Chapter Text
Jaemin was the type of person who enjoyed his own company.
Not out of any internal introversion, or shyness, or issues in his past leading to severe anti-social behavior. The last few years had been a whirlwind of new schools and new foster homes as Jaemin admittedly gave everyone he could the hardest time possible.
But he’d been here for so long—too long, actually, because he’d arrived in September and now it was December and his foster parents showed no sign of giving up on him as a lost cause anytime soon. And the problem with trying to live a solitary existence when you were Na Jaemin was that, in all honesty, Na Jaemin was not suited for a solitary existence. He got attached too easily—attached to boys with pretty smiles who had a knack for getting under his skin.
Hence why, for once in his life, he’d been accompanied on his trips skipping class. Why he’d led someone else to his spot under the bridge instead of going to class or finding it alone himself. Why he wasn’t alone right now, but instead in a series of back-and-forth banter exchanges that had lasted from the school grounds until the bridge.
“I’ve never skipped like this before,” Jeno says. “I’ve skipped, but like, never going too far from school grounds, you know?”
“It’s a lot easier to sneak out of school than to sneak into school,” Jaemin says.
Jeno laughs. “You would know, huh?” he says, looking around. “This place is so quiet. I’d think more people would come around here.”
“It’s normally more busy after school finishes,” Jaemin says. “But when people skip school they generally want to go somewhere a bit more substantial. And easier to find.”
“It’s quite cool,” Jeno says, which is the last thing Jaemin expects. It’s dirty, and falling into disrepair. The walls are covered with graffiti; the floor is lined with cigarette butts and condoms. “Thanks for taking me here.”
And that’s the thing Jaemin had most hoped to not have to acknowledge—the way he’d intercepted Jeno in the corridors, told him to live a little, Jeno, you’re no fun, and practically dragged him out with him. “I can’t believe you were planning on spending the class on school grounds,” he says.
“Yeah, well,” Jeno says. “This is really irresponsible, you know. What if there’s a fire?”
“Wow, you are definitely spending way too much time with Renjun,” Jaemin says. “I’d bring him here too except if Huang Renjun skipped school I’m pretty sure the world would end.”
Jeno is giving him a knowing look that Jaemin can’t figure out, a twinkling smile that says I know something you don’t know. “You’re right about that,” he says, his smile widening into a grin. And then, “What’s up with you and Renjun?”
Jaemin’s heart speeds up. “Me and Renjun?” he says lightly. “I don’t—there’s nothing up, we’re just…whatever we are. Friends.”
“You’re dodging the question,” Jeno says, his smile widening slightly, and if Jaemin didn’t know better he’d say it was teasing.
(Jaemin does know better, and he knows that’s not all that’s in that smile—it’s a little too wide, a little too professional. But he knows he’ll never understand Jeno fully; he doesn’t ask.)
“Maybe I am,” he says finally.
“Why?” Jeno says. “Why are you always—you know. How you are.”
“Crippling abandonment issues,” Jaemin says coolly. He’s learned that telling the truth and framing it like a lie, like a callous statement thrown out on a whim, is a good way to get people off his back. At worst, he gets a lecture about how that’s not something you should joke about, Jaemin.
He doesn’t expect Jeno’s forehead to crease in concern. “Really?” he asks quietly. “Are—are you okay?”
Jaemin shrugs. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “Don’t give me that look, Jeno—it’s not a big deal.” Jeno looks as if he wants to press further, to continue the conversation, or maybe just to give Jaemin a hug—and Jaemin is neither a deep heart to heart conversation kind of guy or a hug kind of guy. “How are you getting on?” he asks. “Nobody’s strongly recommended bible camp to you yet?”
“Nothing that harsh,” Jeno says. “It’s like—people think they’re doing great and they give themselves a nice pat on the back for being so nice to the crazy gay kid, because they aren’t telling me that I’m going to burn in hell but that’s not the only way you can do something homophobic, you know?”
“I know,” Jaemin says.
“Suji asked me if I wanted to go shopping with her,” Jeno says. “We barely even know each other, Jaemin.”
Jaemin gives Jeno a wry grimace. “Must feel like everything’s been turned upside down, huh?” he says.
Jeno glances at the ground. The conversation shifts in tone suddenly. “Sometimes I don’t feel like I made the right decision,” he says quietly, almost too quietly for Jaemin to catch. “I feel like everything changed when I made that decision to—to come out, and I feel like I have to be a totally different person because that’s what everyone’s looking at me like, and—” He trails off. “Yeah. Things are weird.”
Jaemin doesn’t do this. He’s not let himself get attached to anyone since middle school—he’s drawn lines in his head, walls made of iron to stop anyone from getting too close and making sure to put them up whenever things get too close. Jaemin isn’t the type of person who reaches out, but Jeno’s face has fallen and his eyes look like they’re on the way to becoming teary and he can tell that this has been beating him up for the last couple of weeks.
Jaemin doesn’t do this. Ever. Except, apparently, when it comes to Lee Jeno, because he moves forward to wrap him into a hug.
“I don’t think this has to change anything about you,” he says quietly. “Because—because you’re still the same person. Just more true to yourself, I hope.” Because you’re still the same person I became friends with, he thinks quietly to himself, but the thought of saying it out loud never crosses his mind.
It had never occurred to Jeno that the stuff Renjun frantically works on, scribbling away in his notebook as if it’s the end of the world, isn’t schoolwork, until he walks over to ask if Renjun had ever taken chem and if he had any notes lying around from whenever he did it and Renjun frantically flips pages in the notebook.
The room falls into silence. It’s not like it was particularly loud before, but this is the kind of silence that Jeno is used to—something thick and cloying and claustrophobic.
“What’s the panic for?” Jaemin asks—warily, as if he recognizes something in it. This isn’t something small, Jeno thinks. There’s something bigger happening that neither of them have ever noticed about Renjun, and Jeno suddenly feels stupid—for always being aware that Jaemin had some demons he didn’t mention, and for always thinking over his own, and for never noticing that Renjun must have something keeping his head down.
Renjun laughs nervously. “It’s—it’s nothing,” he says. “Just—notes.”
“Study notes?” Jaemin asks, sharing a glance with Jeno.
