Archive of Our Own

If there’s one thing certain in Renjun’s life, it’s that he’s a Second Lead™. 

He’s watched enough dramas to see the signs—he’s forgettable, perpetually single, and never anyone’s first choice when it comes to the romantic scene. Not to mention, he’s the cruelest goddamn realist that this world has ever seen, so he’s not about to lie to his own face and pretend he’s the main character that he’ll never get to be. 

“Calm down,” says his roommate Mark, pulling Renjun’s face out of his Moomin pillow pet. “It’s just Valentine’s Day.”

“ Just Valentine’s Day,” scoffs Renjun. He reaches under his bed to extract a second Moomin plush. “Today’s the day when all the cheesy confessions happen. The bad candlelight dinners. The fatass bouquets of roses. All the things that are labeled Not For Renjun Huang.”

“Well, you’re allergic to roses,” says his other roommate, Donghyuck, who’s on his phone. He’s playing Clash Royale, on full volume, because he is Donghyuck. “And anyway, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think you’re a realist, Jun. You’re more of a romanticist.”

“A cruel one,” Renjun insists.

“A basic one,” Mark says, with a sigh, grasping Renjun by the wrists and pulling him upright. “Okay. Enough moping around. We’re going to get brunch. How does burgers sound?”

They drive to the local burger joint. It’s sunny outside, which makes Renjun feel like a pale and shriveled piece of cauliflower, because for the past few days he hasn’t even gone outside, instead opting to stay indoors in the lull of post-midterms week. Midterms week itself was a separate darkness all on its own—Renjun went so far as to buy blackout curtains so he could properly hide from the sun and huddle at his desk, surrounded by textbooks and No. 2 pencils and jumbo bags of Shrimp Chips.

But it’s over now. And because Donghyuck is somehow reliant on fresh air as a means of recharging his “social battery,” he demands that they be seated outside at the burger diner. The waitress complies. Renjun tries to protest but Donghyuck shuts him down. (“Hyuck, sunlight saps my lifeblood.”) (“Yes and how many fucks do you think I give?”)

So they’re sitting at the table outside, Mark with his milkshake, Donghyuck with his two (2) burgers, and Renjun with his salad and black coffee. Donghyuck plays games and Renjun idly watches the activity of the parking lot. Cars are coming, going, coming going. He memorizes the license plates and makes anagrams with them in his head.

Renjun has two bad habits, and one of them is musing too deeply on the lives of passersby.

In a boring class in middle school one day, he took a look at his math teacher at the board, then around at his classmates who were either taking notes or taking naps. There was his seat partner, who smelled perpetually of pepper, and then there was the girl in front of Renjun, whose pink square-shaped glasses were taped together in the middle, and then there was the class clown in the back of the room, who was building a log cabin with his colored pencils.

Looking at everyone here, Renjun was struck with the sudden vivid realization that all of these kids would grow up and fall in love and get jobs and make friends and make mistakes and be people , just like Renjun. Everyone had a past. Everyone had a future. Everyone was full of life. 

It was a revelation that has stuck with him ever since. One night over too many cups of beer, he gave Mark a jumbled explanation of how he wonders about the lady behind the cash register in the grocery store, or about the little kid in the park who tugs on his mother’s hand asking for a piggy back ride, or about the bass-voiced guy on the radio show that comes on every evening at 5 pm. 

Everyone’s alive, Renjun sobbed. Everyone’s so fucking alive. I can’t even.

Mark pulled out his phone and searched something up, then showed him the screen: it was one of those aesthetic Pinterest moodboards, with photos of flowers and the sky. In the center cube was a word written in cursive.

Sonder, Mark said. That’s what you’ve got.

Someone else out there created that word—someone else knows how it feels . Renjun cried so hard he unintentionally sobered himself up. (Every person worships high alcohol tolerance except college kids who just want to have a goddamn cry without remembering it in the morning.) 

Sitting at the burger diner porch, Renjun pushes his dry salad around with his fork, wondering if he should expend the energy to get up and ask for an extra packet of ranch dressing. He sighs, abandons the thought, and lets his gaze skid once more out at the parking lot. 

There’s a light blue car pulling into a parking space nearby. The driver is visible through the car window: it’s a young man, just past the cusp of adulthood, with an oversized white T-shirt and caramel-colored hair. He smiles with his eyes.

Renjun’s mind goes blank. His fork slips from his hand and falls straight into his coffee cup.

