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Dongmin hates Valentine's Day.
Okay…maybe hate is a strong word—it’s more of a cynical feeling bordering on dread.
Every 14th of February, he braces himself for the worst. In the third grade, it was being chased around by two fourth graders who swore they just wanted to give him their love letters, but ended up scaring him to the point of tears. His mom had to come pick him up…it was a whole ordeal. In the fifth, he’d been given at least fifteen boxes of chocolate, which he was too polite to refuse or not eat, and consequently had him sent to the nurse’s office for the worst stomachache of his life. In the ninth, someone had sent a singing-valentine to his classroom to thoroughly and completely embarrass him—he had the sneaking suspicion that was Jaehyun’s idea though.
This year too, his verdict remains the same, but for entirely different reasons.
“Donghyun, do you want to come watch us play badminton later?” Kim Jiwoo asks, leaning forward on his desk with her palms, long hair falling in perfect waves, giving him an expectant bat of her eyelashes that had most guys agreeing to whatever came out of her mouth next.
Donghyun yawns like he’d rather be anywhere else, stretching his arms behind his head. “Nah, I’m good.” He goes back to laying down on the table, propping his head against his arms. Jiwoo is forced to retract her hands, and she leaves with a dejected pout—no doubt to go complain about the boy to her friends who are not-so-discreetly watching from a couple feet away. Donghyun doesn’t even lift his head to check her reaction; he just closes his eyes and prepares for an oncoming daydream.
Dongmin wants to reach out and whack his friend on the head for being so insensitive, but there’s also the more ugly, selfish part of him that feels his chest sigh in relief. He opts for the second option of sliding down in his seat to poke Donghyun’s Achilles heel with his foot.
Donghyun stirs awake, voice all lazy. “Dongmin?”
“Class is in five minutes, don’t sleep now,” Dongmin chides, watching Donghyun turn halfway in his seat to look back at him. “See, now you’ve got drool on your chin.”
Donghyun smiles but does nothing to clean himself up, so Dongmin pulls out his handkerchief from his pocket with an annoyed huff and leans in to rub away at his chin, more gentle than he wants to. “You’re like a child.” He shakes his head, mostly to himself.
“Thanks.” Donghyun mumbles, now stretching his lanky arms over Dongmin’s table instead, his fingers millimetres away from grazing his elbow. Silently, Dongmin sends up a prayer, thankful that he was wearing his winter uniform and any potential goosebumps will be hidden underneath his school sweater.
But Donghyun has entirely different plans of disrupting his morning peace when he starts fiddling with a fray thread on Dongmin’s sleeve—not quite pulling it off, but teasing it between his fingers like a rubber band, pulling it taut and letting go; rinse and repeat. When Dongmin takes the risk of looking at his face, his heart does a somersault, the quiet kind—not something unfamiliar to him these days. Sunlight filters through the tall glass-panes, past the canopy of the oak tree planted out in the school’s garden, spilling gold and green over his honey skin.
Dongmin wants to reach out—he always does, for one reason or the other.
He never follows through though.
“Did anyone give you chocolate yet?” Donghyun asks so quietly and in passing, that he almost misses it.
“Huh?” Dongmin asks, not quite understanding. “It’s only first period, what do you mean?”
He watches the way the other boy twists the thread around his pointer finger, then snaps it undone in one sharp pull. He doesn’t really look at him when he says, “Yeah, I guess.” Then he’s shaking off the fibre onto the floor, wetting his lips before demanding, “Gimme your dictionary. The big one.”
“...You’re gonna nap on it, aren't you?”
“Without a doubt.” Donghyun grins.
Dongmin rolls his eyes, but still hands it over without any protest. Donghyun doesn't linger to thank him before dropping it down onto his own desk with a thud and getting right back to where he left off in his sleep.
When the bell rings and the teacher strolls in with her written notes and white chalk, Donghyun doesn’t care to wake up, nor does Dongmin bother to wake him. He sits there, watching his back, the way his chest rises and falls softly—and Dongmin spends the rest of the class wondering if he meant anything at all by asking that question.
𓇢𓆸
The first ambush comes at lunch.
