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A.
The first time Nam-gyu sees the boy is when he is eight and a half years old. He is loud , and Nam-gyu has sensitive ears. He smiles, always laughing and cackling even when he is reprimanded by their seonsaengnim, but Nam-gyu fights the urge to cry whenever he is yelled at by anyone. And instead of fingerpainting nice and neatly on the white sheet of paper like Nam-gyu is, he is painting on the white walls.
Nam-gyu- who will come to find out that he does this more often than not- simply stared. The boy reached down from where he was standing on his chair to scoop his hand into yellow paint, and slammed his hand onto the wall.
He did not seem to care very much when some paint dripped down his arm, or when it splattered onto his face and his short, spiky, black hair. The boy looked down, scanning the jars of paint he had chosen. All of the students had been allowed to choose three different colors to paint what they wanted; Nam-gyu had chosen black, orange, and white. He had wanted to paint a tiger, but the most he had on his paper so far was an orange blob. He had been far too preoccupied with.. other things.
The boy’s eyebrows drew together, and his lip jutted out. “Does anyone have black?” He cried. “I wanna draw a bumblebee.”
Nam-gyu wants to ask why in the world he chose yellow, green, and blue if he wanted to paint- not draw - a bumblebee, but instead he said, “I have black.”
The boy’s eyes lit up, and he let out a whoop of delight, jumping down from his chair. He sticks out a hand that is covered in yellow. “Thanks!” He screeched, not seeming to notice he was talking at the top of his lungs. “I wanted to draw a bumblebee and a flower, but by the time I realized I didn’t have the right colors, I was too late.” He shrugged a shoulder, in an awkward, jerky motion. “But now I do!” The boy grinned brightly at him. He’s missing a tooth.
Nam-gyu handed him the paint, and the boy beamed even brighter. “Thank you!” He yelled. Nam-gyu winced a little, but shakily smiled back. The boy is loud, but the smiling is nice. No one ever smiles at Nam-gyu.
And so, the boy resumes his painting, and Nam-gyu resumes his staring. When the boy finishes the painting, their seonsaengnim’s scream of “Su-bong!” is louder than the boy ever had been.
B.
Su-bong is picked up early that day. The whole class can hear what their teacher says to his parents through the door; things like “ too distracting ”, “ too loud ”, “ -worried about his behavior, even at this age-” , and Nam-gyu begins to tune her out. He doesn’t want to hear these things about the boy who smiled at him and liked to paint bees with flowers.
Instead, he thinks about the name Su-bong . He holds it in the palms of his hands, as gently as he had held out the paint.
(Nam-gyu does not see Su-bong for a long time after that.)
C.
It’s the first day of highschool, and he is hiding out in the library during lunch. Nam-gyu tried, he really did, to make friends, to talk, really anything. But Nam-gyu and friends seem not to mesh very well, and his jokes cause awkward pauses and glances in conversation, his demeanor is disagreeable and rude. He’s getting better at not being as … ill-mannered as he was for the past few grades, but it’s hard when everyone around him is so fucking annoying.
Nam-gyu isn’t really an avid reader, and he didn’t really think anyone else in this school was that sort of person, either. So it’s a bit of a surprise when a boy, one Nam-gyu thinks shares the same math period with him, steps into the poetry aisle. The boy scans the rows of books, clearly looking for something.
“Hey, man,” Nam-gyu said, inwardly wincing at the voice crack.
The boy glances over at him, and his cheeks pinken. “Hi,” he said, scratching his hair that is… also pink. Huh. Nam-gyu tilts his head at the boy, intrigued by his blushing face and hair.
The boy cleared his throat. “I wasn’t expecting anyone else to be here.”
Nam-gyu shrugged, for no particular reason. He feels nervous- more nervous than he did during the icebreakers earlier. The feeling is slow and cool, spreading through his body, while his heart is steadily thump-thump-thumping in his chest and feels as though it’s a thousand drums beating in his ears, and his palms feel sweaty. He doesn’t voice any of these feelings, though.
“Neither was I.”
The boy, having found the book he was looking for, plops down. He skims through, till he comes to a dog eared page. “I’m trying to learn English,” he says, as if Nam-gyu is going to interrogate him about his reading. “And.. and I want to rap. Poetry and rap are pretty similar. That’s why I read it.”
Nam-gyu shrugged again. “Okay,” he said simply. “You don’t have to like.. Defend yourself, or anything. I don’t care. Poetry’s cool.”
