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“No fucking way.”
Donghyuck is half-yelling again, which startles some of the kids sitting across from them. His friends, however, do as much as breathe, because Donghyuck is dramatic like that. One time he spent the entire lunch period on some weird theatrical tangent about how all the teachers in school were conspiring to keep him back a grade because he was “the school’s solution to the teenage depression epidemic.”
The truth was that Donghyuck failed Geography because he studied the wrong topic. And he was most definitely not on his way to retention. To say the rest of them were immune to this kind of behaviour would be an understatement. They were practically repellent to it.
“Renjun has a boyfriend?!”
But this… this definitely got their attention.
“Donghyuck,” Renjun says, desperate, “inside voice please. People are staring.”
Chenle gasps. “No way,” he yells, completely ignoring Renjun’s request, “Renjun has a boyfriend?!”
“Okay, ouch.” He turns to Jaemin, still unphased and nibbling at his sandwich, “is it that surprising?”
Jisung slaps a hand over his mouth, pointing at Renjun with his other hand. “You didn’t deny it!”
“What on earth are you on about?”
Donghyuck grabs the phone from where Renjun had set it down on the table, sticking his hand out so everyone can see the screen:
Two messages from: my boy <3 <3 <3
Jisung yelps. Chenle screams. Jaemin takes another bite out of his sandwich. “Who’s ‘my boy less than three less than three less than three’?” he asks, mouth full of tomato and ham.
“Are we going to ignore Donghyuck’s blatant invasion of my privacy?”
“Not when you’re hiding secrets from us.” Chenle reaches over the table to snatch the phone right out of Donghyuck’s hands. “Holy shit .”
“Hey, did you guys see the new wack ass timetable for the new sem— why does it look like everyone’s seen a ghost?”
Jeno sets his food tray down, forehead still slightly shiny with sweat. Nobody looks up and acknowledges him other than Mark, who gives him a courteous pat on the back before he’s snooping at Renjun’s phone again.
“Renjun has a boyfriend,” Donghyuck says, still looking at the phone.
“I— oh. Okay? Why, is that a problem?”
At this, Donghyuck, Chenle and Jisung lift their heads from the phone, turning in what seems like slow motion to stare at Jeno. The three of them look like lemurs, turning around at the same time. Renjun remembered reading somewhere that a group of lemurs were called a conspiracy. Now that he thought about it, Donghyuck, Chenle and Jisung did kind of look like they were about to conspire against him. Which definitely should’ve made him feel more worried if it weren’t for the fact that he’d seen them at their worst already.
“The problem,” Chenle says slowly, “is that he didn’t tell us.”
“This is like betrayal,” Jisung adds.
Renjun sighs into his palm. He never should’ve introduced Chenle to Jisung. All they do is bicker and enable each other.
“Can I have my phone back?”
“No,” Donghyuck says, hiding his phone behind his back, “not unless you tell us about him.”
Renjun stares at his cuticles pitifully. He picks at a hangnail, which was really a pain in the ass and honestly a good metaphor for the way Donghyuck was being right now.
“It’s an early relationship, and I—”
“I mean, why wouldn’t you want to show your boyfriend off to us?” Chenle cut in, in an interrogatory manner, “we’re very fun and cool.”
Jeno takes a silent bite out of his croissant. Nobody dared speak about the time Jaemin had brought over a very… questionable looking guy with a penchant for ventriloquism and slight of hand card tricks.
Except for Donghyuck. “Maybe Renjun thinks he won’t get along with us. Poor guy, missing out on all the good stuff.”
“No,” Renjun says, very aware that his lunch is going cold, “I’m sure he’ll like you guys. Like, doubly sure. Promise.”
He pokes at his gooey-but-not-in-a-good-way mac and cheese, observing the way it clumps together and seems to have a gritty texture.
Definitely cold.
“Not to think aloud, but If it’s not him who won’t like us… you’re worried we won’t like… him?” Chenle says, clearly thinking aloud. “I wouldn’t worry if I were you. We like Jisung, so I think it’s safe to say we like everyone around here.”
That earns Chenle a slap from one of Jisung’s ungodly large hands. He rubs at his shoulder— it’s a blessing Jisung chose dance over something like boxing or taekwondo.
“I— what? No. Unlike you bullies I actually like Jisung. And I’m almost positive you guys will like him much. I just, I don’t know, this whole thing is very new, and I want to ease you guys into it.”
“Oh,” Donghyuck’s face falls, “ oh. Don’t tell me.”
Renjun stabs at his juice box.
“Is he one of my freshman year hookups?”
He almost spits out his drink. “Ugh, no. No offence, Mark.”
