“Jihye! Look, Jihye. Watch.”

Yunho goes up on his tiptoes, sticking out his tongue and wrinkling his nose at his baby sister, trying to make her laugh.

“Yunho, stop that,” his mother scolds. She’s sitting in front of the baby chair feeding Jihye. Yunho knows he’s not supposed to play with the baby when she’s being fed, but Jihye hates peas and he feels bad watching her chubby face scrunch up in disgust.

“I was just trying to help, umma,” he says, rocking back onto his feet and letting go of the highchair tray.

“Jihye needs to eat now,” his mother says. “And you need to brush your teeth and find your coat and shoes. You don’t want to be late for Miss Seung.”

“Okay.” Umma is right; he doesn’t want to be late. Miss Seung is his preschool teacher and she’s always very kind. Yunho likes her a lot so he doesn’t want to cause her trouble. He trots off to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

Yunho has always liked preschool. There aren’t that many kids his age in his neighborhood or that many places that are safe to play in; too many roads and not enough yard-space for parents to really let their children go out to just play, so having an entire building and enclosed play-yard full of other kids is something Yunho really likes. Even if he does have to do some work too. He’s not very good at math, but he’s getting pretty good at his letters and even if he’s not very good at spelling, he likes learning how to read and write. It’s kind of cool, how if you know how to do it, you can talk to people even when they’re not there. How they can talk to you back.

He always thought he’d have learned enough that he and Heechul could leave notes for each other around the school, like whispering secrets only cooler, but Heechul left for primary school at the end of last year and Yunho still hadn’t mastered reading and writing well enough by then. Now his goal is to learn by the time he leaves too so that if they end up at the same primary school, he can leave his friend notes there instead.

He misses Heechul. He didn’t really think about it, Heechul leaving. Heechul was his friend ever since his first day and so even though he was older, it never really occurred to Yunho that Heechul would move on to a different school without Yunho.

The other kids at school are nice. Yunho likes them just fine. Junho and Junsu are there; sometimes Yunho stays with them if both his parents have to work and there’s no school and they’re usually pretty fun to play with. Boah’s not bad for a girl and Minwoo is cool, though Youngwoon can be a grump, especially when he doesn’t get his way.

But they’re fun. Yunho likes them. And he likes school.

He just also misses Heechul.

The walk to the SM School for Young Students isn’t too long so as long as the weather isn’t bad, Yunho walks to school with his mother. Yunho doesn’t mind the walk, but he always wants to stop and look at things on the way — an elderly gentleman in their neighborhood has a dog that he always walks around the time Yunho goes to school and he doesn’t mind letting Yunho pet her — but his mother doesn’t like to stop, and if Yunho straggles too much she makes him hold her hand and won’t let go until they get to the school gates.

Yunho tries to be good, but there are always so many interesting things and the little dog is so cute and friendly, and more often than not, Yunho ends up trailing along beside his mother.

“Yunho, stop pulling. You’ll wake Jihye.”

“But we’re almost there,” Yunho says, tugging his mother’s hand again. “Come on, umma, I don’t want to be late.”

“We won’t be late,” his mother sighs, not increasing her pace at all. “You’ll have plenty of time to play before you have to go inside.”

Yunho doesn’t know how she knows that he really just wants to get there in time to play tag with Junho and Junsu and the others. He’s pretty sure growups don’t actually know everything, but his mother sure seems to know a lot. Yunho thinks if he knows even half as much as she does by the time he’s a man, it’ll be a miracle.

They reach the yard. Yunho’s mother lets go of his hand and crouches down.

“Alright,” she says. “Behave for Miss Seung.”

“I will.”

“And eat all of your lunch.”

“Okay.”

“And try not to forget your hat this time. I’m not getting you another one so bring yours home.”

Yunho looks down and toes the ground. He didn’t mean to forget his hat. He really didn’t.

