Chapter Text
If Jongho was smart, he would have stayed inside today.
It's not that the air conditioning in his new home works all that well - there's only one unit, affixed rather insecurely in the window in his parents’ bedroom, and the air that it pumps out, rattling all the while, is temperate rather than frosty. But it still would have been an improvement, physically at least, on the scorching sun and thick blanket of humidity outside, not tempered at all by the occasional breeze rolling off the ocean. If he'd parked himself directly in front of the unit, grabbed a book and a steady stream of ice water, he probably could have passed the afternoon without feeling like he was going to drown in his own sweat.
But if he’d stayed inside for even another hour, trying to ignore his mother’s gentle attempts at connection, at bridging the gap that has formed between them since his parents decided, without consulting him, to uproot his entire life, he probably would have ended up screaming.
So, under the pretense of wanting to explore Namhae, he’d rushed outside. As soon as he stepped out of the shaded alcove of their front door, the thick air had hit him like a wet blanket. For a fraction of a moment, he had considered swallowing his pride and ducking back inside, locking himself in his room and trying to sleep through the worst part of the day.
But then he’d thought of his mother softly knocking on his door and trying to lure him out with cold tea or plates of melon fresh from the fridge, things that, while lovely, would just be precursors to yet another conversation that he doesn’t want to have.
So, pulling on a pair of sunglasses that he’d had the foresight to grab, he’d stepped further out into the blinding sun. Even though he’d immediately started to roast, he’d kept walking, following their quiet street to the end and then picking a direction at random.
But god, he really should have stayed inside.
Now, his shirt is plastered to him, and he can feel rivulets of sweat trickling down the length of his spine and gluing his bangs to his forehead. He’s trying to stick to the shade whenever possible, but the back of his neck and his ears already feel hot and tender. If he turned around now, he could probably make it back to his house before the burn gets too bad, could maybe even sneak back into his room before either of his parents noticed and insisted on slathering his pinkened skin with aloe vera.
But there’d be no escaping the awkwardness of dinnertime, the negative energy that has made it difficult for him to finish a single meal together since they arrived. He knows it’s partially his fault, that it can’t be easy for his parents to work with his sullen silence and monotone answers, but what do they expect?
So instead of turning back, he ducks into the next small shop that he comes across and uses a precious portion of his allowance to buy a bottle of water and a plain black baseball cap that will hopefully keep his ears and face from getting any more burned.
With the lukewarm water trickling down his throat, he keeps walking.
He walks by a seafood restaurant that has their doors thrown wide open, letting out the intermingled scents of fresh-cooked mussels and soju and letting in a half dozen stray cats who are wandering around the crowded tables, begging for morsels. He walks by a sign advertising the nearby German village, which his dad has been talking about wanting to visit since before they moved. He walks by shops and cafes and dodges around crowds of tourists and grandparents slowly strolling along, all while the sun continues to beat down on every unprotected centimeter of his skin.
By the time the rich, salty smell of the ocean hits his nose in full-force, he’s almost out of water and desperately in need of some actual shade, somewhere with a deep pool of cooling shadow that he can slip into for the rest of the afternoon. The beach is probably ludicrously busy today, but maybe he’ll luck out and be able to find a tree with a leafy canopy that he can shelter under for a couple of hours, even if it earns him disgruntled looks from people also vying for a spot in the shade.
He crosses the wide road that separates a row of houses with roofs nearly as turquoise as the sparkling sea from the wooden boardwalks that lead down to the water. However, before he can make it any further than a couple of feet over the sand, a sudden noise cuts through the cry of gulls overhead.
Namely, a loud, shrill scream.
He stops in his tracks and glances to his left, the direction that the scream came from. Further down the road, butting up against the sand that eventually leads down to the water, is a skatepark, an ocean of concrete and metal against a sea of sand. He can see a couple of people skating back and forth. One of them crouches down low and then jumps, bringing their board up to land on a railing in a perfect grind before they drop down and disappear behind a looming vertical ramp. None of them seem to be bothered by the scream, and for a second, Jongho wonders if he imagined it. Maybe someone got startled down at the beach, and he was so lost in his own head that he didn’t realize what direction the noise was coming from.
