Prompt: Minseok is a good student with great grades so his mother ask him to help her friend's son Luhan to study

Minseok sighs as he stands in front of the entrance of the library. Right now, he would rather be anywhere but here. After all, he is a teenaged boy and there were about a million things he wanted to do in his free time. But instead he’s still at school to do this stupid favor for his mother.

When his mother first brought up the idea of tutoring her friend’s son, he immediately refused. He’s heard about the boy, Luhan, and he has no intention of being around him for an extended period of time. It’s not that Luhan’s a bad person, but Minseok’s at the top of the top class, and Luhan’s, well, at the bottom of the bottom. He’s only briefly met Luhan while eating dinner with both of their parents a couple of years before, and the only thing Luhan said was a comment about Minseok’s cheeks. Minseok’s mom insisted that Luhan didn’t know much Korean and didn’t mean to insult him, but he’s been wary of the boy ever since.

His mother tried to appeal to his benevolent side and told him how Luhan and his mother would be so grateful, and how he would have the feeling of a job well-done, but he wouldn’t bite. Finally, she bribed him with a new pair of soccer cleats, the kind the pros wore. So, here he is at the library where they agreed to meet after school 3 days a week.

When he enters the library and sees Luhan at a table building a house of books, he almost turns right back around. But he has a job to do, and he won’t quit until he’s done. Or until Luhan drives him crazy.

He sighs and makes his way to the table, trying to ignore the way Luhan is staring at him with a blank face. He pulls out the chair across from Luhan and collapses into it, making no effort to hide his displeasure in having to tutor. “Exams are in two months,” he immediately gets down to business and opens up his math workbook, “so we really have no time to waste on catching you up with what you don’t understand.”

“You’re on the soccer team.”

Minseok looks up from his book, mildly surprise. “Er, yeah. I am.”

Luhan nods and starts dismantling his book fort. “You probably haven’t noticed, but I’ve attended every game. You have good coordination, but you’re a little too obvious when you set up to score.”

His words make Minseok scowl and he crosses his arms. “If you’re such an expert on soccer, why aren’t you on the team?”

“Because I’m failing,” he sighs and uses one arm to support his head while the other opens up his own math book. “School rules says you can’t play with failing grades, and I’ve been failing since middle school, so…”

Minseok’s features soften a little. The Chinese boy sounds genuine upset about not being about to play. “Is that why you want to get your grades up?”

“Yeah, well, I play a little with my cousin on the weekends, but he’s not very good so it’s not really the same as being on a team and competing.”

“On the days we don’t meet, we can play together.” The words spill out of Minseok’s mouth before he can think over them, but he can’t take them back once he sees the excitement on Luhan’s face. “You can show me how to set up my goals.” Luhan smiles and nods. “Okay now, so what don’t you understand?”

Luhan’s smile drops as he looks down at his math book. He flips back and forth through the pages and sheepishly looks up at Minseok. “Um, everything?”

-

“What year was the Korean alphabet created?” Minseok kicks the ball to Luhan.

Luhan traps the ball under his foot and thinks for a second. “It was 14-something… 42? No, no! 1443, right?” Minseok nods and Luhan sends the ball back to him.

“Who wrote ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’?” He kicks the ball back and pulls at his t-shirt that’s starting to stick to him because of his sweat.

“Ernest Hemingway.” Luhan answers quickly and kicks the ball back quicker than Minseok can react. After running after the ball and retrieving it from just off the field, he throws it at Luhan, who attempts to head- the ball. He misses, but he’s able to catch it before it’s thrown off the field again.

“You’re doing great, Luhan,” Minseok compliments. “I don’t know why you need me.” He sits in the grass and lifts up the bottom of his shirt to wipe his forehead. Over the few weeks they’ve been studying, Minseok has learned how good Luhan is at retaining information. Besides math, he had no real problem with catching up with his classes. Because of the speed at which he was absorbing everything, they were able to hang out more casually and sort of become friends.

