Jongdae eventually breaks down and hires Yifan to tutor him in English halfway through his final semester of high school and pays him with soccer lessons even though Yifan is a year older than him and pretty damn good at soccer and is just overshadowed by the overzealous Minseok and Luhan because he’s co-captain too and in university and on a basketball team. Jongdae’s a defender anyway, and Yifan usually subs in as forward for the aforementioned players, but Jondae blew all of his money on a bike he can’t even ride and he’s too stubborn to even think about getting a job or listening to Yifan’s reasoning. Yifan is too stubborn to accept any counsel from a mere kid, and Jongdae has no ear for language, so their tutoring sessions more often than not result in raised voices – Jongdae’s melodic and whiny, Yifan’s deep and irritated – until they start to result  in their making out angrily either in Yifan’s cheap student housing or the grove of trees behind the soccer field, but that takes a while to happen.

It starts out the same way it’s been since they met, really.

See, Yifan moved in next door to Jongdae just before Jongdae started his second year of high school. He’d come all the way from Canada, and they were absolute best friends for a few weeks until school started up again and Yifan became Jongdae’s worst nightmare, challenging Jongdae’s nascent popularity among his upperclassman friends, stealing his position as first chair cello and, worst of all, boosting the popularity and talent of the stupid little underdog soccer team Jongdae had started with his friends on a vaguely rebellious whim.

And Jongdae was jealous. He felt small and inadequate next to his ever-charming neighbor who was always one step ahead of him: two years older, a class rank better, so many centimeters taller, and so on, until Jongdae’s jealousy grew into a churning hatred.

Even when Yifan stepped down from his position as starting forward when Luhan moved from China and hit it off instantly with Minseok, he did it so gracefully that Jongdae spent that night whining to Chanyeol, who really just wanted to make out with him and got drunker and drunker on distressingly cheap beer while the shorter kid cursed out their captain and, eventually, passed out on top of his fellow defender.

Time passed and Chanyeol wound up making out with both Jongdae and Yifan but the latter two never quite found each others’ lips and now Yifan has almost survived his first year of university and Jongdae is nearly finished with his last year of high school.  They see each other on weekends and holidays and treat each other like brothers: Yifan says offhand things about Jongdae’s diminutive height or awful accent and Jongdae insults Yifan’s taste in music and propensity to dress like an elderly woman in the name of fashion.

Yifan’s words bite too much for the fact that he tries to match leather pants and floppy sunhats  more often than he blocks passes. Jongdae’s insults are obvious and tasteless but Yifan’s alway had a soft spot for the younger and finds himself stuck on the kid said when he sits up late at night looking over his coursework, checking for flaws that aren’t there. Jongdae finds Yifan the most attractive when he backs down and bites the end of his pen, confused and halfway defeated by Jongdae’s bull, and it’s a little bit dirty but Jongdae doesn’t play it up because he’s ing terrified, even though he’ll never admit it.

Yifan has that effect on him and he always manages to find the upper hand a few seconds later and Jongdae can’t stand the ease with which Yifan assumes power. Everyone but Yifan is at least a little bit scared to challenge Jongdae, but Yifan takes no and exercises his full right to respect as the elder of the two at every possible opportunity.

Like the rainy Sunday, a month or so before Jongdae’s university entrance exam, after Jongdae whined enough to convince Yifan that he needed fresh air, when they’re haphazardly kicking goals at each other and it starts to pour and Jongdae kicks the muddy ball into Yifan’s stomach and runs over, terrified, to where the other is doubled over and is met with a faceful of slick, muddy ball.

His nose starts bleeding, but it doesn’t stop him from leaping onto Yifan, practically cackling as he digs his fingernails into the other’s shoulders. They’re both still in jeans and button-downs – studying clothes – because this is completely stupid and unplanned and, dominant as Yifan always is, he’s usually too concerned with looking professional to roughhouse and uses his icy glare to make Jongdae feel ty and shut up.

But professionalism is out the window now and Yifan throws Jongdae off his back and gracefully skids the ball into the unguarded goal. Mud splashes onto his ankles and Jongdae groans from the ground, sniffing up the blood and dirt from his face and pushing himself up on sinewy arms to grab the ball from the goal with dexterous feet. He runs with it, making short, swift strides across the slippery ground, faltering invisibly when he crosses the midline and enters enemy territory. But Yifan’s casually skipping backward with fire in his eyes, racing him to the goal, and Jongdae can’t resist a challenge: he breaks into an outright sprint.

