Chapter Text
Hyuntak had never noticed Seo Juntae's presence until that day.
It was on an afternoon when he had decided to stay a while longer in the basketball team's special corner because he wanted to avoid returning home where his parents' problems would do nothing but suffocate him. The air was encapsulated by the four flat-toned walls that make up the room, pulling the orange ball lazily to the floor, bouncing it over and over again. Silence reigned in the place, excluding the sloshing of plastic against concrete, so much was his boredom that he decided to take a walk around.
He left the room and started walking in the direction of the big court where he could use the basketball goal to clear his mind for a while, however, as he was on his way, he noticed out of the corner of his eye a figure running through the corridors inside the school.
Perhaps he should have ignored it and moved on, but Hyuntak considered himself someone curious and wasn't going to pass on the possibility that it had been a tasteless crook.
So, he turned around and started jogging to the nearest entrance, with the orange ball with black stripes hidden under his shoulder. He took long strides as he advanced down the hallway, cautiously sliding his dark gaze from one side to the other, he wasn't afraid of being discovered and having to face some stranger, but it didn't hurt to be a little cautious. When he had been walking for 5 minutes without a fixed direction, he was about to do a tasteless imitation of Baku and shout in the middle of the hallway if there was someone there, if there was no answer, he would blame his schizophrenia and leave as if nothing had happened.
However, a noise that could only be that of a falling object silenced any attempt at a scream. A few halls ahead, he found the source of the sound: a boy smaller than him, with a brown coat full of texture that simulated fluff and wider appearance was picking up whatever he dropped on the floor.
Okay, Hyuntak could have just left him there, walked away and played crazy, but, stupidity being his best ally, he didn't.
He approached with a confidence all too characteristic of him and called out to the boy:
"Hey you! Did you miss something or what?” Hyuntak had never seen anyone bristle like a cat uncovered from a prank, splutter and stand up as fast as the boy had done, all in less than five seconds.
"Uhm! Sorry... this I... I accidentally left my chemistry notebook under my bench and I didn't realize it until after I left and came to get it, but then I dropped some things I had bought before I came and-"
"Okay, okay! Hold it right there, you're going too fast, kid. I just asked you if you had left anything behind, a yes would have sufficed"
Hyuntak noticed how the boy's ears turned a sweet peach color from embarrassment.
"I'm sorry..."
He waved his hand as a sign to forget it and not to make a big deal out of it. "I thought you were an idiot looking for something to steal here, forget it"
Hyuntak had said all he had to say and was planning to head back to the court to play for a while, even though it was probably time to go home. But before he could get out of the door, the same boy had stopped him, with a hesitant touch.
"Uhm... it's already kind of late and I thought you might be hungry because you're still here even after school is over, so if you want..” Hyuntak wasn't understanding anything until the boy showed him the cover he had previously dropped looking for his book, inside, there was a strawberry milk and a sweet bread, "we could share"
Hyuntak was about to refuse, but as he looked up at the boy's face, a shy smile shook him with a violence he only felt when he was given a good punch. In the end, against all his instincts, he ended up agreeing.
Food was food.
The boy framed the brightest smile Hyuntak had ever seen in all his pubescent sight: showing teeth, dimpling his cheeks and making his eyes mimic crescent moons.
He almost heard his mind whisper an “adorable”.
They ended up walking towards the outskirts of the school, sitting on the cement bleachers eating lunch and chattering on and off about anything and everything. The boy, contrary to Hyuntak's belief, was quite energetic, talking and talking about any idea that would cross his mind and, contrary to how Hyuntak felt when Humin spoke, the boy's voice next to him was mellow and pleasant to his ears, thoroughly enjoying listening to him chatter away with his cheeks full of food like a squirrel saving acorns for the winter.
Adorable.
That day was Friday, so Hyuntak couldn't hear more from the little squirrel until Monday.
However, like a bloody bucket of cold water with buckets of ice fell on him the news that the cute guy who had treated him to some of his food because he thought he was starving was the same boyfriend of the brainless Hyoman stupid Choi.
Yes, Hyuntak thought it was all a joke in very bad taste that the universe had concocted especially for him.
Someone like Juntae couldn't be related (not in a good way) to a fucking idiot like Hyoman.
Yes, Hyuntak couldn't believe it, no way possible.
But he decided to stay out of it, even though the idiot Hyoman was a very undesirable boyfriend (that is, he was not even close to Juntae's heels in a thousand years) he was not going to interfere and destroy a relationship, since he had not noticed Juntae's discomfort when Hyoman was around, maybe Hyoman was an idiot, but not with the one who was supposed to be his partner.
Of course, he kept to himself so much that he would talk to Juntae from time to time. At one point, he started teaching him some basketball when they stayed until after school was out and Hyuntak just wanted to get away from home for a while. So far away that Hyuntak began to discover the younger boy's fascination with strawberry milk and bubble gum ice cream flavor, the way he would play with his thumbs when something made him nervous, how his cheeks would dip into two little dimples and how his eyes would sparkle when he started babbling about his favorite things.
But Hyuntak didn't try to walk beyond the imaginary line his head had marked as forbidden. He respected when Juntae cancelled an outing to go on a date with his boyfriend, he respected not holding hands or being too close when they walked together because Hyoman liked Juntae to keep a distance of at least one meter with certain men (Hyuntak was extremely envious of Sieun and the fact that the damned Hyoman did allow Juntae to be attached to him). He respected that he could never accompany Juntae either in the morning or in the evening to his home, he respected the thousand and one absurd rules Hyoman had placed on that relationship as if it were an employment contract.
However, that didn't stop that, the longer he coexisted with Juntae, the more the shins of desire for something more were getting more and more embedded in his mind, for him, it was becoming unbearable to have to watch Hyoman push him away from Juntae as if he had the right to decide for him, it was unbearable to see Hyoman stuck like a damn chewing gum next to, yes, his boyfriend, but he was also Juntae's friend. Although deep in his heart the feeling of friendship was beginning to turn into something more, the label of “friend” was becoming too short for him and he didn't know how long he could endure it without collapsing.
Hyuntak wished Juntae all the happiness in the world, but, if that happiness could be by his side, so much the better.