(Warning: this is basically a Mcdonald's ad.)

July 2013

Hanbin didn’t much like this whole baseball business.

It was a Saturday; the most precious day of the week. A Saturday morning, at that. 11.15. He shouldn’t even be conscious yet. And yet here he was, sat in the stands of their school grounds, trying not to tear out his eyes as he watched Jiwon run around a pitch/court/whatever for no apparent reason. For points, he supposed. Is that what they called them in this game? He had no idea. Whatever it was it was dumb and pointless and he should be in bed.

So why was he there? The answer to that question chose that moment to return from the hot dog stand and sit himself beside Hanbin, putting his feet up on the seat in front, not seeming to realise/care that it was occupied. (After a while of failing to get his attention, the occupant ended up simply moving seats. Hanbin liked to call this the Junhoe Effect.)

“Thanks for getting me one.” Hanbin said, flatly, reaching for one of the two hot dogs Junhoe had returned with, but found his hand being slapped away.

“This isn’t yours.” He said, indignantly, as though it was an entirely preposterous assumption. Hanbin didn’t have the energy to glare, so instead he just stared. Junhoe shifted uncomfortably. He loathed direct eye contact - especially when it was with someone who looked like they wanted to kill you. (Which was sort of Hanbin’s regular expression.) “What, am I not allowed two?” He snapped, defensively.

“Go ahead, go ahead. Add to my misery, it can’t get much worse anyway.” Hanbin waved his hand melodramatically, slumping back in his seat. “Why am I here again?”

“Because Jiwon told me to beat you up if you flaked again.”

“Oh yeah. that dickhead.”

“That dickhead is currently winning us the game.”

“Well he’s not doing it very quickly.” Hanbin grumbled, flicking his watch as though it would make time move faster. “I really should be in bed… It’s not healthy for me to be up this early.” Junhoe had stopped listening by this point, but Hanbin didn’t especially care. “You know, I might catch a disease out here.” He pulled up the collar on his jacket, hunching his shoulders. “It’s cold.”

“It’s like thirty degrees.” Junhoe replied absently, squinting at the pitch, before awkwardly raising a hand. His left hand. He wasn’t left-handed. He wasn't sure why he’d raised his left hand but there it was, waving as though he was the ing president. Eventually he lowered it, after he thought sufficient time had passed, regretting everything. “I think he’s waving at us.”

Hanbin didn’t look up from where he was fiddling with a Rubix cube. “Nah he’s giving us the finger.”

“No, no, he’s definitely waving us.”

“Nah.” Hanbin finished his Rubix cube and presented Jiwon’s blurry figure with the finger, smirking when it was returned. “See?”

“You’re impossible.”

Hanbin couldn’t argue with him there.

A few moments of silence passed. Uncomfortably. Finally Hanbin gave in, sinking even further into his chair and groaning, “What now?”

“Why do you hate it so much?” Junhoe asked around a mouthful of hotdog. That was his way of asking an important question without making it seem too important. When his estranged father died, Junhoe had asked Hanbin to join him to go to his funeral in the middle of an argument over who pays for the ramen. (Hanbin ended up paying because, in Junhoe’s delicate words, “you’re rich as and my dad’s dead so pay up.”)

Hanbin glared at the pitch, running a hand through his hair. “It’s a game for people.”

Junhoe raised an eyebrow. “Like Jiwon?”

A pause. “Yeah.”

“That wasn’t very convincing.”

“Whatever.” Hanbin scowled at the pitch where he could faintly make out Jiwon with his arm slung around another guy’s shoulders. “Baseball makes him .”

“Hadn’t noticed.”

“Well you’re an oblivious piece of .”

Junhoe punched him in the shoulder and they went back to talking about how much they hated people who played baseball, making sure to leave Jiwon out of the conversation.

At halftime Hanbin was attempting to get some sleep whilst Junhoe was queueing for another hotdog, when he felt the hat over his face lift away.

