just by osmosis. Both of them had relentless passion towards their interests, and Yangyang had the thought early on, that anything Ten or Kun could do, Yangyang could do as well. Not in a petty, competitive way. In a positive, self-assured way. Within a few months of their acquaintance, Yangyang couldn’t imagine the rest of his university tenure without them: Ten’s lilting voice, calling him Yangyang the same way his mother did, or Kun ge’s steady presence in the dorm, there whenever Yangyang needed homework help. To him, the two of them were practically a campus institution.

The thing that differentiated Yangyang from others like Dejun and Guanheng and Sicheng, though, was that they knew Ten and Kun before they got together. Yangyang hadn’t. His own concept of Ten and Kun as a couple was tied intricately with his concept of university, his thriving life in Seoul, and even his own sense of self, since he was absorbing their best traits. When the Dark Age started, the others were upset, but not shattered the way that Yangyang was, who had never seen them apart in that way. Yangyang would never compare it to dealing with divorce, but it was kind of in that vein: the foundation of the new world he’d built up had cracked down the middle. Something he had taken for granted was gone, and a piece of his innocence disappeared along with it. When they got back together, it was like he could believe in Santa Claus again. And maybe it was childish and naive of him, but Yangyang wanted them to stay together for a long, long time. Yangyang even believed they could, with way more conviction than any of the others.

Ten and Kun weren’t his school parents but Yangyang did think of them as his family. He was invested in them because they invested so much in him too. So if Yangyang could help preserve their happiness in any way, he should try, despite his awkwardness. For their sake as much as his own.

--

The morning after the aborted movie night, Yangyang gets a KKT message from Ten.

don’t worry anymore. fixed it lol

Yangyang assumes this means he and Kun talked things out. He gives himself a pat on the back for a job well done and for keeping his mooching access alive. The universe rewards him too that afternoon, when a scuttling crab emoji shows up in their chat group--Kun has invited them to dinner, to enjoy the seafood he bought from Busan. Yangyang and Dejun head over to the condo and let themselves in with the door code to find Kun at the stove in his frilly yellow apron, a half-joke-half-”actually, you do look good in that” gift from Ten last year, the one Kun only bothers to don when he cooks elaborate meals, which, since he became a contributing member of society, has been disappointingly rare. Ten is standing beside him, glass of red wine in hand, which he periodically sips or holds up for Kun to drink from.

“Hiiii,” Ten calls, waving them inside. “Sit down and get yourself a drink if you want. We’re almost done cooking. ”

“We?” Kun barks. “Where’s the we in this operation?”

“I’m keeping you hydrated, aren’t I?” Ten says. “I’m support!”

“You haven’t even set the table like I asked! What kind of support is that?”

“Yangyang can do it; I have a job here to taste test your food. Yangyang, set the table please?”

And because Yangyang is a person who knows not to bite the hand that feeds him, he obeys. He’s visited enough times now that he knows where to find everything, and he maneuvers around Ten, who’s oozing around Kun like sap, resting his cheek against Kun’s back until Kun jostles him away, or wrapping an arm around Kun’s waist until Kun has to turn around to reach for something. Kun is braving all this with uncharacteristic silence, but Yangyang can see that he’s trying to smother his grin. He’s pressing his lips so firmly together his fucking dimple is out!

Oh gross, Yangyang thinks. Whatever Ten did to “fix” things, it seems to have worked out pretty well.

By the time Sicheng and Guanheng arrive, the table is set, and Dejun and Yangyang are doing their mighty best to ignore the Category 3 signs coming from the kitchen as Kun and Ten put the finishing touches to the meal--but why does that involve so much giggling? Yangyang should have told Dejun to bring his earplugs, with an extra pair for Yangyang. Sicheng walks into the kitchen despite Dejun’s warnings and immediately walks back out, shaking his head.

“It’s, uh, humid in there,” he says, and Guanheng’s expression cracks open in horror.

“I told you,” mutters Dejun. “It’s going to ruin your appetite.”

“And that would be such a shame,” says Guanheng, as Ten and Kun finally emerge, Ten yelling at them all to sit down already.

The scent of the food is insane. They’ve steamed half the crabs and stir-fried the other half with ginger and green onions, and the fragrance of both turns everyone into panting dogs, heaving in happy breaths as Kun sets down the two shallow pots in the centre of the table, stacked with bright red shells and pointy legs. Yangyang picks out a crab and doesn’t even wait for the others, just immediately cracks it open, relishing the puff of steam that breaks out of the shell.

“Yangyang,” Ten warns. “Wait for everybody.”

“No,” says Yangyang, digging his fork into the meat.

“At least we know it’s good,” Kun sighs. He sets a crab on everyone’s plate, then his own plate, then finally sits down to eat.

“Yah, kids,” Ten says, “Let’s thank Kun ge for the meal!”

They’re all too busy eating, but there’s a vague chorus of thank-yous muttered into the crabs, accompanied by eager chewing and slurping.

“Ah, you’re very welcome, you’re very welcome, no need to say more,” says Kun sarcastically.

There’s very little talking after that. Only once Yangyang is on his way to finishing his second crab and his third bowl of rice does he actually bother to pay attention to the snippets of conversation gradually stemming up, now that all their stomachs are well on the way to satiety.

“--next debate, Yangyang?”

“Huh? What?” Yangyang asks. He’s trying to crack open the big claw of his crab, but it’s being stubborn and won’t break.

“Give me that,” Ten says, grabbing the claw and splitting it neatly with a nutcracker. “Still such a little kid sometimes, Yangyang. I asked you when your next debate is.”

“I’m just a substitute,” Yangyang says. “I don’t bother going unless someone calls in sick.”

“I know that. But you’re going to the next debate, right?”

“Me? Why?”

“What? He didn’t tell you?” Kun asks. “Chenle’s going back to China tomorrow for a family thing. So I thought you were going to sub in for him.”

Holy fuck, Zhong Chenle is nefarious. Yangyang has suspected for a while now that Chenle has been trying to push Yangyang into increasingly uncomfortable and tight-spaced situations with Renjun, and this proves it. The next event for the debate group Renjun and Chenle are in--and for which Renjun convinced Yangyang to join with barely any effort--is on Tuesday. In two days. Yangyang doesn’t even know the topics. Yangyang likes arguing and being right just as much as the next guy, but he, unlike his compatriots in the Fresh-faced Young Busybody--what was it again? whatever--is still a little awkward around strangers. So getting to prepare helps. Well, it helped during that one and only other time he subbed in and was put on Renjun’s team. Yangyang had kind of sucked, but maybe not as badly as the other team, because they’d won, and Renjun had beamed at Yangyang afterwards and said that such a smart, handsome, clever, eloquent, charismatic person surely deserved to be crowned MVP--and that person was himself, Huang Renjun. Yangyang had swallowed down his urge to punch Renjun, as well as his urge to ask Renjun out, and just said, “Next time, I’ll perform better than you.”

“Will you now,” Renjun had said softly, part challenge and part wonder, and Yangyang swore something ruptured in his guts, spilling heat everywhere.

And of course, Chenle stuck his stupid, smarmy, meddling face into the discussion right at that moment and made it a legit bet. Winner to get a humiliation prize from the loser. Yangyang isn’t even that fluent in Korean; he didn’t--and doesn’t--actually think he’s a match for Renjun. Their Debate Club is only for international students, as a fun activity to improve their Korean, and Renjun, who grew up bilingual, is the standout star, no competition. The only way to show him up is not with vocabulary, but with better arguments. Simple, succinct phrases, with strong points. Yangyang needs to prepare.

What kind of person even makes a rival within their own team? Yangyang’s life isn’t some shounen anime. Renjun is going to decimate him and it will be one hundred percent Chenle’s fault. Curses upon Zhong Chenle and all his future descendants.

“He must have forgotten to tell me,” Yangyang says, coughing around the crab meat Ten picked out for him. “But yeah, guess I’m in then. The next debate’s Tuesday night.”

“Oh, I can’t come,” Guanheng whines. “I have a group project meeting.”

“No one asked you to come.”

“I can’t come either, I have rehearsals,” says Dejun.

“No one asked you to come!” Yangyang says again.

“I can come,” Sicheng says. “I should support my precious didi.”

“Let us know how badly Yangyang does,” Guanheng chirps.

“You’re all banned from coming,” insists Yangyang, who wants absolutely no one at this table to witness his inevitable humiliation at the hands of Renjun, Renjun with his angelic face and barbed words.

“Kun, we should go too,” says Ten, ignoring Yangyang completely. “I’m sure the kids will be happy to see us.”

“Ah, maybe, I don’t know--I want to work on my presentation--”

“Already? But we should go cheer on Yangyangie--”

“Hey, Ten hyung, is there dessert?” Yangyang shouts, desperate to change the subject.

“Yangyang, never doubt me,” says Ten, shooting to his feet. “The answer is yes.”

The dessert, courtesy of Ten, is a tiramisu cake, three layers thick, which looks so decadent that Yangyang feels like he’s gaining weight just staring at it. As Ten serves everyone, he offers a thick slice to Kun, who politely shakes his head.

“Kun, come on,” Ten says plaintively, shoving the plate at him.

“All right, fine, fine,” says Kun, giving in. He takes the plate. “Because I’m in a good mood.”

Ten drops a kiss onto his head. “Good boy.”

Dejun clears his throat loudly, and Guanheng accidentally inhales his cake so fast that he starts choking.

“You two are being very cozy today,” Sicheng says, accusatory, while thumping Guanheng on the back.

“Oh, are we?” Ten asks, playing innocent. He sits back down with his own huge slice of cake.

Kun’s ears are painted bright red but he admits nothing, just eats his dessert with large, appreciative bites, chewing more noisily than should be physically possible while eating soft food.

Back to his normal eating sounds, then, Yangyang thinks. He’d noticed earlier, too, that Kun wasn’t holding himself so carefully today, unlike in previous weeks. He walked with his old stride, that slow pace and heavy footfall. When he’d gone to the washroom earlier, he’d slammed the door closed, and Yangyang could have sworn he’d heard him whistling in there. So that was that. No more work-hard-to-be-chill Kun. Back to occasionally-accidentally-chill Kun programming.

And Ten has been all smiles the entire evening, almost smug with this apparent return to baseline Kun, even though it kind of works against his benefit in the long run. But Yangyang’s relieved too, especially if this keeps both of them happy.

“Your set-up is pretty good,” Sicheng says. “Kun ge cooks, Ten hyung buys dessert. Two cats, even a wine fridge. And now that the condo is pretty much set up, you guys can have dinner parties like real adults. Don’t forget that last year you were both slumming it in student housing like the rest of us.”

“I’ve never slummed, I think you’re confused,” sniffs Ten.

“So are you guys planning to live here? Permanently?” Sicheng continues.

“I think so,” Kun says, at the same time that Ten shrugs, “Who knows?”

They both turn to stare at each other.

“Uh, well, lots of time to decide,” Sicheng says, forcing a chuckle. “But you’re going to stay in Seoul, though, right?”

“Yes,” Kun says, simultaneously to Ten saying, “No.”

Kun’s eyebrows furrow. “We’re not?”

“Are you joking?” Ten asks. “You have family in China. You’re seriously saying you’d be willing to live in Seoul for the rest of your life? There’s no way you can promise that.”

“But that can’t mean you’re willing to move to Fujian with me?”

“...No, but--”

“Exactly, and I can’t move to Thailand, either. So I always thought Korea was our middle ground. Did you--” Kun stutters. “Did you just assume that I would move back to China eventually?”

Ten looks away briefly. “Not permanently. But maybe for a long time. You’re an only child. You’ll have to take care of your parents one day.”

“And where would you be, during that time?”

Ten pierces his cake with a fork carefully, like it might fall apart with too much force. “I’d stay here, or maybe go back to Thailand.”

“So we’d be long distance?”

“Well, it’d be pretty hard to avoid that if we’re living in two different countries, right?”

Kun stares at Ten like he’s seeing a completely new side of him. One that he doesn’t know how to interpret. An awkward silence settles around the two of them, thickening as the seconds tick past, until it starts to push against Yangyang’s chest. Guanheng meets Yangyang’s eyes across the table and he mouths, “Say something, idiot.” Someone’s foot kicks Yangyang’s under the table.

“Yo, Kun ge,” Yangyang blurts, wracking his brain for anything to pierce the tension, “You should be proud of Ten hyung. Like, you guys have stuff to talk about, obviously, but I’m impressed that he’s thought so far into the future. That’s not really his style, you know?”

“Yah, what do you mean by that,” Ten says, tone flat.

“It’s true though,” Yangyang plows on. “I think it’s a good start. That Ten’s willing. Like, when I started school, some people told me--like, he used to have a reputation, right? For being a free spirit and stuff. And remember when you went on your break because Ten hyung said he didn’t want to do long distance? But then--”

“Yangyang!” Ten snaps.

“What?” Yangyang asks, bewildered. “I’m complimenting you.”

“You’re not helping,” Ten says, right when Kun says, “Ah, right, I remember.” His voice is quiet, but somehow, his words land with the reverberating weight of microphone audio.

“Kun,” says Ten, voice sharp. “We can talk about this later.”

“Right, of course,” Kun says, straightening up. He goes back to his cake and eats the rest with only slightly exaggerated enjoyment. For anyone else, it might pass for nonchalance, but Kun has never been a great actor.

“Um, okay--well, are you guys coming to debate night, then?” Yangyang asks. He winces internally, thinking of Ten maybe catching onto how weirdly Yangyang acts when he’s around Renjun, but he doesn’t really have any other immediate ideas to brighten the mood.

