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jaemin was, by all accounts, a brilliant future surgeon. he could trace the intricate pathways of the brachial plexus with his eyes closed, could recite the steps of a coronary artery bypass graft in his sleep, and could identify any bone in the human body from a single, grainy x-ray. but when it came to the simple organ beating inside his own ribcage, he was, frankly, an idiot.
the problem had a name, a smile that crinkled his eyes into perfect crescents, and biceps developed from years of swinging a baseball bat. the problem was jeno lee, his best friend since their disastrous first-year orientation where jaemin had accidentally spilled an entire bubble tea on jeno’s pristine white shirt and jeno had just laughed, a warm, booming sound that jaemin had immediately decided he needed to hear as often as possible.
the problem was also a running joke. a staple of their friend group’s dynamic. it was as normal as mark’s terrible puns or jisung’s perpetual state of mild panic.
“jeno’s just so in love with you, man,” mark would say, clapping jeno on the back as jeno patiently untangled jaemin’s headphones.
“it’s true,” chenle would chirp, not looking up from his phone game. “he carved your initials into his bat. i saw it.”
jeno would just roll his eyes, his ears turning a faint, tell-tale pink, and shove at mark’s shoulder. “shut up. someone has to take care of him. he’d forget his own head if it wasn’t attached.”
and jaemin would laugh, loud and bright, because it was funny. it was normal. jeno was just nice. he was the human embodiment of a golden retriever, all loyalty and effortless kindness. of course he brought jaemin coffee. of course he remembered jaemin’s obscenely complicated order. it was just what jeno did.
except this morning, standing outside the biology lab, jeno had jogged up, still smelling faintly of grass and sweat from his dawn conditioning, his baseball bag slung over one broad shoulder. his hair was damp and messy, and he looked tired, but he was holding a steaming cardboard cup.
“for you,” jeno had said, his voice a little rough. “eight shots, a splash of vanilla, and a sprinkle of cardiac arrest. just how you like it.”
jaemin had taken the cup, their fingers brushing. and his heart, the traitorous, stupid muscle he knew so much about, had decided to do a little syncopated rhythm against his sternum. thump thump thump thump thump.
it was illogical. jaemin had spent the entire walk to the lab running through differential diagnoses. was it caffeine? he hadn’t ingested any yet. was it a minor, previously undetected arrhythmia? possible, but unlikely given his age and fitness. was it a sympathetic nervous system response to the sudden temperature change of the cup? a weak hypothesis, but the best he had.
he pushed open the lab door, the sterile smell of ethanol and formalin washing over him. his lab partner, renjun, was already there, meticulously labeling a set of petri dishes with a precision that bordered on obsessive.
“you’re late,” renjun said without looking up. his voice was flat. “and you have that look on your face. the one that usually precedes you accidentally setting something on fire.”
“i have never set anything on fire,” jaemin said, sliding onto the stool next to him. “it was a controlled, contained exothermic reaction that got slightly out of hand. and jeno brought me coffee.”
renjun finally glanced over, his sharp eyes taking in the cup in jaemin’s hand. “ah. the liquid anxiety. that explains the manic glint in your eyes. i thought you’d just discovered a new way to torture the lab rats.”
“i prefer to think of it as ‘enriching their environment’,” jaemin said, taking a long, scalding sip. the caffeine hit his system like a freight train, and he felt immediately, gloriously alert. “and my eyes do not have a manic glint. they sparkle with intellect and charm.”
“they sparkle with the promise of future malpractice lawsuits,” renjun muttered, turning back to his labels.
it was crazy, really, that they could banter like this. their first semester as lab partners, renjun had despised jaemin with the burning intensity of a thousand suns. jaemin, with his chaotic energy, his tendency to hum pop songs while dissecting, and his habit of reorganizing renjun’s perfectly arranged tools “for fun,” had been renjun’s personal hell. renjun, with his quiet intensity, his muttered critiques, and his refusal to tolerate even a 0.1ml discrepancy in their measurements, had been jaemin’s favorite new toy.
somewhere between a heated argument over proper pipetting technique and jaemin accidentally splashing sheep’s blood on renjun’s favorite sweater, a truce had formed. then, a begrudging respect. now, jaemin was sure they were friends, even if renjun’s way of showing affection was to insult him with startling creativity.
the lab door banged open, and chenle bounced in, a whirlwind of expensive sneakers and loud chatter. “jaemin! renjun! my favorite future doctors of death!”
“what are you doing here, chenle?” renjun asked, not bothering to mask his annoyance. “this is a microbiology lab, not a daycare.”
“my business ethics lecture was canceled. the professor said something about a ‘crisis of conscience’ and left. so i’m here to provide moral support!” chenle hopped onto an empty stool, swinging his legs. “also, jisung was studying in the library but he’s probably just napping in a carrel again and i’m bored.”
jaemin grinned. he liked chenle. his energy was a match for his own, a fact that seemed to cause renjun physical pain. “we’re identifying unknown bacterial samples today. you can be our official documentarian.”
