“Hey, be careful with that!”

Steadying the heavy bucket of paint on his short arms, the boy with a black cap shouts back at his father. “I got it!” He tries to be assuring – heck, he feels he’s assuring because he can carry it just fine, even if he has to lift it up to his face to support the weight on his forearms.

“That’s too close to your mouth, Minseok,” Mr. Kim states. “The paint is all over that bucket son, you may accidentally eat some.”

Eating paint on the bucket? Accidentally? Minseok wants to mock his father for that, what does he think his son is? He may be fat but he really doesn’t eat that much, that’s for sure. “I’m not eating, dad!”

“Just saying, kiddy.” Mr. Kim greets him two steps away from the wall they are painting, taking the bucket by its handle. “Our stomachs are amazing things, they can damp anything you swallow, eat a piece of iron and it would damp even that; but they don’t do with paint.”

“Is that so?” Minseok looks up to his father, blinking in curiosity.

“Yes, it’s that so.” Mr. Kim ruffles the child’s hair. “Come on shorty, grab your brush, this room ain’t finishing itself today.”

(…)

Two days later, in a small column on a page in between, newspapers write about an eight year old kid hospitalized for eating a screw secretly in his room.

“Are you an idiot, or you’re acting like it?” Mr. Kim is somewhere between relief and anger, but he chooses to express himself as the latter as he paces up and down around the hospital room, a few hours after Minseok’s successful operation of gastric lavage. “Who told you to swallow a fu-” A small pause and deep breath. “…freaking screw, huh?”

“Minseok, why did you do that?” His mother asks, voice scolding but she leaves the display of irritation to her husband, patting Minseok’s four-years-old brother to sleep on her lap. “You got us worried sick!”

“But dad said… Dad said my stomach can dump a piece of iron, and I was curious!” Minseok defends himself, feeling like crying for getting his parents angry but having learned better than crying between his friends at school. “I was just wondering… It sounded cool!”

“Minseok…” His dad growls, then turns to his mother. “We should have sent him to those mind improving programs for kids instead of wasting money on soccer and swimming. He is not losing any weight and he’s just acting like an imbecile!”

Minseok’s downer lip quivers, his little hands squeezing the covers on his body. He doesn’t want to be called imbecile, he’s not imbecile – his grades are good enough, aren’t they? And his father is mad, does that mean he will take him away from soccer; he doesn’t want to quit soccer, soccer is fun, and kids used to call him fatass before he started playing soccer, now they think he’s cool and they always want him in their team. Swimming is fun too, it occupies his weekend mornings and he likes the water around him, it’s like bathing but better than that because he has enough space to move – or swim - wherever he wants unlike the tiny tub in their bathroom.

“It was your idea to send him to soccer!” Mrs. Kim argues, voice stable and calm but dominant enough. “And his teachers are proud of him, we can’t take him away from sports after this point.”

Frustrated, Mr. Kim runs a hand through his hair, puffing the air out of his cheeks. “I just don’t understand why he’d… Where did we go wrong?”

(…)

No one has ever went wrong.

No one, except for one Kim Minseok.

“Minseok, mom is calling you for dinner-” Ten year old Kim Jongin opens the bathroom door, only to meet his older brother buried in hundreds of ice cubes in the tub, skin practically blue and purple from cold, teeth visibly slamming against each other by now. “Minseok, what are you doing?”

The fourteen year old teenager tries to speak, but only a shaky wave of sound manage to reach Jongin’s ears through chattering rows of teeth.

Jongin eyes him curiously. “Isn’t it cold, brother?”

Minseok manages to nod, action needing more effort than usual since his head is already shaking between the ices.

“Then why are you laying there?”

Another effort on replying goes to waste with an unnecessary and weak imitation of Tarzan.

“Can’t you speak, brother?”

“Jongin, Minseok, what is taking you so lon-” Their mother appear on the bathroom door, eyes going wide in a record time at the sight. “Minseok!” She exclaims, running to the tub in already small bathroom and turning the knob of hot water open. “Jongin, come here and help me get your brother sit up.”

