“I think this is it,” Jinki mumbled to himself, head turning to follow the apartment complex sliding by the bus window.

 

When the bus came a to a jerky halt at a stop on the about four blocks over, Jinki quickly gathered his various bags and edged down the three steps, careful not to trip or snag any straps on the railing. “Thank you!” he called back to the bus driver as his duffel bag slipped from his hand. The doors slid shut with a hiss and the bus chugged away, leaving Jinki on a cracked cement pad riddled with weeds.

 

He reached down to collect his duffel, making the bag on his back slip forward, trapping his arm and hitting him in the head. “Come on!” he complained, trying to sort himself out. When he was finally arranged satisfactorily, Jinki looked around furtively.

 

Which direction was the apartment building?

 

I’m an adult? Who am I kidding? he thought, not quite panicking. Of course, finally going to college after working for years after high school and paying for it himself had been Jinki’s choice, one that his parents fully supported, but he was already discovering that moving to an entirely different city was much more intimidating than moving out of his parent’s house. He wasn’t quite regretting it now, but anxiety was starting to stir in his belly. The uneventful bus ride had done wonders to calm him and lull him into a false sense of security. He’d been convinced that everything would be just fine without his mom or dad just a phone call away, but look. Now he couldn’t even find his apartment building.

 

I’m going to wander forever with my duffel bags until I die of starvation or old age, unable to find my building, his traitorous mind told him. The day wasn’t hot, but he could feel the beginnings of sweat tickle his hairline.

 

He glanced left, then right. Left again. I’m ninety-five percent sure it’s to the left, he thought, trying to convince himself. Ninety-eight percent sure. Glancing around one more time, he shrugged with forced nonchalance and turned to the left.

 

After trudging a few blocks, he was swamped with relief at the sight of the apartment building squatting a little ways up the block, sturdy and just so beautifully there. Perhaps he was finally getting over his pesky tendency to get lost. Maybe this adult thing wouldn’t be so hard after all. He slogged up the sidewalk, the straps of his duffel bags cutting further into his shoulders and hand with every step. Carrying his entire life around was no easy task. Everything important that Jinki owned was stuffed in those three duffel bags.

 

He carefully looked both ways before crossing the street because it would be a shame to get hit by a truck and die before he even got inside. Curiously, there was a giant patch of dirt next to the apartment building. Jinki stopped and leaned over the fence, curious.

 

Wonder what that’s for, he thought. Maybe for burying the bodies, his mind hissed. Jinki just shook his head, wondering where the hell these random thoughts came from. That being said, there was a distinct possibility that he dirt was for corpse-hiding. He’d have to keep his eyes peeled.

 

Motion off to the side caught his eye. He turned, mind instantly snapping to an image of some punk with a knife demanding his wallet. Instead, there was a man with a small array of paint cans standing next to a large, plywood sign about halfway down the block in the other direction. The man had styled hair that faded from brown to light blonde and ears littered with piercings. Dressed in a sleeveless tank top, baggy shorts, and arms decorated in whorls of permanent ink, he looked like the exact kind of man that Jinki’s parents warned him to stay away from. And the kind that might have a knife on him.

 

“What is he doing?” Jinki asked no one in particular. Leaning over, he squinted. The man was painting numbers on the sign in bright yellow, touching up whatever had been painted there before. The numbers weren’t quite legible, but the man was doing it with obvious care.

 

Huh, Jinki thought suspiciously, fixing a strap that was falling down his shoulder. I wonder if he lives here.

 

Shrugging, he continued toward the building, unaware that the man was watching him struggle down the sidewalk.

 

I wonder which side the door is on…

 

***

 

The rumble of the dryer tickled the backs of Jinki’s legs, so he held them up for a few seconds to let the sensation fade, continuing to read his book all the while. It would take about ten more minutes for the last load of laundry to finish drying. Ten minutes of his being vibrated to uncomfortable numbness.

 

Jinki sat on top of the dryer for two reasons: there were no chairs in the communal apartment laundry room, and he really didn’t want anyone to steal the little amount of laundry he possessed.

 

Time passed quickly for the young college student when he was completely absorbed in his book.

 

“How can I move thee? Will no entreaties cause thee to turn a favorable eye upon thy creature, who implores thy goodness and compassion? Believe me, Frankenstein, I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity-”

 

Something flashed in Jinki’s peripheral vision, startling him. He couldn’t help but to jump and fumble the book, which sent the paperback straight to the floor. “Crap,” he muttered, and hopped off the dryer to rescue his poor crumpled book. What the young man failed to realize was that another man had already leaned down to pick up the battered copy of Frankenstein.

 

Of course, Jinki slammed into the guy and fell over.

 

“Ah!” he yelped, trying and failing to regain his balance. One hand managed a precarious grip on the corner of the washer, but the other was flailing wildly in empty space. The man grabbed his upper arm and used it to haul Jinki upright. The tight grip hurt his arm, but was likely less painful than landing face first on the dirty cement floor.

 

The kind stranger handed Jinki his book, turned, and disappeared from the room. All Jinki managed to see were a pair of dark jeans and an equally dark jacket.

 

“Uh, thanks!” he called after the retreating back, feeling disheveled and embarrassed. He almost dropped his book again, but managed to slide it onto the groaning dryer.

 

That was Lee Jinki’s second encounter with one Kim Jonghyun.

 

***

 

Jinki was hauling his cheap hamper up from the laundry room in the basement and stopped on the first landing, trying hard not to pant. Being out of breath from dragging a glorified piece of plastic and a few loads of laundry was too pathetic. To avoid looking like he couldn’t handle a flight of stairs, he pretended to read a community news corkboard that was haphazardly nailed to the wall. Surprisingly, he found himself actually reading it, hamper pulled tight against a hip.

 

A neon-green flyer covered the bottom half of the message board, featuring pixelated clip art that resembled a first-grader’s attempt at design.

 

46th Street Community Garden! the flyer gaily announced. The colors were making Jinki’s eyes hurt.

 

Curious despite himself, he skimmed the rest of the text. Apparently the apartment building tended to a garden. The vegetables that they grew were split between the tenants that helped with the garden and wanted them, and the flowers were for everyone to smell and enjoy.

 

That must be what that giant patch of dirt outside is for, he thought. Mmm, free vegetables. As a college student who was trying to live alone, he needed all of the free food he could get. It would be good to add something healthy to his daily meal of cup ramen. Shrugging, he slogged up the next flight of stairs, glad when he reached the first floor hallway.

 

“Oh!” a female voice exclaimed, followed by the rapid clicking of heels. Jinki turned to see a middle-aged woman swiftly approaching. “Hello, I’m Mrs. Choi. Are you new to this building? You look like a very nice young man,” she exclaimed, offering a hand tipped in manicured nails.

 

Jinki smiled a bit nervously in the face of her exuberance, but gamely shook her hand. “Hi…I’m Lee Jinki. I’ve only been moved in for a week. My mom says I’m a nice guy…?”

 

Mrs. Choi beamed and tightened her grip on Jinki’s hand before bringing her other hand over to completely entrap his.  “Of course she does. If you need any help, feel free to come to me. I live in 214.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “And I’ll just have to introduce you to my son, Seunghyun. He’d love another friend!”

 

Jinki squirmed. His hand was still trapped between Mrs. Choi’s and was starting to lose circulation. He gently tugged his hand away until she released it and quickly stuffed it into his pocket for safety. “Thanks. I’m in 305. I’ll probably see Seunghyun around sometime.” Jinki scooted to the side, making room for a father and child who were making their way down the hallway.

 

There was a glint in Mrs. Choi’s eye that foretold the fact she was about to launch into a speech about her son. Jinki didn’t want to be rude, but he wanted to get back to his apartment. His laundry was getting heavier by the second and there was a cup of ramen calling his name. Jinki’s mind scrambled for a question to cut Mrs. Choi off before she got started.

 

“Oh, when does work start on the community garden?” he blurted out.

 

“Oh yes,” Mrs. Choi said happily, clapping her hands once in excitement. “The first day is this Saturday. All you have to do is show up at the gardening shed on the south side of the building at 8:30 a.m. and the Garden Leader will assign jobs and pass out tools.”

 

Jinki nodded. “Thank you. I’ll be there on Saturday.” He readjusted the hamper on his hip, not sure why he promised a lady he’d just met that he’d help in a garden, especially since he’d never successfully tended to a plant in his life. Mrs. Choi was very friendly and cheerful, but oddly persuasive at the same time.

 

She tsked. “Listen to me chatting your ear off. That hamper looks heavy, so I’ll leave you alone. You take that right upstairs. Nice meeting you, Jinki. Welcome to the building.” Mrs. Choi straightened her skirt, smiled, and hurried away, heels clicking on the linoleum.

 

The hallway was empty except for the stunned Jinki, who was trying to recover from the whirlwind that was Mrs. Choi. He grabbed his hamper with both hands and prepared to haul the laundry up two more flights of stairs. It was kind of odd, he thought, careful not to trip, that a grown man’s mother was trying to set him up with friends. Well, there were all kinds of people.

 

***

 

Jinki wasn’t much of a morning person. He really preferred to sleep in when he could, so when he woke up early Saturday morning, he was bleary-eyed and confused.  He turned toward his alarm clock, wondering why his body would wake him up early on his day off. It took a moment of fumbling, but he managed to grab the alarm clock and drag it close enough to see it. The glowing green numbers said it was 8:13 in the morning.

 

Mmm, 8:13. That’s early. He smiled, still half asleep. I could sleep for another hour. Or two.

 

Then it hit him. Jinki froze mid-stretch, arms and legs still sticking out wildly. “!” he yelled, thrashing his way out of the sheets. He landed on one foot, did a little hop, kicked the sheet away, and stumbled toward the bathroom to whip through his morning routine, wanting to look half decent. The new neighbors would inevitably judge him and though he told himself he didn’t care, Jinki wanted to make a good impression. Brushing his teeth and hair at the same time didn’t work very well, but it got the job done.

 

Rifling through his pile of freshly laundered clothes, Jinki eventually picked out a plain t-shirt and athletic shorts that he wouldn’t mind getting dirty.

 

The clock read 8:21.

 

Yes! I have time to spare.

 

Two granola bars served as breakfast, followed by chugging some orange juice directly from the carton; he lived alone, so it’s not like there was anyone to care. The orange juice tasted bitter and unpleasant from the lingering toothpaste in his mouth.

 

His face still pinched with the nasty expression caused by the unique taste combo, Jinki bolted out of the door and into the concrete hallway. He jogged down the stairs two by two. Jinki knew he had a tendency to be clumsy, so he kept his hand hovering over the railing, ready for the inevitable trip.

 

He puffed some air upward in a lame attempt to push his hair out of his eyes. On the final leap to the ground floor Jinki’s back foot slid across the step and out from underneath him. Panicking slightly, he threw his arms out in front of him in an attempt to rebalance himself.

 

”Woah, there!” a voice called out, “Are you okay?” Jinki looked up,  pushed his hair aside, and saw a young man who was already irritatingly tall and happy.

 

Dressed in comfortable clothes and sporting a big grin, the stranger’s arm was hovering, clearly ready to grab him if he toppled over.

 

“Uh, Yeah. I’m good,” Jinki reassured with a sheepish smile.

 

“You going to the garden shed for job distribution?”

 

“Yes,” he replied, sounding more sure than he felt. Sleep was still pulling at him seductively and getting mugged was the only thing further from his interests than gardening.

 

“It’s right over there,” the stranger said, gesturing. “I’m Minho. I live in apartment 212.”

 

“Ah, I’m Jinki. I just moved in last week,” he replied, still trying to keep his hair out of his eyes.

 

Minho smiled and hooked his arm through Jinki’s. “I’ll walk with you to the shed, c’mon.”

 

Startled, Jinki stumbled after him, secretly grateful that Minho was showing him the way. He hated to admit it, but he couldn’t tell which way was north sober, let alone when sleep had been so cruelly torn away. Honestly, he just wasn’t quite sure which side of the building was the south side. That was especially embarrassing considering that he walked by the untended garden not a week ago. This was seriously ridiculous.

 

There was a surprisingly large number of people drifting toward the gardening shed. Since the apartment building was situated in a rough part of town (the rent was cheap enough for a single college student to afford), it was kind of unexpected that the residents would have the time, energy, and will to care for a garden. Well, maybe it would be fun and he could get to know his neighbors, even make a few friends.

 

He glanced over at Minho. See, he’d already met someone, and that wasn’t even including the overwhelming Mrs. Choi and that random dude from the laundry room. Things were great. Mom would be so proud.

 

Soon enough, Jinki and Minho turned the last corner and found the garden. It was much bigger than Jinki thought. He’d been picturing something… regular garden-sized? Instead he stood facing a rectangle of tilled dirt approximately the same length and width of his entire apartment building. They were actually using the entire tilled patch that he’d walked by on his first day. It now made a lot of sense as to why they needed a whole building’s worth of people to work it. As un-athletic as he was, Jinki didn’t know if he could throw a rock far enough to hit the other side.

 

“Hey!” Minho said, nudging him with an elbow, “C’mon!” Giving him a quick smile, Jinki followed him toward a growing crowd of milling people

 

There was a surprising large variety of people waiting for the decree from the Garden Leader. Jinki saw a small grandma with her hand clutched by a girl who couldn’t have been more than six. There were two younger men, maybe late teens, early twenties, kicking the grass and chatting. One looked stuck up. Jinki could already tell. Were those designer jeans? His buddy, most likely roommate, looked cheerful underneath his fringe of bangs.

 

Finally someone approached the garden shed. The crowd shifted out the way to let the woman through. When she finally stepped on an overturned apple crate to be seen by everyone, Jinki’s jaw dropped in shock. It was Mrs. Choi. He wasn’t sure why he was so surprised, but he never expected the bubbly woman would be the Garden Leader, especially since she hadn’t mentioned it the day before.

 

“That’s Mrs. Choi,” he mumbled, still stunned.

 

“Yup,” Minho confirmed with an easy smile. “She’s a really nice lady, but don’t mess with her when it comes to the garden. She turns into the iron fisted dictator.”

 

Jinki considered that. He could totally imagine Mrs. Choi politely and exuberantly cutting someone down to size for messing with her gardening shed. “She wants me to be friends with her son,” Jinki whispered, “She kind of blindsided me in the hall yesterday.”

 

Minho made a bit of a face. “She’s kind of known to do that.”

 

There was a young boy standing sullenly next to the crate, glaring at everyone. That must be the lonely Seunghyun, her son. The slightly pudgy boy looked tired and grumpy, clearly not pleased with being up and about so early in the morning. Well, at least Mrs. Choi hadn’t been on a mission to make friends for her adult son.

 

A metallic clang drew the crowd’s attention to Mrs. Choi, who unlocked and opened the shed.

 

“Welcome, everyone, to the first day of this year’s community garden work!” She beamed at the group. “I have a feeling this is going to be a great year.” Mrs. Choi shuffled through a plastic folder and quickly pulled out the two typed sheets. “These are the group sheets for this year. They’ll be posted on the shed door. If you have any questions…”

 

“What groups?” Jinki hissed to Minho, covering his mouth with a hand.

 

Minho leaned closer, ignoring a judgmental look from an elderly man to their left. “We’re assigned to groups of four. Each group has a specific plot to look after,” he explained.

 

“Gotcha.”

 

Jinki wondered if his name was on the list. Mrs. Choi hadn’t even met him before yesterday, so it wasn’t likely he was in a group. Well, maybe she could stick him in somewhere. It’s not like he knew what he was doing anyway.

 

When Seunghyun finished taping the sheets to the shed doors, Mrs. Choi continued. “As soon as you have your groups together, Seunghyun will tell you which plots you’ll be caring for and I will distribute tools. Let’s have fun and grow some beautiful flowers and vegetables!”

 

There was a bit of a crush as the crowd surged forward to find their groups. Jinki and Minho hung back, preferring to wait until the rush died down. That didn’t stop Jinki from craning his neck to see who was grouped with whom. The serious woman was standing with the stuck up guy and his roommate, expression unchanged. He saw two twin girls that looked to be about ten or twelve talking with the old man who had glared at him and Minho a few moments ago.

 

“C’mon,” Minho said, tugging on Jinki’s elbow. He was feeling very pulled around this morning, and he had a foreboding feeling that Minho yanking him places would become a regular thing. After briefly wondering if that was a good or bad thing, considering his history, he looked up at the sheets of paper, skimming for his name.

 

In the blocks of four names, he actually managed to spot his group.

 

Jonghyun

Chaerin

Seunghyun

Jinki

 

“Aw, we’re not in the same group,” Minho complained, sounding half serious. “But you’re gonna have fun, alright. You have Chaerin and Seunghyun.”

 

“Why’s that fun?” Jinki asked suspiciously. He had a feeling that Minho was the type to laugh at his pain.

 

“Well,” Minho grinned, “Half of your group is made up of nine-year-old children, and the other person…Do you actually have any experience with gardening?”

 

Jinki narrowed his eyes at Minho. It seemed like his gardening experience might be turning into babysitting hour. felt himself flush slightly with embarrassment, feeling like he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “No. My mom didn’t even trust me to get near the houseplants.”

 

“That’s okay,” Minho chuckled. They waited for the crush of people to move over to Seunghyun so they could get their assigned plots. “Jonghyun can pretty much carry your group.”

 

“Jonghyun?” Jinki asked, glancing around, as if he could spot him.

 

“Yeah, he’s over there.” Minho nodded towards a young man that looked roughly his age, in a tank top and athletic shorts.

 

Jinki stared slightly longer that what society would deem normal, but he cut himself a little slack. This was totally the guy he saw when he was first arriving, the punk who was painting what he now realized was the community garden sign. It also wasn’t every day that he saw someone whose arms were absolutely covered in tattoos. He couldn’t make out much detail from this distance, but a streak of red ran down Jonghyun’s shoulder and expanded as it followed the length of his right arm. The tattoos were neatly cut off at the wrists, leaving his hands untouched.

 

Minho continued talking, either ignoring or not noticing Jinki’s obvious staring. “I was in a group with him last year. He’s really good at gardening and freakishly passionate about plants. He even rivals Mrs. Choi. You figure out pretty fast that he’s actually a giant softy. He’s spoils the wild children who run around this place.”

 

“He kind of looks like a criminal,” Jinki whispered, ignoring the note of distain on the word “children.” It seemed Minho had some issues.

 

Minho looked thoughtful. “If he is, he does a good job of hiding it,” he whispered back.

