In most cases Mingyu could be considered a smart guy. He passed most of his tests with an A+, and during the times he didn’t study his grades would at least drop down to an A. His teachers had nothing but good things to say about him every chance they could meet with his parents, praising him on his splendid performance and giving him a well-deserved pat on the back. His classmates would sometimes come to him when they have problems with understanding something and he would help teach them the concept without fail. He was always glad to help. People kept asking him what his ‘secret’ was, but truth be told there was no secret. Mingyu was just observant.

 

He didn’t mean to come off sounding arrogant or anything, but to say he was observant made him sound like Sherlock Holmes who was arrogantly dogmatic in a sense so he was grateful not many people bothered with their studies that much to ask him what he meant when he said he was observant. A lot of people only see but they don’t observe—god, he did sound like Sherlock Holmes—which led them to make mistakes. Mingyu often questioned a number of things and he deducted a lot of things before coming to a conclusion, and so he came to the conclusion that Hansol was insecure about a lot of things.

 

On their way home together, he recognised the sort of body language the boy was portraying from his tense posture. His shoulders were up a bit, he was taking rather tentative steps, he had difficulties maintaining eye-contact, and underneath his sarcastic bravado Mingyu was able to take note of his shaky voice and the way his lower lip was quivering slightly once in a while. There were also occasions of his face expressing discomfort and uneasiness, and Mingyu had even caught sight of Hansol chewing on his lower lip subconsciously at times. This made him sound creepy but at least Mingyu owned up to his weird tendency to look at Hansol’s lips. Those mesmerising pouty lips will be the death of him someday.

 

That aside, there was the ‘masochist’ issue he still hadn’t figured out. To be honest, he wasn’t certain if that were the case in actuality. If he recalled correctly Hansol had him shut up because he suggested the idea that the boy might like being hit in the face by his outraged ex-girlfriend. Mingyu didn’t know what to gather from that incident. What’s more was that he confessed to feeling like he had deserved the attack, and yet the lack of justification made Mingyu somewhat worried, and even more confounded. Did he really deserve it just because he wanted some privacy and wasn’t ready for all the attention if he went public with her? Maybe one day he’ll understand.

 

The very next day, when Mingyu was hanging out near the lockers and Wonwoo was badgering him for an explanation while the latter refused to cooperate, his eyes moved to the figure heading towards him that was Hansol. Wonwoo knew to keep his mouth shut when he saw the younger male and flashed him an innocent smile, as though he hadn’t just demanded some confidential information from his newly assigned confidant, giving him a small wave. Break time was almost done and they didn’t have the same class together after that so Wonwoo excused himself once he gave a knowing smirk at his best friend. It was an unspoken message that said, ‘don’t forget to update me after this’.

 

Mingyu stared. He hadn’t expected Hansol to come back. He thought it was just a one-time thing, that, after the incident yesterday, he had nothing to do with Hansol anymore. That was just it. Alas, he was wrong; the room temperature was suddenly heightened and beads of sweat started to roll down his neck.

 

He shut the door of his open locker and adjusted the strap on his shoulder, hooking a finger over his collar and smiling nervously at the boy in front of him. He took deep breaths. “W-what’s up?” He brought out. Calm down, you can do this!

 

Hansol’s eyebrows were raised. He was pouting a bit, making himself look a tad lost and clueless; helpless, without the older male’s guidance. It was cute if Mingyu was willing to admit it for his sake. But Hansol looked a little confused himself and he replied, “Nothing much. We have class together after this, right…?”

 

“Oh” was Mingyu’s astonished response.

 

“Oh?” Hansol repeated. He sounded more confused than he appeared to be.

 

The older male let out a nervous laugh. “Sorry. I totally forgot about that,” he rubbed the back of his neck. “I thought you just came to…you know…talk?”

 

“Oh,” Hansol said again. “Well, we only talked…once and, I don’t want to keep bothering you hyung. I mean, you understand, right? It’d be pretty annoying if I talked to you just to talk about…her, r-right? I-I don’t want you to think I’m w-weird or anything…”

 

If you’re weird, what am I… Mingyu furrowed his eyebrows. “Well I don’t mind, but if you really want to talk about it then go ahead.” He gave the younger male a pat on the arm and gestured forward.

