“You can ‘make anything good.’”

“Can I now?” Yixing said, lifting his head off Jongin’s shoulder to look at him. He was starting to get a crick in his neck anyway. It’s times like these that he really wished he was shorter and smaller and all-around daintier. They were squeezed into the backseat of a taxi, the half an hour trip back to uni barely underway. Yixing had placed himself in between his two companions but the precautionary measure was turning out to be completely unnecessary, as Junmyeon appeared to be lost in his own thoughts as he gazed out the window to Yixing’s left, while Jongin seemed intent on filling the time with whispering sweet nothings to him from his right. Not that he was complaining.

Jongin nodded. “I don’t need anything else because you’re my best ‘protection against the frowns of fortune.’”

“What do you want?” Yixing asked, chuckling. “What are you trying to buy with your ‘windy words’?”

“Nothing. I ‘know what is excellent’ and I know ‘how to prize it.’”

Yixing studied him dubiously. “‘Trees that bear leaves but not fruit have usually no pith.’”

“I have plenty of fruits.”

“Do you? Are they ripe? ‘It is an especial privilege of good taste to enjoy everything at its ripest,’ right?”

“That’s for you to find out.”

Yixing chuckled, somewhat confused but used to it. It came with the territory of dating an enigma. ”If you’re trying to make up for this morning, then you’re doing a very good job.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do.”

“Do you know what the ‘other great rule of life’ is?”

“What?”

“‘Learn to forget.’”

“Well, that’s convenient,” Yixing said dryly.

“It is.”

“Why is it the other great rule of life? What’s the main one?”

“To put up with things.”

“Oh yeah,” Yixing said, glancing at Junmyeon, who still hadn’t said a word. “I don’t think I’ve mastered that one.”

“You will. It’s in your nature.”

“You have the oddest notions about me,” Yixing mumbled. “But I thought I wasn’t supposed to carry fools on my back?”

“‘They can be of much use’ as ‘signposts or as warnings.’”

“I’m supposed to carry a signpost with me?”

Jongin nodded.

“But you told me to ignore him just this morning,” Yixing pointed out, paying no heed to the questioning look Junmyeon gave him as he finally decided to tear his gaze away from the window.

“‘Neither an unconsidered promise nor a mistaken resolution are really binding.’”

“Didn’t Gracián say that you shouldn’t vacillate?”

“He also said that it doesn’t prove our strength of character to continue in the wrong path just because we’ve entered it.”

“Which tells me that he should be the last person to talk about vacillating.”

“It’s not about vacillating, it’s about owning up to your mistakes and fixing them.”

“Is forgetting part of owning up?”

Jongin frowned, making Yixing mentally slap a hand over his loose mouth. “‘It is the sign of a real man, of a noble heart,’ to not be easily put out.”

That had nothing to do with what they were talking about, but Yixing simply nodded. “Okay.”

“Let a man be ‘so much and so great a master over himself that neither in the most fortunate nor in the most adverse circumstances can anything cause his reputation injury by disturbing his self-posession, but rather enhance it by showing his superiority.’”

“Can’t argue with that,” Yixing said absently.

“‘Nothing so becomes a man as to be a man. A woman-’”

“You don’t want to finish that quote,” Yixing cut in, giving Jongin’s arm a smack in warning.

Jongin hesitated. “I guess I shouldn’t, but my point is that Gracián was a real man, a true sage, and a great saint. You can’t twist his words whichever way you like just so you can make fun of him. You’re supposed to figure out how all his aphorisms can work together. If you can’t, then you’re just not cut out to be as great a man as he was.”

“Okay,” Yixing mumbled, leaning his head back on Jongin’s shoulder as a sign of truce, but was interrupted by a light touch on his left arm.

“It wasn’t Gracián you were criticizing, was it?” Junmyeon whispered to him.

Yixing shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Is that really the kind of person you want to be with?”

“I don’t remember asking for your opinion.”

“Sorry,” Junmyeon sighed.

“‘The greatest fool is he who thinks he is not one and all others are,’” Jongin said. Apparently the taxi was too small for private conversations.

“Are you talking about yourself?” Junmyeon asked.

“Gracián said that those who can keep themselves free from common follies are of special power,” Jongin continued, unperturbed. “But this is the first time I’ve met someone who embodies them all. ‘Everything past seems best and everything distant seems more valued’ to you, don’t they?”

Junmyeon heaved a weary sigh. Instead of replying, he chose to direct a question at Yixing. “Why am I here?”

“Did you ever ask yourself that in the past year or so?” Jongin asked.

Junmyeon frowned. “Can you stay out of it for a second?”

“Well, Jongin’s the one who told me to invite you,” Yixing said.

“Not really,” Jongin said. “You were thinking of it. I just gave you the green light.”