“Guess not,” Ten says, right as Kun offers, “Yes?”

They stare at each other again. Ten narrows his eyes.

Oh god, thinks Yangyang. What has he done?

--

“What the heck was all that about?” Dejun asks, as soon as they’re on the subway back to campus, a safe distance from that slow dissolution of what had begun as a great seafood dinner. “No, seriously, explain to me everything that happened.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Yangyang groans. “I thought they were doing good! They were super happy at the start of the evening, you saw it! It couldn’t have been just me who noticed!”

“We saw,” Guanheng deadpans. “I even saw a little too much, to be honest.”

“You shouldn’t have brought up that Ten hyung used to be all flighty or whatever,” scolds Dejun. “Way to make Kun ge think that Ten isn’t in it for the long-term.”

“What the? That’s the completely opposite point I was trying to make!” argues Yangyang. “I was trying to say that it was good Ten hyung was looking to the future and--”

“Yeah, we all know what you were trying to say,” Guanheng interrupts. “But still. Because they were disagreeing about their future plans, it almost sounded like he was looking forward to Kun ge going back to China one day. Then you--”

Dejun adds on, “Yeah, you straight up said that Ten’s not the type to be tied down and--”

“No no no,” Yangyang insists, “You guys don’t get it. Ten’s not that type but with Kun ge he could be that type, because the two of them--”

“Listen,” Dejun says, putting a hand on Yangyang’s shoulder. “We all think they’re a good couple. No one is saying otherwise. But are they the forever type of couple that you think they are? No one can know that. And you’re kind of selfish for putting that pressure on them.”

“Right,” says Guanheng.

“And look, I get your worry. I really love Kun ge too,” Dejun says. “But for me, I would care most that he’s happy. So I just want to say that you don’t have to get this invested. How they turn out is not up to you, okay? People break up and move on all the time. It won’t change how they care about you.”

“You don’t need to go all guidance counselor on me!” Yangyang shouts. “I’m not some kid with divorced parents!”

“You guys are so loud,” whines Sicheng, speaking up at last. “People are staring at us.”

So, all in all, the night ended on a sour note. Yangyang didn’t even get the chance to ask Ten about his plans for Yangyang’s birthday. Ugh. This is what he gets for trying to help out with emotional matters. Thankless labour. It’s not like Yangyang doesn’t have enough other shit to worry about in his life.

Right before he collapses in bed, Yangyang shoots Renjun a text.

hey am i subbing in for cl for tues night debate?? he didn’t say anything to me ab it

Five minutes later, his phone buzzes.

that fcking DICK he told me he talked to you abot it! sorry yangie, is it too short notiec? ㅠ
But I can ask mark to sub in if youre busy
he can put on his canadian accent
ㅋㅋㅋ
But mark hyung is [thinking emoji] ㅠㅠ um you know what i mean
So if you can make it thatd be much more preferble obvi!! [thumbs up]

Yangyang’s cheeks warm.

okayyy he types, although of course he’d already committed himself mentally hours ago. but you owe me! whatre the topics

Renjun’s response comes simultaneously to Yangyang hitting send: topics will be either morality of zoos / should public transpo be free / should sngle use plastics b banned

Okay, Yangyang thinks. He can work with that.

kk thx. take it easy during the debate so i can get mvp?

Renjun’s reply is swift and merciless: I respect you too much :) for that :) yangyangie :D

Which definitely means that if the coin toss puts Yangyang and Renjun on opposing teams, he is going to get slaughtered. Actually, even if Yangyang ends up on the same team like last time, he’ll still get slaughtered--just more with his ego rather than the debate. But Renjun’s message still makes Yangyang feel good, almost enough to forget about the promised murder on Ten’s face as he’d waved Yangyang out the condo.

Yangyang decides that he’s done enough damage for the week, so doesn’t bother messaging Ten or Kun the next day to follow up. He researches on the three possible debate topics and prepares his vocabulary, and when it starts to get too boring, he lets his mind drift to what he wants to do for his birthday. It’s coming up fast and he still hasn’t decided if he should treat himself to something special. Typically he’s not one to throw a big party for himself or anything; he’d rather go buy something expensive and have a good meal with friends. Kun and Ten are already going to prepare a meal for him, but Yangyang kind of wants to get something cool for himself. He’d debated asking Ten to come with him to get another piercing, but Yangyang knows Ten has already purchased his gift for this year, since Ten had straight up texted him last week, GOT YOUR GIFT YANGYANG I KNOW U’LL LOVE IT. So far, he’s done a really good job keeping it a secret from Yangyang. So maybe another piercing for his twenty-first birthday instead, or maybe he can ask Ten to design a tattoo for him. Assuming Kun and Ten will still be in Seoul next year. But of course they will be. They said as much themselves.

Tuesday arrives, Yangyang trudges through his courses, grabs a quick meal with Guanheng around 5 pm, then heads to the small auditorium in the Gwanak-sa dorm for the debate meeting at 6. There’s already around fifteen people in the audience, chatting and laughing. For some reason, these debates have become a de facto hang-out for various SISA members, probably because there is always snacks and pop provided, and people usually go out for drinks afterwards. Yangyang is too nervous to eat, though. As soon as he arrives, he sees Renjun clustered with the other debaters at the side of the stage, and as he approaches, he notices Renjun’s collared shirt is adorned with an enamel pin of a dagger. Great.

Renjun grins at seeing him, waving him over. “Yangyang! Are you ready?”

“Born ready,” Yangyang bluffs, even though he’s already sweating.

Soon all eight participants are gathered, and their moderator flips a coin to pick the teams. Renjun gets heads. Yangyang gets tails. They split up into their groups and the last look Renjun shares with Yangyang is a very pointed arch of his brow, a very clear good luck (you’ll need it) message that Yangyang tries to ignore. He takes a deep breath, shaking out his arms. He can do this.

The topic drawn from the hat turns out to be “Should public transportation be free” which, thank fuck, is Yangyang’s preferred topic. Even luckier, he’s on the pro-free transit side. He had picked up a lot of random knowledge about accessible public transit just because he lived in Europe for so long, and because the past spring, there had been a big deal made out of Luxembourg allowing free transit across the country. So Yangyang pulls from all the vocabulary he’d crammed the past two days, does his best to keep his voice steady, and makes his arguments. He only fumbles his words a few times. Renjun, as expected, is the best speaker, but his side is a little weaker today. For every good point they bring up, Yangyang’s team has something to counter. One hour, three rounds, and a full bottle of water later, the moderator calls time, and by volume of applause, Yangyang’s team wins. He hears a holler of “Whoo! Liu Yangyang!” in Ten’s familiar voice, and Yangyang turns to see him standing near the side door of the auditorium, clapping. Kun isn’t with him.

The teams have to do the post-debate handshake thing just for tradition, and when Yangyang meets Renjun from across the floor, Renjun says, “Impressive show, Liu laoshi. You could be Transportation Minister.”

“Shut up,” laughs Yangyang, and takes Renjun’s delicate hand in his, giving it a gentle squeeze. Renjun’s eyes crinkle.

“But were you good enough to get MVP?”

Neither of them get it. Renjun probably could have, but he got it last time, so the moderator wasn’t going to award it to him back to back. An Indian student from Yangyang’s team gets it, and Yangyang thinks it’s well deserved, even if it’s mainly a symbolic award anyway.

By the time Yangyang takes his bathroom break and comes back to the auditorium, Ten is surrounded by the older SISA students who he’d been friendly with last year. There’s a lot of excited long-time-no-sees and is-this-prof-still-not-retired-yet?? and jokes about escaping hell. He meshes back in with the group like he’s barely been gone, his energy just as lively, his face just as youthful as any first year. He turns his head every few seconds when someone else excitedly calls his name, and just once catches Yangyang’s eye to send him a reassuring wink. Someone asks about Kun and Ten tells them that workaholic Kun ge is predictably working, but he said he’ll come visit soon. Yeah, he’s doing fine though. Just as tyrannical as you guys remember, Ten says, which sends people laughing.

If he’s upset about Kun’s absence, he’s doing a really good job of not showing it.

“What are you thinking about?” Renjun’s voice pipes up from Yangyang’s side, and Yangyang jumps.

“Jesus, how long--”

“Long enough to notice that you’re staring at Ten hyung like you’re trying to x-ray into his brain.”

“I wasn’t,” Yangyang winces. “I was blankly staring at nothing. He just happened to be standing there.”

“Ohh,” Renjun says, nodding somberly. “And here I was thinking that you were worried about him or something. Is this about that rules thing with Kun ge?”

“About that--I guess they talked it out,” Yangyang tells him. “Kun ge stopped fronting.”

“Ah, so then this is new drama?” Renjun says, his voice rising in anticipation.

“Wha--be quiet, oh my god,” Yangyang hisses at him. “And no! There’s nothing! We just went over to their place for dinner on Sunday night and I said some stuff--I was just trying to help--and it made things a little awkward. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“And you feel bad,” supplies Renjun.

Yangyang’s lips flatten. “I don’t feel bad. I feel like--they shouldn’t have been upset by what I said in the first place.”

“It’s okay to feel bad, Yangyang. It’s a very nice thing to have a conscience. You’re a good kid.”

“You’re calling me a kid? We’re the same age!”

Renjun just smiles at him, like Yangyang’s played right into his hands. Unbelievable. What Yangyang wouldn’t give to get one over him.

“Yangyang, Renjun,” Ten calls, walking over. “Hungry? Let’s go eat.”

“Ooh sorry, I can’t, hyung,” Renjun says. “I already said I would be going out with the other debaters.”

“Ah okay, then what about you, Yangyangie, are you going out with them too?”

Technically, Yangyang hasn’t made any promises to go, and he does kind of want to catch up with Ten. And he kind of needs to apologize for Sunday night. And he can bug Ten about his birthday gift? But, on the other hand…

He involuntarily sneaks a sideways glance at Renjun, with his neat haircut, pressed shirt, that dagger pin glinting gold under the room lights. Renjun could probably care less if Yangyang went with him or not.

“Yeah, sorry hyung,” he hears himself say. “Another time?”

A slow grin spreads over Ten’s face, and something inside Yangyang jolts. What happened? Did he give himself away? What did Ten see? Nothing, right? Just because he looked at Renjun? But that could be for any number of reasons.

“Of course, of course,” Ten says, all reassurances. “Ah, there’s already such a difference in energy between the younger generation and us who have graduated. Okay, you kids have fun.” He winks again at Yangyang, and Yangyang thinks, Shit.

--

Yangyang goes out and has a good time. Nothing happens with Renjun, but while walking back home, Renjun does suggest watching a movie together on Thursday, since Yangyang and Dejun inherited Kun’s old wall-mounted TV.

“Can we do Friday? I’m going to a new skate shop with Dejun on Thursday,” says Yangyang, right before they split up towards their respective dorm buildings. He might be slurring his words a bit, but Renjun seems to understand. “We’re going to get a birthday gift for me, since you can apparently make customized ball caps there.”

“Oh,” says Renjun. His cheeks, flushed with alcohol, glow a very pretty pink under the orange sidewalk lamps. “Yangyang! It’s your birthday this Thursday?”

“No, Saturday,” Yangyang says, hiccupping. “The tenth.”

“And are you having a party or anything?”

“Not really. Kun ge and Ten hyung are making a special hotpot dinner for me.”

“That’s nice of them. They really treat you well.”

“Yeah,” Yangyang says, quietly. They really do.

“Hey. Can I come to your dinner? I want hotpot too.”

Yangyang pauses for effect. “...Sure,” he says.

“Great!” Renjun beams, and gives Yangyang a quick hug before walking backwards towards his corner of campus. “Come get me beforehand so we can take the subway together, okay? See you then!”

“Yep,” agrees Yangyang, waving. He watches Renjun go, and realizes, standing there under the late-night lamp, insects buzzing above him, that there is absolutely no way that Ten will not make a big deal out of this.

--

The new half-streetwear-half-skate shop located in Hongdae is one that Yangyang’s been meaning to go to for a while. He had discovered it by chance in September, when Ten, still teaching classes, had commandeered him on an errand to pass Kun Ten’s newly bought cell phone, which wasn’t playing the choreography videos that he’d imported from his old phone. Yangyang showed up at Kun’s work office during Kun’s lunch break and spun around in a spare office chair as he waited for Kun to fix Ten’s phone. He got it working and gave it back to Yangyang, noticed that Yangyang had pilfered two blocks of his sticky notes, and didn’t manage to catch Yangyang before he ran out. On the way back to the subway station, Yangyang had noticed the store, a new feature among an entire block full of cool stores and novelty food shops. And now, he finally gets to visit. Dejun had suggested that they make their own customized caps, and Dejun would pay for Yangyang’s as a gift. So here they are after their last course for the day, spending an hour before grabbing dinner nearby. Yangyang is browsing around the sample caps along the side wall when something catches his attention at the tattoo studio directly across the street.

Through the window, although there’s a fair amount of distance between them, Yangyang can see a very familiar head of shiny black hair.

He grabs for Dejun’s arm.

“Ow, jeez, your nails are lon--”

“Look! Look look look look. It’s Kun ge. In that tattoo place.”

Dejun’s eyes nearly pop out of his head. They both rush to the front window to get a closer look at the side profile of the man at the counter, chatting with the store employee. It really is Kun. They stare, jaws slack, as they watch Kun laugh with the female employee and shake his head, gesturing about something. They are clearly comfortable with each other. She reaches up to his shirt collar and pulls it apart a bit, gazing at the top of Kun’s chest, and Kun lets her do it. He says something, and she shakes her head too, closing up his collar again before raising a finger to her lips. Her grin is huge. Kun says something else, then turns to go.