Donghyun is sitting sideways next to Dongmin at the cafeteria table, stabbing his chopsticks into the other boy’s tray to steal a piece of tofu. He gets a berating look in return, which he pointedly ignores. It's as normal as any other day; mingled chatter drones in the background, the warm scent of rice and meat mixed in with teenage odour in the middle of the afternoon. Jaehyun and Sungho sit on the opposite bench, lamenting about class tests and after-school football practice.
“On Valentines too! You think they’d make it a public holiday already,” Jaehyun whines, plopping an entire cube of radish into his mouth. He doesn’t stop grumbling though. “It’s unfair, I say. The teachers think they can just torture us without any consequence—we’re not zombies for god’s sake, we’re people too.”
“Yeah…somehow I doubt they care.” Sungho snickers mirthlessly.
Jaehyun pumps a fist in the air, crumbs spraying out of his mouth when he demands—“We’ll make them care. I’m calling for a hunger strike. Give me freedom or give me death!”
“Give me a break,” Dongmin mumbles at the same time Donghyun says, “I’ll give you money if you shut up.”
They share an amused grin, fistbumping over the table just to get a rise out of Jaehyun—which they’re successful in when he dramatically starts complaining about having no loyalty in this friend group, and how ‘this must’ve been how Caesar felt.’ Sungho gives him his sausage as a peace offering, or more accurately as a pacifier, which Jaehyun is momentarily distracted by, and it's enough to zip his mouth.
The conversation naturally detours into other things: evil teachers, annoying classmates, Jaehyun’s campaign for school president, Donghyun’s new pet fish (another corydora, no surprise there), then stranger hypotheticals like apocalypse scenarios and zombie outbreaks. They're in the middle of a heated discussion on who would survive the longest in such a situation (majority votes Sungho, Jaehyun disagrees with a passion), when someone interrupts with a tap on Donghyun’s shoulder.
“Kim Donghyun, there’s a girl here for you.” It’s Gyuvin, one of their classmates.
The four of them raise their heads like meerkats, stretching their necks to see past Gyuvin. There’s a small group of five, maybe six, girls standing at the entrance in a tight pack; they look younger by a couple years, all doe-eyed and giggly, teasing and shoving each other in the general direction of their table.
Dongmin’s stomach drops, and so does the slice of radish between his chopsticks.
He turns his attention back to his food, pursing his lips as Jaehyun and Sungho unashamedly start making eyes at Donghyun, way too pleased at this opportunity to provoke him. In his peripheral view, he can vaguely see Donghyun trying to catch his eye, perhaps trying to gauge his reaction, or maybe wondering why Dongmin hasn’t joined in on the teasing.
But it doesn’t really matter what he thinks, does it? Because it’s yet another Valentine’s day and Dongmin is destined to watch Donghyun and his many admirers flaunt their exchanged chocolates and love letters and confessions and everything else that is sickly sweet and unaffordable to Dongmin. He only gets to sit on the sidelines and be some sort of masochistic voyeur.
Dongmin is no stranger to girls’ attention, not by any means—although it has worn down over the many years of him cultivating his over-polite exterior. Girls tended to like someone worth chasing, someone who pretended to dislike their advances and gave them a bit of a challenge,...someone like Kim Donghyun. Of course, it didn’t hurt that he had the face of an angel and the demeanour of a five year old. Only Dongmin was privy to the knowledge that he also bore the personality of a rabid cat when he really wanted something. Donghyun could go ages holding a grudge if he happened to be even the slightest offended, mostly with silent treatments and extremely dramatic sulking.
Dongmin doesn’t know whether—if these girls knew it, if this idealised image they had of him was shattered, would they still like him….
And Dongmin doesn’t know why, even when he knows the worst parts of Donghyun like the back of his hand, all his cracks and crevices, he still likes him.
He doesn’t get too far in his wallowing before Jaehyun is leaning over the table to encouragingly pull Donghyun upwards, hilariously reminiscent of an overbearing mother eager to make a match for her son. “Dongmin-ah, tell him to go talk to her,” Jaehyun whines. “When am I ever gonna see you get married if you’re like this…”
“He’s sixteen.” Sungho smacks his arm. “But at least go let her down gently.”
