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Nine year-old Renjun hates Mark. He hates him, he hates him, he hates him. He hates him for everything, but mostly because he stole his best friend.
Renjun spends the entirety of recess glaring at Mark and Yukhei digging around in the dirt. His eye twitches when he sees Yukhei laugh at a worm Mark has just plucked from the ground. Renjun used to do that. Renjun used to pick worms and make his best friend laugh. This was ridiculous.
Renjun is fuming even when the classes line up on the blacktop to go inside. He is still angry when ten year-old Mark shuffles over with a handful of purple flowers, the kind that line the fence of the playground.
“Um, here.” Mark’s face is red and Renjun can’t tell if it’s from the heat or embarrassment. Yukhei is laughing behind him. Mark pushes them closer to Renjun.
“Are these for me or something?”
“I thought they were pretty.” Mark’s face is practically scarlet now, tiny hand trembling. Renjun doesn’t know what to say. He’s still pretty mad about the whole stealing-his-best-friend thing, so he says,
“Well, I think they’re stupid.”
Jaemin, who is standing behind him in line, punches him on the arm. “Don’t say words like that.”
“Are you gonna tell on me or something?”
Mark throws the flowers down. “Well, I think you’re stupid!” He yells it and his teacher definitely hears it. She drags him to the front of the line and makes him hold her hand. Before his class enters the building, he sticks his tongue out.
Renjun moves to do the same before Jaemin taps him on the shoulder.
He offers the flowers to Renjun and says, “I don’t think that you think that they’re stupid. They’re really pretty.”
Renjun knocks them out of his hand. He doesn’t like seeing someone else holding them. “No. They’re really, really, really stupid.”
///
Renjun is ten now and Yukhei is his best friend again. This comes with a price though: Mark is everywhere they go. And the pair is in middle school now so they use a lot of words like “fuck” or “shit” or “goddamn”. Renjun thinks that everything they do is stupid but he missed Yukhei so he deals with it.
Right now they are biking to the little ice cream shop near their houses. Yukhei and Mark have raced ahead, and Renjun, who has just mastered the art of riding a bike, creeps behind them shakily.
“Can you idiots slow down?” He huffs out. He’s tired and remembering to not think about his feet on the pedals is more trouble than it’s worth.
“Can you speed up?” Mark calls back and Yukhei laughs. Renjun’s heart sinks at the noise, but he moves to quicken the pace of his feet anyway.
He must’ve thought too hard about the placement of his feet because soon, his bike is starting to shake. Right before they hit the plaza, his bike teeters off the sidewalk and into the grass. He recovers quickly and examines his injuries. His left knee is scraped and bleeding and his hands have tiny rocks stuck to them. He hears Yukhei and Mark’s bikes clatter on the cement as they run towards him.
“Woah, Renjun, are you okay?” Yukhei asks. He looks really grown up and Renjun wants to cry because he just wanted to seem grown up too. And now he’d gone and ruined it by falling off his bike.
Mark offers a hand. Renjun stares. “Oh, so you’re gonna crawl home?”
“I don’t need your help,” Renjun barks out. Mark was just rubbing it in at this point. We get it , Renjun thought, you’re mature and take the high road and never fall off your bike.
Mark rolls his eyes and helps him up regardless. “Lean on me,” He whispers. His ears are just as red as when purple flowers had been clutched in his fist.
Renjun leans on him the entire walk to Mark’s house because Yukhei forgot his key, and Renjun’s mom would yell at him.
Mark brings out a first-aid kit from underneath the sink and pokes around as Renjun swings his feet from the toilet seat. Renjun stares at the striped wallpaper of the room as Mark gently dabs antiseptic on the cut and coats it in cream. He holds up two boxes of band-aids, one that’s regular and one with Sesame Street designs.
“Do you have any Moomin bandages?” Renjun asks. He’s aware he sounds like a baby when he asks, but he really loves Moomin.
Mark scoffs and decides on a Sesame Street bandage. “Moomin is stupid.”
Renjun moves his knee closer so Mark can place the band-aid more easily. “You’re stupid.”
Mark looks up at him, bandage smoothed all the way down. “Maybe,” He says. His face is red. “Maybe.”
