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Chapter Text

On the first day of his junior year of high school, Wonwoo wakes up fifteen minutes before his alarm.

It’s dark in his room, save for the line of morning sunlight leaking out under the blinds. He spends the fifteen minutes scrolling on his phone until his alarm rings, then he turns it off, sits up, cracks his neck where he’d held it at an odd angle in the night, and gets out of bed.

Over the past year, his morning routine has been polished to a mirror shine. Brush his teeth, wash his face, comb his hair. Yell down the hall for his brother to wake up. Go back to his room to put on his uniform. Double-check everything in his bag. Go downstairs to eat breakfast with his brother and mom, the former still in pajamas, threatening to faceplant into the sunny-side-up eggs. Triple-check everything in his bag, then head out the door.

He steps out into a beautiful autumn day, everything crisp: crisp sky, crisp leaves, crisp breeze. The neighborhood is humming with first-day energy. It seeps into the soles of his feet, makes his strides a little longer as he walks to the bus stop.

Twenty minutes later, he steps off the bus and into the crowd of students, their freshly ironed uniforms forming a patchwork of navy and black and maroon. He checks his watch: there’s fifteen minutes until class starts. Barring any disruptions, he can be in his seat in ten. 

He looks up from just as his shoulder catches on something firm, hard enough to send a jolt of pain through his arm. “Ow, what the fuck?” someone says, which is how Wonwoo realizes that the ‘thing’ he just shoulder-checked is a person. 

A person who goes to his school, apparently, judging from the white piping along the lapels of his blazer. “Class starts in fifteen minutes,” he says. “You should hurry if you don’t want to be late.” More like fourteen minutes, actually, since he slowed down a little to talk. Wonwoo picks up the pace, and as a result doesn’t hear whatever the person says in reply.

--

Nine minutes later, he’s in his alphabetically-assigned seat, tapping his pencil against the cover of his textbook. The rest of the classroom is a riot of greetings and summer vacation stories, the windows pushed open to let in the breeze.

It’s quieter in his immediate vicinity, a small island of stillness. It’s to be expected; most people in his school see him as more of a campus figure than an actual person, someone they respect but don’t necessarily like. He learned to take it as a compliment a while ago. 

Someone knocks against the top edge of his desk, next to where he’s lined up his stationery. “Yo, class rep,” Lee Jihoon says. “How was your break?”

Wonwoo feels his shoulders settle a little. Like him, Jihoon is also somewhat of a campus figure; unlike him, Jihoon earned that status when a sophomore picked on him in freshman year and walked away with a broken nose. For his part in the incident, Jihoon received a week of detention and the respect-bordering-on-fear of the rest of the school.

“Very educational,” Wonwoo says. “I brought you a souvenir.” He dips a hand into his pocket and produces a fuzzy keychain in the shape of an alpaca. “Here.”

Jihoon takes the keychain from Wonwoo, squinting at it in apprehension. “Why’s it pink?”

“Your favorite color,” Wonwoo explains.

Jihoon scoffs and punches Wonwoo lightly on the shoulder. “Asshole,” he says, and twists around so he can clip the keychain to the zipper of his school bag. “Thanks, though.”

Wonwoo inclines his head. “How was your break?”

“Good. Got a new mic.” Jihoon drops himself into the seat next to Wonwoo’s, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Wanna come over today and check it out?”

From experience, Wonwoo asks, “by check it out, do you mean ‘make fart noises into it’?”

“Yeah,” Jihoon says.

“Sure,” Wonwoo says.

The bell goes off, sending the remaining stragglers to their seats. There’s a collective scrape of chairs as the door opens, then a ripple of subdued excitement as the junior-senior literature teacher walks in. He goes through the first-day routine, then says, “We have a new student joining us. Kim Mingyu? Want to introduce yourself?”

There’s some commotion from the back row. Someone brushes past Wonwoo’s seat on their way to the blackboard, their fingers skimming lightly against the edge of his desk. Wonwoo gets the impression of tan skin and broad knuckles before his attention is drawn to the front of the room.

“I’m Kim Mingyu,” the new student says, and his voice is the same one from the morning - the one that said “ow, what the fuck?” when Wonwoo shoulder-checked him three blocks from the school gates. “I transferred here from Anyang.”

In the seat in front of Wonwoo, Hyebin leans across the aisle and whispers something to Yerim, holding her hand up to hide her mouth. It isn’t hard to guess what she’s saying. Kim Mingyu is idol-handsome and easily the tallest in the class, and from the way he surveys the room, he’s had a lifetime of people whispering behind their hands when they see him.

“Anything you’re looking forward to, Mingyu?” the teacher prompts.

Mingyu tucks his hands into his pockets, displacing the flaps of his blazer. “I heard this school has a good basketball team.”

Wonwoo claps with the rest of the class as Mingyu makes his way back to his seat. His path takes him past Wonwoo again, and again, his fingers skim against the edge of the desk. The gesture feels suddenly loaded in the context of the morning. But the odds of Mingyu recognizing him from a two-second exchange where they didn’t even make eye contact is laughably low, so Wonwoo chalks it up to coincidence and puts it - and Mingyu - out of his mind.

--

Shortly after his arrival, Kim Mingyu makes school-wide gossip headlines for dominating the varsity boys’ basketball team tryouts, and is smoothly absorbed into the popular-boy-athlete group that spends every lunch period out on the soccer field. He receives his first box of chocolates a month into the school year; the crowd parts for him in the halls. Younger students cluster around the classroom door during break times to look at his face.

Wonwoo sees him sometimes, on the way to and from school, recognizes the confident slouch of his shoulders in his blazer. They never greet each other. He’s not even sure Mingyu knows his name.

“You sure know a lot about him,” Jihoon observes, unpacking his lunchbox. “Are you part of his fanclub?”

“Fuck off,” Wonwoo mutters, deliberately keeping his eyes away from the corner of the room where Mingyu sits, surrounded by a cluster of friends. Mingyu always wolfs down his lunch to maximize the time he gets on the soccer field. Wonwoo realizes there’s no good reason for him to know this, either, and scowls down at his fried egg.

“Anyway, that’s not what I’m talking about,” Jihoon says. “Apparently he’s crazy smart. This guy who went to middle school with him said he was basically undefeated in math.”

Wonwoo frowns, stabbing into his egg yolk. Mingyu never contributes in class, unless prompted by the teacher, and seems to view the dress code with an indifference bordering on contempt. “There’s a lot of rumors about him,” he says. “Doesn’t mean they’re true.”

“Uh huh,” Jihoon says slowly, his eyes going to a spot over Wonwoo’s shoulder. Wonwoo turns around in his chair just as Mingyu brushes past him on his way out of the classroom. Their eyes meet for a second, before Wonwoo turns away.

It means nothing at all, just like the two sentences they exchanged before the first day of school meant nothing. But the back of Wonwoo’s neck prickles, goosebumps rising, and he has to force himself to focus on what Jihoon’s saying.

--

Preliminary rankings are posted the second week of October. Wonwoo goes to check them the same way he checks the time when he wakes up - perfunctory, confirming what he already knows. He spots the deviation from the pattern almost immediately.

He didn’t get first place in math. The name that appears right under the subject at the top of the page isn’t his. It’s-

“Kim Mingyu,” he realizes. A couple people turn to look at him, startled by the sound of his voice, but he ignores them. He’s too busy staring at the ‘2’ next to his own name. He can’t remember the last time it wasn’t a ‘1’.

He tears his eyes away to scan the crowd. It’s easy to spot Kim Mingyu, standing taller than everyone else. The look on his face is passive, unsurprised. Wonwoo wants to throttle him.

As if he sensed Wonwoo’s murderous tendencies, Kim Mingyu turns in his direction, and their eyes meet. Wonwoo has no idea what expression his face is making. 

Kim Mingyu winks.

Wonwoo’s going to throttle him.

--

At lunch the next day, he leaves his food and Jihoon at their table and walks across the classroom. There’s a tight knot of activity in the corner where Mingyu and his friends sit, five desks all pushed together, a cluster of shared snacks in the center. The conversation dies down as Wonwoo approaches.

He’s not in middle school anymore, but he still feels it - that familiar acrid burn, rising up in his throat in the sudden silence. It’s not you , he reminds himself. They weren’t talking about you.

“Class rep!” Yunhyeong says. “Third year in a row, huh? Gonna run for president next?”

Wonwoo scoffs, feeling his shoulders settle. He’d be terrible in politics. The only reason he’s been the class representative for so long is because he’s top student, and people confound being good at academics with being a competent leader. That, and he never protests strongly enough when his class nominates him every September.

“Maybe,” he tells Yunhyeong. “Would you vote for me?”

“Are you kidding?” Yunhyeong says. “You’re the only reason I passed history last year.”

Wonwoo gives Yunhyeong a thin smile, then turns to Mingyu - who, he realizes with a jolt, is already looking at him. It occurs to him that this is the first time they’re going to have an actual conversation, using words, for longer than two seconds.

“You don’t talk,” is the first thing he thinks to say.

A small crease appears between Mingyu’s eyebrows. “What?”

“In class,” Wonwoo clarifies. “Why don’t you ever say anything in class? Obviously you know the answers.”

Mingyu’s forehead smooths out. There’s been a shift in power here, Wonwoo realizes. He had the element of surprise on his side for a second, but now Mingyu is sure-footed again, surrounded by his glossy magazine-cover friends.

“ Do I know the answers?” Mingyu asks innocently. “Could just be a rumor.”

Heat creeps across Wonwoo’s face. The worst part is, there’s nothing he can say to regain ground. After the shock of seeing himself in second place subsided, he’d checked the rest of the rankings for Mingyu’s name. Seventh in literature, third in history, second in biology. Far from an unfounded rumor.

Mingyu’s still looking at him, waiting for him to reply. There’s something about him that puts Wonwoo on edge - the way he slouches in his chair, at odds with the sharpness in his eyes. The top three buttons of his uniform shirt are open, one more than the dress code allows. 

“This isn’t a fucking joke,” Wonwoo says. He knows how it’ll sound before he even says it: top student Jeon Wonwoo, class representative for three years running, always with a stick up his ass. Could never take a joke to save his life. “Some people actually care about their education.”

Mingyu blinks at him, the fake innocence falling away in his surprise. Wonwoo can see the others exchanging meaningful glances around the table. He hooks his thumbs on the edge of the nearest desk, pressing into the shiny fake wood until his nails turn white.

Mingyu glances down at Wonwoo’s hands. Something registers in his expression, a realization that Wonwoo can’t decipher, before he looks back up. “Right,” he says. “Thanks for the reminder, class rep.”

The mocking edge to his voice is gone, but it doesn’t make Wonwoo feel victorious or triumphant or even better. He’s suddenly not sure why he came here in the first place. What he was trying to prove. 

He pushes away from the desk and goes back to his side of the classroom, ignoring Jihoon’s questions and the calls from Mingyu’s friends. When he brings himself to look back five minutes later, Mingyu is laughing at something Yunhyeong is saying, completely oblivious to his presence. Wonwoo takes a vicious bite of his kimbap and resolves not to look at or think about Mingyu for the rest of the lunch period.

--

Wonwoo fully expects Mingyu to forget about their conversation by the next day. And for the first two periods, it looks like he’s right - Mingyu makes one contribution the whole morning, and only after prompting from the teacher. It’s a good contribution, but still. There’s no indication that anything has changed.

And then it’s math. In hindsight, Wonwoo should’ve been prepared for this, because of course Mingyu would wait until the one class where he has a clear advantage to make a move. The more Wonwoo discovers about Mingyu’s inner workings, the less he likes him.

They’re doing Trig. There’s some insane identity on the blackboard that they’re supposed to prove, one of the bonus questions from the textbook that’s intended for discussion only, too advanced to be on a test. Two students have already gone up to the front without success. 

“Any other volunteers?” Mrs. Young is asking. She looks at Wonwoo. He stays seated, because math is his weakest subject, and diligent studying can only get you so far. For a moment it looks like Mrs. Young is going to ask him to try anyway, but then something at the back of the classroom catches her eye. “Ah! What a pleasant surprise,” she says, clapping her hands together. “Mingyu! Please come up.”

Wonwoo sits up straighter. Mingyu’s got one hand in his pocket as he makes his way up to the front of the class, casual, like this isn’t the first time he’s volunteered for something since the start of the school year. He keeps it there as he picks up the chalk and works his way through the problem, pausing only to erase the remnant of another student’s attempt. 

“Hm,” Mrs. Young says once Mingyu’s finished. She looks infinitely pleased, like she’s just won an extensive argument. “Yes, that’s correct. Well done.”

Mingyu walks back to his seat amid a smattering of applause. Wonwoo tells himself not to look - he doesn’t really want to see whatever smug expression is on Mingyu’s face - but his conviction isn’t there, and he ends up looking anyway, lifting his head just as Mingyu passes his desk.

Mingyu glances over, and their eyes meet. Wonwoo needs to figure out how to stop feeling this way every time Mingyu looks at him: all wrongfooted, the air sucked out of his surroundings. It makes him stupid, which is his least favorite thing to be.

Mingyu winks again . Wonwoo fights the urge to stab him in the thigh with his pencil.

--

After school, he goes to the student council meeting with the other class representatives. He’s never been a fan of the meetings - they play out like a political drama without any of the stakes or intrigue, and he can’t even let himself tune out completely out of obligation towards his classmates. The only saving grace is Mina, who’s also been elected by her class for three years running and hates council as much as he does.

They’re barely out of the meeting room when Mina says, “I’ll make the flyers if you buy me three coffees.”

“One,” Wonwoo says.

“Two,” Mina counters, “and they have to be fancy ones. With at least five ingredients. It’s my printer, after all.”

“It’s my stapler,” Wonwoo points out, even though the two are not remotely comparable, monetarily speaking. “You think we can get Mr. Seo to supervise?”

“Wonwoo,” Mina says very seriously, “if you get Mr. Seo to supervise, I’ll buy you a coffee.”

They split off at the front door, Mina to tennis practice, Wonwoo to his house and his history reading. Outside, the sky is the same pockmarked gray as the sidewalk. He’ll have to break out his winter coat soon. 

There’s someone else sitting at the bus stop, long legs stretched out in front of him. He’s wearing the same uniform as Wonwoo, and there’s a duffel bag beside him on the bench, basketball shoes hanging off the strap.

Wonwoo’s next step comes down hard on the sidewalk, his shoe scuffing against the cement. Kim Mingyu - because of course it’s him - looks up at the sound. “Class rep,” he says, sounding surprised. “Why are you still here?”

“Student council.” Wonwoo comes to a stop next to the sign post. It’s weird seeing Mingyu without a crowd around him. He looks - not physically smaller, but more contained. Less of a presence. “You talked today,” Wonwoo says. “In math.”

Mingyu shrugs. “I figured I should be taking these things more seriously,” he says, flashing a wry smile. “Set a good example, as top student.”

Wonwoo scoffs and leans back against the sign post, the metal a shock of cold through his blazer. “Only in math. I’m still beating you in the other three.”

He only realizes what he’s said when Mingyu’s eyebrows shoot up, a smile sliding across his features. “I didn’t realize it was a competition.”

“It’s not,” Wonwoo says. “That would be childish.”

“Right,” Mingyu says.

“But if it was,” Wonwoo adds, as an afterthought, “I’d be winning.”

For a moment Mingyu just looks at him, head tilted to the side, considering. His smile is smaller but not entirely gone. “We’ll see,” he finally says, just as the bus pulls up to the curb.

On the bus, Wonwoo takes a seat two rows behind Mingyu and pulls out his history textbook. Usually he can get through a decent chunk of pages before his stop, especially when it’s quiet like it is now, but for some reason his eyes keep drifting past the page and up to where Mingyu’s sitting. He’s got wired headphones in, head bowed towards his phone. His hair is damp at the ends with drying sweat.

Wonwoo looks back down at his textbook, and reads at about half his usual pace until his stop comes. For a brief moment, on his way out the door, he thinks about saying goodbye to Mingyu. Like they’re friends. 

Then he remembers himself and quickly gets off the bus. Just because they’ve had a somewhat cordial exchange doesn’t mean they’re friends. What was that Aristotle said? Two brief conversations does not a friendship make. 

He looks back at the bus, which has just started pulling away from the curb. Through the window, he can see Mingyu’s profile, the shadow of his phone in his hand. He probably didn’t even notice that Wonwoo left.

Wonwoo starts down the street towards his house, putting his back to the receding bus. He should get home quickly if he wants to finish his history reading on time.

--

The next day, it happens again. 

He’d thought, maybe even hoped, that the thing with the Trig question had been a one-off. Clearly he should have hoped harder, because there Mingyu is at the front of the class again, his chalk lines clean and sure. Wonwoo should’ve just kept his mouth shut. 

The answer’s right, because of course it is. Wonwoo reluctantly joins in the applause, grits his teeth when Mingyu winks at him on the way back to his seat. 

It gets worse from there. The next week, it isn’t just math anymore. In biology: answering a question about apoptosis while Wonwoo is still looking through his notes. In history: “Actually, it was 1876, not ‘75.” Literature’s the only class that remains untouched, if only because Wonwoo would never allow himself to get something wrong in that class.

Objectively, there’s a lot of things about this that should make those old feelings come knocking. How targeted Mingyu’s actions are. How he’s threatening the one part of Wonwoo’s school life that’s stayed steady all these years. But on the other hand: Mingyu is right, every time. That’s a lot of effort to go through just to fuck with some random guy in your class.