“No,” Renjun says. “It’s—it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter.” He turns to Jeno and smiles weakly. “Was there something you wanted, Jeno?”
“I mean, now I want to know what you’re hiding so badly,” Jeno says.
Renjun sighs. “I—are you guys ever going to leave me alone about it if I don’t tell you?”
“If you’re uncomfortable then yes,” Jeno says, at the same time as Jaemin responds with a resounding “Nope.”
Renjun laughs, but it doesn’t have any real happiness attached to it—a laugh forced out for the sake of laughing. “It’s not a big deal,” he says finally. “I’m just—I’ve wanted to write for a while, so I’m getting it out so it won’t be a distraction to me later, because I need to focus and stop getting distracted by shit like this, you know?”
Jaemin frowns. “You write—write what?”
“Different things,” Renjun says. He glances at the table, flushing. “Stories. Poetry, sometimes, if I feel up to it.” He hesitates for a second, then passes his notebook across the table. “You can look, if you want.”
Jeno feels his heart swell. Somehow, this little bit of information feels like a sacrifice. Jaemin never talks about himself, either, but he relays anecdotes in that drawl of his and says things flippantly like he expects Jeno not to believe them—and it’s enough, for Jeno, to feel a kind of closeness to him. But Renjun is more guarded, more closed-off, never sharing the slightest thing to either of them.
Jaemin flips through the notebook. “I never knew you write,” he says, stopping on a page, and suddenly Jeno feels like he’s intruding.
“I don’t write,” Renjun says. “Like, not regularly, like it’s something I do a lot—it’s just—a dumb hobby that won’t amount to anything. And I’m not even good, like, at all, so I don’t tell people.”
“I think you’re good,” Jaemin says quietly. It’s surprisingly real and raw and genuine, something sweet and unmarred. There’s no drawl, no tinge of sarcasm.
Renjun’s eyes brighten up. “You do?” he says shyly.
Jaemin nods. “I think you’re—it’s not dumb. You’re good.”
Renjun laughs quietly, taking his notebook back, as if he knows that this was going to be never spoken about like all the other elephants in the room that they deal with every day. “Thanks,” he says to Jaemin.
Jeno ignores the feeling of whatever it was in his chest. It doesn’t matter, he thinks. Renjun and Jaemin are obnoxiously obvious about their feelings for each other, and what Jeno thinks about that doesn’t matter to anyone.
When the Skype call finally connects, the screen is so ridiculously grainy that Renjun thinks he might try his luck with the international data bills.
“What’s new with you, Huang Renjun?” Yukhei says through his computer screen, grinning and making what Renjun thinks is a thumbs up. (He can’t be sure. Partly because of all the grain, and partly because Yukhei is exactly the type of person to flip him off over Skype for no reason.)
“A lot of shit, actually,” Renjun says. “You’ve missed so much, you know that? Like—the entire school day has been flipped upside down level of much.”
“Next time I go on exchange somewhere, I’ll tell my host family to get better wi-fi,” Yukhei says. It’s been impossible for them to have any kind of conversation in the last four months, because (as Yukhei describes it) “It takes about eight years for me to send one WhatsApp message, let alone call you.”
Renjun’s missed him. But at the same time, it’s been okay, and that feels like a terrible thing to think because before September, Yukhei was kind of Renjun’s only friend. Despite them never talking before they’d started high school, when Yukhei was redoing freshman year because of some fiasco with his family—Yukhei was his best friend. And Renjun kind of felt like he’d replaced him.
“So, what’s new, scrub?” Yukhei asks. “You got any new friends, or are you just impossibly alone without me?”
Renjun huffs. “I do, actually,” he says. “This new guy, Jaemin, he’s—you’d like Jaemin. And Lee Jeno.”
“Lee Jeno?” Yukhei says, moving closer to the camera. “Holy shit, Renjun, did he get disowned by Hyuck and Mark, or are you in with that lot now?”
“You can’t say that lot like you don’t have every person in our grade and the grade above us’s numbers,” Renjun says.
“Because I’m on the basketball team,” Yukhei says staunchly. “It’s totally different than being in with them.”
“Well, I’m not,” Renjun says. “In with them. Jeno’s not—like that, anymore, if he ever really was. He came out and now he’s actually being a real person, not like—”
“Back up,” Yukhei says. “He came out?” Renjun hears the static-y sound that was unmistakably Yukhei’s laugh, loud as ever. “Man, when you said that I’d missed a lot over the last few months, you actually meant it, huh?”
“Do I ever exaggerate?” Renjun asks.
“Nope,” Yukhei says, grinning into the camera, and Renjun wonders how Yukhei could be so larger-than-life that he can visualize his crazy wide smile even with enough static on the screen to turn him into a blur of colours. “That’s why I like you so much, kid.”
“I’m a year younger than you,” Renjun says dryly.
“Still a kid,” Yukhei says. “You know, in Hong Kong, I can legally drink? Life is great and I have no more worries, little Huang.”
“You gonna move back there after graduation?” Renjun asks.
“Maybe,” Yukhei says. “Didn’t realize how much I missed it, you know?” He smiles at Renjun, and adds, “It’s okay if I leave you, though, because you have new friends now. Maybe by the time I get back, you’ll finally stop being such a homebody and date someone.”
Renjun doesn’t even realize that he’s tensed, until Yukhei whoops through his headphones. “Do you, Renjun? And you haven’t told me?”
“I don’t,” Renjun says. “If I did, it would be the first thing I said to you when the call connected, and you know it.”
Yukhei grins. “But you like someone.”
Renjun flushes deeply. “Perhaps.”
Yukhei whoops again. “I will definitely interrogate you once I get back in January,” he says. “But the connection is too shit for me to get through everything I wanna ask. And I want to meet him, and that’s not possible.”
“Yeah,” Renjun says. “About that.”
“What?” Yukhei asks. “Is this—is this someone you, like, met over the Internet or something? Or is he really shady? Does he sell drugs?”
“It’s not like that,” Renjun says.
“Oh?” Yukhei says. “So it’s not a him? I get it, sexuality is fluid and all—”
“It’s not that, either,” Renjun says. “It’s—nobody shady, and somebody male, but—it’s not—it’s not just one person.”