Dejun and Yangyang dart away from the window so they won’t be spotted, nearly banging into another customer. At the back of the store, in between the longboards and the ficus plant, they look at each other, speechless.

After a long, incredulous moment, Yangyang says, “Holy shit. Kun ge got a tattoo?”

“No way,” Dejun says, “That’s not his style at all.”

“But then why else would he be in a tattoo studio?”

Dejun is silent, eyebrows furrowed. “Hey. That employee. They looked awfully friendly there. Do you think they were flirting?”

“No, no,” Yangyang says, even though he agrees. His initial vapid shock is making way for a sense of misgiving. It was just how they had looked at each other, like they were sharing a big secret. “Kun ge has no game at all. There’s gotta be some other explanation. She was probably, just like, checking his tattoo?”

“A tattoo right in the middle of his chest? Does that sound like Kun ge to you?”

Yangyang shrugs. “No, but how else can you explain that?”

“Hey, text him,” Dejun suggests, nudging Yangyang’s wrist. “Ask him where he is right now and see what he says.”

Yangyang gets out his phone and thumbs a quick message to Kun, asking if he’s at home.

no, Kun replies after a moment. stayed late a little at the office today. Just heading home now~ why?

just was passing by, Yangyang replies. no worries ttyl

He meets Dejun’s wide eyes again.

“Wah,” Dejun says, shaking his head. “That’s just… wow. He lied, just like that.”

“But why would he do that?”

Dejun purses his lips. “I mean, it doesn’t look good.”

Yangyang lowers his phone slowly. He’s still having trouble believing what he saw. But it wasn’t just him; Dejun saw it too. Kun with that girl, letting her touch him. The conspiratorial finger she’d raised to her lips. Yangyang is suddenly filled with the urge to march across the street and demand an explanation from her, but when he looks back through the shop window, the girl is gone--whether off her shift, or in the back, Yangyang doesn’t know. It makes the whole thing seem even more surreal, like a figment of his imagination. But why would his mind even think about the possibility of Kun getting a tattoo out of the blue. Or even more insane, cheating on Ten?

“Do you think he’s going through a quarter-life crisis?” Dejun asks. “Like, maybe he started second guessing how long his relationship with Ten hyung will last, and--”

“Don’t say that!” Yangyang whisper-shouts. “I’m, like, ninety percent sure it’s not a life crisis. Or maybe eight-five percent.”

“Probably, but…”

“Let’s forget about it for now, okay?” Yangyang says hurriedly. “Like, we’re seeing them this weekend at my birthday dinner anyway. We can reassess things then.”

Half an hour later, they walk out of the store with their new customized ball caps, and Yangyang very much does not take a backwards glance at the tattoo parlour and the petite black-haired employee once again standing at the counter, nodding politely to a new customer.

--

One of many talents that Yangyang has is being able to compartmentalize his emotions. It’s one of the reasons he hasn’t sad-cried in, like, ten years, not even when the group of them watched Coco, which made both Ten, Guanheng and Dejun fucking bawl, and even Sicheng and Kun ge tear up. It’s how he was able to learn Korean so well when he was juggling his final gymnasium year in Germany, even though his grandmother was sick, even though the thought of applying to university in Seoul sounded insane to him too and he would’ve liked to talk to someone about it. It’s how he’s been able to keep himself from thinking too hard about his feelings about Renjun, which is probably doing Yangyang more harm than good in the long run. But he was stubborn about a lot of things, and a man had his pride, and look, things always worked out okay in the end. Handling this new mystery about Kun is easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy in comparison to all that, because there’s nothing for Yangyang to do about it. What Kun chooses to do in his free time isn’t at all Yangyang’s business and has no bearing on Yangyang’s life.

Except for when it does.

Because sometimes, what Kun decides to do in his free time is prepare a birthday hotpot feast that has the pitch-perfect homemade taste of Yangyang’s grandmother’s Taiwanese cooking, and since Yangyang has had hotpot at Kun and Ten’s place plenty of times before (too many times, according to Ten), Yangyang knows that this flavouring didn’t come in a package. Kun researched. Kun got special ingredients. Kun grinned after Yangyang took his first amazed sip of the broth and said smugly, “Of course, put a little faith in me.”

Please don’t have a midlife crisis and run off with that tattoo lady, Kun ge, Yangyang thinks desperately, as Kun pops off the cork in a wine bottle. I can’t lose this.

Since everyone else gave Yangyang his presents throughout the week (minus Renjun, who just got Yangyang a last minute snarky and semi-insulting birthday card), it’s only Ten and Kun who have gifts left. Kun buys Yangyang a new designer hoodie, which Yangyang tries on right away.

“Looks good,” Dejun tells him, and Guanheng gives him two thumbs up. Even Renjun looks at him approvingly, which thank god, is not enough to make Yangyang blush. He’s been trying to keep cool the entire night, but Renjun is wearing a fuzzy cashmere sweater and had combed his hair back nicely and then decided to sit close enough for Yangyang to smell the traces of Renjun’s aromatherapy diffusers on his clothing, so it has not been easy. He had been very thankful when the room filled up with the pervasive smell of hotpot broth instead.

“Now mine!” Ten says, running to the master bedroom and coming back with a long, narrow, brown box. Yangyang lifts up the top to find a brand new skateboard, the griptape flawless and glittering, the deck made of a shiny auburn wood. He flips the board over to find a riot of colours on the bottom of the deck, bold reds, blues, greens, yellows twining haphazardly with thick strokes of white and black. It’s like a cartoon character’s guts had exploded over it. Yangyang loves it.

“Whoa,” he says, tracing his fingers over the design. “Who’s the artist?”

“Me,” Ten says, tongue peeking out from his grin.

The table erupts in congratulations. “Woah, hyung!” Sicheng gasps, patting Ten’s shoulders. “You actually did it!”

“He worked really hard on it,” Kun adds. “It’s really impressive.”

“It’s amazing, hyung,” Yangyang croaks. “Thanks.”

“Only the best for my baby,” Ten says, grinning smugly, and Yangyang, just this once, doesn’t berate him for calling him that.

“Yangyang, you’re so spoiled!” Renjun cries, squeezing close to him to get a better look at the skateboard. Their shoulders press together. “Do you really deserve such a nice present?”

“Yes I do, as a matter of fact,” Yangyang says primly, hugging his skateboard to him, even though internally, he is very much screaming a big, fat NO.

God, he’ll never, ever, ever be able to live down the parent jokes after tonight.

As the evening winds down, with everyone’s stomachs stuffed full of spicy lamb and beef and squid balls and watercress, Renjun and the others start playing a very drunk game of Jenga on the living room floor, while also drunkenly trying to keep the cats from knocking the tower over. Kun is in his room, playing melodies on his keyboard, and Yangyang is pretty sure he’s drunk too, because he keeps playing the same five chords over and over again, just in different musical styles. Ten and Yangyang are half-sprawled on the couch, staring at the TV. Yangyang can not for the life of him remember what he’s watching. All he knows is that his head and stomach is warm and he hasn’t felt this happy in a long time. He hates being sentimental, but Yangyang really feels like he has to properly acknowledge this night, otherwise the universe will take him for an ungrateful brat and nothing this good will ever happen to him again. And the first step to show gratitude for today’s fortune is to acknowledge his past errors.

“Hey, Ten hyung,” Yangyang says, flopping his head towards Ten’s direction.

“What,” says Ten, still watching the movie(?) on TV.

“About last Sunday’s dinner…”

“What about it?”

“The stuff I said. I didn’t mean to upset you or Kun ge.”

“Oh,” Ten flaps his hand. He doesn’t even look at Yangyang. “That. Whatever.”

Yangyang blinks, unsure if Ten’s flippancy is due to a lack of care, or an unwillingness to elaborate. But a whatever is a whatever. “All right then.” Then, because he’s hotpot drunk and alcohol drunk and can’t even control his mouth that well when he’s sober, he blurts, “Hey, is Kun ge getting a tattoo?”

That gets Ten's attention. “Kun? Getting a tattoo? Did he say something to you?”

“No, no,” Yangyang says hastily. “I just--the other day, I thought I saw someone like him at that tattoo studio near his work. You know, the Inkwell? I was across the street in the Anemone store.”

“Boring Kun ge has impressed upon me multiple times that he will never get a tattoo, Yangyang,” Ten sighs, clearly disappointed. “I think you probably mistook someone else. Maybe you just thought it was him because he works nearby and he dresses like every other boring office worker in that area.”

“Uh, yeah, maybe you’re right,” Yangyang says, now doubting himself too. Yes, actually, the more he thought about it, maybe it was just someone who looked really similar to Kun. A trick of the light or the distance or something. They had only a side view, after all; he and Dejun had ducked away once the man had turned around. It seems more likely that it had not been Kun, rather than Kun getting a tattoo, or Kun flirting with a tattooist, or both.

A moment passes. Guanheng is shrieking as he pulls another wooden block from the centre of the shaky tower, but he manages to do it successfully. His shriek, now tinged with triumph rather than fear, peaks to a glass-vibrating crescendo as he stacks the block on top. Dejun falls back onto his ass, groaning.

“Noo! I don’t want to go next!”

“Do it!” Renjun shouts, kicking him. “It’s your turn!”

“Actually, come to think of it, I don’t have any proof,” says Ten.

“Huh?” asks Yangyang.

“I haven’t seen Kun naked for three days now,” explains Ten. “Like, nothing past his wrists and bare feet. Lately he’s been very adamant we turn the lights off when we do it. Oh! Like, yesterday, he wouldn’t fully take his pants off when I--”

“Oh my GOD,” Yangyang screams, slapping his hands to his ears. “La la la la lah, shut uuup, I can’t hear you!”

Ten reaches over to pinch his cheek. “Yangyang, did I never give you the Talk? You know when two people like each other very much--”

Yangyang groans, trying to shove him away. They grapple a bit, until Yangyang gets his hands securely around Ten’s wrists and manages to push him back, Ten giggling the entire time.

Looking down at his grinning face, Yangyang feels--he’s not sure. Affection, probably, but also a little twingey around his heart. Something almost nostalgic? Or maybe protective?

“You guys do though, right? Like each other? Even--even love each other?” he asks.

Ten stills, blinking at him curiously. “Why do you ask?” A smirk starts to form on his lips. “Oh! Yangyangie, is it for… personal research?” And, awfully, his eyes slide sideways towards Renjun.

“No! No reason!” Yangyang sputters, getting some distance between them. Fuck, he thought he was going to get away without Ten bringing up Renjun tonight, but it was too big an ask. He just can’t deal with mushy stuff like that--Yangyang shouldn’t have asked. Disgusting. Foul. Unnecessary. He joins the Jenga group on the floor, adamantly ignoring Ten’s giggles.

Much later, when he’s lying in bed, wondering if he’s going to have diarrhea again from eating not-fully-cooked meat, he realizes Ten hadn’t actually answered Yangyang’s question. Thinking back on it, the whole night, he and Kun seemed on fine terms. Not nearly as affectionate as the previous week, but that wasn’t a bad thing. It was kind of hard to judge anyway, since everyone’s focus had been on Yangyang, but Yangyang hadn’t noticed any behaviour that was cause for alarm. Even Dejun, who had also been keeping his ears peeled for any hint of tattoo talk from Kun, had agreed. Except--except maybe that half second over dinner, while Ten was sharing some funny story about his dance students, that Yangyang had caught Kun looking at Ten with a slightly worried expression. And he kept plucking at his sleeve, in a nervous gesture rare for Kun. The source of that worry was beyond Yangyang’s deduction capability, and a second later, Ten had gotten to the punchline, and the tension between Kun’s brows eased in laughter. So it was basically nothing. Yangyang is just getting too sensitive to things now. He’s got to chill with his paranoia--not everything is a sign of relationship trouble. There’s no relationship trouble! They’re completely fine! By Kun and Ten’s standards, they’re doing very well!

But the next morning, he gets a text from Ten that says, no tattoo. OMG he said he was considering but it didnt work out LOLOL, which just makes Yangyang more confused. Then--it had been Kun in the shop? If he hadn’t gotten a tattoo then why did he let that employee touch him like that? Did he know her? Was it not his first time visiting?

Too many questions. In his head, a weird combo voice of Dejun and Sicheng tells him to mind his own freaking business. But then a Guanheng voice pipes up, Skateboards! Good food?!, followed by the even weirder amalgamation of Renjun’s and Chenle’s voices shouting, AND GOSSIP!!

Yangyang needs a break from all this mulling. He looks for distraction. There’s plenty of it when you live at school. Clubs, sports, friends, and those pesky courses he’s supposed to be paying attention to. And--maybe most urgently, the question of what to do about Huang Renjun.

After they got back to campus yesterday night and everyone had split off towards their respective dorms, Dejun had just straight up asked him if he and Renjun were a thing now. Yangyang had nearly tripped on the sidewalk.

“We’re not!” he said. “Why would you think that?”

Dejun looked at him like he was crazy. “Uh, because he was glued to your side all night and laughed at all your dumb jokes?”

“I don’t make dumb jokes. I only make witticisms.”

Dejun didn’t take the bait. He pressed his lips together, surveying Yangyang thoughtfully. “But you like him, right,” he’d said.