Wonwoo’s ambivalence comes to an abrupt end on Wednesday. It’s literature; there’s a poem projected onto the screen at the front of the room, one of the passages highlighted for discussion. Wonwoo’s just finished sharing his observations about the meaning of the scenery in the passage. “Does anyone have a response?” Mr. Seo is asking the class. And then the dreaded words: “Ah! Mingyu. Go ahead.”

“I disagree with Wonwoo’s point,” Mingyu says. Wonwoo almost rolls his eyes - of course he does - before remembering that he’s in a classroom. “I don’t think it’s a metaphor for anything. It just creates an atmosphere so you can imagine what he’s seeing.”

Wonwoo’s hand is halfway up already, ready to argue, but Mr. Seo ends the discussion in the interest of time. He wants to turn around, to measure Mingyu’s expression in the faint glow of the projector screen. Maybe glare a little bit. But he’s still in the classroom, and he has a reputation to uphold, so he settles for gripping his pencil as tightly as he can, the edges of the plastic digging into his thumb.

After school, Mingyu’s at the bus stop again, legs stretched out, duffel bag beside him. Wonwoo waits until he’s registered his presence before saying, “You’re wrong.”

Annoyingly, Mingyu doesn’t look thrown off by this statement, just faintly amused. “About?”

“The scenery isn’t just there for decoration,” Wonwoo says. He was thinking about how to counter Mingyu’s point in student council, mostly because it was more entertaining than actually paying attention, and he’s prepared a mental list of points. “The window painted shut, the seaside town with the electric fence - they’re contradictory on purpose. They’re reflecting his relationship to the person he’s talking to.” 

He has two more points on his list, but he cuts himself off there, because Mingyu’s looking at him strangely. “What?” he demands.

Mingyu says, “We didn’t talk about that in class.”

Wonwoo blinks. “Well, obviously,” he says. “I could’ve brought it up, if we had time.”

Mingyu shifts, turning himself more fully towards Wonwoo, and leans back against the hand he has braced on the bench. “You care a lot. About this.”

It’s not exactly an astute observation. Wonwoo cares so much about literature that it bypasses all his guardrails, pouring over him unbidden. But something about the way Mingyu says it unnerves him - or maybe it’s just the look on his face, carefully blank.

Wonwoo says, “Is this some kind of- Are you fucking with me?”

Mingyu snaps out of the look, frowning up at Wonwoo, the same small crease between his eyebrows as the first time Wonwoo approached him. “What?”

Wonwoo bites the inside of his cheek, hard. Stupid. It’s been long enough that he’s starting to forget the rules - don’t respond, don’t react, don’t acknowledge what’s happening. Mingyu may seem like more of a person at the bus stop, but that doesn’t change who he is. Doesn’t change the fact that the things people say about Mingyu and the things people say about Wonwoo are as different as night and day. 

“Never mind,” he says, turning away. “It’s nothing.”

The conversation ends there. Wonwoo stares at the road until the top of the bus emerges on the horizon, arms crossed over his chest, ignoring the weight of Mingyu’s presence next to him. When the bus pulls up to the curb, he gets on first.

He’s searching for an empty seat near the back when Mingyu says, “Hey, wait.”

Part of Wonwoo wants to ignore him, but there are people around them now, and some of them have looked up at the sound of Mingyu’s voice. So he stops and turns around, grabbing onto the railing as the bus lurches into motion. 

Standing a step away, Mingyu stares down at him, holding onto the same railing. “I am fucking with you,” he says. Before Wonwoo can even begin to react, he adds, “but it’s cool, what you said about the poem. I didn’t think about it like that.”

Wonwoo narrows his eyes, searching Mingyu’s face for a sign of mockery. He doesn’t find it. If Mingyu’s making fun of him, he’s hiding it behind an ironclad poker face. 

Wonwoo takes a deep breath, lets himself relax a little. “Obviously,” he says, lifting his chin. “I am still top student, after all.”

Mingyu smiles, and Wonwoo allows himself to believe that he’s in on the joke, not the butt of it. “I told you,” he says. “We’ll see.”

--

Jihoon doesn’t let Wonwoo get even a single bite of his lunch before he starts. “What was that ?”

Wonwoo blinks, chopsticks in hand. “What was what?” he asks, even though he has a pretty good idea. 

“In bio,” Jihoon says. “With Kim Mingyu. You never pull shit like that.”

He’s right. Wonwoo nitpicked Mingyu’s answer in class, calling out a minor detail he’d forgotten. Back in middle school, he’d only tried that stunt a couple times, before the consequences outgrew the increasingly faint praise from the teacher. No one likes a know-it-all, as it turns out. 

But in biology, when Wonwoo turned around, Mingyu just nodded, conceding the point. He was smiling a little. It was only then that Wonwoo let himself feel a small shiver of triumph. 

Now, under Jihoon’s scrutiny, he shrugs. “He was wrong,” he says, mixing his bibimbap. “I corrected him.”

“Oh, God,” Jihoon groans. He jabs his chopsticks at Wonwoo. “Is this about the rankings? ‘Cause he beat you in math?”

“No,” Wonwoo lies - unconvincingly, judging by the way Jihoon narrows his eyes. “We’re just having a friendly competition.”

“‘Friendly’,” Jihoon echoes.

“Civil,” Wonwoo amends. “It’s not gonna disrupt class.”

Jihoon snorts. “Well, no one’s gonna accuse you of that .” He redirects his focus to his tofu stew. “You want my mushrooms?”

--

Wonwoo was telling the truth - he does keep it civil. He doesn’t raise his voice, doesn’t protest when the teacher ends the discussion. Outside of classes and Wednesdays after school, he keeps to his corner. Still, even with everything, it’s fun - chasing the faint thrill of victory. Before, he’d felt satisfied getting the answers right, but not particularly surprised. As annoying as Mingyu is, he keeps Wonwoo on his toes.

They’ve just wrapped up a discussion in history when someone taps Wonwoo’s shoulder. Wonwoo glances over at the teacher, who’s busy setting up a slideshow on the projector, before turning around. 

It takes him a moment to see it: a slip of folded paper, held over the top of his chair. “It’s for you,” Yunho whispers. 

A spike of apprehension lances through him. He forces himself to take the note anyway, casting another glance at the teacher before looking back down. Experience tells him not to open it; to hide it somewhere, throw it out once class is over. But he’s never been very good at doing that, even back in middle school, so he unfolds the note under his desk instead. 

He squints. It’s a drawing of a cat, its cartoonish face squished into a scowl. Above its head is a speech bubble with the words “the train was the driving force in the industrial revolution!” And below that, a signature: Mingyu.

Wonwoo blinks down at the note a couple times before folding it back up, careful to follow the creases. It’s only when he catches Jihoon giving him a strange look that he realizes he’s smiling. He rubs it out with the heel of his hand and picks up his pencil again. Mingyu’s note goes into his pocket, for safekeeping.

It’s still in his pocket when he gets out of the council meeting later that day. His phone buzzes as he’s waving goodbye to Mina, and he takes it out, reading through the notifications as he shrugs on his jacket. At the top is a notice from his transit app, telling him his usual after school bus has been canceled due to a scheduling error. 

He sighs and closes his locker. Now he’ll be getting home even later. He texts his parents to let them know, and is heading to the library to get some work done when he pauses. 

The transit app is a locals-only thing, is the problem. Wonwoo knows to trust it over the regular navigation apps because he grew up taking the buses in this city. Unlike, say, someone who just moved here from Anyang.

He glances down the hall, in the direction of the library, and thinks about the work he could get done with the time he has before the next bus. Then he turns around and heads for the exit.

Whatever misgivings he might’ve had about this decision, they disappear when he rounds the corner. Mingyu’s there, sitting at the bus stop, hunched over with his elbows on his knees. Even from a block away, Wonwoo can see his leg bouncing with impatience.

Mingyu sits up straighter when he notices Wonwoo. “It’s canceled,” Wonwoo says. “The bus.” Mingyu frowns and looks down at his phone. “It won’t show up if you’re using a normal map. You have to download a separate app.”

Mingyu clicks his tongue in irritation and leans back, running a hand through his hair. He’s lightly dressed for the weather, a hoodie thrown over his uniform shirt, while Wonwoo’s wearing a jacket over his blazer. Probably still running hot from practice. “Well, fuck,” Mingyu says. “When’s the next one?”

Wonwoo checks his phone. “Forty-three minutes.”

“Fuck,” Mingyu repeats. He pushes himself to his feet and slings his duffel bag over his shoulder, balancing it on top of his backpack strap. “Well, I’m not sitting here for that long.” 

It’s all the explanation he gives before he starts walking, his back turned to Wonwoo. No thank you, no goodbye. Wonwoo stands next to the sign post, gritting his teeth against the chill, thinking about all the reading he could’ve done if he just went to the library instead.

At the end of the block, Mingyu glances over his shoulder, then stops completely and turns around. “What are you doing?” he calls. “You got somewhere else to be?”

Something rattles loose in Wonwoo’s chest. He doesn’t run to catch up to Mingyu, because he has a rule about running in public, but he does walk a little faster than usual. “You could’ve communicated that a little clearer,” he says, once he’s joined Mingyu at the side of the road.

Mingyu snorts. “My bad,” he says. “I’ll write a thesis next time.”

“Make sure you format it properly,” Wonwoo says, which gets a real laugh out of Mingyu. 

They end up in a convenience store across the street, standing side by side in the snack aisle under the buzzing lights. It’s a little awkward - neither of them are saying anything - but the benefit of being in a convenience store is that it doesn’t really require conversation. 

Mingyu gets a roll of prepackaged kimbap and a can of milk tea. Wonwoo gets a bag of turtle chips and banana milk. When he checks out and steps through the automated doors, Mingyu’s already sitting at one of the plastic tables, digging in. The cold must have caught up to him; his blazer is draped over his shoulders, on top of his hoodie. 

Wonwoo drops into the opposite seat. Mingyu looks up, turning his phone off. Wonwoo fights the urge to peek at the screen before it goes dark. “So what do you normally do, when the bus gets canceled?” Mingyu asks.

Wonwoo carefully peels open the bag of chips. “I go to the school library. If it’s nice out, I just do my work at the bus stop.”

“Jesus,” Mingyu says. His tone makes Wonwoo pause, a turtle chip pinched between his fingers, caught in the apprehension of waiting for the other shoe to drop. “What do you do when you’re not studying?”

Wonwoo lets out a measured breath, then pops the chip into his mouth, mulling over his answer as he chews. “I read,” he says slowly. “Books,” he adds, in case Mingyu is picturing him poring over instruction manuals in his spare time.

“Yeah, thanks for clarifying,” Mingyu says. “What kind of books?”

“Anything,” Wonwoo says, because it’s a more socially acceptable answer than pulling up the custom color-coded spreadsheet he built to keep track of his reading history. 

“Really?” Mingyu asks. “You don’t have a subscription to, like, the Pulitzer?”

He does follow the International Booker Prize, actually, but Mingyu doesn’t need to know that. “Are you asking because you think I’m a pretentious piece of shit?”

Mingyu grins. “Guilty.”

Wonwoo rolls his eyes, sitting back a little and taking a sip of banana milk. “What do you do?”

Mingyu shrugs, but there’s something stilted, practiced about it. “I don’t have a lot of time,” he says. “With practice, and everything.”

It’s not really an answer, but Wonwoo doesn’t care enough to pry. “Why, do you have a big game coming up?”

Mingyu snorts, opening his mouth to reply, but something in Wonwoo’s face makes him blink. “You’re serious,” he says.

“Clearly,” Wonwoo replies, irritated. “What, just because I don’t have the high school basketball season memorized-”

“No, no, you’re right,” Mingyu says, half-laughing. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. But yeah, there’s a pretty big game on Friday.” He leans forward, propping his elbows on the table. “You should come.”

Wonwoo scoffs, but Mingyu doesn’t waver. It knocks him off-balance, this back and forth, the way Mingyu switches between light mockery and straight-faced sobriety in the same breath. At least in middle school it was obvious which one they were going for. 

He crosses his arms. “I don’t know anything about basketball.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Mingyu says. “Most people don’t.”

Then what’s the point , Wonwoo would ask, except he already knows the answer. As much as he wants to deny it, Mingyu is magnetic - in the classroom, in the hallways, there’s something about him that you want to keep an eye on. Wonwoo can’t imagine what it would be like to watch him on the court.

He says, “I’ll think about it.”

Mingyu’s grin is triumphant, like he already knows that Wonwoo’s going to show up. “Good.”

Chapter Text

By the time the school day ends, Wonwoo is convinced that Mingyu didn’t actually mean it when he invited Wonwoo to the game. He was doing it out of courtesy; he’s obligated as an athlete to promote school spirit. Wonwoo will show up, and Mingyu will have forgotten completely about their conversation, and he’ll look at Wonwoo for a fraction of a second and wonder what he’s doing there. 

So he’s not particularly enthusiastic about going. But Mina will be there, because she’s on the girls’ team and has to show support, and he invited Jihoon because he was absolutely not going to sit through an entire basketball game by himself. And they’ll both be incredibly annoying if he bails, so. He goes.

He gets to the gym fifteen minutes before the game starts and is already late. Both teams are doing warmups on the court, jersey colors neatly divided by the center line. The bottom half of the bleachers is packed full, and the top half is getting there. He squeezes his way to the topmost row, navigates through a maze of knees, shoes, and precariously balanced drinks before dropping into the empty space next to Jihoon.

“Didn’t think you’d make it,” Jihoon says, holding out an open box of Pepero.

Wonwoo slides a Pepero out of the box, sticking it into his mouth so he can rummage through his bag with both hands. He emerges with two bottles of Milkis, still cold from the fridge, and hands one to Jihoon. “I take offense to that,” he says. “I’m a paragon of school spirit.”

Jihoon snorts. “I’m telling the student council you said that.”

“I’ll kill you,” Wonwoo says. 

Jihoon’s reply gets drowned out by the sound of the crowd as the game starts. Wonwoo spots Mingyu jogging into position for the jump ball, the lines of his body easy in his jersey, tan skin against navy and white polyester. All his suspicions about Mingyu’s magnetism on the court are already proving true. 

The whistle blows. The home team gains control of the ball, moving into the offensive. Wonwoo still doesn’t know anything about basketball, but he finds it easy to understand - the arc of the ball towards the hoop, the sharp snap of the net when it goes in. Easy, too, to get caught up in the ebb and flow of the crowd’s energy, moving like one giant organism. The Milkis sweats in his hand, making his palms damp. 

He tries not to look at Mingyu too much, but it’s hard when he’s so clearly good, even to Wonwoo’s amateur eyes. There’s a sharpness to him here, all the usual loose edges tucked in. Even the quality of the air around him feels different when he moves. 

It’s a close one, but they win. Wonwoo and Jihoon get caught up in the crowd as it pours down the bleachers and onto the court, pooling around the players. Wonwoo spots Mina, putting one of the players in a headlock, and pushes his way over.

“Are you congratulating him or bullying him?” he asks Mina. “Good job, Minhyung,” he adds, to the top of the guy’s head. 

Mina releases her younger brother, who straightens, rubbing the back of his neck with a wince. “Thanks,” he says. “I didn’t know you liked basketball, Wonwoo.”

Mina smiles evilly. “He doesn’t. He’s here ‘cause he got a special invite from Kim Mingyu.”

At the mention of Mingyu’s name, Minhyung’s eyes take on a starry quality that Wonwoo objects to. “You’re friends with Kim Mingyu?”

“Absolutely not,” Wonwoo says, at the same time Jihoon says, “oh yeah, best friends.” Wonwoo gets the distinct sense of being targeted by a coordinated attack. “He’s not even that good,” he adds, which is completely untrue.

“You don’t think I’m good?” Mingyu asks.

Wonwoo turns around. Mingyu emerges from the crowd, a towel around his neck, the ends of his hair pinched with sweat. Wonwoo allows himself to consider a reality where Mingyu both meant and remembered his invitation on Wednesday. “How do you know we were talking about you?” he challenges.

Mingyu grins. “Educated guess.” He nods at Minhyung. “Hey, great assists today.”

“Um,” Minhyung says, going red all over as Mina presses her hand to her forehead. “Thanks! You too.”

Mingyu shrugs. “Could’ve been better. Are you guys coming to Shinwon’s?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Minhyung says sincerely, at the same time Mina says, “do I have a choice?”

“Great.” Mingyu turns to Wonwoo. “You should come.”

If Mingyu is referencing their conversation on Wednesday on purpose, he doesn’t show it. “I don’t know who Shinwon is,” Wonwoo says.

“Doesn’t matter,” Mingyu says, and there it is - the gleam in his eyes, pleased that Wonwoo caught on. “You know me. And Mina, and Minhyung.”

Wonwoo crosses his arms. “I’ll think about it.”

“Good,” Mingyu says. “I’ll see you later. You too, Jihoon.”

He walks off, disappearing into the crowd. Wonwoo turns and comes face to face with Jihoon, who’s eyeing him with extreme suspicion. “You’re seriously gonna go?” he asks.

Wonwoo blinks at him. He feels a little dazed under the gymnasium lights, everything bright and washed out, like one big lens flare. “Go where?”

“To Shinwon’s party, dude,” Jihoon says. “The one you just got invited to?”

“Oh,” Wonwoo says. In hindsight, it’s pretty obvious that Mingyu was talking about a party - grammatically, contextually. But it’s not like he has a lot of experience picking up on these kinds of cues. And maybe the novelty of it should give him pause, but. You know me , Mingyu said. “Are you going?” he asks Jihoon. 

