“I… hate coffee.”

Renjun was so nervous, and so pumped up with caffeine that he couldn’t wait for what would be considered as a normal ‘grace period’ for people to discern a shocking news, and interpreted Jeno’s silence as something negative. It caused him to instantly jump into a ‘defensive mode’ ramble,

“Wait, wait scratch that. I mean, it’s just ok ok, I’m sorry, hate is a really strong word and I shouldn’t have used it but coffee man. Coffee. I don’t like it. Which is why you should delete all my comments earlier and not include it in your review because it’ll be an inaccurate representation of this… cafe.”

His rapid fire rant sizzled to an end when in the middle of it, Jeno suddenly broke off into a giggle. And as if he was the energy out of Renjun’s babble, the volume of his laughter got louder and louder in conjunction to Renjun getting quieter and quieter. Until in the end Renjun had to gave him a piece of tissue to wipe off the laughter-tears from his face.

“I thought… I thought you'd say something really grave,” Jeno finally managed to wheeze out his words in between short gasping of air. And a few seconds later, after he’d taken at least 3 deep breaths and Renjun believed he’d seen the look of utter worry and confusion on his face, Jeno calmed down enough to continue, “why didn’t you tell me??? I feel so bad now,-”

“No, oh god no don’t feel bad it was totally my fault that,-”

“-all this time I never actually asked you what you wanted, right? Great job Jeno,-”

“-I didn’t have the heart to tell you because you’ve been paying and I don’t want to look ungrateful.”

“I’ve been paying?”

It was Jeno’s turn to look perplexed. And after the rapid banter they’ve just done, the quietness that followed as he scratched the back of his ears with the of his pen was jarring, “really? I honestly never noticed.”

“Yes you have. Trust me. It really helps my financial situation.” Renjun had to avert his gaze when he saw the start of the smile peeking through, like a cross blur transition from one emotion to another.

“It’s became my habit, I guess.”

Jeno went back to lean against the table, and his wiggling eyebrows forced Renjun to return his attention to him. Screw it. The low ambient lighting of this place surely will hide the flushing of his skin.

“So, what is it do you like to drink? So that our future study sessions can be less… torturous for you to go through.” Renjun was about to protest for his word choice when Jeno stopped him abruptly, “I noticed those grimaces, you know. I always thought you were grimacing to me, as in, what a chore it is to teach me . Thank god you’re grimacing to the coffee.”

The revelation was a surprising one for Renjun. What else did he notice, sitting in their usual spot, appearing to look at his book when maybe, in reality, he was not?

“I love tea.”

“What kind?”

“Earl grey.” Everything, truthfully. He loves every type. But earl grey sounded fancy enough to fit with the cafe they were in and thus Renjun picked that from his mind’s tea drawers.

“Wow we’ve talked so much for the last three months but I never would’ve known that if you didn’t tell me.” Jeno’s fingers began to tap the wooden table. The first thing that came to Renjun’s mind was ‘a life bait’ and ‘he’s luring me to hold his hand’ but then he realised what a crock full of wishful thinking that was and quickly shot the idea down. But still, the possibility has presented itself and was hanging low enough to entice his brain that was already laced with liquid confidence (the legal kind), that Renjun decided to settle on a middle ground. Putting his hands on the table, cupping it around his, well, his cup of coffee.

“Do you… have anything that you think I’ll never know unless you tell me about it?” If it was not for said liquid confidence, Renjun would not have gained the courage to ask Jeno that question. A tiny voice in his brain whispered, ‘maybe coffee is not that bad after all,’ which he quickly silenced with a rebuttal, ‘this same effect can be achieved with me drinking coke. Shut up.’

If the finger tappings might be Jeno’s bait, this is Renjun’s bait. Trying to steer their conversation to yesterday’s topic with admirable level of subtlety, if subtlety is a flashing neon billboard sitting in the middle of an empty desert.

“I’m envious of you and your gang,” turns out, Jeno was just as bad at reading blatantly unsubtle context, because that was not something that Renjun could ever imagine coming out of their current conversation, “I want to be able to hang around my friend’s house after school. All of my junior high friends live at the other side of the city and well, nobody got time for that kind of commute.”

“But I thought you are in a lot of these ‘gangs’?” Renjun said while using his fingers to form the air quotation mark. Magazine club, physics club, chess club, Jeno’s name goes around their school so often it was slightly weird to hear that he was envious of a kid whose only popularity cred comes from the fact that teachers had started calling him as one of the three musketeers.

(Donghyuk argued that he was Athos, because he’s cool like that. And Jaemin was all I’m Aramis and nobody can tell me otherwise. But that means Renjun was left with Porthos and he knows he’s not a Porthos. It’s became a source of constant argument between him and Donghyuk over who actually deserves to be what.)

“Nothing like what you have with Jaemin and Donghyuk.”

Renjun forced himself to stay quiet for a period of time as he noticed that Jeno seemed to be closing up, pulling himself back a little bit while the smile on his face grew a little bit solemn. Giving the boy some moment of peace and a chance to savour the unearthed loneliness that always exist in a hidden corner of any public spots.

But still, Renjun could only do so much without risking his thigh bones falling off through their sockets from him shaking them against the ground too vigorously,

“We usually have a game night every Saturday. Do you want to join us? Maybe?” He spouted out the invitation with a far too wide grin on his face, “if you want to, that is.”

Renjun only noticed how stupid that suggestion was (see: Donghyuk) when Jeno returned his grin with an overly enthusiastic noddings of his head. He didn’t expect it to go this way. He didn’t expect for Jeno to be so excited with the premise of ‘finally getting to play the new Smash Bros with the legendary Na Jaemin.’ There wasn’t even any tiny chit-chat bullery of ‘oh I’m afraid I’ll interrupt’ or ‘no no no you won’t be’. Jeno gratefully snatched Renjun’s offerings with both hands and ran away with it.

