When Minghao essentially stumbles into the clinic on Thursday, he’s ostensibly upset.

          And again, much to Mingyu’s chagrin, he’s not any better. Luckily, he’s not any worse. Well, at least his leg isn’t, but he’s sporting a rigid wrist brace now. If Minghao leaves a bad Yelp review of their clinic just because he didn’t get better in four weeks, he will personally hunt him down and punch him in the face even if fighting might make him want to cry.

          Once they’re alone in the PT room, with Wonwoo out for lunch with Soonyoung and Seokmin outside with his patient, Mingyu takes the silence as a cue to berate him. He doesn’t mean to nag or be so casual about his aggressions, but being alone with his high school stressor makes that ideology difficult. He hopes they don’t fight again, but it seems inevitable with Minghao’s words.

          “I’m paying you to fix me, not be my mom.”

          “I’m trying to help you, I really am, but you’re literally not taking my advice.” Mingyu sets down his clipboard a little too loudly with Minghao sitting on the examination table and the latter jolts from the noise; flinches maybe. Something aches. “If you really want to get better, stop dancing for a few months.”

          To which Minghao just rolls his eyes, seeming to shake off whatever jitters the clipboard gave him. Mingyu’s request is not unreasonable. Minghao should be able to take paid leave from work without much trouble with how highly he’s regarded in the field locally and professionally.

          “Have you even tried the exercises I assigned you last week?”

          “Yes. I have.”

          Mingyu takes a breath and closes his eyes.

          Minghao mentally does the same, eyes still trained on Mingyu’s hand that’s laying on his clipboard.

          There’s clearly some unresolved tension between them. Neither is sure who is bringing that tension to the table, but it’s more than likely Mingyu. He’s dealt with difficult patients before, ones far worse than Minghao, but he’s choosing today to retaliate for the first time. The zipper he had put on his lips for Old Man Perelman, Mrs. Wilson, all the crabby old folks; that resolve is dissolved.

          Thanks to his better judgement, Mingyu just his lips and recomposes himself, “Do you want to talk about it?”

          “Talk about what?” Minghao just leans back on the table, seeing as Mingyu’s positioning himself to start.

          “Whatever’s making you snappy.” Mingyu answers as he pulls Minghao’s leg up to stretch. The latter taps out faster than he normally does, drumming his fingertips against Mingyu’s forearm when the stretch turns strenuous.

          “Not really, no.” Mingyu tries again, “-” Minghao grunts between his teeth as his breath hitches and suddenly Mingyu’s mind goes blank. What was that? What was he doing again? “, Mingyu- stop.” He smacks his arm repeatedly, egging him to let go.

          Mingyu sets his leg down to bend a different way, “I haven’t seen you this snappy since that time in junior year when a senior threw your backpack on the roof and you got in trouble for it.” He pushes Mingyu’s hands off and sits up.

          “Can we not talk about high school?” He expected that to make Minghao more irritable, but it just sounds like all the fight is out of him, “If you must know, a teammate of mine kept yelling at me for skipping practice to come here. So, I changed my schedule with the team this week so I could come without missing practice. Then he goes and skips out on us for some unplanned mimosa brunch and no one says anything about it.” Minghao scratches at his neck out of frustration before flopping back down onto the padded examination table.

          Mingyu decides to spend the next while not talking. They don’t need to find any more opportunities to argue since Seokmin has entered the PT room with Mrs. Margaret, a retired seamstress who threw out her back hoeing in her garden. Instead, he offers to take Minghao’s hand experimentally. He knows Minghao is paying for his knee, but right now he’s doing sitting presses that have nothing to do with his hands.

          Minghao seems to understand the cue without Mingyu having to instruct him. He rips off the Velcro and gives the brace a short toss back to the examination table where it lands with a soft thud. Mingyu is probably exaggerating when he says he melts into Minghao’s touch just ever so slightly. His hands aren’t that soft, rough from his profession, especially compared to Mingyu who goes out of his way to moisturize and make sure his hands are as soft as a baby’s since he touches so many people. But Minghao’s touch is electrifying, as sharp and keen as his eyes.

          Experimentally, he bends the hand back to find the point of agitation. Minghao’s breath is enough to tell him where he should pay attention. Without much thought, he starts ironing out the knots in the dancer’s wrist. He puts tension on the fingers and makes sure that the joints are loose. He often provided this service for other students when he was at university. There’s almost a million things that can cause carpal pains and wrist pains, most of his friends got them from writing so many notes, but Minghao is different and his is likely from impact.

          A hand-wrist massage is nothing big and nothing to brag about being able to do. He’s sure that Wonwoo could do a much better job considering he specializes in the upper body, but the short massage was efficient and Minghao nods in thanks when Mingyu gives him his hand back with little less than a lingering touch. He rubs his hand on his shorts, telling Mingyu that his hands were probably too sweaty to be comfortable.

          Mingyu helps him over to the leg press, explaining how he can do the same exercise at home by pushing against a wall before having him start on the machine, “Does your team know you’re coming to PT appointments?”

          Minghao scoffs, “As if I’d ever tell them about this.”

          “Why not?”

          “If he finds out that my knee is ed, then he’ll tell the boss and my boss won’t let me teach or compete.”

          “Slow down.” Minghao’s pressing harder and faster today and that’s not how therapy is supposed to work, “I think you should tell them and get some time off.”

          “Commission-based work doesn’t pay like that. I’m going to keep working even if it kills me.”