Jihoon raises his eyebrows. “Are you serious?” he asks. He must see something on Wonwoo’s face, because he laughs and declares, “Fuck it. I’ll go if you go.”

They go. They barter a ride from Mina in exchange for some undefined future favor, crammed into the back with Minhyung while Mina chats with another girl from the basketball team in the front. She parks two blocks down, and they walk the rest of the way, shivering and complaining in the frigid night air. 

Shinwon’s house is a neat, nondescript bungalow, red brick and white clapboard siding. Every window on the right side of the house glows with neon light, cycling slowly through the colors of the rainbow. Wonwoo counts the number of shoes piled up in the entryway and feels a familiar staticky lurch in his stomach.

Despite his initial panic, it’s fine for the first hour or so. Minhyung vanishes immediately to talk to some other players on the team, but Mina and Jihoon and Yuri, Mina’s teammate, stick around to talk. They migrate from the entrance to the living room, then to the kitchen. Wonwoo winds up with a plastic cup of what he’s told is vodka and Red Bull. It tastes like garbage, but he finds himself taking little sips of it anyway, if only to have something to do with his hands.

He’s starting to feel warm all over when there’s a burst of noise from the front door. He drifts over to the hallway in time to see half the boys’ basketball team clustered in the entryway, the center of a flurry of activity. 

He spots Mingyu a little faster than he’d like to admit. He’s still wearing his jersey, but he’s changed into jeans, and his hair is pushed back from his forehead. Wonwoo watches him laugh at something another player says, then turns around and goes back into the kitchen. 

A few minutes later, Mina and Yuri leave to dance with the rest of the girls’ basketball team. Then Jihoon’s friend from Class 2 walks into the kitchen, and he goes off to talk to him about something music-related, leaving Wonwoo alone by the counter. 

Without anyone as a buffer, the party presses in on him from all sides. He makes himself another vodka Red Bull, messing up the proportions, then drifts over to the living room. There’s an empty spot on the couch, behind a group of people dancing. He takes it.

He’s just taken his phone out of his pocket when he feels a dip in the couch. “Jeon Wonwoo?” someone says.

He looks up. A small, dense chill forms in his chest, ice-cold amid the buzzing warmth of the rest of his body. “Lee Junyoung.”

“Holy shit, it really is you,” Junyoung says. “Never thought I’d see you here.”

Wonwoo leans back, smiling carefully. “Me neither.”

Junyoung grins. “Still top student, huh? You’re still pulling that shit in class?” He sits up straight, imitates sitting at a desk, arms out and bent at the elbows. He raises his hand. “‘Um, teacher, actually it was’-” he cuts off, laughing at his own joke.

The thing is, Wonwoo sees through it - under the coarse laughter and exaggerated movements Junyoung is just some guy, narrow and predictable. He’s a few months younger than Wonwoo, even. But what’s the point of knowing this? What good has it done him?

“Right,” Wonwoo says, standing up. “I’m gonna go.”

“Whoa, wait,” Junyoung says, struggling to his feet. It hits Wonwoo that he’s also alone; he’ll be the only one on the couch, once Wonwoo leaves. It gives him a sick satisfaction to turn and slip through the crowd before Junyoung can follow him. 

He ends up back in the kitchen, staring at the sliding doors. Beyond them is the backyard, silhouettes of people against the dark sky, moonlight gleaming on the grass. He throws out his empty cup and slides the door open. 

There’s a group of people standing near the chain link fence bordering the yard. In the faint glow of the moon and the phone screens and the occasional cigarette, he recognizes them from his class, the ones who usually sit with Mingyu at their giant table in the corner. 

It’s true, what they say about alcohol and liquid courage; or maybe Wonwoo is worn out from the day, from spending so much time around so many people. Either way, something propels him across the grass.

Mingyu’s leaning against the fence, slightly off to the side, a bottle tucked under his arm as he types something on his phone. He looks up at the sound of Wonwoo’s footsteps. In the faint light of his phone screen, his face goes through a series of motions before settling on a smile. “You gonna lecture me about underage drinking?”

“Shut up,” Wonwoo says, but there’s no bite to it. He holds his hand out. 

Mingyu raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t say anything as he hands the bottle to Wonwoo. It’s already open; Wonwoo tips his head back and pours it into his mouth, careful not to make contact. It’s lukewarm, and feels awful going down. 

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and when he looks back at Mingyu, the latter is staring at his mouth like he’s never seen it before. “What?” he asks.

Mingyu shakes his head, a grin spreading across his face. “You’re full of surprises, class rep.”

Wonwoo opens his mouth to reply when the sliding door slams open. “Get the fuck out,” someone yells. “Cops are here.”

Wonwoo looks down at the extremely illegal bottle in his hand. “Shit,” he and Mingyu say at the same time.

‘Shit’ turns out to be a universal sentiment as the rest of the group scatters, vanishing into the shadows around the backyard. “Come on,” Mingyu says. Wonwoo doesn’t realize he’s speaking to him until Mingyu’s hand closes around his wrist, and he finds himself being dragged into a run. 

He barely has the time to register it - the nape of Mingyu’s neck in the dark, his slightly too-tight grip on Wonwoo’s wrist - before they’re coming to the edge of the fence, where it joins with a row of hedges in a neat right angle. They duck through the narrow gap in the middle and are spit out into the street behind the house. 

It’s quiet and still, the trees backlit by the orange streetlights. The sounds of their feet against the pavement echo off the houses. Mingyu drops his arm but keeps running. Wonwoo just barely manages to keep up as they weave through the neighborhood, getting farther and farther from Shinwon’s house. 

They stop at a small park, nothing more than a square of grass bisected by a walkway, a few trees scattered around like forgotten toys. Wonwoo drops onto a bench, breathing hard. Mingyu’s barely winded as he sits down next to him. Benefits of being a star athlete.

Mingyu laughs suddenly, the sound of his voice like the crack of a whip in the middle of the empty park. “I can’t believe you still have it,” he says, shaking his head. “You’re lucky we didn’t get caught.”

Wonwoo looks down at his hand, which is still clutching the bottle in a vice grip. “I wasn’t gonna let it go to waste,” he says defensively.

Mingyu holds his hand out. Wonwoo passes him the bottle, their fingers brushing over the glass. Wonwoo watches him take a drink, then lean back against the back of the bench, head tilted up to the sky. “This isn’t your first time drinking, is it?”

Wonwoo follows the line of Mingyu’s throat, up to his jaw, before catching himself. “My parents let me sometimes, for special events,” he says. “Wine, and stuff. Not- whatever that is.”

“My bad,” Mingyu snorts. “Next time I’ll get the top-shelf stuff.”

Next time. Wonwoo looks down at his hands, ghoulish in the dim light. “Why did you invite me? To the game, and this.”

He can hear Mingyu shift next to him, but he doesn’t turn his head. “I’m supposed to raise school spirit, or whatever,” Mingyu says. “Show you the magic of high school basketball.”

“Right,” Wonwoo says. He should’ve known. Sure, Mingyu remembered the invite, but that doesn’t change the nature of it. Something more distant than pity.

“And I wanted to,” Mingyu adds, a beat later.

Wonwoo lifts his head. Mingyu’s sitting closer than he remembers, body angled towards him. There’s an intention to his face that Wonwoo can’t place. “Why?”

This time Mingyu’s the one who looks away, staring at the bottle in his hand as he picks at the label with his thumbnail. “I don’t know.”

The night feels heavy around his shoulders. He thinks about his parents, probably in bed by now, trusting him to find his way home. His brother, up late, half-waiting. He reaches over and takes the bottle out of Mingyu’s hand. 

He’s too eager, tips the bottle too far; he chokes as the burn hits him, reminding him how awful it feels to drink shitty cheap alcohol when he’s too sober to ignore the taste. He covers his mouth with his forearm as he coughs out what feels like his entire windpipe, feeling young and stupid.

“Jesus,” Mingyu says. “You good?” His hand is on Wonwoo’s shoulder, warm. 

Wonwoo opens his eyes. Mingyu is right there, his eyes darker than the night sky. The burn of the alcohol is replaced by a worse kind of heat. 

He drops his arm; Mingyu’s gaze follows the movement for a moment before returning to his face. Not his eyes, but lower, to his mouth. The space between them comes alive, buzzing with potential.

Mingyu leans back abruptly, and the potential disappears. “It’s late,” he announces, a little too loudly. He nods at the bottle still in Wonwoo’s hand. “Are you gonna take that home with you, or-?”

Wonwoo takes in a deep breath, letting the cold air clear his mind. With Mingyu on the opposite end of the bench, it’s easy to tell himself that the moment before was nothing more than a product of wishful thinking, seeing things that aren’t there. After all, he’s been drinking. And it’s not like he’s the first person to find Mingyu attractive. “Absolutely not,” he says, holding it out. “Unless you want me to pour it down the drain.”

“Rude.” There’s a faint smile on Mingyu’s face as he takes the bottle, but it’s directed inward, like he’s remembering an old joke. “After you drank so much of it.”

“Not willingly,” Wonwoo says. He stands up slowly so he won’t lose his balance, then pulls his phone out of his pocket. There’s a text from Mina, sent five minutes ago, asking where he is. “I’m going home.”

Mingyu’s voice is subdued when he says, “Okay. See you Monday.”

Wonwoo looks at him. He isn’t looking at Wonwoo, just staring out at the park, only half of his face caught by the streetlights. Wonwoo wonders if there’s anyone asking where he is. He wonders if he’s cold, out here in a light zip-up sweater and jeans.

“I lied, before,” he says. He waits until Mingyu meets his eyes before continuing. “You were good. As far as I can tell, anyway.”

This time, Mingyu’s smile is more outward-facing. “Thanks,” he says, and it’s different from the way he talked to Minhyung, but Wonwoo doesn’t know why or how. 

“See you Monday,” Wonwoo says, and turns and starts down the path they took to get here. When he looks back, about to cross over the line where the grass meets the sidewalk, Mingyu is typing something on his phone, still smiling faintly.

Chapter Text

The following week, things are- normal. Exceedingly normal, like someone procedurally generated their interactions based off the past few weeks. They argue in class, keep their distance otherwise. On Wednesday, at the bus stop, Mingyu hadn’t even taken his earbuds out when Wonwoo got there. Just nodded, once, and returned to his phone. 

If Wonwoo were the type to overestimate his importance in other people’s lives, he’d think Mingyu was doing it on purpose. Like he was proving to Wonwoo how little things had changed between them. As it is, Wonwoo is very consciously choosing to take Mingyu’s actions at face value.

He’s got enough to worry about anyway. The field trip is the next weekend, and student council’s got him and Mina running around with stacks of printouts, stapling them on every bulletin board. And then, beyond that, final exams are looming on the horizon. It’s not like they’d be a challenge for him, but still - he’s got a regimen. 

So it doesn’t matter, that he feels like something had happened on Friday, some distance closed between them that’s now opening up again. It doesn’t matter that he was just drunk enough to doubt his memory of what Mingyu did - how close he sat, whether their fingers brushed, where his eyes were focused - but sober enough to remember, with exceptional clarity, how the heat in the pit of his belly had transformed. It doesn’t matter.

Well. Maybe shouldn’t , is the more fitting word.

A week and a half passes like that, and then it’s Wednesday lunch. He finishes eating early, and heads up to the teachers’ offices to talk to Mr. Seo, confirming some last-minute logistics for the trip the next day. When they wrap up, there’s only ten minutes left of the break. He’s closing the door to the offices, thinking about what to do with that time, when someone calls his name.

A ripple of apprehension passes through him. He hasn’t seen Junyoung since the party, when he’d ditched him in the living room. From the downward curl of Junyoung’s mouth, the purposeful way he strides towards Wonwoo, it’s clear he’s recalling the same thing. 

“Thought it was you,” he says. He stops, a step closer than Wonwoo would like. “Eating lunch with the teachers again? Same old, huh?”

Wonwoo sighs, crossing his arms over his chest. As much as he’d like to, he doesn’t take a step back - he knows what that would look like, to someone like Junyoung. “What do you want?”

“Relax, man,” Junyoung says, clapping Wonwoo hard on the shoulder. “Just wanted to say hi. You’re not gonna run away again, are you?”

His thumb digs into the space beneath Wonwoo’s collarbone. Wonwoo holds Junyoung’s gaze, keeps his voice as even as he can manage as he says, “Let go.”

Junyoung snorts, makes a show of taking his hand off Wonwoo’s shoulder, lifting both hands in the air. “Sensitive. Y’know, that’s why-”

Mingyu’s voice says, “Jeon Wonwoo.”

A completely different kind of apprehension fills Wonwoo as Mingyu appears beside him. Junyoung, he can handle - it’s been years since he’s cared what Junyoung thinks of him. He can’t, as much as he’d like to, say the same for Mingyu.

“We’ve got-” Mingyu glances up at the clock on the wall. “-six minutes ‘til class. I don’t think the class rep is allowed to be late.”

It’s funny, Wonwoo thinks. Mingyu is completely straight-faced, and they haven’t directly spoken to each other for a week and a half, and yet. There’s the same feeling that he got at the party, recognizing Mingyu’s group through the glass doors. That same pull. 

Junyoung’s voice pulls him from his thoughts. “Nah, I wouldn’t worry.” He’s looking past Wonwoo, grinning at Mingyu instead, satisfied at finding a co-conspirator. “This guy’s got perfect attendance.”

Mingyu raises his eyebrows, his face unmoving. “So do I.” He turns back to Wonwoo. “So I’ll win, if you’re late.”

“Good,” Wonwoo says, but he’s already moving towards the end of the hallway. Mingyu matches his stride easily, the two of them leaving Junyoung behind. “You can be class rep, then.”

“I’m good,” Mingyu says. “Wouldn’t wanna upstage you.”

Wonwoo scoffs as they reach the door of their classroom. “In your dreams, maybe.” 

He reaches for the handle, then stops when he realizes Mingyu hasn’t moved. When he looks up, Mingyu’s staring at him intently. He feels a sharp stab of annoyance, and when he flips it over, a dark underside of shame. 

“If you ask,” he says, “I’m gonna tell you to fuck off.”

Mingyu’s face clears. “Ask about what?” he asks, all false innocence.

Wonwoo rolls his eyes, turning away to hide his relief. “Fuck off,” he says, and opens the door. Mingyu’s laugh follows him into the classroom.

--

The next day, Wonwoo’s mom drops him off at school in the early moments of dawn, the gates throwing long, pale shadows over the courtyard. He checks in with the student council, then walks over to where his class is gathered. 

Jihoon’s already there, his face barely visible where it’s buried into the collar of his puffer. “Fuck, it’s cold,” he complains. “Why are we going to Sokcho in November? ”

Wonwoo still has the notes he took for that particular meeting, so he does actually know, in minute and excruciating detail. “The winter beach is a popular setting in classic literature,” he says instead. “I think this could really benefit our in-class discussions.”

“I’m gonna drown you in the ocean,” Jihoon says.

Wonwoo doesn’t reply. Mingyu’s standing a few feet off, talking to Yunhyeong and Yerim, a beanie pulled low over his ears. 

They hadn’t talked yesterday, at the bus stop. Even after what happened at lunch. Wonwoo’s strategy of taking Mingyu’s actions at face value doesn’t exactly work if, even at face value, his actions don’t make any sense.

The field trip continues in the same vein. The first two days are dedicated to class activities; Mingyu is always there in the periphery, but never any closer. They stay on opposite ends of the group, get assigned to different sections when the class is split up. Wonwoo goes into the third day having spoken exactly zero words to Mingyu.

They get the entire day to go off in their predetermined groups. Yunho and Lia convince the rest of the group to wake up at inhuman hours to take the train to Seoraksan National Park, hiking up to see the falls before heading back towards the sea. They spend the afternoon milling around a seaside market, grabbing dinner at a random food stall.

By the time they make it to the beach for a nighttime walk, the last activity of the day, his feet are pulverized and his wallet is almost completely empty. Still, the sea: endless against the dark sky, the moon casting one long paint stroke of light onto the water. Out of exhaustion or some kind of shared reverence, the five of them are unusually silent as they walk the shore.

They’re one of the last groups to get back to the hotel. Wonwoo checks in with Mr. Seo, then heads up to the room he’s sharing with Jihoon. He wants nothing more than to collapse into his bed, feels like he could pass out before his head hits the pillow.

He washes up and changes his clothes and then, in a cruel twist of irony, lies down and stares at the ceiling for two hours. They’ve left a gap in the curtains; every so often, light passes over the ceiling as a car drives past. A few feet off, Jihoon is snoring with the serenity of someone who had no problem falling asleep two hours ago.

Three more cars drive past before Wonwoo sits up. He doesn’t bother turning the light on, just pulls on a hoodie, takes the keycard off the nightstand, and leaves the room in his slippers.

Out in the hall, the lights are still on. He feels suspended in time as he walks down the corridor, footsteps muffled in the carpet, and takes the elevator down to the lobby. There’s a single person at reception, a handful of travelers being dropped off by the airport shuttle. He avoids them all and takes a side door. 

It spits him out into another hallway, a small rest area set up inside an alcove. Here, there are no bright overhead lights staving off the night, just a series of dim wall sconces set at even intervals. There’s a potted plant in the corner, a row of chairs facing a vending machine. 

Someone’s standing in front of it. His steps falter, then stop completely as the door swings shut behind him.

