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Joonmyeon found it hard to act like he was okay when he was not. He had lost? There’s a first time for everything? Well not in his book. For the first time in a long time he actually decides to skip school and go home, it’s hard to heal pride once its wounded, so he settles on leaving school so he doesn’t have to see the person who’s giving him so much stress. He gets Jongdae to fake a call from his parents asking him to come home immediately due to an emergency which actually works because he can leave early. He bids Kyungsoo and Jongdae a goodbye and leaves.

He takes the longer way home to cool off the unnecessary steam, so instead of going straight through the park, he goes through the bustling city, maybe he might even get odeng or Tteokbokki. He walks up the street and he tries not to dwell on the lingering feelings of hurt or even the anger he feels for the other man. Before he blinks he’s already in front of the familiar Chinese street vendor. "Grandma, how are you doing today?" He asks her, he knew this elder woman for as long as he remembered, once a week he would usually buy from her, sometimes more than necessary when he isn't the mood to cook.

Her presence was comforting most likely because he hadn't seen his parents in months choosing to live here  while his parents lives overseas. "Joonmyeon-ah how are you son? I haven't seen you in a long time." She smiled back, the wrinkles deepening in her face, she was really fond him he was almost like a son to her. "I've been good while you haven’t been here in a while, my grandson came to visit” she tells him.

"A little stressed" he chuckles, stress is an understatement for how he was really "that's why I came to get some of your delicious odeng." His smile was bright, sort of dazzling. He felt a little more relaxed being here.

“You know, you should hang  out with my grandson, he has a knack for making people feel better.” She carefully packs the odeng in a brown paper bag for Joonmyeon “He just moved here and unfortunately doesn’t have much friends but he’s a cheerful kid, a little rough around the edges but cheerful nonetheless.”

Joonmyeon really wasn’t in the mood to meet anybody new to the city, he now had an uncanny feeling about anyone new because of his ill feelings towards Zhang Yixing but how he could reject a woman of this age wishes? People wanted nothing more than to see their loved ones happy. Maybe it’s a little kid, kids are easy to deal with, truth be told Joonmyeon had actually babysat a lot, it helped him gain experience but he was also a well mannered, perfect boy next door so his neighbours who always have him babysit their kids.  “Sure I’d love to meet the little kid”

“He’s no little kid” she informs him, she turns to face up the street and there she spots her grandson making her way over to her stoll. He has his backpack strung over his shoulders and purple earphones on, he’s mouthing the lyrics to whatever song he’s listening too. He doesn’t sing to attract attention to himself. She wears a proud smile on her face “actually here he comes now” she points up the street.

Joonmyeon eyes follow to where she’s pointing and he sees the last person he wants to see ever. What kind of terrible luck does he have that he can’t get away from Zhang Yixing wherever he goes? Just why the hell is Yixing not in school? Joonmyeon pivots so his distress can’t be seen by Yixing or his grandmother, what should I do? I don’t want to stay here but I promised to meet him. It doesn’t have to be today though! Joonmyeon settles on leaving now with the excuse ready to roll out of his mouth. He turns around, mouth open and ready to lie. Yixing is close to him, he tumbles backward almost falling in the process and a shriek is let out but he manages to quickly find his ground. He clears his throat and stands straight again.

“Are you okay there, son?” Halmeoni asks him. She worry etched across her face.

“Ahh, yes. Don’t worry about it, I’m fine.” He told her with a polite smile.

“Very well, this is Yixing by the way,” she held out her hand to show exactly who she was referring too “my grandson” She’s unaware of them already being acquainted.

“Nice to meet you, Yixing. I’m Joonmyeon.” he puts on his most pleasant smile and with his hand outstretched he waits for Yixing to follow suit.

“Pleasure is all mine, ahem, I mean nice to meet you too, Joonmyeon.” he replies and he takes hold of Joonmyeon’s hand and gives it a swift shake.

Joonmyeon adds pressure to it hoping to intimidate Yixing but Yixing is much stronger than him so when he returns the favour, Joonmyeon’s hand hurts more than it should, he believes it’s time he heads home. Suddenly he’s more aggravated than relaxed. “Well I best be getting home, homework and chores needs to be done” he tells the old woman not caring to address Yixing, he walks behind the stand and gives her a hug before leaving.

