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Junhui wraps one arm around the neck of Xu Minghao, where he’s standing with his friends, and succeeds in keeping him in a chokehold.
That’s the revised version of the memory.
“You—!” Minghao gets one hand around the back of Junhui’s head and tugs him down to mess up his hair. “Were you trying to surprise me?”
“Thought I was doing you a solid,” Junhui mutters. He pushes Minghao hard enough to knock him into a locker, gifting him the shocked expression of another frizzy-haired kid. “So you could show off about knowing a senior.”
Minghao scowls staring Junhui right in the eyes, and slams an open locker door in the poor girl’s face while hoisting himself upright. “Do me a real solid and get lost.”
Junhui clucks his tongue and looks into the faces of Minghao’s classmates, throwing up a ‘V’ with his fingers and grinning the smile he practices at night in front of the bathroom mirror. He gets as far as, “Wen Junhui,” before his throat closes up and he has to strain to make the expression reach his eyes.
“Worst mom’s friend’s son ever,” Minghao declares.
Before Junhui gets a chance to counter the slander, there are fingers around his ponytail, tugging him forward by the hair. “Ow, ow, ow, Jihoon, I’m coming. It’s the first meeting of the year, I’m not going to be late!”
Getting dragged around by the head down the longest hallway in the building means he’s still within earshot and sight of them when one asks, “Friend?” It’s the one with the really nice jaw and eyelid folds that make it seem like he’s wearing Hyojung’s fake eyelashes even though he’s barefaced. The sound of a sneaker scuffing the floor masks the tiny squeak that escapes Junhui’s throat.
He digs in his heels to hear the answer of, “We’re neighbors. I just moved in next door to him.”
Jihoon knees him in the ass for being so slow.
❀
Outside, a sparrow holds a twig the length of its wingspan between upper and lower beak, wings beating in quick powerful strokes to propel it toward its nest settled into the cavity of an old hickory tree in the yard. Inside, the teacher fruitlessly yells out the page numbers to be read before next class. The sound doesn’t carry past the first row of desks, not when everyone is too busy stuffing pencil cases into their backpacks, shoving their chairs in, and whipping out their phones to catch up on missed notifications.
The final bell hasn’t gone for longer than five minutes by the time Junhui manages to get to the main gates, but Minghao is already there, his friends flanking him.
Junhui smiles a different kind of practiced smile when he greets them. His gaze remains on the shorter one when he asks, “What are your names?”
“Lee Seokmin, it’s nice to meet you.”
“Kim Mingyu, please take care of me!”
The shorter one, Seokmin, sounds chipper if restless. The taller one has a voice like a truck. It bowls Junhui over; his mind lies flat on its figurative back while his physical eyes flit over to the general direction of his nose in acknowledgement.
“Pleasure. I’ll be taking this one off your hands then,” Junhui says, eyes meeting only Seokmin’s. Out of his peripheral vision he sees Minghao lunging at him and parries the first punch with the side of his forearm. The second fist he grabs hold of and twists, earning a delicate screech in the ear and a hammering of kicks to the shins.
“Whoa,” Mingyu remarks. Junhui looks at him and then away, both brief movements of his gaze where he doesn’t turn his head. “That was cool.”
This smile isn’t practiced at all.
❀
“I swear I got that article in before midnight, Jihoon.” Junhui spins around on the ball of his foot when he feels the fingers gripping the ends of his hair again. He drops the container in his hands to the floor and raises his fists in order to fend off any further attack. The protests die in his throat when he sees nothing but broad chest and pointy collarbones where Jihoon’s head should be, follows the column of skin up a long neck to a familiar jawline. He makes the mistake of looking up into Mingyu’s eyes.
There’s so much mirth there it feels like Junhui’s stealing joy just from looking into them. It’s the kind of happiness that makes flowers bloom inside your chest and inside your head and inside your memories, tinting the world a soft pink. Junhui’s heart is quickly replaced by a sprig of lilacs with Mingyu’s name on them, and he looks away before those eyes can do any more damage to his internal organs.