Yukhei’s mouth falls open. “Oh,” he says. “Oh, Renjun, I have so much stuff to ask you about in January.”
Jaemin doesn’t want to make things awkward, he’s decided.
He’s done some thinking, over the last few days. Because that’s what Jaemin’s brain is for—to think. And he’s decided that maybe he does like Renjun, maybe he’s liked Renjun since they started hanging around in each other’s orbit, and maybe he wants to do something about that but he’s too scared to make a move.
Jaemin has a list, actually. It’s in his head, but it’s stuck there behind his eyelids when he tries to talk to Renjun, every time he stops himself mid sentence because he’s halfway to a confession made of misplaced words and jumbled phrases. Reasons why Renjun would definitely not say yes if you asked him out, and why he would definitely hate you if you ever asked.
Number one on the list, highlighted in neon yellow and underlined over and over again in his head, is that Jaemin is too much. He’s never forgotten those two words—too much, too much what did that even mean?—over the last two years, ever since he opened up his file while his social worker was out of the room and saw them scrawled down in ballpoint.
He’d been with the same family for a few years at that point, ever since he was nine, and suddenly he’d been out with no explanation on his way to another family. So he’d opened up his file and skimmed through the papers and found it written as a note. Finally expecting a child. Thinks Jaemin is too much to handle + bad influence.
He’d never forgotten it, either, scrawled there in the ever-so-familiar handwriting of his social worker, in red ink. He’d taken one look at the note, put his file down, and decided that if that was what his foster parents apparently thought—that Jaemin at fourteen, who by all accounts was a perfectly nice young boy, was too much and a bad influence—Jaemin would just make it true. It wasn’t true then, but it sure as hell was now.
“Hey, Jaemin.”
Jaemin shakes himself out of his thoughts and nods at Renjun making his way into the classroom. He’d been here for a while, having skipped world history to hang out in here and think about his life. (It was really hard to lose himself in thinking about Renjun and whatever the fuck else he was feeling while also being hyperaware of Jeno just a few desks away. Not that he liked Jeno, or anything, or—fuck, Jaemin doesn’t know what the hell he’s feeling.)
“Salutations.”
Renjun rolls his eyes and goes to his normal spot, which was, Jaemin thought, a great way to lead into point number two on his imaginary list. Jaemin and Renjun were friends. Friends who never really spoke to each other about anything, but they were friends nonetheless. And Jaemin didn’t want to fuck up one of the only interpersonal relationships he’d had in the last three years by confessing love to him all of a sudden.
Because, you know. Somewhere along the line he’d started to care about Renjun. And he’d started to value their friendship. And he didn’t want to lose that for the purposes of some dumb crush.
“Hey,” he says suddenly. Renjun looks up, and God, Jaemin just had to run his fucking mouth, huh? There was really no nice way out of this. Jaemin had done drama in middle school, back before his big life-changing moment in his social worker’s car, and he’d been absolute shit at improv. “You look nice. Today. I mean.”
Jeno walked into the room, nodded at both of them. Renjun didn’t seem to notice. “Oh,” he says. “Thanks, I guess.”
Jaemin swallows. “Yeah.”
Jeno looks between them as if there’s something he’s trying to figure out. Jaemin hates it. Because now he has an audience for this shit, this absolute humiliation of telling a boy he’s pretty and being responded to by thanks, I guess. At least Jeno had responded better, back at that stupid party.
Renjun sighs and shuts his notebook. “Jaemin,” he says, and then goes silent. “I—never mind.”
“Spit it out,” Jaemin says, grimacing. “I don’t bite.”
“If you’re flirting with me,” Renjun begins, and then glances at the table. Jeno edges away from the conversation. “If you’re flirting with me, stop. I don’t—I can’t date you. So—that’s not happening.”
“Oh,” Jaemin says. (What did I fucking tell you? says a voice in his head. Next time, actually pay attention to your fucking mental lists, dumbass.) Then he grins, trying his hardest to play the part. Middle school drama club, he thinks. Get in character. Play the role. “I thought I was irresistible, Renjun,” he says, throwing a wink in for good measure.
Renjun laughs airily. Another elephant in the room that would never be discussed, another dark cloud that they would go on to ignore—Jaemin’s stupid crush on stupid Huang Renjun who can’t date him. “Oh, of course,” he says. “God, I’m glad you weren’t serious about that stuff.”
Jaemin laughs. Or, rather, tries to. It comes out more like someone saying a laugh, like a robot who’d been programmed to say “Ha ha ha” whenever anything funny happened—those wooden syllables, without any real mirth attached to them. “You know me,” he says, “always fucking around.”
He didn’t look away fast enough to not notice the glance of concern Renjun shoots Jeno, the look of understanding Jeno shoots back. He wishes he hadn’t seen it. Things are shitty enough without whatever the hell that was.
Really, Jeno was just here to get Renjun’s notes from last year.
He feels impossibly awkward standing in Renjun’s bedroom, because it hasn’t changed in layout since they were kids. There’s still the same bed, but with different sheets—still the same walls, but without the posters they’d put up. The same wardrobe, the same curtains, the same window overlooking the street.
Renjun’s digging through a box he’d pulled out from under his bed, flicking through what looks like an absolute mess of tests and report cards and hand-written revision notes. Jeno had always assumed Renjun would be neater, but his desk is all haphazard papers and pens. “Here,” he says finally, passing him a stack of papers stapled together. “This is the only reason I passed chem. Everything you’ll need to know is on there. Choi is super predictable, she always examines the same kind of things, so—that’ll get you through.”
Jeno smiles at him softly. “Thanks,” he says.
“I’ll—I’ll show you out,” Renjun says. They rarely spend time together, just like this, just the two of them—generally, they’re either in absolute dead silence, or Jaemin is there, filling up the void with everything Jaemin is. It was awkward when they did—that was what they had, after all, a friendship built on the foundation of memories, memories that Jeno wasn’t even sure Renjun had. And, even if Renjun did have them, Jeno had no idea how he’d perceived them.