 

The object of their scrutiny, Jonghyun, suddenly looked in their direction as if he heard exactly what they were saying. Jinki quickly turned his head, desperate to avoid eye contact.

 

“Did he see me?” he hissed.

 

Minho was waving jovially to Jonghyun. “Sure did,” he whispered from the corner of his mouth. “He probably thinks you’re weird now, with the hiding and all.”

 

Jinki cringed, but refused to turn around. “The garden is the perfect place to hide my body. He’ll turn me into fertilizer! I’m either going to die of embarrassment or at the hands of Mr. Tattoos over there.”

 

Jonghyun had already turned away and was instead staring intently at the tilled garden dirt. Minho couldn’t help his smile. He nudged Jinki with his elbow and started pushing him over to Seunghyun to find their plots and eventually get their tools. “Why are you embarrassed anyway?”

 

Jinki finally straightened and unhunched his shoulders. “I don’t know. He was looking at me.”

 

Minho glanced at his new friend suspiciously. Smirking wickedly, he leaned over, cupped his hands, and whispered directly into Jinki’s ear. “You think he’s cute.”

 

“WHAT?” Jinki squawked, jerking away from Minho and drawing the attention of most of the remaining crowd. Face flushing red, Jinki smacked Minho’s arm, hard. Smiling awkwardly at the staring group, he pulled Minho off to the side.

 

“I do NOT think he’s cute!” Jinki whispered vehemently.

 

Minho had the gall to chuckle. “Oh, give it up. Everyone thinks he’s cute. He’s got this super hot bad boy vibe, with the hair and tattoos. I just think everyone is too afraid to approach him because like you said, he kind of looks like a murderer.”

 

Jinki looked skeptical. “So, you think he’s cute too?” he asked, crossing his arms and leaning back, staring at Minho. There was no way Minho would admit something like that. Jinki had never met anyone gay throughout his childhood. Heck, some boys flipped out on anyone who they thought was girly or might be gay.

 

Defying all of his expectations, Minho nodded appreciatively, only risking a quick glance in Jonghyun’s direction.

 

Minho froze mid-nod, looking thunderstruck, before he lunged toward Jinki and grabbed his shoulders. “You said ‘too’! That means you think he’s cute!”

 

Jinki yelped and forcibly yanked Minho’s grubby hands from his shoulders. “Shut up!” he hissed. With narrowed eyes, he leaned forward and beckoned Minho toward him. Either Minho was just screwing with him and would use this to mock him forever, or Minho might appreciate men in the same way and Jinki had finally found someone he could talk to and could understand him. Here goes nothing, Jinki thought, face heating and heart pounding.

 

“I think he’s kind of cute.”

 

“I knew it!” Minho practically shouted, drawing everyone’s attention again.

 

Jinki pulled Minho’s victory arm from above his head. “Oh my god, Minho. It’s going to be you who ends up as fertilizer if you don’t shut up.” Sounding put upon, he continued in a low voice. “I think plenty of people are cute. Heck, you aren’t so bad yourself.”

 

Minho’s smile was wide and frightening.

 

“BUT!” Jinki snapped, “That doesn’t mean anything. I’m not interested in chasing after someone, especially someone who looks like he’s probably killed people.” He flicked his new friend in the forehead before marching over to Seunghyun, who looked incredibly bored.

 

Calm down, Jinki, he mentally scolded himself. Minho isn’t shouting my secret to the rooftops, so I’m probably okay. And I think I made myself pretty clear about the whole Jonghyun thing.

 

“Great,” he heard the young boy mumble, “I’m in a group with the weirdo.”

 

Jinki almost gasped, wondering if Seunghyun had somehow overheard their heated whispered conversation. He glared nastily at Minho. It was all his fault anyway.

 

“Which plot are we on?” he snapped out a little harsher than he meant to.

 

The boy pointed to a pole in the far corner of the garden. Each plot was roped off by brown twine, and a sheet of paper with a number written on it was taped to poles.

 

“Three?” Jinki asked, squinting over at the plot and brushing his bangs from his eyes yet again.

 

Seunghyun nodded and jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, directing them toward his exuberant mother by the gardening shed.

 

Jinki stomped in that direction, ignoring Minho, who was quickly catching up. He determinedly didn’t react to the hand on his shoulder. He liked Minho a lot already, but there was no way he was going to put up with teasing about this. No way. Not to mention the fact that every time Minho said something, there was that much more chance that someone would overhear.

 

“I’m sorry,” Minho said, settling his entire arm over Jinki’s shoulders. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise…though if you eventually get some of that, you have to tell me.”

 

Jinki drew in a deep breath and slowly released it. I will not kill my neighbors with gardening tools. I will not kill my neighbors with gardening tools. I will not kill…

 

“Oh, hello Jinki! I’m so glad you made it this morning!” Mrs. Choi was a force of nature and impressively cheerful for this early on a Saturday morning. “And I see that you’ve already met my baby, Seunghyun. Isn’t he just the sweetest thing? I mean, not everyone can be so lucky to have a darling boy like him. I just know he’s going to grow up and be something, something important, my Seunghyun. Oh, but enough of that,” she interrupted herself, waving a hand, “Let me pass out your gardening tools. I see that Jonghyun, sweet little Chaerin, and my own Seunghyun are in your group. My goodness, you are going to have a great time!” Leaving a wordless Jinki at the door of the shed, Mrs. Choi disappeared into its dark depths to fetch god knows what.

 

Minho took a step forward as if to enter and help her look.

 

“I wouldn’t do that,” a dark voice hissed from the shed’s interior.

 

The young man jumped back as if stung, and traded wary glances with a stunned Jinki.

 

A few seconds later, Mrs. Choi reemerged, smile practically sparkling. “Here you are, boys. Jinki, this is the equipment for you, Chaerin, and Seunghyun. Jonghyun has already retrieved his gardening tools.” With a friendly pat on the shoulder, she turned Jinki toward his group and moved on to Minho. “Here you are, Minho…”

 

Jinki hustled away from Mrs. Choi, eyes wide, replaying the terrifying voice from the shed in his mind.

 

Seunghyun finally finished assigning the garden plots as Jinki headed toward him. Chaerin was already perched on an upturned crate near the young boy, looking way too dressed up for someone who was about to tramp around in a plot of dirt. Jonghyun, already suited up in his gardening gloves, was conversing quietly with Chaerin.

 

Nervous, Jinki stopped a few feet away, gardening tools, seeds, and gloves clutched haphazardly in his arms. “Um, hi. I’m Lee Jinki. Nice to meet all of you.” He ducked his head.

 

The three seed packets slipped from his fingers and he fumbled to catch them without dropping anything else.

 

A small hand darted out and caught the seeds before they spilled. Jinki saw neon pink and green high-top tennis shoes below knobby knees and stick-like legs.

 

“Watch out there, Mr. Lee. Mrs. Choi probably wouldn’t like it if we ruined our garden plot before we even got started.”

 

Jinki finally collected himself and looked over at his tiny savior. Chaerin straightened the seed packets, but decided to hold on to them rather than risk another spill. She was quite a sight in pigtails, cheetah-print shorts, and a bubble-gum-pink top. She had a point as well. Jinki had absolutely no desire to upset Mrs. Choi, not after that incident in the gardening shed just minutes ago. He was too young to die. Much too young.

 

Chaerin skipped back a step so she was standing next to Jonghyun and Seunghyun. “I saw that you already know Seunghyun, but this is Jonghyun. He’s one of my best friends!” she said proudly.

 

Jonghyun glanced up from beneath his blonde fringe, making eye contact with Jinki for a split second. His head might have dipped in some form of acknowledgement, but the motion was too small for Jinki to tell if it had actually happened or his imagination was running wild. He tried to smile. “I’ve never taken care of a garden before, so please take care of me.”

 

Seunghyun continued to look uninterested, Chaerin nodded excitedly, and Jonghyun was already stalking off toward their plot of dirt.

 

“Don’t mind him,” Chaerin said easily, pulling a pair of green gloves from Jinki’s hands. “He looks all depressing and scary, but he’s really a good guy underneath the tattoos and murder.”

 

They heard a snort of laughter from behind them.

 

“Don’t mind Seunghyun either,” the girl said, turning around and sticking her tongue out at the other child. “He just a boy!”

 

“Hey!” Jinki laughed. “I’m a boy too!”

 

Chaerin rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but you’re a cute boy. And a klutz. Don’t worry, I’ll be here to look after you.” With that, she marched off, quickly catching up to Jonghyun. Seemingly unafraid, she grabbed the man’s tattooed arm, jerked him toward her, and started whispering in his ear.

 

Though Chaerin was a nine-year-old girl, her words warmed Jinki. At least she liked him. Well, Minho liked him too. Seunghyun was sort of a toss-up. Chaerin gave him some hope, because if Jonghyun put up with, and was even kind to, an excitable little girl, then he was probably a nice guy under all those tattoos.

 

***

 

Plot three was located in one of the corners of the garden, up against a low wooden fence. There was a sidewalk just on the other side.

 

Jinki gratefully dropped his armful of trowels, gloves, and kneeling pads to the ground. Seunghyun snatched a pair of black gloves from the pile, leaving Jinki with the remaining pink pair.

 

Once the trowels and pads were divided among them, Chaerin held up three packets of seeds. “Alright, Jonghyun. What are we supposed to do first?”

 

Chaerin was a willful and interesting girl. She took charge, didn’t let Seunghyun’s constantly sulky behavior bother her, and seemed to make friends through sheer force of personality. Jinki knew that he liked her. Her clear comfort with Jonghyun was also intriguing. They almost interacted like siblings, though he was pretty sure they weren’t related.

 

“Alright,” Jonghyun started, somewhat subdued. “Today is planting day. We’ve already tilled the soil, so we’re good to go.”

 

Jonghyun voice was kind of quiet, but it didn’t sound angry or gruff. Jinki was surprised, though he wasn’t sure what he was expecting the man to sound like.

 

“If Chaerin, O Queen of the Seeds,” Jonghyun said, offering the girl a small bow, “would be so kind as to pass out the seeds, then we can begin.”

 

Chaerin giggled, but complied. She gave Seunghyun a packet of tomato seeds. The boy frowned. “But I don’t like tomatoes!”

 

“You don’t have to eat them,” Chaerin countered exasperatedly, turning away. “We always share with the other plots anyway.”

 

Jinki chuckled. He could tell that Chaerin and Seunghyun butted heads often. It seemed to be case of pulling pigtails, or more accurately, the one with the pigtails doing the pulling. Chaerin didn’t seem to seriously dislike Seunghyun, but the boy generally disliked everyone.

 

This was going to be fun. Jinki may be clumsy and nervous, Jonghyun may be a tattooed criminal, and he was stuck with two weird kids, but this may just be the most fun he’s ever had in his life.

 

“So, what do I do first?”

 

After Chaerin handed leadership over to Jonghyun, things moved pretty quickly. Seunghyun had the despised tomato seeds, Chaerin took the sweet bell pepper seeds, leaving Jonghyun and Jinki to split the carrot seeds.

 

“Here,” Jinki said, delicately holding the opened seed packet in one hand. He held it toward Jonghyun, “I’ll probably drop it and spill the seeds everywhere.”

 

Jonghyun offered a small smile. “It’s alright if you do. We’ll just spread them out a bit and plant them where they fall. They’re not too picky.”

 

Jinki tentatively smiled back, pulling the seeds closer to his chest.

 

Jonghyun, despite his slightly intimidating exterior, really did know a lot about gardening. Minho was telling the truth after all. Of course, planting seeds wasn’t all that difficult, but Jonghyun’s expertise and affection for both gardening and kids became apparent very quickly. Experiencing the banter and play between his two younger group-mates made him think of Minho’s slight note of distain for the word “children.” Honestly, it was probably that Chaerin get relentlessly picked on Minho.

 

“Chaerin, a little further apart,” the tattooed man kindly instructed. He had foregone the foam keeling pad and planted his knees directly in the dirt. It didn’t bother him a bit.

 

Jinki did end up spilling a few carrot seeds, but Jonghyun just smiled at him, motioned Jinki to join him in the dirt, and showed him how deep to bury them. “I think I’m kind of getting the hang of this,” Jinki said, happily patting the fresh dirt covering his newly planted seed.

 

Chaerin popped up behind his shoulder. “That’s pretty good for someone who’s killed every plant he’s ever touched,” she said loudly.

 

“Hey!” Jinki protested. Chaerin was leaning on him, little hands sneaking up his shoulders. “I didn’t say anything like that at all.” Her arms curled around his neck and latched together in front of his throat.

 

“You said you were new to this,” she rebutted. “Which is code for ‘I kill everything I touch.’”

 

Jinki reached back and hooked her knees with his arms, standing up so Chaerin was in a piggy-back position. “Well, that’s totally untrue. Absolutely false. I’ll have you prosecuted for slander! I’ve been defamed!” He jogged from the plot, around the gardening shed, to the back door and back around, making sure to give Chaerin a bouncy ride.

 

“I can’t go to jail!” Chaerin laughed. Jinki was being choked a little, so he boosted the girl up. “I’m only nine,” she said, wiggling in his grasp.

 

They arrived at plot three again, where Jonghyun and Seunghyun were watering the seeds. The tattooed man looked up at them, but Seunghyun stubbornly started at the ground.

 

“Well,” Jinki said, a concerning lilt in his tone. “If you’re only nine, thin I can do this!” He pulled her around to his front, grabbed her legs, and dangled her upside down, careful to make sure that her shirt didn’t slide up.

 

“No! Jinki! You’re bad, put me down!” she squealed, trying to hide her laughter.

 

Jinki just stuck his tongue out at her and shook her a little.

 

“Let Her Majesty down, please,” Jonghyun piped up from his spot at the edge of their plot.

 

“You heard him Jinki! Let me down!” Chaerin giggled, batting at his legs.

 

“If it’s a direct order...” Jinki loosed the arm clenching Chaerin’s scrawny legs to his chest and scooped her torso up, flipping her around and plopping her unceremoniously back on her feet.

 

After Jinki’s small ‘temper tantrum,’ as Chaerin had so eloquently put it, the group of four finished watering the seeds, gave the dirt one last affectionate pat, and gathered up their tools.

 

Jonghyun leaned backwards, arching his back to counter the stiffness from being hunched over for so long. “You’re all free to go. I don’t think there’s anything else we can do today,” he said, dismissing them. They had made him impromptu group leader, a role that he gracefully accepted.

 

As much fun as Jinki had, this was way more outside time than he was used to. He was glad to be done and have the opportunity to just lay in the grass and veg out for a minute.

 

When he stood up to leave, Chaerin looked up at him. Her head was tilted back so she was looking down her nose at Jinki despite their height difference, and a little smirk bloomed on her face. Her hands were planted on her hips and her tone of voice smug. “You may go, servant boy. I have no further need of you.”

 

Jinki chuckled a little and offered one final bow. “Thank you, your Majesty.”

 

He turned around, glad to be heading towards sweet, sweet air conditioning, no matter how minimal it may be. A glance around the garden showed Minho still working with his group. He was helping the grandma they’d seen earlier stand up. That prissy boy in the designer jeans was standing at the edge of his plot, compulsively wiping off his pants despite the fact that they looked spotless. Jinki chuckled, shaking his head.

 

His spirits dropped slightly when he approached the apartment building and he made a face. Grunting, he began the long trek up to the third floor. The sensations of sweat dripping down his back made him twist around uncomfortably.

 

And here he lay, basking in the air conditioning, longing for a shower but unwilling to get up, and wondering what he was going to do with the rest of his Saturday. He’d already finished all of his homework; community college wasn’t too strenuous, but it was all he could afford at the moment.

 

His mind wandered to Jonghyun, the intense, tattooed cutie. He wasn’t as unapproachable as Minho made him out to be. Jinki was expecting some reclusive, gruff, Batman-like figure that ate children for breakfast. In reality, he was more likely to make breakfast for the children, help them eat it, and then do the dishes. His comfort with plants and affection for garden were obvious and that much more endearing.

 

Jinki sighed.

 

This community garden was probably going to ruin his life and make it infinitely better. He would get a chance to meet his neighbors and get some free vegetables, but he would also get to know and probably like Jonghyun and put his clumsy ridiculousness on display for all to see.

 

Surrendering himself to being clean, he rolled over and briefly buried his head into the covers before pulling himself out of bed and staggering toward his small bathroom. He sluggishly pulled his clothes off and grabbed clean ones from his small dresser. He was slightly miffed that already had to change, dirtying more clothes when he had just barely managed to wash and fold his laundry after unpacking.

 

As he stood under the somewhat weak spray, he thought about all of the friends he had made today. There was no doubt that Chaerin would come to bother him again, and he looked forward to being around Minho and Jonghyun. He now understood why Mrs. Choi was on a mission to recruit more friends for Seunghyun, but it was his own grumpiness that really drove people away.

 

Even though this was the most physical activity Jinki had done in a long, long while, he had never felt more satisfied and accomplished.

 

He walked out of the bathroom all clean and shiny, in shorts with a towel slung around his neck, and glanced out the window that was facing the community garden.

 

Jinki was slightly surprised to see Jonghyun still out there, not working at their own plot, but wandering around and helping the other groups that seemed to be struggling a bit more with their tasks. Chaerin fluttered around him, seemingly unaffected by the heat and by the work she had already done, offering to help out other kids and the elderly.

 

“Man, he really seems like a nice guy…and he has a nice face,” Jinki quietly sighed to himself.

 

“I’m so screwed.”

 

***

 

Jinki spent the majority of the next day milling about his tiny apartment, setting up the few doodads that he had managed to stuff in his duffel bag and scrubbing corners so his small apartment didn’t smell like dust. In all honesty, it didn’t really need doing, but he felt like he had to be somewhat productive before he went back to work.

 

Getting up, Jinki opened his small closet and pulled out a plain button down white shirt and a nice pair of black slacks that were folded neatly and hanging beneath the shirt. He hooked the hanger delicately on the dark wooden molding of his closet. He flicked off some white fuzz and made sure everything was in order for his job as a runner at a law firm.

 

Mid-afternoon, it occurred to him that having more than one clean outfit for work might be a good idea. Knowing his clumsy- self, he’d probably dirty the one he’d pulled out before he left the apartment.

