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“what do you say i teach you MMA moves and you give me some taekwondo lessons. yeah?”
hyeontak stops sipping on his chocolate milk to raise an eyebrow at suho. “sieun said you’d ask that,” he chuckles, “he also said to reject you if you did,” he resumes nursing the drink in his hand.
suho briefly looks away in disbelief, “waahh,” he scoffs, “is yeon sieun the boss of you? you’re gonna let that guy boss you around like that, go hyeontak? so much for a black belt.”
hyeontak only laughs, lightly hitting suho’s knee, “not mine. your boss.”
“hah?” the boy raises his hand as if to hit other but hyeontak doesn’t flinch. the only tell that he even noticed suho raise his hand at him is how his smirk grows into a grin, eyes turning up like crescent moons.
“yeon sieun is not the boss of me.” he side eyes his friend, “look at him, he can’t even play basketball.” he points over at the court. “i could easily just— BAM!— like this, and he’s done.” suho imitates a punch.
“you sure you want to hit ‘im?” gotak snickers, wrapping his arm around suho’s shoulders, “yo, sieun! come get your boyfriend!” he hollers.
suho feels a blush bloom around his nose at that. his eyes find solace in staring at gotak’s left shoe before he realizes he’s acting like a coy little school girl and decides to look up. bad idea.
sieun’s own ears and cheeks are red and suho watches on as the blush runs down his neck and hides away behind the collar of his shirt. unlike suho, and despite the embarrassment, sieun never seemed to look away. his gaze always firm and sure. the way he stares at suho now feels like it could cut through him. suho thought he was so fucking cool.
“oh, my god, don’t freaking make heart eyes at each other when i’m right here,” gotak scowls, shoving suho away from him, “he’s so the boss of you.”
suho smacks his arm, blush surely returning, “who the hell has heart eyes, shut up.” he waves sieun away, mouthing ‘it’s okay’ at him but like always the boy ignores him and starts making his way up the stands. suho rolls his eyes, turning his attention back on the idiot next to him. “you’re one to talk, always all up on poor juntae like that. you’ve got baku scarred for life.”
the boy next to him makes an exasperated sound, gesturing in the general direction of the court where the rest of their friends stand, “yeah, well, baku is a bitch who should learn how to knock. i’m allowed to kiss my cute boyfriend, if i please.”
“anyway,” gotak continues, standing up, “your not-as-cute boyfriend is here, so i’ll leave you two lovebirds to it.”
he pats sieun’s shoulder as they cross each other on the stairs at the same time suho barks out, “hey! yeon sieun is plenty cute, look at him,” he stalks over to where the aforementioned boy is and squishes his face. sieun, as always, lets it happen, “look at him! he’s so—“ he pauses to study the shorter boy’s face. after a second, his lips form a tight line as he attempts to suppress a laugh.
hyeontak takes it as his cue to leave, already bellowing at baku for a pass.
sieun shoves suho’s hands away from where they’re still squishing his cheeks together while the other cackles breathlessly.
“your- your- oh my, oh, yeon sieun- your face was all, like-“ he bursts out laughing some more, his body folding in half instinctively.
the shorter boy eyes him silently for a second longer before he pushes past the laughing boy to sit on the bench gotak had been sitting on minutes before.
some time passes before suho finally breathes normally. small giggles still make their way out of his mouth as he sits next to sieun.
“ah, your face was so funny.” he sighs setting his hand on sieun’s left shoulder, the shoulder closest to himself, and leans into him slightly.
the boy eyes him out of the corner of his eye, “thought you said i was cute.”
this makes suho sit up and away from sieun. sputtering, he replies, “well, yeah, sometimes. right now you just looked silly.”
the silence takes over their space, letting only the noise of the basketball hitting the pavement, and baku’s screams reach their ears. gotak and juntae’s laughter coming through quieter.
school life has been calm ever since the union fell last year. suho was able to return to school a month after waking up and sieun visited him every day while he did physical therapy. some days the boys would tag along, making quick effort of befriending suho. sieun had thought it’d be an easy enough thing to pull off between baku’s extreme likability and suho’s, well, suho-ness. he hadn’t been expecting it being so instant.
suho is not a loud person, generally, but nowadays when baku gets excited and starts hollering, suho will join in. much quieter than baku and some less than gotak.
sieun is thankful he gets to watch it happen every time because suho deserves to live all the smiles and laughter and excited screaming, should he wish.
what he had been expecting was how quickly his friendship with hyeontak would grow. with both of them being former athletes and all.
there was one detail he had overlooked, though. he first noticed it the first time they’d tagged along to suho’s after one of his initial pt sessions with him. it was the way suho seemed to hesitate when speaking with juntae. the smaller boy reminded him of their past, a rescued victim, a pair of glasses.
but seo juntae is much more different than anyone in their past and the two grew to have a nice friendship the more they talked. suho sometimes taking interest in juntae’s animes.
from the beginning of their senior year, sieun has made it a habit to meet suho at his place to help him with his remedial classes, other times they meet at suho’s job after sieun’s cram school ends and every so often the boys follow along. though they’ll moan and wail about how they’re third, fourth and fifth wheeling the whole time. sieun ignores them but if he spends those days hanging onto every single thing suho does while he stands at the register, that’s for him to know and for his friends to fuck off about.
“hey,” suho says, leaning back with his arms resting on the bench behind him, “how’d you know i’d ask gotak that?” his soft smile makes sieun’s heart squeeze, “do you know everything about me or something?” he jokes as an afterthought.
“something like that.” he shrugs, “maybe you’re predictable. fight junkie.” sieun faces the court again in time to watch baku put juntae in a pseudo-headlock, gotak reaching to fight him off.
suho reels back, “fight junkie, me? i’m not the one who fought off the entire union after i specifically told you not fight again.”
sieun starts to apologize, again, before suho stops him with a nudge and a clear of his throat. “that was a bad joke, my bad. you know you don’t need to apologize anymore. it’s all in the past now. and we’re here.”
the joyful laughter of their friends bleeds through their conversation again.
“you should learn taekwondo, if you want. i was just being precautious. but i’m not the boss of you.” he says, sparing a glance at the boy besides him.
suho fully wraps his arm around sieun this time, resting almost all of his body weight on him and smiling the smile sieun longed to be able to see again months ago. warmth embraces him and he doesn’t know if it’s from suho’s own body heat or his own blush. it doesn’t really matter, either way.
“nah,” he scrunches up his nose, “those idiots would cry if i got any stronger.”
they’re not conventional, any of them. nothing that’s they’ve been put through is either. sieun feels so lucky to have found these people. and love is a strong word, isn’t it? but that’s exactly how he’d express himself about his friends, if he had to.
if suho feels him relax further into him, more than he probably should in public, he doesn’t mention it. but sieun takes note of the way his heart speeds up anyway.
sieun thinks suho might be a little more than cool, maybe.