“I’ll try,” he promises. Then he reaches up and grips the blanket, gently tugging at his mother’s arms until he can see Jihye’s sleeping face. “Bye, Jihye,” he says quietly. He leans forward and kisses his sister’s cheek. Jihye is nearly two now, but she still has that clean, slightly sweet baby smell. “I’m sorry you had to eat peas.”

His mother smiles and shakes her head, then runs a hand over his hair.

“Alright, go on,” she says, nodding to him. “You have fun. We’ll be back to pick you up this afternoon.”

Yunho nods then races over the playground and tugs on Yoochun’s sleeve.

“Who’s it?”

Yunho is just about to catch Junsu and stop being ‘it’ when they get called inside.

“No fair,” he complains. “Now I have to be ‘it’ again later.”

“Just chase Yoochun for a little,” says Junho, Junsu’s elder twin. “Then you won’t be ‘it’ for very long.”

“That’s not fair, either,” says Yunho, following the twins inside to sit down on the rug for the morning meeting. “Yoochun has as- az- asthma.” It’s hard word to say, but Heechul taught him so he remembers. “Chasing him until he can’t breathe isn’t nice.”

Junho shrugs and plunks down. Junsu sits down next to him, so close he’s almost in his twin’s lap. Yunho sighs and sits a little ways away. It must be nice to have a brother to play with and be friends with all the time. Yunho likes Jihye, but she’s still just a baby. He can’t really play with her that much.

“Alright, everyone,” Miss Seung says as they all settle down in a half-circle on the rug. “Before we start, there’s someone I want you all to meet.”

Yunho looks up. He knows that sometimes they get new kids during the school year, like how Yoochun came in half-way through last year, but it’s unusual.

“This is Kim Jaejoong,” says Miss Seung, gesturing to a boy standing beside her. “He’ll be joining us from now on, so please be nice to him.”

Kim Jaejoong does not look happy. His eyes are big and darting around the room and his hands are clenched in front of him and when everyone has chorused ‘hello’ at him and Miss Seung releases him to start the morning songs, he sits as far back in the circle as he can with his back up against a bookshelf and his knees pulled up to his chest.

Yunho likes the morning routine, the songs they sing to remember the days of the week and the ones about what the weather is doing each day, but he keeps looking back at the new boy. Jaejoong doesn’t say anything or sing along the whole meeting. In fact, he barely moves. Yunho wonders if maybe he’s just shy or scared, but the one time Jaejoong catches him looking and Yunho smiles at him, the other boy just stares back, his face blank, and Yunho doesn’t think that’s what shy looks like.

It’s interesting and confusing and Yunho wants to understand — it’s important to understand other people, Heechul always said. Their feelings are just as important as your own — but he also wants to sing the morning songs and to learn the new word of the day: Patience-to wait and not get angry or upset about having to wait.

It’s a word Yunho’s mother uses a lot with him sometimes.

After the morning meeting, they split up into their age groups, the threes and fours, the fives and sixes, and the sevens. All the groups get to play together at recesses and during some of the indoor play times, but for most of the day they’re split up into separate classrooms. Yunho’s group, the fives and sixes, goes to the classroom on the right side of the building, and he thinks it’s probably the best room. The room for the youngest kids is small and still mostly a nursery with toys and cots and really big blocks made of cardboard so no one gets hurt. Yunho’s less familiar with the room for the sevens, but he got to visit Heechul in there a few times for lunch and it looked okay, but there wasn’t as much color or as many games to play.

Yunho’s classroom is better. It’s not as simple as the younger kids’ but it’s funner than the older ones’. They have paints, crayons, coloring books, glue and wood — though they only get to use those with a teacher’s supervision — a whole assortment of blocks and little plastic things for building with. There’s even a small play house in one corner, which Hyojin likes to push into the middle of the floor to use as a ship when she plays pirate captain (a few of the boys tried to argue with her at first, saying girls couldn’t be pirates or ship captains, but Hyojin got sticks at recess to be swords and beat all of them. She makes better stories anyway, Yunho thinks).