The boy is obedient, sprouting beside his mother and pulling his brother by his arm. Once Minseok is sat, Mrs. Kim instructs Jongin to aim the stream of hot water on Minseok, causing the teenager to yelp in pain with suddenly melting water on his skin, as she throws the ice cubes in a plastic pail in rush, not minding the cold cutting her hands red.

Jongin is hesitant, not knowing what to do between his mother’s words and his older brother’s screeches of burning, eventually pulling the water away from Minseok when his brother yells him to stop with a rather high voice. But his mother is above his sibling; the woman shrieks for Jongin to keep going, settling Minseok’s exclamations of hurt echoing on bathroom tiles.

“What were you thinking?” Mrs. Kim says through her teeth, deeming her son is unfrozen enough and turning off the water, grabbing a towel to wrap it around Minseok as tight as the cloth allows. “Get dressed and sit beside the heater. Can’t believe I’d have to set it up in the middle of summer.”

“Sorry mom.” Minseok grins sheepishly. “I’ve just read theories about how you could freeze a living human body and it’d be as healthy when you unfreeze even after a while, and…” He sneezes, the action sending shivers down his body and making him hold on to the towel tighter. “Figured you’d unfreeze me once you find me in the bathroom, so why not try on myself?”

Mrs. Kim’s mouth is agape in terror, eyes so wide they’re almost perfect circles. “Minseok!” She almost screams, gripping her first son’s forearm so tight it hurts. “I brushed it off when you tore away our television to see how it works, ruined all our food in the fridge as if you could create a drink that had every nutrient in it, even when you broke our garden wall with a sledgehammer, which I still don’t know how you even lifted, because you couldn’t think you could get cement bricks from hardware store to grow moss on…”

Minseok lacks the ability to follow his snapping mother anymore, his instincts just want him to get dressed already.

“…but this? This is outright suicide, and it crosses the line! It’s time you see a doctor-”

“Mom-”

“-and that’s final.”

He rolls his eyes at his mother’s hysteria. He doesn’t need a doctor. It was just a little experiment.

“Is Minseok sick?” Jongin seems alarmed at the mention of the doctor. “Brother, are you sick?”

Minseok grins at his brother’s narrow definition of a doctor. “Yep, Jongjong.” He ruffles Jongin’s hair. “All that amount of ice got me sick.” As if to underline his words, another sneeze climbs out of his nose.

“Go get dressed already!” Their mother pushes Minseok out of the door rather harshly. “We will talk about this later.”

Minseok snorts. He has passed the stage of life where he fears his parents a year ago. “Sure, mom.”

(…)

The fan he is waving against his face is extremely girly with a texture of roses on the tiny fabric covering the old instrument, but it’s too hot in the room for him to care about how fashionable style his mother’s currently very much useful accessory is. He misses the little therapy room with a comfortable couch and a working air conditioner, much better than this white lobby with stylish but uncomfortable chairs and temporarily broken electronic fan.

A simple Venti fan, aluminum and steel, works with your regular 230 voltage, a simple, thick cable. Minseok can bet anyone ten bucks even he could fix that.

“Your son has no mental problems,” Dr. Jin states, his formal voice tone getting the teenager uninterested the second the sound waves spread into the room. Of course Minseok has no mental problems. He’s pretty much of a normal kid with a normal circle of friends and normal relationship with his acquaintances; sometimes it even feels too normal for his liking. Maybe he dares stuff his friends can’t, like actually wanting to see if he can hit the goal from the edge of the rooftop or willing to try convincing his biology teacher to get the students examine a frog’s internals just like in those American series, but except that, he’s just about a regular student.

Is all this hassle about that freezing experiment from last week?

“In fact, I’d say he’s pretty smart.” Now Minseok likes the sound of that. “If improved, can be a genius even. He has a deep curiosity to figure out the answers for the questions floating around him, instead of deeming them normal and leaving as so. We consider it extraordinary amongst his peers.”