Faced with that level of genuineness, with those ridiculous dreamy eyes, Yangyang didn’t have it in him to deny it. Especially since he was still halfway buzzed from alcohol. Especially especially because Renjun had given him a really long hug just then, and had whispered in Yangyang’s ear, “Thanks for letting me come, Yangyang. I had a great time. Invite me to more things in the future, okay?” Which, yeah, Yangyang really wanted to do.

So Yangyang came out honest: he looked at the ground, and gave a single shrug.

“Woww,” Dejun had sighed. “That bad, eh.”

“Shut up,” Yangyang had muttered. But yeah, it was and is kind of that bad. Bad enough that he thinks maybe he should just confess already and see what Renjun says. He sort of does believe that Renjun likes him, but the risk is that if Yangyang’s wrong, he isn’t sure how Renjun will take his feelings. He doesn’t think Renjun will make fun of him for it, but he also doesn’t want to pump up Renjun’s ego any bigger than it already is. What would it mean to him to have Liu Yangyang like him? Would he face it like a minor change in the weather or like the oncoming of an earthquake? More than anything, Yangyang doesn’t want to lose Renjun’s friendship. So maybe he’ll bide his time, just a little longer. Wait for some sort of golden opportunity, like in the movies, where he could bare his heart amongst orchestral music so that even if he’s rejected, at least his attempt will be cool.

As for what kind of opportunity that would be, Yangyang has no idea, but luckily, the world does continue to throw him and Renjun into situations together. A week and a half after Yangyang’s birthday, he finds himself at the Anemone skate shop again, this time with Renjun, who upon seeing Yangyang’s customized cap, had been interested in getting one for himself. Renjun has been picky, deciding on one style or accent and then changing his mind as soon as he tried another. Yangyang had brought his own cap to show him, with the two metal Ys hanging from the edge of the brim, and Renjun takes it in his hands, examining it like an antique, and finally nods thoughtfully at it.

“I like it,” he says. “Can I copy your design?”

“Sure,” Yangyang says casually, even though his heart thumps audibly in his chest. Couple hats, he thinks. That’s going to make a statement.

While they wait for Renjun’s cap to be made, they sit on the chairs by the front window and Yangyang tells him about seeing Kun in the tattoo studio, and how Ten had confirmed that Kun--Qian Kun! Yes, that Qian Kun!--had momentarily been considering a tattoo, and wasn’t that the funniest thing ever? Like, what design would he even get? Something cheesy, like a music note? Or a plane? Or a physics equation? Or maybe a heart with Jay Chou’s face inside?

“That tattoo parlour across the street?” Renjun pipes up, as Yangyang is laughing himself sick imagining Kun with a bicep heart tattoo of Jay Chou. “Because that looks like Kun ge inside it, right now.”

Yangyang’s head shoots up. Renjun’s right. It’s Kun ge. Still in his work clothes, at the counter, laughing again with that same cute noona employee, and Yangyang watches, agog, as the woman picks up a business card from beside the cash register, writes something on it, and hands it to Kun. Kun takes the card, smiling wider at the woman, and tucks it into his pocket. Then he waves and leaves the shop.

“He just got her number,” says Renjun.

“What?!”

“That move is unmistakable. He definitely got her number.”

Yangyang can’t think of a plausible counterargument. He had thought the same thing. If it wasn’t her number, then definitely her email, or some type of contact info. Kun had no tattoo, but he had come back to talk to her specifically. What the fuck. Yangyang is doing his best trying to give Kun the benefit of the doubt, but there are only so many reasons Kun would want the contact information of a tattoo studio employee, and from the way things were going, Yangyang isn’t sure any of them involve full disclosure to Ten. It looked really bad.

“Do you think he went to get a tattoo the first time, chickened out, but fell in love with that employee?” Renjun asks, eyes wide.

“What?!” Yangyang squawks again. “No! Really? No. No way.” Renjun quirks his mouth doubtfully, and Yangyang amends, “Probably not, I mean.”

“Then what could it be?”

“You know what,” Yangyang says, standing up. He’s had enough of this. “I’m going to go ask. You wait for your hat, I’ll be back.”

He doesn’t give himself time to second guess his decision. He jogs across the street, enters the tattoo studio, and goes to the front counter. The rock music is pumping, the drills are whirring, and none of this is doing anything to calm down his nerves. But it’s too late to turn back; the woman notices him.

“Hi, welcome to The Inkwell!” she chirps. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Uh, no,” says Yangyang. “I, uh. Actually, I got a recommendation from a friend to come here. Do you know him? Qian Kun?”

The woman’s eyes light up. “Oh! You just missed him, he was here but just left! That’s nice that he recommended us.” She giggles. “We’ve been seeing a lot of him lately.”

“Oh,” says Yangyang. “Wait, can I ask--is he, like, getting a lot of tattoos or something? He didn’t really mention to me that--”

The shop door jangles again and Yangyang hears someone come in quickly.

“Lanlan jie,” says Kun’s voice, “Sorry, I forgot to ask if you--” There is a pause. Yangyang is stock frozen, wondering if he has the courage to turn around. “Ah, Yangyang? Are you getting a tattoo here?!” Kun asks.

And it’s that innocent question, as if it’s a happy surprise to find Yangyang here, at the place of his--his indiscretions--that makes Yangyang lose his cool. He spins to meet Kun’s bewildered face, and jabs a finger at him.

“I should be asking why you’re here all the time, instead,” Yangyang snaps.

“What? Me?”

“Yes, you! Why do you keep coming here if you’re not getting a tattoo?!”

Understanding washes over Kun’s face. “Ah I see. You’re the one who ratted me out to Ten last week.”

“Ratted you out? Ratted you out?! So you have been keeping things a secret from Ten!”

Kun’s eyes flicker with panic, and he darts a quick look at the employee. “Sorry, Lanlan jie, we’ll talk outside.” He grabs Yangyang’s arm and hauls him out of the store.

Outside, on the sidewalk, Yangyang yanks his arm away and puffs up to his full height to stare down Kun. Kun meets his gaze, looking worried. “Yangyang,” he says. “This isn’t any of your business. I’m keeping this a secret from Ten for his own good. You can’t tell him about this, do you hear me?”

“Why?” Yangyang demands. “What are you doing? Why did that employee give you her number?”

Kun’s jaw slackens. “What the hell? Are you spying on me or something?”

“Just answer the question!”

“I told you,” Kun says, voice dropping to stern-dad mode, “that it’s none of your business. I promise I’m not doing anything to hurt Ten, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Yeah, because you’re keeping him in the dark about it! Would he be so happy about what you’re doing if he knew?”

“Yangyang!” Kun snaps, and Yangyang blinks, stepping back. He’s gone too far. Kun looks really upset. But a part of Yangyang thinks, Good. Be upset.

“Were you ever thinking about getting a tattoo?” Yangyang asks, quietly.

“...Before,” admits Kun. “I was, but decided not to.”

“But there’s a reason you keep coming back here.”

Kun sighs. “Yes, there’s a reason. And I won’t tell you what it is, so don’t ask. But it won’t hurt Ten--” he pauses, “--not… not if I time it right.”

It is the first time Yangyang has ever thought about punching him. Kun must recognize the expression on Yangyang’s face, because he winces, adding, “Okay, I realize how bad that makes me sound, but I’m trying not to jump the gun, so I don’t want to make anything into a big deal that doesn’t have to be. I know you’re worried but--”

“You know what, do what you want,” Yangyang interrupts. “It’s your life, and your relationship on the line. But if you’re on the fence about what you’re doing, hurry up and make up your mind. Don’t drag it out and hurt Ten more.”

“Yangyang, calm down, I’m not hurting him. If anything, he--”

But Yangyang can’t stand listening to him anymore. He pushes Kun away and dashes back across the street where Renjun is standing at the door of the skater store, holding his bag.

“What happened?!” Renjun hisses, eyes flitting over Yangyang’s shoulder. “Look at Kun ge! He’s about to lose it!”

“We’re leaving, right now,” Yangyang says, grabbing Renjun’s wrist and quickly walking them in the direction of the subway station. “He’s such a dick. I couldn’t stand looking at him any longer.”

“Then, what,” Renjun gasps, “He really is cheating on Ten hyung?”

“I don’t know what he’s doing!” Yangyang says, a little louder than he intended. He lowers his voice. “But he’s keeping it a secret from Ten hyung on purpose.”

“But, what if, maybe it’s like a gift or something?” Renjun suggests, a little desperately. “Have you thought of that?”

“Their anniversary was yesterday, and Kun ge doesn’t give late gifts,” says Yangyang, who knew because Ten had posted an Instagram photo of himself at a fancy restaurant, beaming behind his wine glass, eyes full of affection for the photographer. Someone who had been lying to his face that entire night. Maybe Kun has been lying about his feelings for months now. How would Yangyang know?

The full brunt of what Kun has been doing slowly dawns on Yangyang. All that effort to try to be a good roommate, to stay on Ten’s good side--has Kun been hiding this since September? All those worried looks sent in Ten’s direction, maybe it was all due to guilt? The day that Kun had come back from his business trip, both Ten and Yangyang had talked about how Kun is absolutely not the type of person to cheat on someone, but the fact remains that Ten had been insecure. Why had Ten Lee, of all people, been insecure? Maybe he had already sensed something was wrong.

It couldn’t be. But at this point, there isn’t a lot of room for an alternate explanation.

“Well, up until now I would have said that Kun ge doesn’t cheat on people either,” Renjun is saying, which just makes Yangyang feel sicker. “But not everything turns out the way you think.”

That’s the straw that breaks Yangyang’s back. He stops, a block from the passage to the train station, and just stares at the ground. Shit. Should he tell Ten? He has to, right? It’ll break Ten’s heart, but it’ll break even more if he finds out for himself later. Yangyang wouldn’t be able to live with himself if Ten got hurt, and Yangyang could have prevented it.

God, this is fucked up.

“Yangyang,” says Renjun, softly. His wrist shifts under Yangyang’s grip--oh yeah, Yangyang’s still clinging onto him--and his fingers curl around Yangyang’s palm. Yangyang opens his fingers, and just like that, they’re holding hands.

“It’ll be okay, Yangyang,” whispers Renjun. “Kun ge and Ten hyung, they’re nice. Sometimes relationships just don’t work out, because of a lot of different reasons. They tried, though. We all know that.”

“Yeah,” Yangyang says hoarsely. He clears his throat. “I just--yeah.” He feels exhausted, all of the sudden. This is a nightmare scenario, way worse than anything Yangyang could have feared. He’d thought at most, their arguments would worsen, their personalities would repel each other, and they would amicably call it quits after a few more months of touch and go. He would never have thought Kun would find someone else, because it was a fundamental truth in Yangyang’s life that Kun had always, always adored Ten, even when they didn’t get along. Kun bent over backwards for Ten, Kun let Ten make fun of him like it was a sport, Kun never pushed Ten to do anything Ten didn’t want. When Ten wasn’t looking, Kun smiled at him like he was the most brilliant person in the room, in every room. Yangyang had never heard him say the words aloud, but he knows--or he knew--that Kun loves Ten. He would never disrespect Ten by playing him for a fool. That’s what Yangyang had thought.

He gets out his phone and sends a message to Kun: you have to tell ten the truth, or i will

The reply is immediate. Yangyang I’m telling you. You don’t understand the situation at all

Yangyang stares at the characters on the screen and feels as if someone is stepping all over his insides, crushing up his guts like brittle autumn leaves. He sees the little dots of Kun’s continued typing, but Yangyang’s thumb is shaking as he writes back, i’ll give you three days to come clean. i won’t talk to you until then, and then blocks Kun’s number.

This is the right choice. But why does this make Yangyang feel a million times worse?

He’s not sure what must be showing on his face, but if it’s at all close to a reflection of how awful he’s churned up inside, he must be looking really, really ugly right now. He waits for Renjun to say something about it, but Renjun just smiles encouragingly at him, even though he looks sad too. He tugs at Yangyang’s hand, and they silently head underground to catch their train back to school.

--

For all of the skepticism Yangyang used to hold about Ten and Kun being a real couple and not, like some sort of PR couple, he had been shocked when he found out about their Break. Not break up, Ten was sure to emphasize, just a break. He’d been the one to tell Yangyang about it, and the way he announced it could not have been more laidback. He’d taken Yangyang to get gelato even though it was mid-November, and over Ten’s Madagascar Vanilla and Yangyang’s Field Strawberry, he mentioned with his mouth half-full, “By the way, Kun and me are taking a break. But it’s cool, we’re still friends.”

“Oh,” said Yangyang. “Okay.” Then, processing a bit, “Wait, what happened?” Kun had stayed over at Ten and Guanheng’s dorm last night so Yangyang hadn’t even seen him yet today.

Ten shrugged and half-rolled his eyes. “Kun ge needs to concentrate on his life right now, not be so obsessed with mine.”

“He said that to you?”

“No, idiot,” Ten said, flicking Yangyang’s temple. “I said that to him. You know, internship applications and stuff.”

“Oh.” Yangyang hadn’t thought that Ten would have been that much of a distraction because Ten rarely bothered Kun when he was studying, but maybe applications really took that much time and effort. Yangyang was so glad that he wasn’t in engineering. “How long will it last? Until he’s done applying?”

Ten shrugged. “Maybe longer, I don’t know.”

Yangyang’s eyes flitted over to him, confused. “Why longer?”

Ten shrugged again. Not in a mopey “I’m not sure and I don’t really want to talk about it” way, but a guileless “I have no idea! Who can predict the world? Not I!” way.

