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Jun was scribbling weird little notations in his notebook again. Minghao watched him with minimal interest while picking at his overly sauced cafeteria chicken. "What are you doing? What's with the weird numbers?"
Jun hummed and waved a careless hand. "It's a kind of math. Thespian math. You know how it is."
Minghao's sense of a game roused. Jun was being goofy, which was always a certain kind of fun. He bit down on a smile to stay purposefully stone faced, as per the usual rules of engagement, and said, "Thespian math? Oh, sure, that explains it all."
Jun nodded firmly and looked up from his notebook in serious contemplation of Minghao. "Sure does. It's thespian math for real thespians! You know how it is, Minghao."
Minghao let the barest of smiles crack through. "Uh-huh. Of course I do."
Jun smiled back, even as he sighed dramatically. "Oh, come onnnn. Minghao, it's for thespians! So, I mean, people like me and Jeonghan would get it, and -- "
Ah. With that, as suddenly as interest had piqued, it abruptly turned sour and ended. Minghao scowled for real and stabbed viciously at his food. "Sure," he said flatly, no longer in a joking mood as he studied the flecks of unknown spices on his poorly made chicken. "Because counting iambic meter or whatever is so hard."
Even without looking up, Minghao could tell Jun was gaping at him, overly reacting as was his way. A thespian thorough and through, Minghao supposed. "How'd you know I was marking meter? So cool Minghao, you're so amazing sometimes."
Minghao grunted out a non-answer. Then he felt bad about cold shouldering Jun over something kind of petty, and scrounged for something to reply with. "It's just obvious, is all."
Minghao was keenly aware of a lot of things Jun did. When he was highlighting his scripts and the plays they read in literature class, he was memorizing bits and pieces of the lines. When he circled and underlined with colored pencils and gel pens, he was visualizing and Minghao knew he would see these scenes doodled out later on. And when Jun used his finest point pen and started writing indiscernible tallies and numbers and equations, it was never math ( -- Jun was highly avoidant of anything and everything their actual, shared math class -- ) but instead meter and syllabic emphasis and stressed and unstressed beats, rehearsed ways of speaking and emoting.
It simply would have been obvious to anyone who was Jun's friend, Minghao reasoned.
Still, Jun cooed, all excited and endeared, and it at least got Minghao to roll his eyes and look up from his cafeteria tray. Jun's smile was infectious, and Minghao shook his head and let his own mouth quirk up a little. "Well... I hope you worked even half as hard on our math homework, for once. I know you didn't but still -- it was kind of killer this time."
Jun froze and blinked very, very slowly. "We... didn't have math homework...?"
Minghao stared at him long and hard. Uh-oh. "We definitely did."
Jun gasped and fumbled with his notebooks, reaching for his bag and rifling through it, yanking out his math book frantically. "Oh no -- "
Here was another part of being Jun's friend. Minghao blew out a sigh through his nose and reached for his own bag, pulling out his folder for homework. "Calm down, here -- hey, here, you can copy my answers."
Jun's energy calmed somewhat as Minghao handed over his notes and worksheet, though his voice still held the stretched thin and pinched quality it always took on when he riled himself up with anxiety. "Ahhh, thank you, you're a lifesaver -- and this isn't the best segue but before I forget, remind me later to tell you the details about me and Jeonghan's trip into the city this weekend. I was going to ask you if you were free to come, if you wanted. So, exponents and precalculus first, but city trip later, okay?"
Well, that certainly was a surprise out of left field. Minghao would have normally interjected right away, would have asked something, would have turned Jun down or rolled his eyes and said, 'Jun, what the hell is wrong with you, springing that on someone,' maybe -- but Jun was already pouring over Minghao's work and their math book's questions, trying to approximate answers that weren't too obviously copied.
With Jun's attention divided like that, Minghao kept to himself what he'd now figured out: that Jun had been trying to cozy the idea up to Minghao. That he would have, had he not been blindsided by missed homework, worked up to this coy proposal that Minghao go along on one of Jun and Jeonghan (and friends) routine outings.