 

Oh, the joy of carrying laundry down three flights of stairs, he thought exasperatedly, gathering up his hamper. When Jinki was halfway to the stairs, he remembered that he’d forgotten his book. Sighing heavily, he decided laundry would be too miserable without it. Abandoning the hamper in the hall was an easy choice; the odds of someone making off with a basket full of dirty laundry on the third floor wasn’t very likely. With Frankenstein clutched in one hand, Jinki jogged back to his clothes, threw the book on top of the pile, and lugged the damn thing down the stairs, extra careful not to trip.

 

Laundry wasn’t the worst chore ever, but it was pretty close in Jinki’s opinion. The only things worse were doing dishes and cleaning the bathroom. Putting up with a communal washer and dryer that were holdovers from the ‘80s didn’t make it any easier.

 

Luckily, the laundry room was empty. It wasn’t that Jinki didn’t like talking to his neighbors, but sometimes human interaction took too much effort.

 

After chucking some of his clothes into the washer, hardly bothering to sort them, Jinki eyeballed the right amount of detergent and set the whole thing in motion. Only about two hours to go. Yaaaay.

 

The lack of chairs hadn’t changed since last week, so Jinki boosted himself onto the top of the silent dryer. The cold metal immediately seeped through his gym shorts and made his and the backs of his thighs go numb. Wiggling a little, he cracked open his book and tried to immerse himself into the flow of words. 

 

“These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feelings. Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike.”

 

The washer was only about halfway through its cycle when heavy footsteps drew Jinki from his novel. He slowly pulled his eyes from the words while marking the spot with a finger, and finally looked up all the way. To his pleasant surprise, it was none other than Jonghyun tromping down the stairs with a canvas bag slung over his shoulder like a terrible out-of-season Santa.

 

“Oh, hey,” Jinki greeted him, feeling slightly awkward and embarrassed for no discernable reason. He quickly shoved a dryer sheet in Frankenstein to mark the page and set the book aside.

 

“Hi,” Jonghyun said easily, slinging his bag to the floor next to the washer.

 

Jinki self-consciously snagged his hamper with the toe of his sandal and tugged it aside to get it out of Jonghyun’s way. “Sorry…” he finally said. “I’m only halfway through the cycle. It might be a while.” He paused, and when Jonghyun didn’t immediately say anything, he hurriedly continued, “You can come back later if you want. I won’t let anyone run off with your stuff.”

 

Jonghyun just smiled and shook his head. “No, that’s okay. I’ll stick around.” He easily pulled himself on top of the rumbling washer.

 

“So, how are you?” Jonghyun started when he was comfortable.

 

Feeling a little flustered by Jonghyun’s closeness in a non-garden environment and in a closed space, Jinki floundered with his words a bit. “Uh, pretty good, I guess. Doing some laundry. How are you?”

 

“Good. What are you reading?”

 

“Frankenstein.”

 

“I can’t say I’ve ever read it,” he said easily, “Is it any good?”

 

“Yeah, it’s good. Frankenstein’s monster is surprisingly well articulated, despite how our terrible movies seem to portray him.”

 

“Huh.”

 

Jinki wanted to use this opportunity to stare at Jonghyun, but he figured that the three-foot distance between the two of them wasn’t conducive to subtlety. Jonghyun was staring forward while they were making small talk, occasionally glancing at Jinki and leaning back on his hands on the washer.

 

There was a lull in the conversation and Jinki didn’t really know what to say. Just as the silence was becoming unbearable, Jonghyun started talking once again.

 

“Oh, I never got to welcome you properly to the building.” A hand was pushed in front of Jinki. “Welcome to the family!”

 

He took the hand in a firm grip and gave it two solid shakes. “Thanks, Jonghyun. This seems like quite the interesting family.”

 

“Yeah, the garden keeps us pretty close. We have to help each other, and even if some people don’t help, they hang out with us in the garden sometimes. It’s nice.”

 

Jinki looked wistfully at the ceiling, “I bet. There aren’t very many neighbors that do that type of thing. At least, not anymore.”

 

A loud buzzer sounded obnoxiously, signaling the completion of the washing cycle in the most offensive way possible. “That buzzer is terrible,” Jinki muttered.

 

“Yeah. It’s an old machine,” agreed Jonghyun as he kicked his legs forward and used the momentum to hop off the washer. Jinki began the process of peeling his damp clothes off the walls of the washer and tossing them in the dryer.

 

“When did you move in, Jonghyun?”

 

“Around five years ago. I’ve been here for a while. I moved in when I turned twenty.”

 

Jinki sort of felt like he was prying, but Jonghyun didn’t seem to be bothered by the question, so he figured he could continue to ask. He really wanted to get to know the mystery man a bit more. He felt comfortable in this conversation, and relatively confident.

 

“Wow, wouldn’t have known that you were younger than me.”

 

“Tattoos make me look older and cooler.”

 

“Ah, that must be what it is,” Jinki commented airily, “Because with how you treat Chaerin, I figured out pretty fast that you aren’t really that cool.” He shoved a dryer sheet in the plain machine, kicked it closed, then turned to Jonghyun, who looked mock offended, indignant that Jinki would ever imply that he wasn’t cool.

 

“I’ll have you know that I’m the original gangster,” he retorted, dumping his bag of clothes into the washer, tossing in some soap, and punching the start button. They both retook their rumbling thrones.

 

“Really?” Jinki asked archly, honestly curious, but not sure if he was prying. They were joking around, but something in Jonghyun’s expression or the tone of his voice was red flag, making Jinki’s muscles tense.

 

The man offered him a sideways, depreciating smile. “Yeah, a bit.” A hand reached up to rub at the tattoos covering his upper arm. “Ancient history, though.”

 

The only thing Jinki could do was smile lopsidedly back and say, “And yet, it all comes down to laundry in the end, gangster or not.”

 

Jonghyun just laughed. “So, you ever read any books about gardening?”

 

***

 

The alarm clock screamed in his ear, scaring him less. Jinki let loose an undignified yelp as he shot up into a sitting position. He pushed his hand to his chest as if it could calm the furious racing of his heart and quickly turned off the alarm with his other hand.  He slumped forward slightly, calmer, now that the shriek of the alarm clock had been silenced.

 

“Urgh,” he grumbled as he moved, sloth-like, toward his almost-a-kitchen space. Tearing a bagel apart the rest of the way, he stuffed the halves in the toaster. Being careful not to snap the push lever off again, Jinki pressed it down so his bagel began toasting. Finding the peanut butter, he simply stood there.

 

Just as a yawn so large it almost cracked his face in half was making itself known, Jinki heard the telltale pop of the bagel returning from the toasty depths. Flinging some peanut butter on his sad breakfast, he sat down at the slightly rickety kitchen table

 

Making sure his fingers were clean of peanut butter, Jinki stumbled into his work clothes, finished getting ready in the bathroom, and collapsed on the couch. His bleary eyes managed to read the clock. It was only 7:36, so he had another seven minutes before he had to be out the door. His head flopped back, stretching his neck muscles in a way that felt nice, and he stared at the ceiling.

 

This was his life now. Going to work, Monday through Friday. Going to class three days a week. Gardening on Saturday mornings. Staring at the ceiling at 7:41 in the morning, talking himself out of just closing his eyes for a minute, a minute couldn’t hurt, right? Shaking his head, Jinki opened his eyes as wide as he could and stared at the ceiling until the urge to blink was almost painful. If he fell asleep again, he’d completely miss work and he couldn’t afford to lose the job.

It was 7:46. He needed to leave three minutes ago.

 

Impressive zombie-like shambling brought him to the front door, where he slipped on his shoes, grabbed his bag, and left the apartment. Jinki’s legs felt concerningly wobbly and like they weighed five tons and he plodded down the three flights of stairs to the ground floor. He was in no way, shape, or form, a morning person. It would take him another two hours to fully wake up.

 

When his feet hit the ground, Jinki was overtaken by another jaw-cracking yawn that required he stretch and crack his back like a giant, fur-less cat.

 

“Late night?”

 

The unexpected voice forced Jinki out of his yawn halfway through and made him jump into the air about a foot. His heart pounded as the adrenaline from having the crap scared out of him triggered his fight or flight response.

 

“Sweet Jesus,” he exclaimed, turning around to see who was assaulting him with words at the crack of dawn.

 

He heard a chuckle. “No, it’s just me.”

 

It was none other than his new laundry buddy, Jonghyun. Dressed in black jeans and a maroon, button-up shirt, he looked ready for work. It was surprising how respectable he looked with his tattoos covered, though the early morning sun still glinted off a silver eyebrow piercing.

 

“Oh,” Jinki stuttered, completely forgetting what Jonghyun had been saying a few seconds ago.

 

After a second of semi-awkward silence, Jonghyun smiled and put Jinki out his misery. “You off to work?”

 

Jinki tugged on the collar of his own button-up a little self-consciously. “Yeah. Law firm. Not a lawyer or anything, obviously, but more like an errand boy. I like it.” He shrugged a little helplessly.

 

“It’s 7:51, just so you know,” Jonghyun added, amused. He had an inkling that Jinki needed to be to work at eight and the clock was ticking.

 

“Oh crap!” Jinki yelped. “I gotta go!” He hated to abandon Jonghyun at the bottom of the stairs, though it probably wasn’t really abandonment. No doubt he had to be to work at eight too.

 

“Sorry Jonghyun, I have to run, literally.” Jinki his heel and half-jogged, half-ran down the sidewalk “Bye!” He disappeared around the corner in a flash.

 

Jonghyun smiled and shook his head before leaving in the other direction.

 

***

 

Jinki slammed the door shut, stripped off his shoes, threw his bag on the floor, wearily tugged off his shirt, and fell face-first into bed. It was about 4:30 pm. He’d gone straight to class after work and felt like death would be a mercy.

 

“Kill me, do it now,” he begged his empty apartment, voice muffled by his sheets.

 

The room failed to oblige.

 

“Please let it be the weekend,” he moaned, hoping for a better result. “Pleeeeeeease.”

 

Jonghyun was straightening the afghan thrown over the back of his couch when a sound made his hands freeze. The door to the apartment next door slammed shut, followed by the thud of something heavy hitting the floor. The walls were ridiculously thin, but this was the first time he actually heard something from his new neighbor.

 

After another second of silence, an agonized plea for the weekend to arrive seeped through the wall.

 

Flicking the corner of the knitted afghan to its proper place, Jonghyun couldn’t help but to chuckle. The flustered, clumsy, friendly Jinki was growing on him.

 

***

 

Saturday dawned bright and crisp, and found someone banging obnoxiously on Jinki’s door.

 

“What the ever-loving fu…” Jinki complained, addressing the ceiling. It seemed to be the thing he talked to the most lately. He blinked groggily, realizing that he must have fallen asleep on the couch the night before. He shot into a sitting position when he heard the rattle of keys in his front door. Jinki knew for a fact that he hadn’t given a copy of his key to anyone; the only person with his key should be the superintendent or the maintenance office.

 

The door all but slammed open, flooding the small apartment with light and silhouetting the person in the door, making it extremely difficult to discern their features. That suspicious, breaking-and-entering someone flipped on the light.

 

“Minho? What the hell?” Jinki squawked, throwing the nearest object within arms-reach at him.

 

It was a cork coaster, and it thwapped Minho in the chest. Jinki had surprisingly good aim, considering how much trouble he had with walking, standing, going up and down stairs, etc.

 

“A coaster, really?” Minho asked with a crooked grin, managing to catch the projectile. “When I was over last night, you didn’t even have cups, though it’s beyond me how someone’s been living here for over a week and doesn’t have a single cup or glass in the place.”

 

Jinki scrunched up his nose, making a nasty face. “The coasters are there to soak up my tears.” He fell back onto the couch, ignoring his uninvited houseguest.

 

“Aw, why is poor Jinki crying?” Minho teased, flipping on the living room light and tossing the coaster onto Jinki’s stomach.

 

“Cause I have to see your face,” Jinki grumbled, turning over.

 

“Ah, ah, ah!” Minho tutted. He plopped onto his friend’s side and spread out, making a nuisance of himself. “Rise and shine, sleeping beauty. It’s gardening time.”

 

Jinki tried to take deep breaths to compensate for Minho’s crushing weight on his side. It was probably only 8:00 in the morning, but it felt like he was waking up at the beginning of time. Was he even really awake, or was this some sort of vivid nightmare where Minho had his key and barged in his apartment to sit on him at the -crack of dawn? God, please let it be a nightmare, he begged as Minho began to bounce up and down, chanting, “Get up, get up, get up!”

 

With a roar of fed-up rage, Jinki shoved himself from the couch, sending Minho stumbling into the coffee table and himself onto the floor. It was totally worth craning his neck to see Minho on his stomach, practically hugging the table, with his head hanging off the other side.

 

“What time is it?” Jinki grouched, now fully awake. “How long do we have?”

 

Minho giggled. He actually giggled. It was the creepiest thing he had ever had the misfortune to experience. That, compounded with the sight of Minho’s creepy, upside-down, teeth-filled smile, gave him chills. His hissed whisper was both malicious and filled with mirth, making Jinki’s soul run for cover.

 

“Negative five minutes.”

 

“WHAT?” he almost shrieked, sitting up so fast his vision went black for a second. He practically leapt to his feet and sprinted toward his bedroom to get ready.

 

Minho extracted himself from the table and sat on the couch instead. “Mrs. Choi sent me up to collect you. She even gave me your key!” he called, jingling the key ring. He began to arrange the three lonely coasters in different configurations, trying to stack them as high as possible. “Jonghyun didn’t ask about you, but I could tell he was looking for you. He might have even looked a little disappointed when you didn’t magically appear when 8:30 passed.”

 

A faint crash echoed down the hall from the bedroom.

 

“And Mrs. Choi…a wolf in sheep’s clothing ain’t got nothing on her, I tell you what,” Minho continued. “I was afraid for my, well, my everything when she cornered me and ordered me to come and get you. I don’t think she doles out punishment for being late, but clearly, it’s not recommended.”

 

Finally, Jinki stomped down the short hallway, stopped behind the couch, and emptied his cupped hands, which were full to the brim with water, over Minho’s head. The high-pitched screech he got in return was extremely satisfying. “You’re such an , Minho,” Jinki informed him before bolting through the front door and pounding down the stairs. “That’ll teach you to make me late!” he hollered behind him.

 

As Jinki was tripping down three flights of stairs, he broke into giggles that quickly morphed into uncontrollable, almost-painful laughter. When he made it to the bottom, he curled around the railing, unable to stand straight because he was laughing so hard. Unbeknownst to Jinki, his late, loud arrival had caught the attention of most of the other gardeners, including Chaerin, Jonghyun, and Mrs. Choi.

 

The sound of Minho angrily charging down the stairs was just enough to send him into another fit of laughter.

 

“What’s so funny?” a high voice demanded, accentuated by small fingers yanking on his shirt sleeve. Even without looking, Jinki knew that Chaerin had found him. Trying to control his gasps, he pointed at the quickly approaching Minho, who was practically breathing fire.

 

“Minho, don’t you know you’re supposed to dry off after you get out of the shower?” Chaerin yelled up at him.

 

“Move or lose it, Chaerin!” Minho roared back, refusing to slow down.

 

The young girl jumped out of Minho’s way, crashing into Jinki’s legs. Finally able to control himself, Jinki grabbed her arm so she wouldn’t fall over.

 

“You’re looking a little damp,” he innocently sing-songed, ducking down to hide behind Chaerin. The girl simply planted her feet shoulder-width apart and stuck her fists on her hips, daring Minho to get past her.

 

Seeing as Chaerin was only half as tall as Minho, he just reached over her head, grasping for any part of Jinki he could get his hands on.

 

“I don’t think so!” Jinki yelped, stumbling backwards, turning on a heel, and taking off in the other direction. Minho quickly skirted around the stationary Chaerin, refusing to let him get away.

 

Jinki’s retreat abruptly ended by a figure looming in his path. He came up short, skidding to a stop. Minho was following too closely behind to stop in time and crashed into him. He fumbled for some part of Minho to hold on to so he didn’t tip forward. There was no way he wanted to fall onto the eerily calm-faced Mrs. Choi, who stood not three feet in front of them.

 

After an uncertain, adrenaline-inducing second, both men fell backward with Jinki landing on top of a still-damp, winded, Minho.

 

“…hello, Mrs. Choi” Jinki offered weakly, throwing in a tentative smile.

 

A sullen voice floated from the direction of plot three: “Someone’s in trouble.”

 

After a brief struggle, Minho finally managed to shove him off of his chest and into the dirt beside him. “God Jinki, you could stand to lose a few pounds. I felt like I was crushed by a two-ton…” he trailed off, finally having caught sight of the menacing figure above them. “I, uh, found Jinki?” he squeaked.

 

The cowed pair could practically feel the sharpness of the Garden Leader’s polite smile. She stepped forward. Jinki looked for Chaerin, but she had made a quick exit as soon as she saw Mrs. Choi’s expression.

 

Mrs. Choi chuckled lightly, but her eyes continued to feel like they were reading both men’s souls, judged them, and found them wanting. “I’m so glad you both could make it…”

 

***

 

Jonghyun watched Jinki approach their plot with a small smile.

 

Jinki looked up from his feet as he approached, catching his eyes. He was glad that the tattooed gardener at least didn’t deem it necessary to mock, make fun, or poke at him in any way.

 

Standing in front of the plot, just a few feet away, he just looked at Jonghyun and pouted. “I feel like I’ve been emotionally er-punched.”

 

Jonghyun just laughed a little. “What?”

 

“Mrs. Choi just stands there looking all nice, like, ‘Oh look, I’m an angel, I would never do anything to crush your feelings or self-esteem,’ and then she blindsides you with a scolding that makes you want to crawl into a hole and die.”

 

Jonghyun just looked at Jinki with understanding, watching the flailing of the other man as he dissected the behavior of Mrs. Choi. “I actually wouldn’t know. I’ve never been late.”

 

“That’s because you’re a fanatic for flowers.”

 

“Yup.”

 

“You know, I was happy two seconds ago that at least you didn’t make fun of me for being a whopping five minutes late. I guess I was wrong.” Jinki let loose a long, exaggerated sigh, showing his ever-growing disappointment in humanity.

 

“I was morally obligated to mock you a bit. You were late, and this experience will stop you from doing it again,” Jonghyun chimed, a stupid smile splitting his face. “You want to be here, nice and early, to see my cute face.”

 

Jinki was stunned, “You heard that?”

 

“What, you mean you and Minho on the first day of gardening? Minho wasn’t being subtle. And you guys were staring at me.”