But then the scream (or really a screech) comes again, and he notices a flurry of movement on the flat landing atop another one of the vertical ramps, what looks an awful lot like two people rolling across the cement, locked together in a tussle. Once again, none of the other people at the park move towards the altercation or even show any sign that they’re aware of it. Maybe they’re all wearing headphones, blissfully unaware. Maybe this is, weirdly, par for the course for Namhae, as much a part of the scenery as the birds flying overhead and the sun sparkling on the waves like diamonds.
But, even if this is normal, he’ll never be able to enjoy the rest of his afternoon until he receives confirmation that nothing is wrong. The phantom sound of the screams will echo in his ears, a spectre haunting what should be a pleasant time dozing in the shade.
So, abandoning the boardwalk, he heads over to the skatepark.
There’s a hill at the back of it, dirt with a light layer of grass rising from the sand, and Jongho strides up it just as another scream splits the air. Moving faster, he reaches the top of the ramp, where loose earth turns into flat concrete.
There are two teenage boys rolling across the ground, so thoroughly tangled together that it’s hard to decipher where one begins and the other ends. One of them has hair the color of a lavender bush in full bloom, while the other has hair the green of a slightly faded emerald. They’re about the same height, but one is scrawnier and has sharper features while the other has broader shoulders and long arms that he seems to be using to try and pin the other to the concrete, a move that is somehow countered in a flurry of movement that Jongho can’t fully comprehend.
Neither of them look particularly injured - he can’t see any blood staining their skin or the surrounding area, and there’s no sign of fresh black eyes or bruises - but he can still hear that sharp scream lingering in his mind. And now that he’s up here, he can’t exactly slink away, not without feeling supremely stupid.
So, even though his cheeks are burning with embarrassment, Jongho clears his throat as a precursor to speaking.
Before he can fully open his mouth, the boy with the green hair yells “Stop biting me!” in a high, slightly squeaky voice.
Sure enough, the purple haired boy has his teeth pressed into his enemy’s (or friend’s?) lean bicep, just below the sleeve of his t-shirt. He lets out an exaggerated growling sound before he pulls back, says, “Make me,” and dives back in.
The green haired boy screams again (a sound that is almost earsplitting, now that Jongho is in close proximity to him) and jabs his fingers into his friend’s waist.
Jongho opens his mouth to once again try and speak. This time, he manages to choke out, “Are you two okay?” before the sound of plastic wheels against concrete suddenly intensifies in volume. He glances to his right in time to see another boy shoot over the top of the ramp, snatch his board from midair and then nimbly land on his feet, crouching slightly to distribute the force of his landing before he stands up straight.
The new arrival has short hair the color of a dragonfruit plastered to his forehead with sweat. He’s wearing a white shirt with torn off sleeves and ripped black skinny jeans. His bare arms are covered in dust, scratches and bruises, and the lobes of his slightly oversized ears are pierced through with mismatched studs. His jaw looks like curved glass, his eyes are black pearls reflecting back the sun, and he has a birthmark sitting beside his left eye, red as the wine that Jongho’s mom likes to have with dinner sometimes.
He is, without a doubt, the most beautiful person Jongho has ever seen in his sixteen years on the planet.
And based on the way he’s quirking one thick, sculpted eyebrow at Jongho, he just said something that Jongho missed because he was too distracted to listen.
“Sorry,” he says, hoping that his sunglasses hid the worst of his staring. “Did you say something?”
When the boy opens his mouth, his voice is far deeper than Jongho expects, but it’s softened by the lisp that clings to the edges of his words.
“I said, give them ten seconds, and they’ll stop fighting.” Before Jongho can respond, he lets out a laugh unlike anything Jongho has ever heard, quiet and sweet, something that he’d spell as hehet if he had to put it down on paper. “Oh wait, never mind.”
Jongho spins back around. While the other two boys are still tangled together on the ground, they’re no longer fighting (if that’s what they were doing in the first place). Instead, they’re making out ferociously, seemingly not caring about their audience. The green haired boy has both of his hands threaded tight into the other boy’s hair and one leg wrapped around his waist, while the other boy has his hands shoved underneath the green haired boy’s shirt, pulling it up far enough to reveal his flat stomach and the waistband of his boxers.