Nam-gyu had never had particularly strong feelings about poetry before, but judging from the way his heart speeds up when the other boy smiles shakily at him, he certainly does now. “Cool,” the boy echoes.
It’s silent for a few beats, the boy looking up and down from his book, somewhat nervously. “Do you want to.. Hear some?” He asked, voice hoarse.
Nam-gyu shrugged. He should probably stop doing that before the other boy thinks there’s something wrong with him. “Sure.”
The other boy opened and closed his mouth, thinking of something to say. “.. This is one of my favorite authors. I don’t really get what he’s saying, but. It’s good. You know?”
Nam-gyu scooted closer, peeking over the boy’s shoulder to see the page, squinting at the English lettering. “Yeah. I get it.”
(He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t particularly care for reading, or any authors, but he isn’t going to disagree with this boy.)
The boy smiled again. “What’s your name?” He asked.
“Nam-gyu. What’s yours?”
The boy’s face reddened again, but he proudly announced his name. “Thanos.”
Nam-gyu snorted. “Are you serious? Like, it says that on your birth certificate?”
The boy- Thanos, he mentally corrects- pouts. “Well. No. But I’m not going by that one anymore. Thanos is just more badass, you know? And if I wanna be a rapper, I have to have a badass name.” He jutted out his chin. “What’s more badass than the destroyer of worlds?”
Nam-gyu sort of wants to point out that most people who consider themselves ‘ badass ’ do not sit in the library and read poetry during lunch, but he doesn’t think Thanos would take kindly to that. “..Okay. Sure.”
“Plus,” Thanos added, contemplating, “Nightcrawler or Bucky Barnes don’t hit the same. I don’t really care that much about the villains, but the villain names are so much cooler half the time, you know? Antiheroes can be good too, like Loki would be tuff, but. I’dunno, I just don’t like it as much.”
Nam-gyu has no idea what the hell he’s talking about, but Thanos’ smile is nice. So, he listened, resting his head in the palm of his hand. “Cool.”
Thanos nodded, apparently satisfied with this reply, before looking down at the poem. He cleared his throat, started reading. His English is clunky and broken, but the way his eyebrows knit together in focus and the way he mouths the words “If the hope of giving is to love the living.. ” before saying them is so utterly endearing that Nam-gyu sat with him until the bell rang.
C. (2.0)
Nam-gyu isn’t sure when it happens, but Thanos slowly stops going to the library. Nam-gyu would ask him about it, sure, but he doesn’t think Thanos would even give him a straight answer. He’d probably just brush him off. Thanos doesn’t seem like the type of person to sit in a library and read out poetry to Nam-gyu anymore, and Nam-gyu doesn’t think he’s the type of person to sit and listen, either. Thanos is too focused on basketball , or bitches , or whatever the hell he does. Nam-gyu is too focused on smoking, or making fun of people with Gyeongsu.
(It never feels quite the same as it did with Thanos, but Nam-gyu isn’t ever going to say that. The way Thanos acts now is more than a little insufferable. Nam-gyu can’t stand it.)
D.
For the next two years of Nam-gyu’s life, Thanos’ lackeys make a point of terrorizing him. He isn’t entirely sure why.
(That’s a lie. He knows why. He can tell, from the way Thanos will look at him. It’s an odd feeling to Nam-gyu, being looked at. He’s been doing it for so long it’s a bit weird to be on the receiving end. It doesn’t really matter though, ‘cause it’s never for long. Thanos has a quick, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it way of glancing at Nam-gyu, and an even shorter attention span. The fleeting looks are nothing compared to the way he’ll call out to Kim Junhee, or the way he’ll throw his head back to cackle at some dumbass joke Gyeongsu makes because he doesn’t care how his volume affects Nam-gyu’s focus in class. Of fucking course Thanos had to become friends with Gyeongsu, because Nam-gyu can never have shit. God, Nam-gyu can’t stand him.)
Nam-gyu doesn’t really do anything; not really friends with anyone in particular, though sometimes he will skip out on a class or two to smoke on the roof with Se-mi. He’s sort of just.. faded into the background.
He’s definitely not someone who should be on Thanos’ radar, their school's star… pointing guard? Shooting guard? He’s not really sure all of what Thanos does on the basketball team, just knows that he’s damn good at it. It’s not like it even counts as being on Thanos’ radar. Thanos barely even acknowledges his existence anymore.
