“Did you like me,” Mingyu has to take a breath because he didn’t know he’d been holding his for the last while, “back in high school-”

         “Dear god, do you have to bring that up?” Minghao shuts his eyes, back against the table and leg propped up on Mingyu’s shoulder for the stretch. No, this isn’t the correct, professional way Mingyu is supposed to hold his leg, but he doesn’t think Minghao cares and there’s no one in the room to tell him otherwise. There’s nothing ual about it, their crotches are as far apart as they could possibly be. It’s just easier to get to the right angle like this. He won’t admit that he’s lost sleep over the curses Minghao threw into the air last week despite how they’re cemented into his brain. He didn’t know someone’s swear could have that effect on him.

         “I just want to clear it up and apologize if I have to.” He has to take this opportunity. This is their last session together and with how much they’ve managed to argue the last three sessions, he’s sure that Minghao will likely never set foot in this end of town again if only to avoid meeting Mingyu.

         “You don’t have to apologize.” Mingyu steps back, bringing Minghao’s left leg down slowly and bending up his ankle to test the tendon, “I never liked you.”

         “What?”

         “Yeah.”

         Mingyu takes a minute to digest the information. That’s a whole lot of information, like more than Mingyu could have ever hoped to hear. Even though he knew that Minghao not liking him was a possibility and (more than) likely true, he could never admit to himself that that was a reality that he wanted to exist. “Then why did everyone think so?”

         He motions Minghao to sit up so they can talk face to face. If it was a normal patient, they would probably mention something about Mingyu eating up precious, paid PT time to talk about trivial matters like the past. Minghao isn’t just any other patient. He humors Mingyu—talks to him—and doesn’t complain about Mingyu eating up his pricey time. Part of Mingyu hopes that it’s because Minghao wants to clear up the air too.

         Minghao sighs.

         “I mentioned, offhandedly, to some guys that I thought you were conventionally attractive. It’s not a hard thing to comment on and they were polling for the superlatives ballot; asking for a short list of people who were the best of the best. And a lot of people at our school were conventionally attractive.” He shakes out his hair and looks at Mingyu, “A lot of people asked me out after the homecoming rally junior year, so many that I didn’t think that going to it was a good idea.” He shrugs and thumbs his knee, “I guess the rumors grew from there. You know how high school was.”

         Mingyu takes the cue to set up the electrotherapy. He stickies the four nodes to Minghao’s knee and flicks on the machine. It’s usually a special treatment that patients pay extra for, but Mingyu figures he’s eating up Minghao’s time with stupid, deadbeat questions and it’s not like Joshua actually cares what they behind closed doors. “So, you were attracted to me-”

         “Nooooooooo.” Mingyu wants to his words back into his mouth. Did he hear wrong? Didn’t Minghao just say he was attractive- “There wasn’t a single thing I liked about you in high school, much less found attractive. Don’t flatter yourself.”

         He can only manage to laugh to cover up his crippling embarrassment, “Of course. Of course. I guess we were in different social circles.”

         “Definitely, boy.”

         He cranks up the current briefly before shutting it back down. Just enough to send Minghao a sore sting and based on how he’s glaring at him now, he would kick him if his leg would allow based on the little twitch he gives it before regretting his move. They spend a moment in awkward silence before coughing into stifled laughs. It was a joke, the boy line.

         But now they have a whole fifteen minutes to kill while the machine works its magic and that’s a whole fifteen minutes of silence that Mingyu has to fill. For his older patients, he’ll usually leave them with the TV or a book to stew in their electromagnetic waves and for the kids he sometimes offers a videogame or a couple short-run cartoons on the wheezing computer. Minghao left his book at home today and his eyes have more interest in his lap than they do in the TV. Maybe Spongebob reruns weren’t his thing.

         “So, your dance thing.” Minghao’s eyes slide up to him, “It’s this weekend?”

         Again, Minghao’s patience with Mingyu’s terrible memory is both a blessing and a curse, “Yep.”

         “Is it still b-boying?”

         “Nope.”

