Minho ignored the spectators as he chased after the tennis ball. He was training for the University Open Games with Jonghyun and a crowd of girls were on the other side of the fence, looking in with shining eyes. Jinki was on the side of the courts, acting as the ball boy. Key was in his usual position, next to their gear, iPad on his lap as he worked on his physics project.

Whilst he was ignoring the things on the other side of the fence, Minho took keen notice of what happened within the courts. He grunted even louder as Taemin unhooked the gate and walked in to settle himself next to Key. Key gave him a radiant smile and leaned forward to give him a kiss hello, which Taemin hesitantly accepted. Whether by accident or not, Minho swung for the incoming ball and his racket flew to the side of Taemin.

“Ya!” Key shouted with surprise, “Be careful!” He hastily stood up to retrieve the racket and inspected it for any damage. He handed it back to the puffing Minho, reproach in his eyes. “You can’t win the Uni Games if you don’t have your racket,” he admonished him. Minho nodded and returned to the game, leaving Key to look on at him strangely. Ever since he and Taemin had started dating, Minho had been more edgy and short tempered. Key noticed his moody stares at Taemin and his short replies when they tried to include him in their conversations. Oftentimes, he left them alone only to watch from a distance.

Taemin stayed with Key for a few more minutes before he leaned towards him and whispered something in his ear. Key was surprised and a little put out, but he nodded and waved goodbye as Taemin got up and left.

A few days later, the two old friends were in their kitchen. Minho opened the fridge and whistled with delight at the sight of the cake. He was about to pull it out and have a slice when Key swatted his hand away.

“No,” he denied him and carefully pushed the plate back in.

“Why?” Minho asked with a pout on his lips.

“It’s for Taemin,” he answered. Key was in a bad mood and had used his energies to bake. His date with Taemin the previous night was a disaster. He had wanted to hold his hand after the movies but his boyfriend refused to remove his hands from his coat pockets. Key was left to tend to his cold hands by himself.

Minho made a disgusted noise at the back of his throat and stormed out of the kitchen. Key frowned; his patience was growing thin at Minho’s inexplicable behaviour. It was just a cake; it was not as if he was starving!

“What’s your problem?” he demanded, following Minho out into the lounge room.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Minho returned back at him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Key was exasperated and had enough things to worry about than Minho’s childish tantrums.

“Why are you doing all of this for him? It is like you’re still chasing after him. He ... he ...” Minho tried to continue his rage but spluttered at the end.

Key stood with his arms folded across his chest. “He, what, Minho?” he asked him with a deceptive calmness that belied the anger swirling in his veins.

Minho tried again but faltered, “Taemin doesn’t ...”

“Taemin doesn’t, what?” Key repeated. “Say it to my face,” he demanded.

But Minho’s mouth remained sealed shut. They waged a silent war until Key’s phone rang and broke the tension. He answered the call and agreed to the person’s plans. He gathered his things and made to leave, and glanced back towards the fridge. He decided against preparing a slice of the cake. Before the last, however, he turned to Minho and told him that he was going out with Taemin, if that was ok with him.

Minho surprised them both when he said no.

“What?” Key asked him with shock.

Minho took courage and spoke each word clearly, “I said no.”

Key bristled at his answer and told him that he had no authority over him. This in turn caused Minho to erupt again, demanding why Key kept asking that stupid question in the first place if he didn’t care about his answer.

“Because ... it is just polite,” Key had begun with heat and ended it with an awkward quietness. The truth was it did matter to him whether Minho approved or not. That was why he had kept asking whenever he went out anywhere. And before Taemin, Key had hoped that Minho would ask to go with him too. But now it hurt and confused Key when he gave the contrary answer. It hurt him because it made him doubt whether he had made the right decision regarding Taemin, if Minho clearly disapproved. It confused him because a part of him hoped that there was an agenda hidden within Minho’s reply

But Key ignored it all and coolly turned his back to Minho and went out to find Taemin.

“Happy Birthday!” Jinki and Jonghyun chorused as Minho popped opened some confetti. Key glowed with pleasure and Taemin gave him a chaste kiss on the cheek. Key surveyed the people surrounding the kitchen table, giving each one a smile, before turning to the cake. He made a wish and blew out the candles. Another round of applause filled the house.

“Cake!!” Jinki and Key yelled out as the former handed the latter a knife to cut out the slices. Taemin laughed at their enthusiasm and scooped off some of the cream with his finger. He held it to Key’s mouth, who shyly it off. Jinki groaned with a feigned disgust and told them to get a room, to which Minho yelled that it better had not be in his house! Key and Taemin laughed at their jokes.