It’s really just his bitchass friends- minus Gyeongsu, who, half the time seems too high to even be aware of his own existence, and Min-su, who’s too much of a pussy to slap a mosquito off his shoulder.
(If he did, he’d probably ask it to move off, voice all squeaky and shit, like how the chicks in anime sound. It’s a little annoying that Thanos deems Min-su worthy enough to hang out with him and not Nam-gyu, but it doesn’t really matter. Nam-gyu would want to rip off his fucking skin and replace his blood with boiling hot water if he had to spend more than one minute with the guy, so maybe it’s a blessing in disguise.)
And today, Nam-gyu has had a really fucking bad day. He woke up late so he had to rush his shower, he missed his bus so he had to walk to school in pouring rain, all to miss one of his midterms. So no, it would be safe to say that when Park Ji-hoon slides up to his table at lunch, he is not in the mood for his fucking bullshit. He says as much.
Ji-hoon blinked, probably taken aback. Nam-gyu wasn’t sure if Ji-hoon only had cotton fluff between his ears or what, but he probably needed a few moments to process all of the syllables. Park Ji-hoon is sort of dumb as fuck.
Nam-gyu tried- keyword, tried - to just inch away. But judging from the way Ji-hoon sets down one of his meaty hands, on the table it’s definitely not what he has in plan for today.
“Watcha got there?” Ji-hoon giggles, looking down at Nam-gyu's food. Because Ji-hoon is also someone who gets all his ammo from his days of watching the Disney Channel, and judging from the way Ji-hoon's friends glance at each other, they probably agree.
Nam-gyu does not grant this a reply. Before he can even think of taking a bite of his mother’s wonderful, wonderful home cooked hotteok, Ji-hoon snatches it from his plate to take a bite. He makes an appraising noise, chewing noisily. “Compliments to the chef,” he said, through a mouthful of food, because Park Ji-hoon is a goddamn brute. Nam-gyu mourns the loss; he has a very big sweet tooth.
And here’s the thing: Nam-gyu would retaliate, if Park Ji-hoon wasn’t able to beat his ass. Even if Ji-hoon couldn’t, then one of his friends would for even trying. Nam-gyu doesn’t have much faith in his fighting skills as is, and definitely does not trust himself to win a fight against a group. So, he’s subjected to this.. annoyance almost everyday.
Instead of trying to salvage his hotteok, Nam-gyu moves on to his tteokbokki. Ji-hoon, with little class or elegance, snatches his bowl and begins scarfing down that, too.
Nam-gyu, thinking of eating hotteok and tteokbokki at the same time, grimaces. “Are you not fed at home or something?” He asks, teetering the edge between bitchy and genuinely worried. Dude does this like, almost every day.
But it’s now Ji-hoon’s turn to ignore him, because at the same time, Thanos saunters up; surveying the scene in front of him with an annoyingly blasé sort of disposition. “Ji-hoon,” he said, with thinly veiled disgust in his voice, “get a fucking job or something, man. This shit’s not even funny anymore.”
And, well. Nam-gyu doesn’t need Thanos to swoop in and go all Prince Charming on him, because he hasn’t for the past two years, so what’s the difference now? The most he’s ever done before is simply glance, maybe let out a snort. Thanos had never outwardly defended him like this.
Ji-hoon chortled. “Aw, Thanos, look! The fag’s blushing.” Ji-hoon, to Nam-gyu’s complete and utter humiliation, makes a cooing noise and pokes him in the cheek. “Aww!”
“If you bring your dirty ass finger near my face again, I swear-”
“Seriously, Ji-hoon.” Thanos gripped one of Ji-hoon’s shoulders, pulling him away. “Knock it off. Now.”
Nam-gyu doesn’t care if Thanos defends him, because Thanos clearly does not care about Nam-gyu. It probably just annoyed him that his whole friend group wasn’t at his lunch table for their daily dickriding session. Nam-gyu doesn’t care, he really doesn’t.
(It was nice, though. Just a little.)
E.
Thanos’ Prince Charming act doesn’t keep up for very long, because it’s a random Tuesday, and they’re fighting in the hall and Thanos is beating the crap out of him. Nam-gyu put up a good fight in the beginning, having landed a few punches on his face - maybe then all those girls infatuated with him will finally see what Nam-gyu sees- before the trajectory quickly changed.