“Dongmin.” Donghyun turns to him, making Dongmin jerk like a startled cat. He’s looking straight at him, eyes unreadable, lips a straight line.
He can tell he’s waiting for his opinion, a yes or a no or something in-between. Dongmin doesn’t want to say a thing—saying it out loud is speaking it into existence, that he cares about what Donghyun chooses to do, that he could be affected by whatever comes next. Which he will be, but that’s a secret to take to the grave.
So like any other wise person who is irrevocably in love with their closest friend, he says, “Do whatever.”
He doesn’t wait to read Donghyun’s expression, simply shoving a spoonful of rice into his mouth and a piece of meat right after. Jaehyun’s voice plays out like radio-static, a buzz in the back of his overcrowded mind, swimming with thoughts of envelopes and heart-shaped candies and girls in uniforms, with their small hands and pretty smiles—everything Dongmin is not. When he feels shuffling next to him, his grip on the utensils tighten unconsciously, chest squeezing painfully against his ribs, knowing that Donghyun has made his choice. Everything feels horrible.
Here’s the thing about Dongmin and Donghyun—they’ve come as a pair for as long as he can remember, one’s name always following the other’s, whether it was the sweet voice of their mothers calling them back home for dinner after a long day of frolicking outside, or the tongue-lashing awaiting them courtesy of Dongmin’s grandfather when they’d broken another one of his precious antique pieces while trying to play catch inside the house. Hand in hand, knees colliding, shoulders bumping—they’ve always been in tandem with each other.
Here is what fundamentally sets them apart: when Donghyun wants something, he will claw at the edges until he gets it, even if he destroys his entire arm and himself in the process—not a single cell of self-preservation in that body of his. Dongmin, however, is driven by fear. The fear of wanting and not having, of not being allowed to have. And he’d rather not find out how he loses at the end, because he inevitably will, and one more disappointment is not worth destroying himself over.
Because what if Dongmin says, “Don't go, stay,” and Donghyun decides to leave anyway?
He'll be left alone to pick at the pieces, to put himself back together and learn to never hand anyone else his heart on a silver platter. Dongmin doesn't know if can make it out alive through that, if he'll even be a whole person at the end of it all. So he won't wait to find out.
But survival instinct can look a whole lot like giving up, and to most people, he's just a textbook coward.
Dongmin doesn't snap out of his swirling thoughts until someone is emptying a box of chocolates onto the table, letting the multicoloured pieces fall one after another onto the plywood.
Donghyun.
“Dessert is served, boys.” He flashes an easy smile, planting himself back in his spot.
Jaehyun’s eyes widen, “You accepted?!!” He wheezes out, then starts shaking a very peaceful Sungho by his shoulders, making the poor boy drop his food before it ever makes it into his mouth. “Are we getting a sister-in-law? Pray tell.”
Jaehyun is a funny person, so he means this comedically. But it doesn't change the fact that Dongmin wants to tape industrial-grade plaster over that big mouth of his and lock him up in a cellar somewhere—preferably cold, hopefully a long way down.
Still, Dongmin’s ears betray his heart when they can't help but perk up on their own to hear Donghyun’s answer, attuned to the frequency of his voice at all times—sort of like a lovesick radio with a broken dial. Or a conditioned dog, whichever makes him less pathetic.
Donghyun yawns, words coming out slurred, “Told her I'd think about it.”
“Will you?” Sungho asks, saving Dongmin from having to do it himself. Donghyun only shrugs in response, unwrapping a bright blue packet.
Jaehyun shakes his head in disapproval. “You're so cold-blooded, dude. Stole the poor girl’s gift and dashed.” Despite his tone, he’s already reaching for a piece as well, plopping it into his mouth as a whole.
Donghyun curls the little golden twist-tie around one of his fingers, then slides the chocolate towards Dongmin. “Salted caramel,” he adds.
But Dongmin can barely even look at the thing without wanting to vomit, let alone eat it when he knows the intention behind it, what it really means to someone out there. So he shakes his head, makes an excuse of wanting to stay away from sugar—to which Jaehyun gives an offended gasp and Sungho simply agrees—and then he goes back to picking at his own food like he isn’t trying to ignore the ugly, nauseous feeling coiling in the pit of his stomach. He can only hope this is as bad as it gets.
