The next morning had been a school day, and both were late getting up. Heung Soo was, unfortunately, the first to wake – unfortunate because he’d decided the best way to wake Nam Soon was a quick shove off the bed. Nam Soon didn’t appreciate starting off the day with an aching head, though Heung Soo found it funny – well, he did right up until Nam Soon retaliated by kicking him out the door, making him trip up and bang his shoulder into the wall.

Heung Soo pouted at him as Nam Soon smartly shut the front door behind them, and then strode by, a satisfied look on his face.

“What happened to not wanting to hurt me?”

“Your arm's not about to fall off,” Nam Soon rolled his eyes, but couldn’t hold back a hint of amusement. “You’re a big boy, you can take a bit of rough play.”

Heung Soo caught up to him, grin dirty. “That’s exactly how I like it.”

Nam Soon’s smugness took a tumble when Heung Soo reached down and squeezed his arse. “Yah!” He squalled rather impressively loud, shoving Heung Soo’s groping hand away. “That’s ual assault.”

“Not when you like it, it isn’t.”

Nam Soon snorted and lightly shoved at Heung Soo. “Get that lecherous look off your face – you look stupid.”

“I look hot,” Heung Soo contended, stupid look still firmly in place, and Nam Soon had to bite back a grin. He did look pretty hot, but he wasn’t about to admit it. “You know you want me.”

“I've already had you,” Nam Soon replied cheerfully, swinging his arms in a false bravado of nonchalance.

“Yeah, and don’t act like you don’t want a piece of this again,” Heung Soo said cockily, gesturing down at his body.

Nam Soon just grinned to himself before shooting Heung Soo a glance with a lecherous look of his own. Two could play at this game. “Well, I see now that you’re not full of me, you’re full of yourself.”

Heung Soo’s grin widened with delight. He pressed himself up against Nam Soon, and voice dripping with he whispered into Nam Soon’s ear, “Well, you could always fix that.”

Cheeks flushing red in a mixture of embarrassment and arousal, Nam Soon shoved him away, a startled chuckle falling from his lips. “You’re a tosser, go away.”

“Back to your place? Only if you join me,” Heung Soo said, ignoring the insult and throwing a friendly arm over his shoulders, which Nam Soon leaned into slightly. It felt nice; the heat of Heung Soo’s body pressed up against him, and clear images of last night shot to the front of his brain, sending pleasant shivers down his spine.

With the street empty, he paused them from walking and turned Heung Soo into a kiss which was enthusiastically met. “Come on,” he said a few moments later. “We need to get going.”

He pulled back, and Heung Soo made a discontented noise and followed him, diminishing the space between them, placing another kiss on his lips. Nam Soon smiled into it, and the next one. They shared a few more kisses, nothing heavy and no tongue, just soft brushing of lips, one hand curled around Nam Soon waist, one interlocked with his own, and Nam Soon’s other hand – not holding Heung Soo’s - resting on his boyfriend’s shoulder.

When they pulled away, Nam Soon ran the hand from Heung Soo’s shoulder down his arm, all the way to his hand and entwining them, so both their hands were joint between them while they stood facing each other.

“I love you, Heung Soo-ya,” Nam Soon said.

“As you should,” Heung Soo joked, but his eyes were bright and happy, a soft look coming into them. “I love you too.”

Nam Soon smiled, and gave Heung Soo’s hands a gentle tug. “Come on, we still need to stop by yours so you can change for school.” He checked his phone for the time. “Though we’re gonna be late anyway.”

“Oh well,” Heung Soo shrugged as they dropped hands and continued walking. “So,” he said conversationally a few minutes later, and Nam Soon turned his attention back to him from idly watching a cat dart across the road. “Last night was fun, when do you want to shag again?”

Nam Soon flushed a light red despite his best efforts not to. Last night was fun, but next time he knew their positions would be switched. Although he didn’t have such big resivations about it as he did before – actually having had eased his nerves about bottoming a whole lot – but it still made him a little uncomfortable. So, hoping Heung Soo wouldn’t feel offended if he didn’t immidiatly jump on the idea, he said: “I dunno, next time we might end up laughing too much to even shag properly.”