That meant Jun had picked up on Minghao's reticence towards Jeonghan, hence working up to asking him to tag along on these ritual weekend trips to downtown they'd started up since the school year had started. Minghao had never been explicitly invited before, but he'd also never gone out of his way to seem interested in being asked. Still, he certainly was never enthusiastic about getting ditched each weekend, ever since this Jeonghan entered the picture via last summer's drama camp.
Look, Minghao was... happy for Jun, that he'd met someone he'd become such fast friends with and had taken to like a fish to water. He just didn't want to hear about Jeonghan all the time. Jeonghan certainly wasn't his friend, so why should he care?
...Well, here was a reason to care. Jun wasn't stupid, and he'd picked up on that disapproval and annoyance from Minghao. So here he was trying to fix something that honestly didn't need fixing. But Minghao watched Jun pause in scribbling made-up precalc answers every now and then to flick hopeful eyes towards Minghao, obviously gauging his expression, openly wondering what Minghao's next move was going to be.
Predictable, Minghao could have told him. His next move was going to be obvious and stupid and predictable, and he couldn't stop himself from doing it anyway.
"Oh, save your mental space and your pitiful debate skills," Minghao huffed out, voice controlled, deftly casual and unaffected. "Count me in for tagging along this weekend, I don't have anything better to do."
The sad thing was that this was genuinely true. Minghao actually never had anything better to do on the weekends when Jun was out of the picture, off and away with his new friends from drama camp. All of Minghao's high school sociability fit within the confines of whenever he was spending time with Jun. That was who Minghao hung out with. That was who he tagged along after like a desperate little kid, and pretended that it wasn't the case.
And whatever. Whatever. Jun was -- was his best friend. And as lame and awful as it sounded, Minghao just couldn't ever get enough of spending time with him. There weren't enough hours in the day, it felt like, and it almost sometimes made Minghao feel strangely like he couldn't breathe. Like he couldn't suck in enough air to feel his feet on the ground.
The way Jun looked up momentarily, eyes sparkling -- yeah, it sort of felt like that. Like a punch to the chest, a weird twist of his heart.
Minghao cleared his throat and looked away, as Jun excitedly said, "Oh, great! Awesome! I'll tell Jeonghan, make sure there's space in Seungcheol's car -- "
Minghao shrugged, still looking away, and made a one handed shooing motion at Jun without looking. "Hurry up and finish copying my notes. Lunch is almost over."
Jun made a little excited noise and went back to his homework, the sound of pencil scratching against paper resuming, more vigorous than before. Minghao chewed on his bottom lip, smiled to himself at the bare minimum prospect of spending a weekend with Jun. They'd really only had a spare Sunday here and there since school had started. Minghao could set aside his self-acknowledged absurd distaste for Jeonghan to get a chance to hang out more for once. Especially if it made Jun so happy to see him play nice.
If that was the way it was, then Minghao would figure it out and play nice as much as he could.
Sitting around in Jeonghan's kitchen to snack before they headed out for the long drive into the city, Minghao found that he didn't know what to make of Jeonghan. This went even moreso for Seungcheol.
Obviously the point of the whole endeavor was to make it so Minghao wasn't awkwardly third (fourth...?) wheeling during the lengthy trip in the car, but it didn't make things any less baffling to sit through. Jun was sitting across from him, fretting a little bit. Jeonghan was lounging cat-like at the head of the table and eating the freshly cut up fruit artfully arranged on the plate in front of them. Seungcheol was giving them a little space and hovering mostly in the kitchen area, currently busying himself pouring refills for everyone's tea or juice.
The weirdness mostly came from the double-edged sword of the stereotypical pleasantries and superficial question-answers of first meetings -- how old are you, what classes are you in, any interesting hobbies? -- paired with the way the two of them obviously knew more about Minghao than they were letting on. Of course they knew these things from Jun, that only made sense, but it made Minghao feel strange. Here he was, knowing nothing about these two by his own design, and they were trying to respect and navigate that in a socially appropriate way.
