Huang Renjun hates coffee with a passion. He hates the taste, he hates the colour, he hates how the smell would get stuck in his nasal cavities and everything he eats afterwards would slightly have that pungent coffee tinge to it.

But Renjun kindda have this thing for Lee Jeno for as long as he could remember and as the whole school knows, Jeno is the self proclaimed number one coffee in the whole world. He’d much prefer the title coffee connoisseur , but well, the sad truth is most kids in his year can’t even spell connoisseur so...

Coffee it is.

“God, I don’t know what happened with the bio quiz. Didn’t they say it won’t include anything from chapter eight? Why was there a question about the… crab cycle… crep? Or whatever you call those unoxygenated things.”

In the small coffeeshop right across the street to their high school, Jeno was regarded as their unofficial mascot. Their warden. Their ghostly, is here on sunday mornings haunting. There was an unspoken rule of ‘the corner booth is Lee Jeno’s property from 3pm to 5pm’ that even though usually the cafe was jam packed with kids freshly out of their extracurricular activities, they would always find the coveted seat empty for them to sit in.

“They did say it though,” Renjun quickly turned the disgusted grimace after he took a sip of the potent americano into a grin when he noticed that Jeno was staring at him with a disbelieved look on his face.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Renjun shrugged his shoulder to that. He did tell Jeno about it so it wasn’t technically his fault that he wasn’t listening. Although, Renjun’s decision to tell him the information while he was busy playing a round of one of his mobile phone games was still sort of problematic.

“So, what do you want to discuss today?” Renjun didn’t even realise that something was off with the situation he was in until after he got all his textbooks and notebooks and other… books out from his backpack and spread all over the table. Jeno was looking at him. Wait, no, looking was an understatement. Jeno was staring him down with a little pout on his lips.

“Can we skip bio today? I’m kiiiindda sick of it.”

Renjun let out a tired sigh when the implication caught up with him, “you know I’m bad with math, I can’t help you with tomorrow’s homework I’m,-”

Jeno easily cut his words short when he suddenly whipped out their school library’s rundown edition of W. W. Jacob’s ‘the Monkey’s Paw’. “Let’s discuss this,” Jeno said, the gleam of excitement coming off a little bit too bright. Even though Renjun wanted to use this session to redeem his mistake for leading Jeno away from the well groomed path of ‘highschool success’ , Renjun was ashamed that it took him less than a minute of not-so-hard contemplation before giving in and helping Jeno go through the list of question for their English class.

Because subtly sabotaging someone else’s school grade just for the chance of getting to tutor them should not be legal. To be fair, the quiz only counts as 1% to the final grade so honestly, it won’t be that big of a deal, in contrary to Jaemin’s reaction after Renjun told him the story later in the day.

“WHAT KIND OF EVIL ARE YOU,” he looked at Renjun as if he did an unforgivable sin. Starting the third world war, hiding the fact that he’d found the cure for cancer, farting in a train carriage during rush hour.

“It’s only 1 point out of a hundred. Chill.” Donghyuk chimed in from the back of the room while he was lying on Renjun’s bed, the plastic takeaway cup still half-filled with stale coffee hanging precariously between his lips. Renjun had told him to not touch his bed with any part of his body until he finished the drink, but Donghyuk being Donghyuk, of course he didn’t listen.

(It was the unfinished cup of coffee from his study session with Jeno. Donghyuk repeatedly begged him to just call it for what it really is, a date , but Renjun felt like dying everytime he heard that word and he was certain it was not caused by the caffeine spike he always suffer through after each one of those… study dates.)

“But what if he got his report card and see ‘64’ for his biology? Then 1 point is no longer chill , isn’t it?” Wasn’t long before the two of them were locked in a back-and-forth banter about how Jaemin should probably calm down for a bit and how Donghyuk should care more for a change.

Renjun was feeling slightly burned from the long school day, the rows of integral homework staring at him, and the low sizzling of anxiety from his caffeine withdrawal that he dejectedly sighed out the thing he knew Jaemin wanted to hear. “I won’t do it again, I’m sorry.” He needed Jaemin to calm down enough to resume his explanation for question number 8 because after that at least they can call it a day and proceed to continue the round of basketball at the nearby park.

“You’re no fun.” Donghyuk slurped the last drops of his coffee before attempting to throw the paper cup to the dustbin right beside the desk. He missed. And he also caused a few droplets of coffee to fly all over the place where a some of them land on Renjun’s math workbook.

It only took one very intimidating look from Renjun to send Donghyuk scurrying off to find a paper towel.

_ _ _ _ _

Renjun is more of a tea person. Wait no, not more , because it implies that he sort of enjoyed coffee even if it’s only for a small fraction. He is 100% a tea person. If Jeno is a coffee , then Renjun is a tea wench.