Nam Soon knew they were both thinking of last night, when they’d ended up laughing right in the middle of . It was ridiculous and dumb; wasn’t supposed to be a laughing matter, but oddly, Nam Soon wouldn’t change that moment even if he could. It was all the little imperfections that made the night perfect. It wasn’t some directed and  rehearsed act like in ; it was nerve racking and exciting and utterly ridiculous and downright amazing – all the things that made it real, that made it them; Nam Soon and Heung Soo.

“ isn’t meant to be funny,” Heung Soo said with clear amusement, despite his words. And Nam Soon knew he was thinking along the same lines as him despite what he’d said.

“Maybe it is for idiots,” Nam Soon chuckled in response. Cause hey, maybe other, serious, clever people had boring . For a split second, Nam Soon imagined a scene between Ha Kyung and Min Ki and all the rules they’d set for their pro-creation act (because he seriously couldn’t fathom Ha Kyung letting loose and ing for fun), but even just that moment of thought almost broke his brain and he cleared his head before he got any desire to jump off a bridge.

“Hey, speak for yourself,” Heung Soo said smugly, blissfully unaware of where Nam Soon’s treacherous thoughts had just gone (lucky sod). “I got a C on that test last week.”

Nam Soon’s eyes opened wide in surprise, forgetting all about Thoughts That Shouldn’t Be Thought and focused on Heung Soo instead. “Seriously? Which subject?”

“Geography,” Heung Soo replied, looking pleased with himself.

Nam Soon was shocked. Heung Soo had every right to feel proud of himself; he’d never gotten such a high grade before (and neither had Nam Soon). “Wow, Heung Soo-ya, that’s really good,” he said with genuine enthusiasm. Then, because he couldn’t resist a joke, he added, “You’ll be leaving me to sit with Ha Kyung and Min Ki in the Smart People Section soon.” Oh, why did he just have to say those names? Thankfully, Heung Soo distracted him once again.

“Shut up, bastard,” Heung Soo laughed, thumping him on the arm. “I’m not smart like those nerds.”

“Maybe not, but a C is really a step up,” Nam Soon encouraged. “Have you thought about going to college?”

Heung Soo snorted, like the idea was completely absurd. “Are you kidding? No way am I college material. Besides, I already told you I need to get a job so noona can go to college.” He frowned. “I was going to ask about that one job when we were out, remember? But then we saw Soo Min and all that drama happened so I forgot about it. I did until now to be honest. Aish,” he grumbled, smacking himself over the head. “I’ll look for a job this week. See? I am dumb. And forgetful, apparently.”

But Nam soon wasn’t satisfied. If Heung Soo could get his grade up to a C, then he showed potential. He’d lost the chance to play football professionally, but if he got a degree so many new opportunities would open up for him.

“I really think you should consider college,” Nam Soon said seriously, all joking put aside.

But Heung Soo didn’t take the suggestion as seriously as Nam Soon meant it and shook his head. “I’m not cut out for it. Or smart enough. I wouldn’t do well.”

“You might not be the best in the class,” Nam Soon said. “You might even be the worst, but somebody has to be, and even being the worst doesn’t mean you wouldn’t graduate.”

“It’s not going to happen,” Heung Soo said firmly, clearing not wanting to continue discussing it.

So Nam Soon let the issue drop, but only for now. He’d bring it up again.

“Come on, we’re almost at mine,” Heung Soo said, and he led them down an alley, small enough that they had to walk single file.

In just a few minutes they reached Heung Soo’s house and the older boy went in to change while Nam Soon waited outside, choosing not to go in as he didn’t want to risk running into Heung Soo’s sister on the off chance she hadn’t already left for work.