They get about as far as the kitchen when Renjun is intercepted. Jeno remembers Mrs. Dong (née Huang), from when they were kid—tight-lipped and effortlessly terrifying. (They’d spent a lot of their time at Jeno’s place. Jeno’s mom had always seemed like a breeze in comparison.) But back when they’d been kids, those terrifying looks and sharp words had almost always been directed at Sicheng, Renjun’s cousin.
But now that Sicheng was at university, Jeno thinks, her eyes had suddenly found Renjun. Another piece of the jigsaw puzzle that was Huang Renjun falls into place. “Renjun,” she says. “What’s happening?”
“I just wanted to give Jeno my chemistry notes from last year,” Renjun says. “You remember Jeno, right? We were friends way back then.”
“Ah, yes,” Mrs. Dong says. “Jeno. I’ve heard a lot of things about you, you know, from the other mothers on the SM High PTA. Not all of them are very nice, either.” Jeno feels like it’s a threat.
“Jeno had some bad friends,” Renjun says quickly. “But he’s fine, Auntie, he’s not a bad influence or anything like that. And I’m just giving him notes. No big deal.”
“Not about his friends,” Mrs. Dong says. “Something else. The love that dare not speak its name, and all that.” She laughs airily, but her eyes go between them, and Jeno knows that look. He’s seen it so many times at school—the I don’t care what your lifestyle is, just keep it away from me. “I’m sure there’s nothing like that happening here, though.”
“I mean, yeah, I’m gay,” Jeno says, suddenly angry, suddenly incredibly annoyed that Renjun was raised by someone like this. Renjun glances at him. They meet eyes. Should I shut up? he tries to add. The corners of Renjun’s mouth quirks up. Carry on, his eyes seem to say. “There’s nothing wrong with that, though, Mrs. Dong, right? Love your neighbour and all that.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Dong says tightly. “Renjun? A word?”
“Oh, should I leave?” Jeno asks.
Renjun glances between them, and suddenly his back straightens and a smile falls onto his mouth. “No,” he says. “You don’t have to. Auntie can just talk to me in the living room here.”
The door shuts. Suddenly, a barrel of voices flow out, muffled by the wood of the door. Jeno catches some words—those people, and my friend and your father. He wants to leave.
But Renjun asked him to stay. So he doesn’t—he just tries to block out the discussion that has definitely escalated into an argument.
“I’m tired of you bringing up my father all the time!” yells Renjun suddenly, loud enough to be heard through the door. “I don’t want to be a dentist, I don’t want to find a nice girl and get married, I don’t want you to constantly be micromanaging me all the time!”
There’s a silence. Jeno can feel the awkwardness, the surge of emotions, even from where he stands. The tension is so thick that it could be cut with a knife.
“This is a lot to take in,” he hears Mrs. Dong say.
“Am I getting disowned?” Renjun asks.
Mrs. Dong laughs. “No,” she says. “But I need some time to take all this in, Renjun, you can’t—you can’t expect me to just be okay with it just like that like—I feel like I don’t know who you are anymore.”
“I’m the same person,” Renjun says. “These are just—new things. Stuff you didn’t already know.” He sighs. “I’ll find somewhere else to stay for the next couple days. So you can get your thoughts together.”
The door opens. Jeno hopes they didn’t realize he was eavesdropping. “Did you hear what was said?” Renjun asks.
“Yeah,” Jeno says.
“Are you—can I—do you have the space?” Renjun asks. And suddenly more things fall into place. Jeno was the catalyst, he thinks, to this inevitable fallout between Renjun and his aunt—he was the final ingredient they needed to make it all blow up, to let Renjun say what needed to be said. It’s ridiculous.
But, Jeno thinks, he doesn’t mind ridiculous when it’s done right.
“I do,” he says. “Besides, my dad loves you. Never seen anyone get so happy about their kid needing tutoring before.”
Renjun’s eyes twinkle slightly, and the corners of his lips quirk upwards, and Jeno catches Mrs. Dong’s eye without meaning to. Her expression is simultaneously confused and understanding, simultaneously both illuminating and impossible to read. “I’ll get some stuff,” he says.
He disappears up the stairs. Mrs. Dong sighs. “He’s a good kid,” she says. “I just need some time to reconcile all of this with what I thought I knew about my nephew, you know?”
Jeno doesn’t know. He shrugs, “My parents were pretty understanding, actually.”
Mrs. Dong laughs. “I don’t—I don’t think he’s a hell-bound abomination or anything. I just never met anyone like that before, let alone have the first one I meet be my own nephew.”
Jeno shrugs. “Word of advice?” he says. “Renjun’s the same person he’s always been. Him liking boys, or being a good writer, or not wanting to go to dental school doesn’t mean that any of your memories of him are somehow changed, or that what you knew about him is somehow wrong. He’s still the same old Renjun. Sometimes, I think, out of all of us in the grade, he’s the one that’s truest to himself.”
Mrs. Dong looks at him with a smile. “You care a lot about him, huh?” she says. Jeno doesn’t like her tone. “Be careful with my nephew, Jeno.”
Renjun comes down the stairs just then, offering Jeno a small smile. “See you later, Auntie,” he says. And then, to Jeno, “What was that all about? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Nothing,” Jeno says. “Just, you know. Nothing.”
It doesn’t take long for Jeno to explain the situation to his dad and stepmother, and even less time for him to dig up the spare mattress from behind the closet. “This thing hasn’t been used in about five years,” he says.
“What?” Renjun says. “You’re telling me I’m the only person who ever crashed on this mattress? I’m honored.”
Jeno snorts. “Sure. An honor.” He takes his phone out from his pocket, adding, “If you want the bed instead, here’s your last chance to object.”
“What happens if I do object?” Renjun asks.
Jeno shrugs. “Fight to the death, I was thinking,” he says. Renjun laughs. Somehow, he thinks, his friendship with Jeno is some combination of awkward and comforting—a side effect, he thinks, of knowing someone all your life and only becoming close with them over the past few months. Not to mention the feelings that Renjun can’t figure out, even after Yukhei had texted him every polyamorous attraction explained article he could find.
“Hey, listen,” Jeno says suddenly. “I could call Jaemin. And we could hang out.”
Renjun’s heart stops. Because, really, he’s never seen Jaemin in anything other than a school setting, never seen him anywhere outside of the building, never seen him wearing anything other than his school uniform. It was kind of the unspoken rule of their friendship—this stays in this empty classroom, and there’s no need to acknowledge it otherwise.