“Jesus Christ,” Jongho mutters, turning back around, cheeks flushing through with heat. Even though they’re the ones putting on a show, he feels embarrassed, as if his parents just walked in on him watching porn.
The boy laughs again. “Yeah, they get that reaction a lot.” He drapes his board around his shoulders, like an oxen carrying a plow, which only draws Jongho’s attention to the lithe muscle coating his arms. “Did you just move here?”
Jongho nods, trying his best to ignore the high, wavering gasp coming from behind him. “Two weeks ago.”
“Well, welcome to Namhae. I’m Kang Yeosang. Born in ‘99.”
After Jongho introduces himself, trying not to fixate too hard on the fact that Yeosang is simultaneously only a year older than him and also, a whole year older than him, Yeosang nods towards the flat area at the bottom of the ramp, smooth concrete decorated with artistic swirls of graffiti and pastel chalk.
“You ever skateboarded before?”
Jongho shakes his head. Back home, none of his friends had been into skateboarding, and while he can admit that it has a certain reckless appeal, it’s not something he’s ever thought to pursue on his own.
Yeosang smiles brightly at him and pulls his board off his tanned shoulders.
“Want to learn?”
🌊 🌊 🌊
It’s not how Jongho planned to spend his afternoon, but he has to admit, despite the sweltering heat and the way he’s sunburned in half a dozen places, it still beats trying to sleep the day away under a tree while gulls and children scream on the nearby beach.
Under Yeosang's patient tutelage, by the end of an hour, he's able to go in a straight line without wobbling too much or feeling like the board is going to shoot out from underneath his feet. But as soon as he attempts to do an ollie, the fear that he's about to eat concrete (to say nothing of embarrassing himself further in front of a pretty boy) comes back with a vengeance, and he passes the board back over to Yeosang.
“I think I need a break,” he says, dropping onto the shallow lip of another ramp and downing the rest of his water, which is now as warm as a hot bath from sitting in the sun. “But you're a good teacher, Yeosang-ssi.”
“You're a good student.” Yeosang rummages around in his battered backpack and pulls out an energy drink. “You actually listen, unlike Wooyoung.”
On cue, the boy with the lavender hair, who Jongho now knows is Yeosang's friend and a fellow 99’er, clambers up onto the ramp, snatches the energy drink out of Yeosang's fingers, and says, “I resent that accusation.” As he brings the stolen drink up to his lips, he suddenly pauses and turns to stare at Jongho with furrowed eyebrows. “Wait, who the hell are you?”
Yeosang rolls his eyes. “This is Jongho. He's new in town. You could have met him earlier if you weren't torturing San. Jongho heard him scream and came to rescue him.”
Jongho's face starts to burn again. “I thought-”
Wooyoung interrupts him by full-on cackling like some kind of supervillain. Or a witch. Jongho instinctively winces and feels a flash of guilt before he realizes that Yeosang, who is almost certainly familiar with the noise, winces as well.
“That's so sweet,” Wooyoung coos, leaning forward and knocking Jongho's hat off his head before he ruffles his hair and sighs fondly. “He does have quite the scream on him, doesn't he? It's fucking adorable.”
While Jongho is recovering from the psychic damage inflicted by a stranger mussing him up like a toddler, Yeosang takes advantage of Wooyoung's distraction, grabs his drink back and takes a swig.
“Hey!” Wooyoung reaches for it again, but this time, Yeosang darts away from him. “I was drinking that.”
“Get your own,” Yeosang replies. The energy drink has left a faint red sheen across his mouth, and Jongho has to force himself to look away before he gets caught staring (again). “Where is San anyways?”
“He got sand under his binder, so he was gonna run home and change.”
“How did that-” Yeosang abruptly cuts himself off and waves one hand in Wooyoung’s general direction. “Wait, don't answer that, I don't want to know.”
Wooyoung laughs again and wiggles his eyebrows. “I'll spare you the gory details if I can have some of your drink.”