That’s on one half of the classroom. The other side is dedicated towards learning. There’s a long paper alphabet banner all along the ceiling, and a big chalkboard for Miss Seung to write their lessons on. There’s also a calendar, and a color wheel, and a number chart that counts to fifty and has some simple math at the bottom.

Yunho doesn’t like math very much but his mother says it’s important and she’s usually right so he tries to do well anyway.

The desks in the classroom are arranged into three rows, each with four desks. The desks are made to seat two students. Yunho always used to sit next to Heechul when they were in the same class, but then Heechul moved to the sevens group and Yunho never found anyone else to always sit with, but that’s okay because it means he gets to sit with everyone. Well, everyone except Junho and Junsu, who always sit together.

Today, Yunho doesn’t know who he wants to sit with, so he just slides into an empty desk behind the twins and waits to see what happens. Then he sees the new boy. Jaejoong is at the back of the group. His eyes are still big and staring and he seems unsure of what to do.

And Yunho suddenly remembers his own first day. How big everything had seemed. How strange. How he’d had no idea what to do or where to go until Heechul had reached out and pulled him down beside him.

He tries to catch Jaejoong’s eye but the boy is too busy looking at everything to notice so Yunho opens his mouth. Before he can say anything though, before he can call out and tell the new boy to come sit with him, Daewon drops down into the empty seat beside him.

“Daewon!” Yunho complains.

“What?” asks Daewon. “Did I step on you? I’m sorry.”

Jaejoong, eyes still big and darting around the room, suddenly spots an empty desk at the way back and makes a beeline for it.

Yunho sighs and turns to face front again.

“It’s okay,” he says. Daewon is better at numbers than Yunho is anyway. Maybe if Yunho watches him, he’ll learn better too.

Yunho thinks snack might be his favorite thing about school. He and all the other kids bring lunches from home, but snack is provided for them. And sometimes it’s just normal stuff, rice with sauce or maybe some fruit, but sometimes they get to try things from other places, too. Like a pudding made with rice in it, or apples dipped in honey or covered with something sticky that Miss Seung calls ‘peanut butter’ and tastes a little like sesame treats.

Yunho doesn’t know why Miss Seung and the other teachers like to bring in such strange things for snack, but he does know he likes it. His mother is a good cook and he likes the things she makes, but it’s always fun to try new things and Yunho likes food especially. He also really likes the juice boxes. They almost never have juice boxes at home because Yunho always drinks too many and leaves the boxes and chewed up straws all over the apartment.

Today, snack is some cracker and apples cut like little bunnies.

Yunho grins and makes one of his bunny-apples hop over to Junsu’s crackers. Junsu’s face lights up and he grabs one of his own bunnies and hops it over on top of the crackers.

“You can’t have these,” he makes the bunny say. “They’re mine. I found them.”

“I was only looking,” Yunho’s bunny says back. “I thought they might be for climbing but they’re not very big.”

Junsu frowns. “We’re bunnies. Bunnies don’t climb things.”

“Why not,” Yunho makes his bunny say. “I bet I could climb that thing there.” He hops the apple up Junsu’s arm.

“Bet I can climb faster,” Junho chimes in from Junsu’s other side, hopping on of his own bunny-apples up his twin’s other arm.

“No you can’t!” Yunho says and his bunny makes a mad dash over Junsu’s rumpled sweater sleeve and onto his shoulder.

“Yes I can,” Junho says. His bunny races up too, then starts to climb Junsu’s head. Junsu giggles and squirms.

“Oh, it’s moving,” Yunho’s bunny yelps as Junsu’s shoulder shifts beneath his hand.

“Augh!” Junho yells suddenly as Junsu turns his head and tries to take a bite out of the bunny. “It has teeth! Run away!”

“Oh no!” Yunho’s bunny hops quick back to the table and cowers behind the crackers. Then Yunho puts his head on the table. “Better find a cave to hide in. That looks good.” He hops the bunny over to his mouth.

“Ah,” says Junsu’s bunny, hopping over suspiciously. “I don’t know. It doesn’t look safe to me.”