***

Renjun’s second bad habit is not quite a habit, but a person. 

A boy who lent Renjun pens when he left his pencil pouch at home. A boy who drank a carton of banana milk for breakfast in homeroom. A boy with a carefree smile, a precious laugh, and a gaze full of starlight. Falling in love with Jeno was an accident, Renjun tells himself, although he secretly likes to think it wasn’t. It was destiny. It was the screenwriters of Renjun’s life, writing his fate in firm black gel pen.

Too bad, because falling in love with Jeno Lee is the thing that the paper slips in fortune cookies instruct you not to do—without doubt, it’s the least intelligent decision Renjun has ever made, because to Jeno, he has always been invisible. A whim, a nobody, another obscure classmate. But to Renjun, Jeno is the habit he has never managed to shake. 

(There should be PSAs warning the world how fucking hard it is to fall out love when all your dumb heart wants to do is fall, fall, fall.)

***

When Renjun lays eyes on Jeno in all his caramel-haired glory, all he can think is, oh, damn.

“What?” Donghyuck says.

“He said damn,” Mark relays.

“Yeah but why?” Donghyuck takes his eyes off his phone to peer all around the parking lot like an excited meerkat. His eyes land on the subject of Renjun’s attention. “Aha. It’s Jeno.”

“Jeno,” Renjun mumbles miserably, picking his fork out of his cup and haphazardly wiping it off with a napkin. 

“Jeno who?” Mark asks.

“You know,” Donghyuck says. “Jeno fucking Lee.”

“Oh, that one.”

Renjun is appalled. "You guys refer to him as—as Jeno fucking Lee?”

“Well, of course!” Donghyuck says. “He’s the fucker who broke your heart in fourth grade. And eighth grade. And twelfth grade!”

Mark slurps his milkshake. “And all the grades in between.”

“. . . He didn’t mean to,” Renjun says, feeling the strange unnecessary obligation to defend him. 

Mark makes a sympathetic noise. “I know. That’s what makes it worse.”

Renjun groans. He tries to bang his head against the table, but Donghyuck slips a hand between his forehead and the tabletop before they can make contact. Dammit, Renjun could really use the harsh pang of reality right about now. There’s a choked ocean in his lungs, full of shards of seaglass that mesh together in a hideous cacophony of loneliness.

“Strange that we’re seeing him around,” Donghyuck comments.

“Eh,” Mark says. “We live in the same city. He goes to our sister college.”

The seaglass tightens in Renjun’s chest and he releases a sigh.

Mark nudges him. “Aww, come on, Jun. You’re not still hung up on him, are you?”

“Hmph, I am a self-sufficient college student who can take care of his own runaway childhood emotions, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, that means he’s still hung up on him,” Donghyuck says. As if in agreement, a cannon in his video game goes off. He cheers as it incinerates his opponent’s castle.

“Stop sulking, Jun, sit up. I have an idea.” Mark scoots closer. 

Renjun sits up and eyes him. “I don’t know . . . This seems like the part of the script where the wingman tells the protagonist to do something dumb like ask his childhood crush out.”

“Well. That’s—yeah, what I was going to suggest is pulling some strings to get you and Jeno together for a date. At the movies, or at the mall, or—”

Now Renjun is looking at him with actual terror. “What do you—are you shitting me?”

“I am not. I shit you not.” Mark takes the top of Renjun’s head with his hands and swivels it in the direction of Jeno, who’s sitting on the hood of his pale blue car, drinking Cokes with the other boys who got out of the car: Jaemin and some other friend. It looks like something out of a soda commercial— it’s got all the pieces, Renjun thinks, hot models, good product placement, a glossy air-brushed vibe. 

“See that kid?” Mark says. “The one next to Jaemin. Looks sort of like a mouse?"

“I see him.”

“He’s boyfriends with Chenle. And guess who’s friends with Chenle? Me.” Mark releases his grip on Renjun’s head. “It wouldn’t be hard to set up a little something. I could even make it like, a get-together between both of our friend groups, it’d be totally slick.”

Donghyuck has switched to playing Candy Crush. The discord of the candies exploding is a reflection of Renjun’s malfunctioning train of thought. 

“But . . . but Jeno’s taken,” Renjun manages.

Mark scoffs. “I don’t see a ring on his finger.”

“That’s not—dude, you know how he is with Jaemin.”

“You’re just looking for an excuse to give up.”