“ooh, can i name them?” chenle asked, pulling out his phone. “this one looks like a ‘steve’.”
“we do not name the pathogens, chenle,” renjun said, his voice tight. “we identify, classify, and document them with clinical detachment.”
“you’re no fun,” chenle pouted. “steve is a fun guy. look at his little colonies! so bubbly.”
jaemin was about to suggest they let chenle name just one when the lab door opened again. this time, it was jeno. he’d clearly come straight from practice; his hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, and his t-shirt was dark with it, clinging to his chest and shoulders in a way that was… anatomically informative. he had a fresh cup of coffee in his hand.
“forgot to give you the extra sleeve,” jeno said, his voice a little breathless. he slid the cardboard sleeve onto jaemin’s cup, his fingers careful. “you always complain it’s too hot to hold.”
jaemin’s heart did the thing again. the stupid, dumb, illogical thing. a rapid, fluttering beat that felt like a bird trapped in a cage. thump thump thump thump thump. he stared at jeno’s hand, at the way his tendons moved under his skin, and his brain offered up a completely unhelpful fact about the flexor digitorum profundus.
“thanks,” jaemin managed, his voice coming out slightly strangled.
jeno’s smile was soft, just for him. “no problem. what are you guys up to? growing superbugs?”
“chenle is naming them,” jaemin said, desperately trying to cling to a normal conversation. “that one is steve.”
“hi, steve,” jeno said, peering at the petri dish. he looked back at jaemin, his gaze warm and focused. “you good? you look… flushed.”
“it’s the caffeine,” jaemin blurted out. “vasoconstriction. increased heart rate. perfectly normal physiological response.”
jeno blinked. “right. okay. well, i’ll let you get back to your… steve.” he ruffled jaemin’s hair, a familiar, easy gesture that suddenly felt electric. “see you at lunch?”
jaemin just nodded, incapable of speech. jeno gave a little wave to a scowling renjun and an overly-interested chenle, and left.
the second the door closed, chenle swiveled on his stool. “oh my god. he’s so in love with you it’s disgusting.”
“it’s not disgusting, it’s just jeno,” jaemin said, taking a frantic gulp of coffee. “he’s nice. he’s a nice person.”
“he looks at you like you personally hung the moon and all the stars,” chenle insisted. “and he brought you a sleeve for your coffee. a sleeve! that’s, like, peak husband behavior.”
“it’s a practical gesture,” jaemin argued, feeling his ears heat up. “preventing second-degree burns is just common sense.”
renjun, who had been observing the exchange with a deeply unimpressed expression, finally spoke. “if common sense were a person, it would run screaming from na jaemin. lee jeno is operating on a different algorithm entirely, and it’s not one coded in logic.” he picked up a sterile swab. “now, can we please focus on identifying steve before he evolves sentience and conquers the lab?”
the lab door creaked open again, this time with less force. jisung stood there, looking like a tall, disheveled ghost who had just been rudely awakened from a century-long slumber. his hoodie was misbuttoned, his dark hair was a spectacular mess, and there was a faint, red crease from a textbook page marring his cheek. he blinked slowly, his eyes scanning the room before landing on chenle.
he didn’t say anything at first. just shuffled in, his movements heavy with sleep, and came to a stop right behind chenle’s stool. he leaned forward, his chin coming to rest on the top of chenle’s head, his arms looping loosely around chenle’s shoulders from behind. he let out a long, weary sigh, his entire body going boneless against chenle’s back.
chenle, who had been mid-sentence about steve the bacterium’s potential as a lawyer, didn’t even startle. he just stopped talking, a small, almost imperceptible smile touching his lips. he leaned back into the weight, accepting it like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“you abandoned me,” jisung mumbled, his voice a low, sleep-rough vibration against chenle’s skull. the accusation held no heat, only a familiar, plaintive whine.
“you were drooling on a very useless engineering textbook,” chenle replied, his tone light and teasing. he didn’t turn around, just reached one hand up to pat clumsily at jisung’s arm where it was draped over his chest. “i was preserving your dignity.”
“i wasn’t drooling,” jisung muttered, nuzzling his face into chenle’s hair. he kept his eyes closed, as if he could fall back asleep right there, standing up. “i was… hydrating the pages.”
“gross, sungie.” chenle’s nose scrunched up, but he made no move to dislodge him. instead, he tilted his head back further, offering jisung a more comfortable pillow.
jaemin watched, utterly transfixed by the bizarre, wordless ritual. it was like watching a giant, sleepy koala latch onto a chattering, brightly colored bird. jisung, all long limbs and quiet exhaustion, seemed to be using chenle as a living, breathing weighted blanket. and chenle, usually a vortex of uncontrolled energy, had stilled completely, basking in the contact.
after a moment, jisung’s eyes slit open, blearily taking in the petri dishes on the counter. “are you done?” he asked, his question aimed vaguely in the direction of jaemin and renjun, but his chin was still planted on chenle’s head. “i’m hungry.”