When Heung Soo exited a few minutes later, Pororo tried to follow him out and Nam Soon laughed as he watched him fighting to get the large animal back in the house. It turned into a bit of a battle, but after a minute or two (with Nam Soon offering absolutely no help, instead choosing to just watch and laugh) Heung Soo was able to wrestle the dog back into the house and quickly slam shut the door before the dog could make another dash for freedom.

Immediately there was loud barking. “Shut up,” Heung Soo shouted through the door at the dog. “Go eat noona’s shoes or something!”

Grumbling to himself about demented canines, Heung Soo rejoined Nam Soon, now in his school uniform, and they set off again amidst the dog’s very vocal disapproval, ready for another boring day of sleeping and ignoring teachers.

And indeed it was boring, and as predicated they were late. Luckily however they received no punishment for it. After Heung Soo had nearly hit their teacher, he’d been very weary of him and tended to just give him dirty looks rather than reprimand him. For whatever reason, probably just from association, that treatment usually stretched to Nam Soon too. It was sort of ironic really that it was Heung Soo rather than Nam Soon who was treated in such a way given that out of the two of them Nam Soon had been the more violent one. Back in middle school there had been more than one teacher who was afraid of him and he’d always used that fully to his advantage to get away with even more .

Now however, he just simply paid the teacher no mind and took his usual seat, before settling in for a nap. Nam Soon was looking forwards to lunch break, so he could spend more time with Heung Soo – maybe pull him off to an empty classroom or the roof so they could make out. With memories of last night still fresh in his mind (even more so after a few hours of having nothing better to do than think, and he thoughts had defiantly gone to with Heung Soo) he wanted to feel Heung Soo’s skin under his hands. However, moments after they were dismissed for lunch, before Nam Soon even had time to get out of his chair, Heung Soo got a text and he’d quickly wondered off while reading it, a small frown on his brow and not a single glance Nam Soon’s way, as if he’d forgotten he even existed.

‘Great, don’t bother telling me anything,’ Nam Soon thought sourly as Heung Soo disappeared through the door. ‘It’s not as if I’m your boyfriend or anything.’

Left alone, Nam Soon hung around waiting for him to come back, though when ten minutes past as the classroom emptied out apart from him, he was starting to doubt that he would. Hungry and unwilling to miss a free meal, he decided to just head to the cafeteria – perhaps he’d meet Heung Soo there.

But after getting a tray full of rather bland food (and it only just scraped by as food because it certainly tasted more like cardboard) Heung Soo still hadn’t turned up, and feeling rather disgruntled Nam Soon sat down with Kang Joo, Ha Kyung and Min Ki, taking a drink from his glass of water. And damn, what an unexpected conversation he walked in on.

“Don’t be stupid,” Kang Joo was saying. “He’d have to be first, you can’t just shove a in,” she remarked casually, and Nam Soon snorted his drink through his nose, which caused such hacking coughs it felt like he was going to cough up a lung.

Kang Joo, who he’d sat next to, gave him a few painful slaps on the back to help and Nam Soon gazed at her through watery eyes. “What did you just say?” He wheezed out between painful coughs.

“Gay ,” she replied, like this was an everyday conversation all people partook in. “Well I was just explaining that the receiving partner needs loosening up first, otherwise it’d hurt,” she continued calmly, like she wasn’t talking about gay in public.

“Yah,” Ha Kyung said, looking at her suspiciously, yet for some reason not overly put out at the subject of the conversation – though there was a slightly reproachful tone to her voice. “How would you know that?”

Kang Joo shrugged, “the power of fanfiction.”

‘Fanfiction? Seriously?’ Nam Soon thought to himself. ‘Those ridiculous stories girls wrote about their favourite Kpop idols or TV characters?’

Ha Kyung seemed just as surprised as Nam Soon. “You actually read those things?”

“I’ll have you know I recently wrote a spectacular, if I may say so myself, GTOP story that got a lot of positive feedback,” Kang Joo replied primly, and Nam Soon didn’t miss the gleam of dirty amusement in her eyes. She was clearly enjoying making them squirm. Lee Kang Joo is a dirty little , who’d have thought? (Actually, on second thought, probably most of the school.)