But, then again, Jeno managed to throw a wrench in 90% of Renjun’s plans anyway.
“Sure,” he says. “Why not?”
As it turns out, Jaemin shows up surprisingly fast—Renjun wonders where in the city he lives, if perhaps he lives in this same area, if perhaps he’s lived in the same part of the city as Jaemin all this time and never registered it. Renjun listens as the door opens, as he introduces himself to Jeno’s dad and to Soonkyu, and as he makes his way up the stairs.
“Jaemin’s never been here before,” Jeno says absently. He’s lying on his back on his bed, scrolling through his phone. “It’s weird, we’re friends at school but none of us ever hang out. We should change that.”
Renjun wants to say no, to say that it’s a stupid idea, to make up whatever excuse he can think of for why his friendship with Jeno and Jaemin needs to stay inside the school building. But right now he’s in Jeno’s bedroom because Jeno had let him crash there, no questions, after he’d been cordially told to leave the house for a few days by his aunt. And Renjun thinks that there’s no argument he could make against that kind of friendship, the kind he had in Yukhei and now, apparently, in Jeno. “Sure, he says.”
The door swings open. “What’s up, nerds,” Jaemin says, walking into Jeno’s room and making a beeline for the chair at his desk. “Why all the secrecy, what’s going on?”
Renjun’s heart stops suddenly. Thinking about Jaemin outside of school, when he let his mind go there, had always been something simple—he’d assumed that Jaemin was just another teenage boy, who smoked the occasional joint and did some kind of questionable things, both in terms of actions and in terms of dressing. He wasn’t expecting Jaemin to look that good.
Goddamn you, Na Jaemin, he thinks. It’s the first time he’s ever allowed himself to think that, the first time any thought associating Jaemin with the words good looking, handsome, attractive or pretty hadn’t automatically been repressed. Renjun had gotten used to Jaemin-at-school, with his stupid smirk and his tie never properly tied, but this was a totally new thing for him to adjust to. Suddenly, he symphasizes with his aunt.
“Renjun’s crashing here because his aunt, quote, needs some time to adjust to the idea of him being a gay writer,” Jeno says. “It’s absolute bullshit.”
“She means well,” Renjun says quietly. Because she does—she’s overbearing and hard to deal with and sometimes she’s just mean, but she means well. “It is bullshit, though I agree. She’s always had these ridiculous expectations of me, like, I’m gonna grow up and start my own dental practice and be exactly what my father could’ve been if he hadn’t gotten drunk and crashed his car with my mom in it. And I never got the courage to speak up and say anything about it until now.”
Jeno had been the cause for it, he thinks. Watching Jeno post-coming out is like watching a recovery—it’s not inspiring, but it’s admirable. And watching the way Jeno stood up to his aunt gave Renjun the adrenaline he’d always needed to just say what needed to be said. What should have been said months, if not years ago.
Jaemin begins to drum his fingers on Jeno’s desk in a haphazard, obscure rhythm. “You know, I always kind of assumed,” he says, “but hearing out loud that you’re a gay writer sounds so badass, you know?”
“It is a pretty cool title,” Renjun agrees. “Like, I’m Oscar Wilde or something like that.”
“I was thinking Shakespeare,” Jaemin says. “Shakespeare was definitely not straight, for the record.” Renjun frowns at him. A glance over at Jeno confirms that his face is in an identical expression. “What? I had a phase in middle school?”
“What, middle school Jaemin was an annoying theater geek?” Jeno asks in disbelief.
“You hit the nail right on the head there, Jeno,” Jaemin says. Renjun feels like his eyes are going to pop out in surprise. “Don’t know what you’re both so surprised about. I’m plenty dramatic.”
“It’s just,” Renjun says. “With all due respect, Jaemin, you don’t come off as particularly in tune with your emotions.”
Jaemin snorts. “I was a different person back then,” he says cryptically. “No way you guys wanna hear my tragic backstory of how I quit theater club.”
“I mean,” Renjun says. “I kind of just told you all about how my aunt is overbearing, and now all three of us know how my housing status has been temporarily put on hold until she adjusts. It’s your turn to overshare.”
“Why isn’t it Jeno’s?” Jaemin says.
“Jeno’s not known the cold hard world like we have,” Renjun says. “His entire life is oversharing.”
Jeno opens his mouth as if to protest, and then finally says, “You know what, you’re right but you still shouldn’t say it so openly like that.”
They laugh—the three of them, in unison, and it makes that uncomfortable feeling in Renjun’s chest grow. He thinks about all the polyamory links Yukhei had sent him. Don’t be stupid, he thinks. Not like they’d both like you like that even if you do. You’ve never gotten that lucky.
“Alright,” Jaemin says. “So I’ve been in the foster system since I was three. Social services took me away from my mom because she was neglecting me or something, I don’t remember it because I was three.” Jeno laughs a little, covering his mouth. “You know, Jeno, that was a joke, you’re allowed to laugh.”
Renjun snorts. “Dumbass.”
“So, anyway,” Jaemin says. “I moved around a lot until I was nine. Family that took me in then were an older couple, in their forties, who’d been trying for a baby for a long time and had never managed it, so they turned to the foster system. And things were good, you know? I was a healthy kid, and I was actually pretty nice at that age, can you believe it?”
“Nope,” Jeno says.
“Not in the slightest,” Renjun says.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Jaemin says. “So, anyway, sometime they figured out that surrogates exist, and they got one. I was fourteen, halfway through freshman year, pretty happy, and suddenly I was moved to another foster home because they didn’t think I was a good influence for their baby.”
“Holy shit,” Jeno says. “That’s fucking awful.”
“So I decided, out of spite more than anything, to prove them right and be a bad influence and be difficult,” Jaemin says. “Hence why I’m like this today. Crippling abandonment issues. Also me acting up had the side effect of no foster family wanting me, so I’ve moved around a ton the last few years.”
“Wow,” Jeno says.
“Somehow, that entire story is surprising and also wholly expected,” Renjun says. Jaemin grins at him. “I can’t believe you were a theater kid, though. That’s the most surprising part.”
