Chapter Text
It was a well-known fact around campus that Jeonghan and Joshua are best friends. Wherever one of them were, the other one wasn’t far behind, (in most cases it was Jeonghan following Joshua around like a lost puppy). With that in mind, Joshua wasn’t all that surprised when the first thing their shared group of friends asked him, when he showed up to their lunch table alone, was: “where’s your other half?”
It had basically become an inside joke within their group that Jeonghan and Joshua were dating without actually dating. They both took it in stride. Joshua didn’t really care, because well, he was gay and he could admit that some of the things that he and Jeonghan did together might look as if they were actually dating. And Jeonghan...Jeonghan might be straight, but he was also playful and mischievous and loved playing up the dating joke, a bit too much sometimes.
Between the two of them, Jeonghan was the one to initiate skin ship the most. Casually grabbing Joshua’s hand when they were walking together. Resting his arm around Joshua’s waist or shoulder when they were eating, on some days Jeonghan would have Joshua practically on his lap, (on those days, the jokes would get increasingly worse in number).
Joshua would go along with the touches most of the time, but rarely initiated it himself. Occasionally he would play with the strands of Jeonghan’s hair, which was getting increasingly longer and fit Jeonghan better than he would like to admit. Sometimes on cold days, Joshua would wrap his own scarf around Jeonghan’s neck, or shove Jeonghan’s frozen hands into his own pockets stuffed with hot packets, because Jeonghan got cold easily.
Today however was hot. Extremely hot. Being a December child Joshua felt more in tune with the cold, compared to Jeonghan who thrived in the heat, maybe that’s why they worked so well together.
But right now, Joshua felt like dying with how hot it was. He had tried dressing light, but now only a couple of hours later, his clothes were sticky and uncomfortable. Fanning himself, in a futile attempt to battle the heat, Joshua joins his friends in the cafeteria.
For years it had been only Jeonghan and Joshua, then in middle school they had met and quickly become friends with Seungcheol, another boy their age. Only a couple of weeks after that Seungcheol brought over Jihoon, his one-year younger neighborhood friend who in turn brought with him his childhood best friend Soonyoung.
In high school Vernon, a friend of Joshua’s from a joint class who he had bonded with when they discovered that they both came from America, joined the group a year later with his boyfriend Seungkwan. Dokyeom soon joined thanks to Seungkwan as they were both in the same theater group.
Wonwoo and Mingyu joined in the eldest three’s last year of high school, much to Joshua’s amusement Mingyu trailed after Wonwoo like a puppy, similarly to how Jeonghan acted with him. Jeonghan brought in Dino into their group soon after, having latched onto him and refusing to let go until the younger agreed to be friends.
The last two to join were Minghao and Junhei and the eldest three found out that they had joined during the new term after they had graduated, but they quickly accepted the two new members and kept saying that they were happy that the two had joined as thirteen felt better than eleven.
And now the whole group was attending university together, Dino having been the last to join their school and rejoining his friends.
“I don’t know,” Joshua replies to his Soonyoung’s teasing question as he takes a seat at their table, snatching up a fan from the table, “and no, before you say anything, I’m not agreeing that he’s my other half, you can stop right there.”
Soonyoung promptly shuts his mouth while Dokyeom stifles a giggle with his hand. Joshua ignores them both in favor of getting to eat by himself for once, without having an overgrown baby wrapped around himself, (as much as he loved Jeonghan it could get a little much).
Joshua had been a little bit surprised when he had exited his classroom and had not seen Jeonghan waiting outside like normally. But like the independent person that he was, (and tired of the hot stuffy classroom), he walked the 10 minutes to the cafeteria by himself.
He’d rather be caught dead than admit he missed Jeonghan, and his clinginess, and his stupid voice that was always a bit closer than necessary.
“Shua- Shua- Joshuji!”
Joshua should have known peace and quiet wouldn’t last that long.
“Oh, look who’s finally here – Joshua's other half,” the table erupts into giggles. Joshua glares daggers at all of them, and then scoots to the side, to make space for Jeonghan. Because Joshua was a good friend.
“That’s right, did you miss me Joshuji?” Jeonghan wastes no time in sitting down by the table, wrapping both of his arms around Joshua’s waist and effectively pulling the other closer to himself. Joshua was already feeling sticky from the intense summer heat, and the added body heat only made his clothes stick to his skin further.
“We saw each other two hours ago, Jeonghan,” Joshua states without so much as looking at him. The corners of Joshua’s lips tug upwards as Jeonghan snatches the fan from him, holding it in front of Joshua’s face.
“Ah, you wound me, Shua – I thought I was your other half.”
“Die,” Joshua forcefully feeds Jeonghan his own food to shut him up, ignoring the wide grin the latter sends him.
“If you two are done flirting, the rest of us are still here-” Seungcheol clears his throat.
“How come you don’t greet us, hyung,” Dokyeom whines playfully at Jeonghan. Junhei snorts loudly at that.
“Please, he only ever has eyes for Joshua, we might as well be background characters at this point.”
“That’s not true-! Tell them it’s not true Shua.”
“I would also like it if you greet them. It would give me some time for myself.”