“What?” He groaned, blinking rapidly in an attempt to adjust to the sunlight. When his eyes recovered they were met with Jiwon’s grinning face. He immediately wanted to close them again.

“We’re doing well thanks to you.” He proclaimed, with too much enthusiasm for Hanbin’s liking. “Even though my coach didn’t much appreciate the gesture.”

“He can shove it-”

“Yep, got the idea.” Jiwon quickly cut him off.

“What do you mean thanks to you?” Hanbin asked, somewhat belatedly.

“You’re like my lucky charm, man. Every time you come I always do better.”

“That so.” Hanbin was skeptical, considering he spent most of his time at these games asleep.

Jiwon didn’t seem put off by his deadpan. Perhaps he truly believed that lucky charm bull. “Yeah, I always play better when you’re watching.” Hanbin felt a happy twinge in his heart, but didn’t let it show. He was in the mood to sulk and he wasn’t about to let Jiwon change that.

“You’re that desperate to impress me, huh?”

“It’s seeming like an impossible task.”

“Oh, we’ve got a smart one.”

Hanbin was reluctantly finding himself drawn out of his bad mood when Jiwon went and ruined it. “The guys all love you too.”

He felt his mood crash almost instantly. “Oh goodie.” He summoned every ounce of sarcasm he’d spent years cultivating and refining, and spent it all on those two words.

“Yeah,” Jiwon continued, clearly not paying attention to his friend’s worsening mood. “they think you’re hilarious.”

“Do they now.”

“Yep.”

“Wasn’t a question.”

Jiwon ignored him again. “They’ve all been begging me to bring you to the after party.”

Those two words alone almost triggered his gag reflexes, but he forced down his disgust enough to reply, “A party at midday?”

“Well, I think we’re all gonna go the captain’s house tonight since his family’s away. Come on, Bin, please come. Tons of people from school will be there, it’ll be fun! They really wanna meet you properly.”

“I’ll pass.”

Jiwon wasn’t letting it go. “Come on, please. I’ll buy you a meal tomorrow, please?”

“I’m rich, I don’t need you to buy me a meal.” Hanbin muttered, but he felt himself caving in. No matter how repulsive the offer, it was impossible to refuse Jiwon when he wanted him to come so desperately. Jiwon knew he was giving in and Hanbin knew that he knew.

“Hani’s going.” Jiwon tried, and he was smiling because he knew he’d won.

He sighed, dramatically. “What shall I wear?”

They won the game. Thanks to “Bobby”, according to literally everyone. With every comment about how brilliant Bobby was and how much they wanted to get to know Hanbin, he grew more and more irritated. At home he stared at the fish in his tank for about twenty minutes straight, failing to find ways to get out of going to the party, and then failing to find ways to survive the party without punching someone. He’d just have to get faced and hope Junhoe restrained him if anybody said anything punch-worthy. (Which was looking like literally anything at that point. He wanted to punch a wall but his hands were too precious, so he settled for a pillow.)

After a while of kicking a cat pillow - whilst receiving funny looks from his little sister, who was drawing on his t-shirts (her new hobby) - Hanbin finally forced himself to get up and find an outfit. He only had five minutes until Junhoe was coming to pick him up. Junhoe had a job interview the next day so getting wasted was slightly off-limits. Hanbin didn’t think a hangover would affect his chances, seeing as they were looking especially low already, but wasn’t complaining.

“What should I wear?” He asked, smiling despite himself. He liked watching her draw Disney princesses on his most expensive shirts. Seemed like there was a metaphor in there somewhere but he was too stupid to discern it.

She looked at him, thoughtfully, and he suddenly realised he knew exactly where this was going. The worst part was that he didn’t even care.