“What kind of shows were you in?” Jeno asks, his grin mirroring Jaemin’s—mirroring the one that’s unconsciously made its way onto Renjun’s face.
“Um,” Jaemin says. “I was in Oliver!”
“No fucking way,” Jeno says. “Holy shit.” He leans back. “I mean, you’re both in my house so you already know that I have a stepmother, but—yeah, I have a stepmother, my dad married her when I was in ninth grade and I was honestly a little bitch to her for like, two years.”
“But she seems so nice,” Jaemin says.
“Yeah, well, my dad started dating her a year after my mom died,” Jeno says. “It kind of felt like he was cheating on her memory, in a way. Like he hadn’t waited to get over her. Because I was still sad and fucked up over her not being around anymore—I kind of expected him to be the same.”
“What changed?” Renjun asks.
Jeno grins. “She inspired the best coming out story in the history of SM High, that’s what happened.”
Renjun bursts into laughter. Jaemin, ears red with flush, follows suit, laughing nervously. And Jeno follows, laughing loud and happy, and Renjun wonders absently to himself why the sound of the three of them laughing together feels so complete.
“We’re good now,” Jeno continues. “I mean—she’s not my mom, but we’re fine.” He smiles at Renjun. “Sorry for cutting you off after Mom died, anyway. It was weird, to be friends with you after that—because she liked you so much, you know? More than she liked me sometimes.”
“Me as Jeno’s mom,” Jaemin says.
“I’ll drink to that,” Renjun says.
Jeno glares at them. “Sometimes I wish I was still hanging around with Mark and Donghyuck,” he says, but all three of them know full well he doesn’t mean it.
Jaemin surveys Jeno suddenly, and then says, “So what changed with Mark and Donghyuck?” Jeno frowns at him. “Renjun says that Donghyuck said that you were the one avoiding him after the mess with me and you and Yiyang’s rumor mill, not the other way around.”
Jeno shrugs. “Mark and Donghyuck aren’t bad people,” he says, “but after a while you start to get tired of whatever the hell is up with them, you know? And it was like—it was a pretty convenient excuse for me to figure myself out again.” He sighs. “Sometimes you get tired of your old shit, the way you went about things before, and you think—why not just start afresh? Why not just do it differently—just do it better?”
It was that conversation, Jaemin thinks, and only that conversation, that had led him to be sitting here—at the town’s very loud and very new bowling alley, with his foster family, sipping on a Slushie and waiting for his turn.
Honestly, there had been no subtle way out of this one. He’d come back from Jeno’s only to be met with Herin, who’d asked him where he’d been in her weirdly smug way.
“So, where were you?” she asks. “Doing some shady stuff in a ditch somewhere?”
“Actually, I was hanging out with some friends,” he says. “From school. Contrary to popular belief, dear Herin, I’m not a total basket case.”
“Other people like you go to our school?” Herin asks. And, really, Jaemin can’t blame her for being so hostile to him—he probably deserved it, he didn’t remember the last time he’d said something nice to his foster siblings—but damn, she could probably tone it down. She was only fifteen, after all.
“Some very nice friends,” he rectifies. “Polite. Clean-cut. Don’t have a social worker on speed dial.”
“Damn, did you hypnotise them?” Herin asks. “Or—wait, Jaemin, you actually like people’s company? And here was me thinking you loved your horrible antisocial ways.”
And somehow, because there was no such thing as a secret between those three, Jisung and Chenle had also figured out that Jaemin had friends and emotions. (“Jaemin, I didn’t know you had a heart!” Jisung had said excitably. Jaemin didn’t have the heart to even roll his eyes.) And now here he was—at a bowling alley, spending time with his foster family.
Life sucked, and if Jaemin had known that hanging out with Jeno and Renjun would lead to this, he would have never—
He stops himself in the middle of that thought, because it’s an obvious lie and he doubts anyone would believe it. Jeno and Renjun—are two forces of nature, and Jaemin supposes he’s one too, and he’s not sure what would happen if three hurricanes intersected other than make a bigger, better hurricane.
Well, it’s not better for whoever ends up in the hurricane, but in terms of the hurricane’s well-being? Things would turn out fine.
“Jaemin, you’re up,” Chenle says. “Old man, probably can’t even bowl a strike.”
(He’s right. Jaemin sucks at bowling and now his entire foster family knows it. There’s absolutely no defense for hitting two pins on one throw and getting it in the gutter on the second.)
“Nana, you’re useless,” Jisung says.
Jaemin frowns. “Nana?” he says.
Jisung nods. “Nana,” he confirms. “From your surname.” He cracks a grin. “I figured since you bowl like an old lady, we should treat you with the respect that an old lady such as yourself deserves.”
Jaemin ignores the howls of laughter and sincerely hope Jeno and Renjun never end up going bowling with him. And then he wonders quietly to himself how Jeno-and-Renjun started to become an inseparable unit in his mind.
Jeno has noticed that every time Jaemin skips their weird lunchtime hangouts, Renjun always seems oddly concerned.
“You know, I’m sure Jaemin is just, like, doing whatever a Jaemin does in his spare time,” he says. “You shouldn’t worry so much about him, Renjun, it’s not like you’re married.”
Renjun glares at him. “Why do I get the sense you want me and Jaemin to date?” he asks. “He said it himself—he’s not serious, he’s just fucking around.”
Jeno snorts. “Because it’s pretty damn obvious that you both like each other, and it’s exhausting for me to wait until one of you make a move. Seriously. It sucks. It’s like being a perpetual third wheel, but the other two aren’t aware that they’re third-wheeling you, and—”
“I get it,” Renjun says. “But I can’t date Jaemin. Not right now. It’s complicated.”
They’re sitting pretty close together—closer than they normally would, Jeno’s brain supplies—with Renjun’s notes discarded on the side of the table. There’s a reason he came up to Renjun a few minutes ago, he thinks, but he can’t remember it—not with this conversation going on.
“Don’t see what’s complicated about it,” Jeno remarks. “You like him, don’t you? And he likes you, that part is pretty obvious, so—there’s nothing left to do now than profit.”
Renjun smiles at Jeno like he’s fond of him, and Jeno almost lets it hit him—almost lets him think about the alternate universe where Renjun is fond of him, and where Jaemin is too, however that works, and everything works out in the end.