Joshua doesn’t need to look at Jeonghan to know his reaction. If the face against his neck, and the arm tightening around his waist is anything to go by, Jeonghan is sulking. As always. Jeonghan might love to tease others, but when the tables get reversed, it always ends with a pouting and sulking Jeonghan.
Joshua sighs and places a hand over Jeonghan’s, still wrapped around his waist, that gets Jeonghan to lift his head, pout evident on his lips.
“You’re such a baby, you know we’re teasing. Come on, eat,” Joshua pats Jeonghan’s hand, his other hand holding up a pair of chopsticks full with food.
Within a second the pout is washed off of Jeonghan’s lips, replaced with a radiant smile as he takes the food in his mouth.
“Still here, you know-”
“Sorry- what were you saying Cheol?”
Sungcheol scoffs at Joshua’s question and shakes his head.
“You know what? Go back to flirting, the rest of us will just fade into the background.”
Joshua chuckles and reaches out a hand to ruffle Seungcheol’s hair, “Big baby number two. Honestly, what am I supposed to do with the two of you?”
“That’s the eldest two for you,” Mingyu says between spoonfuls of food.
“Honestly, how are you eating?” Seungkwan asks, distain clearly written on his face. Mingyu sticks out his tongue in response.
“I’m pretty sure at one point in time, lunch used to be calm and peaceful,” Minghao speaks up.
“That was before you met us, Haohao, isn’t it so much more fun now?” Soonyoung wraps an arm around Minghao, who looks like he very much disagrees with the sentiment.
“I’ve always eaten lunch with Shua,” comes Jeonghan’s muffled voice from against Joshua’s shirt. “Maybe, except when one of us was sick.”
“It must be hard on you, Shua hyung,” replies Jihoon without skipping a beat.
“Is it ‘Bully-Jeonghan-Day' today?” Jeonghan dislodges from Joshua’s back to pout at his friends.
“We should make that an everyday event in that case,” Seungkwan hums thoughtfully.
“I should find new friends,” Jeonghan sulks, the statement earning multiple scoffs and snorts around the table.
“Let’s sit outside tomorrow, I feel like I’m going to die in this heat,” Joshua mutters, grimacing as Jeonghan interlocks their fingers.
“Might as well,” Wonwoo replies. “Our table isn’t remotely close to any air conditioning anyway.”
“Fresh air might be nice-”
“Outside-
“Air-”
“Whoever doesn’t play loses-” Jeonghan exclaims, watching in glee as the rest of his friends' scramble to throw out their hand. Everyone, except Joshua whose hands were still interlocked with Jeonghan. “I guess this means, we lose.”
“I wonder how,” Joshua deadpans. “What even are we doing?”
“Buying ice-cream! Don’t be stingy, Joshuji. Let’s treat our younglings in this heat.”
“’Stingy’ coming from you,” scoffs Joshua, getting up from the table and tugging Jeonghan up with him. “Let’s go before break is over.”
Jeonghan waves gleefully at their friends before skipping out of the cafeteria with Joshua trudging beside him, their hands still interlocked. Their friends watch equally amused and exasperated.
“They must know how they look to everyone else, right?”
"What sort of ice cream should we get? One of each maybe?"
"Please, we're not getting them any ice cream," Jeonghan rolls his eyes, ignoring the pointed glare Joshua sent him.
"I thought that's why we went here-"
Joshua crosses his arms and huffs. It wasn't the first time Jeonghan pulled something like this. But Joshua seemed to fall for it every time and it was truly getting on his nerves.
"I just wanted to spend time alone with my darling. The kids are all so loud," Jeonghan pouts and grabs Joshua's arm, showing him his best puppy eyes.
Joshua ignores the tugs on his heartstrings and his arm. Doing his best to maintain his stern expression.
"Plus, you said you were hot," Jeonghan continues, leaning his face closer to Joshua's. "There's air conditioning here, and we can get ice cream, just us."
Really, how could Joshua stay mad at Jeonghan at this point? Trying to maintain his stern expression, Joshua turns to Jeonghan, who is still pouting and pleading with his eyes for Joshua to forgive him. Joshua's face slowly melts into a soft smile and he strokes Jeonghan’s hair.
"Thank you, Hannie."
Jeonghan leans into Joshua's hand with closed eyes and a small smile playing on his lips. Had he been a cat, Joshua is sure he would be purring by now.
"We're still getting ice cream for the others though," Joshua says sweetly and removes his hand, moving instead to interlace their fingers tightly together. Jeonghan just chuckles lowly and squeezes Joshua's hand back.
"Of course, I didn't expect anything else from you darling."
It takes them much longer than necessary to buy the ice cream, because they argue about which flavors, they should get. And then they argue because Jeonghan won’t stop clinging to Joshua and Joshua feels like he’s being boiled alive. They make up quickly after each argument, Jeonghan agrees on the flavors that Joshua wanted, and in turn Joshua links their arms together and leans against Jeonghan as they wait in line to pay.
When they eventually return to their friends, lunch break is almost over, and their friends bombard them with complaints. Joshua offers them an apologetic smile as he hands out the iced treats, while Jeonghan just dismisses them all with a shrug.