Mark shrugs. “None taken”
“He’s not weird, or some random faceless man I met on the internet, or one of Donghyuck’s freshman year hookups. He’s… he’s nice to me. And I like him. End of story.”
The table goes quiet, then. Clearly nobody here is particularly good with emotions.
Mark decides to break the silence by throwing his arm around Renjun’s neck, effectively crowding him into a headlock. “It’s so nice seeing you happy about something that isn’t an art project, dude! I’m so excited to meet him!”
Jaemin nods, patting him on the back. He is finally finished with his sandwich, just in time for the bell.
Renjun sighs out his mouth, a small smile playing on his lips. “Yeah. Me too.”
-
Renjun used to like gym.
That is a lie— you could not pay him a large enough sum of money to enjoy playing dodgeball or volleyball or whatever ball the Coach was obsessed with that month. The truth is he used to like gym class because that meant he could ogle at his crush. Pre-boyfriend, of course.
“So…” Yangyang says, passing him a shuttlecock, “my boy, huh?”
Renjun decides that, now, he is back to hating gym.
“Who told you?” he scowls while serving.
Yangyang smirks. “Donghyuck.”
Renjun rolls his eyes. “Surprised you didn’t just eavesdrop during lunch, considering how loud Donghyuck was being.”
“I wasn’t there for half of lunch,” Yangyang states.
“What did you do this time?”
“No, not detention,” Yangyang tsks, “I’m helping out with the production of Hairspray . They had a costume try-on today.”
The shuttlecock falls outside of court lines. Renjun walks over to retrieve it. “Since when were you into drama?”
Yangyang shrugs. “I dunno, Huang, since when did you have a boyfriend?”
Renjun serves a backhand this time, with great difficulty. Not sure why he even tried. “Touché.”
“Anyway, no. I’m a stage runner for Hairspray because I need an extracurricular to graduate. Three-zero, by the way. You suck at badminton.”
Renjun sighs. “I suck at all the sports, stop pretending to be surprised.”
“Well, we know there’s at least one sport you’re decent at,” Yangyang says while wiggling his eyebrows, with a tone that indicates that Renjun’s supposed to be following some kind of joke.
Renjun’s not following.
“I’m not following,” he deadpans.
“The sport of love!” Yangyang says, exasperated. “You know, chasing the guy and scoring home runs and what not… There's a reason people use sports as a metaphor for love. Keep up, dude.”
“Uh…”
Yangyang sighs, lowering his racket. “I’m trying to get you to tell me how you met him, Renjun.”
“Oh,” Renjun says. “We met in school.”
“Oh, word?”
“Yeah. Word.”
“Nice going, dude. Who is he? Do I know him?”
Renjun laughs. “You practically know the entire school. It doesn’t narrow anyone down if I tell you yes.”
Yangyang taps his chin thoughtfully, before serving. “So what I’m hearing is that I do know him.”
“Yeah, you do. And that’s as much as I’ll say. Also, that’s my point.”
“I know,” Yangyang smirks, “I gave you the point because we’ve been playing for like, ten minutes, and I feel bad that you haven’t scored a single time.”
Renjun curtseys. “Yours truly.”
A whistle blows, signalling that it’s time to change partners.
“Anyway,” Yangyang says, calling over the net, “I’m having a party next friday. You should invite your boyfriend! Unless I’ve invited him already… which, thinking about it now, I probably have…”
The shuttlecock lands at his feet. He looks up, about to be scornful at his new partner, until he realises who it is.
“What were you guys talking about?”
“He was asking about ‘my boy’ open-inverted commas open-inverted commas,” Renjun sighs.
Jeno snickers. “Donghyuck’s fast.”
Renjun hits the shuttlecock back, with great feeling. It lands outside of court lines again. It takes everything within him to not groan.
God, he really does hate gym.
-
Renjun’s locker door slams in front of him.
He has a frown on his face, until he realises who it is. Then it turns into a scowl.
“Jaehyun,” Donghyuck says? Accuses?
“Hello to you too, Hyuck.”
Aside from being accosted by Yangyang during gym today, he really did not expect a third interrogation for the day.
“Your boyfriend. It’s Jaehyun, right?”
“I had a great day, thanks for asking,” Renjun says sarcastically. “And no. It’s not Jaehyun.”
Donghyuck groans. “Dejun?”
“No.”
“Sungchan?”
“Ew, no. That’s sibling territory.”
“Hyunjin?”
Renjun scrunches his nose. “I don’t even know who that is.”
“You don’t know Hyunjin?” Donghyuck asks, eyebrows creasing, “cat-eyes, blonde hair? Huh. Weird. Guess I’ll have to introduce you next week at Yangyang’s party.”