Yeosang lets out a sigh that somehow manages to sound both long-suffering and affectionate before he reaches back into his bag and pulls out a second identical can. “Here, just take this one.”
“And this,” Wooyoung says, planting a messy kiss on Yeosang's cheek before he pops the can open and chugs a third in one go, “is why I love you, Sangie.”
Jongho feels like he's interfering. Even if Yeosang hadn't told him that Wooyoung and San were two of his closest friends, it's clear from their interactions that there's a history built up between them, familiarity that's been carved out and molded over years. Getting one on one skateboard lessons while Wooyoung and San were off doing whatever they were doing (something lewd, by the sounds of it) was one thing. It was easy enough to write that off as Yeosang taking pity on him for stumbling into something or as a way to keep himself from getting bored.
But now, the feeling that's been hanging over him like a shroud from the moment he stepped out of his parent's car a week ago is so heavy that it's suffocating.
He doesn't belong here.
Something gently nudges his side, forcibly pulling him out of his smothering anxiety. When he glances down, Yeosang is holding out yet another can, lips curled up into a soft smile.
“Want one? San and Wooyoung will just share, so I've got an extra.”
Jongho barely hears Wooyoung's answering mutter, too busy staring at the can. It's a radioactive shade of green, and he just knows that it's going to be sickeningly sweet, crammed full of sugar and lord knows what other chemicals. Not only is it almost certainly going to taste disgusting, it's probably going to make him feel like shit.
But the mere fact that Yeosang is offering it to him slightly calms the inner voice that's screaming interloper.
Plus, it's really fucking hot, and the remnants of his water did almost nothing to sooth the dryness coating his throat.
“Thanks, Yeosang-ssi,” he says, taking the can and popping it open.
“If we're sharing drinks, you can call me hyung. Also, if you're too formal with Wooyoung, he'll probably get hives, so call him hyung too.”
“Presumptive of you,” Wooyoung grumbles, lightly kicking Yeosang's leg. “He's right though, Wooyoung-ssi makes me sound like someone's dad, and San isn't ready for babies yet.”
Jongho isn't sure where to start unpacking that string of words, so he takes a sip of the energy drink instead.
And promptly gags on the revoltingly hot, foul tasting liquid
He manages to swallow, but it's one of the hardest things he's ever done. After swallowing in a failed attempt to clear the sour aftertaste from his mouth, he coughs and says, “I don't know if that tastes more like battery acid or piss.”
Jongho sees Yeosang's pretty lips turn up, but the sound of his giggle is drowned out by another of Wooyoung's cackles.
“I like you, kid.” Suddenly, his eyes light up bright as the sun, and he jumps to his feet, nearly knocking over his own drink. Only Yeosang's whip-quick reflexes save it from tipping over. “Excuse me, I have some giants to tackle.”
“What?” Jongho asks, nearly dizzy from the abrupt change in topic.
He wonders if that's a feeling Yeosang still experiences or if he's long since gotten used to it.
Wooyoung is already gone, racing across the concrete, sneakers loudly slapping across the ground as he runs in the direction of the boardwalk, where there are two other boys approaching, holding hands. They look deep in conversation, pressed so close together that their heads, one covered in chestnut brown waves and the other in deep blue, are nearly touching. Jongho wouldn't call them giants, but they are exceedingly tall and lanky.
They look away from each other as Wooyoung yells, “Catch me!” and flings himself at the boy with brown hair. Jongho instinctively flinches, sure that they're about to roughly crash together, but the boy drops his boyfriend's hand and easily catches Wooyoung, pulling him into a hug. Giggling, Wooyoung throws his legs around his friend’s waist and hugs him back, clinging to him like a koala as they spin around.
“Hey.”
When Jongho looks back at Yeosang, he jumps. Yeosang is very close to him now, close enough that Jongho can feel the heat rolling off him. When he glances down, he can see individual drops of sweat gleaming on Yeosang's shoulders and what looks like remnants of yesterday's eyeliner flaking under his lower lashes. There's a red smudge at the corner of his mouth, presumably from his own drink, and a smattering of acne on the sharp line of his jaw.
And yet, he's still the prettiest thing Jongho has ever seen.