He would like to listen how awesome he is, but unfortunately, the doctor’s voice is too monotone for his focus not to slip to his reflection on the mirror across him. He’s been losing weight really fast since he got in puberty somewhere around ages twelve or thirteen, and he’s not even really doing anything about it except attending soccer tournaments with his team at school and continuing his new tennis classes. Nothing unusual than how it has been since he was six.

At this rate, maybe he could start forming some extra muscles too…

“But he almost killed himself last week!” His mother’s protesting voice grabs his attention back. “He also damages our property, and I fear it’s about time he starts doing the same to other people.”

“We don’t want him to turn into a psychopath hurting himself or people around him for the sake of eliminating his curiosity,” Mr. Kim agrees. “It’s as if he has no common sense at all, he doesn’t know what is appropriate and what’s not when something takes his attention.”

“He does not have common sense,” Dr. Jin approves his father’s concerns. Minseok notices how the comment gets his father’s fingers tighter around his left hand. “When he starts asking questions, he forgets anything but the possibilities to get to his answer. I can take him in a session for around six months to blunt this obsession, but in my personal opinion, it’s a waste to throw such potential.”

“We just don’t want him to get worse and eventually kill himself,” Mr. Kim interrupts.

“I understand, and I say, you can take this under control. Try supplying anything he needs for his amateur little experiments. Does he think he needs to test on some organic material? Save him some from whatever you buy from grocery store, separate from the kitchen utensils. Does he want to test an alive metabolism? Get him small animals, like rats and hamsters, from a pet shop. Does he decides some simple, everyday tool is necessary for his liking? Give him that and buy another one for yourself. If he wants to get busy on something expensive, try to find a way to provide a similar, cheaper material or if it’s possible to share, give him a little amount of that. Let him share his questions with you before looking for answers, so if his way of solving his problem is too effective for his surroundings, you can supply him a little model for whatever he needs and this would teach him to do the same by himself, instead of breaking a wall like in the story you have told earlier. Handing him a small, closed area with simple tools apart from his room could help too, where he could work away from any chance of damaging anything.”

Like a laboratory? Dude, his parents hadn’t allowed it when he wanted to turn the backyard into a small soccer field, they’d give him an extra room just for his desires? Good one.

“I suppose we could manage that,” Mrs. Kim muses out loud, turning to her husband for his opinion.

Mr. Kim briefly nods. “The garage is a bit too wide, we can separate a part of it and just build a simple brick wall in it.”

“We can put the extra table in Jongin’s room in there too,” his wife approves the idea.

Oh, then it’s alright when a doctor says that but the garage is too small when Minseok wants to form a band with his friends? Okay, maybe he figured he wasn’t that well at guitar later, but the point still stands.

“Just make sure you let me know when any damage occurs again. Also, to be certain, I want to see him at least once a month for a while, to know how our solution affects him. If necessary, we will start sessions to resolve this endless curiosity of his, and stop him before his case stretches into insanity.” With his last warning, Dr. Jin signals the end of his report, and waits if anyone has any questions.

His silent question is answered with a mental no as Minseok’s parents stand up from their chairs, signaling their son to do the same. Relief of getting rid of any more boredom, Minseok is willing to give a fast bow to the doctor and turn around, heading down the stairs and to where their car is parked outside almost sprinting.

If Jongin asks what doctor said later that day, he’ll just tell he’s awesome and Jongin is lucky to have a genius older brother. Personally, that part of speech was his favorite.

Also, he wants frogs.

(…)

“So, let me get this straight. You major in mechanic engineering, minor in musical arts, and lead the soccer team?”

“I think you got it pretty straight.” Minseok grins, leaning back on his chair with his shaped legs slightly apart with comfort and natural confidence, nibbling on the tiny biscuit that came with his espresso. “No need for my assistance.”

“Cool. A bit nerdy, but seriously cool.” The exchange student, Lu Han, sips on his caramel macchiato. “How do you manage, though? I heard you are about to get kicked out.”