He even make his morning tea in a legitimate teapot. He did make it for his whole family, but still. A porcelain teapot . What an overkill.

“Just tell him you don’t like coffee!” Jaemin sounded so exasperated when he finally decided that Renjun’s early morning whines and moans were too much for him. All he wanted was to enjoy the last few minutes of freedom before they set their feet in hell but Renjun would not shut up, “it’s not that hard, isn’t it?”

It should not be hard in theory. But in action, Jeno was always the one who bought their drink and Renjun has no balls to tell him that he does not have, in the slightest, a penchant for c o f f e e.

“He’ll hate me,” Renjun latched onto Jaemin’s backpack before he shook his arms in frustration. He needed his friend to feel the turbulence in his heart. Physically.

“If he hates you only because of your drinking preference, then I won’t ever approve him to be anything more than your study buddy.” There was a short pause before Jaemin continued on, “even a study buddy will be too much of a stretch, if I say so myself.”

Renjun was just about to let out a rebuttal for Jaemin’s opinion when someone rushed from behind them and gave them a firm shove on the back.

Both Jaemin and Renjun easily came to the conclusion that it couldn’t be Donghyuk, because if Lee Donghyuk ever turn up to school this early, they speculated it would cause a butterfly effect that’ll lead to global annihilation of mankind come the next day. And so Renjun waited until he could see the face of the culprit before he risked swearing out to anyone he does not want to be caught swearing by.

“Morning!” His patience proved to be a good decision because lo and behold, it was Jeno himself.

“Hiiiiiii,” it was too early and too sudden of a moment for Renjun to instantly dial down his obsession to the kid standing in front him, that he could only stare at him with an uncomfortably wide smile while he was desperately nudging Jaemin to come and save the day.

And he did, thank god. By engaging Jeno in mindless ‘have you done the homework for pure maths?’ type of conversation, he gave Renjun at least around 10 seconds to do one of his deep breathing exercises so he could go back to acting like a high functioning human.

Which was why he didn’t understand why Jaemin would undermine his efforts by stealing the thermos from his backpack and shoving it right to Jeno’s face. After taking a quick drink out of it himself first, of course.

“Wanna take a sip?”

Renjun shook his head in panic and tried his best to stop Jaemin from handing over the bottle and to stop Jeno from receiving it because somehow, in his mind, he had this theory that people who are so radically slated at one end of the spectrum would hate the only other option with a passion. Just like him and coffee, for example. And he didn’t know if he could live in a world where Jeno hates even a single aspect of him. Especially if that aspect is his love for tea .

But Jeno ignored him, took a big gulp out of the warm tea inside his thermos and Renjun was surprised when his face did not show any sign of disgust or rejection as he handed the bottle back to Jaemin.

“Tastes great,” he gave Renjun what he always describe to Jaemin and Donghyuk as the smile. The smile that can launch a thousand ships, the smile that caused him to get 5 valentine chocolates from year 12 girls back when he was still a year 10 newbie, clueless kid. He nudged Jaemin’s arm once more during the course of the smile, a silent reminder for him to notice and record this phenomenon because later, Renjun would give him an exhaustive quiz about how amazing it was and how great it made him feel.

(He would be slightly upset when later that day, Jaemin answered his questions with a simple ‘yes’ and ‘no’ because excuse me, I’m not infatuated with Lee Jeno, unlike you. So no, I don’t think that he’s the descendant of Helen of Troy. )

“See?” Jaemin whispered to him as he slipped the thermos back to its place, “not so bad, isn’t it?”

It slightly was, though, because his theory was disproven. Jeno likes tea, and that fact only makes him feel even more for hating coffee.

_ _ _ _ _

“Renjun,” the familiar sound coming from within the periphery of his attention slowly brought him back from his boredom induced daydream.

Although, his attention was back and alert alright, that it even sent him into a tiny shock, when he found the subject of his daydream sitting right in front of him while holding two takeaway coffee cups.

“Sorry, did I surprise you?” The last thing Renjun ever wants to happen was getting caught daydreaming by the wrong people because those who are close to him had told him: he does not look… that great when he daydreams (aka he would sometimes drool). But a frantic swipe of the back of his hand across the corner of his lips proved that no saliva was produced during his wait while Jeno was away somewhere, getting their usual study beverage before they go and tackle the dreaded chapter eight of biology.

“Nah, no worries I’m good.” He saw the tiny smile on Jeno’s lips sort of grew into something wider as he dug around his bag for his textbook, but Renjun took it in the worst case possible, which means the thought of ‘oh god Jeno thinks I’m weird’ was swimming around his brain while mixed together with explanation of the difference between NADH and NAD+.

They found themselves huddling in the mostly deserted school cafeteria not because their usual cafe was closed or in renovation or something. Worse, Renjun got there and saw Donghyuk sitting on their corner booth with his entourage of football club kids.