“What are you talking about, it’s oka—” The bunny breaks off with death cries and some crunching noises as Yunho bites it in half and chews. Junsu’s bunny panics and runs away and meets a similar end when it races straight into Junho’s mouth.

“Hyung, no fair,” Junsu whines. “That was mine.”

“Sorry,” says Junho. He holds out one of his bunny-apples to his twin. “You can have one of mine if you want.”

Junsu snatches it and tries to stuff the whole thing in his mouth. Then he grabs another one of his own bunnies and starts hopping it around some more.

“Yunho, Junsu, Junho,” Miss Seung says, coming up behind them and crouching down. “Snack time is almost over. If you keep playing, you won’t have time to eat it properly.”

“Ah, sorry, teacher,” Junsu says. His bunny hops back to his napkin and he sets it down.

“Yeah, sorry, teacher,” Yunho agrees. He knows they’re not really supposed to play with their food, but the little bunny-apples were just so cute.

“You started it,” Junho grumbles. Junho doesn’t like getting in trouble.

“It doesn’t matter who started it,” says Miss Seung. “And I know they’re cute and it’s fun to play. But now is the time for eating. You can play more later, okay?”

“Okay,” they all agree. Miss Seung stands and walks back up the table to check on Hyojin and Boah.

“Junho,” Junsu says, tugging his twin’s sleeve. “Junho, don’t be mad. She didn’t even really get us in trouble.”

Junho shrugs and eats another piece of apple. Yunho sighs. Junho is fun but if he’s mad at Yunho he probably won’t talk to him again until recess, which means probably Junsu won’t either. He kicks his feet under the table. Yunho hates it when people are mad at him and he can’t make them not mad again, even if he knows Junho will be okay again later. It still makes him sad.

“Did you make Junho mad again?” Yoochun asks after snack when Yunho comes over to play blocks for a little before lessons start again.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Yunho says.

Yoochun frowns in concentration as he places a block on top of the tower he’s making for the roof.

“It’s okay,” he says. “Junho gets mad at everyone.”

“Not at Junsu,” Yunho says, starting a low wall around Yoochun’s tower.

“Because everyone else gets mad at Junsu. Junho doesn’t have to.”

It’s true. Junsu has a lot of energy and he doesn’t always think before he does things. He constantly runs into people or grabs too hard by accident and if you play blocks with him nothing you make ever stays built because Junsu likes the part where you smash the tower the best.

“I guess,” Yunho says. He’s never minded Junsu; he never means to hurt anyone or make them mad and for some reason that makes a difference to Yunho. “What do you think about the new boy?” he asks Yoochun.

Yoochun shrugs. “He’s quiet.”

Yunho thinks about that for a moment, then looks around the room. Jaejoong is off in a corner, flipping through a book by himself.

“Maybe he’s shy?”

“Maybe,” says Yoochun. He doesn’t sound very interested. “Let’s make a moat.”

Yunho grins. “Cool.” He starts to help Yoochun lay down blue blocks inside the wall for the water. “Who lives in the tower?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a king?”

“Or maybe a princess?” Yunho frowns, thinking.

“Maybe they both live there,” says Yoochun.

“A whole family,” Yunho says, liking that idea. “A magic, royal family. They rule the whole kingdom. But they stay in the tower. They never come out.”

“Why not?” Yoochun asks. “Who wants to stay in a tower all the time?”

“Nobody,” says Yunho. “They don’t stay there because they want to. It’s because they have to.”

Yunho likes telling stories. He likes it because they can be whatever you want them to be, and sometimes they help him remember. He and Heechul used to make up stories about the letters they were learning so they would remember them better.

“Maybe they’re cursed and so they have to stay inside. Or maybe…maybe that’s their magic. They need it to rule the kingdom. If they ever leave the tower they’ll lose it. Their people will get hurt and the other kingdoms will take them over and make everyone slaves.”

Yoochun stares at him for a moment, then shrugs. He grabs a smaller green block and puts it in the water.

“The moat should have alligators,” he says.