///
Middle school is bullshit, Renjun comes to realize by seventh grade. The building is huge and confusing for no reason, lunch is horrible, none of his teachers know his name, and acne is a whole other problem.
“Are you sure it doesn’t look bad?” Renjun pivots from his mirror so his friends can examine the pimple that’s been terrorizing his forehead.
Jeno shakes his head. “You the look the same as always, Jun.” Donghyuck and Jaemin nod their heads in agreement, but Renjun continues to prod at the bump, willing it to disappear.
Jaemin slaps his hand away from the offensive spot. “We’re going to be late for the dance, just give it up. It’s not going away right now.”
Renjun sighs and the group begins their trek to the school, khaki pants creased to perfection. They pay their fee and enter the gym, already crowded with dozens of kids screaming lyrics to pop songs. He hates it.
He dances with his friends for a bit before heading into the hallway to breathe. He sees Mark sitting cross-legged against a locker, grape-flavored soda cradled in his hands.
Renjun kicks his knee. “Why are you out here?”
Mark startles at his voice. “Uh, just needed a breather.”
Renjun slides down the blue lockers and sits next to him. Their knees tickle each other as they touch. “You’re graduating in two months. Don’t you want to, I don’t know, cherish each moment?”
Mark laughs and takes another sip of his soda. It leaves a purple film around his lips. “Middle school dances aren’t very significant, Renjun. They don’t mean anything.”
“They mean a lot if you spend them with your friends,” Renjun corrects.
“I don’t think I want to go to high school. It scares me,” Mark admits. He doesn’t look as grown up as he used to. He looks so nervous. “School is so stupid.”
“You know what else is stupid?” Renjun says. He feels around on his forehead. “Acne.”
Renjun reaches for Mark’s hand, afraid. Mark reaches back and clasps them together. “You’re stupid,” Mark says into the quiet air, and Renjun’s heart starts to float.
///
Mark had no reason to fear high school, Renjun thinks for the entirety of his freshman year. He has dozens of friends, is on the varsity track team, and consistently makes good grades.
Renjun has resumed walking home with Mark and Yukhei and they make an effort to include him in their conversations. Renjun doesn’t know if it’s because they’re older, or if it’s because they feel bad for him, but he accepts the invitation to their conversations all the same.
“You should come to the track meet tomorrow night,” Yukhei says on the walk to his house. “It’s senior night. You could make a sign for Sicheng.”
Sicheng is a neighbor and close family friend of the two. Both Renjun and Yukhei had spent their childhoods either on playdates with him or being babysat by him. Renjun adores him and that alone almost makes him agree.
Well, almost because Mark is a varsity runner, and so far, Renjun has avoided doing anything that would change his view of his best friend’s best friend. To him, Mark was uptight and unnecessarily mature, and way too collected for his age. Renjun would like that vision to remain intact.
“I don’t think I’ll go,” Renjun finally says. “Jeno told me that the meets are boring.”
Mark laughs. “How would he know? He’s hardly shown up to any.”
“Whatever. I’ll probably have homework to do anyway.”
Yukhei throws him a curious glance. “On a Friday night?”
Renjun struggles to find a response and just decides against one. “Fine. I’ll be there.”
The sign Renjun makes for Sicheng is too big to hold up for the entirety of the meet, so after holding it up when his name was called, he shoves it under the bleacher.
“Hey,” Donghyuck complains. “Your ginormous sign is poking my legs. You couldn’t have made a smaller one?”
Renjun huffs. “I could’ve but I didn’t want to. Didn’t you see Sicheng’s smile when I held the sign up?”
His friend had grinned when he saw the sign and had even taken a picture with it. Renjun was ecstatic that he had loved it so much.
Donghyuck places a hand over Renjun’s mouth. “Shut up, the eight hundred meter is starting.”
Renjun looks up just as the official’s gun cracks. Mark starts in the second lane, bangs held back with a hair tie, feet moving rapidly. His legs make long strides around the track. He’s literally outpacing all of his competitors, all seven failing to keep up with him. He’s flying in a way that Renjun figures only Mark can; contained and fast. There is an acuteness in his eye as he leaps into the second lap, cranks up the speed, propels himself forward. He is gliding, soaring, hair thrown back.