“Such a brilliant young man, I hope you become great friends with him.” She tells her grandson and notices that Joonmyeon had left his odeng here. “Yixing-ah, go deliver this to him, I’m sure he hasn’t gotten far yet.”

Yixing takes off behind Joonmyeon after sometime walking through the crowd, he finally spots him. “Joonmyeon!” he shouts and the elder looks back to see Yixing waving and jumping to get his attention. Joonmyeon pales considerably and he walks faster than ever. Please please please, let me get away! He looks back and Yixing is now running to catch up to him and he’s almost there. Joonmyeon decides if he’s going to get away he needs to run too and fast. He sets off in a speed that would give Usain Bolt a run for his money, dust trails are what is left back from his escape and somewhere along the way he gets tired and he never once looked back to see how much distance he got between him and Yixing. He stoops in front of a store to catch his breath. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. I got away, phew. “Crap, I forgot my dinner, orz” sadness overtake Joonmyeon and he gets up to leave with his head held low, he sees shoes in front of him and he raises his head to see none other than the face of the same person he tried to make an escape from.

He jumps back a couple centimeters into the air. Why can’t I ever get away from him? he sweatdrops. “What do you want Zhang?” he mans up with his hands folded across his chest. He gives Yixing his best glare. He wouldn’t nothing more than to get away from the other guy right now.

“You forgot this at the stoll” Yixing holds his hand out with the brown paper bag.

Joonmyeon nearly jumps out his skin at Yixing being so close to him. What the actual hell. He was pretty sure, positively sure that Yixing was in no close proximity to him but yet here the latter was standing in front of him with his food. Being flustered, he grabbed the bag from Yixing’s hand a muttered a quick thanks before leaving rather quickly. He wanted nothing, nothing to do with him.

Joonmyeon’s vision becomes a blurry and the images start fusing with each other. He’s seeing everything in a murky brown colours with black dots. He’s wobbling a bit, he feels it and before he knows it. All he sees is black. “Yixing…”

Yixing observes Joonmyeon who is staggering across the sidewalk, he was just running away from him. To him the Korean looks like he’s about to pass out and he does just that. “Joonmyeon!” he ran up to him, there wasn’t much of a crowd surrounding him but people were indeed worried about the young man who collapsed in the street.

Yixing is in fact worried about Joonmyeon quite a lot actually. He cradles the elder. “What to do, what to do. He’s burning up.” He’s panicking so much, his thoughts are all jumbled, Yixing is usually a calm a person. He takes in a deep breathe. He needs to get Joonmyeon home and fast. Joonmyeon probably isn’t going to wake up in time for him to find out and get home so he opts to taking him back to his place.

He gets a nearby stranger to carefully place Joonmyeon on his back and with his bag of treats discarded on the ground. Yixing takes off in the direction he came from. He informs his grandmother of the situation and she only nodded worriedly before shooing Yixing home to take care of Joonmyeon.

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Joonmyeon wakes up to the smell of odeng and something wet across his forehead. He looks around the unfamiliar surrounding noticing right away that this is not his ceiling. He had a slight headache and neck pain, turning over to his left side, that was also not his bedside table. He ultimately came to the conclusion that this is not where he lives but the bed is entirely too comfortable for him to care and he unconsciously snuggled more. The scent was familiar, it reminded him of someone.

When Joonmyeon’s thoughts and senses remind him that he’s getting comfortable in a stranger’s home, he bolts and the damp wash cloth fell onto his lap. “How did I get here? Why am I here? Oh god I need to get home.” He thinks quickly. He pulls the cover to the side and makes a dash out of the room. He ends up in the living room immediately.

“Whoa there! You need to slow down, where are you going?” Yixing said to him. He’s in the kitchen which is visible from the living room and he has on a plain, white apron. “You’re sick, nothing drastic but still don’t do anything strenuous to yourself, you might relapse.” he informs him.

Joonmyeon then connects the dots back from his last memories of seeing black dots and darkness to waking up with a headache, aches and a damp cloth on his forehead. He can’t entirely understand why but he makes his way to the island in the kitchen and sits there quietly observing Yixing.

“Is this your place?” Joonmyeon asks while looking around, he notices it’s a bigger than the place he has but still small enough.