“we’re almost done,” renjun said, his voice drier than the agar in their petri dishes. he was watching them with an expression of clinical distaste, as if they were a particularly puzzling symbiotic organism.
chenle finally shifted, but only to wiggle an arm free from jisung’s loose hold. he dug into the pocket of his designer jeans and pulled out a slightly crumpled protein bar. without a word, he tore the wrapper open with his teeth and held it up over his shoulder.
jisung’s hand emerged from the tangle of limbs, took the bar, and brought it to his mouth. he took a slow, sleepy bite, chewing methodically, his eyes drifting shut again.
it was so sickeningly domestic jaemin felt a strong urge to gag. there were no sweet words, no grand gestures. just a sleepy boy using his boyfriend as a piece of furniture and said boyfriend preemptively providing sustenance. it was, jaemin realized with a jolt, a language all their own.
“see?” chenle said, finally turning his head just enough to glance at jaemin, a spark of triumph in his eyes. “this is why he needs me. he’d forget to eat and just wither away into a tall, sad skeleton.”
jisung, mouth full of protein bar, made a noise of protest that sounded like “m’not sad, and it's usually you who forgets everything,” and tightened his arms around chenle’s middle, burying his face completely in the crook of his neck.
chenle’s triumphant look softened into something unbearably fond. he reached back again, this time his fingers gently carding through the messy hair at the nape of jisung’s neck. “five more minutes, then we’ll get real food.”
jaemin looked away, suddenly feeling like he was intruding on something profoundly private. he caught renjun’s eye, who merely raised one eyebrow as if to say, ‘see? this is what i have to tolerate.’ but for a single, unguarded moment, even renjun’s stony expression seemed to crack with something that looked suspiciously like amusement.
lunch in the campus cafeteria was like a ritual. mark joined them, already complaining about his business statistics professor. they commandeered their usual table in the corner, a mess of trays, backpacks, and overlapping conversations.
jaemin was wedged between renjun and jeno, which was his usual spot, but today it felt different. he was hyper-aware of jeno’s presence beside him, the solid warmth of his arm, the way he laughed at something mark said, the sound vibrating through the bench they shared.
jaemin was in the middle of a detailed, graphically accurate story about his morning in the cadaver lab, complete with hand gestures, when jeno, without even looking away from his conversation with mark, picked up a piece of kimbap from his own plate and held it out to jaemin’s mouth.
it was a thing jeno did. jaemin got so wrapped up in talking he often forgot to eat, and jeno had taken to feeding him bites to keep him going. it was normal. it was funny.
except today, when jaemin automatically leaned forward and took the bite, his lips brushing against jeno’s fingertips, his heart didn’t just flutter. it launched into a full-blown, non-sustained ventricular tachycardia. his breath hitched. the world seemed to narrow to the point of contact, the slight callous on jeno’s index finger from years of gripping a baseball, the simple, domestic intimacy of the gesture.
he chewed mechanically, the food turning to ash in his mouth. he stared straight ahead, his brain screaming with medical jargon. vasovagal response? no. hyperstimulation of the vagus nerve? unlikely. catecholamine surge? possible, but what’s the stimulus?
the stimulus was jeno, now turning back to him with a smile. “good, right?”
jaemin just nodded, swallowing with difficulty.
chenle, from across the table, had seen the whole thing. his eyes were wide, his mouth opening, no doubt to unleash a torrent of teasing that would finally, irrevocably, shatter the delicate illusion of normalcy.
jisung, however, who had been quietly dissecting his own food, suddenly kicked chenle under the table. hard.
“ow! what was that for?” chenle yelped, clutching his shin.
jisung didn’t look up from his plate. “you were about to say something stupid.”
“i was about to state an observable fact!”
“same thing,” jisung mumbled, his ears turning red.
the moment passed. mark launched into another story. renjun was pointedly examining a piece of broccoli as if it held the secrets of the universe. jeno went back to his lunch, seemingly oblivious to the minor cardiac event he’d just caused in the person next to him.
jaemin risked a glance at jeno’s profile. the strong line of his jaw, the slope of his nose, the way his lashes fanned against his cheeks when he looked down. he saw jeno’s hand, the one that had just fed him, resting on the table. he had a sudden, insane, overwhelming urge to reach out and take it.
he didn’t, of course. that would be absurd. that would be… illogical.
instead, he took a deep breath, shoved the last of the confusing, arrhythmia-inducing feelings into a mental box labeled ‘for later analysis (probably never)’, and stole a piece of meat from jeno’s plate.
“hey!” jeno protested, but he was smiling.