𓇢𓆸
The second confession Donghyun receives is on his way to the boys toilet.
Dongmin tags along because asking to go in the middle of class is a pain—his teachers are fickle and have random fits of discipline where they come up with pointless and unspoken rules, probably to cover up for the school’s lack of competence.
They’re barely a couple feet away from the door when their path is disrupted by a girl two whole heads shorter than them.
“Uh, hi?” Donghyun winces when she thrusts a pink goodie bag into his arms.
She grins unabashedly, her long ponytail swishing as she rocks back and forth on her heels, arms behind her back. “Kim Donghyun, I’m Park Hana, president of the photography club!” She announces brightly. “I’ve seen you around, and well… you're hot.”
She says this with not even a hint of embarrassment in her voice, so bold that Donghyun takes a second to process it, then he shoots a flabbergasted look at Dongmin. Hana doesn't seem deterred, “We should date. If you're interested of course.”
The confession is so direct and lacking any preamble that Dongmin can't help but feel a little impressed. But the feeling only dwindles into something more akin to envy when it dawns on him that he could never have the courage that she does. If he even tried to string three honest words together for Donghyun, it wouldn't make it past his throat, he's sure of that. Because his mouth is just a graveyard for all the things he’s too afraid to say.
It all gets a bit too much for Dongmin, the way he feels like an imposter in a two-person conversation, so he swerves out the way and past the both of them, essentially abandoning Donghyun to deal with the wildcard on his own.
Dongmin doesn't think too hard; he just lets the pressure of the water hit his hands hard, eyes following the way it whirlpools in the sink, round and round until it reaches the centre and then it's gone. He doesn't wait for Donghyun to join, or pull him away from the conversation that is most definitely not eating a hole into his brain when he dares to let himself imagine a little.
Instead, he slips past the door and in the opposite direction so he won't bump into the two of them, passing several other gaudy professions of love involving too much of the colour red, and unfortunately bearing witness to some poor girl weeping her heart out in the stairwell with her friends attempting to comfort her. Somehow, he ends up outside under the oak tree with his head pressed against his knees.
Before he can stop it, his mind starts weaving a story of its own accord, much too creative for this time of the day, thoughts rattling against his skull to be let out when it gets too much to take.
Are they smiling at each other now?
Maybe Donghyun said yes, because Park Hana is pretty and she is popular and she has the balls to ask him out. Maybe they're already holding hands by now, her smaller ones in Donghyun’s large ones.
Are they still in the corridor…maybe they've left for somewhere more private, somewhere without interruptions…fuck, what if they're kissin-
Shut the fuck up Han Dongmin, you're going crazy.
He lets out an exhausted whimper into the crook of his thigh, silently praying for an out. It’s uncomfortably sticky under his sweater, even if the chill in the air is undeniable, and his palms feel rubbed raw.
The school-bell rings to announce lunch has ended and Dongmin realises it's far too soon for him to face the aftermath. There is no way he can saunter back into the classroom and look Donghyun in the eye—or explain why he sprinted off without looking back when Donghyun had needed him. He needs a plan, or at least time to stall so his body can calm down.
So he picks himself off the dirty ground, brushes off the twigs and grass clinging to his pants, and trudges towards the nurse’s office with whatever dignity he has left.
The nurse doesn't even ask for a reason, mostly because he looks like he's about to throw up sick, so she simply tells him to use the bathroom if he needs to and then go lay down on one of the clinic beds. He follows without argument.
His body feels heavy on top of the starchy white sheets that smells like disinfectant. Dongmin stares at the ceiling for a minute or two, then turns his head to map out the room when he starts to feel dizzy. There’s a clock ticking away on one of the walls, next to a calendar and several posters of human anatomy, and another one has holiday decorations pasted haphazardly with tape—some pink and white balloons, a string of paper hearts that spans across its entire length, and a stash of lollipops on one of the side tables. If he was queasy before, he felt like he was on death’s door now.
There was nothing romantic about the stupid holiday; it was just a device meant to poke at Dongmin’s innards until he wanted to run away and hide forever.
