Clown shoes.

Who the hell has clown shoes?

Mark had just started his free period, deciding to do his math homework. Last period had been a mess with a substitute teacher and now all he wanted was a quiet place to go over the things he had failed to understand. X’s and Y’s were messing his head up but it didn’t last long. A boy his age came and captivated Mark’s attention. He was one of the most handsome boys Mark had ever seen with jet black hair and eyes that shone brighter than the stars.

“What’s your shoe size?”

Well, that’s not what Mark had hoped or at least anticipated from him. He was ready to tell his name or even his phone number but that wasn’t the question. Mark’s brain was too slow to process the change from math to real world. The boy was clearly in a rush, trying to hurry Mark up in his thinking by a pointed glare and a “Well?”

“8.5.” The black haired boy sighed, probably out of relief and looked at Mark’s shoes.

“I thought so too. This may sound extremely weird but could I borrow your shoes? Or rent, I can pay for them too!”

All Mark could think was why? His shoes weren’t special in any way, black trainers that had been on sale on a random department store. He looked at the other boy’s shoes wondering what’s wrong with them and got almost blinded with the shine from the yellow leather. This boy was actually wearing big and yellow leather shoes that are usually found on clown. What did this boy do to get these?

Mark didn’t know if he should laugh or be worried that this could be a stupid prank for the unsuspecting foreigner. The boy seemed to guess what was going on Mark’s brain, trying to somehow explain the situation.

“I don’t usually wear these, it’s a long story, one I wouldn’t like to open right now, I don’t know maybe later, I’m in a bit of a hurry now. My size is 8.5 too and I would really really need your shoes. I have gym class in about five minutes and I kind of wouldn’t like to go there with these ones.”

The situation felt absurd. Who the hell wears clown shoes? He sounded like he had explained the situation before, the desperation was heard in his voice so all Mark could do was to feel a bit pity for the boy, deciding to momentarily let go of his own shoes. It wasn’t like Mark would need them while sitting in the hallway during his free period. He knew, or more like hoped he would get them back once the gym class was over.

He had been left waiting once the (unfortunately) a mystery boy had swung towards the dressing rooms. At first he hadn’t even noticed his shoeless state, it was like he was doing homework at home. Or at least that’s what he was trying to do. Instead of being amazed by the wonders of math he kept daydreaming about black hair and dark eyes. Those plump lips Mark wouldn’t mind being frequented by his own, strong looking hands holding him and he couldn’t lie he didn’t like the view of the other boy’s backside once retreating with his shoes. And then he caught himself and decided to spend his time smartly and focused once again on his calculations. Until his brain decided to repeat itself.

At first it was like this but once the clock started ticking closer to the end of the period Mark got really worried. Normally the gym teacher let them out of the class little earlier so that they had proper time to shower and what not and still be able to make it on time to the next class. If this was the case the boy should have arrived already. It wasn’t like Mark had changed his place so the boy wouldn’t know where Mark was. He wasn’t hiding anywhere and in all logic the boy should be able to find him.

Minutes pass.

The clock keeps ticking

and the boy

is nowhere

to be seen.

There’s a churning in Mark’s stomach. If he doesn’t start walking soon, he’ll miss his next class and that’s not something Mark wants to happen. It’s not like the problem is walking in school shoeless, but the worry that if Mark now starts moving, he’ll never see his shoes again. Who knows what classes the mystery boy has besides gym class when Mark has a free period. He keeps checking at the clock and realization dawns on him.

The boy is not coming.

He won’t probably ever find the mystery boy, or his shoes. How can he go home!?

A grumbling Mark starts walking to his next classroom. “This is why I don’t do nice things.”

Luckily for him, his teacher hasn’t arrived yet but the classroom looked like it was filled to the rim. He tried to look for a spot to sit in but all his regular places were already occupied.

“Here!” he hears someone yell from quite the way back. Mark prefers sitting in the front so he’ll see properly and hear everything clearly from the teacher since listening is not one of his strong points in Korean but once he sees a mop of black hair jumping up and down, trying to catch the attention of Mark he quickly changes his attitude towards the back of the class. There the boy was, the clown-shoe-sneaker-stealer-boy Mark reminds himself. He’s not proud of how a smile from the boy can make Mark forget how he was left waiting in the hallway. Also clearly forgetting how to walk in stairs, nearly tripping from the blindness of the boy’s smile on the way to the back of the room. If it hides gems like this boy, he’ll definitely continue to frequent this end of the room.

When closer, Mark waves a greeting to the other boy and slides down to sit next to him. “I didn’t know you were here in this class with me. If I had known I probably wouldn’t waited so long in the hallway in the risk of being late,” Mark said with a small laugh, although he wasn’t completely amused with the fact that he could’ve actually been late.

“You actually waited for me? Well I guess I should have told you, I always sit here in the back so no wonder you haven’t noticed me,” he said with a shrug.

Something about the way how the boy said it made him look like a lost puppy and it makes Mark’s heart clench. Quickly he rushes to explain the situation better, “no no, I wasn’t really even close to being late. It’s just my bad way of trying to make jokes, you didn’t do anything wrong.” That brought the happy smile back on the boy’s face and the whiskers in the corners of his eyes. To Mark it felt like every bad thing in the world was okay again with a small flash of the happiness from the dark haired boy.

“Well good. I guess you’re missing your shoes already?

Yeah, the shoes. Mark had already forgotten the real reason of talking to the boy, it wasn’t like Mark really had a shot with the boy. He probably was straight, like they all were.

“Yeah, I could really kind of use them.”

After receiving back his shoes Mark decided it was just right time to introduce himself, “I’m Mark by the way.”