He takes another sip of the energy drink so that, instead of staring at Yeosang fondly, he’ll grimace instead.
“Do you want to come meet Mingi and Yunho?” Yeosang asks. “They’re cool, I promise.”
Part of Jongho wants to use the arrival of a new set of people as an excuse to head out. It’s not that he doesn’t believe Yeosang, but today has already been a whirlwind of new people, way busier than he expected. He’s tired and sweaty, and the energy drink is sitting sour in his stomach. He kind of wants to retreat into the shadows of his bedroom, where he might not be able to beat the heat but he can at least recharge.
But Yeosang has already gone out on a limb today more than once. He didn’t have to spend time with him. He could have simply warned him away from Wooyoung and San and gone back to his day. He certainly didn’t need to share a drink with him or ask him to call him hyung. It would have been completely understandable if he’d registered Jongho as nothing more than a strange kid and forgotten all about him.
But he didn’t. And now, he’s looking at Jongho with the cutest smile on his face as he absently knocks his heels against the ramp, and not only is he not trying to push Jongho away, he’s actively trying to bring him further into his circle.
The thought of disappointing him, of doing anything that might make that small smile wither away like grass wilting and yellowing under the unyielding sun, fills his mouth with a sour taste that makes the energy drink seem sweet by comparison.
“Okay,” he says, clearing his throat. “Yeah. That sounds cool.”
After only a few minutes, Jongho understands why Wooyoung made a beeline for Yunho, the taller, brown-haired one of the two, as soon as he saw him.
(Objectively, at least - he cannot possibly imagine ever throwing himself at someone in such a public space. The mere thought makes his skin feel too small.)
Yunho is just a puppy encased in the lanky body of a seventeen year old. As soon as Yeosang introduces Jongho, Yunho flashes him a huge smile and asks him about himself, all while he continues to slowly spin around with Wooyoung wrapped around him. Eventually, he puts Wooyoung down (much to Wooyoung’s chagrin), hooks his arm around Mingi’s elbow and tugs him over, introducing him as his boyfriend.
In reply, Mingi tips his sunglasses down his nose, raises an eyebrow and says, in a gravelly voice that takes Jongho by surprise, “What’s up, man?” before he pulls a bag of half-melted gummy bears out of his pocket. He tosses one of the candies into the air, tips his head back and opens his mouth, clearly intending to catch it.
Instead, the bear lands directly in the gap between the rim of his sunglasses and his eye socket and he yelps, pawing at his face and managing to knock both his glasses and the candy to the ground in the process.
Jongho has to bite down on his lip to hold back a laugh.
Yunho sighs, cheeks pushed up by a fond smile, and stoops over to pick up Mingi’s sunglasses.
“C’mon princess,” he says, leaning in to kiss Mingi on the cheek. “No need to take your eye out trying to impress Jongho-ssi.”
Mingi’s cheeks turn scarlet as he mumbles a denial, but whether it’s from the pet name or sheer embarrassment, Jongho doesn’t know.
Either way, Jongho’s momentary worry that Mingi and Yunho might not be as cool as Yeosang promised melts as surely as the gummy bear laying in the sand.
🌊 🌊 🌊
As the heat of the day slowly starts to dissipate, the other people who have been hanging around the fringes of the skatepark, people that Yeosang waved at but didn’t try to introduce Jongho to, disappear, until it’s just the six of them, with San having eventually returned.
(He’d immediately pulled Jongho into a tight hug, after Yeosang introduced him as ‘the guy who tried to save you from Wooyoung’).
Wooyoung and Yeosang take turns tearing up and down the ramps and along the rails, hair flying in the self-made wind. Yunho and Mingi, who apparently came from dance practice, are working on a routine for a performance they have coming up in a month, and Jongho finds himself fascinated by how well the two of them move, ridiculously graceful and flexible despite their size. When San isn’t ogling (or outright making out with) Wooyoung, he joins them, spinning around like a top to the music piping from Mingi’s phone, so damn energetic that it scares Jongho a little bit.