Mingyu looks up. Something in his face falters, too, when he recognizes Wonwoo. “What are you doing here?”

His voice is a little hoarse. It emboldens Wonwoo to cross the rest of the distance, coming to a stop in front of Mingyu, close enough that the light from the vending machine catches him too. “Same as you, probably,” he says. “Couldn’t sleep.”

Mingyu angles his face away, towards the rows of canned drinks lined up behind the glass. “Yeah.”

It’s so late at night that nothing feels real: Mingyu’s face in profile, the brightly colored drinks. “What do you want?” Wonwoo asks.

Mingyu looks up sharply, the edges of his expression tinged with something like fear. “What?”

“Drink,” Wonwoo clarifies. He’s never seen Mingyu this way before, not even at the park after the party. Normally he’s distant, a couple degrees removed; an actor in a play that he wrote the script for. This Mingyu feels like he’s stumbling through his lines. “What drink do you want?”

“Oh,” Mingyu says. “I’m good. I don’t have any money on me.”

Wonwoo rolls his eyes. “Not what I asked,” he says. “Either you tell me what you want, or I’m gonna close my eyes and pick something.”

Mingyu snorts, the lines of his body loosening a little. “This is your way of being nice?”

“Obviously not,” Wonwoo says. “This is my way of repaying you for the drink at the party. Even though it was shit.”

“You’ve said, yeah.” Mingyu’s smiling. “I’ll take whatever you’re getting.”

Wonwoo steps up to the vending machine. Mingyu moves aside to give him space, leaning his shoulder against the glass. Wonwoo can feel the weight of his gaze as he buys two cans of grape juice. 

The drinks are cold in his palm. He takes the first one for himself and hands the other one to Mingyu, who uncrosses his arms to take it. Mingyu cracks his can open one-handed - of course he does - and taps it against Wonwoo’s. 

“Cheers,” he says. He tips his head back to drink; Wonwoo stares at his neck, the angle of his jaw, for a few seconds too long before remembering to open his own can.

The drink tastes like grape candy, the sugar settling behind his teeth. He’ll have to rinse his mouth out when he gets back to his room. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and when he looks up, Mingyu is watching him. 

Wonwoo shifts his weight. It unnerves him when Mingyu gets like this, all quiet and observant. Returning his gaze feels like standing on the wrong side of a one-way mirror. “So why couldn’t you sleep?” he asks.

Mingyu tips his head against the vending machine. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“Exams?” Wonwoo says. Even after all the shit Mingyu’s pulled on him in class, he still can’t imagine Mingyu bent over a workbook, poring over an exercise. He seems like the type to breeze through the hardest questions and leave the rest blank. 

Mingyu laughs. “Is that why you’re up? Too busy thinking about the collapse of the Silk Road?”

“I know everything about the collapse of the Silk Road, so no,” Wonwoo says. “If you’re gonna make fun of me, at least be accurate.”

“My bad,” Mingyu says. “Should’ve said something about 19th-century migration patterns instead, since you had such a hard time with-”

“I did not -” Wonwoo starts.

“-remembering the dates, in class,” Mingyu finishes.

“Fuck off,” Wonwoo says. Mingyu laughs again, the curve of his mouth disappearing behind his drink.

There’s a brief lull as Mingyu drinks his grape juice. When he speaks again, his voice is different, the humor sanded off. “I’m not, though. Making fun of you.”

This time it’s Wonwoo’s turn to look at Mingyu’s face carefully. It’s no use: Mingyu’s expression is inscrutable as ever. Wonwoo wonders what Mingyu sees when he looks at Wonwoo, how easy it is for him to read Wonwoo’s face. “Really,” he says doubtfully. “Then what are you doing?”

Mingyu pushes away from the vending machine. His shirt is thin enough to make out the dip of his collarbones, the strong slope of his shoulders. “You tell me.”

Wonwoo digs his thumb into the lip of his can. Part of him wants to grab Mingyu by the shoulders, make him spill his drink, demand a straight answer. The other, bigger part of him is finding it hard to even meet Mingyu’s eyes.

He must have hesitated for too long, because Mingyu shakes his head, huffs out a laugh. “Forget it,” he says. “Thanks for the drink. I’m going upstairs.”

“Yeah,” Wonwoo manages. Their shoulders brush as Mingyu walks past him towards the exit. Wonwoo pushes his thumb harder into his can, watching the skin at the very top turn red and then purple. 

“Hey,” says Mingyu. 

Wonwoo turns around. Mingyu’s got one hand on the door, like he remembered something right as he was about to leave. “You did a good job,” he says. “With the trip.”

Wonwoo shrugs. “It wasn’t really me,” he says. “I just put up some flyers.”

“Still,” Mingyu says, and then he’s pushing open the door and leaving. 

The door swings shut. Wonwoo stares at it, alone in the empty hallway, the blood rushing back to his thumb.

--

“So,” Jihoon starts on Monday morning. This is already a bad sign - normally Jihoon looks like a barely reanimated corpse on Monday mornings, especially in the immediate aftermath of a field trip. “Mina wants us to come to the game on Friday.”

Wonwoo blinks. “Oh,” he says. “The girls’ game?”

“Uh-huh.” Jihoon taps his pencil against his desk. “Unless,” and here his voice takes on a tone that Wonwoo distinctly does not like, “you’re not interested in basketball if Mingyu’s not playing.”

Wonwoo’s first instinct is to scan the classroom. He finds Mingyu at his seat two rows down, talking to Hyebin, giving no indication that he overheard. It’s only when he turns back to Jihoon that he realizes he’s just given himself away. 

“That’s not-” he starts, but there’s no defense he can think of that would cover for what Jihoon just saw him do. “I hate you,” he settles for instead. 

Jihoon grins. “So how’s that ‘civil competition’ going?”

Wonwoo thinks about Mingyu, the side of his face lit up in pale blue from the vending machine, smiling into his can of grape juice. The way his voice sounded when he said, you tell me . Like a challenge. “None of your business,” he says without thinking.

Jihoon’s smile flickers. He looks like he’s about to say something else, but then the bell rings, and any conversation is cut off by the sound of everyone rushing to their seats. He shoots one last look at Wonwoo, mouth twisting, before turning away.

--

On Wednesday, Wonwoo spends every available moment, including the entire student council meeting, thinking about what he’s going to say to Mingyu when he reaches the bus stop. He’s still thinking about it when he rounds the corner to the main entryway and his shoulder slams, hard, against someone else’s. 

“Fuck, sorry,” Wonwoo says, clutching his shoulder. He lifts his head, and his fingers tighten on instinct, digging into the spot where the pain blooms under his skin. At this point, he needs to stop being surprised when these things happen to him.

“Jesus,” Mingyu says. He’s in a mirror of Wonwoo’s pose, holding his own shoulder. “Are you doing this on purpose?”

Wonwoo straightens with some difficulty. Shoulder-checking Mingyu feels like slamming directly into a wall. “Watch where you’re going,” he says. “You could hurt someone.”

“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” Mingyu says. Wonwoo starts walking again; Mingyu falls into step easily beside him, their footsteps landing just out of sync on the tiles. “You’re bony as fuck, you know.”

Wonwoo rolls his eyes. “We can’t all be star basketball players.” The front door comes into view, flanked by a bank of windows that look out onto the courtyard. Wonwoo slows to a stop. “Shit,” he says.

Outside, the light drizzle that had started earlier in the afternoon is now a full downpour, blanketing everything in a faint gray haze. Wonwoo doesn’t have his umbrella; he gave it to his brother when he lost his over the weekend. He probably won’t make it a block without getting drenched.

“Well,” Mingyu starts. He shoots Wonwoo a sly smile. “Hope you’re a fast runner.”

“You can’t be serious,” Wonwoo says.

Mingyu adjusts the strap of his duffel bag, hiking it up higher on his shoulder. “You got a better idea? Or an umbrella?”

Wonwoo rubs his forehead. He doesn’t know what he was expecting. Of course Mingyu wouldn’t have an umbrella; Wonwoo’s surprised he even remembers to wear his blazer, most days. “Fine,” he says. “Let’s go.”

Mingyu grins. “I’ll try not to leave you behind.”

“You-” Wonwoo starts, but Mingyu’s already out the door. He curses and runs to catch up, catching the door right before it swings shut.

They stick close to the buildings as they run, ducking under awnings and trees, but it’s no use - Wonwoo is completely soaked through before he even leaves the courtyard. When they finally reach the bus stop, taking shelter under the overhang of a nearby storefront, he feels like he got put through a spin cycle. He could have lain down in the middle of the street and walked away only marginally more wet. 

His hair is plastered to his forehead, dripping water into his eyes. He pushes it out of his face. “Running really made a difference, I think,” he says dryly.

Mingyu laughs, warm against the sound of falling rain. He drops his duffel bag, propping it up against his feet, then leans back against the wall. “Worth a try.” 

Wonwoo sneezes, muffling it in his elbow. The wet fabric presses against his skin, making him shiver, one of those full-body ones that he can feel all the way down to his bones. “Fuck, I better not get sick,” he says. 

“Maybe you should,” Mingyu says. “It’s almost exams. Give the rest of us a chance.”

Wonwoo rolls his eyes, dropping his arm. “Like you need it.”

Mingyu grins at him, easy and languid, so at odds with the weather. With the sudden tightness between Wonwoo’s ribs. “You think I’m smart?”

“You know you’re smart,” Wonwoo says. Without thinking, he takes a step closer, so that he’s standing almost directly in front of Mingyu. “Don’t fish for compliments.”

Something changes in Mingyu’s posture, some undefinable tension taking hold of his body. “Only from you,” he says.

Wonwoo’s ribs feel like they could crack open. He blinks rainwater out of his eyes; one drop traces a path down his face, catching on his bottom lip. 

Before he can do anything about it, Mingyu reaches out and presses his thumb against it. His skin is cold; his touch burns straight through Wonwoo, clean to the other side. 

“Mingyu,” Wonwoo says. Mingyu blinks.

“Fuck,” he says, and then he pulls Wonwoo closer and kisses him. 

For a second the only sensation Wonwoo registers is wet . Then the warmth comes through: Mingyu’s mouth, his hand around the back of Wonwoo’s neck. Wonwoo stumbles forward, tripping over Mingyu’s duffle, and grabs Mingyu’s waist to steady himself.

Objectively, it’s a profoundly stupid thing to do. They’re in public; they’re only a few blocks away from the school. Up until now, he would’ve been forgiven for thinking Mingyu was straight. Mingyu might still be straight, and any second now will jerk away, laughing, and say something about not being serious. About testing a theory.

Subjectively: Wonwoo is coming to terms with the fact that he has maybe wanted this for a while. 

Mingyu pulls back. Come back , Wonwoo thinks, like an idiot. “I can hear you thinking,” Mingyu says. Conversational, like Wonwoo isn’t standing close enough to count each individual raindrop clinging to his eyelashes. 

Wonwoo’s lips are buzzing. “There’s a lot to think about.”

Mingyu considers him. “I wanted to,” he says, like he’s answering a question Wonwoo didn’t ask. His eyes slide to the right, to something over Wonwoo’s shoulder. “The bus is here.”

He extracts himself from the space between Wonwoo and the wall, picking up his duffel as he goes. Wonwoo stands there, back turned to the rest of the world, the chill of the rain hitting him all at once. He’s still wearing his backpack. The buzzing feeling sours, turns acidic. 

He turns around. The bus is at the curb now, doors open. He thinks it might be humiliation, this feeling inside of him. He considers waiting forty minutes for the next bus. He grips the strap of his backpack and steps out. 

The bus is crowded, a sea of rain-slicked hair, dripping onto damp collars. Mingyu’s back is turned to him. He holds onto the railing, staring at their reflections in the darkened bus window, the two slightly offset versions of Mingyu both turned away from him. 

On some level, Wonwoo shouldn’t be surprised by the way Mingyu’s acting - from the beginning, he’s been switching between inescapably serious and mockingly light in the same breath. Only Wonwoo didn’t think Mingyu could do the same thing after he put his mouth on Wonwoo. Only Wonwoo stumbled forward, kissed back, said me too through his grip on Mingyu’s waist. 

Mingyu lifts his head, and their eyes meet in the reflection. Why did you want to do it? Wonwoo wants to ask the two blurry versions of him in the window. Did you think I would be easy? Did you already know I would give in?

Mingyu says, “You coming to the game on Friday?”

Wonwoo turns and looks at the real Mingyu, who tilts his head and meets Wonwoo’s gaze. Here, there are also two overlapping versions of him: one of them looking at Wonwoo head-on, like he never reached out and pressed the pad of his thumb to Wonwoo’s bottom lip. And the other, just off to the side, that looks something like the Mingyu he saw in front of the vending machine on their last night in Sokcho.

The questions he wants to ask crowd up behind his teeth. But to ask now, when Mingyu is being so impenetrably casual, would be admitting a weakness. This meant more to me than it did to you . And Wonwoo has already had enough of admitting weaknesses. 

So instead he says, “Yeah.” And then he turns back out to the window, where he can see the two versions of himself, and every time the bus rocks he grips the railing as hard as he can so he doesn’t touch Mingyu.

Chapter Text

“I mean,” Jihoon says, “this is pretty fucked up, if you think about it.”

They’re in the gym for the girls’ basketball game. It’s about half as full as it was when the boys played; Wonwoo had no problem securing a seat towards the middle of the bleachers, a few rows off from where the boys’ team sits in the front. He can see Mingyu from this vantage point, a strip of his neck visible over the hood of his sweater. 

Yesterday, in literature class, they’d been talking about the role of the love interest in the coming-of-age novel. Mingyu had said something about the love interest always being a vehicle for some other goal. Wonwoo’s rebuttal had gone on so long that, for the first time since middle school, the teacher had to cut him off. 

It had burned, the feeling - like touching dry ice. He hadn’t turned around to check Mingyu’s reaction; he ignored the look Jihoon shot him and dug his nails into his palm. When he got home after class and washed his hands, the marks were still there, a row of pink crescents.

“-I’m a supporter of women’s sports,” Soonyoung, Jihoon’s friend from Class 2, is saying from Jihoon’s other side. He’s got a shock of blonde hair and is currently stuffing cheese puffs into his mouth, his fingertips stained orange. 

“Shut up,” Jihoon snorts. “You just like tall girls.”

“Guilty.” Soonyoung grins. Jihoon elbows him in the ribs. 

Wonwoo wonders what Mingyu would do if it was a girl he kissed, under the overhang in the rain. One of the basketball players, glossy hair tied up in a ponytail, the same kind of easy grace on the court. If he would have stood close to her on the bus. If he would have followed her back to her house. 

“Hey,” Jihoon says. Wonwoo looks up, but before Jihoon can say anything, the game starts, and there’s no room for conversation anymore.

They win this one, too. It takes them two seconds to descend the bleachers and find Mina, standing near the center line with Yuri and her brother, whileSoonyoung disappears to talk to some people on the dance team. 

“Good game,” Wonwoo tells Mina, who smiles slyly at him.

“Didn’t think you’d show up,” she says. “Kim Mingyu’s somewhere around here, by the way.”

I know , Wonwoo almost says, before he catches himself. “Don’t get used to it. You play too many sports.”

Mina feigns hurt, pressing a hand to her jersey. “You’re not coming to my tennis tournament this weekend?”

“How do you even have time to come to school?” Jihoon wonders.

Wonwoo tunes out of Mina’s answer, scanning the court. He doesn’t realize he’s looking for Mingyu until he finds him - not, surprisingly, among one of the bigger groups, but off to the sidelines. He’s talking to Hyebin from their class, their heads bowed together, conspiratorial. Mingyu’s smiling, his hands in his pockets. 

Hyebin reaches up and touches his elbow briefly. She’s pretty: long hair with expensive-looking highlights, one of those expressive, instantly likable faces. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” Wonwoo says suddenly, interrupting Mina mid-sentence. “Be right back.”

He turns around and heads away from the center line, off the court, past the bleachers and out of the gym. He doesn’t look back. He’ll have to apologize to Mina later; Jihoon too, while he’s at it. But for the moment all he wants to do is get out from under those glaring lights.

The halls are empty; no one leaves a basketball game so soon after it ends, not even the fans of the team that lost. Wonwoo walks slowly, listening to his footsteps echo against the lockers.

He’s almost at the exit when a door bangs open behind him. There’s a squeak of shoes, and then, “Wonwoo.”

He turns. Mingyu stands outside the door to the gym, looking impossibly bright in the dark hallway, all but the nighttime lights switched off. “You’re leaving?” he asks. His voice sounds strange in all that empty space.

Instinctively, Wonwoo crosses his arms. “Getting water.”

Mingyu takes a step towards him. “I’ll come with you.”

Wonwoo shrugs and turns around, if only because he’s not sure what he’ll do if he has to look at Mingyu any longer. “If you want.”

He starts walking down the hall, towards the fountain. There’s a heavy beat of silence, and then the sound of footsteps as Mingyu follows him, landing just out of sync with each other. How’s that for a metaphor, Wonwoo thinks.

The water fountain is in a little recess between two banks of lockers. He tries to ignore Mingyu’s presence as he leans over, his hair falling into his face.

The water is cold, stinging his teeth, and tastes vaguely like rust. He straightens, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Mingyu is leaning against the nearest locker, watching him. Wonwoo wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him for answers. He wants to grab the front of his hoodie and pull.

Instead he says, “Shouldn’t you be celebrating?”