“Park Jinyoung. So Mark, what do I owe you?”

The way his name rolled over Jinyoung’s tongue had Mark nearly seeing stars.

“No no, I wasn’t bothered anyway, I won’t take any money from you.”

“Why? At least let me repay the favor. Do you have any classes you’re struggling with or something?”

In the middle of their conversation they hadn’t noticed how the rest of the class had quieted down, how in the front of the room was a older man, staring darts into their skulls. “Do misters’ Park and Tuan have something they want to share with the rest of the class?”

Quickly the boys in question shook their heads, very embarrassed with the attention they were getting.  

While trying to focus on the subject Mark most certainly didn’t blush when Jinyoung insisted that he’ll treat Mark with a meal as a thank you and they both most certainly didn’t giddily wait for it for the rest of the day.

“Mark! Here,” came the yell for the second time for today from the lips of Jinyoung. They had agreed to quickly visit their homes to get rid of school stuff. Mark took notes of how Jinyoung looked even better out of the strict school atmosphere with only a t-shirt and jeans. Also clown-shoe-free, Mark thought to himself.

“It’s nice to see you found this place, it’s not that popular and many people don’t even know about it.”

Jinyoung had chosen the place they would be meeting since Mark was still fairly new to the city. The scenery had Mark looking out of the window and admiring the quiet side of the city you didn’t quite see when you spent your days with teenage boys. A thing rivaling the nature, but still clearly winning was Jinyoung’s beauty. The sight before Mark was something he could watch until the day he would die. Jinyoung was clearly in the middle of a story, his plump lips forming words and his hands excitedly moving along to emphasize his points. Every now and then those heavenly crinkles near his eyes would show and Mark would feel like every single bad thing in the world had been erased and fixed.

“... and that is why the emperor decided to bulldoze over our school.”

“Uh huh.”

“Mark you aren’t even listening to me!” Jinyoung exclaimed while waving his hand in front of the brunette to gain his attention.

“Jinyoungie, stop it. What are you doing?”

Jinyoung knew he was getting irritated but he tried to hold it in. “Well I have always known I’m not that fun but I didn’t know I was at the point of suffering of trying to sleep with your eyes open”, he huffed.

Quickly Mark tried to fix the situation before everything would blow up before him, coming up with the worst excuses possible. “No, no, no, you have it all wrong! It’s just that I still sometimes have a hard time with keeping up when someone talks Korean fast and all this noise is making it even harder.”

Jinyoung counted two and two together in his head how there really wasn’t anything that would disturb listening or how he usually is accused of talking too slow but decided to let this go for once. Only looking at Mark with slightly suspicious gaze to let him know he didn’t buy his explanation but deciding to continue (or start) his story.

“So I was just trying to tell you why I needed to disturb you-”

“But you really weren’t disturbing me at all”, Mark interrupted him. After realizing how puppy-like he sounded a light shade of red coloured his cheeks. This didn’t go unnoticed by Jinyoung, making something warm bloom inside his chest.

“Yeah, so can I continue now?” he asked with amusement in his voice.

Mark could only nod enthusiastically to show how excited he was for the story.

“The story begins with this group of friends who are all idiots, expect this one awesome dude. Because all of his friends are idiots, they sometimes get the worst ideas ever, like something along the line of climbing on top of the school building or something like that. What really deems them the most idiotic is that when a teacher confronted them about it, blaming all of the friend group, including the awesome dude who really didn’t have anything to do with it, they didn’t have the decency to tell the truth. No, they wanted to have fun together in detention. Today the group of friends were organizing the drama department’s wardrobe, which really was in serious need of a check up. Everything was going just fine, until the awesome dude fell asleep reading some old script.”

Mark really tried. He had been holding in his laughter for the whole time, but with the revelation of falling asleep he couldn’t hold it in. A giggle escaped his mouth (since when has Mark giggled?). After a small giggle it transformed into a booming laugh and he couldn’t hold it in. To Jinyoung it was the most amazing sound he had ever heard.

“Wait, I’ll just calm down now. I just lost it because this amazing dude seems really hilarious, I can’t believe all of this could happen to one person.”

“Oooh, there’s more, just you wait.”

“So this idiotic group of friends are also a dedicated group of friends, once they set their mind on something, they will do it and they’ll do it good. So now they decided to get the awesome dude’s shoes off and replace them with dumb they found from the wardrobe. They also tried to take the awesome dude’s shirt off but that’s when he woke up, not early enough to prevent the damage that was already done. They had already left with his shoes and replaced them with those clown shoes that you had the honor of seeing and hopefully won’t ever see again.” Letting out a deep breath Jinyoung finished his dreadful story, only to find Mark laughing his heart out at his misfortune. The younger couldn’t do anything but to give a couple of chuckles of his own too, he just couldn’t sit still when something so bright was happening in front of him.

“So is that the story why Park Jinyoung changed his seat away from his friend group next to Mark Tuan in almost every subject?” Mark asked after laughing for a while. Tears had sprung from his eyes and his stomach was aching. The story wasn’t even that funny, but something about Jinyoung had Mark doubling over.

“Yes and no. It’s also a story how an awesome dude met an even more awesome dude and decided that this is a person he wants to be near in every single subject he can.” Jinyoung almost whispered while looking at his shoes, pink color on his cheeks and neck.

“Well, hate to disappoint you but he isn’t really that awesome. But he sure would like if some of the awesomeness could rub on him if he spends enough time with the original awesome dude.”

The grins on both of their faces outshone the sun for the rest of the day.

(Little did they know was that they will decide to dance in clown shoes to honor their unusual meeting on their wedding day. Clown shoes were the start of their happily ever after.)