“I am not getting kicked out.” This is a certain statement. “Sure, I may have blown the 3D printer once and kinda screwed up a cabinet of chips and motors, but prizes Wu Fan and I bring together pretty much make up for it. Don’t let me even start with the soccer team, the cup we won last year still stands in the middle of sports academy’s lobby.”

Lu Han nods a bit too eagerly, Minseok isn’t sure how honest his reaction is. “The soccer team is pretty awesome though. I watched to record of the final match of last year’s tournament the other day, you are a great captain.”

The compliment gets Minseok chuckle, actually humored. “Me? Dude, I am not doing anything. I just play and deliver the coach’s tactics, sometimes just running a few more laps to make them think I am better. A lesson for you when you go back to your team in China, grasshopper, if you can decide who is in the team, use it. Make sure the newbies play too damn well, obedient to at least the coach, and they’ll do all the job themselves.” He throws the rest of the biscuit into his mouth. “Not bragging or anything, but that team, doesn’t even need a captain right now. It’s just a title one person has to take for formalities.”

“Humble.” Sincerity in that one word is so amusing that Minseok almost coughs out the crumbles with the threatening laughter.

Dude, I just told you the biggest cheat code in my life and you think I’m modest? “For extra, though, I don’t take anyone I don’t like in my team. I may miss the goal while trying to kick the ball into the object of my disgust’s head.”

Minseok doesn’t understand why Lu Han thinks he’s joking, but it is fun to get people laugh. “I know,” Lu Han says, eyes still crinkled with his remaining smile. “Isn’t that why we are having this coffee date right now? To see if you’ll like me?”

“Nah. I actually just felt like having coffee, and a volunteering newbie to pay it for me as a bribe.” The perks of being team captain. “I’d usually prefer an arcade to kick your at Street Fighter. Or a one-to-one soccer match, but we wouldn’t be talking in that case.”

And he doesn’t see how a coffee meeting has to be a date, but Minseok reckons it’s not necessary to mention.

“What if I don’t pay?” Lu Han asks jokingly.

“Then I don’t like you and you are not in the team. Go sulk in the corner for the whole year you’re here for not getting in.”

Lu Han chuckles, lifting his cup of macchiato to prop it to his lips. “I don’t see why people say you are a maniac,” he confesses after gulping down a good sup of the coffee. “You are a very normal person to chat with, and a little bit funny in my opinion.”

“Don’t jump into assumptions,” Minseok warns, and Lu Han takes it in the wrong way.

Cute.

(…)

Name, Lu Han. Age, 28. Nationality, Chinese. Current position, forward in Beijing Guoan and midfielder in Chinese Republic National Soccer Team. Education Level, Tsinghua University graduate.

Also, cursing the very day he wanted to join the soccer team of the university he only studied for one mere year nine years ago.

It was just an exchange program in Seoul that he’d stay barely nine months in Korea. His position back at Tsinghua was securely waiting for him to come back, and if he really wanted to keep his shape, he could just buy a ball and practice near his dorm building, a possible boost of morning runs around the campus at most. If he really wanted to be in a sports team, there were positions open in the swimming team, tennis team, handball team, volleyball team and even basketball team, which is led by Wu Yifan, a Chinese like him although growing up in Canada, and in the same faculty as the soccer captain with the same level of success as a certain chubby-cheeked male but much less insane than him.

He could survive without auditioning for soccer and becoming friends with its psycho captain for life. In fact, he could live without any possible threats for his well-being even.

He slowly turns the knob of basement door open, the creak opening into the darkness making him feel more and more like a horror movie victim each passing millisecond. Sighing, he climbs down the stairs, not understanding why exactly his boyfriend had to build another wall just at the end of the steps and requiring another door into his atelier. He could always just lock the basement door and save the staircase from resembling a hole into hell without any light source other than dim irradiation from the long corridor.

He survives, though, like everything that points at a certain Kim Minseok, he survives through the narrow steps menacing to make him stumble into a possible skull fracture. Knocking on the final door, the entrance to the lair of lunacy, he waits for the instruction to let him in.

