Minho picked at his lunch unappetizingly. It looks like his dad forgot to pack something edible again. He usually ate alone, despite having about a billion friends. No one really wanted to be around his dad's cooking, and he didn't blame them.

"Hey there, buddy bud bud," Jonghyun said cheerfully. Usually ate alone.

"What do you want?" Minho asked, a little exasperated. He turned to see Jonghyun giving him the puppy eyes. Minho flicked his friend between the eyes. "Stop that. You look like a ."

"Well, you're a jerk," Jonghyun muttered. He seriously hated it when Minho said "" in that stupid way. If he knew that Jonghyun really was a... erm... homoual male, he'd have a heart attack. Sometimes, Jonghyun wished he would. Anyway, he sat down and put his tray next to Minho's father's newest experiment. It looked... purple.

"What do you want?" Minho demanded impatiently, spooning some of said purple substance into his mouth. Jonghyun grimaced.

"Um... Well, just wondering if you have plans this weekend," he said, taking a bite of his pizza. Minho swallowed with some difficulty, and Jonghyun couldn't blame him. That stuff looked worse than... Well, it was pretty bad.

"I'm hitting the library. I'm failing English again," he muttered. Jonghyun scoffed.

"It's the first day," Jonghyun pointed out. The taller boy rolled his eyes, putting his spoon down.

"We're reading Romeo and Juliet. I need to pick up that No-Fear Shakespeare thing before we actually make any progress," he said, looking forlornly at his lunch. He'd have to finish it. He knew he would. His dad would flip out if he didn't. Jonghyun looked at his friend's pitiful purple... whatever it was.

"I'll trade you," Jonghyun offered. Minho gratefully took Jonghyun's pizza while Jonghyun took the... He was sure that this was not food. "What's in it?" Jonghyun asked, poking it. It moved a little, like purple mashed potatoes blended with Jell-O. Minho shrugged.

"Hell if I know," he said, offering Jonghyun half a slice. Jonghyun declined. He set his mind to do this. He scooped as much into his mouth as e could and swallowed as fast as he could. The taste caught up with him and he promptly gagged. It was a mix between sweetness, sourness, saltiness, and something that tasted like death.

"You need to bar your dad from the kitchen," Jonghyun said, finishing off the purple death thing.

"I've tried," Minho said as he finished off the pizza. He watched bemusedly as Jonghyun grabbed the chocolate milk from the lunch tray and chugged.

"What the is wrong with your dad?" Jonghyun finally wheezed out. Minho chuckled and sighed.

"Who knows? Maybe I got those genes too," he mused. Jonghyun shook his head fervently.

"No, no, no. I've tasted your cooking. It's actually edible." And that was true. Living with an eccentric lawyer who was never home long enough to learn how to properly cook for a teenage boy had led Minho to take cooking class his freshman year and learn how to make something that didn't involve the food being purple. It was one of the few skills that Minho had that didn't involve violence.

"Anyway, what are you doing?" Minho asked. Jonghyun smirked, self-satisfied in his little secret. He crossed his arms proudly.

"Hanging with Key," he said honestly. Minho groaned and rubbed his forehead, trying to stave off the oncoming headache that came with the name as Jonghyun frowned and crossed his arms. "He's not that bead, you know."

"He's a !" Minho groaned. "And he's a whiny, nagging ." He sighed and looked up at the sky. "I don't know what you see in him that's even remotely bearable."

"He's only like that to you because you're such a homophobe," Jonghyun pointed out. Something in Minho snapped, and the taller of the two boys stood up and grabbed his plexiglass  container, marching off into the school. He was not in the mood for Jonghyun's lecture. He didn't want to accept gay people, and he didn't have to, and he wasn't going to. Ever.

~

Taemin hummed softly as he trailed his fingers along the spines of the books, feeling the smooth leather under his fingertips. He loved books. They were his companions, his escape from the world, his constant comforters... The words, the images, even the cover art of the books make him so happy. He was so lost in this jubilance that he bumped into a firm chest and a warm body. He looked up with an apology on his lips, but it never came out.

"Taemin?" the boy asked, his eyes crinkling up even more than usual as he smiled. "Oh my gosh, is that really you?"