         “No?” That’s a surprise.

         Mingyu has never seen Minghao dance anything else. Every performance from his time admitted into their high school to the performance he gave during graduation was bombastic and played on flips, footwork, and tricking. Somehow, in the last ten years, that was the only thing he had assumed Minghao could do; his talents immortalized in his memory.

         Minghao was one of routine.

         To a point, all the performances he directed ended the same way; big. The endings were always huge and loud and would happen during the beat drop. All of the music after that was spent hyping up the crowd as they ran around the gym, or the field, pulling people out of the bleachers or shooting confetti into the audience. It was almost a godsend that he graduated because it got to a point where there was likely no way he could outdo himself again.

         During graduation, they received a sponsorship from the rather-rich parents of one of the freshmen that Minghao had scouted for the team earlier that year. Because their child was so happy and excited to finally be a part of a team sport, they told Minghao it’d be wonderful if they could provide outfits for them for what would be considered the biggest performance of Minghao’s life to that point. Minghao had agreed, but spent frugally. All the dancers were dressed in white except for the seniors who wore black (because seniors always wear black since it’s the coolest color) and everyone had rave bracelets on.

         When it came time for the senior solo, Mingyu found out how much a light up choker could turn him on (his attraction to chokers still lingers because of this event). It wasn’t a particularly suggestive or sultry performance—there were children and parents in the audience, after all—but it was powerful; a lot more stomping than usual. They had pulled their black snapbacks down over their eyes, serious in the spotlight of a football stadium filled with a few thousand people. Their movements were unified under their president’s lead. It was almost like he could feel the marching band’s drums in their steps. Their collective yells got the crowd going and Mingyu could feel that peer unity that he’d been aching for; school spirit during their last hurrah. This would be the last time he’d see Minghao for the foreseeable future. They were going different places for college and Minghao was on to big cities and big parties; he knew.

         “Well,” he can tell that Minghao’s taking time to think—likely of a way to phrase it so that Mingyu would be pardoned from all the dance jargon he knows, “it’s a mixed style. New age? Performance art? Something like that. We wanted to keep it technically advanced while paying homage to more traditional dance styles from the east. Like, broad so everyone in the audience will enjoy it, but specific enough so the judges will be impressed.” He can see that Mingyu’s a bit spaced out trying to envision the dance style and pities him with a curt chuckle, “But if you consider doing flips and a lot of advanced footwork b-boying then, yes. Sill b-boying.”

         Mingyu speaks without thinking, “Whatever you come up with will be impressive.”

         “Aw, is that a compliment?” Minghao hums, maybe pouts, maybe smiles, but he’s sarcastic. Mingyu can hear it in his voice.

         “Yeah.” The silence falls heavy on them again. It stays that way until the machine beeps, signaling the end of Minghao’s last session, “Please try and take it easy.”

         “Trophies don’t come easy.”

         Mingyu didn’t think that (not) saying goodbye to Minghao would be so hard.

         He had walked Minghao out to the lobby without many words and waited quietly as he made his payments and cast his final vote in the stupid fist-fight cookie jars. He wonders why Joshua’s been holding out on counting the votes since both jars are almost full and he’d said he’d count the receipts two weeks ago. This Thursday is different, however.

         Minghao puts his receipt stub in Mingyu’s jar before walking himself out the door.

         “Ooh, what did you do today, Mingyu?” Joshua’s voice is coy.

         Mingyu plays along as soon as Minghao’s out the door, “I don’t know. Gave him a service few can afford.”

         “Mingyu!” The mock-scandalized shock in Joshua’s voice brings laughter to them both. Mingyu’s never done anything unprofessional, Joshua can count on him for that, but he’s also never seen Minghao Xu laid down on a table with his leg up in the air and his breath staggered in aching discomfort. He can only give Joshua this look that the latter has deemed his Handsome Squidward face. It’s supposed to be a smolder, but if we’re all honest, Mingyu can’t pull off things like that with his current sobriety and inhibition levels.

         The day ends in earnest and Mingyu doesn’t know how he feels.