they'd be better off as different people
Blue Reflections
“It’s too hot,” Minho tells Jinki, tone uncompromising.
“That didn’t stop us last year,” Jinki rebounds with.
“Well my grades aren’t as good as yours. My parents signed me up for a cram school and I don’t have time to play.”
Jinki’s silent and wants to tell him ‘just play soccer’ but this is Minho. Minho cares about his grades in a way that Jinki doesn’t; which is actually kind of funny, because he’s always excelled at school. Like, the one thing he doesn’t care about is the one thing he can do well. It’s ironic. He wants to play soccer and Minho wants to get good grades. They’re living each other’s lives.
“I’ll tutor you,” he offers a few minutes later, during which Minho was scribbling math equations and writing down wrong answers. Jinki was following with his eyes upside down and can spot where he had gone wrong (he’d dropped a negative sign).
Minho looks up and smiles at him and Jinki really does wish that they could switch places. The two of them would be much happier that way. “Last time you tried tutoring me, you almost broke a lamp.”
“Almost.”
“I’m going to cram school Jinki.”
Not fair, Jinki thinks, sitting back down at his desk. There’s forty minutes left to lunch and he doesn’t know what he’ll do with the time. So he stares out the window, learning how leaves move.
...
The roof could use some decorating. A nice couch would do, with brightly patterned pillows and everything would have to be waterproof. It’s boring as it is, plain concrete with the aircon sticking up at the far end. The railing is plain rail, nothing exciting. Taemin sighs, leaning a bit over the edge, staring down. The field is empty and he sighs again.
He looks for him now. In the corners of his eyes, looking for that messy head of hair that’s at the same level as his. He’s looking for the rounded cheekbones and the wide nose, for loud footsteps and small, circular hand gestures.
The pencil behind his ear slides down and falls to the ground, twirling over a few times before it hits the ground. Guess it’s time to use the slender pencil. He’ll miss the stubby one.
...
Taemin is blank faced when the teacher asks him to tutor someone. He doesn’t care who, but he really doesn’t want to. He doesn’t do tutoring, because that requires something from him he’s not quite willing to give. But the look the teacher is giving him pressures a ‘fine’ out of him and finds out that the name of the kid is Minho. Choi Minho.
Destiny sorts of rings in the name.
...
Jinki has trouble believing his ears. “You asked our teacher for a tutor?”
“My mom called and asked him to give me one.”
He swallows.
“So no more soccer.” Not for a long time.
Minho smiles at him. “Yeah. Sorry Jinki.”
He shakes his head. “Who’s your tutor?”
“Oh, that new kid. Taemin.”
Jinki’s eyes search for that slender slip of a boy and measures the breadth of his shoulders with his eyes. Slender is right. Jinki can feel something weighing down on his heart.
“Good luck with that.”
...
Luck is not something that Taemin has believed in for a long time, but it might just be coming back for him. Minho, he discovers, is best friends with Jinki. It is, indeed, luck.
They met for the first time in the library, dust dirtying his fingers. He immediately wants to leave, rinse his hands of the place and go to the roof. Lie down and stare at the sky, pondering the shapes of clouds and what Fredrick should do next.
Minho, he observes, is tall and graceful. His hair is neatly coiffed, combed in neat waves; his eyes are large, round and look at him in an unassuming, unthreatening way. Taemin knows that this is his type, because he can see the possibility of blue lying in the depths of those eyes. But he sits down and pulls his books out and Taemin recognizes that types aren’t hard and fast, that they’re more like guidelines because, man, does Minho reek of boringness. He’d rather tutor Jinki.
But, since Minho is Jinki’s friend and Taemin wants Jinki to think well of him, Taemin smiles at the tall, big eyed young man across from him. “Let’s start then.”
...
His favorite smells include grass, mildly scented soap and what he thinks dew smells like. He doesn’t like dust, he doesn’t like the smell of paper and the printing ink they use and least of all does he like the smell of sun in a closed room. It’s claustrophobic. It makes him itchy. It makes him want to scream and yell and run and just do something.
So Jinki doesn’t like the library, but he can’t satisfy his curiosity with mere thoughts of how the tutoring could be going. Taemin (that’s his name) is a bit odd with his style of learning and Jinki doesn’t want Minho to learn his bad, aka weird, habits. He doesn’t seem to be doing so; he’s simply guiding him through the lectures of yesterday.
It bothers Jinki. He’s not sure why.
...
Minho’s placement improves by ten, or at least that’s what he tells Taemin the next time they meet after exams. Taemin’s a little preoccupied himself because, for the first time, he didn’t place first. Jinki did. It’s weird, the feeling in middle of his throat. It’s choking him.
“How smart is Jinki?” Taemin asks, cutting through Minho’s repeats of gratitude.
“Well,” Minho starts, looking down. “You can tell by his ranking. It’s natural, for him. He breathes good grades.”
Taemin nods, tilting his head, hair slipping around his neck and he notices that Minho is staring at him. When their eyes meet, Minho blushes just the slightest amount. Taemin swallows.
“You’re best friends, right? Why doesn’t he tutor you?”
Minho smiles, and Taemin can recognize how strict he is on himself in that smile. “Jinki’s a terrible teacher.”
Taemin nods. “I see.”
But he doesn’t; Taemin doesn’t see anything.
Comments