“It’s halmeonie’s place, I just stay in the guest room.”

“It explains the “homey” feel. It’s nothing like my place, I like it.” Joonmyeon says, he sighs a little after. He thinks about his parents that chose to live overseas and leave his son behind on his own but he guess that it’s what he got because he didn’t want to move. He has a life here too.

“Halmeonie likes to be reminded of her family, her kids are all grown and living on their own in a foreign country.” Yixing pours a special family recipe green tea into a cup and places it in front of Joonmyeon. “Drink it, you’ll feel better.” he tells him with his dimpled smile.

“I guess that’s something we all have in common.” Joonmyeon chuckled dryly. He takes a sip of the tea and it’s rather good, he likes it. “Thanks Yixing” he smiles back at him in return.

Yixing is in shock because he’s being thanked by the egotistical Joonmyeon and he even got a smile in return. He doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t want to ruin the moment between them.

“You gave me quite a scare back there.” Yixing tells him and he reiterates everything that transpired from the moment Joonmyeon out to the moment he woke up just now. He leaves out the part where he piggybacks Joonmyeon to his place though because he doesn’t know how he would react to that. Maybe he might throw the cup at him or something. Not like he would get hit with it or anything but his grandmother would kill him for breaking her fine china.

“So that’s what happened….I just remember darkness and then waking up, time seems so short. Like you just knock out and then wake back up and nothing’s happened.” Joonmyeon tells him but he’s sure Yixing knows exactly what that’s like because everyone has fainted at least once right? “What time is it by the way?”

“A little after 5pm.”

“I see, I should make my way home.”

“You don’t have to, grandmother would love to have you here for dinner but that’s not enough to make you stay right? I make you uncomfortable.”

Joonmyeon somehow hears that undertone of sadness in Yixing’s voice and he doesn’t want to comment on it because he doesn’t know where this conversation would lead.

“Tell her I would stay next time I’m over.” he gives an eye smile and makes his way back to Yixing’s bedroom to get his stuff together.

Joonmyeon is standing in front the entrance with all his belongings ready to leave. Yixing offers to walk him home with the excuse of making sure he doesn’t faint again.

They head to Joonmyeon’s place with light conversation into each other’s interest as if they were close friends and not rivals, as if Joonmyeon doesn’t hate Yixing’s guts and they’re both totally okay with it, somehow to Joonmyeon, it’s comfortable. There’s a warmth spreading through him like a tidal wave and he doesn’t understand where it’s coming from when it’s cold outside so he thinks that it’s just the fever relapsing again. He’s so deep in thought he doesn’t hear a thing Yixing says. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” Joonmyeon asks.

“Do you like Naruto?” he asks again. Yixing can tell that Joonmyeon is thinking about something and since he’s one to wear his heart on his sleeve. He rather not question him about it and he just instead asks him about Naruto because heck everyone likes Naruto. Yixing thinks that whatever bothering Joonmyeon, he’ll figure it out on his own.

“Of course, I like Naruto though I’m a bit sad it ended and I was so disappointed by the fight between Naruto and Sasuke. Kishimoto mediaplayed the hell out of that fight, for it to only last 5 chapters and it was basically nothing. So disappointed.” Joonmyeon rants.

“I understand how you feel, I mean really? You don’t just talk about the epicness of what that fight is suppose to be for it to be nothing at all. I was highly disappointed, the only good thing about the way Naruto ended was the pairings and even some of those were random as hell.” Yixing tells him.

They both fall into a comfortable conversations about their thoughts and ideas of how Naruto should have ended, their favorite parts and their sadness over their childhood ending before their eyes. Before they know it, they are in front of Joonmyeon’s place and the Korean walks up to entrance.

It’s a bit awkward now and Joonmyeon hates it. He hates how he’s comfortable around Yixing even though the guy is his rival and he hates his guts but being around him makes him happy. He’s so conflicted it hurts.

Yixing thinks since the silence and uncomfortableness is palpable, he needs to do something about it and quickly. So he hands Joonmyeon, a paper bag of odeng. The one he had bought from halmeonie was dropped and destroyed when he fainted earlier so Yixing decided to make him a fresh batch.