“I’m not the one who won,” Mingyu says. He pushes off the locker, takes a step towards Wonwoo, the two of them standing together in the recess in the wall. It might as well be a completely different planet, for how distant the rest of the hallway suddenly seems. “You were pretty harsh, yesterday. In literature.”

The feeling from yesterday comes back, the dry-ice burn. Wonwoo can’t even remember what he said. What he was so angry about, besides the obvious. “‘Cause your point was shit,” he says anyway. “You can make anything fit that narrative, if you try hard enough- and you’re completely ignoring how it’s usually a two-sided- what are you doing?”

Mingyu’s standing even closer to him now. This close, Wonwoo can see that the ends of his hair are slightly damp, like he took a shower right before the game. “I followed you out here,” he says, like it’s obvious. Like Wonwoo’s stupid for not realizing. “What do you think I’m doing?”

Wonwoo glances down at Mingyu’s mouth briefly. When he meets Mingyu’s eyes again, the look he finds there tells him Mingyu noticed. “I don’t know,” he says. He means to come off accusing, but he just ends up sounding tired. Funny how that works.

“Wonwoo,” Mingyu says, voice low. He takes another step closer. “You need to tell me if I’m getting this wrong,” and then he’s kissing Wonwoo again.

Wonwoo’s lips are still a little damp from the water fountain. He wonders, absurdly, if there’s going to be some amount of moisture every time they kiss. Then Mingyu puts a hand on the back of his head, his fingers in his hair, and there’s no room to wonder about anything else anymore.

Somewhere down the hall, a door bangs open. Wonwoo pushes Mingyu away, takes a step back, his shoulder colliding hard with the corner. He barely feels it. “You- we’re at school.”

Mingyu stares at him. “Scared someone will see?” he asks. 

There’s a hard edge to his voice, more brittle than anger. It’s not the reaction Wonwoo thought he would have, which was something closer to relief. Gratitude, even, for the reminder. After all, for all the emotion lurching around behind Wonwoo’s ribs, outwardly it’s Mingyu who has more to lose if people find out. The star athlete, messing around with Mr. Class Rep, three years running.

He tips his chin up. “Aren’t you?”

Mingyu watches him for another long moment before something in him deflates, and he scrubs a hand over his face. If Wonwoo didn’t know better - if he thought Mingyu was capable of it - he’d think Mingyu looked defeated. “Look,” Mingyu says. “We don’t have to make a big deal out of it. But you want this. Right?”

Somewhere in his head, there’s a list of questions he should probably ask. Like what it is, exactly, that Mingyu wants. Or that Mingyu thinks he wants. But the words all run together, so it just becomes want, want, want . “We don’t have to make a big deal out of it,” he echoes.

“But you want this,” Mingyu repeats. 

Wonwoo can’t think of a way to say yes out loud without revealing too much. So he reaches for the front of Mingyu’s hoodie, like he’s wanted to do the entire time, and pulls.

--

He spends the entire weekend pressing his fingers to his lips, chasing the ghost of Mingyu’s mouth. Monday morning, he stares at the door for seven minutes before Mingyu walks in. He nods in greeting as he passes by Wonwoo’s desk; Wonwoo straightens his stationery and tries to act like his heart rate hasn’t kicked into double time. From the odd look Jihoon gives him, it isn’t very convincing.

In history, Yunho taps Wonwoo’s shoulder and hands him a folded-up square of familiar notebook paper. It’s a drawing of a cat holding one of those old rotary phones, and beneath it, a phone number. Saved you from having to ask. You’re welcome is scrawled underneath it. Wonwoo scowls down at the note, then folds it back up carefully and tucks it into his pocket. 

He makes himself wait until the end of the school day before he takes it back out. Standing in front of his locker, he enters the number into his phone, then drafts about five thousand variations of the same message. The halls are noticeably emptier by the time he puts his phone back into his pocket and heads out.

to: Kim Mingyu

i wasn’t going to ask.

His phone burns a hole through his jacket as he rides the bus, squeezed between a salaryman and a pair of middle school students. He’s just gotten off at his stop when it buzzes. 

from: Kim Mingyu

liar

He presses his free hand against his mouth. He’s smiling wide enough that he can feel his teeth against his palm.

to: Kim Mingyu

🖕

--

from: Kim Mingyu

u got 11 wrong didnt u

to: Kim Mingyu

don’t text in class.

and no, i didn’t.

from: Kim Mingyu 

u did

i saw u copying my answer from the board

to: Kim Mingyu

maybe you should pay attention instead of monitoring me.

from: Kim Mingyu

nah no point

i alr know all the answers

to: Kim Mingyu

i’m going to block you.

from: Kim Mingyu

u wouldnt

--

from: Kim Mingyu

lets make a bet

who gets a better response from mr seo

to: Kim Mingyu

this is a terrible bet.

for you, i mean.

from: Kim Mingyu

so u didnt block me

to: Kim Mingyu

what do i get when i win?

from: Kim Mingyu

cocky

whatever u want

to: Kim Mingyu

that’s a shit prize.

--

Wonwoo wins.

--

At the bus stop, he sees Mingyu before Mingyu sees him. He’s leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees, typing on his phone. If it weren’t for the puffer jacket hiding half his face from view, he’d look exactly like he did back in October. It feels like playing spot the difference: the jacket, the way his hair has grown out a little, brushing the nape of his neck. The duffel bag on the ground by his feet, instead of beside him on the bench.

Wonwoo stops beside him, feeling his heartbeat all the way down in his fingertips. “Whatever I want?”

Mingyu looks up at him. He turns off his phone, leans back, bracing his hands on the bench behind him. “You have something in mind?” he asks, grinning. 

For a moment, Wonwoo gets distracted by Mingyu’s easy smile, the line of his jaw as he tips his head back. Part of him had hoped that kissing Mingyu would fix things - clear his head, get rid of the desire buzzing under his skin. In hindsight, it was a stupid assumption to make. Of course he would kiss Mingyu and then immediately want more.

He sits down on the bench, careful to keep his distance. “Study for exams with me.”

Mingyu snorts, but something on Wonwoo’s face makes him pause. He raises his eyebrows. “You’re serious?”

Wonwoo fiddles with the sleeve of his jacket. “If you say some bullshit about how you ‘don’t study’, I’ll kill you.”

“Wasn’t going to,” Mingyu says. “What’s in it for you?”

The truth is that Wonwoo did some quick calculations in his head during the student council meeting and realized that, cost to his pride aside, he’d be much more efficient at studying if he gets Mingyu to help him in math. And there’s a satisfying irony in getting Mingyu to help him maintain his advantage in the rankings.

What he says is, “That’s not important. Come over tomorrow. My parents don’t get home until late.”

Mingyu’s grin widens, his bottom lip snagged between his teeth. Wonwoo is seized by the sudden urge to put his thumb in Mingyu’s mouth. “‘Study’, huh?”

Wonwoo rolls his eyes. “It’ll be quiet, is what I’m saying. Get your mind out of the gutter.”

Mingyu considers him for a moment, his smile turning thoughtful. “Come over today. I live alone.”

Heat flares up under Wonwoo’s skin, from his collarbones up to the tips of his ears, so bright he’s sure Mingyu can tell. It’s an embarrassing overreaction, given he offered basically the same thing two seconds ago. “Are you serious?”

“As serious as you are,” Mingyu says.

It’s only as Wonwoo opens his mouth to reply that he registers, belatedly, the entirety of Mingyu’s statement. I live alone . A thousand questions float to the surface: Why? Where’s the rest of his family? Does that mean he moved here by himself? 

He thinks about that night on the park bench, the way Mingyu looked up at him when he stood up and said he was going home. He’d wondered, then, if Mingyu had anyone waiting for him. At that moment, was he the only person in the world who knew where Mingyu was?

He turns to Mingyu. The questions die in his throat. Mingyu’s gaze is level, his posture relaxed; still, instinctively, Wonwoo senses that asking anything at all would close a door that only just opened. In more ways than one, maybe. Instead he says, “We should get food first. I’m hungry.”

“So many demands,” Mingyu says, but Wonwoo thinks he sees something like relief in his face. He climbs to his feet, picking up his duffel. “Lead the way, class rep.”

Chapter Text

They end up going to the same convenience store that they went to all those weeks ago. Here, spotting the difference is laughably easy: Mingyu spends the entire time giving unsolicited opinions on Wonwoo’s choices, then pays for his food when they reach the counter. Back in October, he hadn’t even waited for Wonwoo to line up before he was already out the door.

They catch the later bus. Mingyu’s quiet, eyes on his phone, expression unreadable. Wonwoo spends the ride alternately staring at his reflection in the window and trying not to look at the way Mingyu’s hand grips the railing. 

Mingyu’s apartment is a short walk from the bus stop, in one of the nicer complexes, with a white-washed exterior and glass-enclosed balconies. At the door, key in hand, Mingyu pauses and glances at Wonwoo over his shoulder. Under his scrutiny, Wonwoo feels suddenly exposed in the tasteful hallway lighting.

He shifts his weight. “What?”

Mingyu shakes his head. “Nothing,” he says, and unlocks the door. 

The apartment is sparse, cleaner than Wonwoo expected. There’s a small kitchen, with the bathroom off to the side, and then the bedroom beyond that. In the narrow entryway, Wonwoo watches Mingyu take off his jacket and kick off his shoes. His movements are different here: oddly graceful, polished to a mirror shine by routine. Wonwoo thinks about pressing his palm to the space between Mingyu’s shoulder blades.

He takes off his own shoes, and follows Mingyu through the apartment into the bedroom. Here, too, it’s sparse and clean, white walls and a navy bedspread. Wonwoo finds himself cataloguing the few pieces of personalization he can find: the basketball in the corner, the pictures on the wall above the desk, the plant on the windowsill. He imagines Mingyu studying here, the lamplight on his hair.

He turns back to Mingyu, who’s sitting on the edge of the bed, watching him. “Nice place.”

Mingyu rolls his eyes, but Wonwoo catches the hint of a smile as he leans back on his hands. “Are you grading me?”

Wonwoo snorts, sliding his backpack off his shoulders and dropping it onto the floor. “You’re cleaner than I thought you’d be.” He pauses. “Eighty-five.”

Mingyu clicks his tongue. “Only? That’s harsh.” 

“What,” Wonwoo says dryly, “lower than what you usually get?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Mingyu tilts his head. “You’re the first person who’s been here.”

Wonwoo looks at Mingyu, who returns his gaze steadily. Something about the look on his face tells Wonwoo he isn’t joking. “Why?” Wonwoo asks.

Mingyu shrugs. “You tell me.”

It’s the same thing he said in front of that vending machine in the hotel back in Sokcho. You tell me. Wonwoo can’t tell if it’s a deflection tactic, or if he’s genuinely trying to get Wonwoo to define whatever it is they’re doing. Both options make him feel a little stupid, waiting open mouthed for Mingyu to give him the go-ahead.

He takes the last few steps between himself and the edge of the bed. “All I said was ‘study’,” he says, stopping just shy of the space between Mingyu’s knees. “You’re the one who invited me over.”

Mingyu groans, tipping his head back. A series of images, all of them inappropriate, cascade rapidly through Wonwoo’s mind. “Jesus Christ,” Mingyu says, reaching out and snagging the bottom of Wonwoo’s blazer. “Do you wanna do this or not?”

“No,” Wonwoo says, just to be difficult, before grabbing a generous fistful of Mingyu’s collar and pulling him closer. 

Kissing Mingyu when they’re both dry is more or less the same experience as kissing him when wet - which is to say, Wonwoo’s brain turns into a magnifying glass, capable of only processing one sensory detail at a time. The fabric of Mingyu’s shirt, worn thin by repeated washes. Mingyu’s lips, faintly chapped. The almost unbearable buzzing in his chest, like a constant static shock.

He braces his knee against the edge of the bed. Then one hand, then the other. By the time he gathers enough mental resources to pull away for air, he’s fully leaning over Mingyu’s body, Mingyu’s face framed between his hands. “This isn’t a very time-efficient way to study,” he says, slightly out of breath.

Mingyu laughs. Lying down, his hair falls away from his face, making him look younger. “You’re really serious about that,” he says, his voice light. “I should’ve known.”

Wonwoo leans back. Mingyu sits up as he does, keeping the distance between them constant. “I’m serious about everything.”

Mingyu tilts his head. His laugh has faded into a faint smile. “Yeah. Should’ve known that, too.”

Suddenly, everything - the texture of Mingyu’s voice, Wonwoo’s knee on the bedspread - feels unbearably intimate in a way that has nothing to do with the fact that Mingyu’s tongue was in Wonwoo’s mouth about thirty seconds ago. Wonwoo pushes off the edge of the bed, standing up. “Our food’s getting cold. I’m starting to think you’re not a very good study partner.”

He offers his hand to Mingyu, who gives him an indecipherable look before taking it. Mingyu’s hand is warm and dry, smaller than Wonwoo thought; his fingers fold neatly over the back of Mingyu’s hand. “Having regrets already?” Mingyu asks.

Wonwoo pulls him to his feet. They end up standing almost chest to chest, Mingyu sandwiched in the narrow wedge of space between Wonwoo and the bed. Wonwoo thinks about the last time they were standing like this, the rain all around them. The way Mingyu had left him cold. “Depends,” he says. “Are you?”

Mingyu surveys him for a long moment before he sighs, scrubbing a hand across his eyes. “My ego isn’t actually invincible, you know.”

Wonwoo frowns at the non-sequitur. “What are you talking about?”

Mingyu drags his hand down his face, pulling a little at the skin under his eyes. “Nothing. Let’s eat.”

He steps past Wonwoo - again, again - and sits down on the floor, leaning back against the bed. Wonwoo stares at the nape of his neck as he unzips his bag and takes out the food he bought at the convenience store. His expression, in profile, is all hard flat lines.

“Ninety,” Wonwoo says. 

Mingyu pauses, plastic container in hand, and looks up at him. “What?”

Wonwoo shrugs, crossing his arms. “You were right. Eighty-five is harsh.”

The hard line of Mingyu’s mouth eases up into a smile. At the same time, something in Wonwoo eases, too, a knot unraveling in his throat. He should probably be concerned about this reaction, and about whatever instinct propelled him to open his mouth to begin with, but he shelves it for later. “Wanna say that first part again?” Mingyu says.

Wonwoo scoffs. After a moment’s deliberation, he sits down beside Mingyu, their shoulders a hair’s width apart. “I’ll say it when it happens.”

“Stingy,” Mingyu says, but his voice is light. 

They eat their food in silence, sitting on the floor of Mingyu’s bedroom. Mingyu takes a picture of his meal before he digs in, then types one-handed on his phone as he eats, balancing the plastic container in his lap. 

Wonwoo doesn’t actively try to look at his screen, but it’s hard not to catch glimpses out of the corner of his eye, with how close they’re sitting. The chat background is a picture of two people standing together, one of them much taller - probably Mingyu. The last message was sent by the other person, one of those cute stickers of a cartoon bear crying on the floor. 

He looks away, picking up his own phone. The only notification is from his brother laugh-reacting to a meme he sent. He opens up the message thread, starts to draft a message, then ends up pressing the same letter ten times before deleting the entire thing and turning his phone off again.

Mingyu eats as quickly at home as he does at school; Wonwoo’s only halfway done by the time he gets up to throw out his container, their shoulders brushing as he stands. “What happened to being time-efficient?” he asks when he comes back, leaning against the opposite wall.

Wonwoo rolls his eyes. “I am being time-efficient,” he says. “You’re just an outlier.”

“Sounds like you need more practice,” Mingyu says. 

Wonwoo snorts. “What, and eat my lunch in five seconds like you?”

He doesn’t realize he’s made a mistake until Mingyu raises his eyebrows. “You noticed?”

Wonwoo pauses, his food lifted halfway to his mouth. “Lucky guess,” he tries.

“I’m all the way across the room.” Mingyu’s grin widens. “You’ve been looking at me.”

“I- you’re deluding yourself,” Wonwoo says. 

“Not about this.” Mingyu pushes off the wall and crosses the room to where Wonwoo is sitting. When he stops, he’s close enough that Wonwoo has to lean his head back against the mattress to meet his eyes. “You think it’s embarrassing?” he asks, crossing his arms. The overhead light casts his face into shadow. “Being into me.”

Who said I was into you? is Wonwoo’s knee-jerk retort. But for some reason, sitting on the floor of Mingyu’s room with the navy bedspread and the plant on the windowsill, it feels unreasonably cruel. Not to mention untrue. “I wouldn’t be here if I did,” he says instead.

Mingyu crouches down so they’re eye-level, bringing his face into the light. His smile is smug, but there’s something warm in his eyes as he lifts a hand and tugs at Wonwoo’s collar, straightening it out. “So you are into me.”

“You-” Wonwoo puts his chopsticks into his mouth, uses both hands to shove Mingyu backwards. The force knocks Mingyu onto his ass, but all he does is laugh, running a hand through his hair. “Asshole,” Wonwoo says.

“You’re still here, though.” Mingyu climbs to his feet, cracking his neck. Wonwoo, in lieu of staring at Mingyu’s jawline, takes his chopsticks out of his mouth and viciously skewers a pickled radish. “I’m gonna change. Try not to miss me.”

“Don’t come back,” Wonwoo says acidly. Mingyu just laughs again before disappearing into the bathroom. 

In the sudden quiet of the bedroom, the self-consciousness of being left alone in someone else’s house roars to the forefront. Wonwoo finishes his food quickly, exceedingly aware of how much space he’s taking up on the floor, then stands and stretches his arms, shaking the numbness out of his legs. There’s an indent on the bed now, from where Mingyu was lying. He didn’t think Mingyu was the type to make his bed in the morning.