It’s a terrible decision.

Jongdae slips and crashes nose-first into Yifan. He hears cartilage crack and both of their shirts are now covered in blood and mud. Jongdae’s got a family dinner to get to in two hours and he can’t come home looking like this and, long story short, he’s ed, and the look in Yifan’s eyes isn’t promising of sympathy.

“You ing idiot,” Yifan chuckles from beneath the skinny kid, hoisting him up and crouching down to place his big hand under Jongdae’s chin and examine the damage. “It’s definitely broken.”

Jongdae’s breath hitches. He anticipates a reprimand or a slap, but none comes. Yifan just strips off his shirt and hands it to him to staunch the bleeding.

“Keep pressure on it and let’s go clean up,” he says matter-of-factly, and Jongdae almost chokes on blood when he tries to inhale Yifan’s scent – it’s not like he’s attracted to the elder, like some teenage girl, he just wants to know. He wants to size up his rival, if you will, and it’s easier to sneak a glance at Yifan’s chest when his face is veiled in the rain-damp, sweaty fabric of the taller boy’s white shirt.

In all actuality, he’s always been attracted to the elder, and it’s simply fueled his hatred. Yifan’s handsomeness is beyond irritating.

Right now, Jongdae’s more lightheaded than annoyed, though, so the hatred isn’t quite so strong. Yifan seems so strong and gentle and nice and Jongdae, as per usual, feels like a total idiot following him back to his apartment.

The rain does a pretty good job of washing their clothes, soaking Jongdae’s shirt so deep that he’s pretty sure Yifan can see every rib and every flaw in his scrawny chest. He’s nauseous and sniffling by the time they get to Yifan’s ty first-floor apartment, but then Yifan turns on all three  space heaters and urges the younger to strip and Jongdae’s too cold to be very self-conscious.

Yifan beckons him over and examines his nose again, wiping some of the blood off of the soaking boy because his musky shirt has staunched the bleeding slightly and because he’s only realigned one nose in his life and that was his own after a very interesting encounter with a goalpost a year or two ago and he has no idea what he’s doing.

“We should really go to a doctor. ”

“Are you kidding? I’ve got two hours til I have to be at home, and my parents control the insurance. They’ll kill me.”

“Well, you’ll have a mad black eye when you go home no matter what. Just own up to it, kid. They won’t care.”

“You don’t ing know them!” Jongdae cries indignantly. “Just rebreak my nose! I’ll be fine. Better a black eye than a black eye and a crooked nose. Come on!”

“Don’t blame me if you look like a street-fighting grinch at that party. It ing hurts.”

“Damnit, Yifan, my pain threshold is ing amazing. I can handle this. If I go looking like – how I do now, I’ll be dead and gone. I won’t even have a chance to fail that entrance exam. I’ll take my chances, thank you very much.”

“Calm down, kid, I was just trying to  –”

“Don’t call me kid!”

“Oh, shut up. Have a little respect,” Yifan groans.

“Make me,” Jongdae challenges with a lethargic smirk, and Yifan obliges, grabbing the younger’s face and forming a triangle around the bleeding nose with his big hands that definitely aren’t shaking or anything. Jongdae’s face pales a little further as Yifan brings his warm palms together and tugs down. Jongdae yelps in pain, his vision flashing white and his knees buckling as the cartilage cracks again, this time more loudly.

It’s disgusting, and so Yifan gasps softly and, naturally, captures Jongdae’s lips with his own before the other can pass out from the pain. It’s a desperate kiss and a stupid one, but suddenly Jongdae feels like he’s brought Yifan down to his own level of dumb passion, and it feels good to be the one to pull away, even when he’s a scrawny, muddy, bleeding mess.

Yifan justifies it with a stammering grumble of adrenaline and CPR when Jongdae looks up at him all pathetically and questioningly, feline lips in a tight, thin line and skin whiter than his shirt had been when they were studying. He shakes his head and scrunches his face up in pain and leans his wet head into Yifan’s chest, breathing shakily. The back of his neck looks a little bit green.