“you fed me one piece,” jaemin said, forcing his voice into its usual, teasing lilt. “i require a tribute for the story i was telling. it’s only fair.”
jeno just shook his head, that fond, exasperated, pink-eared look on his face that jaemin saw every day. the look that was just jeno being nice. the look that was absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent not the cause of any medically significant symptoms.
as they gathered their trays to leave, their shoulders bumping, jaemin decided, with the full confidence of a future surgeon who could stitch a wound closed but couldn’t suture his own feelings together, that he would simply ignore it. the heart was just a muscle. a pump. it was prone to errors. and whatever this was, it was an error he didn’t have time to diagnose.
—————————
jeno’s world, for the past three years, had revolved around two fixed points: the satisfying crack of a baseball meeting his bat, and the brilliant smile of na jaemin.
the first was simple. it was physics, muscle memory, a clear objective. the second was a tangled, hopeless mess of feelings that he carried with him like a second, heavier bat bag.
he was, to put it plainly, stupidly in love with his best friend.
it was complicated. agonizingly so. because jaemin would sometimes look at him with a soft, unguarded expression that made jeno’s knees feel like gelatin, only to follow it up with a clinical dissection of why jeno’s trapezius muscles were “aesthetically pleasing from a biomechanical standpoint.” he’d curl into jeno’s side during movie nights, warm and pliant, then spend twenty minutes explaining the exact physiological reasons why jeno’s body heat was preferable to a blanket. he was a whirlwind of mixed signals, a walking paradox of intense intimacy and clinical detachment, and jeno was perpetually dizzy trying to keep up.
he’d just finished wednesday practice, his muscles pleasantly sore, his skin tacky with sweat. he high-fived a few teammates, slung his bag over his shoulder, and trudged out of the athletics complex. mark was waiting for him, looking like he’d just lost a fight with a spreadsheet.
“you look terrible,” jeno said by way of greeting.
“midterms are a capitalist construct designed to crush the human spirit,” mark mumbled, falling into step beside him. “also, my accounting professor has the soul of a desiccated lemon.”
jeno nodded sympathetically. “jaemin used my brand-new, seventy-dollar textbook as a coaster for his eight-shot espresso this morning. there’s a perfect, brown, ring-shaped stain on the chapter about synaptic transmission.”
mark sighed, a long, suffering sound. “he’s your problem. you chose this.”
“i didn’t choose it,” jeno protested, though they both knew it was a lie. he had chosen jaemin the moment the boy had looked at him, covered in spilled tapioca pearls, and declared, “well, now you’re sticky and interesting. we’re going to be best friends.” he’d had no say in the matter. “it just… happened.”
“you enable him,” mark stated, his tone flat with exhaustion. “you bring him the coffee that fuels these crimes.”
it was true. jeno was an enabler. a willing, pathetically devoted enabler. he detoured to the campus coffee shop, ordered the usual liquid insanity, and walked with mark towards the science building. it was a tradition now. wednesday, post-practice, coffee delivery. a small, sacred ritual in the religion of his one-sided pining.
he pushed open the lab door to a scene of unexpected drama. renjun, who was usually a bastion of controlled, quiet fury, was practically vibrating with a level of rage jeno had never witnessed. his face was flushed, his small hands clenched into white-knuckled fists on the lab table.
chenle, in contrast, was bouncing on the balls of his feet, a look of mischievous glee on his face. “you have to come! it’s going to be epic! the party of the semester!”
“i would rather dissect my own spleen with a rusty spoon,” renjun spat, his voice tight and sharp.
“don’t be so dramatic! he’s coming back! he’ll be there! don’t you want to see him?” chenle’s eyes were wide, feigning innocence.
“the only thing i want to see involving lee donghyuck is his obituary,” renjun shot back. the name hung in the air, charged and unfamiliar. jeno glanced at jaemin, who was watching the exchange with the rapt attention of a scientist observing a fascinating new species of volatile chemical.
“who’s donghyuck?” jeno whispered, handing jaemin the coffee.
jaemin took it, his fingers brushing jeno’s. a familiar jolt, quickly ignored. “he’s clearly renjun’s arch-nemesis. this is incredible. i’ve never seen him this mad. i’m taking notes,” he murmured back, not taking his eyes off the argument.
“he’s not my arch-nemesis,” renjun snarled, apparently possessing superhuman hearing. “he’s a plague. an error in matrix. a walking, talking reminder of why trust is a fool’s currency.”
“oh, come on, renjun, it was one stupid thing!” chenle pleaded. “it was years ago! he was joking!”
“joking?” renjun let out a bitter, hollow laugh. “some things aren’t jokes, chenle. some things are just… cruel. and he knew it. he knew exactly what he was doing.”
“he felt terrible! he tried to apologize a million times!”
“and i don’t have to accept it!” renjun’s voice cracked, and for a split second, jeno saw something raw and wounded beneath the fury. it was gone in a flash, replaced by icy contempt. “he made his choice. he can live with the consequences. and one of those consequences is me never wanting to see his stupid face again.”
chenle threw his hands up in the air. “you’re both so stubborn! it’s exhausting! you used to be friends!”