Yixing looked at him, confused. “I didn’t want to answer his call, remember?”

“You did. The only reason you didn’t was because I told you not to talk to him.”

“Hang on a minute,” Junmyeon interrupted. “You need his permission to do anything now? I left you alone with him for a few hours and suddenly he’s turned into an abusive control freak?”

“No,” Yixing said, offended. “It’s something that you can’t understand.”

“You mean he’s always been that way, I just haven’t noticed?”

“People who ‘put on the judgment cap wrong side foremost’ are predictably ‘always on the point of some stupidity,’” Jongin remarked.

“Is he that rude to you too?” Junmyeon asked Yixing. “Calling you names every five seconds?”

“Of course not,” Yixing said, although that was a point he had raised himself merely a few hours ago. “You’re here because I need help finding a house.”

“Then why did you contact me so early? Why didn’t you call me when you’re ready to go to a real estate agency? You don’t have to cut your date short when you obviously don’t want to.”

Yixing hesitated before turning to look at Jongin.

“Because he told you to,” Junmyeon muttered in answer to his own question, returning his gaze to the view outside. “I should’ve known.”

Yixing frowned. “What are you so bitter about all of a sudden? If you knew where we were you would’ve followed us of your own accord.”

“I would’ve, but that’s not what happened. This is a new low.”

“You wanted to know where I was. All I did was told you and invited you to come. How is that low?”

Junmyeon turned back around and seemed to study him for a moment before giving a slight shake of the head. “You have no clue what he’s doing, do you?”

Yixing glanced at Jongin, who appeared mostly nonchalant and uninterested in whatever Junmyeon had to say. “Who’s doing what?”

“You don’t find it suspicious that your boyfriend wants your ex to come along on your so called date?”

“We didn’t ask you to come along, we need your help to look for a house. I just told you that.”

“You could’ve gone about things differently. I don’t know what he has against me but it’s obvious that he’s relishing making me miserable.”

“Oh, come off it,” Yixing said, frowning. “Nobody’s making you miserable except for yourself.”

“‘Men of gloomy character’ ‘accuse with such exaggeration that they make out of motes beams wherewith to force out the eyes,’” Jongin said.

“Exactly.”

“You didn’t see that smug look he gave me when you weren’t looking,” Junmyeon persisted. “I feel like everything he does with you is calculated and just for show.”

“Someone’s got their tinfoil hat on,” Jongin mumbled. “Backwards.”

“You deserve better than to be used by some sick, sadistic bastard for his personal enjoyment.”

“And the flipside of that is supposed to be you, is it?” Yixing asked blandly.

“No, but he’s just as much of a douche as I am- was, or maybe even worse.”

Yixing turned to Jongin. “What do you have to say to that?”

“You tell me,” Jongin said. “How much of a douche am I?”

“Not at all.”

Jongin nodded, seeming to be somewhat pleased. “Do you know what ‘the greatest test of others’ patience and prudence’ is?”

“I know that one,” Yixing said. “It’s ‘those who do no good and speak ill of all.’”

“Spot on,” Jongin said before giving him a brief kiss.

Junmyeon sighed. “Let’s just go to the real estate agency and get that over and done with.” He leaned forward to speak to the taxi driver. “It’s the one on the main road next to the 24 hour gym.”

“On second thought,” Yixing started, looking at Jongin. “We don’t need him, do we?”

“What?” Junmyeon asked.

“I think you’re right, actually,” Jongin said. “Three’s a crowd just for a quick house hunt.”

Junmyeon frowned at them both before turning back to the taxi driver, looking irked for once. “You can drop me off here.” The taxi slowed down to a complete stop on the side of the road and Junmyeon handed the driver a $100 note, which was obviously way more than what was displayed on the meter. “Keep the change,” he muttered, unfastening his seatbelt before pushing the door open to leave. He turned back around to face Yixing after stepping out of the car. “You still have my house key, I think?”

Yixing nodded.

“You can pick up your things whenever. If you can’t find a house today then you’re still welcome to stay at mine.”

“Okay.”

Junmyeon moved to shut the door, before apparently changing his mind and pulling the door all the way open again. “You’re supposed to find someone who can make you a better person, not some inbred in love with a dead ist chauvinist who can only reduce you to this obtuse villain sidekick that you are now.” He slammed the door shut without waiting for a response. Instead of marching off as expected, he remained where he was as the taxi set off.

Yixing turned to look at Jongin cautiously, just in case the insult hurled at Gracián ticked him off again. “‘Fools depreciate all men’, right?”

“Yeah,” Jongin said, surprisingly calm. “I guess that chapter of your life is over.”

Yixing threw his gaze out the back window to see Junmyeon still standing on the footpath, looking dejected despite making the parting shot, and felt a twinge of something he couldn’t put a name to. “I suppose so.”