 

In cue, the bell rang. They began walking their way to class. Hansol pursed his lips, running his fingers through his hair in apprehension. “But I’ll just end up saying too much…” he mumbled. Mingyu wasn’t given the time to refute his statement as he continued, “I’m fine hyung, don’t worry about it. I hope you don’t mind this either, I just really want someone to walk to class to.”

 

Mingyu didn’t. In fact, he was glad to be able to help Hansol besides providing a listening ear. “If you say so,” he shrugged. “You coping alright so far?”

 

“Yeah,” Hansol smiled at him. “So far so good.” He gave him a thumbs-up.

 

And, Mingyu guessed, so far it was. They got along pretty well even though their conversations would be cut short every once in a while when one of their classmates would ask Mingyu about the final concept they needed to know about the topic at which they were studying at that time. Mingyu would always go back to conversing with Hansol once he was done without hesitance, only to continue with whatever they were talking about in the first place. They got along pretty well even though Mingyu seemed to be more popular than him, because despite the attention Mingyu would always divert his own back to Hansol and they would talk again, this time about themselves, learning more about each other with piqued interest. There was just something about Hansol that drew him back; he wanted to know more about the younger male. They do still talk about Hansol’s past relationship when they see the girl walking down the hall, but not so much.

 

They began to hang out more at school more often during their downtimes and if he was lucky whenever Wonwoo was with Mingyu he would talk to Hansol instead of just waving at him like he normally did the past few days. Mingyu was aware that the two shared two classes together and it shouldn’t have come across as a surprise to him, but he couldn’t help but be surprised at the sight of Wonwoo and Hansol standing side by side as they got out of their classroom along with a sea of other desperate and lethargic students while Mingyu was waiting for the former.

 

Mingyu gave the older male a bad look, narrowing his eyes at him with a lack of faith. He had grown up with Wonwoo, knew him like the back of his hand, knew there was an ulterior motive behind his doing this. Wonwoo, once more, responded with a forced mock-innocent smile while wiggling his eyebrows up and down at his childhood friend. “Hello Mingyu,” he sang. He pulled Hansol closer towards him by his arm. “Hansol here was just telling me about his pen pal from L.A. Did you know he was from America? New York, to be specific?”

 

Hansol looked both flustered and embarrassed when Mingyu averted his gaze to look at him properly. “You are?” He asked. Hansol nodded in confirmation.

 

“Yeah,” Wonwoo brought out, putting an arm around Hansol’s shoulders. “He’s really fluent in English. Hey, look,” he pointed to a nearby poster on the wall that had words written in both Hangul and English. Mingyu could read some of the English words, but it only seemed pointless with the provision of words in Hangul. “Can you read that?” Wonwoo asked.

 

“Uh,” Hansol hesitated. Wonwoo nudged him, urging him to read it. The boy inhaled deeply before reading out, “Art Club Gallery Showing Tonight, six to eight p.m. Please come.”

 

Needless to say, the three ended up walking home together.

 

Apparently Hansol was born in New York but had migrated with his family back to Korea when he was a mere boy, around five years of age. Although he spoke very good English, he felt more comfortable with speaking, writing, and reading in Korean than he did with English. His mother didn’t speak Korean so he consequently had to speak in English with her all the time, but other than that he had a pen pal from Downtown, L.A. named Joshua who he kept in touch with every week through both e-mails and snail mail, for good time’s sake. Other times, like with Mingyu per say, he spoke Korean.

 

A lot of people often said he resembled Leonardo DiCaprio and much to Hansol’s disappointment he didn’t agree to that. It was true that some of his features were similar to the famous actor but Hansol really didn’t like it when people had to bring the celebrity up when they had to describe his appearance, because his face was inherited from his parents and he didn’t like to be compared to other people.