 

Frowning, Jinki scanned the ground around him.

 

“Looking for something?” Jonghyun asked, still smiling at his friend’s expense.

 

“Yeah,” Jinki said, looking back up. “My lost dignity. And if I can’t find that, a shovel, so I can dig a hole, jump in, and never come out. I don’t know if you can tell, but I’m so embarrassed I could die.”

 

Jinki jumped a little when something flew toward his feet. There was a garden trowel, tip down in the dirt.

 

Jonghyun was now laughing so hard that he could barely stand up. “You’re dignity’s long gone…better start digging.”

 

It was really hard to picture him as a murderer now, Jinki thought, half-grumpily. He tugged the spade from the dirt and tossed it back at Jonghyun. How could he throw the spade like that anyway? Did he pick up knife-throwing skills in the circus or what?

 

Back to the point.

 

Jonghyun apparently knew that Jinki and Minho both thought he was cute. It was extremely awkward and embarrassing, but on a positive note, he didn’t seem to mind. Maybe…

 

Suddenly a not-so-small weight crashed into the back of Jinki’s legs, making his knees give in and almost fall into a crumpled heap onto the weight behind him. Quickly regaining his balance, and pressing his hand into his chest to make sure his heart was indeed still there, he turned his head over his shoulder to see Chaerin with a mischievous grin on her face. She was tightly gripping his legs, not letting go.

 

Jinki barely had time to dread what was coming next when he heard Minho yelling her name.

 

“Chaerin, you little rat, when I get my hands on you, you are so gonna get it!”

 

Jonghyun and Jinki both looked up to see Minho running at them full force, absolutely soaked.

 

“Chaerin, what did you do?” Jonghyun questioned.

 

“Well, Minho must not have taken his shower properly, right? So I just wanted to help him finish it… with the garden hose.”

 

Jinki just broke down laughing, kneeling to the ground and giving Chaerin a huge hug, squeezing her tight.

 

“You are the best!”

 

Jonghyun looked down at them, laughing a little himself. He took it upon himself to be Chaerin’s knight in shining armor, and stepped out in front of the two laughing on the ground. Putting one foot forward and one behind to brace himself, Jonghyun waited for Minho to get closer.

 

Minho was making a mad beeline for all three, shuffling and running the best he could in wet pants and sloshing shoes. His athletic shorts seemed like they were sticking uncomfortably on his skinny little stork legs. Seeing Jonghyun stand in his way didn’t deter him one bit, figuring that his speed would be enough be able to get around him. The older man was pretty short, after all.

 

Just as Minho was an arm’s length away, Jonghyun quickly put his hand in front of him, palm out. Minho was running a decent speed when he slammed into the open palm with a wet slapping noise, too close to react to the colorful arm that flew into his path. Jonghyun held strong, stopping Minho cold. The taller man lost balance and fell on his , looking overall baffled and confused about what just happened. Behind Jonghyun, the two devils laughed harder.

 

“You should ask Mrs. Choi if you could go back to your apartment and get a change of clothes,” Jonghyun said, kneeling in front of Minho.

 

Knowing he was defeated by the tattooed man, Minho hauled himself up from the ground, turned, and started toward Mrs. Choi.

 

Jinki piped up from the back, “You’re absolutely filthy, Minho, you oughta finish that shower Chaerin took upon herself to help you with!” Minho turned to glare, before continuing on his way. “Man, mocking him feels really good.”

 

A shadow was cast upon the pair of troublemakers as Jonghyun loomed over them. Jinki expected to get yelled at again. Not only was he late, but he’d gotten nothing done and the sun was quickly rising. Instead, Jonghyun offered him a hand up, one he gratefully took.

 

This put him in close proximity to the bright colors of Jonghyun’s impressive sleeve tattoos and he couldn’t help but to stare. The left had many cool colors, like blues and purples, while the right was a plethora of burning hot colors, closely resembling fire. Even when he wasn’t this close, his eyes constantly trailed up Jonghyun’s arms, trying to follow the swirling patterns. He could tell that all of the tattoos were connected, part of one large piece that curled up his arms and disappeared beneath his sleeves. What Jinki would give to find out what the rest of that tattoo looked like…

 

“If you wanted to look Jinki, all you need to do is ask.”

 

Jinki jerked, startled and feeling a bit bashful for being caught. He nodded shyly, hands unconsciously disappearing behind his back, where he clenched them nervously. “May I look at your tattoos, then?”

 

Jonghyun nodded, and held his arm out so Jinki could get a closer look.

 

Hardly aware of his own hands, Jinki gently grasped his wrist and pulled it closer, nose dipping to get a better look at the intricate and colorful designs.

 

"Wow," he murmured, breath washing over Jonghyun's arm and giving him goose bumps.

 

From a distance, the tattoos looked like a crazy kaleidoscope of colors, defined images difficult to distinguish from their neighbors. Up close, the designs morphed into recognizable shapes.

 

Jonghyun was covered in flowers.

 

Gorgeous, life-like flowers bloomed across his arms, entwined with flowering vines and prickly leaves, leaving no inch of skin untouched. His left arm was done in vibrant purples and blues, speckled with tiny white blossoms.

 

Entranced, Jinki caught Jonghyun's other wrist and pulled it closer, comparing the two arms. His right arm was warm colors; red, yellow, and orange blooms of varieties he had never seen before, turned upward as if reaching for the sun.

 

Jinki finally came back to himself. Slightly embarrassed, he released Jonghyun's wrists and took a step back. "Those are beautiful," he offered, smiling softly. "Really, they might even be prettier than real flowers." Mentally, he berated himself for just grabbing his wrists like he owned them or had some right to barge into his personal space.

 

Unaware of Jinki's mental turmoil, Jonghyun returned the smile, looking pleased. "Thank you for the compliment," he said, pulling Jinki from his minor freak-out.

 

"N-No problem," he tried not to stutter, face now heating up in a late-arriving blush. "Thanks for letting me paw at you. It must be really annoying to have people stare at you and ask you questions about your tattoos all the time."

 

Jonghyun couldn't help but to chuckle. "I do get a lot of stares, but most people aren't brave enough to come up and ask me about them. Usually it's only little kids, but then their parents freak out and come grab them before I can eat them or something."

 

"Yeah," Jinki agreed, "You really look like a child eater." Though the mere presence of tattoos, particularly full sleeves, made Jonghyun immediately appear intimidating, the knowledge that they were flowers instantly detracted from that image. It was hard to picture a hard core gang member being permanently covered in some of the most beautiful flowers Jinki had ever seen. The mystery of who exactly Jonghyun was only grew more complex the more time Jinki spent around him.

 

While Jinki was temporarily lost in thought, Jonghyun was blatantly staring at the slack expression on his group-mate’s face. He admired the profile, despite the silly expression. Noticing the quiet squabbling from the younger two members, he turned his attention to Chaerin, who was in the process of lecturing Seunghyun.

 

Flourishing his pointer finger, he gave Jinki’s shoulder a firm and slow poke, snapping him out of whatever daze he was in.

 

“You guys better start working,” Jonghyun admonished.

 

Jinki and the kids turned to the plot once more and started pulling some of the tiny weeds that had started to grow. Jonghyun crouched next to him and started delicately removing the weeds that were close to the plants.

 

“Jonghyun, you know we don’t even need to work in the garden,” Chaerin trilled.

 

“Oh, why is that?”

 

“We could just lay you down in the plot, and BAM, lots of pretty flowers!”

 

“I can’t live in the garden forever, though.”

 

“Psh, you totally could. I would take care of you every Saturday!” she exclaimed. Slyly looking over at her peer, she said, “Seunghyun said he doesn't have to help weed the plot! He's a dirty cheater!"

 

Jinki spun around to face a petulant Chaerin, who had an accusing finger unwaveringly aimed in Seunghyun's direction.

 

"Now Chaerin, we don't call him a cheater for not wanting to help weed the garden. That's not very nice, especially since it's not a good word. The word you’re looking for is, ‘slacker lazy-bum don't think we won't tell your mother.’" Jinki grinned at a sulky, glaring Seunghyun, who turned and trudged back to their little plot of land. Jonghyun and Chaerin's laughter, and even Seunghyun's sullen glare that promised revenge, made warmth fill Jinki's heart.

 

Jinki donned his pink gardening gloves once again and dropped his knees back into the dirt. The group of four weeded in comfortable silence for the rest of the hour. Chaerin tripped around the plot with a watering can about half her size, managing to tag Jonghyun's knees, Seunghyun's shoes, and Jinki's with the cold hose water. "Sorry!" she cackled unrepentantly.

 

When the time came for everyone to pack up and return their equipment to the deceptive Mrs. Choi, Jinki continued to weed, not even bothering to look up. He heard murmuring, tools clanking, and finally, the sound of the garden shed being firmly closed and locked. As focused as he was, it took him a few minutes to realize that he wasn't completely alone.

 

Gentle humming startled him so badly that he fumbled the garden trowel, sending it stabbing into the ground only an inch from the stalk of one of their baby sprouts. He warily glanced up, surprised to see a smiling Jonghyhun weeding a few feet away in the corner of the plot. His head was down, letting his blonde hair light up in the morning sun.

 

Jinki was surprised that he didn't feel the urge to say anything. When he was nervous, he turned into a chatterbox, but this time with Jonghyun in the garden on a quiet, cool Saturday morning allowed the words to settle within Jinki.  Nerves fading, he was able to focus on the small plants, the wet dirt, and the uncomfortable wet patch on the back of his jeans.

 

His punishment from Mrs. Choi, weeding all of the adjacent plots, didn't seem like such a chore anymore. Jinki found himself looking at Jonghyun occasionally, feeling a little overwhelmed by his peaceful expression and calm demeanor; this was truly a man in his element, a rare picture of joy and relaxation.

 

Jinki found himself pulling off his gloves and reaching into the dirt with his bare hands, tugging in the small weeds with careful fingers and reveling in the feel of earth against his skin. Good, healthy dirt was necessary for growing strong and bountiful plants, leaving Jinki to wonder what kind of earth Jonghyun was, to grow such beautiful flowers.

 

***

 

Jinki spent the majority of Sunday goofing off with Minho, and while he was glad Minho wasn’t bent on getting revenge for Chaerin’s little stunt the day before that Jinki clearly was all for, he wouldn’t shut up about Jonghyun.

 

“You should just ask him out, seriously,” Minho advised, trying to look wise.

 

“Oh my God, will you just leave me alone?” Jinki moaned, resting his head on his hand. “We’ve known each other for, like, two weeks!”

 

“Well, I saw you looking all romantic, getting all up in his tattoo business, so I figured the next step is long-term dating. Duh.”

 

“What? How would that even work?”

 

“Well, you would ask to see his entire tattoo, which obviously goes farther than just his arms, right? So he gets , you guys have , then BAM! Super cute lovey-dovey relationship,” Minho explained, looking inordinately pleased with himself.

 

“That's totally in the wrong order. I don’t want to have before I date.” Jinki shook his head and continued, “I don’t know why I’m even talking to you about this. You’re ridiculous.” He let his elbow slip and his head hang. Despite he and Minho being frightfully fast friends, he did not want to have this conversation.

 

"Seriously," Minho said, tone changing. He grabbed Jinki's floppy head and pulled it up so they were making eye contact. To his surprise, Minho had lost his perpetual smile and was almost frowning at him. "Why shouldn't you ask him out? What do you really have to lose?"

 

Jinki held Minho's gaze for a second before pulling away and looking at the ugly upholstery of Minho's couch.  "What could go wrong, huh? Well, he could say no. He could tell the landlord, who might be homophobic and evict me. Those tattoos could mean he's part of a gang, and he could sic the gang on me. I'd be beaten to a pulp or killed. They could tell my work or school and get me in trouble there, leaving me with no job and no place to live. Need me to add anything else?" Jinki asked archly.

 

"I think you’re overreacting a little. Jonghyun’s not like that. And he could say yes," Minho replied softly, “One date wouldn’t hurt.”

 

Jinki was silent for a moment before sighing heavily. Talking to Minho made his head hurt. “I don’t want to talk about it, alright? This is my issue, so you can take your giant nose and remove it from my business.”

 

Looking shocked, Minho drew back a few inches and tenderly felt his nose. “My nose is not giant…” he muttered.

 

Jinki jumped from the couch and stretched out his arms, rocking onto his tip-toes to energize himself. “You know what, Minho? I’ll figure it out, one way or another. It’ll all work out or it won’t. I’m not gonna spend my time moping about it.” He turned and grabbed Minho’s arm, dragging him over the arm of the couch. “I’m hungry. You’re gonna buy me lunch.”

 

“What?” Minho protested from his awkward position.

 

Jinki could see the blood rushing to his head. “Your badgering about Jonghyun has cost you lunch. If you don’t hurry up, I’ll invite Chaerin too.” He deliberately walked toward the door, trying to hold back his chuckles when he heard Minho’s hurried fumbling.

 

A frantic voice and grasping claw stopped Jinki before he made it out the door. “Don’t you dare tell that uncontrollable beast. I think she can eat her own weight in food, like a shrew,” Minho begged.

 

Jinki’s head slowly turned. “A shrew?”

 

He shrugged. “Google it.”

 

“Oh my God,” Jinki laughed incredulously, stepping out into the hallway. “I can’t even with you.”

 

It took them a few minutes of brisk walking to reach Minho’s favorite noodle shop, which was a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, approximately the size of a closet. At least, that’s what Jinki said. After a quick lunch, where only one noodle almost made its way up Minho’s nose and Jinki’s cackling finally died down, the pair decided to wander the small business district. It was only three blocks long, but there were many small, locally-owned, and odd shops to be explored.

 

Minho dragged Jinki into an interior decorating store, adamant that they find a glass or two for his apartment. In Minho’s words, it was a “crime not to have a single cup in the house. I mean, c’mon. Really?”

 

A few minutes later saw him dragging Jinki back out at a fast clip. “How can they in good conscience charge that much for glasses? And they were all shaped like flowers!”

 

Jinki wasn’t sure whether he should laugh or frown. “What’s wrong with flowers?” he demanded.

 

“You’re a guy, and you want flower-shaped cups?”

 

“Hey,” he replied, face sour, “Flowers can be perfectly manly and badass. If you don’t think so, then you’re small-minded and could stand to learn a thing or two.” Jinki’s mind was stuck on Jonghyun and the flowers creeping up his arms, comparing it to his first image of the man: a gang member or murderer. Yup. Flowers could look badass, no doubt about it.

 

He pulled himself from Minho’s grabby hands. He probably put a permanent hand print on Jinki’s arm; he really needed to start bopping Minho on the nose every time those death-grip fingers started reaching for him. In fact, it would be even better if the tables were turned.

 

“Look!” Jinki commanded, elbowing Minho in the side. “Flowers. Since you love them so much, why don’t we go take a look?” He wrapped his hand around Minho’s upper arm and squeezed, pulling him along. If Jinki said he didn’t get some vicious satisfaction from seeing him stumble and wince, then he’d be lying.

 

Of course, he highly doubted that Minho wanted to visit a floral shop, but he didn’t really care. For some reason, he felt his interest in plants and flowers growing recently. Of course, he’d probably still manage to kill a cactus if left alone with it, but he was very slowly getting better. Jonghyun would manage to turn his thumb green yet.

 

Jinki pushed through the florist’s front door, accompanied by the cheery jingle of a bell. The shop was very small and softly lit. Flower arrangements, vases, ribbon, and baskets of individual blooms jostled for space on the shelves and floor. It smelled sweet and perfumed, the natural scents gentle on the nose. It was like stumbling into a secret garden.

 

“Wow,” Jinki mouthed, hand slipping from Minho’s arm. He stepped forward, careful not to brush any of the delicate vases and send them crashing to the floor.

 

“Well, it certainly is full in here. There’s barely any space to move,” Minho mumbled to himself.

 

Suddenly a voice piped up from the back. “Hello, I’ll be up in a minute!” The voice was familiar, and Jinki had an inkling suspicion as to the owner of the voice.

 

A man backed out of the back room, large basket in his arms, glancing back to make sure he didn’t trip and to look at his customers. When Jonghyun saw them standing there, he actually smiled a little bit. He set the basket on a low table and turned to face them, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Hey guys, what are you doing here?”

 

Jinki smiled back a little nervously. Seeing Jonghyun in his nice clothes, surrounded by flowers, was a little much. “Minho was dragging me around, so I decided to drag him in here. I didn’t know you worked in a flower shop.”

 

“Neither did I,” Minho chimed, looking positively gleeful.

 

“Well, when I needed a job, I figured that I’d fit in here," Jonghyun smiled, gesturing to the colorful plants around him.

 

He vaguely noticed Minho wandering off to poke at something, so Jinki stepped forward to continue the conversation. "So, what exactly do you do around here?" he asked, absently running his fingers over the edge of a few greeting cards and still trying to take it all in. What were the odds he'd run into Jonghyun so close to home? If my life ends up like some kind of romantic comedy movie, I'll just ask Minho to push me off the roof. Or kill me with his gardening spade, he thought wryly.

 

"Oh, a little bit of everything. We don't have many employees, so everyone does whatever needs done. My favorite part is taking care of the flowers and arranging them, though it makes me a little sad to have to kill them." He threw an affectionate look to a perky potted plant on his left.

 

“I can’t believe you just said that,” Jinki choked, fighting the urge to laugh. He stepped forward and waved his hand above Jonghyun’s head. “Nope, no halo.” He squinted at him. “And no heavenly glow. Definitely not a cheesy, overly-sentimental angel, fallen to earth.”

 

They heard Minho’s inelegant snort from over by the bucket of daisies.

 

“What?” Jonghyun retorted defensively, crossing his arms. “I spend the whole time growing them, and then just chop them from their stems like it ain’t no thing. I’m literally murdering my own children.”

 

“Well,” Jinki hedged, “It’s kind of creepy and sad when you put it like that.”

 

“But,” Jonghyun broke back in. He relaxed his shoulders and smiled. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be…are you sure there’s nothing I can get for you?” He glanced around and vaguely gestured at the potted plants.

 

Jinki took a small, inadvertent step back and put his hands up as if to ward off whatever plant Jonghyun may send his way. “I don’t think so. You heard Chaerin when we first started gardening. Plants look at me once and then try to return to their seeds.”

 

Minho’s muffled guffaw drifted from behind a packed rack of wrapping and ribbon.