It doesn’t come.

It doesn’t have to come. Minseok knows he was coming back today. He’d leave the door unlocked for Lu Han to come in, like how he does when he’s sure it’s okay for anyone to walk in, and no matter how busy he is if he wants to see him as soon as possible… he must want that, mustn’t he? After all, he’s Lu Han’s boyfriend, and he must have missed him no matter what, right?

Lu Han lets another sigh. He knows he’s being paranoiac for things he shouldn’t be paranoiac for more than the possibility of his house getting blown up or Minseok finally managing to kill himself away from any eye or ear in his personal studio, but being an affectionate type he is, Lu Han can’t help but worry whenever Minseok gets too curious for something most likely doesn’t even matter just to forget about any type of emotion or manner. Although knowing his devotion is requited, he just can’t prevent that little discomfort in the times where Minseok gets inspired, and just dismisses him with pure excitement.

But he knew what he was getting into when he answered Minseok five years ago. And even now, even though he’s sometimes bothered by certain extremes of his boyfriend, he doesn’t really want him, or anything, to change.

He pushes down the knob.

It’s unlocked.

“Lu Han!” Almost immediately, there are arms wrapping around his waist from behind (Lu Han has no idea how since he has just walked through the door), and lips on his neck. “You’re back.”

The familiar warmth feels like something he could just melt into puddle and have a real rest ever since the Super Cup tournaments started, and that’s what he’d like to do right now instead of having neither of them to ever move. He leans backwards into the embrace, closing his eyes with the relief of having Minseok to wait for him.

“Who got the cup?” Minseok asks.

It’s a needle stinging right in the chest. Lu Han’s eyes open in an instant, body flinching with disappointment. “You didn’t watch the final?”

A chuckle. “Sorry, but I was just finishing this to show you when you came back.” The arm on Lu Han’s left side lifts to point at something under a pile of covers. “I watched all the other matches though, and you were awesome, trust me.”

Lips touch the crook of his neck in an unuttered apologize, and it does feel slightly better, just… not enough. “You could finish and still surprise me after I came back too, you know. I wouldn’t mind.”

“You know I don’t like lay over an idea,” Minseok responds, sounding too content than what Lu Han feels like. “Come on, I want you to tell me if you won. I don’t want to look it up on internet.”

He, in all honesty, doesn’t understand how Minseok is this careless. The fact that it’s a match Lu Han, his boyfriend, plays in aside; it was the final match. He knows Minseok has been into soccer since he was six, heck, he plays for Korea every four years in international tournaments apart from his engineering job in Peking University laboratories. Of course he would watch such an important game like that.

Or you would think.

“Dalian Shide got it,” Lu Han mutters, yesterday’s defeat feeling heavier with the sour taste Minseok is responsible of.

“Don’t be like that.” Hands push and pull his body, causing Lu Han to turn one hundred eighty degrees around to face his lover.  “I’m sorry I missed it, but I’ll make it up to you, okay?”

Minseok’s face is all greasy with what seems to be motor oil and blue paint, there is no way he can wear that burned, ripped and painted shirt ever again, and if his hands are also as dirty Lu Han’s white tee probably got screwed too; but even under the layers of tarnish, the wide grin enlightening it all easily makes the Chinese player to give in.  “You will,” Lu Han cracks a smile. “So, what do you have for me, you little psycho?”

The grin goes wider, up until a small piece of pink gums peek out. “Oh, you’ll love it. After all, I love it. And anyone with a bit sense of awesomeness will love it.” The pressure of arms on his waist disappears, only a hand lingering on Lu Han’s left wrist to pull him to where Minseok heads to. “I’ve been working on this ever since you left for the tournament. I was re-reading an issue of Iron Man, and here I thought, if cartoons, comics and movies are full of big awesome robots, why there is none in the real word?”

“I’m not an engineer and even I know the reason why,” Lu Han deadpans.