 

So of course it went without saying that he wasn’t pleased upon finding out that, from Mingyu’s diligent observing, besides being called ‘Mr Headphones’ Hansol was also nicknamed ‘DiCaprio Boy’ by certain groups of people. It turned out that Wonwoo was guilty of this ‘wrongdoing’ too, for he had initially saved Hansol as something along the lines of ‘Boy Who Looks Like Jack from Titanic’ (until yesterday, but that part had been left out and the dramatic irony here was that Mingyu knew this).

 

The three reached Hansol’s house first and after waving at the boy and watching as he walked in, closing the door behind him, Mingyu smacked Wonwoo upside the head before walking up ten paces ahead of him.

 

“Ow!” Wonwoo cried, reaching up to his now abused head. “What was that for!”

 

“You know damn well what that was for,” Mingyu answered over his shoulder. “What were you thinking?!”

 

Wonwoo whined. “I can’t believe you just did that, I’m your hyung!”

 

Familiar words escaped Mingyu’s lips before he knew it. “Oh sorry, let me rephrase that.” Mingyu looked him dead in the eyes. “What the hell were you thinking, hyung?”

 

The older male was rubbing the back of his head as he walked up to Mingyu, agony evident in the way his face was scrunched up. He was taking too long to get to him, but for this occasion Mingyu was willing to wait. Wonwoo deserved this, if not he deserved more than this, for being too nosy. “Okay, I admit, that was kind of a jerk move.” Wonwoo rolled his eyes at the sight of the other nodding his head. “But you wouldn’t tell me anything! I figured that if you won’t tell me, I should be friends with him long enough until he’d tell me!”

 

“Hey, I didn’t tell you for a good cause, Jeon Wonwoo,” Mingyu interjected. “‘Respecting people’s privacy’, look it up.”

 

Wonwoo hit his arm. “I know what it is,” he grumbled.

 

Mingyu scoffed. “Like hell you do, . Don’t make me laugh.”

 

Of course, in normal circumstances Wonwoo would’ve been furious at him. He would have dragged the younger male by his ear all the way to his house and listen to the harmonic sound of his screaming. However, Wonwoo was a responsible young man, and at this part he knew he was in the wrong. It wasn’t okay to pretend as though he wanted to befriend Hansol when in fact he had an underlying motive under his actions. That was wrong in so many different levels.

 

It went without saying that Mingyu had succeeded in making him feel bad. Also, Wonwoo knew that if he kept this going, his childhood friend would some way or another reveal to Hansol that he was sort of a stalker from his experiences with Wen Junhui. And Mingyu might actually threaten to hit him upside the head again. God, that hurt. He learned his lesson.

 

This didn’t stop Jeon Wonwoo from approaching Hansol during the times they had classes together. Kim Mingyu might have been angry at him for what he had planned, but Kim Mingyu was his best friend, hence giving him the privilege to not listen to him for that matter, simply because a) yes, they were friends, and b) Mingyu was younger than him. Wonwoo had a little too big of a pride and ego to listen to the guy. Haha. So he and Hansol became genuinely acquainted with the whole I want to know what’s up with him motive out of the picture, and Mingyu finally stopped giving him suspicious looks.

 

He wasn’t afraid of hanging out with Hansol in front of Mingyu too, despite knowing he wasn’t getting anything out of the two, especially not Mingyu, and at least now he understood what the other had meant when he said “strictly confidential”. And yet he only understood for around three days, because the boy of his dreams—Wen Junhui—started talking to him. By some of luck, Wen Junhui started noticing him more. By some of luck, the handsome, charming, Wen Junhui found his awkward lanky limbs rather attractive and talked to him with that adoring smile of his, and so as Wonwoo looked through the gallery of his phone to swoon at the blurry photos he took of Wen Junhui, his prince, he came to the conclusion that if people didn’t mind him butting into their business he should just do it anyway.

 

By some of luck, if it could be called that, Mingyu had received a text from Wonwoo three days later that read along the lines of:

 

hey, if you two are planning on going home soon then you can go ahead without me :)

 

Surprised, Mingyu paused in his tracks. He and Hansol were waiting for Wonwoo to get out of class so they could go home together. Hansol had grown fond of the other male, even laughed at his lame jokes because apparently the two had a questionable sense of humour, but he still hadn’t told him of their secret and Mingyu suggested that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. The smiley-face Wonwoo had incorporated in his message probably meant something… Mingyu typed in his answer.