 

If Jonghyun conned Jinki into buying a plant, Jinki would kill it. Jinki knew this. This was not a desirable outcome at all. He’d have a dead plant, Jonghyun would be disappointed, and Chaerin and Minho would make fun of him until he died. A terrible idea. But…if Jinki bought a plant, then he’d force Jonghyun to help him take care of the plant. The plant would most likely live and he’d be spending more time with Jonghyun. That sounded good. But, Jinki was on a tight budget. Buy food or buy a plant that would not grow food? Starve, but spend time with Jonghyun and learn to care for a plant friend correctly. Cha-ching. Totally worth it.

 

When Jinki came back to himself, Jonghyun was staring at him either worried, amused, or puzzled; it was really quite hard to tell. One thing was sure, however: he was staring.

 

Jinki’s traitorous body twitched under the laser-like scrutiny, making him elbow a small potted plant off an adjacent shelf.

 

“Ah!” Jonghyun yelped, lunging forward. In a magnificent show of athleticism, he dropped down, skidded on one knee, and caught the clay pot with the tips of his fingers. A little spray of dirt scattered across the hardwood floor and the cactus wiggled unhappily.

 

“,” dropped out of Jinki’s mouth before he even had time to think, and he stood frozen, knees slightly bent, halfway trying to catch the plant but shocked into stillness by the other man’s quick motion. By this point, the stifled laughter from Minho was so constant that it just faded into normal background noise.

 

“Um,” Jonghyun said, looking up at Jinki from his position on the floor.

 

Jinki slowly thawed. He reached for the abused cactus and pulled it from Jonghyun’s fingers, patting the dirt to even it out again. “Nice catch.”

 

Jonghyun stood up and brushed off his jeans. Jinki held the cactus out, an obvious signal that he didn’t want to have a hold on the dang thing for a second longer than necessary. Instead of taking it like he was supposed to, the florist smiled infuriatingly and crossed his arms. “I think we’ve found the perfect plant for you, Jinki,” he said smugly.

 

Speechless, Jinki’s mind raced to come up with a way to get out of it, totally forgetting that not seconds ago, his master plan had been to buy a plant in order to spend more time with Jonghyun. “I really can’t afford a cactus,” he blurted. He could feel his entire head warming as nerves and embarrassment took hold. All of this was just further fuel for Minho’s inevitable mockery.

 

Jonghyun grabbed the cactus, careful not to spill it, and slipped behind the cash register. Jinki followed, but was slowed down because he took extra care to stay away from all the shelves. By the time he caught up, Jonghyun already had the cash drawer open and was slipping three dollars from his wallet and into the till.

 

“Ah, but…yo-…stop…what?” Jinki stuttered. Happiness, embarrassment, and a little frustration warred in his mind; he was growing fond of the little cactus, but he didn’t want Jonghyun to buy it for him. He could afford three dollars…probably. Jonghyun probably thought he was at least a little bit pathetic.

 

On the other hand, Jonghyun really seemed to like talking and kidding around, and he had said he was dedicated to helping him improve his plant tending skills. Buying the cactus for him was actually very sweet and adorable. The way Jonghyun was beaming at him from behind the counter was impossible to ignore, and in Jinki’s opinion, increasingly difficult to misinterpret. If real life was like a romance novel, Jonghyun’s eyes would definitely be twinkling.

 

Just take the damn cactus, Jinki scolded himself. Ignore Minho the Idiot, thank Jonghyun, and take the plant.

 

He did just that.

 

The door chimed, interrupting their conversation. An older woman tottered in and headed straight for Jonghyun. “Hello, Mrs. Kim!” Offering a discreet wave to Jinki, who returned the gesture in kind, Jonghyun turned his attention to Mrs. Kim.

 

Jinki poked around the shop for a minute, looking for Minho. He was nowhere to be seen. Shrugging, Jinki backed out of the shop, hands busy protecting the new addition to his family.

 

“You finally done with your lover boy?”

 

Minho’s drawl startled Jinki, but he clutched his cactus tightly. Forget family member, the cactus was going to replace Minho as his best friend. The former best friend was lying on a bench, arm thrown over his eyes. It did nothing to conceal his smug, self-satisfied look.

 

Jinki wanted to drop a brick on his face.

 

“I couldn’t stand the cloying anymore,” Minho moaned. “The air was so full of your flirting and googly eyes that I thought I was gonna suffocate.”

 

Throwing him a considering stare, Jinki didn’t respond. Cactus in hand, he abruptly turned and stalked away.

 

“You two should just do it already, eh Jinki?” When no reply was forthcoming, Minho slid his arm to the side and peeked out. “Jinki?” Seeing no one, he jerked into a sitting position. Head whipping around, he finally caught a glimpse of his friend about halfway down the block, power-walking away.

 

Jinki chuckled at Minho’s echoing yelp and the sound of pounding feet chasing him down the sidewalk. That was the least Minho deserved. Now, he needed to go home, find a nice sunny window for his new friend, and look up the proper way to care for it. This was one plant he definitely wasn’t going to kill.

 

***

 

It was Wednesday afternoon and Jinki was tired from a long day of work and a particularly rough time in class. He was standing in the middle of the kitchen, still in his rumpled work clothes, face haggard, and trying to think of what he could eat. He was really hungry, but didn’t have the energy or the will to make himself anything. Dropping into bed, curling into a ball, and not moving for at least 24 hours sounded absolutely amazing, but sadly, wasn’t an option. He had to go to work again the next morning.

 

The single onion, wilting leek, half-gallon of juice, and half-eaten pack of crackers that made up the contents of his cupboards and refrigerator weren’t really calling to him. He needed to go to the grocery store. Jinki groaned. Giving up and resigning himself to starvation, he shuffled over to couch and collapsed onto it face first.

 

He dozed in this uncomfortable position for a while, jerking at small noises but largely unconscious to the world around him. Vague dreams skittered across his mind, vanishing instantly when Jinki was startled awake by knocking on his door.

 

That can’t be Minho, he thought groggily, wiping a trail of drool from his chin. He just barges in here whenever he likes.

 

Yawning and scrubbing a hand through his hair, Jinki dragged himself over to the door, where the visitor was waiting in polite silence. Taking a deep breath, he slid back the deadbolt and hauled the somewhat sticky door open.

 

“Oh.”

 

Jonghyun, who had turned to look over the railing into the courtyard below, quickly turned back, already smiling.

 

“Hey, Jinki. Oh, sorry if I woke you up.”

 

Jinki shook his head, subtly leaning against the doorframe for support. It felt like his legs hadn’t quite woken up yet. “It’s no problem. I accidentally crashed on the couch.” He glanced down a little self-consciously at his rumpled work clothes. “Long day at work.”

 

"If I'm bothering you-" Jonghyun started to say, but Jinki didn't let him get too far. 

 

"Just come in," he interrupted, sloppily waving a hand.

 

Looking shocked but pleased, Jonghyun followed him inside.

 

Jinki definitely felt more comfortable and confident in their relationship. He enjoyed their almost flirting and could tell that Jonghyun felt the same way. It was still a little embarrassing that Jonghyun managed to catch him in such a state of disarray, but hey, if they ended up together or even dated for a while, then he would quickly get used to seeing a messy, rumpled boyfriend. That's how he looked about 80% of the time.

 

Here’s to hoping, Jinki thought wryly.

 

“Sit on the couch or something,” he told Jonghyun. “Let me go get changed.”

 

Jonghyun had been over to Jinki’s apartment a few times before, but usually it was to fetch him for some reason or another. He hadn’t actually spent more than a minute inside. He slowly sat on the couch, looking around because he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t curious. The most notable thing in the room was a very large analog clock hanging on the wall. It was actually the only thing to look at because the rest of the walls were sadly bare. The second hand was ticking away and the clock was at the proper time because he checked it against the time on his cellphone lock screen.

 

It made him wonder why Jinki was so close to being late or was actually late pretty consistently. Before he could imagine any wild stories about aliens habitually kidnapping him from his bedroom at night, the man himself stepped out of what he assumed to be the bedroom. Dressed in a white tee and blue jeans, Jinki wasn’t really dressed to impress.

 

“So, what’s up?” he asked.

 

Deciding to cut to the point, Jonghyun gathered his courage and bluntly asked, “Want to go get something to eat? I’m hungry and too lazy to make something myself.”

 

Jinki heard a chorus of angels in his head singing sweet praises to the food gods above because he was way past hungry. The then chorus abruptly stopped when he came to a stomach sinking, tear-jerking conclusion. He was dirt poor. He couldn’t really afford to eat out right now.

 

Jonghyun just sat and watched the expressions flux on the man’s face with a grin. It had glowed with happiness at the thought of food, but the expression was wiped away almost in the blink of an eye. “Why do you look like I just took your puppy out back and buried it in the garden?” he asked, a little concerned.

 

Jinki plopped down on the couch next to his visitor, ignoring the unsettling creaking and groaning from the couch. “I can’t pay, so I can’t have the precious,” he hissed, curling around his unhappy stomach.

 

A flowered arm was thrown over his shoulder and pulled him into Jonghyun’s side. In a low-pitched tone and a manner that can only be described as baby talk, he uttered, “Poor baby.”

 

Digging a fist into Jonghyun’s side, Jinki pushed him away in a fit of fake anger. “Jerk,” he said, a pouty lip just beginning to poke out.

 

“Woah, woah, put that thing away,” Jonghyun ordered, poking the lip so it squished slightly back into its original position, “I’ll buy you lunch, so this protruding lip is entirely uncalled for.”

 

Jinki gave his best sad puppy dog eyes. “Really?”

 

“I asked you, so it only makes sense, right?” Jonghyun smile showed his teeth. Jinki jabbed his shoulder in the man’s chest and dropped his head onto his shoulder in an awkward show of thanks. He was embarrassed, but he figured it was better than trying to put his arm around Jonghyun and accidently hitting him in the face. That was totally something he would do.

 

“So where are you taking me?”

 

“Ramen is always good.”

 

Jinki nodded. “Sounds good to me too. Let’s go!” He shot up, letting the colorful arm flop onto the couch.

 

Following promptly behind, Jonghyun let Jinki go ahead so he could put on his shoes and start heading out. He was happy he agreed to hang out with him. He always really enjoyed spending time with him, appreciative of the fact that Jinki didn’t mind other people’s opinions. Surely hanging out with someone who looked like a thug could cause him to get a bad reputation.

 

The food angels were once again singing praises in Jinki’s head as he practically skipped out the door. Not only was he insanely glad to finally be getting food in his belly, but he was equally as happy if not more so about the opportunity to spend some more quality time with Jonghyun. As a bonus, it didn’t seem like it was going to be awkward!

 

“It’s pretty close, so we shouldn’t have to take the bus. We can just walk and enjoy the nice day,” Jonghyun called out from behind Jinki, who was already at the top of the stairs waiting for the slow-poke to get a move on. “Sounds good to me!” he called back. Jonghyun pulled the door closed behind him and met him at the top of the stairs.

 

As Jinki turned around and started his way down, he felt his friend gently rest his fingers on his shoulder. He was slightly embarrassed by the touch, because he knew exactly what it was for.

 

“You’re trying to make sure I don’t fall down the stairs, right?” he asked, grimacing.

 

“Yep. I like your face. It would be shame if it was smeared down a flight of stairs,” Jonghyun quipped.

 

“What’s more likely to happen,” he retorted, amused, “is that I’ll trip and drag you down with me. Then we’ll both be dead with broken necks and the entire garden will wither and die.”

 

“And we can’t have that,” Jonghyun said, “I’ll just take a few steps back so I’m not in arm’s reach.” He let Jinki get a few steps ahead of him, who in turn just rolled his eyes and very carefully made his way down the rest of the steps.

 

Jonghyun took the lead when they reached the ground floor, but tugged his friend up so they were walking side by side. Despite his appalling lack of a sense of direction, Jinki still managed to recognize the route they were taking; they were nearing the little downtown area where the flower shop was located.

 

“Huh,” he said.

 

“What?” Jonghyun asked, glancing over at him.

 

Jinki shrugged. “I didn’t even realize there was anywhere to eat down here.”

 

Jonghyun smiled. He did that a lot nowadays. Jinki remembered Minho’s warning that the tattooed man was reserved. That had quickly changed very quickly, much to his surprise and pleasure. And Jinki was really glad it did. Jonghyun had really, really, nice smiles. They pulled an answering smile from him even when he was in a sour mood. Like that one time Minho emptied the watering can over his head in an entirely too drawn out revenge plot for that one morning they were late. Though even Jonghyun’s magical smile couldn’t make the sensation of soaked, squishy, tennis shoes any more pleasant.

 

But, Jonghyun had smiled then and smiled even more now. “Yeah, this place is hard to find if you haven’t been there before.”

 

Jinki elbowed him gently. “Then how did the first person ever get there?”

 

“Uh,” the tattooed man stalled, not sure where to go with that. It was a good response. “Followed the yellow brick road?”

 

Jinki looked down at his feet. No yellow bricks, just normal sidewalk cement. Then he glanced slyly at Jonghyun. He quickly looped his bare arm through the other man’s tattooed one and pasted a slightly frightened look on his face. “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” Before Jonghyun could react, he started skipping away, dragging him along.

 

Instead of digging his heels in and demanding, “Stop, you madman!” Jonghyun just laughed and jogged along with him so their arms weren’t pulled apart.

 

Inevitably, Jinki’s journey to Oz was cut extremely short when he tripped and pitched forward. Jonghyun, valiant knight in shining armor, yanked him back up.

 

“Wooh!” Jinki exclaimed, rubbing his arm. “That was a close one.” His hand slowed as he got the jarring feeling of déjà vu. “Wait a minute…”

 

Jonghyun looked at him curiously. “Oh, hold on a second. We’re here.” He pulled the door open and let Jinki enter before him. It really was a hole in the wall; there was only enough room to squeeze four small tables inside the restaurant. Luckily, there wasn’t anyone else inside already.

 

The pair sat down and ordered from a painfully shy girl who couldn’t have been over seventeen. Her glasses constantly slipped down her nose and she was forever pushing them back up.

 

“So, what were you going to say earlier?” Jonghyun asked, sipping his water.

 

“Mmm,” Jinki hummed, fiddling with a straw wrapper. “I just had a thought when I tripped.” The wrapper was being torn into shreds and placed in a delicate pile next to his water glass. “Were you the one who ran into me in the laundry room the day I moved in? The feeling of you yanking my arm out of its socket was really familiar a minute ago.”

 

The man in question ran his hand through his hair and ruffled it, flashing his intricate tattoos. He laughed. “What can I say? I have to do laundry on a weekly basis. I thought you would mention it the last time we were doing laundry together, but man, you are slow. I have a thing for your face, so I helped you out. What can I say?”

 

They both paused, avoiding eye contact.

                                                                                                                                     

Uh, Jinki’s mind stammered, It’s really starting to look like he likes me.

 

The stilted silence was broken by the nervous waitress bringing over their meals. Jinki quickly brushed his small pile of wrapper shreds out of the way of the incoming bowl. “Be careful, they’re hot,” she warned them, ducking her head and quickly scurrying away.

 

“But,” Jinki continued, blowing on the very hot noodles that were going to be in his mouth shortly. “Why did you run out of the laundry room like a man on fire? I couldn’t even say thanks.”

 

Jonghyun stirred his own bowl with a pair of chopsticks. “I actually heard you yelling after me when I was on the stairs. You sounded pretty frazzled.”

 

“Frazzled?” Jinki chuckled, trying not to choke on his noodles. “Who even says that? But of course I was a little surprised. You randomly slammed into me, removed my arm from its socket, made me crumple my book, and then disappeared like some kind of tattooed Batman.”

 

The restaurant door opened again, letting in a breeze that rattled the drawn blinds. A man followed a little boy, who hopped inside impatiently. The anxious waitress materialized from the back room once again, hand impatiently pushing her glasses back into place. 

 

“I’m just shy,” Jonghyun replied, shrugging.

 

Jinki leveled a flat glare at Jonghyun.  “You looked like you were either ready to kill someone at all times, or you had a chronic diarrhea problem. Your expression was all pinched and unpleasant. A far cry from the stupid face that you normally have.”

 

“Rude. Shut up and eat your food. I discovered I like your face when it isn’t talking.”

 

Grinning slightly, Jinki did just that. He led the noodles to his mouth with the chopsticks and then began to obnoxiously slurp his noodles as messily as possible. Broth was flying everywhere in small flecks and drops hitting Jonghyun in the face.

 

Ignoring the father and son pair glancing in the direction, wondering what could have been causing that horrendous noise, Jonghyun steeled is grip on his own chopsticks. Faster than Jinki could react, Jonghyun stuck his chopsticks on the lip of the bowl, and promptly used them to pull the bowl away from Jinki. Jinki was indignant, but he couldn’t complain, as he had noodles hanging out of his mouth, dripping onto the table.

 

“Stop it,” Jonghyun stated, “Cthulhu boy.” 

 

Jinki quickly finished inhaling that tangle of noodley goodness and held his own chopsticks slightly up. Just when Jinki was going to attack Jonghyun for his bowl, the waitress materialized at their table once again.

 

“Everything okay so far?” she whispered, pushing her glasses back up her nose with her wrist. Jinki was frozen, embarrassed by being caught wielding his eating utensil as a weapon of war.

 

“Uh, yeah. Thank you,” Jinki stammered. She smiled slightly, turned around, and darted to the only other customers in the small establishment. Hearing the sound of a ceramic bowl sliding across the polished wooden surface of the table made Jinki swing his head back around to his Jonghyun. Abandoning the chopsticks on the table, Jinki’s arms darted out to retrieve the bowl from the thief.

 

Arms circling around the bowl and back slightly hunched over to protect it in its entirety, Jinki whispered lovingly, “My precious.”

 

Jonghyun burst out laughing. A full blown, belly-aching laugh that made him put his head down on the table because all his other muscles were drained of power.

 

While Jinki was trying his best not give in and start laughing because he would be laughing at himself, he stared at Jonghyun. Said man suddenly popped his head up from the table and looked at him. Their eyes locked and Jonghyun’s laughter died away to nothing.

 

“Are we having a moment?” Jinki whispered reverently.

 

“I don’t think time slowed down enough for this to be a moment,” Jonghyun said just as quietly, managing to keep a straight face.

 

Jinki had already mentally bet his arm that this was kind of a ninja date, but now he was pretty sure. He would be his life on it if anyone was willing to take him up on it.

 

Nobody was. Probably for the best. Just in case.