“Okay,” Yunho agrees. “And maybe some fish. They have huge teeth and can eat your feet off.”

“Like an alligator?” Yoochun says.

Yunho opens his mouth to argue that, no, it’s not like an alligator. Flying, feet-eating fish are nothing like alligators. But then he changes his mind.

“Yeah,” he says. “Like an alligator.”

He misses Heechul.

Jaejoong sits in the corner by himself all through play time. And he sits in the corner by himself all through class. And he sits in the corner by himself all though lunch too. As far as Yunho can tell — and he’s maybe not paying the most attention, but he does notice — Jaejoong doesn’t even talk to anyone. Or even try. And Yunho thinks that’s sad and boring so at recess, after he successfully catches Daewon and stops being ‘it,’ he goes off in search.

He finds Jaejoong sitting curled up, with one fist pressed to his mouth, in one of the tunnel-things on the playground. Yunho doesn’t know what they’re called, but they’re useful for hiding in and fun but really hard to get on top of. (He’s managed it once or twice, but the teachers don’t like it. They get mad if they catch him.) He sticks his head inside, chin resting on his hands and waits, but Jaejoong doesn’t say anything. So Yunho makes his smile big and wide.

“Hi. Jaejoong, hi.”

Jaejoong blinks and turns slowly to look at him.

“Me?” he asks.

Yunho nods. “It’s your name I called, isn’t it?”

“Is it?” says Jaejoong softly. “I don’t know.”

Yunho puts his head to one side. He doesn’t know what to make of that answer.

“I’m Yunho,” he offers. “Wanna come play? There’s tag.”

The other boy hesitates for a moment, then shakes his head. Yunho gets back up then crawls inside the tube with him.

“Is it fun in here?” he asks. “There’s little holes,” he adds, leaning over to one and putting his eye to it. “You can see out and know what’s happening. But other kids can’t see in as well.”

“It’s quiet,” Jaejoong says. His fist is against his mouth again so his voice is a little muffled. But Yunho thinks it’s a nice voice.

“Oh,” he says. “Yeah. It’s noisy outside.”

Jaejoong nods.

“We could play something quiet,” Yunho offers. “Want to?”

Jaejoong says nothing. Yunho sits down and doesn’t know what to do. He wants Jaejoong to come play with him, but he doesn’t want to make him do it if he doesn’t want to. But he doesn’t really want to just leave either. That feels…weird. But he can’t do anything if Jaejoong won’t even talk to him. So he just sits there and tries not to fidget too much.

It’s hard. Patience. Yunho remembers the word of the day. Patience. It’s hard. But he’s trying.

He props his legs up and fiddles with the hole that’s starting in the knee of his jeans. The bunched material looks like a mountain range and he starts walking his fingers over his pants, pretending that they’re hikers, exploring some new country. Then he realizes that mountains aren’t blue so it must be the ocean. His finger-people dive down under his legs to see if there are monsters.

Or maybe a city. Maybe his shoes are great cities full of merpeople and they catch his finger-divers in the shoelace-traps so they can torture them for information about the human world. And then they eat them. Obviously.

“Yunho!” Junsu’s voice. And then Junho’s. “Yunho! Where are you? Are you still playing?”

Yunho blinks, then looks over at Jaejoong. If Jaejoong wants it quiet then he should go back out so the twins don’t come in here looking for him. That would be really noisy.

“I have to go,” he tells Jaejoong. “Come and play if you change your mind.”

After recess, they only have one more lesson. Reading and writing. And then they get to play inside for a while before they go home. Yunho especially likes the just-before-going-home playtime. That’s when all the kids get to use the whole building and play together if they want. But first he has to pay attention and practice his letters more.

He wishes reading and writing came earlier. It’s too late and even though they always have nap-time before lunch, he’s tired and it makes it harder to concentrate on what Miss Seung is saying. But he has to learn this, he has to. Or he’ll never be able to write Heechul a note to leave anywhere.