Yangyang suspected that Ten knew more than he let on, but he let it go. If Ten didn’t want to talk about it, that was fine. He didn’t look at all upset--actually he looked like he was really enjoying his gelato--so Yangyang absorbed the news with the same levity with which Ten had presented it. Nothing worth worrying about. A short break, and they’d be back to normal. What would a break between Ten and Kun look like, anyway? They were so anti-PDA that maybe Yangyang wouldn’t even have been able to notice anything changed if Ten hadn’t told him.

But then he got back to the dorm, saw a very miserable lump of blankets and body flattened on Kun’s bed, and realized, no, this was something more serious.

The issue, as he soon learned, could only at its most rudimentary be described as a way to give Kun more time to work on his internship applications. The problem was that Kun was applying for internships in China, and that had obviously led to a serious conversation about the future of their relationship, which resulted in a disagreement big enough to warrant a “break.” Neither of them told Yangyang the details, but over the next few weeks, Yangyang pieced together the crumbs of information he gleaned from offhand mentions, until he built a better sense of what had happened. Kun had not thought it necessary to go on a break, and was hurt that Ten suggested it. Ten, on the other hand, thought that the break would give them perspective, and it was preferable to having to commit himself to long distance, then breaking up for real later. He was oddly paranoid that they were doomed if they did long distance. Yangyang didn’t know Ten’s reasoning for it, but he saw the worry there, too. Long distance was hard, even for couples who’d been together for ages. Maybe Ten would prefer to live freely than to live under the pressure of being beholden to someone he only saw a few times a year. Yangyang could believe that Ten was the type of person who would lose attraction to someone who was never around. More importantly, he could believe that Ten thought of himself as such a person.

Kun had no fear about his own loyalty, of course, no matter time or distance. Which is why he could never understand Ten’s perspective. But Yangyang thought he could read Ten’s unspoken goal: Ten was not trying to break up with Kun early, which is how Kun interpreted things. Ten was actually doing a test run. He was trying to see if they could survive without each other now, when they were still within arm’s reach. If they couldn’t, then there was no point in trying long distance for real.

That’s what shocked Yangyang. Since both Ten and Kun had extended their undergraduate by an extra semester--to bolster his thesis (Kun) and to take a few additional courses (Ten)--Ten was giving up on many more months of guaranteed happiness to lessen a potentially worse pain down the line. It was an exercise in self-protection and forethought that Yangyang would have never attributed to Ten, and proved to him, without a doubt, that Ten was much more in love with Kun than he would ever admit.

And if he hadn’t come to that conclusion then, he wouldn’t have been able to avoid it for long. Over the course of the next few weeks, Yangyang was forced to bear witness to a masterclass in self-inflicted suffering. Times two. Despite their outward fronts, Ten and Kun were equally miserable, in opposing ways; Ten because he knew the break was hurting Kun, but thinking he was doing this for the greater good, and Kun because he thought he was losing Ten to an invisible threat that, to him, was just a boogeyman. But early on, he stopped trying to convince Ten to change his mind--for reasons Yangyang wasn’t privy to--and instead tunneled his feelings inwards. At two weeks in, he went full silent treatment. He stopped speaking about Ten, avoided Ten on campus, and buried himself in school and job applications. He went to the campus bars sometimes to sing at open mics, and this infuriated Ten--again, for reasons Yangyang could not deduce. Meanwhile, Ten pretended that they were still normal friends and nothing was wrong, even though he also tried not to linger in Kun’s presence. It was painful to see. Since Yangyang lived with Kun, inevitably when he hung out with Ten, Yangyang would let slip something about Kun, and he could see Ten holding himself back from asking about him. Conversely, when Yangyang was at the dorm and mentioned Ten within earshot of Kun, Kun’s face clouded over like a flash storm. Yangyang wasn’t sure what was worse, Ten biting back whatever Kun joke that he would have, in the past, thoughtlessly said, or watching Kun forcefully change the conversation whenever Ten was brought up. Yangyang had to learn to censor himself around both of them, which actually made things worse, because he was their best connection to the other person, and even though they would never admit they wanted updates about each other’s lives, Yangyang could tell they had the craving, all the same.

Thus, suffering. Ten and Kun could at least take their minds off things by hanging out with other friends. But could Yangyang do? At the dorm he was inflicted with Kun, and outside of courses he was inflicted with Ten. When he hung out with, say, Dejun or Guanheng, they complained constantly about Ten and Kun’s moping, and coined “The Dark Age.” Everywhere Yangyang went, he was confronted with the ghost of their relationship. How was Yangyang supposed to know at the beginning of the school year that he shouldn’t have twined his own life so intimately with these two idiots? He could avoid them both, sure, but with Ten in most of Yangyang’s social groups and Kun becoming a half-recluse, it would be an insane amount of work. Yangyang just wanted things to go back to normal. He couldn’t believe how sweet he had it before--support from both Ten and Kun pretty much covered all aspects of Yangyang’s life where he needed growth, and now that he was steeped in misery from their misery, like misery contagion, he found himself waking up everyday hoping that, by some miracle, he would see neither Ten nor Kun that day and be reminded of what he’d lost. Which never ended up happening. The days dragged on like roadkill caught under a truck, no resolution in sight.

Then exams started, and Yangyang had to compartmentalize. He didn’t see Ten for several days, and realized belatedly that Kun hadn’t been around the dorm much lately either. Dejun, also worried, mentioned that Kun had just cleaned up a bunch of Ten’s things, including what looked like various presents that Ten had gotten him over the years. Yangyang knew immediately that it was a statement move. Kun was a sentimentalist and a hoarder. Him getting rid of Ten’s things meant that he’d given up.

He rushed to Ten’s dorm to find him sitting on the windowsill, a box of miscellania on the floor, turning over a large, pink conch shell in his hands. Yangyang knew Ten had given that to Kun as a gift years ago. Kun loved that ugly thing and said multiple times it was very inspiring to listen to its ocean sounds at night. And now he had returned it.

“Did you talk to Kun?” Ten asked, when Yangyang closed the door behind him. Guanheng was still taking his exam. Their dorm was eerily quiet without him.

“I only saw him for a few minutes this morning,” said Yangyang. It was jarring to hear Ten talk about Kun directly, and Yangyang’s heart clanged with alarm.

Ten sighed. He stared down at the conch in his hands, running his hands over the ridges and spines. “To be honest, I knew this was coming. I’m surprised he hung on so long. He was very formal when he came by, you know. Thanked me and everything.”

“Hyung,” said Yangyang. “Kun ge didn’t want to break up with you. Really, I swear. He probably felt like he had no other choice. If you guys just talked it ov--”

“I know,” interrupted Ten. “I know he didn’t. I made him do it.” When he looked up, Yangyang was shaken to see the wet sheen of tears in his eyes. A cold blast of realization shot through Yangyang; he suddenly understood with visceral certainty that this whole time, he had been blind to the big picture.

No way.

“You wanted Kun ge to break up with you?” Yangyang asked in disbelief.

Ten shrugged. “Not wanted, really. I hoped, though.”

“But why?!”

Ten’s smile was pure bitterness. His eyes gleamed, close to spilling. “Yangyang, come on. He was going to stay in Korea for me. I couldn’t deal with that. He has so much more opportunity in China. He shouldn’t consider me when he makes decisions for his future.”

“...Why not?”

“Because for once, I want him to be selfish for himself.”

And what was there to say to that? Yangyang could only emphasize; he had been nursing a similar struggle. Kun had stepped down from his position as SISA president not long before the start of the Dark Age, and everyday Yangyang swallowed the bitter pill that Kun was dealing with the fallout of those nasty rumours without even his boyfriend to help make him feel better. Maybe the stress from that entire situation had even exacerbated the tensions between him and Ten in the first place, because as far as Yangyang knew, Kun, preferring the safety of discretion, had never told Ten the truth about what happened. Yangyang was too afraid to ask Kun for confirmation about that, but he couldn’t help accepting his complicity in Kun’s recent hardships. It was another way he and Ten jived. They made fun of Kun and found Kun exasperating as hell, but at the end of the day, they felt guilty about how much Kun cared for them. This was Ten, in an awful, roundabout way, trying to even the score. Yangyang still had yet to pay back his own debt.

Yangyang took a seat beside Ten, pushing away Guanheng’s half-finished Gundam model. “What will you do?” he asked after a while.

“Get over it,” Ten said, and brought up a wrist to swipe at his eyes. He was hunched over, cradling the conch, t-shirt baggy on his frame, and for the first time, Yangyang noticed how small he was.

By the time Yangyang got back to his dorm, it was late. The room was dim and Kun was in bed, facing the wall. Dejun was also in bed, snoring softly, but Kun was so silent that Yangyang knew he wasn’t asleep.

Yangyang stood there, watching Kun pretend, while debating if he should say anything. Then he thought, Fuck it. Things couldn’t get any worse.

“He didn’t tell me to tell you this,” he whispered, and the darkness seemed to swallow his words eagerly, making him sound almost breathless. “But he’s really sorry.”

Kun said nothing. But after a moment, he let out a long, shaky sigh, and turned onto his back, pressing the heel of his hands over his eyes. It struck Yangyang as an echo of Ten wiping away his tears. It made Yangyang think the exact same thought in reaction: wow, they really did love each other.

Then, three days later, abruptly, the curse broke and they were back together. Kun had gotten an internship in Korea, against Ten’s predictions, and Ten was so mad about it he had to jump Kun’s bones--and in his haste forgot to lock the dorm door, so Dejun walked in on them grinding, half-naked, on Kun’s bed. Yangyang, just coming back from his final exam of the semester, heard Dejun’s traumatized hollering from the other end of the hall. It was the herald of peacetime after a cold war.

On Yangyang’s last day at school before flying home to Germany, he went out to eat with Ten and Kun. By their standards they were appallingly affectionate, so much so that Yangyang almost lost his appetite. Like, they sat close together, with their shoulders brushing, and kept on sharing these quick smiles with each other, and at one point, Kun laid his hand over Ten’s on the table to give it a quick squeeze. Right in front of Yangyang’s fried cheese sticks! Yangyang nearly choked.

“So, uh,” he felt compelled to say, waving his fork to outline their whole--existence. “I’m happy that you guys are back together, but you don’t need to, like, prove a point to me or anything.”

“Sorry,” Kun said, abashed, retracting his hand, at the same time Ten said, “Yangyang, grow up,” and snatched it back. Kun went pink.

Yangyang did not appreciate getting ragged on by someone who, days earlier, had dripped snot over a set of old, sun-faded Fujian postcards, but he was wise beyond his years, and knew to keep his mouth shut. The truth was that saying he was happy Ten and Kun reunited was an understatement. He was relieved, gratified, thankful, and, actually, kind of humbled. Yangyang had wanted them to get back together throughout the Dark Age but after Kun returned Ten’s things, Yangyang also had to admit defeat. Let his concept of the two of them die. It had hurt him, too. But lo and behold, they mounted a surprise comeback. And after those four weeks of torture, Yangyang knew for sure just how good it was for his own life when Kun and Ten were at peace. That was the state of the world through which he was initiated into college, and it was the state for him that felt the most right. At the end of the meal, Kun asked about Yangyang’s GPA and Ten immediately frowned and told him grades were a scam, so they started arguing about it, right there in the restaurant. Back to their regularly scheduled programming. If Yangyang was capable of sentimental crying, he may have done it. He had really, really missed them together. He vowed to himself, secretly, to not take them for granted anymore.

Thinking back on that time, Yangyang had really been scarred. It wasn’t for a cheesy reason like him finding out his role models were human and thus fallible. It was because he had picked up from them, like he had picked up so many other things, an illustration of a cool, functioning adult relationship. There was still one big gap in Yangyang’s university experience thus far--dating--and though he wasn’t in a rush, he had sometimes caught himself watching Ten and Kun during their quiet times and wishing he could have that sort of comfort with someone too. It was stupid of him, in retrospect, to just assume they’d last long-term, and that their relationship had almost broke over something so stupid showed Yangyang that nothing was ever that easy. But watching Ten and Kun debating pointlessly about Yangyang’s second year plans, he thought, Broken things could still be repaired.

Here was another unintentional life lesson, courtesy of Ten and Kun. The Dark Age had been a trial, but they still loved each other through it. Kun loved Ten enough to let him go, because that’s what he thought Ten wanted; and Ten loved Kun enough to let him think that. Yangyang had never encountered love like that outside of a drama. So yes, their reunion was humbling. They had a relationship where the love was not explicitly stated, and instead ran feverishly and near-invisibly behind the scenes, like a generator providing heat.

But the cracks in the glass, previously patched up, were appearing again. Things were once again falling apart, right under Yangyang’s nose, and likely for good this time. He didn’t think there would be any coming back from this. There was no way that Ten would forgive Kun for cheating, even emotional cheating. And Kun--for Kun, Yangyang felt utterly betrayed and disappointed by him, but deep down, he still wanted Kun to be happy. If he was happier with someone else than with Ten, then he should be with her. Yangyang would get over it. It was an exercise in letting go, a practical test on what Yangyang learned from Ten and Kun’s example. There was no stronger proof of love than sacrificing your happiness for someone else’s. Now Yangyang could experience it for himself.

Three days of grace. He owed Kun that much. But then his debt would be clear, and he would take his place on Ten’s side of the line, bidding Kun a good life, and goodbye.

--

Yangyang knows the exact moment Renjun updates Chenle about the situation, after Chenle returns from his trip home.

liu yangyang
what what what is this i hear
About QIAN KUN
CHEATING???????
on TEN?????????
There’s no way
There’s really no way
Are u guys stupid
I’m telling you
There’s no way
KUN????????
Really???????????????????
Incredible if true
I don’t believe it
Unless…
No
I don’t believe it
Are u gaming??
Are u asleep??
It’s 2 pm???
Wake up
LYY!!!!
I’m coming over
Ok no i’m too lazy
Just msg me back asap
Think of it in mark’s voice
Call me asap
AS! SOON! AS! POSSIBLE!!!