“Sorry. Thought you were someone else.”
“No, it’s my fault. I’m sorry. Do a lot of people pull on your hair?”
Not really. Jihoon yanks him around by his ponytail (because it’s easier than reaching up to the top of Junhui’s head, probably) but Jihoon’s also the only person who touches Junhui’s hair. Even if the cells themselves are dead, they’re still a part of Junhui, and it feels as weird having people’s hands on it as it is to have someone stroking the skin of your cheek, or patting your foot. “Don’t worry about it. Are you eating lunch? Where’s Minghao, that brat?”
Mingyu holds up a brown paper bag in front of Junhui’s face, snapping and pointing a finger to it. Junhui trains his eyes on the round of Mingyu’s fingernails and narrowly avoids being blinded by Mingyu’s toothy grin. “They ditched me to eat with some other people in our class. I lost them before I even got into the caf.”
“Wanna eat outside then?” Junhui swings his locker closed. “The weather’s nice today.”
❀
It’s not so bad talking when he doesn’t have to look at Mingyu’s face. They sit with their backs to a tree, Mingyu with his legs held straight in front of him, Junhui’s folded and crossed underneath him. Sunlight filters through spotty patches, but for the most part the leaves provide adequate shade. There’s just enough wind to wick away any sweat, but not enough that it feels chilly. Mingyu chatters just enough for Junhui to feel comfortable adding in his own observations, but not too much that he’s grasping at straws to come up with something substantial in order to hold up his end of the conversation.
“Is it weird spending lunch with a younger student?” Mingyu asks abruptly.
Junhui turns enough to look at the profile of Mingyu’s nose. “Why would it be weird?”
Mingyu sets down his food and shines his full attention on Junhui’s rapidly tensing body. “You know what I’m talking about. The social hierarchies, and stuff.”
“Oh.” Junhui’s shoulders are too stiff to shrug. His grip around his spoon tightens. “Eh. I don’t think I’m really cool enough to care about that kind of thing. Already at the bottom of the pyramid.”
“Having good grades doesn’t make you a loser,” Mingyu retaliates, poking a finger into Junhui’s arm. The bruise that blooms is a chrysanthemum growing and growing until Junhui chokes on it. “I think you’re cool for not trying so hard to be cool.”
❀
The bass blaring from the speakers in the gymnasium sound throughout the entire building. Junhui can feel the vibrations through the rubber soles of his low tops, a dull and regular booming noise reverberating in his ear drums. They’ve arrived pretty late, and the hallway is deserted except for the supervisor collecting tickets.
And the lump of limbs two feet to the left of the doorway.
Wonwoo has been looking forward to this dance for a week. Tomorrow, Junhui will receive six text messages complaining about how boring it is, and wondering why he got so worked up over nothing.
Junhui doesn’t really care either way.
Mingyu, well, Junhui doesn’t know Mingyu well enough to say anything about his opinion of dances. But Mingyu, curled in on himself, looks small and fragile. It looks wrong. Mingyu takes up the space of someone definitely at least six feet tall, he’s not supposed to barely occupy a square foot of school flooring.
“Hey,” Junhui says quietly.
Wonwoo raises an eyebrow. It’s a handsome look. Wonwoo, in general, looks striking tonight in his grey and white striped shirt and indigo-wash denims, ripped at the knees.
Junhui tilts his head in the direction of the figure on the ground. “You look good. Kill them all with your amazing dance moves.” He tries to wiggle his eyebrows, which only gets him more of an arched expression from Wonwoo.
“Shut up.” He squeezes Junhui’s arm once before slipping inside. For the brief moments the door is open, Junhui’s senses are assaulted by a shrill voice and excessive cymbals, but the sound of the drums fades with the click of the heavy wooden door. Mingyu doesn’t even look up.