She was obviously enjoying trying to gross them out, but Nam Soon was uncomfortable for a whole different reason. It didn’t feel right, sat here listening to this when he’s gay. He wondered what Kang Joo would say if he told her right now. Not that he would, but he did wonder; was she only okay with homouality in stories? Would she feel the same if she learnt that Nam Soon and Heung Soo are gay? It is strange how differently people can act by actually being confronted with something real rather than just imagination.

“Y-Yah,” Min Ki said weakly, looking a little green. “You shouldn’t talk about things like that. Much less in public.”

Kang Joo him. “Are you homophobic?” She asked accusingly. Nam Soon looked to Min Ki, interested in his answer.

Min Ki shied away from her harsh eyes looking startled, glancing from Nam Soon to Ha Kyung as thought asking for help, but neither did anything. Nam Soon because, well, he wasn’t about to say that being gay is wrong, and Ha Kyung he guessed because she viewed this conversation as beneath her, and therefore of no concern.

“N-No,” Min Ki squeaked when he realised he had to face Kang Joo alone, and Nam Soon wondered if he was lying just to avoid Kang Joo’s wrath. “It – it’s just inappropriate to bring up such subjects.”

“ or homouality?” Nam Soon surprised himself by asking; he hadn’t meant to say anything, it just came out. There was an accusing tone to his voice and he berated himself mentally for it, he didn’t need people to start questioning him. Kang Joo shot him a curious look and Nam Soon swore under his breath, forcefully ignoring her. There’s no way she could be suspicious, right? Not after just that.

Min Ki and Ha Kyung at least didn’t react the same way, though Min Ki was wound tight, looking like he had a bad case of constipation. “? Both?” He blinked, and backtracked. “I mean… I – I don’t really have anything against homouals, I mean I don’t hate them or anything, but… it’s not really something we should be talking about.”

“But if it’s not discussed,” Kang Joo said, but she wasn’t looking at Min Ki, her gaze was locked on Nam Soon and Nam Soon forced his face natural and locked his body tight to avoid fidgeting. He kept his gaze firmly on Min Ki. “Then it will never be understood, and therefore never accepted. You’re smart, Min Ki-ah, surely you understand that.”

Nam Soon could feel Kang Joo still watching him still but he didn’t react, determined not to meet her gaze. She finally looked away after another few tense seconds and he relaxed, relieved.

“I just don’t think it’s an appropriate topic,” Min Ki said, firmly this time. He clearly wanted this conversation to end.

Kang Joo said nothing in return, just hmm’d in mild disapproval, and so Ha Kyung sighed and changed the subject much to Min Ki’s visible relief.

Nam Soon barely joined in the talking as the topic became school work and what people where doing after graduating, only answering with a few words when asked a question directly.

Uncomfortable by the previous conversation, Nam Soon was quick to eat and leave the table, heading up to the roof to get away from them for a while. Thankfully when he got there it was empty; often Ji Hoon and Yi Kyung came up here but today they didn’t, and Nam Soon was freely left to his thoughts.

Kang Joo must know. There was no other explanation as to why she’d been looking at him like that. Though how she knew Nam Soon had no idea. Was it that obvious? Was there something about him that just screamed out ‘gay’? Did that mean other people knew too? It didn’t seem like Ha Kyung or Min Ki had any idea, and surly if it were public knowledge he’d know about it? There was no way people wouldn’t confront him about it if they knew. No, it must just be Kang Joo.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Not that it was Kang Joo in particular, but that it was anyone. He’d been so worried that someone at school, or someone in his neighbourhood would find out. Worried how they’d react, how the way they treated him would change, but it seemed he’d gotten lucky with Kang Joo – she didn’t seem to care.

He wanted to see Heung Soo.

But having no idea where he’s gone off to, he could only pull out his phone to text him.

Where are you? Nam Soon typed out, hitting send.