That left Renjun at the corner of Jaemin’s bedroom in a nice Saturday afternoon, silently hitting himself over his head while the newcomer in their golden trio, ‘ the d’Artagnan’ , Donghyuk whispered to him with mischievousness dripping down the corner of his grin, hogged the controler for two whole hours while Jaemin couldn’t stop crying out his rejoices because he finally found a,

“Worthy opponent. You’re a worthy opponent!”

“Then what am I?” Donghyuk would bear down on Jaemin time and time again. Hugging the boy, poking his arm, shaking Jaemin while putting up a really weird-looking pout on his face, all with the goal to somehow regain Jaemin’s attention back to him.

But all those efforts were extinguished with an easy shrug of Jaemin’s shoulders, “unworthy of my time.”

Renjun sometimes needed a reminder that it wasn’t only Donghyuk who is capable of delivering an ego breaking snark. Jaemin too, was capable. And even though Donghyuk will never admit it, Jaemin, when bothered enough to do it, is much, much more better at it than him.

“Jealous?” Renjun asked him when Donghyuk joined him at the ‘corner of the forgottens’ , after the poor guy crawled there looking like a puppy denied of its treats.

Donghyuk only gave him a look that projected his feeling of unamusement, “I’m supposed to be the one to tell you that.”

They spent a few minutes silently leaning against Jaemin’s bookcase, checking their own respective phones while an occasional yell or laughter coming from either Jeno or Jaemin pierced through the sounds of the game the two of them were playing, until Donghyuk decided to no longer put up with this boring tragedy of a Saturday. His whole body seemingly lurching out with a sudden burst of mischievous intent.

Behind him, there was Renjun, leaning forward and filled with attention because he was so ready to tackle Donghyuk to the ground if he dared do anything out of line.

“Jeno, you’ve been hanging out with Renjun for quite a while right?” Donghyuk looked over his shoulder and practically ignored Renjun’s ‘don’t you dare’ death stare with a poorly masked giggle. After they both heard an absent minded sounding yeah coming from the boy, Donghyuk continued on, “does he have any weird habits you want to share to us all?”

It was only a first degree offense in Renjun’s bible of ‘when to hit Donghyuk and when to just let him go with a stern look’ and so Renjun decided to settle on the latter. Besides, Jeno finally looked away from the tv screen and was giving the forgottens a quick glance. Renjun was forced to behave.

“I think you two will have known everything,” he first gave a very wink-wink-nudge-nudge nod to Renjun, most probably referencing the tea conversation they have almost two days ago, before he wagged his tongue at Donghyuk, “or seen everything.”

Renjun almost found himself shouting ‘stop doing that right now’ because he felt personally violated seeing Jeno do anything with his tongue so casually, as if he was clueless at what effect it brought upon Renjun’s mentality (to be fair, Jeno was clueless). But it was stopped when after swiftly delivering a killing blow to Jaemin’s character, Jeno completely turned around and leaned slightly towards Renjun,

“But uh… he likes to mumble things to himself and oh! He likes to play with the lead of his mechanical pencil and trace the grooves on his erasers,” Jeno then put up his hand and went through a list of habits that Renjun never even thought about twice, or something so obscure it only ever happened once in the time they spent studying together. With each fingers he put down, the more flustered Renjun grew, and the more amused Donghyuk became. “He hums the Jurassic Park theme when he’s happy, he’s superstitious as hell, he hates the number four, and he knocks on the table three times everytime he read the clock and it says 4:44.”

There was a constant undercurrent of hesitation peeking through in between his words, and Renjun could see his eyes darting quickly between Donghyuk, Jaemin, and him. And was that the start of a blush creeping up from the collars of his t-shirt? Before Renjun could fully discern everything, Jaemin had slapped his open palm on Jeno’s arm and on they went to the tenth round, or probably more, of their match.

“I dare you to tell him on your way home,” Renjun felt his soul jumping out of his corporeal body when all of a sudden Donghyuk swooped in and whispered to his ears. When Donghyuk saw that Renjun was looking at him as if he all of a sudden stopped speaking intelligibly, he added, “man, the way he looked at you was not, and I repeat, not something that a friend will do. Like, have I ever looked at you with those… those lovey dovey eyes? NO.”

Donghyuk literally yelled the word ‘no’ in his otherwise hush-hush sentence, that it cost him a really sharp hit on his leg. Courtesy to a very high-strung and surprised Renjun.

“Come onnnnn! Do it! You’ve been moping about this kid for the last year and I’m starting to get real tired of it,-”

“If I do it, you do it.”

“What do you mean I do it?”

Something was suddenly running within Renjun’s bloodstream. Something, that reminds him of the caffeine highs that he’d associated with Jeno’s presence in his life by this point. And this something pushed him to square up against Donghyuk, an act he so rarely does because most of the time he was so unbothered by Donghyuk’s usually stupid dares and challenges. His gaze didn’t even falter, his offer of a handshake seemingly not going to go away anytime soon, and his grin , his grin was blinding. It only grew wider when he saw the little crack on Donghyuk’s face was slowly spread across his playful facade after the boy realised what Renjun was talking about.

“You, Mark. Me, him,” Renjun tilted his head towards the person he was referring to, detailing the implications of their deal to a now minutely shaking Donghyuk, “this afternoon, I promise I’ll come out to him if you do too. Monday we regroup and report whatever happened. Deal?”

Renjun was feeling so brave at that moment. So giddy. So positive and bright and excited and reckless and sure that hell, it’s only going to be words. It won’t be that bad, won’t it?