And then, after an hour of no reply from Yangyang because Yangyang had been sad-napping, he’d written im calling an emergency meeting, and pasted a Naver Maps link.

So on Saturday afternoon Yangyang finds himself at the first ever emergency meeting of the Fresh-faced Youths Gossip Club, with special guests Dejun and Guanheng. Dejun, once discovering where Yangyang was going, had asked if he could come along, and Yangyang, still feeling bad about revealing the depravity of Kun’s behaviour to Dejun, had agreed. Yesterday Dejun had reacted to the news similarly to Chenle, with a lot of disbelief and outright denial. But he had been there for the first spotting, so soon he turned quiet and contemplative, his eyebrows drawing low, lips pursed as he stared at the wall in thought. This morning he had looked straight at Yangyang and said, “I think there must be another explanation,” and Yangyang had replied, “I’d like that too.”

So here they are, a group of five Chinese students clustered around a tiny cafe table, trying to look for hope in the darkness. Chenle technically hadn’t promised any such thing, but his messages definitely implied that he had some insider info. Guanheng had invited himself along once he heard that Dejun and Yangyang were “getting food,” and Yangyang hadn’t been able to think of a lie fast enough to shoo him off. Now Yangyang has to relive that entire dramatic Thursday afternoon as Renjun shares his eyewitness testimony, while Guanheng’s eyes grow larger and larger until Yangyang really wonders how his eyeballs are staying in their sockets. Guanheng is full of questions but Chenle, impatient with the recount, waves them off.

“Look at the time!” he says, waving his phone screen to display the numbers 3:47 PM. “Didn’t you guys consider why I called you out here at this very specific time?”

“No,” says Renjun.

“Yes,” says Yangyang. It hadn’t escaped his notice that they’re within a stone’s throw of The Inkwell, located not too far around the other side of the block.

Chenle taps his fingers furiously on the table. “It’s because Kun ge is going back to that tattoo studio at 4 o’clock.”

Yangyang nearly spits out his sip of coffee. “What?!”

“When--okay, listen, when he picked me up at the airport yesterday, he had his phone clicked onto the mount for the GPS, right? I saw a Wechat notif pop up from someone named Lanlan jie, saying that he should come by at 4 pm Saturday, and that ‘it’ was ready. I asked him who that was, but he just scolded me to stop reading his texts.”

“Oh shit!” Yangyang says. “Lanlan is the name of the employee at the tattoo place! I remember Kun ge calling her name.”

“Yeah, I figured that out,” says Chenle.

“How did you figure it out?” Denjun asks.

“So we had to stop for gas on the way back to campus and I asked Kun ge to buy me some chips because I hadn’t eaten on the plane even though I totally had. When he was in the gas station I opened his Wechat contacts and found Lanlan’s phone number. Looked it up online, and after a few clicks around, voila! The Inkwell. Her full name is Esther Piao, by the way. Her instagram is actually cool--I guess she makes jewelry and stuff.”

This is so much information that Yangyang is reeling with it. But Renjun is already on the ball. “Yah! You went through Kun ge’s Wechat?!” he shouts at Chenle. “Are you out of your mind? Do you care at all about other people’s privacy?”

“What are you talking about--this is journalism. Journalism!!”

“Journalism?! You didn’t even know about the cheating at that point! I only told you this morning!”

Chenle pushes his hair back, entirely unrepentant. “I just like to be up in Kun ge’s business.” At Renjun’s pinched face, he sighs, adding, “I didn’t read the chat or anything, okay? And I wouldn’t have cared at all if he hadn’t given such a strong reaction to me asking about her in the first place. Like his face, his face was sooo suspicious. Absolutely suspicious. I’m telling you, you guys would have done the same if you were in my shoes.” He pauses, but no one agrees with him. “Also! I wanted to ask, when did Kun ge start painting his nails?”

This news is even more cataclysmic and the entire table explodes in an uproar. Yes, Chenle confirms, Kun had had a full set of nails painted on. Black and white, alternating nails. No, he’d said it was none of Chenle’s business. No, he actually seemed to like them. Or at least not mind them. “Like them?!” Guanheng wails, pulling at his cheeks. “Kun ge bought nail polish? It’s not like him at all!” Yangyang has to interject that it was probably Ten’s nail polish, but he can’t for the life of him explain why Kun would suddenly start painting his nails.

“What did I tell you?” Dejun asks Yangyang, also panicking. “It’s got to be a quarter-life crisis.”

Yangyang opens his mouth to reply, but pauses as the bell over the cafe door chimes and Sicheng comes in.

They meet eyes across the floor. Sicheng’s widen in pleasant surprise, then turn confused when he notices the cluster of them, all probably at varying levels of sweaty and anxious. He walks over and asks, “Woah, you guys look so serious. Is this a meeting of the Nosy Little Friends Club?”

“Yo, what are you doing here?” Yangyang demands, ignoring the question and the misnomer.

“Uh, I want to drink coffee?”

“No! I mean in this cafe! Why are you in this area?”

“What? Why does it matter? I’m meeting with Kun ge. He said he wanted my opinion about something.”

“Kun ge is coming here?” Yangyang shouts. “To this cafe? Soon?”

“Yeah, uh…” Sicheng stares at him in bewilderment, then around to the others. “What’s going on?”

“Oh my god, it’s past four!” Chenle shrieks, shoving his chair back. “We gotta go!”

In a mad scramble, they all get up and rush towards the door, leaving Sicheng standing alone in the cafe like a lost baby deer. But they can update him later. Right now there is a mystery to solve. Kun ge keeps going back to the tattoo place to see that employee. There is one obvious explanation, indicated by many signs. But not every sign. The “it” that Chenle mentioned, from Lanlan’s text, what was that? In terms of clues, it’s a crumb. It’s one tiny shred of paper ripped from an expansive portrait. But it’s not nothing. And evidently, there is a part of Yangyang that still believes so much in Qian Kun that he’s willing to cling to it like a liferaft in a churning ocean. Kun ge who had found Yangyang, lost, on his first day of school, and walked him to class. Kun ge who noticed that Yangyang started tagging after Ten a lot and without prompting, started making some extra food to share. Kun ge who ate snacks at three in the morning and woke Yangyang up with his chewing noises, who nagged at Yangyang for leaving his shit lying around even though he had his own piles of junk to keep tidy, who sometimes acted like he was fifty years old and sighed like he was eighty. Kun ge who, when Yangyang had finally manned up to thank him for his help with that stalker, had only let out a bemused smile, saying, “You don’t need to thank me for that. I want to be someone you can rely on, too.”

Yangyang runs to The Inkwell and finds himself thinking, Please.

They land in front of Anemone across the street. Kun is inside the studio. He is standing at the counter, with Lanlan on the other side, and he is looking at something Lanlan is holding up in her palm, too small to see. After a long moment, he lays his palm on top of hers, as if about to clasp something. Yangyang holds his breath. Without a word, Kun leans over the counter and gives Lanlan a hug with his left arm, their hands still awkwardly pressed between them.

And with that, Yangyang feels that last kernel of hope inside him, which had sparked alive and eager in the last hour, sputter into stillness, then snuff out completely.

--

The emergency convention doesn’t stick around long. The hug popped the bubble around them and in a flash, before Kun could turn around and see them, they dash back around to the other side of the block.

“Wow, holy shit,” Chenle pants. “That son of a bitch really did it.”

“But what was she holding?” Renjun asks. “Did anyone see?”

“No,” says Guanheng, shaking his head. “Too far away. But it could have been a key to her place.”

“No way…”

“Yangyang, you were the one who told Kun ge to hurry up and make a decision with his life, weren’t you?” Dejun snaps. “You manifested this!”

“Fuck!” shouts Chenle, scraping his hands through his hair. “I didn’t actually believe you guys but maybe he really is cheating!”

Dejun is rubbing his eyes, looking like he has diarrhea. “We shouldn’t have followed him. It was too private. Are any of us happier for having seen that?”

“What do feelings have to do with exposing the truth?” Chenle demands.

“Look at him!” Dejun argues back, pointing at Yangyang. “He’s in shock!”

Is he in shock? Yangyang doesn’t feel like he’s in shock. Kun just confirmed what Yangyang already knew. This shouldn’t be shocking at all. He just feels kind of sad. Sad, and like, the world suddenly seemed a lot more menacing than it was a second ago. It’s so stupid, trusting people. What a waste of energy.

“Yangyang,” Renjun says, touching Yangyang’s shoulder. He looks worried. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” says Yangyang. His voice doesn’t even sound like his own. “I’m fine. I think I’m going to go.”

Chenle nods. “Good idea, let’s debrief back on campus.”

“No, I,” starts Yangyang. “I think I’m going to go to Ten’s place.”

No one thinks this is a good idea, but no one tries to stop him, either. Not even Renjun, who’s the only person who knows Yangyang gave Kun a three-day ultimatum, and they’re only on day two. But Yangyang is no reneger. He gave his word and he has no intention to go back on it, not even to someone who has deceived him first. He just wants to see Ten.

When he knocks on the door to the condo, it is all he can do to arrange his features into his best attempt at nonchalance. Ten opens the door. “Hey, Ten hyung,” Yangyang greets, and tries to smile. Ten doesn’t answer. He takes in Yangyang’s face, equally expressionless, then wordlessly he takes Yangyang’s wrist to pull him inside.

Yangyang gets offloaded onto the condo’s amazing sectional and suddenly finds his lap full of Ten and Kun’s fancy weighted blanket. He’s still petting the soft fabric when Ten comes back with a mug of chamomile tea. Yangyang takes it, and Ten sits down beside him, continuing to say nothing. After blowing on his cup for a minute, Yangyang mutters, “I’m fine.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t.”

Another moment passes. Yangyang says, “I can’t talk about it yet.” And to be honest, at this point, he’s not sure he can even put it all into words himself.

Ten shrugs. “Okay, later then.”

Tomorrow, Yangyang thinks. He’ll tell Ten tomorrow. He deserves to know.

After Yangyang finishes his drink, Ten lies them both down on the couch, with Yangyang’s head on Ten’s chest, and Yangyang is feeling too bad to protest. Ten turns on some soft piano music, and says, “Siri, dim the lights.” The room darkens, glowing faintly orange like the tail end of sunset. Louis jumps onto the couch and curls into the divot of Yangyang’s neck. It is a one-two punch, a bell ringing the end of the round. The emotional exhaustion falls over Yangyang like a shroud, and he falls asleep to the gentle stroking of Ten’s hand in his hair, Louis purring in his ear. The piano song gliding through the air sounds familiar, and Yangyang’s last conscious thought is that, oh yeah, it’s one of Kun’s compositions.

He wakes up to the sound of soft voices. He is still under the blanket, head leaning against the arm of the couch, and Louis has now moved to lie on top of Yangyang’s chest. Yangyang slowly turns his face towards the front door, where Kun and Ten are conversing in low tones, with Ten’s back to Yangyang. Kun is removing some takeout bags from his backpack, when Ten grabs one of his hands and holds it up, examining the nail polish there.

“You don’t need to keep wearing it,” whispers Ten. Yangyang strains to hear him. “You already embarrassed yourself enough in front of your coworkers yesterday.”

“Yes, plenty,” agrees Kun. “I’ll clean them off soon. But it--I don’t know. I thought I might as well keep them on for the weekend. You--I mean, you spent all that time painting them, didn’t you?”

“Kun,” Ten giggles. “You dork.” Yangyang sees him lean in, and Kun’s eyes flutter closed as they kiss.

A month after Ten and Kun had moved into this condo, they finally had a housewarming party. There had been good food, plenty of alcohol, and attendees like former campus legends like Johnny Suh and Jeong Jaehyun, who had kept the party going strong into the wee hours. When the celebration finally petered out, with Kun and Sicheng practically piggybacking Guanheng and Dejun down to the ground floor, where a car was waiting, it was nearly 4 in the morning. Yangyang had been ordered by Ten to stay behind and help clean up the detritus, and Kun had soothed Yangyang’s indignation by promising breakfast. Ten and Yangyang were lounging on the couch, minds completely blank, when Kun came back upstairs, and sighed at them. “Come on,” he said, and the both of them levered up to their feet.

So the clock ticked past 4, then edged towards 4:30 with the three of them working together--one semi-insomniac, one careless spirit, and one who was still on the younger side--all exhausted, ready to collapse. Yangyang didn’t even end up doing much in the end. He gathered up some larger scraps of trash, then loaded the dishwasher haphazardly until Kun came over and redid the arrangement, fitting in twice as many dishes. He told Yangyang to collect all the drink cans into a bag for recycling, which Yangyang did for a bit before he thought, nah, and crawled back onto the couch, leaning his upper back against the armrest, so he could at least pretend he was paying attention in case Ten called for him. But Ten didn’t. Yangyang watched as Kun and Ten continued to move in slow and steady comfort, neither of them ever doubling up on a chore but sometimes neatly passing the next stage to the other person to finish, working around each other like a choreographed dance, as if they’d done this a thousand times before. Which Yangyang knew they hadn’t. Through it all, the two of them didn’t speak save for an occasional mention of each other’s names; they barely even looked at each other. Only when the biggest, stickiest messes were cleaned up did they come together for a quick debrief: Kun asked, “It went all right, you think?” and Ten smiled, “Yeah, it was fun.” He poked Kun’s stomach and Kun caught his arm, leaning in for a tiny, hummingbird peck on the lips. It was almost too intimate to watch.