“that was before i knew better,” renjun said, his voice dropping to a deadly calm. he turned his back on chenle, picking up a petri dish with such precise, controlled violence that jeno was surprised it didn’t shatter in his hand. “the conversation is over.”
chenle huffed, finally seeming to realize he’d lost this battle. he spotted jisung lurking by the door and immediately latched onto him. the tension in the room slowly deflated, but a cold, angry energy still radiated from renjun.
jeno later asked jaemin about it as they walked away from the science building, both miraculously free for the rest of the day.
“seriously, who is donghyuck?”
jaemin shrugged, sipping his coffee. “no clue. chenle mentioned him once or twice before. sociology student, apparently. went abroad for a year. from what i can piece together, he and renjun were close, then donghyuck did something ‘as a joke’ that crossed a line. renjun’s not the type to hold a grudge over nothing. it must have been bad.”
“worse than you using his favorite pen to stir your coffee?” jeno asked, a smile tugging at his lips.
“allegedly,” jaemin said, grinning. “and that was an emergency. my stirrer was… compromised.”
jeno laughed, the sound easy and warm. this was his favorite version of jaemin: the one who was done with classes, buzzing on caffeine, and ready for mischief. “so, what are your plans for this newfound freedom?”
“i’m invading your apartment,” jaemin announced, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “you have that new racing game, and i need to assert my dominance.”
jeno’s heart did a familiar, hopeful squeeze. “you mean you need to lose spectacularly.”
“your blind optimism is adorable, lee jeno.”
jeno’s apartment was a modest one-bedroom his parents had gifted him for his twenty-first birthday. it was clean, mostly because jaemin didn’t live there, and sparsely decorated. the main features were a large, comfortable couch, a massive television, and a gaming console that saw more use from jaemin than from jeno himself.
the afternoon melted into a blur of comfortable chaos. they played the racing game, jaemin shouting insults and triumphantly when he won, jeno laughing and shoving him playfully when he lost. they ordered enough chinese food to feed a small army and ate it straight from the containers on the floor, arguing over the last dumpling. they put on a terrible horror movie and jaemin spent the entire time providing a running commentary of all the anatomical inaccuracies of the film’s monster.
“its spine is clearly modeled on a feline, but its gait is all wrong for the weight distribution,” jaemin declared, pointing a chopstick at the screen. “and that bite force? please. it would shatter its own mandible.”
jeno wasn’t watching the movie. he was watching jaemin. the way his eyes lit up when he got excited, the way his hands moved when he talked, the way he’d absentmindedly lean against jeno, his warmth seeping through jeno’s shirt. this was it. this was everything. this easy, domestic happiness was the core of his entire world. the thought of jeopardizing it, of putting a name to the overwhelming feeling in his chest, was terrifying.
as the credits rolled on the movie, the room fell into a comfortable silence, bathed in the blue glow of the television. they were slumped on the floor, backs against the couch, shoulders pressed together. the air was thick with the scent of sesame oil and contentment.
and then jaemin, in his infinite, chaotic wisdom, broke the silence with the dumbest question imaginable.
“what would you do if i asked you to marry me right now?”
the words hung in the air, simple and devastating. jeno’s brain stopped working for a second. all the blood in his body seemed to rush to his ears, drowning out everything except the frantic hammering of his own heart. he turned his head slowly. jaemin was looking at him, his expression unreadable in the dim light. it wasn’t his usual teasing grin. it was… curious. testing.
jeno, his filter completely obliterated by the shock of the question, answered with the dumbest, most honest, most terrifyingly raw thing he could have said.
“i’d kiss you”
the silence that followed was different. it wasn’t comfortable anymore. it was charged, brittle, like the air before a lightning strike. jeno watched the play of emotions on jaemin’s face in the flickering blue light: the initial curiosity, then confusion, then a dawning, wide-eyed horror.
jaemin’s breath hitched. he scrambled back so fast he almost knocked over an empty soda can. “what?”
jeno’s mouth was dry. he had to explain. he had to backtrack, make it a joke, something, anything. but the truth was out, a live wire between them. “i just… i mean…” he stammered, his face burning.
jaemin stared at him, and jeno saw the exact moment his brilliant, analytical mind connected the dots. the coffee. the feeding him. the way jeno always knew what he needed before he did. the way he looked at him. it wasn’t just nice. it wasn’t just best friend behavior. it was all of it, every single joke mark and chenle had ever made, every glance, every touch, all of it was real.
“i have to go,” jaemin said, his voice unnaturally quiet. he stood up, movements jerky.
“jaemin, wait—” jeno started, his own voice thick with panic.