 

What
Why?
Can’t we walk home together?? I can wait, I’m sure Hansol won’t mind waiting too

 

“You alright?” Hansol asked, an eyebrow quirked.

 

“Yeah,” Mingyu replied. “It’s just that, Wonwoo…” His eyes focused on the typing… flashed on the screen, and Wonwoo’s reply came a few seconds later. Hansol stood on his toes to get a good look of the screen over his shoulder.

 

thanks but no thanks :))
i have :) a date :) with a certain :) chinese :) exchange :) student ;))))))

 

“Chinese exchange student?” Hansol furrowed his eyebrows. “That Wen Junhui guy?”

 

Mingyu chuckled. It was too late to hide it now. He suppressed the urge to roll his eyes and tucked his phone into his pocket. “Uh-huh. Wonwoo’s had a crush on him for a while now. Guess it’s just the two of us then,” he announced, winking. “Again.”

 

Hansol chuckled. Mingyu felt compelled to fill him in on the whole Wonwoo-Junhui business, and hence it became the topic of their conversation on the way home. Wonwoo initially didn’t care about Junhui’s big welcoming event the school had held, didn’t even bother with looking at him, until he actually looked at him. This happened when he was alone in his free period, grabbing some supplies from his locker, when Wen Junhui walked up to him seeing as how he had been the only person standing there during that time.

 

The older male had described this in great detail to Mingyu, imprinted the vision onto his mind so he could never forget, and in his words Wonwoo had explained: “I literally became poetic about this guy. On the inside of course, I don’t think he’s ready to see my weird side yet. When I first saw him I was like ‘the heck, shouldn’t the committee members be helping him around or whatever’ because he looked so lost but then I was like ‘oh , is he the sun? I didn’t realise he was so hot’—he was struggling to speak Korean to me and dude, I’m not kidding; for once I was thankful my parents set me up on that Mandarin class I had back when I was five that you couldn’t attend because your folks were too busy training you to become a prodigy or something. So I was all in this fluent Mandarin like ‘It’s okay, I can speak Mandarin’ and he looked so relieved and I’m not going to lie, I felt something there.”

 

And with this, the twenty-minute walk home didn’t feel that long anymore, like it used to when they walked home together for the first time. Hansol had been sad that time, but now he was laughing so hard it confused Mingyu because he definitely felt something there, but to his frustration couldn’t explain it as brilliantly as Wonwoo did on his first face-to-face encounter with Wen Junhui. Hansol was hitting his arm whenever he cracked his jokes that at least had some taste in comparison to Wonwoo’s dry ones, and after some time he managed to calm down.

 

“How was growing up with him?” The boy asked. He was grinning from ear to ear. “He sounded like a weird kid.”

 

Mingyu shrugged. “Beats me. I can’t even tell what made Junhui ask him out.” Hansol laughed again, hitting his arm and sending countless jolts into his body.

 

“Hey, be proud of him hyung. They’re probably going to date sometime soon and when that happens you’ll probably still be single,” Mingyu pulled a face, scowling at the younger male in even more confusion. Hansol wiggled his eyebrows at him. “Single from the womb, single to the tomb…?” He tried.

 

“That was uncalled for,” Mingyu answered. The astonishment was clear in his face.

 

“Hyung please, your love life is uncalled for.”

 

It was Mingyu’s turn to hit his arm.

 

The rest of their journey home was spent talking about other things, particularly the Wonwoo-Junhui business, and when they reached Hansol’s house Mingyu watched the boy unlock the door and open it only to turn around to look at him with an anticipatory look. “You wanna come in?” Hansol offered.

 

Mingyu blinked, gobsmacked. “W-what?”

 

“You wanna come in?” Hansol repeated. He opened the door wider. “Uh, I know your house is a few blocks down, it’s fine if you don’t want to. Just thought it’d be nice you know,” he smiled. “Aren’t you tired? We’ve been walking for like, fifteen minutes or something.”