He is beautiful, so grown up, not suitable for mortal viewing. Renjun is dizzy at this new development, at the confirmation that Mark is everything to Renjun that Renjun did not want him to be.
Mark finishes first, obviously, and at the end of the meet, right before the team loads the bus, Yukhei asks Renjun what he thought of his race. Renjun struggles to answer; it’s hard to remember the things that came before and after the eight hundred meter.
He fiddles with the rolled up poster and tries to appear aloof. His chest is burning. “Track meets are stupid.”
///
Renjun isn’t too great at dealing with crushes, so by the time junior year rolls around, his feelings for Mark have grown into full-on infatuation. He bottles them up and keeps them close to his chest, unwilling to let them spill over. It’s worse because Renjun sees him all the time now. He is not sure when Mark changed from his “best friend’s best friend” to just his “best friend” but he does so and ends up fitting seamlessly into Renjun’s friend group.
The two spend all summer working together at the ice cream shop and Renjun tries to convince himself that it wasn’t a rose tinted dream. That closing up the shop with Mark hitting him playfully with towels, or blasting pop songs while stacking chairs on top of tables didn’t really happen. Or that Mark didn’t walk him home every night, or that they didn’t not argue for once, or that Renjun doesn’t consider the L-word. The word weighs heavy on his brain so instead of setting it free, he bounds it up in tight chains and prepares for Mark’s last year in high school.
It is the day before Renjun’s junior year begins. He and Mark are laying on Renjun’s rug, staring at the Spiderman poster Sicheng had somehow tacked to his ceiling for him. The weather has been unbearably hot lately, so the window is propped open, the breeze filtering into his room.
Renjun studies Mark. He has his glasses on and his eyes are closed in thought. He looks peaceful. Renjun’s heart aches at the reminder that this is their last summer. Their first and last summer like this.
“Are you nervous for college?” Renjun whispers. If he speaks any louder, the moment will break. The moment will break and he’ll never get to have it again.
Mark’s eyes open slowly and there is a weariness beneath them. He’s already started his common application even before school starts. Renjun wants to wipe his fatigue away. “Not about going to college. Just about leaving.”
He is looking Renjun right in the eye, scanning, memorizing. Renjun almost tells him, but he blinks and the courage is lost. He lightly punches Mark’s arm. “You’ll be fine. You always are.”
Mark gets sick from over-exertion halfway through first semester.
“He just fainted in the middle of photography,” Jaemin recounts. “It was so scary.”
Renjun’s stomach is in knots, twisting and turning with every new detail being added to the story. “Has anyone texted or called to see if he’s alright?”
Yukhei nods. “I called his mom a bit ago. She said he’s at home resting now.”
As soon as the final bell rings, Renjun bikes over to Mark’s house. (He’s good at it now.) His mother answers the door.
“Oh, hello, Renjun,” She says. “Mark is a bit tired right now, but I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you.”
Renjun nods and makes his way up the stairs. Mark’s door is closed, so he knocks gently.
“You can come in, Mom,” Mark yells out.
“Um, it’s Renjun.”
Renjun hears a crash before Mark yanks the door open, hair sticking up on end. “Hey.”
Seeing as he’s not dead, Renjun punches him on the arm, for real this time.
“What the fuck!” Mark yells. “You’re assaulting a sick man!”
Renjun punches him again, and again, and again , each time with less strength. He is angry. Because for someone so grown-up, Mark couldn’t even take care of himself.
Renjun doesn’t even feel the tears on his cheeks until Mark moves to brush them away. “Hey,” He prods. “What’s going on?”
Renjun breaks . He had been on edge all day, the mental image of Mark collapsing in the middle of class playing in his head like a horror film. “You’re so stupid .” He chokes out. “You are so fucking stupid.”
Mark pulls him to chest and Renjun cries harder. “I know,” Mark manages to say in between Renjun’s sobs. “I know.”
The day that Mark and Yukhei leave for college, the whole group gathers at Yukhei’s house, loading cardboard boxes into his SUV.
Jaemin is clinging onto him, whining about missing him, but it’s hard to take him seriously when he’s talking in the most disgusting voice possible. Mark is laughing and fending him off, Donghyuck recording the whole thing on his phone. The rest stand back and enjoy watching the last dispute they’ll see for awhile.