“no, i… i have an… early thing. a lab. a… thing.” he wasn’t even looking at jeno anymore. he was grabbing his backpack, his movements frantic, like a animal caught in a trap. “i’ll… see you tomorrow.”
and then he was gone. the door clicked shut behind him, the sound final and deafening in the silent apartment.
jeno sat on the floor, surrounded by the debris of their perfect afternoon, the ghost of jaemin’s warmth still pressed against his side. the words ‘i’d kiss you’ echoed in his head, taunting him. he’d said too much. he’d been too honest. he’d taken their perfectly balanced, beautifully chaotic friendship and he’d poured his messy, overwhelming heart all over it.
he sat there for a long time, until the blue light from the tv faded to black, leaving him alone in the dark. the thought settled over him, cold and heavy, seeping into his bones.
he’d ruined everything.
—————————
jaemin’s brain, a finely tuned machine capable of memorizing the entire krebs cycle and the branching patterns of the external carotid artery, had officially blue-screened.
the error message was simple, blinking in bright, alarming red behind his eyes: does not compute.
jeno’s answer - i’d kiss you, was not a logical response to a hypothetical, absurd question. it was a confession. a nuclear bomb dropped directly onto the carefully constructed playground of their friendship. it was a diagnosis for which jaemin had no treatment plan.
for two days, he’d been running on a feedback loop of panic and denial. he’d dodged jeno’s texts with flimsy excuses about “lab overtime” and “a sudden, critical need to reorganize my sock drawer by fiber content.” he’d skipped their usual lunch table, opting to eat a sad tuna sandwich alone in the medical library, surrounded by skeletons that judgingly rattled their bones at him.
he couldn’t talk to mark. mark would just give him that tired, knowing look. he couldn’t talk to chenle, because chenle would scream “i told you so!” from the rooftops and probably hire a skywriter. there was only one person in their group who was quiet, observant, and unlikely to offer unsolicited commentary.
he found jisung in the engineering building’s computer lab, hunched over a 3d modeling program, his brow furrowed in concentration. he looked like a baby trying to solve a rubik's cube.
“jisung,” jaemin said, slumping into the chair next to him. “i have a problem of a biological nature.”
jisung didn’t look away from his screen, where a complex wireframe structure was slowly rotating. “if this is about the weird mole on your back again, i’m not looking at it.”
“it’s not about the mole. it’s about my heart.”
that got jisung’s attention. he paused the rendering and swiveled his chair, his eyes wide with concern. “are you having chest pains? palpitations? you really should cut back on the eight-shot coffees, hyung, i’m serious.”
“no, not like that,” jaemin waved a hand dismissively. “it’s… metaphorical. or psychological. or… i don’t know. it’s about jeno.”
jisung’s concern instantly evaporated, replaced by a familiar, wary exhaustion. he slowly turned back to his computer. “oh. that.”
“he said he’d kiss me,” jaemin blurted out.
jisung’s shoulders tensed. he didn’t turn around. “okay.”
“okay? that’s all you have to say? ‘okay’?” jaemin leaned forward, desperate. “jisung, listen. i asked him what he’d do if i asked him to marry me. as a joke! it was a joke! and he said he’d kiss me.”
“sounds like an answer,” jisung mumbled, clicking his mouse with unnecessary force.
“but why?” jaemin pressed, his voice rising slightly. “what does it mean? from a logical standpoint, it’s an incongruous response. it doesn’t follow the premise of the question. it’s a non-sequitur.”
jisung finally sighed, a long, suffering sound. he saved his project and fully turned to face jaemin. “hyung. you’re really smart. like, scarily smart. but about this… you’re kind of stupid.”
“see? that’s what i’m saying! it doesn’t make any sense!”
“no, i mean -” jisung cut himself off, running a hand through his already messy hair. he looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. “look. chenle… he does this thing where he’ll steal my hoodies and then complain that they smell like me. he’ll follow me around when i’m trying to study and then get mad when i’m not paying attention to him. he’ll say he hates the music i listen to and then i’ll catch him humming it later. it doesn’t make sense. but it does. you know?”
jaemin stared at him, completely lost. “no. i don’t know. that just sounds like chenle has a personality disorder.”
jisung gave him a look of profound pity. “it means the actions are louder than the words. sometimes the stuff that seems stupid is the only stuff that’s actually real.” he swiveled back to his computer, effectively ending the conversation. “just… think about it. or don’t. i need to finish this model before my brain melts.”
jaemin left the computer lab more confused than ever. actions are louder than the words. what did that even mean? jeno’s actions were… jeno. he was nice. he brought coffee. he remembered things. that was just who he was.
frustrated, his thoughts a tangled knot of medical terminology and jeno’s stupid, crinkly-eyed smile, he found himself outside the pathology department’s study lounge. renjun was inside, surrounded by thick textbooks, highlighting a passage with violent, precise strokes.
jaemin hovered in the doorway. renjun despised interruptions. renjun thought he was a sociopath. renjun was also, arguably, the most straightforward and clear-headed person he knew.
“renjun,” he said, his voice tentative.
renjun didn’t look up. “if this is about the bacterial cultures, i already submitted the report. your section was, against all odds, coherent.”