 

“I mean, well, I kind of am…” Mingyu responded.

 

Hansol looked at him expectantly. “But…?”

 

But…Mingyu didn’t know. He didn’t want to give Hansol a hard time or anything. Then again, Hansol probably just wanted to reward him for his help and Mingyu genuinely didn’t have the guts to turn the younger male down. After seeing that hopeful glint in his eyes, Mingyu couldn’t turn his offer down. “Nothing,” he said. Hansol cocked his head inside, asking him to head to his room. Mingyu instantly rejoiced himself. “You sure about that? Because I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t want me to see your room,” he said as he walked in. He heard the door close behind him and when he turned the other male gave him a weird look. “I don’t think you want me to see your room.”

 

Hansol blinked, a thought crossing his mind. “Come to think of it, now I don’t,” he replied. He speed-walked his way to the staircase. “I…I gotta…” he began to ascend up the stairs. Before this he was too busy mocking the older male’s love life (or lack thereof) that he had forgotten about the state of his room. Had he known earlier, he would have sprinted off to clean first. 

 

Oh, now Mingyu wanted to see his room. “What?” he taunted, watching as the boy walked up the stairs in a cautious manner. “What do you have to do?”

 

“I… j-just stay here…”

 

Mingyu wasted no time in dropping his bag by the entrance and sprinting up the stairs, and what was done was done. It didn’t matter if Mingyu’s legs were longer than Hansol’s or if he was more athletic than him because Hansol had failed in his attempt at getting a head start at cleaning his room for the taller male arrived five seconds earlier than him. With a triumphant smirk Mingyu opened the door to Hansol’s room while the said male was on the floor, holding onto his ankle like his life depended on it as he wailed “noooooooo!”. Much to his surprise, he was greeted with an unmade bed and a pile of dirty clothes on sitting by the bed only.

 

Mingyu frowned. Hansol scrambled to his feet and ran inside, picking up his dirty clothes. “Don’t look at me!” He yelled. He started shoving them into his closet, amidst more dirty piles.

 

“Okay…” Mingyu replied, perplexed. “To be honest, I expected worse.” The offended boy huffed in response. “Sorry, I grew up with Wonwoo so sometimes when he wasn’t ready for school yet I’d wake him up and give him his clothes, and I’m not kidding—he would literally take off of his clothes and put on his uniform under the blanket.”

 

This led Hansol to pause in his ministrations to look up at the older male with a look that said, ‘what even’. “Somehow that made me feel better,” Mingyu laughed. “Man, Wen Junhui doesn’t know what’s coming for him.”

 

“Yeah, I’ll bet your girlfriend didn’t either…” As soon as the words left his lips, Mingyu wasn’t certain if he should regret it or not. He turned to Hansol but to his relief the boy chuckled to himself quietly.

 

He closed his closet. “Well, I may not be as tidy and neat and smart as you Mr Perfect,” Hansol began, “but at least I had a girlfriend. You’re like, the whole package—you’re good-looking, you’re organised, you’re all that, but I’ll bet you’ve never even had a girlfriend.”

 

That took a turn. How…sassy, is this kid? Mingyu put a hand on his chest, shocked. “Well excuse me, DiCaprio Boy!” He responded, “Is this really the time to be mocking my love life?”

 

“What love life?”

 

“That’s it.”

 

Mingyu ended up pulling Hansol up by the collar and giving him a classic rough noogie on the boy’s bed.

 

 

 

The more Wonwoo hung out with Junhui the less he hung out with Mingyu, and the more Mingyu hung out with Hansol. Days passed and soon enough Mingyu was walking the younger back to his house almost every day; they’d meet up at Mingyu’s house, sometimes Hansol’s during the weekends, not even to talk about the little dilemma but to actually hang out. It was bizarre, felt too surreal when Wonwoo wasn’t with them to make it less…personal. It was as if they were best friends who knew each other for a long time, and it sort of made Mingyu relieved to know that Hansol was satisfied with just sitting, lazing around in each other’s presence while talking about things that didn’t really matter.