“Okay, okay,” Mark finally says. “I’ll miss you too, Jaem. But really, we’ll only be three hours away.”
Jaemin pushes him away. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”
Renjun knows too. He knows because he’s calculated how long it would take to drive to their university and back on the weekends, with and without traffic, how long it would take by bus and by train. Renjun has broken the distance down into small pieces within his head, but they’re not any more easier to digest. Mark is moving away. That is the fact.
Eventually everyone is going back to their own homes, and soon Renjun is the only one standing in the driveway.
“I’m gonna grab some snacks for the road, and then we can head out,” Yukhei announces and disappears into the house.
Renjun feels awkward standing by himself in the driveway so he gives Mark a shy wave before he turns down the drive.
He hears Mark jogging behind him and grab his arm. “Woah, where are you going?”
“Home?” Renjun tries.
Mark scrunches his eyebrows together. Renjun swallows the image whole. “You weren’t going to say bye?”
Renjun wants to say something snarky like, “Okay. Bye.” then go home, but the sun is just starting to rise fully behind Mark and he’s golden all over. Renjun’s heart crashes at the sight.
There is no right way to say goodbye so he bites the bullet and plants a kiss right on Mark’s lips. He is surprised, that much is obvious, but he kisses Renjun back eventually, and Renjun starts to melt into nothing.
Yukhei coughs and they break apart, their surroundings materializing once more. “We should, uh, hit the road,” He says.
Mark looks back at Renjun, who is currently thinking of ways to disappear. “I need to go but we should talk about thi-”
“No,” Renjun interrupts. It’s scary how quickly the rejection comes out. He wants Mark, but not three-hours-away Mark. He wants Mark that is right down the street, that gave him flowers when he was nine, that stole his best friend, that flew on every track his feet touched in this city. He doesn’t want college Mark.
Mark is confused. “Renjun.”
Renjun says the words before he thinks about them, before the meaning can connect in his mind, “It was stupid. Don’t even think about it. I was just being stupid.”
Mark looks like he’s been ran into the cement of the driveway. The sun is finally hanging in the sky and he looks pale without all the light. He sets his mouth in a tight line. “Yeah. You were being stupid.”
///
Mark and Yukhei come back in town just in time for Christmas. Yukhei and Sicheng are playing videos games in Renjun’s living room when Sicheng brings up Mark.
“I usually see him with you guys,” He says. “Is he sick or something?”
Yukhei looks over at Renjun cautiously. Renjun focuses on Princess Peach. “Uh, no. He brought a guest home, so.”
The controller stills in Renjun’s hand. A guest? What kind of guest? Like an international guest who couldn’t make it home for the holidays? Or a guest that you date and hold hands with and kiss under the mistletoe that your little cousins have planted above you?
“Oh? Like a date?” Sicheng asks.
Yukhei glances at Renjun. “Maybe? Mark is really careful about dating so I don’t really know.”
Careful. Mark has never been careful. Collected, yes. Calculating, yes. Careful? No. He knew when to take risks, when to trust himself, when to trust others. Careful. Did Renjun do that? He hadn’t heard from him since August, but he figured Mark wasn’t too torn up about the whole thing. Renjun had loved Mark in secret for years. Mark could never hurt as bad as Renjun has. He doesn’t know the sting of feelings buried and covered and suppressed twice over. He’ll never know.
Careful. But why?
Yukhei and Sicheng leave after three more rounds but not without the reminder that Jeno’s family’s Christmas party is tomorrow.
“If you don’t come, I’ll beat your ass,” Sicheng warns.
“I’ll be there,” Renjun assures. With or without Mark there.
Unsurprisingly, Mark shows up with his guest in tow. He introduces him to everyone as Jungwoo. He’s insanely tall, a sophomore studying pre-law, and outrageously funny. Everyone falls in love with him instantly.
Renjun hates him.
Jungwoo sits next to him at dinner and Renjun tries his best to ignore him. It does not work.
“So,” Jungwoo starts. “You’re a senior right now?”
Renjun nods tensely. Suddenly his roasted chicken seems like a wonder conversationalist.
“You know,” Jungwoo continues in a low voice. “Mark mentions you a lot.”
Renjun tries not to show a reaction. “Hopefully all good things.”