He raised his head, looking out over the city as he awaited a reply. The clouds were starting to grey, it would probably rain soon. A few minutes later, his phone vibrated and he clicked open the message.

Home. Noona’s sick. She hasn’t slept all night. Didn’t realise she was in earlier. Got to play nursemaid all day. Going to get her to bed now.

Nam Soon frowned, immediately worried for Heung Soo’s health. Hopefully whatever Soo Min had it wasn’t contagious. He was quick to text back.

OK. Tell her to get plenty of sleep. Will I see you tonight? He hit send, hesitated, and then sent; Tell Soo Min I hope she feels better.

A minute later his phone vibrated again.

Don’t think she’d appreciate it. Not sure, probably see you tomorrow.

Nam Soon was disappointed, but he put that aside. OK. See you tomorrow then, don’t get sick.

Heung Soo didn’t text back, but he didn’t need too; he’d already told Nam Soon what was happening, so Nam Soon just tucked his phone away in his pocket and sighed, lying down on the bench-come-table (whatever it was, but it was convenient so Nam Soon didn't really care).

He thought about texting Heung Soo about Kang Joo seeming to know about them, or at least Nam Soon, but decided against it. It wasn’t a pressing matter, he’d just tell him when he next saw him. He should concentrate on his sister rather than worrying about who knows what.

Nam Soon was just contemplating whether he should sleep here, go home or return to class for the afternoon when the door leading onto the roof banged open. Startled by the loud noise in the calm, he bolted up into a sitting position and swung his head around. Kang Joo came walking over and sat herself down primly next to him.

“So how long have you and Heung Soo been a couple?”

Nam Soon blinked. Even though he knew she knew, he wasn’t expecting a casual question like that.

“I… I don’t…” He frowned, trying to work out what exactly it was he wanted to say. “How do you know?”

“The power of web history,” she winked at him, like it was some grand plot. Nam Soon just started at her blankly, having no idea what she as on about. Kang Joo sighed. “You’re clearly useless with computers. You can look up everything that has been searched. After you used my computer, I was curious, so I checked the web history.”

Now Nam Soon understood, and his cheeks heated in a mixture of anger and embarrassment.

“That’s personal,” he snapped, harshly enough for her to startle and send him a weary look. “You had no right.”

Kang Joo winced, a flash of guilt crossing her face. ‘Good,’ Nam Soon though, ‘she should feel guilty.’

“I don’t care, you know,” she said hesitantly. “I’m not – I don’t judge on that like most people. It doesn’t matter to me.”

Nam Soon crossed him arms, more of a protective gesture than anything. “Are you going to tell anyone?” He didn’t think she would, but if she were nosy enough to go poking around in someone’s private business – something Nam Soon honestly didn’t think she’d do – then who knows if she’d turn it into gossip material?

“No,” she denied straight away, voice a little high but firm. “No, I won’t, I promise I won’t say a thing. Not to anyone.”

Nam Soon turned his head away from her, hoping he could trust her on this. “Don’t. And if rumours start, I’ll know it’s you.”

“There will be no rumours,” she said.

Nam Soon groaned and lay back down. This isn’t how he imagined his day going. Surprisingly though, he wasn’t completely freaking out at someone knowing about him, knowing he’s gay. Partly it was due to the fact it was Kang Joo – if it had been Ki Deok or Ji Hoon or Eun Hye it would be a different story, but it wasn’t just that. After last night, after going all the way with Heung Soo, it just didn’t feel like such a big deal anymore, such a huge secret. He… he was okay with being gay.

“Sooo, er…” Kang Joo said, cautious yet curious. “When did you and Heung Soo hook up?”

Nam Soon smiled, and for the first time he let the words just flow, telling Kang Joo everything that happened; all the stress and doubt, and ending with how much Heung Soo meant to him, how he wanted to wake up to his face every day, kiss him at least a hundred times a day, how much he loved him.

For the first time he talked and talked, unburdened by any of it, and Kang Joo just listened, non-judgemental through it all.