 

Still staring deeply into Jonghyun’s eyes and trying very hard not to move his head, Jinki reached down with his chopsticks, brought some noodles to his mouth, and started slurping.

 

Jonghyun stayed stoic for a second or two before losing it. “Dear god, you’re ridiculous,” he laughed, shaking his head.

 

Jinki finished his noodles, wiped his chin, and smiled smugly to himself. Oh yes, Jonghyun liked him. Confidence soaring a mile high, he winked. “But you know you love it.”

 

They ate for a while, settling into a comfortable silence. As Jinki’s mind wandered, he briefly thought of the gangster comment back in the laundry room. He felt his stomach drop slightly, because it felt as if he was intruding on business that entirely wasn’t his own.

 

He was gonna try asking anyway. Where this newfound confidence had come from, he didn’t know, but the tattooed man probably wouldn’t punch him in the face or anything.

 

“Hey, Jonghyun,” Jinki said slowly, as he picked up a napkin to wipe off his broth-splattered face.

 

“Hey Jinki,” he replied when he was finished chewing.

 

“Can I ask you something that may or may not be entirely too personal?” Jinki asked, uncertain. “I mean, uh, you don’t have to answer or anything, I don’t want to push you if you don’t want to talk about it.”

 

“You’re sorta rambling. Calm down. You can ask me anything you want, I’m an open book,” he responded lightly with his hands on the table palms up, as if his hands were the book themselves.

 

Slapping his hands a little, Jinki formed his question, “What did you mean when you said you were a gangster in the laundry room?”

 

Jinki was comforted by the fact that Jonghyun didn’t seem to falter or feel uncomfortable. A small smile remained on his face.

 

“I have a past that I’m not particularly proud of, but you don’t need to be afraid to ask. When I was young, I was mixed up in drugs and gangs, and generally not good people, but five or so years ago, my family straightened me back out.”

 

“Isn’t that when you moved in?”

 

“Yeah, I’m surprised you remember that!”

 

“I do retain some information, you know,” was the bland reply.

 

“Moving on from your ‘tude, I moved in when all the gang life was wrapping up. I wanted to start fresh, partly, and I also wanted to get away from all those bad people and decisions,” Jonghyun continued, still comfortable. “I was clean, I was surprisingly not in jail or dead on the street somewhere, and my family wanted me to be safe and be healthy. So, here I am.”

 

Jinki was blown away by the nonchalance of this conversation. It sounded more like the synopsis of a book rather than the life the person in front of him had actually lived.

 

“Clean?” he blurted before he could stop himself.

 

“Clean. Like drug free?” Jonghyun explained.

 

“You did drugs?” Jinki whispered, shocked that this mild-mannered man in front of him would be caught up in something like that.

 

“I said before that I wasn’t particularly proud of my past,” Jonghyun said with a slight frown, “but I’ve come to terms with it.”

 

“O-Okay.”

 

His downcast eyes were pulled back up to Jonghyun’s face by a chuckle. “Any other burning questions you need to ask?”

 

“No, I think I’ve learned enough today,” he said, “I might grill you more the next time we hang out, though.”

 

A big, warm smile stretched across Jonghun’s face, reducing his eyes to thin lines. “I’m looking forward to it.”

 

***

 

Jonghyun grinned through his shifts the rest of the week, excited to have a guy he was growing closer to. Heck, there was definitely some romantic potential there. While he knew they weren’t really dating yet, he was still excited to be around Jinki in all of his ridiculousness.

 

When Saturday finally rolled around again, Jonghyun was up bright and early. He’d always been a morning person and the weekend was no exception. After his eyes snapped open, the man was instantly and completely awake. Glowing green numbers on his nightstand caught his eye. 6:58 am. He sighed, mildly miffed that he naturally woke two minutes before the alarm went off.

 

With a small grunt, he threw his arm at the alarm clock, quickly shutting off the alarm. With no or groaning, he hauled himself out of bed and headed toward the tiny kitchen in his slightly-less-tiny apartment. Pulling the refrigerator open absentmindedly, he scanned the shelves of food.

 

His thoughts flitted back to Jinki, wondering how the man managed when he seemed perpetually hungry, but never had any good food. Well, I know how to cook, Jonghyun thought, the beginnings of a plan forming in his mind. He shuffled through the fridge, pulling out various ingredients and placing them into a canvas bag. Once the bag was packed, he paused and looked at it for a second. His pulse was already starting to speed up from nerves and he hadn’t even left the apartment yet. This isn’t weird or anything, right? he asked himself, running a hand through his hair. No, this is okay. Jinki won’t think it’s too weird. He probably won’t even be awake enough to know what’s going on.

 

Jonghyun jumped in place a few times to pump himself up. He could treat his friend and make sure he was up and on time to the garden. Before he could change his mind again, he trotted back into his bedroom.

 

“This is gonna be great,” Jonghyun whispered to himself, feeling more confident. A nefarious grin broke across his face. Throwing off the t-shirt and shorts he used as his pajamas, he pulled on a black tank top and athletic shorts, figuring that Jinki wouldn’t be dressed to impress either. He brushed his teeth quickly and washed his face, and ran his hand through his hair in an attempt to tame it.

 

Jonghyun’s eyes narrowed at his hair, annoyed that it never seemed to want to cooperate.

 

He let out a breathy sigh, “Whatever.”

 

As he turned around on the ball of his foot, he trotted back into the kitchen, snagged the bag, and threw his house keys inside.

 

Slipping on his shoes, he opened the door to the cool morning air, reveling in the chill and early sunlight. He breathed deeply through his nose, loving the calm of the early morning.

 

Turning left, Jonghyun headed to the next door down, fist closed tight, ready to start pounding on Jinki’s door. Yeah, he was kind of an sometimes.

 

With a happy flourish of his wrist, he knocked loudly on the door. It couldn’t have been 7:30, but really, it was practically his duty to make sure Jinki wouldn’t be late again.

 

When the door didn’t immediately open, Jonghyun pressed his ear against the wood and listened. There was some kind of faint noise coming from the back of the apartment. Smiling, he gave the door another few smart raps with his knuckles. There was definitely grumbling now. As the grumbling got louder, he could make out some of the angry words of the disgruntled college student. In all honesty, though, it was more like yelling.

 

“Oh my God, Minho. I will kill you if you are really bothering this early.”

 

Chuckling a little, he heard the rattle of the deadbolt being pulled back. Jonghyun listened as Minho’s life was continually threatened in increasingly creative and disturbing ways.

 

The door was hauled open, “…and I swear, Minho, I will pluck out your eyes and eat the je-” and the interesting eye-eating comment cut off abruptly as Jinki noticed it was Jonghyun instead of his gangly frenemy.

 

“Hi!” Jonghyun chirped rocking forward onto his toes, positively too energetic for the ungodly hour of the morning.

 

Jinki, who looked positively baffled, blinked a few times as if he was making sure it wasn’t a dream. “Uh, hi.”

 

“Let me in! I have food!” Jinki leapt away from the door like he was burned, understanding his top priority no matter the time of day. Laughing at the reaction, Jonghyun entered the apartment, toed off his shoes, and started heading to the small kitchen that matched his own.

 

“I’m glad that I annoyed you enough to invest in some cookware,” Jonghyun said as he set down his ingredients on the slightly rickety table. Walking over to some of the cupboards, he pulled out a large frying pan and set it on the burner. “Go get ready while I make us breakfast, you bum.”

 

Still sleepy eyed, with the hair on his left side sticking up at an adorable angle from his pillow, Jinki turned around to do just that. Jonghyun was cracking eggs and separating out bacon, happy that he thought of this idea. Seeing a rumpled morning Jinki always made his day a little better. He was adorable.

 

The food, an easy meal of eggs, bacon, and toast, was quickly being finished up just as Jinki was coming out of the back of the apartment, still zombie-like.

 

“Hello, grumpy,” Jonghyun positively beamed at the disgruntled man.

 

“Morning,” was the miffed reply. Jinki plopped down on the wooden chairs, eyes still half-closed and unhappy, despite how fast he had moved for food. A plate loaded with eggs, bacon, and toast slid across the table to settle in front of him. Jinki smiled dopily at it.

 

Jonghyun held a seemingly a single fork up, not really intending for Jinki to take it.

 

“Shing,” he said, as he slid them apart to reveal the truth, there were two forks. Jinki smiled at the silliness of the man in front of him, and pulled the left fork from his fingers.

 

Sitting down at the table with the leftover fork across from his neighbor, they both began to dig into the rather hearty breakfast that Jonghyun had whipped up.

 

“So, Jinki. That last time we ate, I talked about myself. I think it’s your turn to tell me about you.”

 

Jinki looked up from his scrambled eggs. “Well, you know the basics, I guess. I moved here so I could go to school and work and stuff.”

 

“So eloquent.”

 

Flipping around the fork in his hand, he held it as if it was a tool of murder. Holding the utensil in the air, he muttered, “Shut up.”

 

“I don’t know. I have my mom and dad, and they’re normal parents. I’m an only child, so I never had to bicker with any siblings or anything. We aren’t the richest, so I have to work while I go to school, but they really support me and want me to do whatever my dream is.”

 

“A dream. Like, what you want to do when you grow up?”

 

“Yeah, but I don’t really know what I want yet. I’m floating in basic classes limbo till I figure out a direction I want to go,” he shoveled some food absentmindedly into his mouth. There was a brief silence as they ate. “Yeah, I’m pretty average.”

 

“Ha. You’re pretty cute though, so there’s that.”

 

Jinki tried to fight down the blush that he could feel creeping up his neck. Smiling, he continued eating, “Do you have any siblings?”

 

Jonghyun lit up at the question. “Yeah! I have an older sister!” He seemed to almost vibrate in his seat. Jinki was caught off guard by this excitement, because as far as he knew, most siblings didn’t get along that well.

 

“You seem pretty excited about her,” Jinki said, gesturing to the stupid excited face that his tablemate was currently sporting.

 

“She’s pretty much the most awesomest sister anyone could have,” Jonghyun stated, firm in the fact. He flipped out his cell phone from his pocket, “Here, let me show you a picture.”

 

Jonghyun turned his phone around to show the image of him and his sister. He was smiling another big smile, apparently really proud of being related to ‘the most awesomest sister.’

 

Clearly a selfie, the image featured only half of Jonghyun’s face, with a snapback backwards on his head and black hair poking out the back. His sister’s chin was perched on his colorful shoulder, staring up at the camera to make her eyes look big and adorable.

 

“Wow, she’s really pretty. What’s her name?” Jinki asked, curious about this person Jonghyun seemed to love so much.

 

“Sodam,” his face grew soft for a moment. “She was the one that really worked to get me out the tiness that I had made my life into. I told you the basics about that whole mess. She found out what I was doing, confronted me, and told my parents, who got me some serious help. Sometimes I feel like I owe her my life.”

 

Jinki twisted around after a moment of thoughtful silence, having cleaned his plate thoroughly while Jonghyun was showing him pictures and singing praises about Sodam. The large analogue clock that came with his apartment, loudly ticking away, announced that it was currently 8:05. They still had a little time before they had to go down to the garden.

 

“Moving on from your apparent sister complex,” Jinki said, and continued his sentence despite the noise of denial coming from the other side of the table, “we should clean up soon.”

 

“But I’m not even done eating yet!”Jonghyun protested.

 

“Well you better hurry up before I eat it for you,” Jinki threatened with his eyes narrowed and fork already sneaking towards the other plate.

 

Wielding his fork with a flourish, Jonghyun smacked the slowly approaching enemy fork and began to quickly shovel eggs and bacon into his face. He glared at his tablemate while chewing, comically angry at the threat of the breakfast he’d worked so hard on being snatched away by Jinki’s germ-laden fork.

 

The entire image was pretty ridiculous. A not-so-gangster gangster protecting his plate with an arm, fork firmly in his hand, with his cheeks all puffed up and chewing borderline frantically. Jinki broke down laughing, and Jonghyun did his best to ignore the rambunctious laughter aimed in his direction.

 

He wiped at his pink face, and he felt a lone tear of laughter in the corner of his eye. “Look, you made me cry,” he chuckled as he pointed to the tear. After wiping from his eye, his arm shot forward and wiped the tear on Jonghyun’s arm. “My gift to you.”
 

Jonghyun was briefly confused because he didn’t know if that was supposed to be gross or not. He lifted his arm from around his nearly empty plate and wiped the smudged tear on his side.

 

“Okay, you weirdo,” he said.

 

Jinki just grabbed his cleared dishes, rinsed them, and gently set them in the bottom of the sink. He didn’t want to risk breaking anything this early in the morning.

 

“Take mine too!” Jonghyun called from the table. Rather than getting up like a reasonable person, he was stretching his tattooed arm the best he could in Jinki’s direction with an unrepentant grin.

 

***

 

The weeks flew by. The plants in the community garden grew from tiny little sprouts to tall hardy plants with baby vegetables making an appearance, not yet ready to be picked. Jinki too, grew. His original reluctance to get near the fragile plants changed to him handling them with ease, comfortable watering, pruning, and weeding them by himself.

 

In fact, while the weekends were filled sleeping, group-gardening and communal laundry with Jonghyun, weekday evenings now found him in the garden, sometimes with Jonghyun, sometimes not, helping other groups who were struggling with their plots or had people drop from their group. The garden had become a familiar happy place for Jinki, where he could feel the love and time that everyone in the apartment building had poured into it.

 

Of course, while love was great, it didn’t physically help plants grow. If all they needed were love, Jinki’s tomatoes would be as big as basketballs and his carrots more orange than, well, oranges. Alas, he’d begun to notice that the lovely vegetables in plot three looked a little sad. They weren’t particularly droopy or discolored, at least that he could tell, but over the weeks it seemed like the carrots stopped growing altogether. Jonghyun hadn’t said anything, but Jinki was starting to get worried. Forget being more orange than an orange, Jinki would be happy if they were healthy and bigger than his pinkie finger.

 

These plants were his babies. He had poured so much time and effort into this little plot of land that he would be crushed if his bungling managed to ruin them.

 

The next Saturday, he finally worked up the guts to ask Jonghyun about it. “Hey, can I ask you a question?”

 

“Sure, what’s up?”

 

Jonghyun was a colorful lump bent around the base of a few tomato plants. He was examining the leaves, carefully turning them in his fingers to check the color and texture. Jinki had seem him at it a while ago, and when asked, Jonghyun launched into a lecture on tomato plant diseases and symptoms and how to check them often to prevent the onset of something that could kill their plants. He didn’t ask again.

 

“Why are our carrots so small?”

 

Jonghyun looked up from the tomatoes, a small smile curling at the corner of his mouth. They nervous, uncertain tone in Jinki’s voice was really too adorable for words. He fell back onto his and stretched his legs out. “It’s probably because we’ve planted other things around them,” he said, shrugging. “Sometimes that’ll stunt their growth.”

 

“What? Why did we plant them if they won’t even grow properly?” Jinki felt offended for the poor carrots. They deserved a life where they could grow to their hearts’ content.

 

“Don’t look so sad,” Jonghyun admonished. “They’ll grow to a decent size, and they’ll still be delicious, so don’t look like I took your cactus and threw it on the ground.”

 

His eyes narrowed at the perceived threat. “Don’t you dare touch my baby,” he growled, looming over the seated Jonghyun and throwing both their faces in shadow.

 

Chaerin materialized behind him, “If you wanted to have bigger carrots, you shouldn’t have been so clumsy with the seeds!” She clearly remembered the initial planting where Jinki had inadvertently dumped the seed packet.

 

“Woah there missy!” Jinki turned to loom over her instead of Jonghyun, “I may have spilled some, but you planted them too close together, and Jonghyun said I could plant them where they fell!”

 

“Did I?” Jonghyun murmured behind him, “I don’t even remember that far back.”

 

Ignoring the mumbles, Jinki continued justifying these poor carrots’ existence. “So you’re really no better than me!”

 

She bent backwards and planted her fists on her hips, so she could look down her nose at Jinki haughtily. “I wouldn’t have let you plant them so close like that. I understand that peasants make mistakes, but I shouldn’t have let Jonghyun do whatever he wanted with you and the seeds.”

 

“Jonghyun can do whatever he wants with me,” Jinki snapped back before coming to a horrified stop. “…and the seeds…because he knows more about the garden.”

 

The silence was deafening for the few seconds it took for Chaerin to start laughing so hard it looked like she was going to bust a gut.

 

Ignoring the cackling girl, Jonghyun stood up, brushed the dirt from his shorts, and threw a heavy arm around Jinki. It was an awkward angle because Jinki was at least three inches taller than him, but he didn’t mind.

 

“Anything I want, huh?” Jonghyung asked, eyes sparkling with mirth.

 

“You’re just lucky Minho wasn’t here to hear that,” Chaerin howled, wiping tears from her eyes.

 

“Oh,” a hand s up from behind Jonghyun and planted itself on his chest. “Jonghyun, you can do whatever you want to me.” A face poked over his shoulder. “Anything,” Minho purred.

 

Jinki didn’t know whether to be jealous, angry, or simply embarrassed, but because Minho in range, he jabbed him in the side with his elbow.

 

These people were definitely going to be the death of him.

 

***

 

Jinki’s favorite spot by far was the patch of corn that took up half of plot five.

 

Plot five was cared for by two younger guys and a man and woman who were a little older. The older guy (“Hello, my name is Donghae!) always wandered off to visit a friend of his in Minho’s group who had a name that sounded like a cat choking up a hairball. 

 

The other two guys on plot five were Taemin and Key. To Jinki’s unending amusement, Key was totally the prissy boy in designer jeans that he had noticed on the first day. Prissy boy and the very sweet Taemin were pretty much attached at the hip. They always did every task together, though Key refused to actually touch the dirt. The only reason he ever carried the gardening tools was because of Mrs. Choi. Nobody disobeyed Mrs. Choi.

 

Despite Key’s refusal to get down and dirty, plot five was thriving. When everyone was gone, Jinki liked to sneak over to the corn patch and sit between the stalks. They were pale green, smooth, with baby leaves erupting here and there. The best part was that the corn was just tall enough so if Jinki sat down, they made it impossible to see his head. Yes, his got dirty and sometimes damp, and he had to be careful not to slump and crush the stalks, but it was still worth it. He got to feel like a ninja and it was a great thinking spot.