Yangyang saw them differently in that moment: not as Kun and Ten as an erratic, atypical duo, but Kun and Ten as a whole. They were so different from each other, but if you really looked, they matched deep down. You just had to spend enough time with them so you could recognize everything that lay below surface level. “You smell like wine,” Ten had hummed, stepping closer to Kun so they were practically chest to chest, Kun’s fingers still caught around his wrist.

Kun laughed. “So?”

“So,” Ten said, “I like it.”

His expression was fond in a way that had reminded Yangyang, strangely, of his stuffed Pooh Bear, which was old and faded, but so soft. Yangyang didn’t remember ever seeing that look on Ten’s face before, and it wasn’t so much startling as it was a gentle realization. A warm “ah, there it is.”

That was the moment that Yangyang renewed his belief that they were something that would last. Not many people could claim the same, including Ten and Kun themselves, probably, and after the Dark Age, even Yangyang was no longer sure. Renjun had asked him, halfway through November last year: what had kept Ten and Kun together in the first place? Yangyang hadn’t been able to answer in concrete terms. The answer he felt inside was a melody without lyrics, a succession of scenes without an ending. It was Kun giving into Ten’s odd whims, Ten teasing Kun by calling him ge, Kun booting Ten out of the SISA office, Ten telling Yangyang not to worry because Kun would take care of it--Kun reaching for Ten’s wrist, Ten letting Kun take it.

How do you explain gravity? How do you cite a gut feeling?

But now Yangyang could cite this: Ten and Kun standing close, bending just the slightest bit towards each other, that honey-sweet smile on Ten’s face, and Kun’s eyes soft with satisfaction. A simple enough demonstration, but as clear as daylight breaking through cloud. Proof positive of their love, with Yangyang bearing witness.

It sucks that Yangyang had been so sure, and again has been proven so wrong.

Over Ten’s shoulder, Kun catches Yangyang’s eye, and his face draws tight.

“You’re awake,” he says, and Ten turns around.

“Yangyang, I told Kun you were here so Kun ordered food for you too. Are you hungry?”

“Not hungry,” Yangyang mutters, voice dry. He pushes himself up, gently prodding Louis to climb off him. “I think I’ll go back to campus.”

“Before that,” Kun says. “I think Yangyang and I should talk. Just us two.”

“Why?” Ten asks, eyebrows rising high. “What could you two talk about that I can’t hear?”

“I’ll tell you later. But for now just me and Yangyang.”

Something must have shown on Kun’s face, because surprisingly, Ten concedes, and says, “Fine.” He brings all the takeout containers to the dining table and starts opening them, clearly displeased.

“I didn’t agree to this talk,” Yangyang says to Kun. “You can shove it.”

Yangyang can see Ten’s head snap up but he’s focused on Kun’s darkening expression. “What did you say to me?”

“I said,” Yangyang repeats, getting off the couch now, squaring his shoulders. “You can shove it. I don’t have anything to say to you.”

Kun groans. “I can’t believe this. God, you block me on Wechat and now you won’t even let me explain myself in person?” He scrubs his face with his hands. “How the hell am I supposed to reason with you?”

“Wait, what the hell happened? Yangyang blocked you? Since when?”

“Since a few days ago, when I caught him doing something he shouldn’t have,” says Yangyang.

“Something I shouldn’t have? What do you even know about what I was doing?” Kun argues.

“I know enough,” Yangyang replies easily. “Chenle even found Lanlan’s instagram.”

Kun’s mouth drops open. “How…”

“Who’s Lanlan?” asks Ten, and Kun’s eyes whip to him in panic.

“She’s the employee at The Inkwell I told you about. The one who was helping me decide on tattoos.”

“Oh, her!”

Yangyang pauses. Ten knew about Lanlan? So Kun hadn’t been hiding that. But then--

“Hyung, do you know how often Kun ge has been visiting Lanlan?”

“Yangyang!” Kun snaps. “Don’t say another word!”

Ten glances at Kun with narrowed eyes. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Yangyang, come into the second bedroom. Just let me explain.”

“Then why can’t you explain it to me here?”

“Because! You weren’t supposed to see any of that--this was going to be something I brought up in the far future!”

“The far future?” Yangyang shouts. “Do you even hear yourself?!”

“If you would just let me explain--”

“Wait, wait wait,” Ten butts in. “Kun, is this why you’ve been so distracted lately? You’ve been spending so much time on your phone the past few days.”

“And I bet he’s been working a lot of overtime, too,” Yangyang accuses snidely.

“Yes! He has!” Ten says. “But he’s always been like that, so I didn’t think it was anything unusual. But you’ve been going to the tattoo studio? So you are getting a tattoo?”

“No!” Kun says. “It’s not about the tattoo. Lanlan jie, she has this friend who makes stuff that I was interested in, and so I was just asking her about it. It’s nothing important. I was going to tell you about it, when the timing… was right…” he trails off, cringing. “Fuck. Yangyang, I’m not cheating on Ten--”

“What?! I thought you were joking about that!” Ten screeches.

“--and you just have to trust me on that--"

“Yangyang, don’t be stupid, Kun’s not cheating on me!” Ten insists, exasperated, but then turns back to Kun. “So then what have you been up to?”

“Yangyang I swear to god I will make you pay for this,” Kun promises with vehemence. To Ten, he replies, “Can you let it go? You’ll find out eventually. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not that.”

“Maybe not, but you are hiding something. And I want to know what it is.”

Kun stares at Ten. Ten raises his eyebrows at Kun. Yangyang flicks his attention between the two of them, desperately wracking his brain for any other possible explanation of Kun’s suspicious behaviour. Confronted with the intensity of Kun’s denial, doubt is starting to creep into Yangyang’s mind again. Surely Kun wouldn’t push the lie to this extent, when confronted with the perfect opportunity to fess up? Has Yangyang seriously misinterpreted? If it turns out that Kun actually is up to something douchey, then Yangyang did the right thing by bringing it up. If Kun isn’t--well, then what’s wrong with telling them about it? What secret could be so important?

Yangyang can’t read what telepathic messages are being passed between Ten and Kun as they have their silent staredown; all Yangyang can see is Ten’s expression getting more and more stormy and Kun's growing more and more conflicted. Ten’s mounting suspicion is as transparent as glass, but Yangyang has never seen this shade of conflict on Kun’s face. It really must be a big secret. Something he really cares about. Yangyang is two seconds from yelling at Kun to just spill it already, because the anticipation is literally shaving years off Yangyang’s life, and Yangyang needs those years for his future idol career--when Kun heaves a gigantic sigh, shoulders rising and falling as if accepting a judge's sentence. He crams his hand into his bag and takes out a small, palm-sized, black velvet box, which he walks over and slams onto the dining table.

A little tiny light inside of Yangyang’s head explodes with a crystalline twinkle of glass.

Ohhhh, he thinks. Shit.

“There,” Kun snaps, as Ten and Yangyang gawk at him. Kun’s posture slumps. “There,” he says again, more awkwardly. “So don’t--don’t accuse me of going around behind your back, or keeping nasty secrets from you, or--” He clears his throat, eyebrows pinched. “I would never.”

Yangyang’s gaze slides from the box (holy fuck) to Ten (frozen, eyes wide), back to the box (HOLY FUCK?), back to Ten (paling, lips trembling, blinking furiously).

“It’s too early,” Ten says hoarsely, attention firmly fixed on the box.

“I know,” Kun says, grim.

“We’ve only lived together for three months.”

“I know.”

“Barely even dated very long.”

“Two years, not including our break.”

“You can’t have expected me to say yes so soon.”

“Of course I didn’t,” says Kun. “I wasn’t going to propose this week or anything. Or even this month. I was thinking maybe next year? But I didn't know when a good opportunity would come. I just... wanted to be prepared.”

With a heavy arm, he reaches over and uncaps the box. Nestled inside is a band, two thin lines of ash grey and silver, intertwined in a braid, with three small diamonds nestled at their largest overlapping point. Yangyang can hear Ten’s sharp intake of breath.

Ten crosses the kitchen, right past the ring on the table, and throws himself onto Kun, making Kun stagger backwards. Kun’s arms go around him as Ten buries his face into Kun’s shoulder, moaning.

“I’m not ready!” he wails.

“I know,” repeats Kun, rubbing his back. “Sorry. I was really planning to wait.”

“What if it had all gone wrong?!” Ten cries. “You can’t tell me you were sure that--like, in six months, or, or in a year--what if we weren’t--” His throat clogs audibly.

“Maybe,” Kun says. “But I came home from work one day in a really bad mood, and you held me until I felt better. At the time I remembered thinking that I wouldn’t mind having that for the rest of my life.”

“Nooo! Kun!” Ten moans, somehow curling up even further into Kun, even though they’re still both standing upright. “That can’t be it?! Take it back!”

“Ah,” says Kun. “Okay, uh.” He lets go of Ten to pick up the ring box. “I--”

“No, not tha--give me that, it’s mine!” Ten says, snatching it out of his hand in a blink.

Kun pauses, arm still frozen in the air. “What--wait. Are you saying yes?!” He actually looks shocked by this.

Ten shakes his head, eyes squeezed shut, the ring box sandwiched between his palms. He rolls it around, his hands protectively close to his chest. “I’m saying--I’m saying that it’s too sudden! I’m not there yet. But I think I will be. I know I will be. So… let’s just wait for a bit. Like you planned. I’ll hold onto the ring, since it’s meant for me. But you can propose for real when we’re both ready.”

A blazingly bright grin stretches across Kun’s face, which Ten can’t see, but Yangyang can. It leaves Yangyang reeling as if his mind was blasted with a hard rinse of water. How could he have ever, for one second, thought that Kun didn’t love Ten? That smile is indisputable. Then Ten opens his eyes and smiles back, watery and even a shade shy, but there, too, is no mistaking the depth of his joy. Kun is looking a bit teary-eyed himself. He wraps Ten in his arms again, and gives him a long, heartfelt kiss. “Okay, perfect,” he says, pulling back. Ten looks a little dazed, and his posture is noticeably limp as he sways towards Kun. “Rain check. Today never happened.”

“Never happened,” Ten agrees enthusiastically, then reels Kun in for more kisses.

Yangyang is confused. Ten basically just said yes. So doesn’t it count? What’s the point of delaying the real proposal, if they both want it? It’s just an agreement, not the final event. They can take all the time in the world to work up to their wedding after getting engaged, like normal people. Why would Ten keep the ring if he still wanted Kun to propose?

Sicheng’s voice floats through Yangyang’s mind, something he said ages ago: Those two together operate on their own level of reality. Don’t try to understand.

But Yangyang sees them and can’t help thinking in response: Does it even matter? Sure, the way they think or the choices they make in regards to each other don’t make sense to him on most days, but if he takes a step back and looks at them as a whole, there’s nothing confusing about it. You don’t need to know the chemistry of molecular interactions to know the sensation of heat, the solidity of wood, or the fact that you need oxygen to stay alive. Despite how Ten and Kun decide to show it, no one can argue against the truth of them anymore: they’re in love. It’s obvious. What else is there to know?

When Ten and Kun next pull apart for air, Yangyang is decidedly awkward and tempted to gouge out his own eyes and ears. But he didn’t want to interrupt the moment. What’s a good way to stop the we-are-engaged-to-get-engaged-make out session? And to apologize for screwing up Kun’s entire plan, no less, because he’d thought Kun was cheating on Ten? That’s got to be a downer.

Damn, he fucked up bad. How is he going to come back from this one?

“Yangyang,” Ten murmurs, not taking his eyes off Kun. “Why are you still here? Get out.” He unwinds his arms from Kun’s shoulders and starts unbuttoning Kun’s shirt.

Oh crap, Category 6. Yangyang doesn’t need to be told twice.

--

ok we had it wrong, Yangyang texts everyone on the ride back to campus.

he bought A RING
he was gonna PROPOSE
I ACCIDENTALLY OUTED HIS ENTIRE PLAN
Holyyyyyy fck

His chat instantly starts to blow up with the simultaneous messages of four other people.

WHAT
What????
WHAT DID U SAY
wait wait wait
PROPOSE??
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kun ge was gonna propose?
???????????
Wait that’s right lanlan’s ig was full of handmade jewelry photos
WTF
Ai yaaaaa
I KNEW there was another explanation
Shit we rly misread
He must have bought the ring from her
THYVE BARELY LIVDE TOGEHTER FOR LONG???
Holy shit
seriously this qian kun person… impressive as always
And you made kun ge admit it all in front of ten, yy?
omg
yang yang RIP
Omg yeah
Yy ur screwed
RIP
F
You IDIOT
stfu chenle you wre doubtng kun ge too??
ya srsly
no never, what kind of idiot can’t tell that kun ge is utterly completely 100% obsessed with ten lee? he’s even more obsessed than i thought possible
he wants to MARRY HIM
Marriage…… i’m gonna faint
WAIT YY WAHT DID TEN ANSWER??
Omg RIGHT
Did he say yes????

Yangyang’s thumb hovers over his keyboard. He’s already suffering. Why not spread the misery a little?

he said no, Yangyang replies truthfully, and with grim satisfaction watches the reactions stream in.

--

“You could have just asked me,” Sicheng sighs in disappointment the next day, drumming his fingers onto the cafeteria table. “I was literally at the cafe to talk to him about it.”

“He’d told you about the ring beforehand?” Yangyang demands, slapping the table. He almost knocks his fork out of his lunch bowl.