The fight began with Ji-hoon taunting, and Nam-gyu… well. He doesn’t know how it happened, but Thanos, Thanos who has never, no matter how much of an ass he is, talked about Nam-gyu that way, the way everyone else does, was snorting with Ji-hoon about Nam-gyu being a “freak who’s always staring” and that had been enough for Nam-gyu to ball up his fist and slam it into Thanos’ annoyingly perfect jaw.
The jeer was nothing compared to everything Ji-hoon had said over the years, but. It was just different when it came to Thanos. Ji-hoon’s lips were made for nothing but saying those things, his hands forged for nothing but fighting, but Thanos’ lips had once read poetry to Nam-gyu, had once smiled at him, and his hands had once held Nam-gyu’s under the guise of pointing out words on a page.
“I cannot-” Nam-gyu wheezed, Thanos slamming a fist into his stomach, “fucking stand you .”
“Oh, believe me , I could say the same to you, you fucking fa-”
Nam-gyu spits blood onto him before he can finish the sentence.
F.
(Nam-gyu remembers being ten years old and learning about soulmates. The idea of same-sex soulmates was a little taboo, but not so much that their teacher didn’t tell them about it. When he learned about it, he had wondered if feeling so happy he could burst when the bumblebee boy had smiled at him was a soulmate thing, or if that was just the sort of effect the bumblebee boy had on everyone he met.)
F. (2.0)
(He also remembered being ten years old and asking, “how do you know if they’re your soulmate?” Nam-gyu gets extremely angry when he isn’t allowed to stay up past his bedtime. He gets extremely happy when he gets ice cream. He doesn’t understand how you can tell between soulmate feelings and regular feelings.)
(He also gets extremely annoyed when their seonsaengnim says, “you just know.” )
G.
The silence in the room isn’t suffocating, but it isn’t entirely quiet , either. Nam-gyu can still feel the buzzing of energy beneath his skin, the feeling in his bones screaming at him to fight but Nam-gyu isn’t sure what the feeling wants him to fight, either.
Instead of saying any of those things, though, he says:
“What’s your actual name?”
Thanos looked up. His arms were crossed, and he was slumped down in his chair. The look in his eyes wasn’t a particularly inviting one, but Nam-gyu couldn’t really find it in himself to care. Nam-gyu thinks, perhaps a little enviously, that few others could pull off the broken nose and busted lip look; certainly not himself.
Thanos, as if he could somehow read Nam-gyu’s innermost thoughts and feelings, wiped the blood off his mouth with his wrist. “..What’d you say, Nam-su?”
Something, a certain feeling , one that always curls around his heart whenever Nam-gyu is near Thanos is rising like bile in his throat. “My name is Nam- gyu .” He hissed, infusing every inch of vitriol- the pure loathing he felt - into his speech, and knows that the feeling is hate. Thanos knows his goddamn name. He has to. This is all part of his weird, sick fucking game of trying to make everyone around him feel small. Like- Like he’s the center of the universe, like he’s the sun and they’re all Icarus, yearning to even graze the air near him despite having been warned of the inevitable doom to come from it, like he’s Atalanta and they’d be willing to die for even the smallest chance at his hand.
Thanos raised his hands placatingly. “Jesus. ‘M not really tryna get into another fight so soon, so calm down, boy .”
The two are silent again, both for different reasons. Thanos, who seems to be thinking about something, and Nam-gyu, who was stewing in his own misery and anger. It is a while before Thanos says something, and for once, the boy is quiet.
“Su-bong.”
“What?” Nam-gyu asked, looking up from where he was fiddling with his rings, but he knew. He guessed he sort of always did.
“Su-bong,” he repeated. “My name. It’s Su-bong.”
Nam-gyu is silent. He is not surprised by this. He can’t exactly say he didn’t imagine Thanos as his bumblebee boy; and he’s noticing, now, the startling similarities. They have the same crinkle around their eyes when they smile- hell, they have the same smile . And while Su-bong’s smile hasn’t been directed at Nam-gyu in a long time, he’s seen the smiles Su-bong has given to his friends, the girls Nam-gyu sees him with. (Nam-gyu thinks, sometimes, that they never quite seem to reach his eyes; always sort of dull, lifeless. But then again, he doesn’t particularly care.)