Well, maybe not completely socially appropriate. The longer they talked, the more Jeonghan was letting the veneer of friendly superficiality slip away. Jeonghan was more and more evidently appraising Minghao, teasing him even, but to Jun about him, which was beyond strange to experience. Seungcheol was staying at about the same level of politeness the whole time, but he was getting more comfortably friendly when asking Minghao follow up questions, or offering a lead in to bring him into a conversation about some joke or past reference between the other three.
At around the fourth mention of some local performance or something they'd all been to and kept joking about, only for Seungcheol to apologize for bringing it up, Minghao couldn't help blurting out his own overly casual response, annoyed about the whole thing and feeling so painfully aware of how much he didn't fit it.
"Listen," he said before he could think to word it otherwise. " You don't have to say sorry about bringing up art gigs or whatever. I'm Jun's non-theatrical friend who took weeks to come meet you because I didn't want to force Jun to share friend circles -- I mean, who likes doing that, you know? So, a few degrees of separation are kind of expected. My feelings aren't hurt about it. Talk about whatever you want."
There was only half a beat, long enough for Minghao to wonder if he maybe came on too strongly and had messed up (but who cared if he had, he didn't particularly want Jun's new friends to become his friends, that wasn't the point here -- ), before Jeonghan clapped his hands together with a bright smile. "Jun, you were right, Minghao is the best. I like him!"
"Sorry about him," Seungcheol immediately cut in, probably because Minghao's expression revealed just how confusing that response was, along with Jun's spluttering ("I never said that! I never used those words! I mean, yeah, Minghao is great, so great, but Jeonghan -- "). "That's his way of saying he thinks you'll get along because he, too, does things like separate friend groups. Only, he does it because he's antisocial and low energy, and because he likes testing people."
"Well..." Minghao said slowly, not sure if this was one of those tests, or if he was nailing a first impression he wasn't meaning to with people he was a little more set on disliking for the mere sake of it than he ought to be. "That's about the same for me, honestly. I've been told before that I'm kind of a bitch, sometimes."
Jeonghan grinned, intriguingly boyish and insanely mischievous. It was an entrancing expression, one that was drawing Minghao in by a lot. "Oh, perfect! Junnie, I'm stealing him from you. I'll trade you Cheol, it's a fair swap."
"Hey, rude!" Seungcheol said, crossing his arms as he leaned up against the fridge, his eyes going huge and round as he shot a dramatically wounded look across the kitchen at Jeonghan. "You think a boyfriend is that simple a thing? Just switch him with the first new model you see?"
Jeonghan hummed, tapping his finger to his chin as if seriously considering something that was, even to Minghao, very obviously absurd. He popped a grape in his mouth and said airily, "Well, now that you mention it, yes."
It devolved from there. Minghao's head was spinning, from how quickly it went:
Seungcheol gasping out, "I can't believe you! After all I do, after how much I show my love -- "
And Jeonghan laughing, hopping off his chair and crossing the room to go poke at Seungcheol's crossed arms, grinning and saying, "What do you do, really? Besides burn a birthday dinner for me, in front of me, because overconfidence will get you every time?"
And Seungcheol rolling his eyes, pouting, saying, "Hannie, first of all, actually how dare you, you're the one who asked for that, meaning it was a set up. Second of all, I let you set me up because that was the true birthday gift all along, you terrible troublemaker you, third of all -- "
And Jeonghan crowding up even more in Seungcheol's space, saying, "So, what are we doing for my birthday this year then, huh? What are you going to do when I don't help you and give you the obvious lead of what I want? I want to know -- "
At this point, it seemed obvious that they were trading inside jokes, little personal unmeant digs at each other. They both were enjoying the game of it, Seungcheol whining yet smiling and Jeonghan grinning and chuckling, neither slowing down for a second.
Minghao tried to focus on following their back and forth to better understand their dynamic. He was also fiercely ignoring a strange swooping in his chest as he watched. He didn't fully know what to make of things. There was a thought of 'boyfriends' that tremored strangely in the deepest pit of his stomach. At the realization of, 'so that's what they are', and at what that looked like, playing out in front of him.