          “You’re going to really hurt yourself if you don’t take recovery seriously.” Mingyu grabs the panel so Minghao can stop pushing, halting the exercise and eliciting a sharp breath from him when his leg meets resistance, “So calm down and think seriously about this. Maybe you should stop pursuing dance for a minute.” He can already tell that anything Minghao’s about to say will be said with needles and blades by the way his eyes cut into him.

          “And maybe you should eat my .”

          The ‘fight’ ends there because Mingyu chokes on air and on his words. His coughing fit is enough time to say that he’s lost the argument and Wonwoo laughs at him when they’re in the breakroom later, right before Mingyu leaves work. At least he got to explain the right moves to Minghao before he left, but didn’t get much response outside of hums and nods. Minghao isn’t the worst patient he’s had, but he’s seriously the worst patient that he’s had.

          “You were about five minutes from punching him in the face. I could tell.” Wonwoo chuckles that deep chuckle that evolves into high pitched wheezing he does when he finds Mingyu’s habits hilarious.

          “He’s frustrating.”

          “He’s cute.” Wonwoo is pouring his third cup of coffee. It’s decaf if you’re asking. Mingyu has to turn up his nose when Wonwoo says it’s for the taste and not for the caffeine. Who just drinks black coffee for enjoyment? Those that can’t be trusted, obviously, like Wonwoo Jeon.

          “Ew. Not cute.”

          “He’s cute. He’s cute. You know he’s cute. I can tell you think so because you did that thing again.” Mingyu will vehemently refuse to admit that he does a thing when Minghao’s on his mind. He most certainly does not do a thing- to his fault, he shouldn’t have brought up high school. It was a bad time for both of them; Minghao just for existing, and Mingyu for knowing that Minghao was suffering just for existing, “Speaking of cute, you got the greenlight. Soonyoung thinks you’re cool.”

          Mingyu perks up a bit, “Do you need his permission to be friends with me?”

          Another hearty laugh, “No, of course not,” he sets his mug down in the sink and rinses it before rising his mouth and popping a piece of gum into it, “but it’s nice when your sig fig likes your friends, y’know?”

          Something in Mingyu bubbles up happily because anytime someone you consider a friend verbally states that you are (indeed) friends it’s always a good feeling. It feels so good. Okay, maybe Mingyu is a little socially stunted from making a ton of new friends since he’s moved for college and coming back to a town where everyone from high school triggers a bad memory. Who they bring up memories about, Mingyu doesn’t want to say, but it’s already written on his sleeve. Wonwoo knows.

          “Have you ever considered reconnecting with Minghao, like, outside of the clinic?”

          Maybe, “No.”

          “I think you should- At least find room to talk to him, clear up this unresolved tension that you’ve been carrying around the office with you since we’ve met. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve asked Joshua and he says you’ve only started acting like this since Jeonghan left. So, you’re either sick in puppy-love with Jeonghan missing or Minghao is the real issue here.” He spits out the gum and wipes his mouth, straightening his button-up and sliding on his cardigan.

          “Well, back in high school,” Mingyu starts, keeping an eye on the clock, knowing that Wonwoo will have to leave for his next appointment in ten minutes. He’ll try to keep it short, but since Wonwoo afforded him the luxury of the ‘friend’ word, he’ll tell him about his troubles, “it was a well-known rumor that Minghao had a crush on me. And there was a day that I was told he would confess to me in the cafeteria. So, I might have cut him off and made a scene about it and Minghao got a lot of heat because of that.” Mingyu was the catalyst to a reaction that didn’t have to happen.

          Wonwoo nods knowingly, telling Mingyu that he probably doesn’t have to go into detail about the hell that Minghao went through later that year since he already knows based on personal experience. Something in the older looks a little disappointed in him amongst a mix of other emotions that are breezing over his normally stoic face.

          “To be fair, it was late in junior year and he-”

          “Did he actually like you? Or was all this trouble you went through to stop him based on a lonely rumor?” Yeah, Wonwoo is definitely disappointed in him for something he did ten years ago. That’s okay. Mingyu’s disappointed in himself too.

          “The whole school knew he did. I mean- Back then, it wasn’t a surprise. A lot of people liked me and-” He knows he’s just digging a deeper hole trying to defend himself with childish facts based on air; nothingness. He sounds like he’s 16 again and arguing with his peers about who has the sleeker sneakers. He also doesn’t understand why he’s trying to defend his past decisions. It’s probably because Mingyu isn’t familiar with all that disappointment and discontent being directed towards him even if it’s nonverbal and completely based on speculation.

          Mingyu worries his lip, weighing on words.

          “So, you ruined his high school experience based on something someone else told you.”

          The reality of that situation somehow hurts a lot more when it’s thrown into his face by someone real instead of the voice in his head. Wonwoo’s eyes look a little cold and detached from their normal honey warmth. The stark contrast between his face now and their lunch in the park with Soonyoung yesterday is obvious; he looked at Soonyoung with love and, now, at Mingyu with everything but that. Luckily, Wonwoo is professional. Maybe it’s just in his nature or maybe he just wasn’t that upset about Mingyu’s past choices, but Wonwoo smiles a soft, sad smile, “What?”

          “I think you really need to talk to him, Gyu. Y’know, before your lip falls off and your eyebrows get stuck like that.” Now conscious of the way his face is, Mingyu relaxes the tense muscles and his bottom lip free of his teeth.