“Well--no,” Sicheng admits. “That’s what he wanted to show me. But if you guys had told me why you were stalking Kun ge, I would have said just wait an hour and see. I knew it had something to do with Ten’s preferences, because he’d been asking my opinion about Ten’s taste in jewelry, so I was pretty sure he bought some gift.”

“But not for a marriage proposal,” Dejun clarifies.

“Oh. No. Never in a million years.”

“Right, same as us!” Yangyang says. “So how is it our fault that we never considered that option?”

“Yeah, right,” Guanheng agrees. “Like, it’s unbelievable. Qian Kun? Got off his big conservative butt and made a decision to propose within three months of living with Ten hyung? In what world?”

“Apparently this one,” says Yangyang, who still can’t quite believe it himself. He saw the entire incident with his own eyes and it still sounds ridiculous saying it aloud.

“Wah! Ten hyung’s power,” Guanheng says, awed.

“But it’s so audacious of Kun ge,” Dejun says. “I wonder how he made up his mind so fast.”

“I told you already. He said it was because Ten hyung hugged him after a bad day.”

Dejun makes a face. “Yeah, but--how can that be it? Like, how can he be so easy? Wasn’t Ten hyung mad at Kun ge last month? And made him follow all those rules?”

“Oh my god, keep up,” Yangyang says. “Remember, Kun ge wrote all those rules himself? Ten didn’t have anything to do with them! Kun ge wanted to make it easier to live together but then Ten told him to stop being so stupid about it, so he stopped. Ten was only mad because he thought Kun ge was trying something.”

“Trying what?” Dejun asks, baffled.

“I don’t know, how am I supposed to know how Ten’s mind works?”

“You would know better than any of us here.”

Which was true, to some extent. For example, upon waking up that morning, Yangyang knew that there would be a very ominous text message from Ten waiting for him on his phone. And there was. It had simply read, call me when you get up. Yangyang had tried to fall back asleep to procrastinate on the call, but at a certain point, he couldn’t justify it anymore. He felt really, really bad. He hadn’t even been able to fall asleep until super late, ravaged by regret and his own conscience. It was the guilt of exposing Kun, but more than that, it was the fact that Kun now knew that Yangyang hadn’t trusted him. Despite his reassurances. Despite all the time they’ve known each other. Yangyang didn’t know how to make that failure better. But he knew he couldn’t hope to fix anything without Ten’s help. So as soon as Dejun left for the gym, Yangyang called.

“Hey, Yangyang,” Ten had said.

“Sorry,” Yangyang had blurted.

“Why apologize to me?” Ten had asked, mildly. “Here, I’ll put you on speaker.”

The din of the audio changed. “Yangyang?” asked Kun’s voice.

“Ge,” Yangyang said. He had mentally prepared himself for this before making the call, but still, confronted with the stakes of that moment, had his throat dry up. He tried for levity. “Kun ge. I really screwed up, huh.”

There had been a painful stretch of silence. “Aigoo, it’s okay,” Kun sighed. “I wasn’t doing a good job defending myself. I could have told you everything from the start, but I was afraid you’d blab to Ten about my plans, so I held off. And then we ended up here anyway.”

“Wait,” Yangyang said. “You’re not mad?”

“Of course I’m mad!” Kun said. “But you were looking out for Ten. I can’t blame you for that.” His voice softened. “I’m very glad he has such a good friend to look out and care for him.”

“Kun ge,” Yangyang croaked shakily. “I care about you too.”

“I know,” Kun said. “I could tell from how much I disappointed you. I mean, the me you thought was being a bastard. That version of me must have really let you down.”

“No, no, it was my fault!” said Yangyang. “I should have just listened to you.”

“Yes,” Kun had agreed. “You should have.”

“Dejun and Guanheng were so pissed at me. Dejun said if I hurt you again he was going to poison me.”

Kun laughed. “Ah, he… I’ll talk to them.”

“And actually, you know, this was all Chenle’s fault.”

“I’m going to be speaking to him too,” said Kun firmly. “What happened yesterday?”

So Yangyang was forced to describe that first sighting with Dejun, then the disastrous afternoon yesterday, including Chenle’s subterfuge, the minor stalking, and then watching Kun hug Lanlan through the studio window. Kun got embarrassed and defended himself: “I just got a little overwhelmed! I was skeptical of the design but it turned out way better than I expected!” (And Ten’s voice chimed in, “Thank god she knew better than to listen to you.”) Yangyang did his best to explain that he had really wanted to believe Kun had good intentions, but from the outside looking in, it seemed unavoidable to come to the conclusion they did. (Ten added, “Dude, even I kind of believe their side now,” then cracked up.)

“I mean, you could have just trusted me,” Kun said mulishly. Yangyang could see the glare he was sending at Ten.

“Sorry. Really, I’m super extra mega Ultraman sorry.”

Kun blew out a long breath. “It’s okay, I said. You can make it up to me later.”

Later meant a promise to come over for movie night next week as usual, and do all the clean-up afterwards. Plus he was banned from making fun of Kun for any reason, for a full month. Yangyang had no problem with this punishment. He might even voluntarily extend the ban to three months, then reevaluate from there, based on how much embarrassing shit Kun had pulled recently. He thought he might buy Kun some sort of gift too, in apology. Like maybe a necklace or a book or a new gadget. Even though Kun had already forgiven him, Yangyang had a point to make. And because Yangyang knew Ten’s mind well, he knew Ten would approve.

“And what’s the deal with all the tattoos?” Guanheng asks. “Did Ten hyung know all about that too?”

“Yeah,” Yangyang says, who had also asked the same question. "I guess Ten had been bugging Kun ge to get a tattoo for ages, and Kun ge wanted to get one as a surprise anniversary gift, but couldn’t get it arranged in time. And then while chatting with Lanlan he learned that she and some friend ran a hobby business of custom jewelry, so he kept in contact with her to buy Ten a ring.”

“Which was what she passed over to him yesterday at the shop,” says Dejun.

“Right.”

“Then that day, her touching his chest--?”

“Just scoping out tattoo spots, probably.”

“Kun ge with a tattoo?!” Guanheng yells, putting his head down in his arms. “The nail polish was enough of a shock!”

“Yo, he was only wearing that to humour Ten,” interjects Yangyang.

“--my worldview would have collapsed if he got a huge tattoo of something across his chest. I would just expire.”

“But hey, he’s got a few tricks up his sleeve,” Dejun says, patting Guanheng’s head. “Look at this proposal! No one saw it coming!”

“Yeah, true… Wow.”

“I told you guys though, those two are really strange,” Sicheng says. “Around each other, I mean. Kind of unpredictable. Remember when Ten hyung put red dye in Kun ge’s conditioner bottle and Kun ge ended up with pink hair for two weeks? That debacle actually spurred them to get together.”

“I remember!” Guanheng’s head shoots up, nearly bashing Dejun’s nose. “The colour actually looked really good on Kun ge and he got lots of compliments. Ten hyung was pissed. It was too funny.”

“Wait, I don’t know this story,” yelps Yangyang. “When? How? Why?”

Dejun joins in the reminiscence, ignoring Yangyang’s questions. “Then Kun ge’s fine to just keep on dealing with stuff like that for the rest of his life? And after all the shit he went through during their first year together? He wants to put a ring on that?” He tsks. “You just can’t put logic to love.”

“Maybe moving in together really convinced him,” Sicheng suggests. “Because to be honest I was unsure if they’d last very long in that situation. But they turned out okay after all.”

“Yeah, we all sort of doubted,” mutters Dejun.

“I vote that we need an investigative report,” Guanheng says. “An exposé! How Qian Kun Decided on Marriage: the documentary. Or at least a dramatic retelling.”

“The lurid truth!” Yangyang jokes, pantomiming a newspaper headline. “What actually went down on that innocuous day where Kun ge got a hug, which somehow ended up being very meaningful!”

A scurry of footsteps, and Chenle skids up to their table, cell phone clenched in his hand. “Here you guys are, shit, we have to talk fast. We have to get my alibi straight so Kun ge doesn’t figure out I snooped his Wechat.”

“This one already gave you up,” Guanheng says, pointing at Yangyang. “As part of his plea bargain.”

“Betrayer!” Chenle spits.

“They were going to revoke my catsitting privileges!”

“Sheesh, fine, I’ll just block him then,” Chenle says, and thumbs something into his phone. “Okay, done.” He sighs and drops down on the empty seat beside Dejun. “So what are you guys talking about?”

“Wondering how some people can be mean to others and yet still win them over,” says Dejun.

“Ah, sweet tsunderes,” Guanheng sighs lustily.

“Oh, so you told them about your crush on Renjun, Yangyang?” Chenle asks, reaching for a slice of apple from Guanheng’s meal tray. “Took you long enough.”

Yangyang heaves in a breath as everyone else whips to him in various degrees of shock: apprehension (Dejun), numb surprise (Sicheng), and mounting delight (Guanheng). Guanheng opens his mouth to shout, and Yangyang closes his eyes.

--

The “later” arrives. At the end of the week, Yangyang goes to Kun and Ten’s condo, and at the last minute, invites Renjun along too. The days are starting to get wintery now that October passed on its last legs, and Renjun bundled up in an overly-large scarf, his bleached hair hovering above the green muff of cotton like a dandelion, makes Yangyang’s dumb heart squeeze in ways he’s not a fan of--but is not specifically against, either. He pretends that the scarf is crooked so he can spend a few seconds readjusting it around Renjun’s neck and shoulders, while Renjun stands still and lets him fuss, smiling indulgently and making no mention of Yangyang’s blushing.

It’s the first day of November and the weather is starting to veer towards parka temperature. Yesterday Yangyang had gone to a campus Halloween party dressed as Kaneki Ken from Tokyo Ghoul, and had received so much positive attention that Renjun, dressed as Pinocchio, had actually gotten jealous. They were in the washroom, fixing up their costumes after an hour of milling through the sweaty mass of partiers, and Renjun had popped off his fake Pinocchio nose to tease, “At least I don’t have a problem using my mouth with my costume.” Yangyang knew he meant it in terms of drinking and eating, but it was the chance he’d been waiting for. He pulled down his face mask, leaned over, said, “I don’t have any problems with my mouth either,” and gave Renjun a kiss.

Renjun had gone bright red. Yangyang was about to push for more, but suddenly a fucking zombie nun burst into the washroom, shrieking like a banshee, and they both ran out screaming. Turns out it was Chenle, who was making his rounds scaring the ever-loving fuck out of everyone he knew, or even partially knew.

Anyway, it had been a fun night. They even got an update on the story Renjun had been following for Gossip Club, which involved notoriously soft-but-hetero gymbro Lee Jeno getting caught eyeing his BFF Na Jaemin’s ass back in September. Donghyuck found out that the two of them were making out in a utility closet, so encouraged Chenle to go scare them. Chenle held out his hands like claws while Donghyuck yanked open the closet door, and before Chenle could even open his mouth to screech, Jeno had panic-punched him in the face. Now there’s a photo floating around various SNU chatrooms of Jeno dressed in army greens bending over to help up Valak the Nun, whose prosthetic nose was knocked completely sideways.

Yangyang, on the lookout for reparations, had sent the photo to Kun, who had apparently laughed so hard that Ten thought he was choking and tried to use the Heimlich maneuver on him.

After November, it’ll be December and the start of another exam season. With their second year wrapped up, Yangyang and Renjun will be halfway through their undergraduate studies. Sicheng will be graduating after this semester, and next year, so will Guanheng and Dejun. It would be overly optimistic to expect everyone to stay in Seoul until Yangyang himself figures out where he wants to go after his own graduation, but he hopes that some of them will stick around, at least for a little while. If they don’t, well, he still has Ten and Kun. He’ll still have Renjun. And there will be new friends he’ll make next year. Maybe Yangyang will find some hapless foreign newbie to mentor too, pass on the benefit of his own experience. He quite likes the thought of someone calling him hyung or ge--Chenle has always refused to do it.

The warmth of Ten and Kun’s apartment billows out as soon as they step in the door. They’ve strung up some fairy lights around the living room and the whole place smells like popcorn and forest pine candle. Yangyang and Renjun shed off their coats and Yangyang squats down to pet Leon, who’s sauntered over to greet them. Ten is singing along to Christmas music blaring from the bluetooth speaker, and from the kitchen, Kun is shouting at Ten to change the song already, since it’s not even December yet. Renjun offers Ten the bottle of wine they had brought, which Ten accepts graciously. With how much Ten is glowing, Yangyang is a little amazed that there’s still no ring on his finger. But then Kun comes out holding two huge bowls of chips, and Ten beams at him with such fondness that Yangyang is reminded that the material token is superfluous to the promise behind it.

With all the snacks and drinks prepared, Ten and Kun start bickering about which language of subtitles to use for an English movie. Kun obviously prefers Chinese but Ten says he likes having the Korean available, and Kun should be taking it as a learning experience to improve his Korean anyway.

“And what about you improving your Chinese?” Kun asks, eyebrows raised.

“My Chinese is good enough,” Ten says in Mandarin. “And I don’t need to speak Chinese for work.”

“You could stand to learn a little more so you can understand my parents better.”

“And you think I’ll gain some useful vocabulary out of a horror film?!”

“Then how do you expect me to learn any Korean that’ll be useful for my engineering job?”

Renjun, sitting beside Yangyang, picks up Leon out of Yangyang’s lap, sighing quietly. “They’re just always like this, huh.”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Yangyang says. He oozes further into the couch, feeling perfectly content.