He tries to imagine what Mingyu does every day when he gets home. When does he water his plant? What kind of food is in the fridge? How did he choose the pictures on his wall?

Speaking of which. Wonwoo finds himself drifting over to Mingyu’s desk, the little gallery tacked up above it. It’s neat, the tape on the corners even, all the edges lined up. Interspersed between postcards and ticket stubs are a few pictures of Mingyu - alone, with friends, between an older couple Wonwoo assumes are his parents. 

There’s an ache in his throat, like a fist pressed to his Adam’s apple. He doesn’t know how to square the Mingyu he sees at school, his unbuttoned collars and constant slouch, with this neat, clean apartment. He doesn’t know what it means, that he’s the first person to see it. 

“What’s so interesting?” Mingyu asks.

Wonwoo turns around; his hip catches against the edge of the desk, pain blooming under his skin. In front of him, standing close enough to box him in, Mingyu has that stupid smug smirk on again. Like he already knows everything Wonwoo’s going to say. 

Not that it would matter, if he did. All the possible replies have dried up in Wonwoo’s mouth. Mingyu’s changed into his home clothes, the collar of a white shirt barely visible underneath a big, soft-looking gray hoodie. It makes his shoulders look absurdly broad. It makes Wonwoo want to shove his hands under his shirt, feel the warm skin underneath.

“What’s Anyang like?” he blurts out.

A shadow passes over Mingyu’s face, a faint contraction of- something. Wistfulness, maybe. Whatever satisfaction Wonwoo could’ve derived from surprising Mingyu is undermined by the sight of that fleeting shadow. “It’s nice,” he says, an entire childhood in his voice. “Quieter than here.”

Wonwoo thinks about his own childhood, growing up on these streets, the alleyways and bus routes like the lines on his palm. “You miss it.”

Mingyu shrugs. “Everyone misses their hometown.” 

Maybe , Wonwoo wants to say. But not everyone moves away from their hometown alone at sixteen. “We should start with math. It’ll take the longest.”

Mingyu grins, and Wonwoo sees it then, the way he shrugs off the shadow of his recollection. The actor, doing a costume change in the wings. “You know, if you wanted my help, you could’ve just asked. Save your prize for something else.”

Wonwoo scoffs, moving to step past Mingyu. “Like you’d say yes.”

Mingyu catches his wrist. His heartbeat promptly stumbles, like he’s a middle schooler getting his hand held for the first time, like he wasn’t kneeling over Mingyu on his bed an hour ago. He can only hope that Mingyu, with his thumb pressed to his pulse point, can’t feel it.

“I would’ve,” Mingyu says. His eyes, when Wonwoo tilts his head back to see them, are steady. Surprisingly earnest, if Mingyu were capable of that kind of feeling.

But Wonwoo can’t stand here in Mingyu’s bedroom, with the knowledge that he’s the first person to see it, and think something like ‘earnest’ about Mingyu right now. He can’t. If he does, he’ll inflate this moment with significance, just to have Mingyu push a needle through the skin of it. This meant more to me than it did to you . 

He tugs his wrist out of Mingyu’s grip, resists the urge to cradle it in his other hand like an injury. “Sure,” he says. “Let’s just study.”

--

Mingyu forces Wonwoo to take the desk, setting up his things on the part of the bed right next to it. Wonwoo spreads out his notebooks and tries not to think about how soft Mingyu’s sweater looks or, more embarrassingly, get weirdly turned on by how organized Mingyu’s desk is. 

Mingyu is, surprisingly, a good study partner. Sure, there’s some predictable bullshit at the beginning about Wonwoo asking him for help with math, but when he gets quiet and focuses, he’s- well. Focused. The kind of person that gets the highest grade in the class.

They work through math, and are reviewing Wonwoo’s flashcards for history - after, of course, another stint of bullshit when Wonwoo pulled them out of his bag - when Mingyu’s phone buzzes. “Hold on,” he says, checking the caller ID. “I have to get this.”

Wonwoo rolls his eyes and turns back to his notes. He’s thinking about how to tell Mingyu off when he hears Mingyu say, in a voice he’s never heard before, “What’s up? Everything okay?”

He looks up. Mingyu’s turned away from him slightly, his expression obscured by his phone. But still, that same voice: “Can you blame me? You only call when you need my help.”

If it were anyone else, his tone would’ve been annoyed, maybe even a little accusing. This part of Mingyu had surprised Wonwoo, at the beginning of the year: he makes no effort to seem particularly friendly or likeable, no matter the audience. Always straightforward, always removed. Wonwoo has heard stories, in the halls and from Mina, about Mingyu shooting down confessions straight-faced.

Here, though, his voice is warm. Exasperated, sure, but fond. Wonwoo feels something prickly rise up in his throat, some unearned feeling of missing out. And here he thought he was so special for getting to see Mingyu’s apartment. 

“Yeah, yeah. Look, I’m with a friend. I’ll call you later.” Mingyu hangs up, puts his phone face-down on his bed. When he turns back to Wonwoo, he looks a little more relaxed around the eyes. “1937,” he says. 

Wonwoo blinks. “What?”

Mingyu raises his eyebrows, leaning back on his hands. The warmth from before isn’t gone, necessarily, just pushed to the back. Hidden behind a heavy curtain. “C’mon, class rep. Set a good example. The answer. 1937.”

“I never agreed to do that,” Wonwoo says, picking up his flashcards. “Correct. What were the precipitating factors of the 1914 Sarajevo Incident? I’m looking for five.”

Mingyu ignores the question. “Why do you keep doing it, if you hate it? Being class rep.”

“Incorrect,” Wonwoo says. “Try again.”

Mingyu rolls his eyes and rattles off the answers, counting them off on his fingers. His hands really are small for his size - short fingers, blunt nails. Wonwoo wonders if they affect his basketball. From what he’s seen of Mingyu on the court, he doubts it. “Your turn,” Mingyu says.

Wonwoo doesn’t need to flip the flashcard over to know that Mingyu got it right. He sighs, shifting in the desk chair. It’s one of those expensive office ones, dark leather, with lumbar support. “It’ll look good for uni apps,” he says. “And it’s more annoying if I say no.”

Mingyu snorts. “What’ll happen? They break your knees?”

Wonwoo bites the inside of his mouth, looking down at the smooth wood grain of the desk. Mingyu rejects confessions straight-faced, faces people like Junyoung head-on, and still the crowds in the hallways part for him. What would he know about walking that tightrope, watching from the corner, weighing his classmates’ opinions in his palm?

He doesn’t look at Mingyu. “When was the United Nations formed?”

When Mingyu doesn’t answer for a long moment, he lifts his head, keeping his expression neutral. The look on Mingyu’s face - the intent, searching stare - is the same as the one he gave Wonwoo after they ran into Junyoung in the hallways. The feeling it creates is the same, too: the dark underbelly of shame.

He’s about to tell Mingyu to fuck off again when the latter sighs, leaning back. “October 24th, 1945,” he says. 

It feels like a concession, but there’s no sense of victory. They work through the rest of the flash cards, and Mingyu’s voice is flat, all the warmth rushed offstage.

Chapter Text

“Yo,” Yunhyeong says, his voice carrying over the end-of-day din. “Class rep.”

Wonwoo looks up, straightening out his notebooks. Yunhyeong’s standing in front of his desk, hands shoved into his pockets, his jacket and bag both notably absent. “You running a study group again?” he asks. “You saved my ass last year.”

Wonwoo sighs. Last year, through the same combination of peer pressure and passiveness that got him elected as the class representative in the first place, he oversaw a daily after-school study group in the two weeks leading up to final exams. It had completely destroyed his study and sleep schedules, but his classmates had looked so grateful, so obviously surprised that he was capable of being a helpful person, that he kept saying yes. 

Now, looking at Yunhyeong’s sheepish smile, he can feel himself giving in again. “What do you need help with?”

Yunhyeong’s smile turns satisfied. “Oh, man,” he says. “Everything.” He knocks on the edge of Wonwoo’s desk. “Hold on, let me get my stuff.”

He goes back to his desk. Jihoon replaces him seconds later, his backpack hanging off one shoulder. “Dude,” he says meaningfully.

Wonwoo sighs. “It’s fine,” he says, taking his pencil case back out of his bag. “Teaching others is a common strategy for retaining information.”

“I guess,” Jihoon says. It’s a small kindness: Wonwoo has never benefited from studying with a large group of people, and Jihoon knows this. “Want me to wait for you?”

Wonwoo desperately wants to say yes. But Jihoon hates studying, being at school; only sees it as a means to an end, a compromise between his civil-servant parents and the stacks of music notebooks on his bedroom floor. “It’s fine,” he repeats. “You have things to do.”

“So do you, man,” Jihoon points out. “I’ll text you later.”

He leaves. So does most of the class. Yunhyeong comes back, armed with his notebook, a pencil, and five other people. They push the desks around his together, a shitty recreation of the lunchtime table, as Wonwoo looks over his math notes. He barely understands some of the material; he’ll have to stay up late, if he wants to be able to teach it.

An image slides to the forefront of his mind - Mingyu standing at the chalkboard, his clean, sure lines. But he’s never seen Mingyu stick around after class. He’s probably on the bus now, fighting through the after-school crush. Or walking back to his apartment complex, thinking about what to have for dinner.

To his left, Yujin sits down, then looks over at something behind him. “Oh!” she says, her face lighting up. “Are you joining us?”

Someone puts a hand on the back of Wonwoo’s chair. “What is this?” Mingyu asks from somewhere over his shoulder. 

Wonwoo doesn’t turn around. Not that he needs to- the static in the air, the prickle at the back of his neck, is enough. He leans back in his chair, feels Mingyu’s knuckles brush against his spine. 

“The class rep’s teaching us,” Yunhyeong says, his feet propped up on the desk in front of him. “You should join.”

“I’m good.” Mingyu’s hand slides up Wonwoo’s back, hooking into the collar of his uniform shirt. Wonwoo flips a page of his notebook without processing any of the information. “Not sure how it’d help. Exams are in two weeks.”

Yunhyeong points his pencil at Mingyu. “Never doubt,” he says. “Last year, we were at it every day. I told you, man, this guy’s the only reason I passed history.”

“Every day, huh,” Mingyu says. He sounds contemplative. The weight of his hand disappears; seconds later, he drops into the seat beside Wonwoo’s, sliding his backpack off his shoulder. “I’ll stick around for a bit.” He grins at Wonwoo, navy-bedspread private. “I wanna see what the hype is about.”

“Sick,” Yunhyeong crows. “Two geniuses. I’m so totally acing this.”

Wonwoo doesn’t reply. He’s too busy staring back at Mingyu, the nape of his neck still burning. His hands itch with the urge to do- something. Probably something inappropriate.

Mingyu raises an eyebrow. “What?” he asks, like he already knows.

Wonwoo shakes his head, turns back to his notes. “Don’t be a distraction.”

Mingyu laughs. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Sure enough, he’s quiet as they start reviewing the first few units of history. He’s at least made the pretense of taking his notebook out, but he only touches it to turn the page, his pencil resting idle between his index and middle fingers. In fact, he seems content just staring at Wonwoo, his chin propped up in his hand. The overall effect is that he succeeds in making Wonwoo the least focused person in the room. 

Which might be why, when Lee Yeon asks him a question, his mind blanks on the answer. “Right,” he says, scanning his notes. “It’s-”

“The Eastern faction became Southern and Northern,” Mingyu says. “The Western split into Old and Young. Think ‘Old Western’, like the movies.”

Lee Yeon nods, writing something down. Wonwoo narrows his eyes at Mingyu. “What are you doing?”

Mingyu grins, tapping his pencil against his notebook. “Looks like you could use some help.”

“I don’t remember asking you to help me,” Wonwoo retorts.

“Guys, c’mon,” Yunhyeong groans. “You’re seriously gonna do this here?”

Wonwoo snaps his head around. In his periphery, Mingyu watches him for a few seconds, before also turning to look at Yunhyeong. “We aren’t doing anything,” Wonwoo says.

Yunhyeong rolls his eyes. “Bullshit,” he says. “It’s the same shit you guys do in class. The- what’s the word?”

“Posturing?” Yujin suggests.

“Dick measuring, more like,” Jaebin snorts. 

“Flirting!” Ria calls.

“That’s not,” Wonwoo starts, before pausing. If he’s honest, out of the three of them, he only really objects to one. But it feels impossible to admit that without doing irreparable damage to his reputation. 

Beside him, Mingyu snorts. “Sorry, class rep,” he says. When Wonwoo looks over at him, he’s smiling, leaning forward on his elbows. “Looks like we’ve been caught.”

A ripple of laughter moves around the group. Wonwoo considers throwing his notebook at Mingyu, and only refrains when he thinks about how long it took him to color-code all of the key terms. “I’ll kick you out,” he threatens. 

“Rude,” Mingyu says. He leans over and tugs at Wonwoo’s collar, straightening it out. “I’m helping you, aren’t I?”

Wonwoo clicks his tongue, irritated, and knocks Mingyu’s hand away. He prays Mingyu doesn’t notice how red his face is, or how hot his neck suddenly feels. “You’re being a nuisance, is what you’re doing,” he says.

“Hello? Guys?” Yunhyeong interrupts. “I’m trying to learn here.”

“Yeah, c’mon,” Mingyu says. His eyes are creased with amusement and something softer, something that makes Wonwoo wish with sudden urgency that they were alone in the room. He wonders if these abrupt mood swings are bad for his cardiovascular health. “Set a good example.”

“Shut up,” he tells Mingyu, who only laughs. He looks back down at his notes, taking a second to find his place. “So, following the split-”

--

He expected Mingyu’s presence in the study group to be a one-time thing. But he’s there the next day, talking to Lee Yeon as they push the desks together. Wonwoo watches him, his hand paused in the middle of copying his notes onto the chalkboard, trying to decide if the buzzing under his skin is apprehension or excitement.

If it’s apprehension, it ends up being mostly unjustified. Mingyu is only minimally disruptive, jumping in to answer a question or fill in a gap when Wonwoo takes more than a second to remember the information. It’s annoying, sure, but it’s also - and Wonwoo would only admit this under extreme duress - kind of helpful. At the very least, they’re going through the material much faster than last year.

Afterwards, as he’s packing up, Yujin calls out to him. “I’m studying with some of my friends tomorrow,” she says. “We’re kinda hopeless at biology, though, so I told them I’d ask you if you wanted to join.” She stands up, pushing her chair in. “It won’t just be girls there, if you care about that.”

Wonwoo hesitates. He’d been planning to use the weekend to catch up on his own studying, maybe play some video games with his brother. He starts running the calculations in his mind: if he spends a few hours with Yujin and her friends, he’ll either have to give up on hanging out with his brother, or get less sleep that night. But he’s spent the past few nights getting less than ideal sleep, so-

“He can’t,” Mingyu says. Wonwoo turns to him. He’s still leaning back in his chair, having made no move to clean up. Again, the behavior strikes Wonwoo as deeply odd, from someone who by all indications hates being in the classroom for longer than absolutely necessary. “We’re hanging out tomorrow.”

“Oh,” Yujin says, looking as surprised as Wonwoo feels. Mingyu’s not even looking at him but at Yujin, his chin tipped up a little in what could almost be read as a challenge. “What about Sunday?”

Mingyu raises his eyebrows. “What,” he says, “weekdays aren’t enough? You guys can’t study without him for more than a day?”

Wonwoo feels his shoulders tense. If he said something like that- actually, he can’t even imagine a situation where he would. Softened with a laugh, disguised as a joke, maybe. Not the way Mingyu is saying it now, completely straight-faced. 

But Yujin just looks vaguely chastised. “Come on, that’s not what I meant,” she insists. “No harm in asking, is there?”

Neither of them are looking at him. Somehow, he’s become only adjacently involved in a conversation that he’s supposedly the subject of. Again, again: his name being used to talk about something else entirely, something he has no place in.

“Sorry,” he says before he can think about it. “I can’t do weekends.” 

They both turn to him. He focuses on Yujin, who blinks, then shrugs. “Oh, okay,” she says. “See you Monday, then.”

Before he can search her face for disappointment, maybe even contempt, she shrugs her bag on and turns away, joining Ria and Yunhyeong at the door. Everyone else left during the conversation. He didn’t even notice.

Well. Not everyone else. He looks over at Mingyu, who’s still sitting back in his chair, frowning at the now-empty doorway. Wonwoo takes in the slouch of his shoulders, the way his legs are stretched out under the desk. Usually, the way Mingyu carries himself - that easy, unaffected posture - makes him feel some combination of irritation and want. Now, the needle is swinging firmly towards irritation.

He stands up, his chair clattering harshly against the floor. Mingyu looks up at him, his head lolling back against his shoulder, something tense and expectant in his eyes. “I can take care of myself,” Wonwoo says, shoving his notebooks into his bag with a little more force than necessary. 

Something passes over Mingyu’s face - surprise? Disappointment? It can’t be all that different from the way Yujin had looked at him, but he feels the weight of it more acutely. “Really?” he says. “Doesn’t seem like you’re doing that good of a job.”

The needle moves past irritation. “Fuck off,” he says sharply. Suddenly the classroom, which must be three or four times the size of Mingyu’s bedroom, seems too small for the two of them. He shrugs on his backpack and goes to leave, keeping his eyes on the door as he passes behind Mingyu’s chair.