He is a little disappointed at how his bumblebee boy turned out. Nam-gyu flits his eyes up and down Thanos’s frame. Nails painted various colors, knuckles bruised purple to match his hair, black eyeliner smudged around his eyes. Nam-gyu thinks of what Thanos had implied earlier to even get them in this situation, and wryly thinks that he looks more… like that than Nam-gyu ever had.
He guesses, also, if Thanos even remembers it (of course he does. And of course he knows why it’s so important, why it’s stuck with both of them for so long.) he’s probably disappointed at how the boy who had gifted him paint so easily had turned out, too.
“My name is Nam-gyu,” he said, for no reason other than to fill the empty space. He didn’t like silence around Thanos, he decided. The two just don’t pair well together. Thanos was meant to be loud, rowdy, and vociferous.
“I know. Nam-gyu .” He echoed back, the corners of his lips quirking up. For some reason, Thanos is smiling at him. His real smile, the one that reaches his eyes and makes his nose and eyes crinkle. And for some reason, Nam-gyu is smiling back. He giggles a little, a bubbly sound. He’s not really sure why. He’s not really sure why Thanos begins to laugh, either.
They laugh about nothing in particular, until Nam-gyu's ribs begin to hurt for a reason other than Thanos' fists, until they get called into their gyojang seonsaengnim’s office and promptly get suspended. It’s okay, though. It’s just a fact that Thanos and school just don’t pair well together.
( Later that day, Nam-gyu decides that Thanos’ voice and the name Nam-gyu work very well together. It’s just a fact.)
H.
Slowly, things start to change. Nam-gyu isn’t quite sure when instead of being referred to as “that dude with the greasy hair” or “that guy over there” he was being referred to as “Thanos’ friend Nam-gyu” or “ThanosandNam-gyu”. He isn’t entirely upset about it. It’s a nice feeling, being known.
I.
They are supposed to be studying, but things never go quite the way they’re supposed to when Thanos is involved. This isn’t a negative thing, Nam-gyu supposed, but it is a little hard to focus on explaining the Krebs cycle when a very handsome boy is staring at you from across the table.
“Thanos,” he said. “What did I just ask?”
Thanos tilted his head, blinking himself out of his stupor. “Can you repeat the question?” He purred, raising his eyebrows and curving his lips into a smile. This is one of the many things Nam-gyu has begun to notice about Thanos; Thanos doesn’t ask, he commands , he expects. And at best, he might plead. This , however, is different. This is how Thanos speaks to a girl. This is the same tone he used when he asked Kang Mi-na out two months ago, the same way he flits his eyes up and down whenever he walks past Se-mi. Nam-gyu ignores this, to the best of his ability. (Which isn’t very much, judging from the way that he feels his face warm up.) He wants to lean in, too. To match the tone of voice, to look upon Su-bong with lidded eyes, just to see what would happen. He yearns to graze near the sun, wants a chance at his hand, he wants, he wants, he wants.
He doesn’t say any of this, though. Doesn’t match the tone of voice. “What’s wrong with you today?” Is what he says instead.
Thanos pursed his lips, as if not having expected this question. “Your glasses,” he said, simply. None of the polishing that everything that Thanos says has to go through, and he looks down at his book. “They’re nice. Looks good on you,” voice quiet, and although usually a rarity, he seemed to have the ability around Nam-gyu. After all, Nam-gyu has always had sensitive ears.
(Nam-gyu finds that he doesn’t hate him quite so much anymore. Maybe not at all.)
(..Maybe he’ll start wearing his glasses more.)
J.
Thanos, to Nam-gyu’s surprise, is a romantic. Thanos’ face is pink enough to match the lilies he brought Nam-gyu when he asks him out on a date. They don’t bring up it yet, the fact that they both know. This is nice too, though, basking in the feelings of simply knowing without saying.
J. (2.0)
Thanos reads poetry for the first time in years to Nam-gyu that day, and Nam-gyu gets to call Thanos Su-bong now. He guesses it’s a perk of being his boyfriend.
(They still haven’t brought up the soulmate thing, but they will one day. It can be nice to take things slow.)
K.
(His soulmate kisses like he does everything else in life- Intensely, maybe a little harsh, but with an explosive passion. Besides, it doesn’t matter how roughly Su-bong kisses Nam-gyu’s lips as long as he keeps on cupping Nam-gyu’s face in his hands as if he’s the most valuable thing he’ll ever hold.)
L.
As Nam-gyu looks at Su-bong- what he has done many times, and what he will do again- he wants to say the words, I love you.
And for once, he does.