He drags a cold palm down his face, pressing his fingertips to his eyelids until he sees flashes of white and red, swirling like watercolour mixing. It's a welcome distraction until one of the splotches morphs into a familiar face, crinkly eyes and soft cheeks, and slowly, inadvertently, his mind gives it a voice—and there he is, Kim Donghyun, not quite in the flesh but undeniably close to the real thing.
In dreams, Dongmin is allowed to reach out and touch. Sometimes over the pulse at Donghyun’s wrist, tracing upward until he reaches his heart line, and then the pads of his fingers that are perfectly curved somehow. Dongmin has studied his hands under the pretense of spacing out before—the trajectory along his fingernails to the raised bumps of his knuckles, slightly pink underneath the delicate skin there, and then down over the stretch of his tendons. Donghyun does have beautiful hands—that much is factual truth, and it isn’t crossing a line if Dongmin only watches from afar, saving touches for the hidden crevices of his brain where no one can be hurt.
So he does. He lets himself hold onto Donghyun for just a little, until school is out and he has to return back to reality. As the drowsy spell of exhaustion overtakes him, his fingers are intertwined with Donghyun’s, and his dreams are full of childhood dinners and dirt-scraped knees.
He hasn’t ever felt this warm in the middle of a February.
𓇢𓆸
When Dongmin finally comes to, it’s already evening. The sun spills a stream of orange through the window bars, cascading down to the tiled floor past the thin curtains.
He’s laying on his side, curled up in a fetal position, arms tucked into his chest. He feels awfully small and vulnerable like this, especially with the remnants of the dream sticking to his brain’s edges. His hair sticks to his forehead, mussed up with sweat, and he barely registers it when something gently drags it upwards, and then there is a soft, cool touch underneath, pressing against skin. Dongmin groans under his breath.
“You’re awake.”
He blinks slowly before turning his head towards the voice—and lo and behold, there he is, the devil himself, Kim Donghyun.
“What are you doing here?” Dongmin sputters, inching away from his palm like he just got burnt.
Donghyun retracts his hand coolly, leaning back on a stool. “You disappeared after lunch. I brought your bag with me.” He points to the floor next to him, at the black backpack sitting against the foot of the bed.
It takes several beats for Dongmin to respond.
“Oh…thanks,” he finally says, scooting up to lean his back against the bed railing. “I could have got it myself.”
“Yeah, I know.” Donghyun says it so easily that it lodges something in Dongmin’s chest, a prick of guilt maybe.
He doesn’t question why Dongmin ran away, or why he’s been acting strange for the entire day. They get up without speaking at all, Dongmin letting the nurse know before they leave together towards the lockers in complete silence. It’s uncomfortable, nothing like the easy quiet that usually comes when hanging out with Donghyun; this one presses down at Dongmin’s throat like a hand choking him.
He wrenches open his locker with unnecessary force, too in his head to even care anymore, before cramming his dictionary and textbooks into one of the compartments. Donghyun glances at him from several steps over at his own locker, opening it absentmindedly.
When Dongmin shoves his hand into his bag for another book, his fingers brush against something metallic and squishy. He pokes his head into it to see that it's a tiny piece of chocolate, wrapped in silver foil, stuck to a white envelope.
A letter. Addressed to Dongmin from an unfamiliar name.
He pulls it out without thinking.
There's a glossy sticker on the tapered end, and he can vaguely smell some sort of floral perfume sprayed on it—roses maybe. Dongmin neatly folds it in half and pockets both the letter and the chocolate, before slinging his bag over his shoulders and locking up.
The two of them head out into the school grounds to pick up their bicycles, which they keep chained up to the metal fence near the front gate. The air is cool to the touch, carrying the whirr of cicadas with the breeze, every street bathed in the soft evening sun.
It's the same path home everyday—they take the curve left of the school premises, drag their bicycles up the steep slope, then across a main road, and past the paddy fields until they reach their neighbourhood. Dongmin prefers to walk than ride his bike on the way back—not held back by time constraints and disciplinary warnings like on mornings. So they’re trudging on with their bags looped around the rear rack, shirts untucked, Donghyun’s tie sticking out halfway from his pocket, feeling the weight of every small step under their feet.