Jungwoo hums and starts cutting his chicken into little slices. “I would even say he’s in love with you, or something.”
Renjun chokes on the half-chewed green bean in his throat. “What did you just say?”
Jungwoo ignores him in favor of starting a conversation with Donghyuck on the other side of him.
Renjun knows he heard Jungwoo right. Right? Was Mark really in love with him? He steals a glance at Mark who is laughing out loud at a story that Jeno is telling him, face scrunched all the way. No, no way. Mark would never be in love with him. Ever.
Mark notices his staring and waves shyly before looking away.
Not even in Renjun’s dreams.
It is New Year’s Eve. Jaemin is hosting a party at his house. The basement is crowded but Renjun finds it in him to soak in one of his last remaining high school memories.
Mark is standing next to him, watching the countdown on the flat screen TV intently. Jungwoo is chatting with some seniors about the do’s and don’ts of university. The rest of his friends are mingling with his classmates, trying to make the most of the night.
The clock launches into the last fifteen seconds and Renjun memorizes the moment that Mark looks at him. It’s full of an emotion that an inebriated Renjun can’t name.
“Can I-”Mark starts to shout above the fray of teenaged shrieking. Renjun catches Jungwoo’s pointed look across the room.
“No,” Renjun says and it tastes just as acrid as the first time he had said it. The clock hits eight seconds. “Go kiss Jungwoo.”
“Seven!”
“Renjun, what are you talking-”
“Six!”
“-about? Jungwoo and I are not -”
“Five!”
“-a thing! Are you even-”
“Four!”
“-listening to me? Renjun, please-”
“Three!”
“-I am trying to tell you something really-”
“Two!”
“-important and I need you to listen-”
Renjun grabs Jeno as he walks by and kisses him as the clock strikes midnight. Mark’s voice is drowned with the shouts of the room and Renjun’s pounding chest.
Jeno pushes him off of him before saying, “Gross. Give me a warning next time, Jun.”
Mark is still standing there, bewildered. He runs a hand through his hair and spits out, “You are so unbelievably fucking stupid.”
///
Renjun falls on his graduation day.
He is walking to the stage, nice dress shoes stomping against concrete, when he trips on his robes before he can even make it to the stairs. He still manages to receive his diploma, but there is a tear in his dress pants and a scrape that is quickly becoming sore.
Renjun thinks this is some kind of punishment for not knowing how to talk to Mark because it is the same knee that was scraped all those years ago, and Mark is sitting with his family, face full of concern.
Renjun is having a joint graduation party with his friends in a few days, so he walks back home with his parents and Yukhei, left knee burning. Mark leaves suddenly, muttering something about grabbing a thing from his house.
“You wanna see the video I took of you falling?” Yukhei asks. His phone screen is currently looping a video of Renjun’s body meeting the ground.
Renjun pushes it away. “Hell no. Delete that.”
Yukhei pouts and feigns deleting it, but Renjun sees him save it to Google Drive. He’d deal with it later.
When Renjun changes out of his nice clothes and into his basketball shorts, he sees the scrape lining his knee. It overlaps with the previous injury to make for an ugly venn diagram of lumpy skin and youthful clumsiness.
He’s examining the full extent of the wound when Mark knocks on his open door, familiar first-aid kit in hand.
“You can come in,” Renjun says quietly.
Mark sets the first-aid kit down on the nightstand and begins working just as he had when he was eleven. He doesn’t ask which bandage Renjun would prefer this time, immediately retrieves a box of Moomin bandages instead.
“You said Moomin was stupid,” Renjuns hurries out as Mark smooths it down on his knee.
Mark looks up and he is eleven again, and Renjun is ten, and his room is the striped wallpaper of Mark’s bathroom.
“I say a lot of stuff is stupid.”
Renjun wants to ask: Do you think I’m stupid? The memory of Mark’s words months before have haunted him, have guilted him into wondering, Am I really the one hurting?
Renjun swallows the words, decides to save them for another day, a day when Renjun looks grown up too.
“You wanna know what’s stupid?”
Mark tilts his head. “What?”
“Fucking falling at your graduation.”
Mark laughs softly at first, then loud and uncontrollably. He hiccups between beats and Renjun realizes his missed the way his shoulders bounced when he laughed, the face he made when something was far too funny.