“it’s not about that.” jaemin stepped fully into the room. “it’s about… a personal… dilemma.”
that made renjun pause. he slowly capped his highlighter and looked at jaemin, his expression unreadable. “a dilemma.”
“it’s about jeno.”
renjun’s face did something complicated. a flicker of annoyance, a dash of resignation, and a surprising hint of what might have been understanding. he gestured to the empty chair beside him. “sit. you’re blocking the light. and be quick. i have a date with a jar of pickled pancreases in twenty minutes.”
jaemin sat, the words tumbling out of him in a rushed, chaotic stream. he told him about the movie night, the comfortable silence, the stupid, impulsive question, and jeno’s earth-shattering, illogical answer. he explained his subsequent panic, his confusion, the way his heart kept doing that stupid, fluttering thing that had no physiological basis.
renjun listened in silence, his arms crossed, not interrupting once. when jaemin finally finished, breathless and desperate, renjun simply said, “so, you’re an idiot.”
“see? jisung said the same thing, but he wasn’t helpful!”
“jisung is too nice to tell you the blunt truth,” renjun stated. “i am not. let me break this down for you, na jaemin, since you seem to require a clinical analysis. lee jeno is in love with you. it is pathetically obvious to everyone with a functioning set of optic nerves. he brings you coffee that could kill a lesser man. he feeds you like you’re a fledgling bird. he looks at you with the kind of devotion usually reserved for cult leaders. your ‘hypothetical’ question was the least hypothetical thing you’ve ever said, and his answer was the most honest. you panicked because for the first time, your carefully constructed delusion that this is all just ‘jeno being nice’ collapsed, and you were confronted with the reality of his actual feelings. and possibly,” renjun added, his gaze sharpening, “with the reality of your own.”
jaemin felt like he’d been doused in ice water. it was so brutally straightforward. so… logical. laid out like a patient’s symptoms leading to an inescapable diagnosis. exhibits a: excessive caregiving behavior from subject jeno. exhibits b: documented tachycardia and cognitive dissonance in subject jaemin upon receipt of said care. conclusion: mutual romantic attachment, complicated by profound denial in subject jaemin.
“my own?” jaemin whispered.
“don’t play dumb. it’s beneath you,” renjun said, picking up his highlighter again. “you don’t obsess over someone’s ‘illogical’ responses unless their logic matters to you on a fundamental level. you don’t run away from a friendship-altering confession unless the alternative - accepting it and everything it means, terrifies you more than losing the status quo. your heart isn’t ‘malfunctioning,’ you moron. it’s working perfectly fine. you’re just finally listening to it.”
jaemin sat there, stunned into silence. renjun’s words weren’t gentle, but they were clean. they cut through the noise in his head like a scalpel. you’re just finally listening to it.
the coffee. the sleeve. the kimbap. the way jeno’s laugh was his favorite sound. the way his apartment felt more like home than his own dorm room. the way the thought of jeno not being there made his chest feel tight and hollow. it wasn’t friendship. it was so much more, and so much simpler, and he’d been too busy over-analyzing it to see the glaringly obvious truth.
“oh,” jaemin said, the single syllable carrying the weight of his entire world shifting on its axis.
“ ‘oh,’ ” renjun mimicked, a rare, almost-smile touching his lips. “now, if your existential crisis is resolved, i have organs to identify.” he looked back at his book, then added, without glancing up, “the treatment for this particular condition, by the way, is usually direct communication. and maybe not running away this time.”
jaemin stood up, a new, wild energy coursing through him. a plan, half-formed and utterly insane, was already taking root in his newly enlightened mind. “thanks, renjun.”
“don’t thank me. just fix it. his moping is even more annoying than your obliviousness.”
jaemin practically flew out of the study lounge, pulling out his phone. his thumbs flew over the screen.
jaemin: jeno. don’t have practice tomorrow. don’t make plans. i’m taking you on an adventure. wear something you can run in.
jeno’s reply was almost instantaneous, a single, beautiful word that made jaemin’s now properly understood heart soar.
jeno: okay.
—
the “adventure” involved a chain-link fence, a sign that read ‘condemned - no trespassing’, and an abandoned amusement park on the outskirts of the city that looked like the setting for every zombie apocalypse movie ever made. the ferris wheel was a skeleton against the twilight sky, and the bumper cars were filled with decaying leaves.
jaemin’s plan was, as most of his plans were, brilliant in its specificity. he’d done his research. the abandoned wonderland park had been closed for a decade, its rusting gates a local legend. it was perfect. no crowds, no expectations, just the two of them and the ghosts of a forgotten carnival.
when jeno saw the fence, a slow grin spread across his face. “you’re kidding.”
“the only thing i kid about is the structural integrity of the human appendix,” jaemin said, already looking for the best spot to climb. “this is serious anthropological exploration. now, boost me.”
they scrambled over the chain-link, landing with soft thuds on the other side. the silence was immense, broken only by the whisper of the wind through the skeletal remains of rides. the setting sun painted the decaying park in hues of orange and deep purple, casting long, distorted shadows.