 

He was there now, actually. What was he thinking about? Well, it didn’t take a genius to figure it out. Jinki once again had Jonghyun on the brain. They’d started meeting more and more. On Jinki’s free weekday afternoons, he’d often go visit Jonghyun at the florist’s shop and chat with him while he worked. Jinki now knew more about flowers than he ever thought he would, and hey, the cactus was thriving! He’d named it Lamp. The expression on Jonghyun’s face when he shared that bit of information still made him laugh.

 

“Lamp…?” he choked, shooting the cactus a concerned look.

 

Jinki shrugged. “Yeah. I put him on the window sill next to the lamp.”

 

“It goes next to the lamp, so you name it Lamp.” The lingering silence after that statement said more than words ever could. That, in addition to Jonghyun’s expression, didn’t outright say that this was the most absurd thing he’d ever heard, but suggested it well enough.

 

Jonghyun, nice guy that he was, rolled with it and gamely called the cactus Lamp from then on out. He’d even gone so far as to bring a little flower message card from work, write “Lamp” on it in very nice handwriting, and tape it to Lamp’s clay pot.

 

Jinki graciously ignored his whisper of, “I’m sorry I let him name you,” when Jonghyun gently attached the name plaque.

 

As the time Jinki spent with Jonghyun increased, so did the time Minho and Chaerin spent harassing him about it. Minho hadn’t had to work very hard to convince the young girl to support Team Jinki –that is, the “J” from Jonghyun and the “inki” from Jinki. Chaerin was rather proud of herself for coming up with the team name.

 

While Jinki oscillated between exasperation and fond amusement, Jonghyun appeared to be enjoying every minute of Minho and Chaerin’s torture. If Jinki were prone to wild accusations, he might even say that Jonghyun was encouraging them. On a side note, the more time Chaerin spent plotting with Minho, the grumpier and more sullen Seunghyun grew, refusing to talk to Jinki, Jonghyun, and Minho, and getting in more trouble than usual with his mother.

 

That was the funny thing about Seunghyun; even though it seemed like he wanted nothing to do with any of them in the first place, and he even liked to upset Chaerin on purpose, when they inadvertently ignored him, he became angrier.

 

Ah, Jinki thought, petting a smooth corn leaf, I bet he wants Chaerin to pay him more attention. Sulking isn’t going to do it, though. He needs to be more proactive. Give her a reason to like him in the first place. Which of course, brought his thoughts back to Jonghyun.

 

Jinki knew they had been mutually flirting pretty much since they’d met He was getting to know Jonghyun fairly well now. Hell, Minho reiterated that point several times. Loudly.

 

“Oi, Jinki,” Minho half-shouted, pulling Jinki from his thoughts. They were sitting in Minho’s living room, playing a sports game on his Playstation. Or, they had been, but Minho had lost one too many times and shut the entire console off in a fit of rage. He was a sore loser. Now the loser was laying on the couch with his head hanging off while Jinki was slouched against the coffee table.

 

Jinki looked up. “What? You ready to lose again? Don’t cry this time.” He cackled.

 

Affronted, Minho glared and reached out for Jinki, trying to claw him. Jinki scuttled away, accidentally collecting some rug burn on his knees. “Touchy.”

 

“That’s not what I wanted, anyway,” Minho pouted, looking even more ridiculous upside-down. “You know,” he continued, eyes gleaming, “Jonghyun has really opened up to you. I think he told you more about himself in the first week than he spoke to anyone last year period. When he sees you coming to the garden, I swear he practically vibrates with excitement and his tattoos get a shade brighter.”

 

Rolling his eyes, Jinki flopped onto his back, spread-eagle in the middle of the living room floor. “How poetic, Minho. You should write love songs or something. I bet the girls would love to hear that kind of crap.”

 

Of course, he realized that Minho was right. Jonghyun was great. They’d hung out a lot more, even went to see a movie once. Jinki was 99% sure that he’d get a positive answer if he asked Jonghyun out, but that unsure 1% was always in the back of his mind, driving him crazy.

 

“I’m serious, Jinki,” Minho insisted. It was increasingly difficult to take Minho seriously, seeing as his face was turning incredibly red from all the blood rushing to his head.

 

That, Jinki mused, absent-mindedly scooping up a handful of dirt and letting it trickle through his fingers and onto the leg of his jeans, is when things finally went to .

 

Jinki wasn’t prepared for Minho to slither from the couch over to his position on the floor and pull him into a well-executed headlock. Where the hell did he learn that? Jinki scrabbled at Minho’s arms, completely unable to get free.

 

Minho’s light breaths were loud in his ear. “Listen to me, Jinki.”

 

Jinki’s strangled, “I don’t have a choice,” was cut off by Minho tightening his arms the slightest bit. Thankfully, Minho instantly relaxed when he shut up.

 

“No, really listen. You’re a good person, Jinki. You’re likable, attractive, and interesting. You’re incredibly kind, and the way you interact with Chaerin should be videotaped and entered in the dictionary under ‘adorable’ and ‘big brother.’” He gave Jinki a little shake to make sure he was listening. “You got that?”

 

“Yes,” Jinki muttered, never having felt more embarrassed in his life. At the same time, he was feeling warm inside, incredibly touched by Minho’s fervent words.

 

“Jonghyun likes you; he would be stupid not to. He thinks you’re attractive. He opens his life to you and wants to spend time with you. I can tell, Jinki. He didn’t open up to me, can only share so much with someone as young as Chaerin. You’re important to him.” Minho let that sink in for a few silent seconds.

 

“Jinki, his arms are covered in flowers, but what are the rest of his tattoos?” Minho let his arms loosen a fraction further so he could twist and face his friend directly.

 

Jinki wanted to look away, but he couldn’t move. “I don’t know,” he replied, sounding and feeling incredibly small. Jonghyun had almost brought it up one time, but looked slightly uncomfortable, then changed the topic.

 

“But you will,” Minho murmured, letting his arms relax, “And that’s the difference.”

 

Minho’s eyes were almost too much. He looked so absolutely sure of the truth of his own words that Jinki felt something inside himself breaking open. He felt lighter, and perhaps that giddy feeling bubbling up into his chest was happiness. He couldn’t be quite sure.

 

“I want you to be happy.” Minho’s gaze was boring into Jinki, trying to find those dark places and flood them with light. “I want Jonghyun to be happy. Why not be happy together?”

 

When unbidden tears sprung up in the corner of Jinki’s eyes, Minho tightened his grip a fraction, holding him.

 

“Okay,” Jinki croaked, feeling raw. “Okay, I understand.”

 

Minho was suddenly a few feet away, leaning against the couch nearly as quickly as he had grabbed Jinki in the first place. His legs were straight, left foot just barely touching Jinki’s side. He didn’t say it aloud, but Jinki appreciated the contact.

 

He took one, two, three deep breaths, trying to regain some sort of control over his mind, his emotions. God, he had not expected to be torn apart and shoved back together when he gave into Minho’s demand of a game or two on FIFA 14.

 

Thinking of that rather one-sided conversation still made something ache within Jinki, but he wasn’t sure if it was a good or bad ache.

 

Frowning a little, he brushed the dirt off his jeans and rubbed his hands together to shake the rest of the dust loose. Neck craning, he looked up past the corn stalks and into the sky. Night had fallen a while ago, but stars were scarce. The lights from the apartment building rendered many of them invisible, and there was a fair amount of cloud cover tonight. Jinki strained his eyes, wanting to find at least one star.

 

The sound of voices pulled him from his search. Jinki automatically looked around, but he couldn’t see anything but corn. Holding his breath, he sat incredibly still and listened again. There were no sounds but the pounding of his heart. He sat, listening, for at least a minute, taking slow, shallow breaths. He probably imagined the voices in the first place, like how he sometimes could have sworn his phone was ringing or someone had called his name, when in fact, neither of those things had happened.

 

Blowing out a breath, Jinki looked back up at the sky. The clouds, yellow with artificial light from the city, had shifted, letting the moon peek through. It was high and lopsided in the sky, still a few days from being full. Jinki absent-mindedly wondered if Jonghyun knew about stars. He knew so much about plants and gardening that it made him wonder if there was any room in the man’s brain for random facts about other things. Maybe Jonghyun would be able to point out some constellations. It seemed like something he would know.

 

After that painful conversation with Minho, Jinki was able to shelve some of his worry about what Jonghyun was thinking and more genuinely enjoy their time together. Jonghyun was so open and friendly toward him; the way he casually touched Jinki’s shoulder, his arm, grabbed his hand. The man also smiled at him a heck of a lot. It was a dopey smile. Heck, that one day at the ramen place was pretty much a date. And though Jinki had left feeling pumped up with courage, it had quickly deflated when his mouth had opened with the intention of asking Jonghyun on a proper date, where they would both have to acknowledge the ridiculous amount of flirting that went on between them.

 

Heaving a burdened and dramatic sigh, Jinki wiggled his toes inside his shoes, feeling the rub of his socks. It was starting to get a little chilly and there was a large chance that the of his jeans was going to be uncomfortably damp when he stood up. on his bottom lip, Jinki was about to push himself up when the sound of voices made him freeze in place once again.

 

The voices sounded young, like teenagers. Maybe they were from the apartment building. He rocked onto his knees and slumped a little so his eyes were peeking over the top of the corn. The kids were over by the far corner of the garden on the other side of the low fence. If they were coming from the side of the block opposite the building, then they probably weren’t any of his neighbors. Their heckling laughter carried through the night air, raising the hair on the back of Jinki’s neck.

 

He watched in trepidation as the first one, there looked to be three total, hopped the fence, landing next to plot sixteen’s hydrangea bush. The boy nodded to his two cohorts, motioning them over. They wavered for a second before following him over the fence and into the garden.

 

Jinki’s eyes narrowed. This looked like trouble. His thighs were starting to burn from standing in a half-crouched position for too long, but he didn’t want to move and draw too much attention to himself. He knew he was in a bad part of town when he moved in, but he hadn’t had any scary experiences. That didn’t stop him from hearing stories, though.

 

His intention to avoid being noticed went out the window when the first kid ripped the wire cage from a nearby tomato plant and stomped on the stalk, snapping it.

 

Anger skyrocketing, Jinki bolted upright and shimmied his way out of the corn patch. “Hey! What the hell are you doing?” he shouted, stomping toward them, feet automatically skirting around the patches of growing plants.

 

The three kids turned to look at him, but it was hard to make out their facial expressions in the dim light. Their body language, the way the first teenager started to approach him leaned forward and stiff, ready for action, certainly was telling enough. This probably wasn’t going to end well, and as much as Jinki was used to getting bumps and bruises, this was a whole different ball game. That being said, there was no way he could let these dumb kids trash the garden everyone worked so hard on.

 

Whatever uncertainty holding the kid back disappeared and he broke into run. As he got closer, Jinki’s heart was pounding so hard from adrenaline that he could feel it thudding against his chest. The boy pulled his right arm and curled his fist with Jinki clear in his sights. I’m going to get punched and it’s going to , Jinki thought, more than a little terrified. He had never been in a fight before or had anyone throw a punch at him, but he really didn’t want to get hit in the face. He made sure he was in one of the dirt aisles so no plants would get crushed and tried his best not to die.

 

By some miracle, Jinki managed to dodge the swing at his face, but the fist careened into his shoulder instead, making him jerk back from the force. Pain exploded in his shoulder and arm, the sensation immediately settling into hot throbbing.

 

Surprised and angered by his miss, the teen frowned, dark and ugly. The next punch was again aimed at his face. Jinki went to block it, but the swing stopped halfway and was redirected toward his stomach. Though he saw the punch switch, he couldn’t react fast enough and it hit him straight in the stomach.

 

Jinki dropped back, trying to keep his feet under him, but it was useless. As he landed in the dirt, he felt like he was going to throw up.

 

While the kid saw that Jinki was more or less down for the count, he stepped closer, kicking dirt over Jinki’s face and chest. “Stupid ,” the teen spat, nudging the side of Jinki’s head with his shoe. Anger still ratcheting up, Jinki slapped the shoe away, glaring through tear-blurred eyes.

 

Done with the prone man, the teen turned to the nearest patch of plants, green bell peppers, and kicked the stalk, intentionally pulling off the peppers and smashing them.

 

Jinki was angry at himself and the stupid kids who thought it was fun to destroy others’ hard work. One punch and he was down? Jonghyun would have probably kicked these kids’ asses from here to the moon instead of being taken out by one measly punch from a kid who probably couldn’t even reach the top shelf. Holding on to his roiling stomach, Jinki determinedly pushed himself to his knees, wobbling precariously. When he finally made it to his feet, he staggered toward the three destructive teens.

 

One of the sidekicks caught sight of him and nudged the leader, pointing back to the slowly approaching Jinki.

 

“So, you didn’t have enough?” he sneered. “I could whip a no-good flower boy like you all day!”

 

After he got a little closer, Jinki hurled a handful of dirt and a broken bell pepper at the boy’s face, stopping him mid-stride.

 

“What the hell?” the kid sputtered, wiping his face.

 

Jinki took his moment of stunned inaction as an opportunity to get closer and shove the guy back. He stumbled, tripping into his two friends, who caught him.

 

“Get the hell out of our garden!” Jinki ordered them again. “I’ll call the police so fast your head’ll spin.”

 

The lead punk wiped his cheek with the back of his hand, coldly furious that some garden boy had the nerve to shove him.

 

“Oh,” he promised, “You won’t be able to call the damn police.” With a roar, he leapt at Jinki, taking them both to the dirt. Jinki was trying to grapple with him but was crushed under the guy’s weight. He felt his phone being ripped from his pocket and tossed to the side. , , he mentally chanted. That was cut off when the punk got a knee into his stomach.

 

Brows pinched together with pain and jaw clenched tight, Jinki struggled to regain his breath. It felt as if his lungs had collapsed. He couldn’t fight back even if he wanted to, because the knee had sent him into a mental frenzy trying to just breathe. He couldn’t yell for help or make any noise at all, just lie there and take everything that was dished out.

 

Feeling hands on his head quickly turn into a fist in his hair, one of the teenagers yanked Jinki semi upright to be able to get at his face.

 

“What the hell are you guys waiting for?” the leader asked, giving Jinki’s head a little shake. The two other boys slowly approached him, hesitant enough to go slowly towards the crumpled young man and their friend, but not reluctant enough to actually go against their leader.

 

The leader tossed Jinki’s phone to the closest one. “Take care of it.”

 

The boy fumbled to catch it, and throwing one last glance and Jinki and his friend, pulled the phone apart and crushed the pieces under his boots.

 

The other one sidled a little closer, expression hardening when Jinki glared at him ferociously.  The boy looked at Jinki, then his leader again, and curled his fingers into a fist. Without any further hesitation, he landed a punch on Jinki’s cheek, sending his head snapping back in the other boy’s grip.

 

Just after the hit landed they heard distant, high pitched yelling coming from the direction of the apartment building. Jinki’s mind was so muddled that he couldn’t make out the words shouted into the night air, but it sounded suspiciously like an angered Chaerin.

 

“C’mon man, we better go,” the lackey who destroyed Jinki’s phone muttered, looking at the apartments nervously.

 

“No,” the lead punk replied with an air of confidence and amusement, “I want to finish with this idiot first.”

 

The distant yelling stopped. Jinki was left with these violent people in a moment of stifling silence.

 

His head was still turned from the brutal hit to the face, facing the apartments. His eyes widened when he saw figures burst from the darkness of the building like bats out of hell, heading straight for the garden. The dim and ill-colored lighting revealed the massive mob to be his friends and neighbors with faces like thunder.

 

Jonghyun was sprinting faster than Jinki had ever seen him move before and Minho was hot on his heels. Ignoring the gate, both men easily leapt over the fence, not even losing a second. They aimed directly for the punk who was painfully gripping his hair, the hold getting tighter as he tensed. His buddies were inching away, afraid of retaliation from such a large and upset group of people. They wanted out of there quick before they got a taste of what they’d done to Jinki, and they were willing to throw their “friend,” the leader, under the bus. Behind Jonghyun and Minho was a crowd of at least another fifteen apartment tenants set on helping any way they could.

 

The less aggressive of the two boys turned tail and ran out of the garden as if on fire, tripping over the fence of the far side and refusing to look back.

 

Irate, their friend shouted at their retreating backs. “Come back here, you losers! I always knew you weren’t good enough anyway!” They didn’t turn around and didn’t bother to respond, spending all effort and concentration on running. Taking on fifteen people was not going to happen, no matter how tough they thought they were.

 

Jonghyun arrived first. Not slowing down and putting his entire body into it, the normally sweet man who gently worked flowers and earth nailed Jinki’s attacker directly in the nose. Jinki heard the crunch of bone as the teenager’s nose gave in under the furious force of Jonghyun’s punch.

 

The kid yelped, stumbling backwards and dropping Jinki into the waiting arms of Minho, hands flying to his nose. “Aw , man! You broke my nose!”

 

“That’s not the only thing I’ll break if you don’t get the hell outta here right now,” Jonghyun snarled, “And I better never see your face around here again, or you won’t have a face left to worry about, got it?”

 

The boy nodded, turned tail, and stumbled out of the garden as fast as he could. Jonghyun watched as he tripped over the wire tomato cage that he’d ripped out.

 

The group that had ran behind Jonghyun and Minho slowed down, some breaking off and gathering worriedly around Jinki. The rest just stood there stunned at the remorseless violence that their neighbor had displayed. Everyone know that he was pretty strong, he had muscles, but that hit was confident and comfortable as if he had done it a dozen times before.

 

Chaerin suddenly burst out from the group, hair sticking out awkwardly from pushing and squeezing past all the adults’ legs.

 

“Jinki!” she yelled, looking frazzled and worried.

 

Jonghyun snapped out of his angry daze. Flipping his head around to look at Jinki between the bobbing heads of the crowd surrounding him, he gently pushed people aside, murmuring platitudes to the people he passed.

 

Kneeling down next to Jinki’s right side, he took in the swollen cheek and twisted expression.

 

“Is anything broken?” Jonghyun asked softly.

 

Jinki shook his head from his position on the ground, “No, I don’t think anything’s broken, just a bit bruised. I feel really dizzy and nauseous, though.”

 

Minho, who was kneeling by Jinki’s head, frowned. “Should we take him to a hospital? It sounds like he might have a concussion and his cheek is starting to swell really badly.”

 

Jonghyun nodded, “Yeah, that seems like it would be the safest bet. I don’t have car, though.”

 

A strong voice in the crowd piped up from behind them. “I do, I’ll take Jinki.” Mrs. Choi stepped forward, face pale with worry. Seunghyun stood behind her. Chaerin had found him in the crowd and clutched his hand in hers, preventing him from following his mom, comforting him as he tried to secretly wipe at the wetness in his eyes.