Logically, also, that meant there was an incidental parallel of Jun and Minghao to Jeonghan and Seungcheol implied in the throwaway joke Jeonghan clearly didn't mean, not beyond a way to tease Seungcheol. And that... tremored strangely too. Minghao swallowed thickly and ignored it. Dismissed it for as throwaway and silly as it obviously was.
He wondered if Jun was taken off guard by the same joke, but a glance across the table told him otherwise. Jun was relaxed, rolling his eyes at the two in front of the refrigerator and looking at Minghao with a familiar expression. It was the calm assured smiling of two people in on the same joke. It was a 'same as always' smile. Just Jun-and-Minghao set aside from everyone else, a duo and a pair. Best friends, comfortable with each other amidst it all, be it unruly school cafeterias or two new friends aggressively flirting with each other against a refrigerator. Meaning truly, this sort of thing must have been normal.
Minghao figured Jun must have had time to adjust to this. Minghao was just scrambling, off-balanced, because in their tiny town -- nothing like the big city or theater camp or the big wide world out there -- Minghao had never met a gay person before. Not one out and so casual about it. Not in real life. And not anyone dating another gay person.
So this is what that looked like. Minghao aspired to be more than 'small town stereotypical' in his life, so he tried to relax, too. Tried to fish for a conversation starter that was calm and typical and smart, even. All he could come up with was a somewhat dry, "So that's why Seungcheol's always your ride into downtown, huh?"
Jun nodded, starting to trace the wood grain lines of Jeonghan's kitchen table, eyes drifting down as his fingers slid along the streaks. Minghao was used to his busyness, attention usually split more than one way while talking. "Yeah, it's cashing in on Jeonghan's dating perks, but also it's their shared friends we're visiting."
Minghao felt a little like he was walking into the lion's den, if everyone was all already friends with each other. "Oh."
Jun must have heard his hesitation. He looked up with a reassuring smile, attention recentering on Minghao with pinpoint intensity. "Don't worry! Trust me, you're gonna love everyone and they're gonna love you. There's a few of them who I think you'll really get along with. And Seokmin already thinks you're so cool from the stories I've mentioned of you -- "
Minghao's heart gave a stutter at the thought of Jun telling people about him. Especially these friends of Jun's that Minghao had been a little jealous of lately, for the stupid -- but perfectly acceptable -- reason of spending so much time with Jun at the expense of Minghao's usual monopoly. But maybe it was equally stupid (yet perfectly acceptable, but still -- ) for him to have such internally drastic reactions like his heart skipping beats over... well, any of this. He took a deep breath and tried to calm his nerves. Normal friends maybe loosened up over this kind of thing. Minghao maybe needed to loosen up.
He glanced over at Seungcheol and Jeonghan, the way they were still pseudo-bickering but now mere centimeters apart. He could tell that they were seconds away from kissing.
It flashed in his mind again, Jeonghan's steal and trade joke that fell flat, that didn't work because -- because Minghao and Jun weren't anything like that. Nothing was wrong with 'being like that' of course, it just... simply wasn't how the two of them were. He and Jun were inseparable, yes usually, but also were clearly, obviously, best friends -- and Minghao's heart gave a strange shudder once again. Maybe at the way 'inseparable' didn't so neatly apply to them as of late. But they were working on that this weekend. And he was also trying to consider not being so territorial of Jun's time. It was more than worth it if it made Jun happy. Minghao could play nice, and so far Jeonghan -- and Seungcheol -- weren't so bad, either.
Shaking his head firmly, focusing on Jun's glittering eyes and soft, supportive smile, Minghao couldn't help but smile back. "Well. If you like them, I like them. Should be fun."
Jun beamed, fingers still tracing along the lines of the tabletop but gaze unflinchingly locked on Minghao.
So, Minghao figured it could be true, that he'd have fun. That he'd get along with all these new people, these newer friends of Jun's. He'd make it true. What could he lose, versus what could he gain? It would be worth it to see Jun smiling and excited -- and Minghao would do quite a lot, almost anything, for that.