 

“Hyung, you’re too skinny for someone so tall,” Hansol said. He was lying on the floor with his feet on the bed as Mingyu sat up beside him, eyes on his phone. Hansol poked the older male’s side with his index finger and unfortunately for his amusement, the other male did not flinch one bit. “I talk to my mom about you, you know—even she said you’re too skinny.”

 

It was weird, because Mingyu hadn’t met his mom yet. He swatted his hand away. “If you think I’m skinny you clearly haven’t met Wonwoo. And I’m not skinny,” Mingyu interjected, “You’re not exactly athletic too, pal.” This time he poked Hansol’s side in return.

 

At the contact of his finger with the dip in the younger’s waist, Hansol squirmed. Mingyu pulled his hand back and quirked an eyebrow as a smile slowly formed on his lips, his eyes glinting a mischievous glint. He leaned in. The air was heavy with tension. “Are you ticklish?”

 

“No I’m not,” the younger male took a deep breath and sat up, straightening himself. It was a failed attempt at convincing Mingyu otherwise and Hansol knew that, but he wasn’t going to admit defeat. He shook his head, looking into the other’s eyes. “I’m not ticklish.”

 

Mingyu prodded his sides again, and once more Hansol squirmed, curling inwards on himself. “You are ticklish, don’t lie to your hyung Hansol!”

 

“No! No—hyung, stop…”

 

On a side note, he did get to learn a lot more about the younger. Hansol had a complex yet unique train of thought that could be explained by his headphones and his undying love for music only. Despite being younger Hansol had some serious anxiety issues, it partly being why he was hesitant to go public in the first place, and listening to songs at least helped him calm down a bit. However, for the cheerleader’s birthday he’d (foolishly) given her his headphones as a birthday present, because he admittedly in choosing gifts and in the younger’s own opinion, there was no better way to express his admiration to anyone other than that. He was willing to give away something he loved for her.

 

His headphones were special to him. They made him feel like he had his own world, safe and contented, every element of his liking present to soothe his nerves even if said elements were represented by tacky, hip hop rhythms and beats that Mingyu didn’t expect to fit so well together. In his own world Hansol could get lost anytime he liked as long as it meant he would be able to gather his thoughts and recollect his composure in favour of getting over a petty, mid-life, or existential crisis. It made sense for the younger to treat the inanimate object as though it was something more, and hence giving it away to someone he loved just to prove his loyalty simply didn’t make any sense. At least, not to Mingyu.

 

As someone who claimed to also love him, the cheerleader would’ve accepted anything from him. In return, Hansol would also have to accept anything she gave to him, thus another thought crossed Mingyu’s mind: if Hansol gave the girl his precious headphones for her birthday, what did she give Hansol for his birthday?

 

Without his headphones, Hansol had a harder time regaining his self-assurance. Underneath the bravado of all the underlying chaos, his love life was slowly developing into a crisis because he saw her walking with one of the jocks around the school. Mingyu began to wonder how he became the younger’s confidant. The answer was obvious, that he did offer him the wisdom to listen, and it’s not that Mingyu didn’t want to listen. Rather, he honestly didn’t think Hansol would come back. Who knew how much pent up frustration a person like Hansol would have? The kid was like a dormant volcano, finally erupting his feelings out after a long time. It was overwhelming just thinking about it. Such a pity, with Hansol’s age. He was still very young and he was still very bright.

 

He knew Hansol felt uncomfortable when Mingyu asked him about his relationship with the girl. Mingyu long since established that when he first asked, noticing the numerous times Hansol bit his lower lip and evasively replied to his questions. But then he was interested; normally he would just wait for Hansol to talk about it himself, he waited for it to happen naturally which happened when they were alone, and Mingyu admitted that he got a little carried away. Because at some point he dwelled on it too much and he got too curious, next thing he knew he was pressing Hansol to answer his questions.

 

“Is that why you stopped taking them to school?” He spoke up. The younger quirked a brow in question, asking him to specify. Mingyu clarified, “your headphones. It’s because you don’t have it anymore?”

 

“You don’t say,” the younger male deadpanned. “Eh, I don’t really mind. You know I can still listen to my favourite songs out loud, just in case that didn’t cross your mind. I thought you were smart.”