"Onew-hyung!" Taemin exclaimed. The two immediately embraced, and Taemin felt a rare burst of exuberance at his hyung's arms around him. He looked up, his smile bright, but Onew's was forever the brightest. "How are you? I haven't seen you in two years!"

"I didn't know how to contact you when I moved back to the states," Onew said sheepishly. He'd moved away two years ago to Korea to spend some time abroad with his extended family. Taemin and he had grown up next door to each other, chatting and laughing over advanced algebra problems and chemical equilibriums and the works of Charles Dickens and all of that lovely dork/nerd stuff. They were as close as two friends could be, and although Onew could've gone to Taemin's prep school (with an IQ of 184), he couldn't afford the tuition. His family was worse off than Taemin's.

However, the educational distance hadn't kept the two apart. Onew had been Taemin's first kiss, locked away in Taemin bedroom one hot summer's day when Taemin had expressed that interest to kiss someone he trusted. He looked after Taemin when the two weren't practicing their kissing on each other, and he'd taught Taemin about tying knots and climbing trees and flirting with girls or, when he figured out that Taemin was gay as opposed to his own biuality, with guys. Although they were two years apart, they were closer than close. They'd even dated on and off a few times, but they both knew that their relationship wasn't like that. Neither regretted any of it. However, there was a level of comfort between them, evident as Onew pressed his lips to Taemin's and Taemin pressed back happily.

"What are you doing back here?" Taemin asked, still hugging Onew between the shelves. Onew chuckled and ruffled Taemin's hair.

"I'm here to stay," he announced. Taemin's eyes widened with happiness, and he kissed his hyung again.

"That's great!" he said enthusiastically. Onew laughed, a sound that Taemin had learned to cherish over the years.

"Why? You want me to play with your heart some more?" Onew asked cockily, winking. Taemin blushed and looked down.

"Aniyo, hyung..." he whispered shyly. He rested his head on Onew's chest, hearing the comfortably steady beat of Onew's heart. "I just missed you..."

"I missed you too," Onew said comfortingly. Taemin pulled away from the hug and smiled up at Onew with his hands behind his back, rocking on his heels.

"Should I give you my number, then? So that you can call me and stuff? And I have texting too, and we have so much catching up to do!" he said, babbling in a way that he'd only do with Onew. The older boy nodded and pulled out his phone, a beat up machine that was still good for the basics. Taemin giggled and pulled out his own mobile, which was much sleeker with a few more features. Onew whistled.

"Did your parents win a lottery?" he asked, knowing that Taemin's financial situation had been teetering on 'bad' when he'd left. Taemin shook his head.

"No, my old school just gave it to me when I left. It has a built in scientific and graphing calculator and a dictionary and all of these languages!" Taemin said, bouncing on his heels excitedly. Onew raised an eyebrow.

"Where'd they get a phone like that?" he asked skeptically. Taemin beamed proudly.

"One of the students designed it," he sang out happily. "It's patented to the school only. Not available anywhere else."

"Lucky brat," Onew chuckled as Taemin quickly transferred his contacts to Onew and vice versa. He gave Onew the phone back, kissing his hyung on he cheek.

"I really did miss you," Taemin whispered as the two slipped their mobiles back in their pockets. Onew smiled and nodded, not noticing a new shadow come up behind them.

"Hey, ," Minho snarled. After dealing with Jonghyun, he was desperate for something to pummel, and if that something happened to be Lee Taemin, he had no objections. Taemin turned, eyes wide with fear, as Onew tensed. Of course, he was invisible to Minho, who was intently focused on his target.

"M-Minho-hyung, please not here," Taemin whimpered, dropping the honorific in an attempt to appease Minho. It didn't work. The jock was simply implacable.

"Who told you that you could ing call me that?" he demanded, slamming his fist into the bookshelf behind Taemin and gripping the younger boy's collar with his other hand. That was when Onew stepped in. He pried Minho's fingers from Taemin's shirt, stepping in front of the youngest and getting in Minho's face authoritatively.

"Back off. I'm a senior, so I'm higher than you on this food chain, and I could also whip your little into pudding if I wanted. I'm only holding back because Taemin's here," he snarled, and there was something about the 180° change in him that made Taemin shiver. Minho, however, wasn't phased.

"You really think you can take me on?" he challenged, crossing his arms and smirking. Onew's eyes narrowed and his muscles tensed. He would've sprung, too, if Taemin hadn't whimpered behind him. He had to compose himself, for Taemin's sake.

