The one with black hair keeps calling Minghao back to the car window every time he takes a step away until Minghao throws his book at him and briskly walks away, laughing. The way he walks is free and easy, it looks like he’s a lot better already. The steps are even, without him favoring one leg over the other, showing no signs of pain.

          Mingyu wants to hear it; that laugh. But he doesn’t. Minghao stops laughing as he walks in through the sliding glass doors, but there’s still a smile on his face. His gait changes when he passes the wall, turning back into the one he wore last week, if not worse. Mingyu can see the restraint. He’s trying not to limp, trying to move as smoothly as possible across the floor which isn’t difficult for someone as graceful as that, but the hesitation bugs him.

          “Checking in. Sorry I’m late.” It sounds like he’s been holding his breath. Minghao leans onto the counter, putting all his weight onto his right side, giving it a break by supporting himself with his arms.

          “It’s okay, you’re only a couple minutes late and Mingyu doesn’t have any other appointments today.” Joshua glances over at him. Mingyu has his eyes trained on Minghao’s knee. No brace which is suspicious.

          And he confronts him when they’re back in the PT room.

          “The brace gets in the way when I’m dancing and I just came from practice.” Minghao sets his phone and wallet down next to the examination table like usual. As Mingyu expects, his pain ranks rise one point on average. “What?”

          “What?” Mingyu looks up.

          “Your face was like this.” Minghao pinches his brows down and frowns—well, pouts—at his hands that he’s holding up to imitate Mingyu’s clipboard. “Is something wrong?”

          “Uh, yeah, you’re doing worse than last week,” Mingyu takes a seat on the wheelie stool that he pulls over from the computer stand, “and I’m no genius at this job, but usually my patients do better after a week.”

          Minghao sighs, pulling his right leg up to cross over his left thigh. He somehow looks a lot smaller like this, not in a physical sense; his presence seems smaller, “I had some extra practices to attend this week since semi-finals are next-next weekend. My bad.”

          “You need to rest.”

          “Look, resting is something I can do when I’m dead. Dancing is something I can do now and I can’t do in thirty years. So, if it bites me in the then, who cares? I’ll be more than halfway to death by then-”

          “Minghao,” the name feels strange on his tongue, something he didn’t expect from saying it for the first time, “you’re supposed to be resting with every opportunity possible.”

          “I am.” He snaps. Yeah, pain makes people snappy, Mingyu’s used to that, “You can ask my dog. He hasn’t been on a walk in days and he’s not very happy about that.”

          “You have a dog?” Mingyu changes the subject. He knows that he’s getting snappy too with his lack of sleep.

          “Yeah, a Spitz-mix. His name is Cacahuate.” He chews on a cracked lip, “Jun’s been walking him, but Jun hates dogs, so I’m having some difficulty getting him out of the house without promising him a million and one favors and- Sorry, I’m a little on edge today. I’m sure you’ve had a long day too.” Sometimes he forgets that they can be mature grown-ups that don’t need to fight over trivial and small things. In high school, Minghao probably wouldn’t have dropped his aggressions too readily. He’d gotten into an unfair share of fights late into their junior year. It was a particularly bad streak for him and the sweet Minghao the teachers had gotten to know suddenly seemed to turn into a bad egg, showing up to class sleepy-headed and with his homework incomplete. He struggled to keep his grades up, but managed to skirt by with the skin of his teeth.

          Mingyu’s taken back to one particular scene when he runs into Minghao on his way back from the bathroom after lunch. Minghao hadn’t shown up for AP English, marked absent without much hesitation by Mr. Craig. Instead of sitting in class, he’s sitting on the linoleum floor, leaning against the chipped blue lockers of the C-wing. Mingyu can see him through the dusty glass windows. He rolls his head back, covering his mouth and nose with a hand before standing up and shaking it off. When he comes out to make his way to the bathroom with his backpack in tow, he passes Mingyu with little more than a glance. It was quick, too quick for Mingyu to glean any solid details. Again, his memory of Minghao is kind of vague and foggy, but he was roughed up. His nose was bleeding and there was a cut on his cheek.

          “It’s okay.” Mingyu and Minghao sigh at the same time, “You’re in pain. It’s expected that you’ll be on edge. Let’s just try and get through the exercises today. We’ll go slow.”

          They get on rather cordially.

          They were both known for being friendly after all. Ten years ago.

          Through gritted teeth, he asks if Minghao’s seeing anyone and after giving him the weirdest look Minghao just smiles and says no. That clears up the curiosity about the person in the car waiting in the parking lot. He’s glad that Minghao didn’t make a big deal of the question. If it was any other client, he definitely wouldn’t have asked, but because he and Minghao shared a past to some degree, the question seems more casual than its undertones paint it to be.

          “Feel any better?”

          “Yeah, a bit.” Minghao carefully extends his left leg out to its full capacity, “Thanks.”

          “I think a couple more months with constant work will get you back on track.”

          “Too bad I only have two more sessions.” Minghao snickers.

          “What- why?”

          “I can only afford a month of weekly sessions. Believe it or not, being a dance instructor isn’t exactly the most lucrative occupation.” He starts gathering his things.

          Mingyu walks him out to the lobby, “Hey.” Minghao turns around, “If you don’t mind, starting next week, I’ll teach you the exercises you have to do so you can do them on your own before the final competition.” Minghao just nods without saying anything. He watches as he takes a few steps to straighten up and drop the limp, clenching his jaw and walking with a calculated precision akin to a dance step.

          “He voted for Wonwoo again.”

          Wonwoo comes in just as Mingyu’s starting to pack up his things, “How was lunch?”

          “Eh,” he stretches and tweaks his lips to the side, “lunch was lunch. Soonyoung was kinda testy today. How was Minghao?”