But no. Renjun-and-Jaemin was a go, and Jeno would get over it like he’d always managed to get over his dumb crushes. Except, apparently, the one he’d been on-and-off nursing on Renjun for the past few years.
“I do like him,” Renjun says finally. “But—would you think I was insane if I said I can’t date him because I’m working out my feelings for someone else?”
Jeno’s heart drops. Of course—because he didn’t already have it bad enough, hopelessly gone for someone who’d never looked at him that way the entire time they’d known each other, but now there was not one but two people that he liked more than he would ever like Jeno.
“I’d say that that’s pretty valid,” Jeno says carefully. “Have you looked into being poly?”
Renjun nods. “I didn’t—I told Yukhei, and he sent me a bunch of articles, but it just feels—like I’m being dramatic, or greedy, or that I can’t figure out my own feelings because it doesn’t feel right that I could like two different people at once, you know?” He glances at Jeno. “You seem pretty in control of yourself. How’d you—figure out everything? About being gay, and whatever—”
Jeno shrugs. “It wasn’t like, an epiphany I had one day,” he says. “It was like, slow realization? Like, throughout elementary and middle school I thought I’d never had a crush and then in like, last year I realized that things I thought were just platonic friendship were—well. Not.”
“Go on,” Renjun says, a smile playing on his lips. “Who set it off?”
“Well, for one, Donghyuck,” Jeno says.
“Donghyuck?” Renjun asks in disbelief.
“I don’t know why you’re so surprised,” Jeno says. “Hyuck isn’t that bad, but also—most people wouldn’t choose to spend that much time with him if they didn’t have a stupid crush on him.”
“Mark spends time with him,” Renjun says.
“Yeah, well, Mark is Mark,” Jeno says. “That’s a whole can of worms I don’t want to open.”
Renjun looks like he wants to ask more questions—he opens his mouth, then closes it again, then opens it again to ask, “Who else?”
“Huh?” Jeno says.
“You said, for one, Donghyuck,” Renjun says. “Who else?”
Jeno stares at Renjun, trying to gauge any kind of reaction—wariness? Hope? Unadulterated curiosity? He’s smiling slightly, teasingly, as if he’s planning on using this information to make fun of Jeno at some point (it wouldn’t be surprising) but other than that Jeno can’t read his face. And he doesn’t know if he could tell the truth.
“Well, my first crush,” he begins warily. “My first ever crush was on you.”
It’s Renjun’s turn to stare at him—wide-eyed, with a hint of what Jeno thinks is confusion. “What?” he asks. “When?”
“Since you came up to me after a fifth grade math test and demanded I tell you how I got a better mark than you, probably,” Jeno says. “I was pretty enamored with you, honestly. Didn’t realize it was a crush until later, much later, but—yeah, it’s a thing.”
Renjun swallows. “Huh,” he says. “Huh—wait.”
“What?” Jeno asks.
“You said it’s a thing,” Renjun says. And Jeno sees it, the slip of his tongue, the casual reveal of the thing that’s been beating him up for weeks. “Present tense. Do you—do you still—”
There’s no point lying at this point, Jeno thinks. He’s too far gone to make up any lie that sounds believable. “Kind of?” he says finally. “But—it’s fine, you know? Because you have your feelings for Jaemin, and whoever the other person is, and I’m not—I don’t wanna make things awkward, or make you feel like you’re obligated to return the favour, or—it’s just a stupid crush. It doesn’t matt—”
And then Jeno doesn’t know what to do, because Renjun has leaned up and is kissing him, and Jeno’s brain breaks and all he can do is sit there, still and shocked.
Renjun pulls away. “Was that too much?”
“I—what?” Jeno asks blankly. “What the hell was that?”
“Remember when I said I can’t date Jaemin because there’s another person I have feelings for?” Renjun says. “And you just—gave me all that advice that was so unhelpful, by the way, because you didn’t even entertain the notion that it was—”
“I don’t understand what you’re getting at,” Jeno says.
“It was you, Jeno,” Renjun says. “You and Jaemin. I just—I like you both, a lot, and I really don’t know what to do about it.”
Jeno laughs. He can’t help himself. In the corner of his eye, he sees Renjun’s expression go from painfully earnest to incredibly confused. “I’ve liked you since we were kids,” he says. “Even when we weren’t in the same orbit—I always liked you.” He laughs. “Remember when I said you were valid to like two people at once?”
Renjun nods. “Yeah. That’s—such a disconnected thing to say, Jeno.”
“Well,” Jeno says. “That’s—that’s my life right now, too. You…you and Jaemin.” He swallows. “I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t think I could possibly—”
“—get that lucky,” Renjun says. “But—I mean, I’ve gotten this far.”
“You need to talk to Jaemin,” Jeno says. “Figure it out. I don’t—I think you should talk to him first. But we can’t—I mean, he likes you, I’m not sure about me, but there has to be some agreement we can make because—”
“Yeah,” Renjun says. “You’re right.” But he looks nervous, more nervous than Jeno is used to seeing Renjun, and it almost makes him want to kiss him again.
First, awkward conversations, he thinks to himself. Then, kissing. Maybe. Assuming the first part goes well.
He smiles at the thought. Things might not work out, but for once—he feels like they could.
“So, what’s wrong?” Jaemin asks Renjun as they step out into the corridor, Renjun closing the door of the classroom behind him. “You look like you’re about to tell me that I’m dying or something, what happened?”
“A—a lot of stuff happened,” Renjun says. “Like, a lot of talk happened, and a lot of revelations were made, and—”
“You’re seriously freaking me out, Renjun,” Jaemin says. “Just say it.”
Renjun swallows. “Okay, so,” he begins, exhaling deeply, trying to get that adrenaline that he needed to say this. But—but he was scared, he’d been scared for as long as he could remember, and he couldn’t bring himself to say it just like that.
“Alright,” Jaemin says. “How about this. I’ll tell you a pretty big secret, and then you can finally spit out what it is you’re trying to say. An eye for an eye, or whatever.”