Joonmyeon takes it and thanks Yixing for the third time that night. “Don’t think just for one bit that because I was friendly to you today that I like you, I still hate you Zhang Yixing!” Joonmyeon tells him and quickly opens the door and runs inside.

“Don’t worry! I wasn’t thinking that at all!” Yixing shouted back at an empty space with a smile on his face while he walked back to his place.

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It’s been a little over three weeks since that incident happened and Yixing hasn’t made one move to make Joonmyeon’s life a living hell. Honestly it scares Joonmyeon a little because he got use to the Chinese man always trying to show him up, defeat him at something or try to publicly humiliate him but he hasn’t done that at all.

In fact Yixing hasn’t even looked in Joonmyeon’s direct once in the past three weeks. Joonmyeon feels so odd, he doesn’t know at all how to describe the way he feels. It’s sadness, he realizes that one day when Yixing didn’t make a deal out of him getting a math question wrong. It’s jealousy when he sees Yixing talking to Luhan; another chinese exchange student rather harassing him. It’s anger when Yixing chooses to ignore him even though he puts himself in positions to gain attention from the latter.

Joonmyeon is in a totally runt in what to do to deal with what’s going on between him and Yixing. While he knows that he declared they aren’t going to be friends just because the other was nice to him while he was sick, he didn’t expect him to ignore him altogether.

So at lunch one day. He slams his plate on the table and chewed angrily at his fruit salad. Both Kyungsoo and Jongdae watched their friend slaughter his fruits with brutal stabbing and angry chewing.

“You know, the strawberry didn’t do you anything, why don’t you try not to take out your frustration on it.” Jongdae tells him.

“What’s wrong? You usually don’t get so worked up.” Kyungsoo asks.

“It’s that damn Zhang Yixing, he’s been ignoring me for three weeks. He actually lets me win even when I’m wrong! It’s like he’s not even trying anymore.” Joonmyeon tells them in exasperation.

“Shouldn’t you be happy? You asked for this, you didn’t even want him here taking your shine.” Kyungsoo tells him.

“Yes! But now that he disrupted my life and turned it inside out, I can’t go back to the way things were!” Joonmyeon just let’s his head hit the table and he mumbles about how Yixing is a dirty bastard.

Jongdae and Kyungsoo just give each other confused looks.

“Why don’t you just ask him what’s going on?” Jongdae inquires.

“Don’t I have you - the gossip king as my friend, why don’t you just tell me what’s going on?” Joonmyeon retorts.

Jongdae shrugs “Actually hyung, I don’t know a thing that’s going on with him.”

Joonmyeon just sighed more, maybe he should confront him. He leaves the cafeteria with Kyungsoo and Jongdae in tow and goes looking for Yixing. The bell rings signalling the start of sixth period which is a shared math class between him and Yixing but he is determined to settle things now. That he ignores it and waits for Yixing outside their math class.

When Yixing finally shows up, he’s by himself and Joonmyeon immediately rushes over to him and pushes him against the lockers. “What the hell is going on with you these days?”  he asks letting off a little more aggression than he wanted to.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Yixing feigned ignorance so cleverly that Joonmyeon and company almost, almost believes him.

“I mean with you not challenging me anymore, you ignore my existence. I don’t like being ignored. Mr. Zhang.” Joonmyeon informs him

“Get use to it, Mr. Kim. I’m no longer interested in you.” Yixing tells him rather harshly and he sees the hurt in Joonmyeon’s eyes before it’s exchanged with anger.

“Fine I’ll make you acknowledge me again!” Joonmyeon tells him pointedly.

“How?” Yixing his head to the side and asks completely confused because isn’t this what Joonmyeon wanted?

“Like this.” Joonmyeon leans in and kisses Yixing on the lips tenderly and passionately, his hands on Yixing’s cheeks and he enjoys this more than he expected to. This wasn’t a part of his plan, he just wanted to get back at Yixing but not necessarily like this. However it’s safe to say, Joonmyeon won this round because Yixing is kissing him back with equal confused passion.

Joonmyeon - 1

Yixing - 1

Tie breaker - Next chapter.

I would really really like to apologize for having this chapter come out a year later. I had just graduated high school when I uploaded the first chapter and was quickly thrown into university the fall of that year. The next chapter should be out soon time within the next month or two. However please look forward to my fic “Tender Love”

Love y’all ♥