Key went into the lounge room with the last slice of cake and handed it over to Minho. He settled himself next to him on the couch and they shared the cake. Since their first argument, the two had been alternating between fights and truces. For Key’s birthday event, Minho held onto his tongue about Taemin and Key said nothing about Minho’s resentment against his boyfriend.

“Hey Minho,” Jonghyun interrupted their shared silence and sat in the seat opposite of them. “Are you going to reply to Sulli or not?” he asked.

Key sat up, his curiosity aroused. “Sulli, isn’t she the tennis player on your team?”

“Yep, his new mixed-doubles partner,” Jonghyun answered for him. “And I heard her ask him out on a date,” he added with a wicked smirk.

Key turned to Minho with wide eyes, asking how he could have missed this. Minho shrugged and said that he was often out with Taemin when it came time for him to train with her. Key fell back into his seat with a frown. Sulli was a nice person, sweet and y and a perfect match for Minho.

“Are you going to go out with her?” he asked him. Jonghyun leaned forward to hear Minho’s response.

Minho took his time to answer the question. He looked at Key and his pout, and noticed the way he tried to hide the anxiety about his response. “I don’t know yet,” he told him and saw the relief flood in his face, until he added at the end that he would probably ask her out after the Uni Games. Jonghyun cheered his approval.

Taemin came over and rested a hand on Key’s shoulder. He whispered in his ear that he had to leave. Key looked up at him with sadness and begged him to stay for a little longer. The night was still early and he had presents to open. But Taemin only shook his head and nodded his farewell to the others.

Key stood up to follow him to the front door, persistent with his insistence for Taemin to stay a little longer. Three other heads craned from their positions in the lounge room as they continued to watch the drama. They were noticed by Taemin, who would often look back at them while he tried to calm Key down. Key admitted defeat at the last and leaned forward to give him a goodnight kiss, only to have Taemin pull away slightly with embarrassment. He saw the hurt in Key’s eyes and gave him a kiss on his cheek as an apology.

Afterwards, Key shuffled into the kitchen and began to clear away the dishes. Minho frowned with Jinki and Jonghyun and stood up to enter the kitchen too. He stood next to Key at the sink and took over the dishwashing. Key stood to the side, his expression long and his eyes holding back tears.

“What was that about?” Minho quietly asked him, steadily working through the plates.

“He had to go early,” Key answered. Minho encouraged for more details and Key reluctantly responded; “There was another party he needed to show his face at.”

Minho suddenly stopped and threw the plates back into the sink, his hold on to his anger snapped into two. “You can’t be serious?!” he yelled at Key. He had shouted the last loud enough as if he was trying to yell at Taemin too, causing the other two friends to scramble from the lounge room and into the kitchen.  

Key stood as if scandalised by Minho’s outrage. It was not his fault; it was not Taemin’s fault. It was just something that Taemin needed to see to. But Minho was having none of it and continued to yell for Key to wake up with some sense. His relationship with Taemin was not healthy and he cited their scene at the door just moments before. “What was his problem? Aren’t you two meant to be a couple?” Minho returned to the dishes with disgust written all over his face.

Key played the ignorant victim and insisted that he was just exaggerating; what he and Taemin had was normal. And if Minho actually went out and dated, then he would know that too!

Jinki and Jonghyun watched the tension build in the air between the two and hastily retreated when Key stormed off. Key snatched his house keys and mobile phone from the table and went to grab his coat. When Jinki asked him where he was going, Key shouted that he was going out since he could not handle being in the same room with people who thought lowly of him and his lover. He slammed the front door behind him to emphasise his point.

Jinki turned back to Minho, who had stopped washing the dishes and was breathing heavily with anger over the sink. “What the hell was that all about?” he accused Minho. “You’re never going to get him if you keep pushing him towards Taemin!”

Minho snorted and dried his hands on a tea towel. He also grabbed his things and claimed that he didn’t know what Jinki was talking about. When he was asked where he was going too, he simply said that he was going out and that they should lock the door if they were leaving too.

“Well,” Jonghyun sighed with exhaustion at the end of it all, “this is a fun party.”

Key sat by himself on the swing set in the local park. He and Minho had not spoken a word to each other since his birthday party. They would individually prepare for their day in silence and went about their respective activities on their own. Both avoided staying in the house longer than was necessary; the residual tension from their last fight was too suffocating. And so Minho was at the tennis courts on campus, preparing for the Uni Games that were being held later in the day; whilst Key had simply escaped.