“I’ve had trouble with the language barrier,” Luhan admits. He jogs over and sits next to Minseok.

“No kidding. You told me my cheeks were fat the first time we met,” Minseok teases.

Luhan playfully shoves him and pouts. “I learned the word from tv. I meant to tell you that I like how round your face is.”

“Still not any better.”

Luhan shrugs and pokes Minseok’s cheek. Minseok’s heartbeat picks up a little. “I’m being serious though. Even though I understand the language more, sometimes the teachers talk too fast or use words I don’t know. And in middle school, I tried to just teach myself, but obviously I’m not very good at that. Teachers weren’t much of a help either after I asked if they could help; said they didn’t want to have to repeat the lesson to me everyday.”

“I’m sorry,” Minseok sincerely apologizes for the lack of help from the teachers. “I wish I could helped you earlier. Maybe we could have been friends earlier.”

Luhan stands up and brushes the grass off his shorts. He cradles the ball in one arm and offers his hand to Minseok. “It’s not your fault. Come on, you promised me homemade jajangmyeon.”

Minseok takes Luhan’s hand and his stupid heart speeds up again like it has for the past few days. His heart quickening is just a continuance of weird thoughts and feelings he’s had around Luhan. It started with a fleeting though the previous week that Luhan looked very handsome in the school uniform and ever since then he’s been unable to stop himself from mentally listing all of Luhan’s good points. He hasn’t made new friends in awhile, so he hopes that he’s just feeling the joy of a new friend, because previous experience has shown that his crushes end up unreciprocated.

-

“MINSEOK!” All the students turn toward the voice as Luhan runs through the halls after class. “Minseok!” He finally finds the boy he’s looking for and grabs his hand. “I passed, I passed! Come look!” Before Minseok can get a word in, Luhan takes off again and drags Minseok to the bulletin board where all their grades are posted. Minseok quickly glances at the sheet for his class and quietly notes that he’s on top again. Nothing surprising. But what is surprising is that Luhan’s name is third on the sheet for his own class.

“You did it!” Minseok exclaims, just as excited to see that all their hard work over the past two months paid off.

Luhan bounces on his toes and brings Minseok into a tight hug. “When the teacher asked to talk to me right after class, I thought I failed again, but she wanted to congratulate me!” He pulls back slightly to look at Minseok’s face, and when they lock eyes, they realize that there’s something different between them. Both of their hearts are racing as they stare at each other and their eyes flick down to each other’s lips.

Minseok’s not sure who leans forward first but their lips both meet in the middle in a brief kiss. They pull away quickly and awkwardly avert their eyes. “Um… thanks again for helping me, Minseok.”

Minseok smiles and nods. “You’re welcome, Luhan.”

//

The first soccer match is a month after they come back from vacation. Luhan is pacing nervously in the locker room, excited but worried about performing in his first game. The rest of the team minus Minseok are bouncing off the walls, excited to get back on the field for the season. Minseok usually takes a few minutes to himself to calm his nerves and focus his mind, but it looks like Luhan is in need of someone to relax him.

He stops Luhan from pacing and pulls him behind a set of lockers, out of sight from the rest of their team and gives him several pecks on his lips. “You’re amazing, Luhan, and now everyone gets to see it. You have no reason to be scared.”

Luhan exhales slowly and rests his hands on his boyfriend’s waist. “Just… what if I score in the wrong goal.”

“You won’t. You waited too long to be on his team to mess up like that. I’m sure you’ll score a thousand goals and they’ll crown you as MVP of the world.”

Luhan smiles and kisses Minseok again. “Okay, I believe you.”

Though their team is quite good, they still lose by a goal to the rival team. And while Luhan only scores once, the way his eyes immediately seek Minseok out and the way he clings to Minseok as they briefly celebrate feels like he scored those thousand that Minseok predicted.

Requested by vannya_is. I hope you enjoyed it!