Yixing ran into Jongdae outside of class for the first time on September second, literally. He’d been rushing from his Spanish Composition class to Yifan’s apartment for lunch when his body crashed into something solid—but also a little squishy—sending both him and the innocent bystander flying. Granted, he had had his headphones stuffed over his ears and his eyes glued to the text Yifan had sent him a few minutes ago demanding his presence so he wasn’t exactly clued in to his surroundings, but that didn’t make it any less painful. Especially when Jongdae—the poor victim—punched him in the gut on reflex. That really hurt. Yixing felt bad about it, really, especially when Jongdae bent over to moan about his knee. He gave him a few awkward pats on the back as a sorry but didn’t stick around. Yifan was a good friend, but he was kind of a about punctuality and Yixing only had seven more minutes to haul across campus. Lucky for Yixing, Jongdae didn’t recognize him until the Chinese student had already run too far to be caught.

But Jongdae didn’t forget.

It became painfully apparent that something was wrong ten minutes into their Art 126 class on Tuesday. For starters, Jongdae sat down across the room from Yixing, next to an overly chatty journalism major named Baekhyun. Then he refused to make eye contact with Yixing and would direct all of his art questions either to Baekhyun or Hani, a freshman art major. Twice Yixing tried to walk by Jongdae and start a conversation, but he was brutally shut down both times.

The first attempt only lasted two sentences.

“Hey Jongdae, how are you t—”

“Baekhyun, you said you wanted to grab a sandwich with me later, right?”

The second lasted three.

“I can’t make my tree look realistic at all Hani!! Help me!”

“Jongdae, you know you can—”

“Did you say something Yixing? I didn’t hear you.”

Yixing gave up after that.

Instead Yixing slouched back to his seat, pulling his hood down over his eyes and shoving his earbuds into his ears. Three minutes into isolating himself from the world Yifan wandered over and dropped onto the stool next to Yixing, shooting an appraising look at his painting. Yixing gave a slight nod, acknowledging Yifan’s presence without looking away from his work, carefully adding a dash of red to a neon sign in the background. Yifan nudged his shoulder a little, offering a smile of encouragement accompanied with a whispered “it looks good” when Yixing’s eyes met his before patting his knee and sauntering off to help the blonde sorority girl across the room. Yixing watched him go with a half-smile on his lips. Yifan was a good friend. Even if he made weird bets and had a scary face and couldn’t flirt with a girl to save his life he still noticed whenever Yixing was hurting, no matter how well Yixing tried to hide it. He was a good friend and his subtle comfort did wonders for Yixing’s mood. It that Jongdae ignored him and blew him off, especially when the time they had spent together in class was beginning to forge a firm friendship between the two, but things would work out.

Yixing had to believe that. Things would work out. He’d talk to Jongdae after class.

Or at least, that’s what Yixing told himself.

But at the end of class when Jongdae stood to wash his brushes and pack up Yixing stayed seated, his eyes glued to his painting and his headphones still firmly in his ears. It wasn’t that Yixing didn’t want to talk Jongdae, or that he was trying to avoid the conversation. It was merely that his focus was on his work, he hadn’t realized class was over, and he didn’t want to get shut down again. The first two times has been uncomfortable enough, thank you.

Yixing wouldn’t necessarily describe himself as a coward. If anything, he claimed his actions stemmed from caution and an innate desire to avoid extra stress. But it didn’t really matter, because regardless of Yixing’s justifications in the end he stayed seated as Jongdae stood, backpack in hand, and left the room. And then he got angry with himself. Because what the was he thinking? He didn’t even know why Jongdae was ignoring him and he just let him walk out? At which point Yifan walked by Yixing again, smacking him lightly on the head with a handful of semi-wet paintbrushes.

“You’re thinking too much about something. Your forehead got all wrinkly and your dimple disappeared. What’s up?”

Yixing groaned, rubbing his head carefully and pouting at the paintbrushes in Yifan’s hand. “Jongdae won’t talk to me.”

Yifan nodded. “I know,” he replied, drawing out the “o” sound at the end. “What else?”

“I didn’t talk to him before he left.” The pout settled deeper onto Yixing’s face.