“it’s like a horror movie set,” jeno murmured, his voice full of awe.
“isn’t it great?” jaemin beamed, grabbing jeno’s wrist and pulling him forward. “look at the biodeterioration on that merry-go-round! the fungal diversity alone is probably a PhD thesis.”
they wandered through the eerie landscape. jaemin chattered about spore dispersal and metal fatigue, and jeno just listened, his presence a warm, steady constant beside jaemin’s buzzing energy. they ducked under a broken turnstile and found themselves in what was once the main concourse. the path was cracked, with weeds pushing stubbornly through the asphalt.
without a word, as they navigated the uneven ground in the fading light, jeno’s hand found jaemin’s. it wasn’t a dramatic, life-saving grab. it was just a simple, natural slide of palm against palm, fingers lacing together.
jaemin’s monologue about lichen speciation faltered for a second. his brain, usually a torrent of information, went quiet. all he could process was the feeling of jeno’s hand, warm and sure, holding his. it felt… right. it felt like a circuit completing. he didn’t pull away. he just tightened his grip and kept walking, his heart beating a steady, happy rhythm against his ribs.
they climbed up to the platform of the stalled roller coaster, sitting on the grimy wood with their legs dangling over the edge, watching the stars begin to prick through the deep blue of the twilight. the city lights glittered in the distance, a world away.
“this was a good adventure,” jeno said softly, his shoulder pressed against jaemin’s.
“told you,” jaemin replied, his voice quieter than usual.
the silence that fell between them was different from the one in jeno’s apartment. that one had been fragile, charged with something about to break. this one was comfortable, full of something that had already been mended, something new and tender taking its place.
later, with the taste of cheap convenience store ice cream on their tongues, they sat on a bench in a normal, well-lit park. the wildness of the abandoned amusement park felt like a dream.
jeno was quiet, staring up at the few stars visible through the light pollution. he looked pensive, the usual easy smile absent from his face.
“jaem,” he started, his voice so quiet it was almost a whisper.
jaemin turned to look at him, the chocolate ice cream forgotten in his hand.
jeno took a deep breath, still not looking at him. “you’re my favorite person in the world. you know that, right? my favorite friend.”
the word ‘friend’ hung in the air, heavy with all the things it usually was, and all the things it wasn’t anymore.
“i know,” jaemin said softly.
“and i’m… i’m sorry if i made it weird. if i made you run away.” jeno finally met his gaze, his eyes full of a vulnerable, raw honesty that stole the air from jaemin’s lungs. “it’s just… it’s really hard, sometimes. being just your friend. because you’re my favorite friend, and i’m so scared of losing that, but… i’m sorry. i’m sorry i want you as a lover, too.”
there it was. not hidden in a joke, not couched in a hypothetical. a direct, quiet confession under the faint starlight.
jaemin’s carefully constructed walls, built of medical textbooks and logical fallacies, crumbled to dust. he didn’t need renjun’s clinical analysis or jisung’s cryptic advice. he just needed this. jeno’s honesty, offered up so bravely.
he set his ice cream cup down on the bench. he reached out, his fingers gently tilting jeno’s chin towards him.
“don’t be sorry,” jaemin whispered, his own voice thick with an emotion he was finally, finally allowing himself to name. “you didn’t make it weird. i did. by being stupid. by not seeing what was right in front of me the whole time.”
jeno’s eyes searched his, wide and hopeful.
“you’re my favorite person, too, jeno,” jaemin said, the words feeling truer than anything he’d ever said. “my favorite everything.”
and then he closed the distance and kissed him.
it was nothing like the frantic, theoretical kiss he’d imagined. it was soft and certain. a conversation. a question asked and an answer given, all at once. he could taste the vanilla from jeno’s ice cream, and feel the slight tremble in jeno’s lips before they softened against his own. jeno’s hand came up to cradle his jaw, his thumb stroking his cheekbone, and the world narrowed down to that single point of contact.
when they pulled apart, they were both breathless. the air was cold, but jaemin had never felt warmer.
jeno was looking at him like he’d just hung every single star in the sky, one by one.
“so,” jeno breathed, a slow, dazed smile spreading across his face. “what does this mean?”
jaemin grinned, his own heart feeling so full it might burst. “it means,” he said, leaning forward to press one more quick, firm kiss to jeno’s lips, “that i’ll see you tomorrow.”
this time, the words were a vow. a promise of all the tomorrows to come.
he stood up, pulling a stunned and blissful jeno to his feet. he didn’t run away. he walked jeno all the way back to his apartment building, their hands linked tightly together, not letting go until the very last second under the buzzing entrance light.
“tomorrow,” jeno repeated, his voice full of wonder.
“tomorrow,” jaemin confirmed, and the smile he gave jeno was brighter than all the stars they couldn’t see.