“Yeah,” Mark breathes out a few moments later. “That is pretty stupid.”
///
Unlike Mark, everyone considers Renjun to be a careful person. He thinks about his actions at least three times before carrying them out, and even then he isn’t completely sure that it’s the right thing to do. That’s why it comes as a surprise to everyone that Renjun punches Mark’s roommate right before final exams start.
Jaemin rubs the ice pack over Renjun’s knuckles. He is confused but mostly concerned. He looks at Renjun when Renjun isn’t paying attention, curious. “Are you going to tell me why you punched Mark’s roommate?”
“He’s an ass.” Renjun says. It’s true.
Jaemin rolls his eyes. “No, duh. Donghyuck is an ass too, but you don’t see me going around punching him. Just tell me what happened. I won’t judge. I promise.”
Renjun does it because of Mark. Because Mark could be a pushover and had agreed to let his roommate have the room to himself to study. But a one time thing turns into a two week thing, and Mark is effectively exiled from his own dorm room, studying in the library and sleeping on the floor between Renjun’s and Jaemin’s beds.
Really, Mark could have prevented it. He could have told his overbearing roommate to go the fucking library or Antartica, or any fucking where else, and he would have done it and then Renjun wouldn’t have purple bruises kissing his knuckles.
But he hadn’t, so Renjun stomps across campus, fuming, because Mark was starting to forget what color his sheets were. He bangs on his door and his roommate answers looking particularly well rested.
“Don’t you know how to study in the library?” Renjun barks out. The boy flinches at his voice.
“Uh.”
“Stop making Mark leave his own goddamn room, and walk your uptight ass to the library and study like a normal person!”
The boy puts his arms in front of him, defensive. “Mark agreed to leave, it’s not like I forced him to.”
That’s bullshit, because Renjun knows that Mark would do anything to help another person, whether they force him to or not. “Do you even know Mark?”
“Yeah, and I know he’s old enough not to have an overgrown toddler fighting his battles for him.”
Renjun breaks his nose on the first hit.
Luckily Mark’s roommate doesn’t press charges. That’s probably because Mark practically begged him not to.
“Sorry,” Renjun says over breakfast the next day. “I just got so angry. I hate him.”
Mark leans across the table and ruffles his hair. “I’m not mad. Please don’t punch anyone else, though. You’ve got a mean right hook.”
Renjun laughs. Mark’s kindness was consistently unwavering. It made Renjun warm and scared all at the same time.
“Promise you’re not mad?”
“How could I be?” Mark drags his hands across his eyes dramatically. “You’re my hero!”
Renjun fails one of his exams. It’s jarring, if only because he has not received anything less than a C in his entire life. He’s disappointed in himself, mind immediately thinking of things he could’ve done better. He collapses on his bed as soon as he makes it to his room, and lets himself cry. Jaemin is taking his last exam so Renjun can cry as long and as loud as he wants to.
Mark calls.
“Hello?” Renjun tries to fix the shakiness in his voice.
“Hey, Yukhei and I were gonna catch a movie and eat some food later on. You in?”
“I’m actually not feeling too well right now.” His voice catches at the end.
“Oh, are you okay? Do you need medicine or something?”
Mark’s concern makes him want to cry all over again.
“No, I’m fine. Promise.”
Despite Renjun’s assurances, Mark knocks on his door ten minutes later, worry evident in his features.
Renjun sighs. “I told you I was fine.”
Mark bulldozes his way into the room. “Well, you’re obviously not. I can tell you’ve been crying.”
Renjun sits on his bed and covers his face with his hands. This was so embarrassing. “Please leave.”
Mark stays and sits next to Renjun instead. “Do you want a hug?”
It’s quiet, and it means a lot more to Renjun than it should. He doesn’t even lift his head as he nods yes.
Mark wraps his arms around him, as Renjun cries and cries and cries.
“I’m so stupid,” Renjun mumbles into the open air. “I’m the dumbest person I know.”
Mark pulls his arms back and looks at Renjun in alarm. “What are you talking about? You are so smart, and funny, and patient, and responsible. Don’t say that.”
Renjun can’t help himself, “But you’ve said it before. You said it at Jaemin’s party and you meant it.”
Mark looks guilty for a moment but recovers quickly. “I didn’t mean it. I could never mean it.”