          “Also testy.” Mingyu laughs, “But, really, what happened? I thought you were looking forward to this lunch date.”

          The older male scratches behind his ear hastily, clearly wanting to drop the subject as soon as possible, “I don’t know- Just something at work probably.”

          “Well, she has to put up with you. I don’t blame her for getting testy.” The joke falls flat when Wonwoo doesn’t laugh and just looks up at Mingyu.

          “He.”

          “Oh.”

          Wonwoo nods with a tight smile and pats Mingyu on the shoulder as he straightens up to get to his next patient who is an elderly woman that’s waiting in the lobby with her knitting needles and half a scarf in her lap.

          “Oh probably wasn’t a very good response. I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sorry if I made any assumptions and made you uncomfortable. I just know a girl named Sunyoung and I’ve never met a guy with the same name and-” Mingyu unloads his worries first thing Monday morning before Wonwoo can even reach the brew button on the coffeemaker.

          “Chill, Mingyu. I’ve had more adverse reactions than an oh.” Wonwoo laughs a deep but bright laugh and presses the button with a smack. It’s clear that he isn’t as caught up about the situation yesterday as Mingyu has been since. It’s another weekend without much sleep. Half of it was the Wonwoo situation. The other half of it was the Minghao situation. Making an exercise regimen for Minghao was supposed to be easy, but all he could think about was high school and what Wonwoo had said about not dwelling in the past.

          “Sorry.”

          “It’s okay. If I had a dollar for every time someone apologized for an awkward reaction when I told them I was going long-term with a guy I met in college, I’d be rich enough to afford lobster dinner dates every weekend and I’m allergic to lobster.” It’s Mingyu’s turn to choke out a laugh and lighten the mood, “You know, if you want to make it up to me, you should come out to lunch with us this week.”

          “That’d be nice.” The prospect of meeting Wonwoo’s significant other is somehow a little scary. Even though Mingyu’s only heard good things about him, he’s still not sure what to expect. Most of the worry is on his end. Being a third wheel during a lunch date just doesn’t sound very fun and sounds like it might have the potential to be a Bad Time, “but if it’s at the same time as last week, I might not be able to because of Minghao’s appointment slot.”

          “That’s okay, I’ll see if he can reschedule to make it an hour earlier.” Wonwoo likes to do this thing where he twirls his employee tag as fast as he can when he’s thinking about things and right now it’s swinging faster than most propellers Mingyu’s seen.

          “Something on your mind?”

          “Not really.” The toothy grin is a little more mischievous than Mingyu would like, “Joshua told me that Minghao voted for me again.”

          “Well, he knows where to place his bets.” Wonwoo pours the coffee with a particular slowness.

          Minghao knows who wins in fist-fights thanks to experience is really the only thing that comes to mind. He’s been in plenty thanks to Mingyu.

          “You’re doing that thing again.”

          “What thing?”

          “Whenever Minghao is brought up you do this thing where you start biting your lips and avoid eye contact. It’s a complete 180 from whatever façade you have one with us and the other patients. Do you want to talk about it?” Wonwoo finally gets his first sip in.

          Mingyu isn’t one for black coffee. He’d rather drink water, “There’s not much to talk about and our first appointments are in a few minutes.” He consciously stops worrying his lip between his teeth and combs a hand through his hair to muss it up. Hot, professional Mingyu is back, high school Mingyu is buried along with the hatchet.

          Lunch with Wonwoo and cheeky, bright Soonyoung comes earlier than expected.

          Soonyoung seems to have seniority at his workplace and got Wednesday off, so he’s out to lunch with him and Wonwoo around 11. They thought about going to Pascal’s, but Wonwoo chides about free alcohol with every entrée being a bad idea. Mingyu agrees. Soonyoung doesn’t. After almost ten minutes of deliberation, the three end up at Chopstick, a higher-end Asian-fusion food truck that stops right in front of the children’s park on 5^th. The weather today is perfect for eating outside. There’s a nice breeze billowing through the trees and they can sit in the sun and feel that peaceful sort of warmth on their backs.

          Mingyu picks a bench just out of ear shot from the kids that are running around. They’re probably on break from the nearby preschool. After getting all the rudimentary questions about Wonwoo and Soonyoung’s relationship out of the way, they melt easily into casual conversation and small talk. Soonyoung isn’t quite short, but he isn’t as tall as Wonwoo. He has this infectious smile and along with his bleached-blonde hair, it might shine brighter than the actual sun above them.

          “Wonwoo said you were mad last week.”

          “Yeah, I was, but it was nothing big. One of my co-workers dropped a really important arrangement we had, but we’ve since made up and he hasn’t skipped out on me since.” He has a habit of talking fast and when the conversation switches over to business instead of small talk, it’s clear that Soonyoung gets a lot more serious and mature.

          “That’s good.”

          Soonyoung and Wonwoo aren’t very into public displays of affection. Mingyu supposes that the matching rings on their fingers are enough. Belonging to someone seems to have some sort of appeal, but he appreciates not feeling like a third wheel. Wonwoo is quiet for a lot of their lunch, but he doesn’t seem unhappy or uncomfortable, just the opposite. Soonyoung just does a lot of the talking. His parents are like that too. When he’s alone with his dad, he’ll talk a lot about a lot of things, but when they go out with family friends for dinner, it’s his mom that does most of the talking. No one is stepping over anyone, but the social dynamic switches. It seems like Wonwoo doesn’t mind taking the backseat. He walks his fingers through Soonyoung’s hair when the wind starts blowing, scrambling the blonde locks. Soonyoung smacks him when his fingers get stuck on a kink. Bleached hair must be a pain to deal with and Mingyu regrets not asking what Soonyoung does as an occupation since he’s allowed to look so cool.