"I know I can," he retorted coolly, and Minho scoffed.

"A like you? You couldn't even take on a little girl," he snarled. Onew felt his temper, which was usually calm and equable, flare at the little jab at his uality. He'd always been particularly touchy on that.

"I could take you on with one hand behind my back, frog-face," he hissed. Minho raised a cocky eyebrow and spread his arms arrogantly, an open invitation, one that Onew would have gladly taken if Taemin hadn't been watching.

"Then do it right here, right now," Minho challenged. He pointed down to the ground, enticing Onew to step right up. "I'll even give you an advantage, ; you get the first punch."

Onew was so ing ready to take that offer. His fists were clenched and ready, his muscles tensed and his eyes boring into Minho's skull, but Taemin's gentle hands found their way around Onew's waist, a sight that made Minho cringe. It was so unbearably gay, so unbearably wrong and sick and dirty and so... Ugh.

"Don't do it," Taemin whispered, his voice shaking. Onew nodded, and Minho jabbed at that little opening. He would win. He had to. He wasn't wrong like them.

"You're so whipped already," he scoffed loudly. "There's no way you could take me on, and you know it."

"I'm not whipped," Onew muttered, but he closed his eyes and turned his head to nuzzle Taemin's cheek reassuringly. Taemin made a small noise in the back of his throat, scared of everything that was going on around him.

"Yeah right. Your little buddy has you wrapped his little finger," Minho scoffed, "or in your case, ."

"Shut up," Onew ordered, still comforting Taemin. He whispered soft words in the younger's ear, and he opened one eye with a dangerous glint in the hard brown iris.

"Or what?" Minho taunted. "You gonna me up the like you do to him?" It felt so good to jab at this disgusting freak of nature. It felt so... empowering to know that he wasn't wrong like them.

"Go away," Taemin whimpered. When Minho didn't comply, Onew pulled away from Taemin's grasp and pushed Minho from the rows of bookshelves, his hands hitting Minho's chest hard.

"You heard him," Onew snarled. "Get out."

"Oh, the little -er's getting feisty now," Minho chuckled. The bell rang and everyone looked up for a moment. Minho look down first, fixing his eyes on Taemin. Their lines of sight clashed as Minho smirked.

This boy made his job too easy.

"Catch you another time," he snarled tauntingly. He fixed his eyes on a furious Onew and gave the older boy a shove. "As for you, stay out of my way."

"Don't you dare touch him," Onew snarled. His eyes flashed, but Minho was confident that a , a weakling, a little freak could never best him. He just smirked.

"Don't count on it," he said as he turned and left. It took Onew a good half hour to calm Taemin down, and it wasn't easy. In his head, he swore revenge on Minho, until Taemin explained the Gayme.

"I can't allow it," Onew growled once he heard what Taemin had to do. What Taemin had to risk. Taemin whimpered and shook his head, looking up at Onew with watery resolve.

"I didn't want to do it either, but... I don't have a choice," he whispered. Onew kissed his friend's forehead softly.

"Yes you do. I'll talk to this Key person. I'll tell him to-" Onew was cut off by Taemin's finger on his lips. There was a small fire in the boy's eyes. He was pissed.

"I'm going to make M-Minho pay," Taemin said, stammering but firm. He was sure about this. He straightened up and dusted his clothes off. "If he's so sure that gay people can't do anything... I'm gonna make him gay too!"

Onew's eyes widened at the sight of Taemin, cheeks red and eyes challenging anyone to get in his way. Then, he chuckled. Taemin was growing up, and as much as he'd like to deny it, Taemin wasn't the small kid he used to be. He wasn't going to let this slide, and Onew knew it. He chuckled at the sight of his dongsaeng.

"You're really passionate about this, aren't you?" Onew murmured. Taemin nodded firmly, and Onew grinned broadly. He hugged Taemin warmly, pressing his lips to Taemin's forehead. "If he hurts you-"

"I'll d-deal with it," Taemin growled. Onew laughed and stepped away to ruffle Taemin's hair.

"Make him pay," Onew said with a smile. Taemin gave Onew a watery smile back and wiped his eyes.

"Neh," he said with a nod. "Now, let's get back to class."

A/N- I love Onew here <3

More to come, comments are love! :D