Renjun nods warily. The plan sounds almost like it would work. He thinks back to all the times he's had sudden bursts of adrenaline—brought on as a result of seeing others just spit it out. Jeno at his aunt's house, four days ago. And this—all these crazy feelings that had to be said but that he couldn't put to words. “Okay.”
Jaemin laughs. “Okay,” he parrots. “So.” He stares at the wall behind Renjun, leaning against the other side of the corridor. “I like you and I was trying to build up the nerve to ask you out until you said you couldn’t date me.”
“I thought you were kidding,” Renjun says.
“Yeah, well,” Jaemin says. “It’s a lot easier to pretend you’re kidding than to actually face the consequences of something dumb you said that didn’t result in anything.” He laughs hollowly. “But it’s fine, Renjun. You don’t have to apologize.”
“How come?” Renjun asks.
“I’m getting over it,” Jaemin says. “Give me a couple months and everything will be absolutely fine.”
“What if I don’t want you to get over it?” Renjun asks. Jaemin raises his head to look him in the eyes. “That’s—that’s part of what I wanted to tell you. That I really like you, and I want to—you know.” He averts his eyes, staring at the floor as if he’d never seen it before. “Go on a date. And stuff like that. If you want to, I mean.”
He looks up and Jaemin is smiling. “I do want to,” he says. “God, Renjun—I’ve been so damn obvious, you dumbass.” Suddenly, his eyes widen slightly, his smile goes slack, and he adds, “What else? You said that was just part of what you wanted to say.”
“Yeah, I did,” Renjun said. And he couldn’t lose the nerve now—he couldn’t leave Jaemin with half of the story, without knowing everything that needs to be said. “There’s—there’s more to it.”
“What?” Jaemin says. His forehead creases slightly. “What do you mean?”
Renjun sighs. “There’s no easy way to say it, but I really like you…and I really like Jeno, as well. And I don’t like either of you more or less, it’s just different.” He sighs. “Jeno knows. And he likes me—and he likes you, as well. And I really…I’ve never dated anyone before, not unless you count when I got a quote unquote girlfriend in first grade, let alone dating two people at once, and I just—it’s messy.”
Jaemin’s eyes widen. “Ah.” His face is impossible to read, such a far departure from the open book that Jaemin almost always is, and Renjun almost loses his nerve again.
“I shut you down before because I was trying to figure this out,” he continues. “I didn’t wanna date you before I figured out how I feel about Jeno. Because that wouldn’t be fair on either of you. And I didn’t wanna date you without telling you the whole truth, either.”
Jaemin laughs. “I didn’t even know that was possible,” he says finally. “To be interested—romantically—in more than one person at once.” Renjun swallows, waits for a rejection. It doesn’t come. “Everything makes so much more sense now.”
“What do you mean?” Renjun asks.
“You know,” Jaemin says. “Everything. I thought—I like you, I’ve known that since October or something like that, but I didn’t know I could like anyone else without getting over you. And then—”
“Jeno?” Renjun asks.
Jaemin nods. He looks as if he’s making this realization as they speak, as if the pieces have suddenly started fitting together. “And I thought, you know, I can’t like Jeno because I like you, but I do. Both of you. And I think we need to discuss—this, whatever this is, and figure something out, because this all feels so…”
“Complicated,” Renjun says. “It feels like—this is a concept that’s older than we are, you know? And we’re just teenagers.”
“Yeah,” Jaemin says. “But then—just looking at the facts, right? I like you. You like me. I like Jeno. Jeno likes me. You like Jeno. Jeno likes you. And—well, we deserve to be happy, right? You two, at least, if not me. And if whatever this is would make us happy—”
“We should figure it out,” Renjun says. “You’re right, of course.” He sighs. “There’s fifteen minutes left in our lunch period, if you want to do it now.”
Jaemin grins. “Well, might as well get it over with,” he says.
The door swings open as Jaemin and Renjun come back into the classroom. Jeno looks up from his phone when he sees them. “So?” he says expectantly. “You two dating yet?”
Jaemin looks at Renjun, who flushes and looks away at the floor. “Something like that,” he says, linking his fingers with Renjun’s. “Heard something kind of interesting from Renjun, though, Jeno.”
“Oh?” Jeno says. Jaemin hopes that Jeno was aware of Renjun’s plans, and that this hasn’t just been something Renjun threw in—but at the end of the day Na Jaemin will always be who he is, and he’s incapable of saying something like this without making it light-hearted. “What did you hear?”
“I heard that you like both of us,” Jaemin says.
Jeno swallows, and Jaemin can tell he’s nervous because Jeno is an open book. They’re bantering—flirting, perhaps, his mind supplies unhelpfully—but under the bravado and the confidence Jeno is—has always been, really—the same person he was. Nervous. Uncertain. Endearingly awkward. “He did?” he asks. “And—and what do you think about that?”
Jaemin isn’t stupid—Jeno looks shy, and nervous, and hopeful, and that’s all he needs to make his decision. He makes a mental note to Google all of this when he gets home, but now he doesn’t need to be totally sure. He doesn’t need to have all the facts when Jeno is looking at him hopefully like that, and with the memory of Renjun’s shy earnest expression back in the corridor.
“I think that I feel the same way,” he says. “And I think we should go out somewhere today, after school, and talk this out. Preferably over milkshakes.”
Jeno grins at him. “Are you asking us on a date, Jaemin?” he teases, a smile playing across his mouth.
“Maybe I am,” Jaemin says. “Or maybe I’ll change my mind and make you pay for your own damn milkshake. I would not have a problem with that.”
Renjun laughs. “Do you even know where to get milkshakes, Jaemin?”
“Hell yeah,” Jaemin says. “I went out to get some with my foster family after bowling on Sunday.” They stare blankly at him, and Jaemin realizes that—as far as they know—Jaemin doesn’t care about his foster family. “Oh, right, we made up and it was all fine and good. I discovered that I am absolutely shit at bowling. It was nice.”
Jeno glances at Renjun. “Hey, Renjun.”
“Yeah?” Renjun says.
“I think I know what we should do on a date sometime,” Jeno says, his face breaking into a wide, genuine smile.
“Bowling alley?” Renjun suggests.
“Bowling alley,” Jeno confirms.
“I fucking hate you guys,” Jaemin says.
fin.