“Promise?”
Mark nods and pulls Renjun closer. “I promise.”
Later, when it’s evening and the two are squeezed into Renjun’s tiny bed, he admits why he had been crying.
Mark cups his face and smooths his cheekbone with his thumb. Renjun feels limitless. “Exams are stupid. You’re not.”
///
Turning nineteen is so monumentally uninteresting that Renjun wishes he’d skipped celebrating his birthday altogether. Jeno suggests they have a picnic for his birthday to celebrate the advent of spring, so now all six of them are reclining on quilts in the nearby park, birthday cake sat between them.
Renjun blows out his candles and doesn’t wish for much. I wish Mark and I could be how we used to , he thinks before huffing out each candle.
Mark swipes a dollop of icing onto his nose.
“Hey!”
Mark snaps a picture with his phone. “Hehe. Cute.”
Renjun takes a handful of cake and smashes it on Mark’s face and and after that it’s all out war. At the end, the grass and quilts are covered in icing and cake and Donghyuck is tugging cream from his hair.
“All of you are so childish,” He complains. “I just washed my hair this morning!”
Mark sticks his tongue out at him. “Baby.”
Donghyuck tosses a piece of lettuce at his head. “Come here, Lee. I’ll show you how babies fight.”
The two run around the clearing and Renjun feels at peace. Mark’s laugh is bright as Donghyuck pinches him over and over again, whining about his hair.
After Donghyuck is satisfied with the amount of spots on Mark’s arm, they walk back to campus, the breeze a happy accompaniment. Mark and Renjun linger at the back of the group, until eventually, they can’t even see their friends anymore.
“Did you have a good birthday?” Mark asks.
“Nineteen isn’t very interesting, but yeah, I did,” He says truthfully.
Mark smiles wide. “Good. You deserve it.”
The afternoon sun is behind him and he looks golden again. He is all grown up. And when Renjun finds the courage within himself to say the next words, he realizes he is too.
“Mark, can I kiss you?”
The world pauses and the halo around Mark flickers. Renjun’s mind is a mess; it’s an amalgamation of teenaged infatuation and youthful error. It’s a reflection of that first and last summer, of knees scraped twice over, of purple flowers thrown to the ground. It is Mark and Renjun, Renjun and Mark, from the beginning to the end, and Jesus, he can’t breathe but everything feels right.
“Are you sure this time?” Mark asks. “Do you really mean it?”
Renjun nods so hard he’s afraid his neck will snap. “Yes. I really mean it. I’ve always meant it.”
Mark’s hands find his waist, and their lips find each other, and Renjun finds all the little pieces he’d never been able to grasp inside his heart. Mark kisses like he’s been hurting too and Renjun feels sorry. Mark had been trying to put the pieces together too. He had bound his heart tightly as well, maybe even tighter than Renjun’s.
There is still icing on his nose and when Mark moves his head it smears across his cheek. Renjun laughs. He is beautiful. At some point while Mark was flying he had taken Renjun with him, and he only now realizes this when he feels like he’s above the world.
“Stupid icing,” Renjun whispers into the space between them. “So stupid.”
///
Mark spends his own birthday at home, and Renjun bikes over to house, his gift in one hand, the other on the handlebar. It’s ridiculously early in the morning to be speeding through the neighbor on his big green bike. But he doesn’t care. He’ll never care if it’s for Mark.
Renjun sneaks in through the gate that leads to the backyard. He texts Mark a, I’m outside!!
A few minutes later, Mark shuffles onto the patio, still wearing his Simpsons pajamas and old track and field t-shirt.
“Why are you here so early?” He croaks out. His hair is messy and one eye is still half-closed. He’s gorgeous.
Renjun pulls the tiny purple flowers from behind his back. “Happy Birthday, Mark.”
Mark stills. He looks from the flowers to Renjun and back again before giggling. “How’d you find these?”
Maybe he had jumped the fence to the elementary school last night. Maybe it was trespassing. Did it matter?
Renjun places them in his hand and throws his arms around Mark’s neck. “Do you like them?”
Mark kisses his forehead. “I love them.”
“They’re not stupid?”
Mark kisses him sweetly and slowly before, “Nope. They’re not stupid at all.”