“Welp,” Yifan patted Yixing’s back lightly with the paintbrushes, leaving a small wet-spot on his baby blue sweater, “best of luck with that. I have to call my mom, or else I’d help you out. She’s been texting me all day, threatening to disown me if I don’t ‘call her and make her old mother heart happy’. So I’m going to do that.”

Yixing smiled a little. “Okay. Do you mind if I stick around a while and finish this up? I’m just adding the last details and then I’m done.”

“You do realize there’s a whole other class to work on this, right?”

“Yeah,” Yixing dabbed a bit of silver-grey onto a background building, “but I have a pretty big project due in my drawing class at the end of next week, and I need more time to finish it so I was going to use the next class for that. I’ll be done with this in just a few minutes anyway and I know where everything goes. I can even lock up for you if you want. Please?” He stared at Yifan with a hopeful expression, his eyes big and just a little bit teary.

“Damnit.” Yifan grimaced, throwing a set of keys at him. “You can stay. Just make sure you lock up. And give me back my keys later tonight. You can drop by my apartment if you want; I’ll be home. I hope you realize how super not okay this is though. I could get in a ton of trouble if my professor found out, so don’t around. Got it?”

Yixing saluted, nodding with a serious expression before cracking into a gentle laugh. “Don’t worry Yifan, I’ll be careful. Good luck with your mom!” Yifan saluted back, shooting Yixing a smile in thanks before disappearing out the door.

It clicked quietly closed behind him.

And Yixing was alone.

For a moment he sat, staring aimlessly at his easel and trying to remember what he was doing. He stayed like that for a few minutes before shuddering, trying to shake out the momentary funk he had settled into.

“Come on Xing,” he muttered, picking up a paintbrush and covering the tip with a metallic gold. “You can do this. You’ve done it before. Just paint, then it’ll get better. Come on.”

His first wobbled a bit, but his second felt more firm. By his fifth his hand steadied and he was back to normal, carefully adding glimmer to the lines where his imaginary sun hit, so immersed that he didn’t hear the door open or click shut behind him. Nor did he notice the person breathing quietly behind him, watching him work with a mixture of awe and envy. It was the voice that finally caught his attention.

“I still don’t get how you paint this well Dimple. You’re like Picasso.”

Then Yixing spun around, eyes wide and barely avoiding painting a long gold streak across his canvas. “Dae? What’re you doing in here? Wait,” Yixing’s eyes widened even further. “You’re talking to me?”

Jongdae scoffed, leaning over to set his chin on Yixing’s shoulder while playfully avoiding eye contact. “Of course I’m talking to you. Why wouldn’t I?”

“But” Yixing stammered, completely at a loss. “You wouldn’t talk to me at all in class today and you sat by Baekhyun and Hani!”

“Bacon and Smiles?” Jongdae grinned, his lip curling into his signature cat-like smirk. “Yeah, I did. Bacon wanted to talk about my roommate so I sat by him, and then class started so I couldn’t move.” Yixing opened his mouth to argue, but Jongdae cut in again before he got the chance. “Did you know that Smiles is dating that kind of terrifying looking super awesome music major senior? He’s the one that does all their musicals and preforms with big artists and stuff. I can’t remember his name.”

“Junsu?” Yixing asked, confused and wondering why he cared about Hani’s relationship status.

“Yeah!” Jongdae clapped his hands together. “Junsu! I swear, if I was gay I’d be so jealous. That guy’s voice is ic.”

“W-wait. Hold up. Why wouldn’t you talk to me then?”

“Oh,” Jongdae stopped obsessing over Junsu for a moment, stilling as if he were reminding himself why he had come in in the first place. “Remember that day when you crashed into me outside and I punched you in the stomach and my knee got hurt?”

Yixing nodded, unsure where this was going but also just a little scared. Jongdae didn’t really seem stable.

“Yeah. Anyway about that,” Jongdae picked up one of Yixing’s paintbrushes and began to attack him with it, playfully yelling as he did so. “That HURT you BASTARD!! And NOW my KNEE IS BRUISED all because of YOU!!” Jongdae put the paintbrush down and cleared his throat before continuing. “So basically I felt like being petty and ignoring people is a surefire way to piss them off so I ignored you. So yeah. But I’m over it now, so I figured I’d make sure you weren’t