 

So Hansol can be a bit insecure about himself sometimes. Other times he was a sarcastic, snarky jerk that represented the chip on Mingyu’s shoulder.

 

“But you still regretted it,” he brought on. This whole time, he was constantly in a state of dissatisfaction over knowing nothing about everything, therefore he was innately in a constant state of trying to make things less dissatisfying. Before he knew it, all the questions were pouring out of his mouth and he couldn’t stop himself. “Your headphones were special to you. She could’ve accepted anything else. Now you’re having self-esteem issues, we don’t even know if you’ll ever get it back.” When he thought about it, it sort of explained why Hansol’s initial response had been to turn down his offer, only to ask for it back afterwards. “Can’t you just get new headphones?” he proposed.

 

Hansol heaved a sigh. He dropped his gaze. He was sitting beside him on the floor by the bed in Mingyu’s room as he reached over to the other male and pulled the hand closest to him. Absent-mindedly, as he spoke, Hansol began tracing the lines on his palm.

 

“L-look hyung, I would if I could. E-earphones too, I honestly couldn’t care less. Thing is she said—she promised she’d buy me a n-new one since I gave her mine, and until then I…shouldn’t get one.” He lifted his gaze, the pad of his finger still running around on Mingyu’s palm, “I’m still w-waiting for it.”

 

He released Mingyu’s hand, placing it on top of the latter’s lap. Mingyu stared at him. “How long has it been?”

 

“Five months.”

 

“You don’t think she forgot? You guys already broke up, you don’t think she…?”

 

It was subtle, but Mingyu noticed it because Hansol went quiet. Whenever Hansol went quiet Mingyu’s eyes would look down at the younger’s lips by instinct, causing him to notice that Hansol was chewing on his lower lip as he averted his gaze away before he opened them—now red and more plump, wet because the tongue that flickered out had moistened the flesh—to reply, “I hope not.”

 

Mingyu wondered if Hansol ever noticed the way his gaze trailed downwards every time they talked. He wasn’t even trying to be subtle when staring at the latter’s lips. At times when his decency got the better of him Mingyu would admonish himself every time for not being able to stop looking at those lips, but it always seemed like the boy never even noticed the way Mingyu’s attention slipped away from whatever he was talking about in the first place.

 

Hansol’s lips were thin, hence giving him a chance to speak with an impressively impeccable charisma without skipping a beat. It was a charm that the cheerleader (and quite admittedly, Mingyu as well) undoubtedly fell in love with. However, his lower lip was so interestingly plush that it fascinated him every time he saw the younger male pout. Sure, it was Hansol’s lousy excuse for an ‘aegyo’ whenever Mingyu refused to give him what he wanted, but it went without saying that the said male often gave in when Hansol did it.

 

It was a rare occurrence, but throughout their time together Hansol only showed what Mingyu liked to call his ‘visage of vulnerability’ once, when he brought up the ‘masochist’ deal. And truth be told, Mingyu liked that look on him, as peculiar as that may sound. When Hansol let his guard down, inadvertently showing the world how truly fragile he was, it was evident on his face. He wouldn’t be pouting as usual but the way he bit his lower lip nervously appealed to Mingyu in many different levels, making him wonder if the younger got nervous like that on a regular basis for it to be the sole reason as to why his lower lip was so plush.

 

Hansol’s visage of vulnerability made Mingyu feel compelled to nurture the younger male, to pull him into his arms and hold him tight and tell him everything was going to be okay as long as Mingyu was there to encourage him of it.

 

Especially now, it seems, as Mingyu was inquiring—practically demanding Hansol to answer some personal questions, he realised he was looking down at the boy’s visage of vulnerability.

 

 

 

---

 

a/n: dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnnn im not that proud of this chapter but i will edit it as soon as i can!! hope you all liked it >_< it sounded a little bit rushed to me but tbh this fic was originally supposed to be 2 chapters long so like. sorry if the pace is too fast, like i said ill edit this soon to fix things <_> again, no promises, but the 3rd chapter's also halfway done and i promise it will definitely be better and slow-paced than this!!