Something snags his wrist. Or rather- Wonwoo follows the line of his arm, down to where Mingyu’s hand is creasing the cuff of his blazer. Even in the dead of winter, even through two layers of fabric, his palm is warm. “So you’re not coming over tomorrow?” Mingyu asks casually. 

Wonwoo snorts. He’s about to say something about not clinging to a shitty joke, or about how their audience is already gone, when he looks more closely at Mingyu’s face. The smile he usually has when he’s joking, the wry twist of his mouth, isn’t there. Instead, his mouth is downturned. Something close to hurt.

“I’m busy tomorrow,” Wonwoo says. “But I can do Sunday.”

He watches the shape of Mingyu’s mouth transform. “Okay,” Mingyu says. “Sunday.” His thumb presses into the knob of Wonwoo’s wrist briefly, before letting go. “You’re not going home?”

Wonwoo shakes his head. “I’m going to the library.”

Mingyu rolls his eyes. “To no one’s surprise.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Wonwoo says, and Mingyu laughs, bright and surprised. 

And there’s something about the flash of his teeth, when he laughs. Or maybe it’s the angle, looking down at him with his head tipped up, so similar to the way he looked when they were alone in his room. Either way, he brings his hand to Mingyu’s jaw and leans down, his shoulders straining against the straps of his backpack as he kisses him firmly on the mouth.

He can’t be sure that it’s a good kiss, all things considered. The angle is awkward, and he’s caught Mingyu mid-laugh, his lips still parted. But when he pulls away, Mingyu looks stunned, his eyes glazed over. 

He smiles despite himself. “Sunday,” he repeats again, before leaving the classroom.

--

Ten minutes later, he gets a text from Mingyu: 

from: Kim Mingyu

u piece of shit

He fights back a smile, exceedingly aware of the optics of grinning wildly down at his textbooks in the middle of a public library, and types back a response.

to: Kim Mingyu

🥰

--

Through a series of events in which Wonwoo seems to have very little say, his usual studying routine becomes completely unrecognizable in the final week and a half leading up to finals. Well actually, most of it is the same: the study group after classes, studying with Jihoon and his brother, spending hours at the library. But there’s one giant, glaring change, in the form of a transfer student from Anyang. 

They study together at Mingyu’s apartment on Sunday. The day after, on Monday, Mingyu’s at the study group again, sitting to his right. They cover math that day; he ends up doing most of the teaching, while Wonwoo furtively takes notes and tries not to be weirdly attracted to the way he holds chalk. 

On Wednesday, after Wonwoo begs off the study group to go to the student council meeting, he goes to Mingyu’s place again. Then the Friday after that, on the pretext of it being before the weekend, anyway. Then Sunday again. By the time Monday rolls around, Wonwoo is starting to come to terms with the fact that he’s seeing Mingyu more often than anyone else in his life.

He’s mixing his bibimbap, listening as Jihoon recounts his latest attempt to capture random sounds for a song he’s working on, when a hand claps down on his shoulder. He tenses up from the contact alone, but then Mingyu leans into his field of view, and his shoulders become so tight you could fire an arrow off of them. 

“Looks good,” Mingyu says. He’s leaning down far enough that his mouth - not that Wonwoo is particularly focused on that part of his face, specifically - is level with Wonwoo’s ear. Without warning, he snags Wonwoo’s chopsticks with his free hand and plucks a slice of beef out of the container, popping it into his mouth. 

“Asshole,” Wonwoo says, shoving Mingyu’s face away. He takes his chopsticks back, trying to ignore both the sound of Mingyu’s laughter right next to his ear and the weight of the hand on his shoulder. He’s succeeding, but it’s a close thing. “What do you want?”

“You left this.” Mingyu puts something on his desk, next to his water bottle. Wonwoo recognizes it immediately - it’s his red pen, the one he uses for corrections. Yesterday, he threw it at Mingyu when the latter kept lying to him about his answers being wrong.

He takes the pen, turning it over in his hand. “Thanks,” he says, closing his fingers around it. He looks back at Mingyu, who’s watching him, his hand braced against the edge of the desk. “You heading out?”

Now that it’s December, Mingyu’s group skips the soccer field and goes to the indoor courts on the far end of campus. He knows this because Mingyu told him on Friday, when they were hanging out at Mingyu’s apartment, because their relationship becomes increasingly bizarre and harder to believe with each passing week.

“Yeah,” Mingyu says. “Speaking of which, last game of the season’s on Wednesday. You should come.”

Wonwoo leans back in his chair. This, too, has become increasingly bizarre - he no longer searches Mingyu’s face for intention, content to take his words at face value. “Sure,” he says. “After student council.”

Mingyu grins. “So diligent.” He taps Wonwoo’s desk, then pushes away, his hand falling from Wonwoo’s shoulder. “See you Wednesday. Bye, Jihoon.” 

Wonwoo turns back to Jihoon, who nods to Mingyu in acknowledgment. He waits for a second before meeting Wonwoo’s gaze. “Anything you wanna tell me, man?”

“About what?” Wonwoo asks, even though he has a pretty good idea. “I told you, we were studying on Sunday.”

Jihoon narrows his eyes, skeptical. “ Just studying? ‘Cause I saw something else, just now.”

“That’s-” Wonwoo starts, then stops. He hasn’t told Jihoon about kissing Mingyu, or Mingyu kissing him, or anything else in between. Not because he doesn’t trust Jihoon, or he doesn’t want to hear what he has to say. No - he’s scared, he thinks, of putting it all into words, condensing the events of the past semester into something digestible. Of how that something will sound, when said aloud.

“-your imagination,” he finishes. “You wanna come to the game on Wednesday?”

Jihoon snorts, but there’s something stilted to it. “And watch you guys be weird again? I’m good. I’ve got plans that day, anyway.”

“We aren’t-” Wonwoo sighs. We aren’t weird , is what he was going to say, but the first half of that statement alone is already unconvincing. “Can we just go back to talking about trains?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Jihoon says, the brittle edge to his voice melting away. “So I messed with the settings, and-”

Chapter Text

Mina, as it turns out, is also going to the basketball game, to support her brother. They spend the handful of hours between the student council meeting and the game studying in the library. Or rather, Wonwoo studies, and Mina - who will have at least five different athletic scholarships going into university - messes around on her phone. They buy snacks from the vending machines behind the school, and head to the gym ten minutes before the game starts.

The teams are in the middle of warmups when they enter. The bleachers are the emptiest Wonwoo’s ever seen them, probably because of how close exams are. Wonwoo starts towards the very back, but Mina, with the ironclad grip of a regionally ranked tennis player, directs him firmly to the second row from the bottom. 

His seat affords him a close view of the school team as they warm up. And of Mingyu, whom he finds in no time at all, lining up for shooting drills. Someone tosses him a ball; he turns in Wonwoo’s direction to catch it. Their eyes meet. Mingyu’s face remains neutral, but he nods slightly, a barely perceptible lowering of the head. Wonwoo nods back, his stomach inexplicably in knots. 

The game starts. The crowd is not only sparser but, as it turns out, more subdued than it was at the other games. In fact, there’s a weird sense of tension along the bleachers, like everyone is holding their breath. 

“The other team won provincials last year,” Mina explains when he asks. “And they’re looking even better this year. Your guy’s good, but.” She shrugs. “He can’t carry the whole team.”

Wonwoo tears his eyes away from Mingyu, feeling caught. “He’s not my guy.”

She snorts. “Sure,” she says, eyeing him pityingly. “Just be nice to him if we lose, ‘kay?”

Wonwoo turns back to the game. He hadn’t considered that they - that Mingyu, if he’s being both specific and honest with himself - might lose. He wonders about the correct thing to say, in a situation like that, and doesn’t realize he’s tapping his foot rapidly against the floor until Mina elbows him and tells him to cut it out.

He doesn’t end up figuring it out. They lose anyway, trailing by five points by the time the buzzer goes off. The crowd’s muted reaction, tension turned into disappointment, makes his skin crawl. He considers escaping into the hallway, alone with the nighttime lights. But: Be nice to him .

So he stays. Mina leaves to comfort her brother, leaving him alone on the bleachers. He watches people filter onto the court, studies how they act after a loss. There are a few familiar faces: Hyebin and Yerim, Jihoon’s friend Soonyoung. There’s a cluster of people standing around Mingyu, all of them wearing varying expressions of sympathy. He pictures himself standing among them, what kind of expression his face would be making.

As he watches, Mingyu breaks away from the group and cuts a path toward the bleachers. It’s only when he’s a few steps away, their eyes meeting through the sparse crowd, that Wonwoo realizes that he’s walking towards him.

Sure enough, Mingyu comes to a stop in front of where he’s sitting, their knees just shy of touching. “You came,” he says, his voice strangely flat. 

This close, Wonwoo has to crane his head back awkwardly to see Mingyu’s face, and there’s not enough room for him to stand without them bumping into each other. He settles for leaning back on his hands. “Yeah.”

Mingyu doesn’t say anything, his eyes searching Wonwoo’s face. After a moment, a crease forms between his eyebrows. It’s been a while, Wonwoo realizes, since he’s seen that look - since Mingyu has been truly surprised by something he’s done. He’s not entirely sure what that means, or how he feels about it.

Mingyu says, “You’re not gonna say anything?”

Wonwoo tilts his head. “What do you want me to say?”

Mingyu sighs harshly, hard enough to sound like it hurt, and scrubs a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. “I just lost,” he says, his voice hitching a little on the last word. “You could at least tell me I did my best, or something.”

Wonwoo thinks about all those different expressions of sympathy surrounding Mingyu. No doubt he’s already heard variations of the same sentence a dozen times; it’s hard to believe that he’d want to hear it again, and from Wonwoo of all people. “Why? It’s not like I can tell. I don’t-”

“You don’t know anything about basketball, yeah, you’ve said,” Mingyu interrupts, sounding frustrated. “That’s not the point.”

It’s hard to make out his expression, backlit as he is by the bright gym lights, at an angle that makes Wonwoo’s neck hurt. Even still, there’s something in his voice that makes Wonwoo climb to his feet. 

His knee knocks into Mingyu’s on the way up. Mingyu reaches out and catches him by the arm, steadying him as he straightens. Now that they’re level, the contours of his expression are a little easier to read: the frustration from before, the exhaustion of playing for two hours. Something else, too, small and rough-edged.

Mingyu’s hand is still on his arm. “You did your best,” Wonwoo says. He’s surprised by the sincerity in his own voice. “Good job.”

Mingyu doesn’t reply for a moment. In the space left by his silence, Wonwoo’s words sound less and less adequate by the second. Finally, a shudder runs through Mingyu’s body, and he says, “Come home with me.”

The murmur of the crowd, the bright lights fall away. They might as well be alone in the gym. They might as well be in Mingyu’s apartment already. “What?”

The corner of Mingyu’s mouth lifts. “You heard me. We’ll study, too, if you’re worried about your routine.”

He looks down, pretending to think, but it’s all posturing. From the moment he realized Mingyu was walking towards him, there was no other option. “Don’t you still need to change?”

Mingyu smiles properly, hearing the answer in his question. “Five minutes,” he says. He starts to walk backwards, back onto the court. “Wait for me.”

Wonwoo taps his wrist. “If you run over, I’m leaving without you.”

Mingyu laughs, brighter than the overhead lights. “You are such an asshole,” he says, then turns around and disappears into the crowd.

--

Mingyu’s silent as they walk to the bus stop. There’s a layer of snow on the ground, rendering the streets into flat, monochrome panes, washed out under the thin sliver of moon. It’s late enough at night that there are only a handful of other people on the bus. Everything feels slightly surreal, like he’s watching his life through a film camera. 

Mingyu, too, feels distinctly different in a way that he can’t quite put his finger on. Something in the set of his shoulders, the sweep of his eyelashes as he looks down at the sidewalk. When they reach his apartment, he takes off his jacket and shoes, then walks into the kitchen, scrubbing a hand over his face. “You hungry? I’ll make something.”

From the entryway, Wonwoo stares at Mingyu’s back as he turns on the kitchen light. “Yeah, I could eat.”

He takes off his own shoes and jacket, dropping his bag on the ground next to the shoe rack, then follows Mingyu into the kitchen. Mingyu’s at the sink, washing his hands. Wonwoo studies the slope of his shoulders in his gray sweatshirt and wonders if there’s some formula that can explain it all. If he could, by mapping out the line of Mingyu’s shoulders, understand all the things about Mingyu that continue to evade him. 

He walks over to the counter. He leans his hip against it, watching Mingyu as he fills a saucepan with tap water. Under the soft yellowish overhead lighting, he finally puts a finger on what feels so different about Mingyu. His movements are- tighter, his limbs held closer to his body. Less of that easy, unthinking looseness. Like he’s concentrating all of his effort and thought into the next action.

“You’re upset,” he realizes aloud. “About losing.”

Mingyu pauses, his hand on the stove dial. He glances over at Wonwoo, his expression incredulous. “Are you fucking with me?”

Wonwoo rewinds his last sentence, realizing belatedly how obvious it is. Insultingly so, even. People are sad when they lose: he’s not sure how he could fail to apply such a basic principle to Mingyu, given how averse he himself is to losing. “No,” he says, thinking about what he’d said on the bleachers. “I- Sorry. I’ve been insensitive.”

Mingyu raises his eyebrows, his expression softening. “You’re always insensitive,” he points out. 

Wonwoo rolls his eyes, relaxing against the counter. “You are the last person who can say that to me,” he says. He takes a step closer, watching the way Mingyu’s hands flex as he tears open a packet of instant noodles. When he asks, “Can I help?” he’s talking about more than just dinner.

Mingyu must catch on to it, because he glances at Wonwoo again, considering him. “I’m good,” he says, turning back to the stove. He stabs his chopsticks through the block of instant noodles, breaking them apart in the boiling water. “I did actually play my best today,” he adds after a moment. “But it was a close game, still. Maybe we could’ve done more.”

It takes a moment for Wonwoo to realize he’s talking about the game. “ You couldn’t have, though, as an individual,” he says. “If you already did your best.”

Mingyu snorts. “If you’re trying to comfort me, you’re shit at it,” he says, his voice soft. “But you’re not wrong.”

“I rarely am,” Wonwoo says - not because he believes it, but because he’s been chasing Mingyu’s smile ever since they stepped into his apartment. Maybe even since he looked up at Mingyu, backlit by the gymnasium lights. 

And it works: Mingyu laughs quietly, shaking his head. “You wanna say that to Mrs. Young?”

“Fuck off,” Wonwoo says, but he’s laughing, too, and then Mingyu’s laughing louder, his mouth sliding back into that easy grin, and Wonwoo has to stop himself before he starts thinking about the things he’d say to keep it there.

The grin fades after a moment, but a small part of it stays tucked into the corner of Mingyu’s mouth as he finishes cooking. They eat on the floor of Mingyu’s bedroom, their knees pressed together. The food is good - at least, as far as instant ramen can be good. Noodles perfectly cooked, the egg yolk golden and gleaming under the overhead light. 

Wonwoo offers to wash the dishes. Mingyu takes him up on it, then leans against the counter the whole time, making judgmental comments about his dishwashing technique. Overcome by an uncharacteristic wave of childishness (which, if he thinks about it, have become increasingly frequent lately), Wonwoo flicks a soap sud at Mingyu in retaliation.

Mingyu lets out a sharp, surprised laugh, wiping the soap off his cheekbone. “I’m telling student council about this,” he says, flicking it back at Wonwoo. 

“Good,” Wonwoo says, scooping up more soap from the sink in preparation. “Maybe I’ll finally stop being elected.”

He moves to flick the soap at Mingyu again. Mingyu catches his wrist, clicking his tongue in irritation, and uses it to pull Wonwoo closer. Mingyu kisses him; Wonwoo can feel the outlines of his teeth. He loses himself in the feeling for a while, Mingyu crowding him against the sink, the soap in his hand running down his wrist.

Mingyu is the first to pull away. Sensations float back to Wonwoo - the edge of the counter digging into his lower back, the dampness of the soap on his forearm. The look on Mingyu’s face is hard to read; the way he searches Wonwoo’s face, impossible. His hand burns where it’s touching Wonwoo’s hip.

After a moment, his shoulders slump - another change in angle, another tweak to the formula - and his head tilts forward. Wonwoo shifts, moving closer, but Mingyu doesn’t kiss him; instead his head drops onto Wonwoo’s shoulder, finding the slope where it meets his neck. Wonwoo’s entire body goes rigid. 

Mingyu turns his head slightly; Wonwoo can feel his nose brush the side of his neck. “Fuck,” he mutters, barely audible.

He’s tense, too, Wonwoo realizes. Whatever this is - seeking comfort, or just showing vulnerability - he’s clearly not used to doing it. Be nice to him , Mina says in his ear. Be nice to him.

He lifts a tentative hand, then pauses, realizing it’s still covered in dishwater. As much as Mingyu pisses him off sometimes, he’s not about to put his dishwater-covered hand onto an objectively nice, clean sweatshirt. 

He sighs, dropping his hand again. “I need to finish washing the dishes.”

Mingyu pulls away so abruptly that Wonwoo stumbles, steadying himself on the counter behind him. In Mingyu’s absence, the cool air of the apartment rushes in, eager. “Right,” Mingyu says, rubbing his temples. “My bad.”

Wonwoo opens his mouth, feeling undeniably like he’s done something wrong. But he’s never been good with apologies, even when he knows what he’s supposed to apologize for, and the words don’t come. Instead he watches as Mingyu turns away from him and leaves the kitchen, feeling strangely cold.