With Mingyu’s eyes downcast as they are, Junhui’s able to take a good look at his face, his eyes rehearsing the precise lines and shapes of his eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth, chin. He spends so much time leaning down and staring that his own hair falls in front of his face, enough that it partially obstructs his vision and he’s not shocked by Mingyu’s eyes finally glancing up.
“Hey,” Junhui murmurs. He rakes a hand through his hair, pushing it all back. “Wanna eat an entire pizza?”
❀
Honestly, this is the best use of dance ticket money possible. The cheese is stretchy, there are visible pools of oil inside the pieces of pepperoni, and the crust is flaky and thin. Mingyu folds two slices together like a sandwich and shoves the entire thing in his mouth before Junhui’s done half a slice. He washes it down with a huge swallow of coke and Junhui faintly considers acid reflux.
“I’m starving. We were supposed to go for sushi but then Minghao wanted to get dinner with Yubin and it turned out she already ate with her friends so we just didn’t eat at all. And then he said he’d be back after being inside just for a while and I think I fell asleep in the hallway. I knew he likes her but I didn’t…” Mingyu worries his lower lip between his teeth. “You probably don’t really care. I don’t know why I told you all of that.”
“I’ll use it as blackmail. Wonder what his mom will say if she knows he’s dating…” Junhui trails off and takes another bite.
“They’re not even dating. They just, I don’t know, do things that other people think they should be doing. It’s weird, Minghao calculates how often they should be seen together in the hallways and how far they should go each time.” Mingyu slumps in his chair, burps loudly, and covers his face with one hand.
The fluorescent lighting isn’t great for Mingyu’s complexion, but Junhui rests his head on one hand, elbow digging into the plastic top of the table, and stares at Mingyu’s greasy lips.
“Yeah? What do you consider real dating then?”
Mingyu smacks a palm into the surface of the table, sending crumbs flying into the air. “I don’t know. Just, being normal around the other person? Acting like yourself? Isn’t it supposed to be comfortable?”
“Well, I wouldn’t know.” No matter how much sprite Junhui consumes, the strange taste won’t leave his mouth.
❀
“Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, but just so you know, you’re objectively wrong,” Jihoon says, poking a finger through the hole in Junhui’s tank-top.
“You can’t just generalize sans-serif like that, God, being ed-in-chief doesn’t make you dictator, you can’t unilaterally impose only your own aesthetics on the whole magazine. What’s the point of making any of us section heads or having other editors on the team?” Soonyoung wails.
“Look— Uh,” Jihoon stops. “Do you want something kid?”
All eyes turn to the door, where a six foot lost lamb clutches a lunchbox to his chest, lips tightened into a tight ring.
Mingyu looks Jihoon in the eye and says, “yeah,” with barely a warble in his voice. He mutters something else under his breath, like a pep talk, before striding over to deposit the item in front of Junhui. “I like cooking. It’s only fair,” he says, with half the confidence he had speaking to Jihoon, before fleeing.
Soonyoung sits up in his chair, Wonwoo leans back in his, Jihoon looks at Junhui, Junhui stares down at the thing on the desk.
“No food in the computer labs,” Jihoon mutters.
“Shut up,” Soonyoung says, and Jihoon doesn’t even retaliate.
“Did you con one of the youngers into thinking you’re cool?” Jihoon demands.
That’s really not the important question here. The question is, did Kim Mingyu just cook for Wen Junhui. Another question could be, why?
“He spent the entire time staring at Juni’s pecs, it’s not that he thinks he’s cool, it’s that he thinks he’s hot,” Soonyoung reasons. “And considering Juni couldn’t so much as look at him, that feeling is mutual.”
“Ugh, that’s gross.”
Soonyoung flicks Jihoon in the forehead. “Why aren’t you eating with him? Dating? Ask him out, the poor kid’s made you a meal, he’s clearly smitten.”
“Isn’t that cradle robbing?” Jihoon punches Soonyoung in the stomach.
“No,” Wonwoo says, turning slowly in his oversized spinning chair. “It’s because he’s scared.” He gives Junhui a look, daring him to say that his comment was wrong.