“When are you going to stop interrogating me about my boyfriend?”
“Firstly,” Donghyuck gags, “I am still desperately attempting to wrap my head around you using the phrase ‘my boyfriend’ in a sentence.”
Renjun opens his mouth to say something, but Donghyuck holds up a finger and continues. “Secondly. I thought we were best friends, Junnie.”
Renjun pats his head like an overprotective nanny. “You are,” he grins.
“Then—”
“I’m still not telling you. Not yet, at least.”
Donghyuck stomps his foot on the ground like a petulant child. “After all we’ve been through, really…”
Luckily for him, Donghyuck has the attention span equivalent to that of a goldfish. He goes on and on about math class, about how “Johnny was definitely giving him the eyes”, and how it should be illegal for Mrs. Jeong to be giving two mock papers per day. All in one, long breath. How he does it, Renjun does not know.
Renjun hums, only half paying attention. His stomach grumbles, loud enough so that both of them can hear.
“I could really do a donut right now,” he says.
“We could get some on the way to my house before group study. I’ll even pay for your donut if you tell me who you’re dating.”
Renjun blinks. “Oh, shit. Was that today? I can’t do today.”
“Not you too,” Donghyuck whines, “Jeno already backed out because of some last minute hockey thing.”
“It’s an art thing…”
“Can’t you just do it at my house? When’s it due? I promise I won’t let Jisung touch it.”
“Like, next Monday,” Renjun says, wincing, “and I really don’t want to have to lug my giant canvas around. Sorry, dude.”
“God, please don’t leave me with Chenle and Jisung,” Donghyuck says, sounding slightly desperate now, “those two are already insufferable individually.”
“Sorry, Hyuck,” Renjun says again, already making his way to the door, “I’m really behind on art. I’ll make it up to you next week, okay? Promise.”
Donghyuck stomps his foot on the ground like a petulant child, groaning, for a second time that day.
-
The art room always smelled of oil paints and old canvases. Dusty, yet lived in.
Today it smelled familiar, of soap and sweat and dove deodorant. Renjun clutches the straps of his backpack, making his way to the back of the room where his boyfriend is waiting.
“How long are you going to keep this up for?”
Renjun buries his head into the crook of Jeno’s neck. He breathes in, and Jeno smells of home. “Until I get bored,” Renjun mumbles.
Jeno giggles, his laughter reverberating through Renjun’s cheeks. “You’re mean.”
Renjun lifts his head, lips tugging downwards in a petulant pout. “Not like you were being particularly helpful.”
“Sorry,” Jeno says, with a hint of levity that tells Renjun he’s not really, “it was fun watching you gaslight all of them.”
“So… I’m ‘your boy less than three’?”
Renjun pokes at Jeno’s chest. “It’s ‘my boy less than three less than three less than three’, actually.”
Jeno smiles, eyes crinkling into crescents. “Even better. I’ve got three hearts to my name.”
“Well don’t get too comfy, because I’m gonna have to change it now,” he shudders.
“Hey, for what it’s worth, I think it’s cute.”
Renjun rolls his eyes. “You just have a thing for pet names, Jen. I could put your contact as ‘Jeno baobei’ and you’d say the same thing.”
Jeno lifts his head from Renjun’s chest. “Will you?”
“No, Jen. That would be an obvious give away.”
Jeno pouts. “I think I’m being led on.”
“It’s, like, kind of romantic,” Renjun says, pulling away. “Like secret agents. Or forbidden lovers. Think Romeo and Juliet. Achilles and Patroclus.”
“It’s literally just Donghyuck, though?” Jeno says, “and other than being scandalized I don’t think he’d have a problem with it.”
Renjun shrugs. “It’s just fun to screw with him sometimes.” Then Jeno kisses the top of his head, and Renjun has no more thoughts.
-
The gig was up pretty quickly, in a not very Romeo and Juliet Achilles and Patroclus romantic way.
They got caught making out in the bathroom of Yangyang’s party the next week, by poor, poor Jisung, who could only stammer out oh my god I’m so sorry Renjun wait fuck now I owe Chenle fifty bucks before bolting off.
“Okay,” Renjun says, cheeks still flushed,“maybe we’re not so good at this secret relationship thing.”
Jeno just nodded, his lips still shiny with spit, and pink from where Renjun had been biting on him lightly. “Oops?” he says, dumbly. “I mean, maybe Jisung didn’t get a good look at who I was?”
Renjun decided he didn’t care, and pulled the collar of his hockey shirt so he could kiss Jeno again.