“Did you just… try and kiss me better…?” he asks, trailing off with a little gag, smirking at the bloodstained carpet.

“Huh? No! I was –”

“Shut up,” Jongdae sighs. “I think ‘s cute. You in’ sap.”

“I’m not cute – oh,” Yifan exhales rapidly when Jongdae reconnects their lips. The smaller boy’s mouth tastes like iron and stress and youth and Yifan’s heart is beating too fast and he feels like he’s completely and totally lost the upper hand until Jongdae suddenly chokes and jerks away, spluttering and coughing.

“I think I need some, uh, water. And a shirt,” he mutters weakly once he’s propped back up on the couch, and Yifan has to ruffle Jongdae’s damp hair to assure both of them that he is, in fact, the elder in this scenario when he heads to his closet to find a shirt that might be small enough to pass as something besides a nightgown on Jongdae.

“God, we should’ve never stopped studying,” Yifan huffs under his breath into the row of shirts.
“Remind me never to let you convince me to do things again.”

Jongdae normally would have bristled and shot back, but Yifan sounds like a caring friend rather than the perfect, unattainable bastard he was until ten or fifteen seconds ago, and Jongdae just snivels miserably from the mildewy couch and smiles softly.

“Then you never would’ve gotten the chance to lay the moves on me, though. And then we’d both be a lot sadder.”

“Eh, I could’ve done it a lot more romantically, and with a lot less blood. And who says I’m happy?”

“You’re a lot happier than you would’ve been if we were still in that goddamn library. I liked the blood. Made it more rugged.”

“Oh yeah, you’re rugged. Little Mister Cheekbones –”

“Hey, not anymore! Your head is so in’ hard…”

“Calm down, Jongdae. Your face is gonna be fine. We were both ed anyway. I would’ve kissed you in the library and you would’ve punched me and caused a scene or something if this hadn’t happened now. Or you would’ve just punched me and we never would’ve kissed. Anyway, you should get some makeup on it, though,” Yifan muses, walking over and tossing a shirt at Jongdae, whose nose has finally bled out. He’s pale as a sheet and his eyes are already ringed in an ugly barfight purple, but the diabolical glint is back in his eye and he glares poisonously at Yifan.

“You think I know how to apply makeup?”

“Hey, I don’t know, you look like the type…”

And that’s how Yifan winds up getting punched in the face anyway and sporting a black eye to match Jongdae’s white he gently dabs foundation on his little neighbor’s sharp cheekbones, kissing him softly whenever he whimpers in pain and eliciting little smug, happy noises from the skinny kid whenever he kisses him.

It’s stupid. Jongdae’s supposed to be the one catering to Yifan, not the other way around, because he’s short and dumb and young and Yifan’s smarter and older and totally independent, but Yifan can’t help it. He likes the way Jongdae plays soccer and how he has an accent when he speaks English and he likes how little Jongdae feels pressed against him when they kiss goodbye in Yifan’s old sedan, Jongdae barely looking like himself but not caring in Yifan’s too-big shirt and heavy makeup, bruises on his eyes, and Yifan trying desperately to look like his usual tall, manly self.

They really are ed no matter what – best case scenario, they’ll meet up a few years from now and have affectionate hate . Worst case scenario, they’ll both wind up dead, because Jongdae’s definitely got a few terrifying tricks up his sleeve. But it does Yifan no use to dwell on what-ifs, esepcially not when Jongdae’s glaring at him impatiently from the outside of the car.

“That was interesting. Let’s do it again sometime,” the younger huffs, ducking down to protect his head from the rain.

“I’m counting on it.”

And they do, only with a lot less bruises and a lot more stupid kisses. Jongdae’s nose doesn’t heal quite straight and he doesn’t do too well on the English part of his entrance exam, but he gets into the same university as Yifan all the same. Summer starts but soccer practice goes on, as do their English lessons.

They’ll stop when Yifan can boss Jongdae around and when Jongdae’s nose is flawlessly straight; when Jongdae stops jumping on Yifan’s back and when Yifan stops taunting Jongdae for his height.

(So basically, never, because they’re screwed no matter what.)