Minseok pays no attention. “So I tried to learn why by trying to build one by myself, but, I can’t really do something skyscraper-height… you know… excess amount of money, public security, laws and all those useless .”

Lu Han blinks. “And not because physics is yet to find a way to balance the weight of something that high?”

“Yeah, that too.” Minseok shrugs. “Anyways, after buying and borrowing some parts from the PU-”

“And by borrowing, you mean..?”

The Korean stares at him incredulously. “The expense will be cut from my payment in installments.” He shakes his head. “Can’t believe you think so low of me.”

Something in Minseok’s behavior catches Lu Han’s notice. “How many installments, exactly?”

“…Forty-eight.”

Lu Han’s jaw drops.

“But don’t worry! I sneaked some of the most expensive parts away…” Minseok taps his chin in thought. “Maybe you can think so low of me…”

“Minseok-”

“Don’t judge without seeing this!” With another pull, Lu Han is beside the mountain of covers – and it’s that his babyhood blanket he’s seeing?

That better not be stained, or else…

“Ta-dah!” Kicking and pulling all the sheets and blankets away, Minseok stretches an arm towards his creation. “So, what do you say?”

Lu Han’s eyes stings from opening too wide in the slight breeze coming out of the atelier, and his tongue is on its way to get drought with his mouth letting all the moisture evaporate; but he can’t control his emotions over what he is seeing. “Oh my god…” is all he can mutter out, his eyeballs ready to pop out with how fast they move around the details.

“I know you probably didn’t expect it but-”

“Oh my god.”

He hears Minseok chuckle. “Is that a no?” He asks, but his voice is too self-assured to be concerned.

He wants to react, say, do something other than gaping at the sight; but he’s defeated when it all comes out as another. “Oh my god.”

“It is a yes then.”

“Oh my god,” Lu Han almost, almost shrieks in delight. “It’s ing Optimus Prime!”

Another chuckle, this time obviously amused, and Minseok is beside him to pull him into his embrace once again. “Kinda midget Optimus Prime with two and a half meters of height, but, yeah.”

“Does it turn into a truck?” Lu Han so eagerly asks, facing the slightly shorter male in excitement.

Minseok purses his lips. “Nnnope. I don’t really have technology nor ability to do that. It’s actually just an Optimus-looking robot.”

It’s okay. “It’s okay,” Lu Han says, pulling on the collar of Minseok’s t-shirt. “So, what does it do? Does it shoot lasers out of its eyes?”

“Not really, no.”

“Smash everything that comes in his way?”

“It weights three hundred and fifty kilograms, so yes… if we push it hard enough to fall on something, that is.”

So it doesn’t walk. It’s okay. “Does it have guns hidden in its body to turn and shoot wherever he wants?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Umm… Then does it have a transmitter to contact somewhere?” Lu Han hesitantly asks.

“Nah.”

He runs a hand through his brown hair. “Then what does it do?”

“Well…” Minseok gets a small remote out of his pocket with a sole red button. “He does this.”

With a sound of sliding, Optimus has his steel war mask on. Cool.

“And..?”

“That’s it.”

Lu Han is taken aback. “What?”

“That’s it. I wanted to see if I could build a war robot. I couldn’t. Question answered.”

The soccer athlete can only stare at his boyfriend, dumbfounded. “Then that’s not a robot! That’s just a giant metal action figure!”

“No it’s not! Look…” Minseok approaches the little Optimus Prime, pulling on a handle right above its waist. “It makes coffee.”

Lu Han, for the second time in fifteen minutes, deadpans. “What.”

“And…” There is another handle on the chest Lu Han hadn’t noticed earlier. “It’s also a fridge.”

“What.”

“That’s it.” Minseok crosses his arms on his chest, grinning. “We have an Optimus Prime fridge-slash-coffee maker. Isn’t that just awesome?”

“Minseok…”

The Korean lifts his eyebrows, smile lingering. “Yes, babe?”

“This is awesome.”

Minseok grins. “I know.”