“The hell are you doing here.” Renjun hissed to his ears a bit too hard that Donghyuk had to push him off and wipe the spit from his earlobe.

“Club meeting!” His hand still clutching and pulling incessantly at Donghyuk’s arm meant that his navigation out of the crowded sofa was not an easy ordeal. Not like Renjun would ever make it so anyway.

“This is my spot.” Renjun was never portrayed, or even assumed, to be a kid with a fiery temper. But he was sure after that day there would be a lot of gossip surrounding him and his ‘anger management problem’ in the sports club circle. Courtesy of Donghyuk, of course.

“Dude, it’s a public space. You don’t own this ?” Donghyuk proceeded to grab him on his shoulder and in return dragged him to the other side of the room. Which was a weird thing in the first place because it was so not like Donghyuk for sparing his best friends of a lifetime of embarrassing moments. The usual Donghyuk would tease Renjun in front of everybody until either A. Renjun grew tired and left the spot or B. the world ends. “Look, ok, I’m trying to impress some new kids by taking them to a fancier place than the egg pancake shop.”

“This is the middle of the school year. What the hell are you talking about.” Renjun was not at all  fazed by Donghyuk’s palpable desperation. In fact, he was so amused by it that he’d begun to laugh out when realisation hit him. “Who is it?”

Donghyuk panicked and motioned him to shut up before a loud calling of his name caused the boy to turn around and answer back in a very uncharacteristically civilised manner.

“Mark? From 12-C?”

So here they were, on a deserted cafeteria, studying biology. The last group of students had just booked out of the place and that means only them and three DS playing kids were left.

“Yeah. I can’t believe it myself.” Donghyuk did ask Renjun to swear over his own life that he won’t ever, ever tell anyone about it. “Not even Jaemin?” the short pause that followed his hesitant ‘yes’ was all of the information that Renjun needs. “He already knew, doesn’t he?”

But Jeno doesn’t even hang around any football kids so Renjun figured telling him won’t be that big of a breach in their agreement.

“Isn’t Mark, uh…” From the way Jeno took a quick glance at the Nintendo groupies and how he leaned in slightly across the bench, Renjun knew where the conversation was going, “isn’t he straight?”

But even if he knew where the conversation was going, Renjun was still stupid enough to take a sip from his cup that the shock of his realisation that ‘holy this is really happening’ caused him to slightly send a bit of the liquid dirt up his nose.

“I don’t think Donghyuk will care much even if that’s the case,” he quickly answered after the coffee-up-my-nose thing was resolved.

He wanted to add, ‘same as me’ to the end of his sentence but that’ll be plain stupid. It’ll only make him look like he likes the 12-C kid, which he doesn’t. And oh, it will also you know, make it super obvious that Renjun is 100% not straight, which is not something he wants to brandish around if there’s a chance that Jeno is even in the slightest bit discomforted when discussing about that topic.  

Because unlike Donghyuk who by this point was only one rainbow jacket with the words “I am gay” embroidered at the back in capital letters away from showing in which direction he swings, Renjun regards himself as a person with a little bit more… reservations.

And he does not even know where Jeno stands in the spectrum, which actually acts as the source of his many late night lamentations to both Donghyuk and Jaemin.

“What if he’s straiiight,” his sobbings were muffled by the bear plushie on Donghyuk’s bed. Shocking, that out of them three, it was Donghyuk who still keeps childhood memorabilias around.

“Then you’re ed.” Donghyuk’s statement was capped by a loud yell after Jaemin hit his arm with a game controller.

“I don’t think he is though,” his gaming seemingly not bothered by that small interruption he just did, Jaemin didn’t even take his eyes from the action on the TV screen when he gave Renjun his consolations, “don’t you remember last year’s halloween party? That costume is definitely not straight.”

Of course Renjun remembered the halloween party, when Jeno walked through the cheaply decorated school entrance wearing a full black garb with his leather pants and his tight shirt and his messy hair and messy eyeliners and messy fake blood all around his mouth, and how Renjun had to use Jaemin as his make-shift crutch for the rest of the night because he’d fallen and he couldn’t seem to find a way to get back up.

“He might just be a metroual hipsteeeeeer.”

“Yeah Jaemin, you homist.”

“The is a homist.”

From the way Jeno was looking at him throughout the conversation, Renjun saw more of an ‘inquisitive’ than ‘uncomfortable’ so at least he could sleep easy that night.

After a while, Renjun thought Jeno’s silence meant that they’ve reached the end of the topic and they were back to cell respiration mode. Which was why his next question caught Renjun so out of left field it felt like he was physically hit by a speeding baseball. “Have you ever think about those things?”

There was no liquid left in Renjun’s mouth but why was he sounding like he was choking on water? “What… what things.”

“You know… your uality.”