Twenty minutes later, Hanbin wasn’t regretting letting his eight year-old sister pick out his outfit in the slightest. In fact, he was planning on letting her style him a lot more in the future. Junhoe had hardly stopped laughing the entire drive, so much so that he nearly ran someone over, and he was getting similar reactions from the baseball team. He was thoroughly enjoying both the laughter and the attention. Turned out combining bright red trousers, a navy suit jacket, purple-tinted shades and t-shirt sporting a very unique drawing of Elsa tended to turn a few heads. Who’d’ve thought it?

Jiwon showed up about ten minutes after they did, dressed (very nicely, Hanbin couldn’t help but notice) like a normal person. How utterly dull.

  At first Hanbin was excited to see him, having been incredibly bored waiting around for Junhoe to find somewhere to park and fending off backhanded compliments about his outfit, but upon seeing his companions his greeting died on his tongue.

Hanbin got along with almost everyone at school. He got along with the nerds, the popular kids, the music kids, the edgy kids, the rich kids, the detention kids. He even got along with the teachers. There was just one group of people he simply couldn’t stand, and that was the sporty kids. The baseball kids, to be specific. (Apart from Jiwon, as we’ve already established.)

“Bin!” Jiwon ran up to him, already laughing at his outfit. “Dude I told you anything’s fine as long as it’s normal.”

“Are you insulting my sister’s fashion sense?”

“Wouldn’t dare.” Jiwon reached out and grabbed his arm. “Come, come. This is In Tak.”

Hanbin looked him up and down and didn’t much like what he saw. His clothes were boring too, but he didn’t look nice in them.

“Hey man, nice shades.” He had an unpleasant smile.

“You too.” He wasn’t wearing shades.

“You’re Bobby’s lucky charm right?” Attempting to smile was very painful. “He always talks about you, don’t you bro?” Jiwon at least had the grace to look a little embarrassed.

“Honoured.”

“Don’t you think you should step back for his girl though?”

His fake smile died. “That so?”

Jiwon laughed awkwardly. “What do you mean?”

“Well surely she should be your charm, not this loser.” He said the word as though they were joking among friends, but Hanbin was only just meeting for him the first time. His eyes narrowed as he followed In Tak’s gesture along to where Jiwon’s girlfriend, Seo-yun, was stood looking increasingly uncomfortable. He didn’t know her very well - they went to different schools. She was fine, he supposed.

A while ago he’d asked Junhoe why he (Hanbin, that is) couldn’t stand being around them together (it wasn’t as though she wasn’t nice or anything, she seemed very sweet) and Junhoe had replied that he didn’t like sharing Jiwon. “But I don’t mind sharing him with you”, he’d replied, and Junhoe had stared at his food as he replied quietly.

“That’s because I’m not a threat.”

The words had been turning over and over in his mind ever since. They resonated with him, and that terrified him. What did it even mean?

“You’re not his girlfriend, y’know.” He continued, smiling as though he didn’t know how uncomfortable he was making everyone. Hanbin looked into his eyes and it was obvious he knew exactly what he was doing. Seo-yun was currently smiling awkwardly at the group, casually avoiding looking at Hanbin. He didn’t blame her.

“Bin’s my best friend though?” Jiwon continued, with his usual obliviousness. Hanbin envied him.

“One and only.” He managed, locking gazes with In Tak and refusing to look away until he did.

“Hey!” Junhoe tried to interject but nobody spared him a glance.

“Yeah but it’s a bit weird, isn’t it?” This dude doesn’t give up, jesus . Hanbin felt his nails digging into his palm, struggling to contain his growing irritation. Usually he wasn’t so easily stirred, but he was already on edge and being around Seo-yun was only making it worse. For some reason he always felt guilty around her, even though he’d done nothing wrong.

“What is?”

God Jiwon, can’t you see what he’s trying to do? Hanbin knew exactly what was going on, and he thought that from the uncomfortable glint in Seo-yun eyes she did too. In Tak wanted to make him snap and ruin everyone’s opinion of him. He was stirring trouble for the sake of it, to make Hanbin look bad to Jiwon and bring him further over to their side. Well he wasn’t falling for it. Smiling suddenly came easy. It was always easier to be c