They ask Jongho if he wants to join, promising that they can teach him something a little less complex, but he waves them off. He’s already tried enough new things for one day. When he does let it slip that he can sing, however, they pester him until he obligingly closes his eyes and belts out the chorus of the first song that comes to mind, a ballad that he has probably listened to a little too often lately, on the days where he feels like wallowing.
When he opens his eyes, Yeosang is standing in front of him, mouth open, one foot resting on his board. Even under the loud exclamations of the rest of them, Jongho clearly hears him murmur, “Wow.”
The flush that surges into his cheeks feels hotter than the sun itself.
He’s pretty sure that things should feel more awkward than they do - after all, it’s only been a couple of hours since he stumbled out into the heat of the day, since he was first lured over to the park by San’s scream. But, while there’s still awkwardness, a feeling that the five of them are occasionally lapsing into a language that he doesn’t speak, it doesn’t feel like they’re trying to exclude him. It’s only natural that they would slip back into their native tongue, built up over years of living in each other’s pockets, starting from preschool.
(Based on what they’ve told him, Wooyoung had apparently wandered over to Yeosang and bitten him on their first day, which had cemented their friendship on the spot. Hours later, he’d announced to the entire class that he was going to marry San when he grew up, a declaration that didn’t waver even after San changed both his name and pronouns. That same day, during their first nap period, tiny Yunho had made the decision to share his blanket with a boy on the edge of the circle who was so shy that he could barely say thank you, and they’d all spent the afternoon having a very serious debate about how to build the best sand castle.
The rest was history.)
There’s no sense of blocking him out. If anything, he feels like, through dropping tidbits of their history together, through Yeosang convincing Jongho to hop back on the board again and scoot from one side of the park to the other while Yeosang jogs along beside him shouting encouragement, they’re trying to share that language with him.
It certainly doesn’t erase the pain of being in a new environment, the soul-crushing sensation of scrolling through his phone and seeing photos of his friends and family and knowing they’re nearly a whole country away. But…
At the very least, it makes him grateful that he made the decision to leave the house today. Even if he’s sunburned and his stomach is starting to growl so ferociously that even Mingi’s gummy bears, now melted together into a singular, sugary blob, are starting to look delicious.
He’s nearing the point of having to choose between sticking with the group but possibly passing out from lack of food and too much caffeine or heading back to home cooked food and tension that feels like knives in his shoulders when Wooyoung, who is sitting in San’s lap beside Jongho, emerges from noisily sucking yet another hickie into San’s neck and glances past Jongho, back in the direction of the boardwalk.
“Fucking finally!” he yells, loud enough that Jongho reflexively winces again. “What took you two so long?”
Jongho follows Wooyoung’s gaze (and only loses a second to looking at Yeosang, who is sprawled out on his other side, legs dangling down the ramp and arms tucked under his head, happily gazing up at the fluffy clouds scudding across the sky) and sees two more people strolling towards them. One is tiny and has a sandy brown mullet that somehow looks cool rather than ridiculous and several piercings dangling from their ears. The other is several centimeters taller and has glossy black hair that’s nearly touching their shoulders.
“Some of us have jobs, you degenerate,” the shorter one snaps back, flipping Wooyoung off.
“I do have a job!” Wooyoung responds, clambering from San’s lap, sliding down the ramp and stomping across the concrete.
“Working for your future in-laws does not count.”
“Fuck off, they pay me, so it totally counts.”
While Wooyoung continues to fight with the shorter newcomer, the other one rolls their eyes fondly and nimbly climbs up to the top of the ramp, accepting a hand when Yunho extends it and says, “Hi, noona.”
On Jongho’s left side, San leaps to his feet and wraps himself around the person like a snake as he asks, “How was your day, hyung?”
Jongho’s brain stutters for a moment. Maybe he misheard, or maybe one of the honorifics was some kind of joke.
Before he can decide between trying to figure out the most polite way to ask for clarification or remaining silent and hoping the situation will clear itself up, Yeosang gently bumps into his side. Jongho turns back just as Yeosang leans in to murmur into his ear, and the sound of his low voice and his warm, sweet breath brushing against Jongho’s already overheated skin makes his stomach churn again.
“We use both with Seonghwa. They don’t have a preference.”