 

While breathing had become exponentially easier for Jinki, he didn’t think he move his eyeballs, let alone walk around the building to the parking lot.

 

“I ruined the face you like so much,” Jinki confessed quietly so only Minho and Jonghyun could really understand. They had to admit, it looked pretty bad: his cheek was swollen and red, already beginning to affect his vision.

 

Despite the intense worry he felt and the unfortunate situation, a small smile appeared on Jonghyun’s face. If the beat up young man was willing and able to make bad jokes at a time like this, he was going to be fine.

 

“Don’t worry, I still like your face. It just has more…character now.”

 

With much help from those surrounding him, Jinki was hauled up and half-carried and half-walked over to the opposite side of the building. It was much further than the injured man remembered it being, but tried his best regardless. Both of his lovely assistants had an arm around his waist with Jinki’s arms around each of their shoulders. With almost comical expressions of concentration, they were trying their best to not jostle and yank on Jinki too much.

 

The group of neighbors behind them fluttered around anxiously. They still wanted to help and were worried as hell, but they didn’t want to get in the way. Suddenly, Mrs. Choi burst from the crowd in a jog. She ran up to her apartment, accidnetally slamming the door against the wall in her haste. The flustered woman gathered up her purse and keys, and sped out the door, yanking it shut behind her. She stopped between the crowd and the group of three men. “Alright, everyone. We’ve got it under control here so you should all go back to your apartments and wait for any news there.” Silence greeted her words as the group stilled.

 

“Can I go with you?” Chaerin asked, still clutching Seunghyun.

 

Kneeling in front of the distraught girl and her unusually upset son, Mrs. Choi shook her head. “No, you can’t go with, I’m sorry. Just go back inside, okay? And please stay with Seunghyun.”

 

Chaerin nodded to Mrs. Choi, tugging Seunghyun a little closer. She had every intention of staying with him anyway. He reluctantly let her drag him back toward the building, watching Jonghyun, Minho, and Jinki approach the parking lot. With a loud, wet sniffle, the pair turned and disappeared inside.

 

Just as they had managed to get to the edge of the concrete, Mrs. Choi stopped them. “Just wait here, I can pull the car around so you don’t have to walk anymore.”

 

Jinki weakly smiled, glad for the small mercies in life. Not walking with this aching body sounded glorious.

 

“Thanks Mrs. Choi,” Minho said. Mrs. Choi power-walked over to a maroon minivan in the furthest corner of the parking lot.

 

“Thank god we didn’t have to walk that far,” Minho muttered. “You’re heavier than you look, man.”

 

Jinki chuckled, a smile on his face. “Thanks for that.” He was also not as sarcastically thankful for the ability to breathe again. He felt like he could still feel the bony imprint of the kid’s knee on his stomach.

 

Through some impressive teamwork, Minho and Jonghyun manage to haul Jinki’s half-dead weight into the van. They gently set him down into a seat.

 

The all hopped into the van, Minho in the front seat and Jonghyun in the spot next to Jinki. “Make sure he doesn’t pass out or anything, okay?” Mrs. Choi said aloud.

 

“Yes ma’am,” Jonghyun said obediently.

 

The ride to the hospital was short and quick, the late hour removing most of the traffic from the streets. Jinki watched as the sickly yellow lights passed over them, trailing each one that went by with his eyes. He jumped slightly, not expecting a soft touch on his hand.

 

Turning towards Jonghyun, he saw that the man had gently grabbed his hand. Jinki stared for a little bit, and debated if he should ask or not, but decided that he liked how brave and forward Jonghyun was being. He also liked holding hands.

 

Leaving it be, Jinki gently tightened his hand around the loose fingers in his palm. With a small smile on his face, he went back to tracing the lights with his eyes with the quiet murmur of the radio in the background.

 

***

 

A couple days later, it was Saturday once again. Despite the still-sore bruises and new concussion-free status, he wanted to help with the gardening. Mrs. Choi had said that Jinki could take the day off if he was still sore, which may have given him a small heart attack. Mrs. Choi never let anyone have a day off. For anything.

 

He stood there stunned for a moment, but had insisted that he come on Saturday anyway. Jonghyun wouldn’t let him endanger himself too much.

 

So there he was, bright and early, sitting on the ground next to his plot of now-flourishing vegetables. His plot-mates hadn’t arrived yet, so he watched as the neighboring group tried to fix their crushed plants and replace the fencing that protected their tomatoes.

 

While he didn’t rip the plants out himself, he certainty felt guilty enough for it. Making a decision, he huffed himself off the ground and approached the group.

 

“I can help, if you want,” he offered.

 

The older lady of the group just smiled, “Don’t worry about it Jinki. We’ll take care of it. It’s our plot, after all.”

 

“But-“

 

“No buts. Go sit right back down and wait until Jonghyun gets here.” Jinki cast his eyes downward, feeling slightly silly for being scolded.

 

He wandered back over to his plot, gingerly settling into the grass that butted up to the rich dirt. His entire body was still sore from the stupid fight a few days ago. God, he’d really gotten his kicked bad. The one good thing that came from that heaping serving of humiliation was that Jonghyun seemed a lot more open now, and was spending even more time with him. The tattooed man wasn’t doting on him because that just wouldn’t fit his character, but they went out to lunch together every day, or the day Jinki was released from the hospital, Jonghyun actually made him dinner. Damn he could cook, something that Jinki never would have guessed.

 

Jinki’s ribs were starting to twinge again. He had started slumping without realizing it, which put pressure on his sore stomach and ribs. Moving carefully, he laid back, spreading his arms out. One hand started gently plucking at blades of grass, feeling their smooth, waxy blades without pulling them out, and the other hand disappeared in the dirt. The top layer was gritty and warm from the sunshine.

 

Closing his eyes, Jinki finally allowed himself to take some deep breaths. This position was much more comfortable. The sun was bright so he closed his eyes, the glow orange through his eyelids.

 

“Hey Jonghyun,” he greeted sleepily, not bothering to open his eyes. The quiet steps in the grass were recognizable enough. Chaerin would have come barreling toward him, probably yelling something, and Seunghyun wouldn’t come over until he found Chaerin. He’d been especially clingy after the whole hospital incident.

 

“Hey yourself,” Jonghyun replied, settling down beside him, cross-legged.

 

The sun was beating down on Jinki’s face, making him feel like a cat curled in an east-facing window. Unbidden, he started smiling, the expression growing until he was beaming, eyes still closed, face directed at the sky.  A joyful feeling bubbled up inside him, only exacerbated by Jonghyun’s calm presence not a foot away.

 

Smiling in return was unavoidable, Jonghyun realized, looking down at the nearly-giddy Jinki.

 

The bubbly feeling in Jinki’s chest was channeled upward, forming words like Pop Rocks in his mouth and it was impossible not to speak.

 

“Hey, you want to go out sometime?” he asked, feeling more sure and confident than he had since that night in the garden that ended with him in the dirt and Jonghyun with blood on his knuckles.

 

The question was followed by silence on both sides, but Jinki wasn’t worried. With a breeze tickling his nose and rustling the locks of hair across his forehead, there wasn’t anything to worry about.

 

“Mmm,” Jonghyun hummed contemplatively. “Wasn’t that trip to the ramen shop our first date?”

 

Jinki laughed. “It doesn’t count unless we actually declare it’s a date beforehand.”

 

“Okay,” Jonghyun conceded, “Let’s go on a date.” He poked Jinki’s cheek, but the man refused to open his eyes.

 

“Jiiiiinki!

 

The quick thud of fashionable sneakers across cement changed to the muffled sound of shoes racing through the grass.

 

Ignoring the protest of his entire body, Jinki opened his eyes and pushed himself up, using Jonghyun’s leg to help. He managed to get to his feet before Chaerin slammed into him.

 

Arms reaching, she went in for a hug at full speed. As soon as she got close enough, Jinki pulled her in close and swung her around so her feet left the ground and she was shrieking with glee. When he finally started to get dizzy, he dropped her onto her feet, laughing when she stumbled.

 

“Whoa,” she cried, holding a hand to her head. “I’m so dizzy I can’t see straight!” She an accusing finger in Jinki’s general direction, but her arm was wobbling unsteadily. “Just wait, Jinki. I’m going to get you once I can walk without falling over!”

 

Seunghyun appeared behind Chaerin, pudgy hand clasping her shoulder. “That’s right!” she cried, “I’ve got Seunhyun on my side. We’re so going to get you!” Seunghyun actually smiled, the first time Jinki could claim to have seen the elusive expression.

 

It only took the small girl another second or two to be able to see straight and she didn’t waste a second in charging after Jinki.

 

Trying to hide his beaming smile with a frown, Jinki turned and jogged away, throwing a look behind him to wink at Jonghyun, who was smiling softly in return.

 

***

 

“So it’s finally official,” Minho asked coquettishly, batting his eyelashes at Jinki. He sighed dreamily. “I love being right.”

 

They were in Minho’s living room yet again and he had to urge to introduce his fist to Minho’s face.

 

“Congratulations Minho. You were right,” Jinki said, rolling his eyes. “Do you want a certificate?”

 

When his friend actually looked like he was thinking it over, he threw the nearest object within arms-reach at his face. It happened to be a pen.

 

“I’m hurt,” Minho pouted, twirling the pen. “I hope your date fails tomorrow and you embarrass yourself so much that you die.”

 

“Now who’s the ?”

 

Pulling a 180-turn in attitude, Minho leapt on Jinki and pulled his torso into an iron hug. Jinki’s struggles did nothing to dislodge him, but his efforts were valiant. “You have to tell me how your date goes,” he insisted, nuzzling into Jinki’s side with his pointy forehead, as if that would convince his friend to give him the dirty details.

 

“Oh, definitely…not,” Jinki said, resting his elbow on Minho’s head. “Nope. Not gonna happen.”

 

And indeed, the date went off without a hitch the next night and when Minho asked, he only received a smug, pointed look and Jinki’s middle finger.

 

***

 

It was already garden day again, and Jinki was up at 7:30am. The days of barely waking up in time to avoid punishment from Mrs. Choi were long gone. Jinki never thought he’d become a morning person, but his body had apparently gotten with the program and he automatically woke up before 8:00 now.

 

Some of the vegetables should be ready to pick today, he thought as he pulled on a pair of shorts. Maybe I can get Jonghyun to make something for me.

 

The college student spent his entire morning routine plotting a good way to convince Jonghyun to make him food. Puppy-dog eyes, promises, setting Chaerin on him, begging? He wasn’t above begging. Not only was the tattooed man a great cook, but he usually provided dessert too. It was too good to pass up.

 

Still thinking, Jinki stumbled from his apartment to Jonghyun’s door. It wasn’t often that Jinki actually made it outside before him, but since he hadn’t been fetched yet, he would be that he was still getting dressed or talking to his houseplants or something. He raised his fist to knock very loudly only for the door to be opened and his fist to barely miss Jonghyun’s face.

 

“Good morning, Jinki,” a startled-looking Jonghyun said, stepping out and closing the door behind him.

 

“Yeah,” Jinki replied, embarrassed. “I wasn’t trying to hit you in the face or anything. Sorry.”

 

Jonghyun, kind soul that he was, just laughed and tugged Jinki so they were walking side by side. “I have a feeling you’d end up hitting the door if you actually tried to hit me, anyway. I’m not saying you’re cursed to be clumsy, but you kind of are.”

 

“Hey!” Jinki protested. “I didn’t trip, drop, spill, or break anything on our date. I’m getting better.”

 

Jonghyun stuck his tongue out at him. “Prove it when we’re picking vegetables and I might leave you alone.”

 

Jinki snorted. “Oh, I’ll prove it so hard you’ll cry.”

 

The carrots were ready to be pulled, but the tomatoes still needed some more time. With Jonghyun hovering over his shoulder, Jinki very carefully pulled the carrots from the dirt. He only freaked out a little when some of the leaves were accidentally ripped off. He smeared dirt on Jonghyun’s face for revenge when the man laughed at him.

 

After the carrots were collected and the tomatoes checked for bugs, Jinki took a break in the grass. Jonghyun joined him with the bag washed carrots. They watched as Cherin chased Seunghyun around with the watering can, trying to soak him, but slopping most of the water down the front of her dress instead.

 

Jinki felt something tickle his pinkie finger. His hand was planted in the grass, holding him up, so he immediately thought it was some kind of bug trying to hitch a ride on the Jinki Express. He scooted his hand away.

 

Within seconds, the tickle was back.

 

Frowning, Jinki scooted his hand away again. Muffled laughter made him glance over at Jonghyun and then down to his hand. It hadn’t been a curious grasshopper after all: Jonghyun’s pinkie finger was inching closer, aiming for his hand again.

 

“If you want to hold my hand, you can just ask,” Jinki informed him, feeling his face heat up despite his casual tone.

 

Jonghyun smiled slyly. “This is more fun.”

 

Opportunity strikes, Jinki thought. I’ll get a free dinner yet. He sat up and yanked Jonghyun’s hand out from under him so the man fell sideways into his lap and his hand was trapped between Jinki’s. “So does that mean we’re boyfriends now?”

 

Instead of an enthusiastic yes or even a reluctant no, there was just silence. When it stretched on for more than fifteen seconds, Jinki actually started getting a little worried. “Uh, Jonghyun?”

 

The man’s head was burrowed against him and it shook in denial. He was apparently staying right where he was, thank you.

 

“Are you okay?” Jinki asked, prodding him. “Did I break you?” Even though he was kind of teasing about the whole “boyfriend” thing – they weren’t high-schoolers who needed to make their relationship Facebook official or anything ridiculous like that – it was going to hurt if Jonghyun denied it. Jinki was 99% sure that him and Jonghyun were a thing, but this was dropping that percent down to 98, 95, 93…

 

Jonghyun’s weight shifted until he could wriggle his arms around Jinki’s middle.

 

His hair was soft under Jinki’s fingers. “Can you look at me?”

 

The brown head just shook again.

 

Jinki had completely forgotten about getting a free dinner: they seemed to have been hit by a major crisis and they weren’t even really official official yet. He hugged Jonghyun’s head, which was beginning to bore a hole in his chest, and tickled his neck. “You’re starting to freak me out. Does being super amazing hot boyfriends scare you?”

 

When Jinki didn’t get an answer five minutes later, he decided to switch tactics. People were starting to look at them, and though Jinki didn’t really mind, this was kind of private, it seemed like. They were just lucky Chaerin hadn’t come and jumped on them yet. Or worse, Minho.

 

Without further ado, the squished college student grabbed Jonghyun’s head and pulled. Oh, he resisted alright, but Jinki’s determination was stronger than his boyfriend’s (that’s what he was, dammit) resistance and he managed to force Jonghyun’s head up. Imagine his surprise when he saw Jonghyun’s tear-streaked face.

 

“Uh…”

 

Jonghyun laughed wetly and smeared his damp cheeks onto Jinki’s face. Instead of trying to escape, Jinki just nuzzled him back, not minding the warm tears.

 

“Is my big bad punk boyfriend having a moment without me?” he teased, wiping Jonghyun’s cheeks with his thumbs. “I didn’t know you were such a crybaby.”

 

“Shut up,” Jonghyun managed to choke out before a fresh wave of tears overtook him and he hid his face in Jinki’s shoulder again. 

 

Even though asking Jonghyun to be his boyfriend made the man cry, which actually wasn’t much better than the dead silence he’d dealt with earlier, Jinki was feeling a lot better all of a sudden. They kind of looked like happy tears to him.

 

“Does this mean I can look forward to a second date?” he whispered into Jonghyun’s ear.

 

The answering nod was jerky, Jinki’s arm was starting to fall asleep, and his boyfriend’s tears were finally seeping through his shirt, but Jinki laughed triumphantly. He flopped backwards, making sure to pull the still crying Jonghyun on top of him. Yeah, he could get used to this.

 

***

 

“I need to take advantage of your cooking skills more often,” Jinki murmured, forehead resting against the center of Jonghyun’s .

 

Jonghyun’s laugh made Jinki’s head bounce. “Everything tasted so good because it was made from the vegetables in the garden. That’s love you tasted right there.”

 

Smiling, Jinki rubbed his forehead into the man’s painted back before straightening up and replacing his head with his fingers.

 

He hated to admit it, but Minho was right.

 

Jonghyun’s back was guarded by a dragon. A majestic head and body, woven by tough but supple flowering vines, was draped across the expanse of smooth skin, flowering wings of bluebell and purple foxgloves poised for flight. Its eye, a scarlet lily, was half closed in either serene contemplation or sleep.

 

Jinki traced the wooden creature’s thorny teeth and its fire, a trail of red helianthemum sun roses that flowed across his right shoulder and down his upper arm. His fingers danced across Jonghyun’s left shoulder, alternating between smoothing his fingers over the edges of the petals and trying to get a reaction from the other man.

 

Wrinkles formed between his eyebrows as his fingers stumbled upon something dark and harsh on Jonghyun’s upper arm that interrupted the graceful arch of a wing. He leaned closer, inadvertently giving him goose bumps with his warm breath. A stylized skull laughed at him from Jonghyun’s skin, eyeteeth sharp and mouth gaping. Jinki startled a little when a warm hand covered his over the tattoo.

 

The gesture confirmed Jinki’s fears. This was a permanent remnant of Jonghyun’s past, his mistakes inked onto his skin.

 

Jinki tangled their fingers together and slid them away, revealing the skull. Eyes wet, he placed a soft kiss on the skull’s forehead. Jonghyun’s shoulders were shaking beneath his lips. The man leaned forward, pulling away.

 

Jinki was hurt at first, but a quick squeeze of his hand reassured him. When he looked at the tattoo again, it became clear that Jonghyun had moved so the light could glance off his arm. The skull’s eyes were no longer dark pits; they were filled with blooming striped carnations. The sharp edges of the jaw and teeth were softened by a bed of delicately swirling plumeria.

 

Striped carnations for refusal. Plumeria for new beginnings.

 

Jinki breathed out and resumed his explorations.

 

The tip of a tail, like a lamprocapnos spectabilis, or bleeding heart, flicked over the edge of a hip, pink and vibrant. 

 

“Love, huh?” Jinki asked, wondering if the colors would smear onto his hands and seep in, marking him permanently

 

“Mhm,” Jonghyun hummed, leaning back and pulling Jinki into a soft kiss.

 

THE END