He swung idly on the swing and thought about his failing relationship with Taemin. There were moments that were precious to him, oftentimes when it was just them two. Key could feel Taemin’s sincere attempts to show him his love; it was not entirely as one-sided as Minho saw it to be. Minho had not heard Taemin’s soulful singing when he played on the piano for him; or felt his gentle, hidden caresses. Of course their relationship was not perfect, and Key was not naive to think such a thing existed. There were times when he wished that Taemin was more open to him, but he did not want to push it. The scene of Taemin running away from him at the bus stop had scarred him more than he had realised.

In the distance came the shouts of some teenagers playing soccer. Key watched them and smiled fondly, a memory of an afternoon when he was 17 years old came unbidden. He had followed Jinki and Minho during the preparation of the high school dance. He had seen them with Heechan and was curious to what they were doing. Just like he was now with this group of teenagers, Key had hidden himself at a distance and watched the shootout. He cheered with every goal Minho had scored and privately cursed every score Heechan had made. At the last, however, he was perplexed with Jinki’s reaction when Minho had missed the last shot. Minho had looked pained too, although Heechan was gleefully happy. Key had intercepted Jinki as the other made his way back towards the dance hall, and that was when the conditions of the shootout was made known to him.

Key laughed to himself as he remembered the wild reactions of the school when he and Minho had showed up to the dance in their dresses and heels. Key had genuine fun with Minho as they flirted with the boys and squealed like other girls. He bowed his head with embarrassment as he remembered the horrified cries his fan club had made when they saw him in drag. But all in all, it was a great night and definitely one he did not want to forget. He had dragged Minho and Jinki to the photo booth and the photos were hanging somewhere in their house right now.

Key sighed to himself as he moved back and forth on the swing. He looked up at the moon that was barely visible in the sky and wondered again why the sky was blue. ‘It could be a rainbow for all I care.’ Minho’s words echoed in his mind as he remembered a room with black windows.

“Those were the days,” Key said sadly to himself.

Minho was lost in his thoughts as he waited alone in the gym’s locker room. They were using the facilities for the Uni Games. His match was not scheduled for a while, but he had saw Sulli in the distance and instinctively ran away. He was berating himself for his actions now – he had no reason to avoid her. He had expected her to ask for a response about their date, but then it could also be something about their doubles match later that afternoon.

Minho stretched out his back and stood up to go find her. He wasn’t looking where he was going as he walked out of the locker room and so almost collided with Key if the other hadn’t stopped him with a hand on his chest. Minho looked down at him, momentarily confused until he recalled their last fight and made to move around him. But Key stopped him again, this time by grabbing a hold of his arm and pulling him back inside the room.

“Don’t go out with Sulli,” Key told him once they were inside.

Minho stayed silent and looked down at Key, his anger clearly visible in his frozen expression. “That is none of your business,” he responded with a flat tone.

Key chewed the bottom of his lip and said that although Sulli was nice and everything, he didn’t think that she was the one for him. After all, they are old friends, him and Minho, so it was his duty to tell him things like that, right?

Minho’s expression did not move as he considered Key’s explanation. “Then, if that is the case, I can tell you what to do, because we’re friends, right?” he slowly said the words and Key looked up, wary at what he half-expected Minho to say. “Break up with Taemin,” Minho told him.

“What ... why?”

“He doesn’t love you and he doesn’t show you off like you deserve to be.” Minho bit the bullet and told him the truth as he saw it.

“What is it now?” he sighed at their old arguments.

“He doesn’t love you,” Minho repeated.

“And you do?” Key quietly threw back at him.

“Yes.”

Minho’s answer was stated so simply that it threw Key off balance. They were silent for a few long seconds, Key’s eyes round with surprise and fear.  “What?” Key whispered, afraid that he had misheard.

“I love you,” and Minho leaned forward to kiss him. But at the last moment, Key pulled away and ran out of the room without looking back.

Minho watched Key’s retreating figure and let out a heavy sigh when he could no longer see him. He slumped down on to the bench with his eyes fixed on to the sky outside of the window. He could see the faint outline of the moon and asked why it was so far away from him.

The sound of his phone’s ringtone in his gym bag told him that it was time for him to compete and he numbly stood back onto his feet. He would have to deal with the consequences of his actions later; there was no way he could avoid Key when they were back at home.

He wasn’t paying any attention to his surroundings when he bent down to pick up his gym bag; so he did not see Key re-enter the locker room and pushed him into the wall. Key pulled him forward to whisper in his ear. Minho looked back at him with wide hopeful eyes, to which Key grinned and pulled him down further, the better to kiss him with reckless abandonment.

“I love you too.”

- KISSING THE MOON -