“Oh,” he replies with a nod. “Thanks, hyung. That makes sense.”
More warmth floods his stomach at the realization that, despite looking for all intents and purposes like he was zoning out, Yeosang must have been paying enough attention to realize that Jongho was confused. Specifically, on some level at least, he must have been paying attention to Jongho and not just his general surroundings.
Before he can get caught up thinking too much about that possibility, Seonghwa drops down to sit beside him, San pressed into their side, and turns their glossy lips up into a smile so warm that it hits Jongho like a hug. They’re sitting close enough that Jongho can smell something sweet clinging to them, like strawberries or citrus.
“So, Jongho-ssi, right? I hear you tried to save San from Wooyoung.”
Jongho has to fight the urge to bury his face into his hands.
“I thought they were fighting,” he sighs.
“An honest mistake. They act like stray cats sometimes. Wooyoung just likes to bicker in general. Speaking of…” They raise their voice and put a hint of sharpness into it that makes Jongho sit up straighter, even though it isn’t directed at him. “Quit fighting and get up here, or we’ll leave for dinner without you.”
The promise of food seems to put an end to whatever disagreement the two of them were having, and after exchanging single curt nods (which are made less curt by the way Wooyoung snorts out a laugh through his nose), they both climb back up. The boy with the mullet wedges himself between San and Seonghwa, and before Jongho can introduce himself, the boy leans into Seonghwa’s space and raises a pierced eyebrow.
“I thought we only had five kids,” he says, staring at Jongho. “Where’d you come from?”
“Well,” Seonghwa replies, rolling their dark eyes, “seems like now we have six. And he came from Seoul, according to the boys.” Turning back to Jongho, they continue, “Please forgive Hongjoong, he’s just in a bad mood because of work.”
“Am not,” Hongjoong mutters, absolutely unconvincingly.
“San’s aunt has a restaurant that we usually go to on Saturdays,” Seonghwa continues. “You’re welcome to join us tonight.”
“Yeah!” San wiggles himself across both Hongjoong and Seonghwa’s laps, ignoring Hongjoong’s disgruntled squawk, and plops his head onto Jongho’s thigh so that he’s staring up at him with his giant boba eyes. “Her food is so good! Also, she gives us free soda and leftover fish for Byeol. You should come with us.”
Jongho’s chest feels… strange. Tight, but also bubbly at the same time. His whole body feels warm, as if his sunburn has permeated even the parts of him that are fully covered by his clothes. There’s also a knot in his stomach, a fear that the offer is being extended out of obligation, because Seonghwa doesn’t want to make things awkward.
But it doesn’t seem like San is offering out of obligation, not with the way he’s looking up at Jongho and practically vibrating with excitement. And at any point today, the others could have come up with an excuse to slip away, to go hang out somewhere else and cut their ties with him. But instead, they let him stay. They welcomed him in. They shared their drinks and sticky candy with him.
They shared themselves with him.
And even though, if he goes out to dinner with them instead of home, he’s almost certainly going to end up with at least a scolding, if not outright grounded or faced with a list of chores longer than his arm…
Today has been the first day since he’s moved to Namhae where he’s felt something that didn’t hurt.
Yeosang leans into him again and props his sharp chin on Jongho’s shoulder, so close that if Jongho were to turn, his face would be buried in Yeosang’s pink hair.
They’re a touchy bunch - he’d figured that out after only a couple of minutes - and the fact that they’re already including him in that, even though his fingers feel numb at the thought of returning any of that affection, makes the tightness in his chest ebb some.
“You should come,” Yeosang says quietly. He’s sitting so close that Jongho can feel the peach fuzz coating Yeosang’s bare arm brushing his own forearm.
That makes the decision for him.
“Okay,” he replies. “I’ll come.”
(By the time he gets home, it’s well past dark, he’s so full of delicious food that he can barely walk, and he can still feel the phantom weight of Yeosang’s chin on his shoulder and hear his unique giggle playing in his ear.
Despite the single text he’d sent to his mother just before they left the park to say that he was having dinner with friends, he ends up scolded and given a list of chores that take up the entirety of his next morning.
He regrets absolutely nothing.)