It isn’t until they reach the field that Dongmin decides that he can’t take it anymore and breaks the silence. “Did I miss out on anything important?”
Donghyun spares him a glance before looking forward again. “Hmm…not really, I was sleeping through most of it anyways.”
Dongmin snorts. “Of course. Why did I bother?”
“Jaehyun came by to drop off his poster template though, he told me to tell you to help him fix it.”
Dongmin’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “He told you to tell me, or he told you?”
“Uhhh…both…either?” He slightly teeters on his feet when Dongmin playfully shoves his shoulder, both of their quiet laughter bleeding into the space around them.
Dongmin thinks this might be enough, that he could go home, sleep off the day’s events, and return tomorrow like nothing ever happened in the first place. But there’s the lingering feeling of something unsaid inside of him, trapped until he chooses to say it out loud. So he picks something easier off the surface and says that instead. “Sorry for ditching you earlier.”
“Nah it's okay, you were…sick.” Donghyun says the word with something else tucked behind it, like he knows it's a half-truth and not in the way Dongmin might want him to believe. But he’s considerate enough to not elaborate.
All Dongmin can say is, “Right.”
The fields are glistening on either side of them, at the surface where the light meets the shallow water, long stalks of green bending with the breeze.The sky burns orange. A frog croaks somewhere.Their legs are sore from the day, eyes tired, bellies longing to be filled. It's unremarkably ordinary, all of it.
“I didn't accept it by the way.” Donghyun’s voice cuts across the quiet, soft but sure. “The confession."
Oh, Dongmin thinks.
Donghyun didn’t accept the confession. He feels like an idiot for even juggling the idea that he might’ve—product of overthinking and assuming the worst at all times. Donghyun for all that matters is, well, lazy. And carelessly cruel. He wouldn’t burden himself with fickle things like relationships and commitment; those were saved for people plagued with stupid feelings—feelings like wishes, and wants—people like Dongmin who held their heart too tightly lest it falls apart if given away.
“Oh.” He says finally.
Donghyun barrels on, sparing no mind to Dongmin’s racing heart or mind, “And the one before too, I said no but she insisted I keep the chocolates.”
“Okay.”
“I didn't eat any of it.”
Dongmin nods, because what else is he supposed to do…
He has no clue why Donghyun is even telling him this. Nonetheless, it lifts something heavy off his chest, making space for him to breathe a little easier.
It falls back into just the sounds of their matching footsteps and tires rolling against concrete, slowing down without meaning to. Silhouettes of blocky houses with their electric lines and brick walls come into view, hovering at the end of the grey road.
“...What about you?”
Dongmin’s eyebrows scrunch up, perplexed, as he slowly turns to look at the other boy. Donghyun’s profile gives nothing away, face composed into the picture of peace.
But he’s saying, “Are you going to reply to that?”
Dongmin looks down at his pocket, where the folded envelope sits against the warmth of his thigh. “...Should I?”
He doesn’t dare to look back at Donghyun once he realises how risky his question might sound, not at all playful like he hoped it would be. If he could take it back, he would. Maybe replace it with a “I don’t know yet” or “Maybe”— even if they’re lies, it would save him a whole lot of embarrassment.
For a second he thinks Donghyun didn’t catch his words, but a beat after, he says, undeterred and resolute, “Don't.”
His voice travels from some feet behind, and it belatedly occurs to Dongmin that Donghyun’s stopped walking. When Dongmin turns around, he’s staring straight at him—almost through him—his knuckles are pale where it tightly clutches the handlebars, his outline making him look like something holy under the setting sun. And the way he looks at Dongmin...it's so earnest, like he’s too afraid to hear an answer.
“Okay,” Dongmin says anyway. He scrunches the paper in his pocket between a fist, all because Donghyun asked. Because he’s never been one to deny him of anything, especially not when he looks like…that. He digs the single piece of chocolate out too, and tosses it over to Donghyun, which he catches easily.
Donghyun jogs to catch up, bike in tow, chocolate in hand. When he finally reaches Dongmin, he peels it open and eats it whole as Dongmin watches.