Miss Seung writes three short sentences on the chalkboard. A few of the words look familiar and after a moment Yunho realizes that the first sentence is about a dog. Yunho likes dogs so ‘dog’ is a word he knows. He copies the sentence down on his sheet of paper and his handwritting is sloppy but it helps him to write it to figure out what it says:

The dog can run.

Yunho grins, pleased with himself, then tries the next sentence. It’s a little harder but he gets it eventually:

The cow has spots.

Yunho’s never seen a real cow before, but he’s seen some pictures. He thinks ‘spots’ might be too small a word for the large black and white patches he remembers the cows in the pictures having, but at least he knows what the sentence says.

The last sentence has a word that’s longer and that he’s never seen before. He copies the sentence down and tries to sound it out:

The t-e-a-c-h-e-r — the teacher is p-a…p-a-t-i-e…p-a-t-i-e-n-t. The teacher is pa-tie-nt. The teacher is patient.

Yunho raises his hand for Miss Seung to come and check him. He giggles a little as he tells her the last one.

“But, teacher, what if she’s not?” he asks. “What if the teacher isn’t patient?”

Miss Seung smiles at him. “Then she’s going to have a very hard time, isn’t she?”

Yunho giggles some more and nods. He likes Miss Seung.

“Okay, Yunho,” she says. “Write those again. Try to make them more neat. Then practice your name, okay?”

Yunho nods happily. He’s getting better at it. It still takes him a long time to get some of the words but not as long as some of the kids. He swings his feet under his chair then stops. He has to try and write neatly now. That’s much harder.

When Yunho first started learning how to spell his name it was hard. He didn’t know all his letters yet so it was hard to remember how his name was supposed to look. So Heechul helped him write it and then they made up a story to help him remember next time.

First there’s a man sitting on a rocking chair. He’s a grandfather, getting ready to read a story to his grandkids.

Then there’s the moon riding a table on top of a sled. The moon got bored just sitting in the sky so it came down to go sledding, because if the sun is hot then the moon must be cold so it would like sledding. But the moon is too big to fit on a sled so it put a table on top of the sled to help.

And then there’s a broad-shouldered man with a tiny hat. Yunho likes to think it’s his own father, whose shoulders are broad, even though Yunho’s never seen him wear a hat like that.

Yunho’s father is a lawyer. Whenever Yunho doesn’t want to be a fireman or a deep-sea diver or a airplane pilot, he wants to be a lawyer too, just his appa.

Yunho smiles and writes his name and writes his name.

Playtime with the whole school is when Yunho used to go and find Heechul. And sometimes Heechul had more work and couldn’t come play, but he was always happy to see Yunho anyway. But Heechul’s not here anymore so just like Yunho sits with everyone, now he plays with everyone too.

Today, Junho and Junsu have the scooter out and are taking turns pushing each other around the halls. Yunho laughs and chases after them. He wants a turn too. It takes a while for the twins to notice him, but once they do they’re both happy to let him have a turn. With both of them pushing, Yunho feels like he’s going twice as fast and he cackles with delight.

“Push us both, push us both,” Junsu says, pushing Junho down onto the scooter and trying to climb on in front of him.

“I can’t,” Yunho says. “You’re too heavy. And we’re not supposed to go on more than one person. Teacher said, remember?”

Junsu huffs and stands back up.

“It’s okay,” Junho says, getting off too and moving to stand behind the scooter. “You can go next, Junsu. I’ll push.”

Junsu claps his hands and sits back down. Yunho starts to follow them again so he can get another turn, but then he wonders if Jaejoong would like the scooter too.

He stops. He doesn’t see Jaejoong anywhere in the halls. He goes back to the classroom. Jaejoong is sitting in the corner by himself again, flipping through another book and ignoring the other kids in the room playing. Yunho walks over and sits down beside him.

“Do you want to come play now?” he asks. “There’s a scooter. I could push you.”

Jaejoong blinks at him again, then shakes his head.

Too noisy? Yunho wonders. “We could stay here. There’s blocks. Wanna build something?”