Junhui opens the box. The contents are these: broccoli, omurice, seaweed, shredded pork, slices of carrots cut into flowers, a piece of Mingyu’s heart, the key to Junhui’s own. He eats the flowers before Wonwoo can look over and say something about them.
❀
“Thank you,” Junhui says sincerely. He returns Mingyu’s lunch set a day later, after washing it at home with his hands under the water for too long, hypnotized by soap suds into thinking about something or nothing or both.
“How was it?”
Junhui puts his hands on his hips. “It doesn’t seem fair. I threw money on the counter for pizza, you had to put in time and effort.”
Mingyu shakes his head. “But I like cooking. No one likes parting with their money. So I feel like my end of the deal is the nicer one, actually.”
“You’re very good at it. The food was delicious.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
There’s not very much space on the bench beside Mingyu, not with his backpack sitting there, but he puts the lunchbox down and beckons Junhui toward him. “Come here.”
Junhui takes a step forward automatically, turns around when Mingyu maneuvers his shoulders sideways, sits on the ground between Mingyu’s knees when the hands on his shoulders push him down. It’s natural, not because Junhui’s always complacent, but because with Mingyu he’s trusting, and he doesn’t recoil when he feels a hand running through his hair.
“You know that first time when you got annoyed about me pulling on your hair, I really just wanted to play with it. It’s so long, I don’t know how you don’t get annoyed drying it after showers.” Mingyu pauses to gently scrape his nails along Junhui’s scalp, collecting strands into a bundle in the middle of his head. “My little sister complains about that all the time.”
“Mm.” The hum Junhui makes is noncommittal, and he closes his eyes. His hair is released again and re-combed, carefully, by Mingyu’s fingers stroking from root to end over the entirety of his head.
Mingyu works quickly but neatly, until there’s nothing dangling in Junhui’s face because all of his hair is pulled back into a French braid that ends at the base of his skull. He turns Junhui’s face with forefinger and thumb on Junhui’s chin, and frowns after a moment’s scrutiny. “It looks kind of weird, I’m gonna—”
“Don’t take it out,” Junhui says quickly, grabbing hold of Mingyu’s wrist.
“People are gonna—”
“Let them talk.” Junhui pats the top of his head. He can’t see the braids but he can feel the neat passes of hair, and it’s nice knowing that it’s Mingyu’s handiwork. “I like this.”
❀
“Junhui?”
Junhui’s waist aches from sitting up so quickly. “Mingyu? Why are you calling me from Minghao’s phone?”
“I’m at his place right now but it’s …”
“Are there other people there?” Junhui asks, jamming his feet into a pair of old runners.
There’s a loud sigh. “Yeah.”
“Make up an excuse to leave and just open the front door,” Junhui instructs.
❀
“I don’t like it when he’s weird,” Mingyu mutters from the floor of Junhui’s room. “It makes talking about things that are normally funny really uncomfortable. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say anymore.”
Junhui hands him a glass of water, a thumb instinctively brushing up to catch a droplet of condensation and accidentally catching on one of Mingyu’s knuckles. Mingyu makes a soft sound in the back of his throat and accepts the drink quickly. His throat works prettily as he swallows, and Junhui stares.
“Are you still uncomfortable?”
“Obviously not,” Mingyu says, putting down the glass. “You make things normal.” He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
Junhui can’t help it, he has to swipe at the wet spot remaining on Mingyu’s lips. “Would you still be comfortable if I kissed you now?”
“No,” Mingyu says, “I’d be more comfortable.”
“Okay,” Junhui says. Mingyu’s fingers tangle with Junhui’s hair before their mouths even meet. He kisses him.
❀
They go for sushi. Mingyu's face scrunches when he misses the tiny smudge of wasabi. Junhui laughs and kisses him.
❀
They sit at the edge of the soccer field. The sun has mostly set, Mingyu has finished reading the comic book he brought, but Junhui's still solving physics equations. Mingyu pouts, straddles Junhui, and kisses him.
❀
They—