This should be a symbolic moment—the way Donghyun’s eyes glint in satisfaction, the feeling curling in the pit of Dongmin’s stomach, and something about staking claim and unwavering yield. It should be, but the second the chocolate hits Donghyun’s tongue, he grimaces in disgust.
“I don't even like chocolate,” he whines, swallowing with difficulty.
Dongmin blinks before bursting out into laughter, watching the downturn of his lips and the way he wipes at it like that would do anything.
“Then why did you eat it?” He wheezes through another fit.
Donghyun pouts, looking away, “I just didn't want you to eat it.”
There’s a light blush creeping up his neck and ears, or maybe it's just a trick of the light and Dongmin is mistaken. With an amused shake of his head, he sighs before reaching for his bag, unzipping it and rummaging elbow deep before pulling out a transparent plastic packet.
“Haribo?” Donghyun’s face lights up. “You got those for me?”
Dongmin shrugs, because words aren’t really needed anymore and the implication is as obvious as the earth is round. Donghyun takes it from him without needing to be prompted, ripping it open in one clean tear—the way he always does, even when Dongmin chides him to only open up the corners so they can tuck it away for later. He forgoes scolding today, because it's Valentine’s and because the sunset is beautiful and so is Donghyun when he smiles.
Donghyun pops a red bear into his mouth, savouring it with crinkly eyes.
“That good?” Dongmin giggles, holding out his own hand, “Gimme one.”
“Nah, no way, these are mine now.” He holds the gummies above his head, out of reach.
Dongmin rolls his eyes. “I bought them.”
“So? You can't take back a gift.”
“Who said it was a gift?”
“What is it then?” Donghyun wiggles his brow teasingly, almost like he’s resisting a wink.
It makes heat rush through Dongmin’s face, reminding him of how he’s no better than one of Donghyun’s admirers who’s been showering him with candy the entire day—how Donghyun knows that he is.
So Dogmin concedes, sighing dramatically “..Jeez, I was just asking for one.”
Donghyun watches him carefully, weary of sneak attacks, then slowly brings the gummy down to his side. He seems to consider his next action for a beat, pops another bear into the hollow of his cheek, then says, “Fine. Okay”
He ushers Dongmin over, taunting him with the candy in front of his face. Dongmin entertains his whims and reaches over, but instead of pulling the packet away, Donghyun is grabbing him by the front of his shirt, whispering, “But I can do you one better.”
Before anything makes sense in his brain, Donghyun’s mouth is on his, warm and plush, short-circuiting every nerve in his body with a simple press. The sound of metal clanging against ground rings somewhere faraway, bikes abandoned at their heels, and Dongmin finds himself reaching out again, this time for anywhere he can feel the other boy’s heat—he settles on his waist, gripping it with the desperation of a man drowning.
Finally, he has the sense to return the favour, pushing back against Donghyun’s parting mouth, opening up for him. He tastes sugar-sweet. At some point Donghyun somehow pushes the gummy into his mouth, biting down on his lip when he manages to do it successfully—like a reward for himself. It drives Dongmin insane.
It feels like an eternity when they eventually part for air, breaths coming out rapid and shallow, hands still splayed out on each other’s body. Donghyun is grinning like an idiot, and Dongmin has no doubt he too wears a matching expression. It isn’t until the sun has fully set that they have the common sense to pick up their bikes.
Dongmin bashfully rubs at his neck as he props it up, waiting for Donghyun to fall into step with him. They steal coy glances at each other, unable to hide their grins when their eyes end up meeting.
Somewhere closer to the edge of the road, Dongmin asks, “How did you know I was at the nurse’s?”
Donghyun’s answer comes easily, “I've always known where to find you.”
It knocks the wind out of Dongmin’s stomach. It’s such a simple statement—but it's everything to him.
Donghyun continues, “Try not to run away from me again though, my legs hurt.”
Dongmin offers a small nod, letting their shoulders brush against each other, bikes and feet in tandem. And when they finally bid goodbye for the night and split into their respective houses, his tongue tastes sweet, from the candy, and from Donghyun.
Maybe Valentine's isn't all that bad after all, he thinks.