He finishes washing the dishes and goes to the bedroom. Mingyu’s sitting on his bed, elbows on his knees, his phone dangling between his hands. The screen is dark; he’s not even looking at it, just flipping it back and forth between his palms. Wonwoo wants to ask what he did wrong. He wants to ask why Mingyu brought him here, why he agreed so readily.

He steps closer, the floor creaking under his weight. Mingyu looks up, leaning back against his hands, his face moving into the light. His eyes are dull, his mouth a flat line. He looks- tired, Wonwoo realizes, and immediately feels like an idiot for not realizing sooner. Tired, and disappointed.

Another step closer. Their knees are almost touching. Mingyu’s face doesn’t change, but his legs fall open slightly, making room. It’s all the encouragement Wonwoo needs to close the distance, his thighs bumping into the edge of the bed. 

Mingyu tilts his head as Wonwoo’s shadow falls over his face. “Not gonna study?”

“Later,” Wonwoo says. If he thinks about this too much, or even a little, he won’t do it at all. So he keeps his mind carefully blank as he lifts his hand, watches with detachment as it runs through Mingyu’s hair. 

His hair is soft, slightly stiff at the ends with dried sweat. He puts up none of the resistance Wonwoo was bracing himself for - instead his body goes loose, his eyes sliding shut. Like he was waiting for this. Like this is what he’d been seeking in the first place, when Wonwoo had his back against the sink. 

“Sorry,” Wonwoo says. “You’re right. I’m shit at comforting people.”

Mingyu snorts and leans forward, resting his forehead against Wonwoo’s stomach. Wonwoo instinctively tenses, then realizes that Mingyu can probably feel it, and forces himself to relax again. “You’re fine,” Mingyu murmurs. 

Wonwoo moves his hand to the back of Mingyu’s head, fitting his palm against the shape of his skull. “You sure? I just said you’re right. I thought you’d be celebrating.”

Another snort, this time a little closer to an actual laugh. “You are such an asshole,” Mingyu says. He reaches up and grabs the side of Wonwoo’s blazer, right at the seam. “And you’re hurting my neck. Come closer.”

Wonwoo sighs and leans in a little. “You’re gonna wrinkle my uniform.”

He can feel Mingyu loosening his grip, his hand splaying out against Wonwoo’s side. “What,” Mingyu says, “you don’t steam it every morning?” 

He used to, as a freshman, before he realized that he didn’t move enough during the day to cause any significant wrinkling, and that excessive steaming would damage the fabric. “Shut up,” he says anyway, and feels Mingyu’s shoulders shake with laughter. 

It feels good, to make him laugh even when he’s dull-eyed with exhaustion. It feels - not good per se, but some other warm feeling, to look down at the whorl of hair at the top of Mingyu’s head, to feel the sweat-stiff strands between his fingers. He wonders if anyone else at school has ever seen Mingyu like this. He doubts it, somehow.

Mingyu lifts his head. His face is a little softer around the edges. “Class-” he starts, then stops. “Wonwoo,” he says. Wonwoo could probably read thousands of pages of meaning into that single revision, if he let himself.

He doesn’t get the chance to. Mingyu’s phone buzzes in his pocket, breaking the moment and the silence. Mingyu sighs and fishes his phone out with his free hand. The caller ID makes the edges of his face harden again, and he leans away from Wonwoo, swiping his thumb across the screen. “Jungho,” he says, bringing the phone up to his ear.

Wonwoo moves his hand away from Mingyu’s hair, afraid of getting in the way. Mingyu glances up at him, something like remorse flashing over his face. He lets go of Wonwoo’s blazer, bracing the hand against the bed behind him instead, the angle between their bodies opening up. “I’m at home,” he continues. “Yeah, man, I know.” He tilts his head, resting the side of it against his shoulder. Glances at Wonwoo again. “No, I’ve got other plans.”

There’s a loud, tinny sound from the other end of the line, low and insistent. Mingyu rubs his thumb into the skin between his eyebrows, his hair falling into his eyes. “You guys are fine without me,” he says. “Have fun. See you on Monday.” He pauses, and when he speaks again, his voice is a little less curt than before. “Good job today.”

Wonwoo waits until he ends the call before speaking. “You had plans?”

Mingyu shrugs, reaching out and pinching the hem of Wonwoo’s blazer between his fingers. Wonwoo feels an embarrassing rush of relief at this gesture, a sign that the moment from before isn’t irretrievably gone. “Not really,” he says. “A party for the team. End-of-season thing.”

The relief is replaced by something sour. Guilt, maybe; the awful sense of being an inconvenience. His presence too big for the sanctuary of Mingyu’s room. “And you’re not going,” Wonwoo says, more of a statement than a question.

Mingyu shakes his head. “Wasn’t really feeling it.”

“‘Cause you lost?” Wonwoo asks, trying not to feel like he’s playing a game of Twenty Questions with Mingyu’s emotional state.

“Well, yeah,” Mingyu says, like it’s obvious, which it probably is. He glances down, then back up at Wonwoo. “And I’d rather be here.”

Wonwoo’s body goes still as his mind starts running. By ‘here’, does Mingyu mean in his apartment in general? That would make sense, wanting to nurse his wounds in private - surprising, given how well-received Mingyu is at parties, but understandable. Or, the more intimidating option: does he mean ‘here’, with Wonwoo specifically?

He feels a tug on his blazer. “I can hear you thinking,” Mingyu says, amused. Something’s changed in his voice, some undertone suddenly gone. “Let’s study, yeah?”

Wonwoo scans Mingyu’s face carefully, and is surprised to see- resignation, almost. Like he’s handing Wonwoo the reins to the conversation. Wonwoo gets the sense that, while the moment from before is still salvageable, he might never get to hear what Mingyu was about to say in the middle of it. 

He asks, “Are you sure?”

Mingyu raises his eyebrows. “What else are we gonna do?”

There’s an edge to his words, one that slides between Wonwoo’s ribs. Oh, right, he thinks. All they ever do is study and make out and talk around each other. They’re not friends, or- whatever lies beyond that. Feeling the heat of Mingyu’s breath against his stomach, his hair between his fingers, he’d almost forgotten. “Yeah,” he says. Mingyu’s not looking at him anymore. “Yeah, okay. Let’s study.”

Chapter Text

Finals pass. So do all of his viable excuses to spend time with Mingyu. On the evening of the last day of exams, Jihoon shows up on his doorstep, a duffel bag over his shoulder, the same way he’s shown up on the last day of exams for the past two years. 

As she has for the past two years, Wonwoo’s mom makes jajangmyeon for dinner. At the dinner table, with the five of them - an extra mismatched placemat for Jihoon - Wonwoo’s dad asks how they did on their exams. “Wonwoo here was studying like a man possessed,” he tells Jihoon. “Were they very challenging?”

Jihoon grins, but it’s a little flat, all the humor of canned laughter. Good enough to fool Wonwoo’s parents, probably, but it makes Wonwoo pause. “They were okay,” he says. “Wonwoo just had a good study partner.”

Wonwoo’s parents collectively swivel their heads to look at Wonwoo. Even after three years, they’ve never stopped treating every addition to Wonwoo’s social life as cause for celebration. When Jihoon first came over to the house in freshman year, Wonwoo’s mom nearly cried. 

“Oh?” she says now. “Who is it? Someone we know?”

On Wonwoo’s left, his brother raises his eyebrows. “You have friends other than Jihoon?” he asks, his mouth full. Wonwoo kicks him under the table. 

Before he can answer, Jihoon beats him to it. “No, he just moved here. He’s a good student.”

“Well, you’re all good students,” Wonwoo’s mom says diplomatically. Her tone does nothing to hide the gleam in her eye. “How are his grades? Better than Wonwoo’s?”

“Mom,” Wonwoo interjects. Partly out of his own embarrassment, partly because he can recognize the tightness that Jihoon gets around his eyes when he’s irritated by a conversation. “Do you want his grades to be better than mine?”

His mom responds like he’s just accused her of murder, which is more or less how he expected her to react. Her theatrics - played up for Jihoon’s sake; Wonwoo inherited all of his social ineptitude from his dad - are enough to divert the conversation to other subjects. Wonwoo looks at Jihoon, eyebrows raised like ‘can you believe this?’, but Jihoon isn’t looking at him.

Afterwards, Wonwoo’s dad washes the dishes, and Wonwoo helps his mom spread the futon out on the floor of his bedroom. “Why don’t you invite your new friend for dinner sometime?” his mom asks quietly, smoothing out the corner. 

Freshman, maybe even the first half of sophomore year, Wonwoo would’ve been annoyed. His family’s concern picking at a newly formed scab. But with Jihoon, and Mina, and - now that the evidence has become too overwhelming to refute - Mingyu in his life, he just looks at his mother with a feeling of gratitude that embarrasses him a little. “Sure,” he says. “I’ll ask.”

She climbs to her feet, one palm pressed to the small of her back. “What does he like to eat?”

Wonwoo pauses, drawing a blank. He tallies up all the things he’s seen Mingyu eat - prepackaged kimbap from the convenience store, noodles for the two of them with egg on top. Nothing that indicates preference for anything beyond what’s convenient and cheap.

Now that he thinks about it, he doesn’t really know anything about Mingyu, except what could be summed up in a first-day introduction speech. He doesn’t know his favorite food, what he does in his spare time. When and why he started playing basketball. Whether he has any siblings. How he really feels about moving away from his hometown alone at the age of sixteen. Who he left behind.

He climbs to his feet, too, his chest tight. He suddenly wants nothing more than to see Mingyu sitting at his kitchen table, that open-mouthed laugh under the warm overhead lights. “I’ll ask,” he repeats, meaning more than just the invitation to dinner. “I’ll ask.”

--

to: Kim Mingyu

are you free sunday evening?

from: Kim Mingyu

i could b

y?

to: Kim Mingyu

do you want to come over for dinner?

with my family. my mom will cook something.

from: Kim Mingyu

well im not gonna turn down homecooked food

to: Kim Mingyu

that’s what i thought.

any requests?

from: Kim Mingyu

meat ;)

preferably urs ;)

to: Kim Mingyu

you’re uninvited.

--

Wonwoo’s mom does actually make meat on Sunday, pork belly and fried noodles. Mingyu shows up two minutes early in jeans and an expensive-looking knit sweater, a gift basket of persimmons tucked under his arm. In the doorway, watching the light from the house fall over Mingyu’s figure, Wonwoo is seized by a wave of intense anxiety.

“Hi,” he says. “Did you get here okay?”

Mingyu raises his eyebrows. “What a thoughtful host,” he says, the smile in the corner of his mouth lit up by the light coming from the house. “Yeah, it was fine. Sorry I’m early.”

“What a thoughtful guest,” Wonwoo says, stepping back to let Mingyu in. He catches the tail end of Mingyu’s laugh as the latter steps inside, his shoulder brushing Wonwoo’s. 

Seeing Mingyu in his entryway feels even stranger than seeing him on his doorstep. Around Mingyu, the familiar contours of his family home are reshaped into something new; not the backdrop of Wonwoo’s life but a house, with furnishings and decor and pictures on the walls. He has the sudden urge to take all the baby photos down. 

Wonwoo closes the door, and every single other member of his family rushes over to greet Mingyu, a mortifying welcome committee. Mingyu is surprisingly polite and unsurprisingly charming; the gift basket is received with effusive gratitude.

This pattern continues through dinner. Mingyu compliments the food; Wonwoo snorts at the way his voice sounds when he’s being polite, which earns him a glare from his mom and a kick under the table from Mingyu. He returns the latter with not a small amount of bloodlust, and is rewarded when Mingyu hisses a breath through his teeth and nearly drops his chopsticks.

It’s the only win he gets the entire evening; the rest of them go to Mingyu. His mom fawns over how tall Mingyu is, how handsome, how she’s heard he’s such a good student. His dad fawns over the gift basket of persimmons, which were apparently very expensive. His brother fawns over basketball. By the time the bowls are empty and the table is cleared, it feels less like a family dinner and more like an award ceremony where Mingyu is the only recipient.

Mingyu offers to wash the dishes, because of course he does. At this point Wonwoo thinks he can see actual heart emojis in his parents’ eyes. “I’ve got it,” his dad says, pulling on the rubber gloves. “You boys go play.”

“Please use a different verb,” Wonwoo says, trying not to blush furiously as he climbs the stairs. He can hear Mingyu laughing quietly, a few steps below him, and has to resist the urge to kick him again.

He leads Mingyu to his room at the end of the hall, suddenly grateful for the thirty minutes of frenzied cleaning he’d done earlier in the day. He can feel Mingyu’s presence behind him like a physical weight as he turns on the floor lamp, hears the click of Mingyu shutting the door behind them.

They’re silent for a few moments. Wonwoo fills it with thoughts of what Mingyu could be thinking, about his room, about his house, about his family. About him. He turns to face Mingyu, who’s leaning against the closed door of his room, hands tucked in his pockets. Surveying the space. “Sorry,” he hears himself say. 

Mingyu meets his gaze. “For what?”

“Just-” Wonwoo runs a hand through his hair. “My family. I know they’re a lot.”

Mingyu lifts a shoulder, drops it, moves his gaze away from Wonwoo’s. “It’s fine,” he says. “They’re nice.”

Wonwoo bites his tongue. Stupid, to have forgotten: Mingyu’s family is three hundred kilometres away. His apartment doesn’t even have a dining table. “They really like you,” he says, because it’s the only apology he can think of that Mingyu would accept. “If you couldn’t tell.”

That gets Mingyu to smile slightly, though he’s still looking away, his eyes fixed on something over Wonwoo’s shoulder. Wonwoo resists the urge to turn around as Mingyu replies, “That’s just ‘cause they think we’ve been studying together.”

Actually, it’s because he’s that mythical smart, handsome, and well-mannered friend that every parent dreams of having at their dinner table, but Wonwoo isn’t going to say that. “They don’t care about the studying,” he says instead. “It’s more that I have a friend who isn’t Jihoon.”

Mingyu’s gaze snaps back to his. Wonwoo bites the inside of his cheek, looks down before Mingyu can catch his expression – or, maybe more crucially, before he can see Mingyu’s. There’s that shame again, lying belly-up in the dim overhead light of his bedroom. Offering itself up for examination.

Downstairs, his mom lets out an exclamation that makes his brother laugh. “You don’t have anything from middle school,” Mingyu says.

He says it like a detective examining a crime scene. That’s what he was looking at, Wonwoo realizes. Mounted to the wall across from the door, right over Wonwoo’s shoulder, the shelf with the memorabilia of his life lined up in chronological order. Nowhere on that shelf is Wonwoo wearing a middle school uniform.

It’s Wonwoo’s turn to shrug. “Nothing I wanted to remember,” he says, which is technically true. The fact that he physically can’t stop remembering is more or less irrelevant.

“Why?” Mingyu asks. To his credit, he doesn’t try to soften his voice. Knows, or at least Wonwoo hopes he does, that Wonwoo would leave the room if he did. “‘Cause of Lee Junyoung?”

Wonwoo can’t help but scoff. In the roster of people who made his life hell between the ages of eleven and thirteen, Junyoung ranks so low he’s barely worth mentioning. “Not really, no.”

If Mingyu can tell that he’s being evasive, he’s choosing to ignore it. “Other people, then.”

Wonwoo presses a fingertip to the space between his eyebrows, where the skin is creased. He feels infinitely tired. “Why do you care, Mingyu?”

It’s quiet for a long moment. Wonwoo weighs the costs and benefits of lifting his head until Mingyu sighs. “This shit again,” he mutters. He sounds just as tired as Wonwoo feels, which is laughably stupid, because he isn’t the one having his childhood bedroom dissected by someone he has terrifyingly strong feelings for. “What am I supposed to say? To make you believe me? ‘Cause I can’t figure it out.”

It’s the raw quality of his voice - some insulating layer peeled away - that makes Wonwoo look up. The look on Mingyu’s face catches him off guard: just as raw as his voice, his mouth a thin, hard line. “What are you talking about?” he asks.

Mingyu makes a frustrated sound low in his throat. “Come on,” he says. “You can’t actually be this dense. You’re the only one who’s seen my place, Wonwoo.”

It’s not the first time he’s called Wonwoo by name. This time, though, it feels different. Like he’s admitting something. “I don’t know what you’re trying to say,” Wonwoo says. “You don’t tell me shit, either.”

“You don’t ask,” Mingyu counters. “I can’t do all the work here.”

“What work?” Wonwoo says sharply. “Inviting me to shit I don’t care about so you can get off later?”

Mingyu reels. For a second, hurt - not anger, not irritation - flashes across his face, the weight of it heavy enough that it feels like being physically shoved. 

Then the second passes. When Mingyu runs a hand through his hair, his expression has settled back into frustration, familiar territory. “Yeah, okay,” he says. “Go fuck yourself, Wonwoo.”

He leaves the room. Wonwoo stays rooted in place, tracing Mingyu’s path through his home in the muffled sounds that reach him through the closed door. The creak of the upstairs landing, then the stairs, quieter and higher-pitched. The low murmur of his family’s voices, punctuated by an exclamation. And finally: the rattle of the front door; the sudden silence. 

Wonwoo walks to his desk chair, sits down hard enough to make the spring squeak. Stares up at the shelf. In Mingyu’s absence, like every other space he’s ever occupied, the room expands. Wonwoo digs his nails into his palm, hard, and then gets up and goes downstairs