Jaejoong shakes his head. Yunho frowns, frustrated.

“What do you want, then?” he asks.

“I—” Jaejoong starts, then stops and swallows. “I want to go home.”

He wants to go home? Maybe he’s never been in school before. Yunho mostly doesn’t miss home anymore, but he remembers at first he did. He missed his apartment and his own room and his own bed and he missed his umma. He also remembers it was easier when Heechul distracted him.

“We go home in a little bit,” Yunho says. “You should come play. It will go faster.” But Jaejoong is shaking his head.

“No!” he says, and he sounds frustrated. “I don’t want to go back. I want to go home!”

Yunho stares at him. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s not home,” Jaejoong says, hitting the book against his lap. “I don’t — it’s not right. It’s not home.”

“Oh,” says Yunho. “Did you move? Is that why it’s not home?”

Jaejoong’s eyes flick from the book to Yunho and then back again. His fist comes up to his mouth like in the playground.

“I don’t know,” he says quietly. “I don’t know.”

“But you don’t like it?” Yunho asks. Jaejoong shakes his head.

“No. And I don’t want to play.”

Yunho frowns at him for a moment, then, “Okay,” he says. He stands up. He walks over the crafts shelf and grabs a coloring book and as many crayons as he can hold. Then he trots back over to Jaejoong and plops down on his stomach beside the other boy and open the book.

He grins when he finds a picture of a dog. He likes dogs. He grabs a crayon.

“What are you doing?” Jaejoong asks.

“I’m coloring,” says Yunho.

“Why?” Jaejoong sounds completely confused and Yunho smiles up at him.

“You said you didn’t want to play,” he says simply. He doesn’t want to just leave the other boy alone again but he doesn’t want to bother him either. So he’s going to lay here and color and not be noisy and if Jaejoong decides he doesn’t like even that then he can go somewhere else. It’s a good solution, he thinks.

Jaejoong stares at him. Yunho shrugs and smiles some more and goes back to his picture. Above him, Jaejoong goes back to his book. Yunho can hear him flipping pages. He wonders if Jaejoong can actually read the book or if he’s mostly looking at the pictures.

Yunho finishes the ball and grabs another crayon for the dog.

“Dogs aren’t blue,” Jaejoong says a moment later. Yunho looks up to find the other boy frowning down at his coloring. He doesn’t look angry, Yunho thinks, just confused.

“I know,” he says. “But wouldn’t it be cool if they were?”

Jaejoong blinks then says, “What if…what if the sky were pink?” slowly. Like he’s not sure he’s supposed to ask or something.

Yunho grins. “Ah, that would be pretty.” He shifts a little so Jaejoong can get to the coloring book too if he wants. “Wanna color the sky?” he asks.

Jaejoong hesitates. “Are you going to color everything wrong?” he asks.

Yunho considers his options, and then his crayons. Then he grins again. “Yep.”

He thinks Jaejoong almost smiles.

“Okay,” he says. He lies down and grabs the pink crayon and starts to color the sky.

“What color should the grass be?” Yunho asks, going back to his blue dog. “It can’t be green.”

“Red,” says Jaejoong. “It should be red. That’s why the sky is pink.”

“Like a reflection?”

Jaejoong nods.

“Cool,” Yunho says. “And the trees should be yellow. That would make the sky pink too.”

“Red and yellow make orange,” Jaejoong says.

“I know,” says Yunho. “But we can’t make the tree white. The paper is white already.”

“Oh.” Jaejoong frowns.

“Maybe the ocean is white,” Yunho says. “Red grass and yellow trees and white oceans might make a pink sky.”

“Is that why the dog is blue?” Jaejoong asks, switching from the pink sky to the yellow trees. “Did it steal the color from the ocean and now everything is strange?”

Yunho blinks, then grins. “Yeah,” he says. “They needed to be blue like water to keep the cats away.”

He kicks his feet up behind him and grabs the red crayon for the grass. He doesn’t even miss not getting his second turn on the scooter. He’s having too much fun.