“Jeno has a boyfriend already! It’s a two hundred percent valid excuse for me to give up!”

“Fake news,” Donghyuck says off-handedly.

Renjun is almost ( almost ) embarrassed by how fast he whips around in his chair to face Donghyuck. “What’d you say?”

Donghyuck raises an eyebrow. “I said fake news. Jaemin and Jeno aren’t dating. Wherever they go, Jisung’s with them. Like, who takes your high school kid friend out on every single one of your dates? That would totally kill the vibe.”

“Well, polyamory is valid,” Renjun says.

“No, no, Jisung’s lusting for Chenle,” Mark speaks up. “Trust me. Have you seen those two together?” He feigns a shudder. “Reminds me of the way Renjun acted around Jeno in high school.”

Renjun throws him the dirtiest glare he can muster.

“Sorry,” Mark says quickly. “Anyway. I’m just saying. Wouldn’t spending a couple hours with Jeno be beneficial? At the very least, you could get some closure.”

Renjun’s gaze slides back to gaze at Jeno, who has placed his now-empty Coke can on the pavement and is preparing to flatten it with his shoe. Closure, he thinks tartly. As if Jeno Lee is just a chapter in the book of my existence. As if I could just — just wave good-bye to the person who’s practically lived rent-free in my brain my entire fucking life.

But maybe, in a tiny young part of himself, Renjun thinks it might at least be worth a shot. His heart is an expensive and dark place to be. It’s impressive that Jeno’s managed to stay there for so long, and Renjun would be damned if he didn’t at least take the chance to congratulate him on the feat.

“Alright,” he says.

“Goal!” Donghyuck shouts. He shows them his soccer simulation game. “See? I made a goal.”

“So did I,” Mark says, gleefully gazing at Renjun, who wonders resignedly if his heart will end up as crushed as the Coke can that Jeno has just stepped on and reduced to a thin metal pancake. 

***

Yeah, okay, this was a Bad idea, Renjun thinks.

He’s staring at his own face. The eyeliner that Donghyuck lent him, the tint that darkens his lips ever so slightly, even the hair tinsel that Mark delicately laced through Renjun’s brown locks. The tinsel catches the light when Renjun turns his head from side to side. 

“What are you talking about?” It’s Chenle, at his side, peering at the mirror. They’re in the restroom at the movie theater, about to head to their movie, which starts in ten minutes. “I don’t see anything wrong. You look like a great idea.” He reaches up to self-consciously touch his own hair. “Maybe I should invest in some hair tinsel too?”

“Stop encroaching in my thought territory,” Renjun says. He waves his hand underneath the automated sink and the water comes out right away. Kind of a metaphor for the way Renjun is shit at holding himself back when it comes to Jeno—he’s an automatic sink, just spilling his guts every time Jeno waves his hand to say hi.

That was what happened when they met in front of the theater. Jeno came with his arm slung around Jaemin’s shoulders. Renjun came with his self-control slung around his shoulders. And, like a cheap scarf, it slipped off and fell to the ground as soon as he saw that Jeno’s caramel hair had suddenly become bright blond since that morning earlier today in the parking lot.

Renjun’s thoughts were a jumble of how utterly gorgeous he looked, and how he was entirely out of Renjun’s league, and how this had been a bad fucking idea, so fuck Jeno. 

Apparently, he said some of it out loud, too. Jeno’s cheeks flushed; Mark elbowed Renjun in the side and cast Jeno an apologetic grimace. 

When Jeno, Jaemin, and Jisung stepped away to buy popcorn, Renjun grabbed Mark’s arm and hissed to know what he’d said that made Jeno blush so hard.

“Uh, you said his hair looked nice, and then you said fuck you.” 

“I—what? Oh my God.”

“Exactly.” Mark rolled his eyes. “I’m surprised he didn’t say something like, fuck me yourself. That would have made it better. But as it was, what you said just kinda seemed like an asshole way to hit on someone.”

Renjun wondered if there’s some sort of award he can claim for Best Loser Of The Century.

Presently, in the theater restroom, Chenle huffs and flicks water at Renjun. “I was not encroaching on anyone’s thought territory. And hurry up, we’re missing the ads. I like watching those.”

“Life is just a perpetual ad,” Renjun says. His sigh is as blue as the hand soap of these sinks. “Everyone wants you to do something. Buy something. Be something. And everything’s always so loud and too fast and just bad in general.”

“Geez, pessimist. You need to get laid.” Chenle grabs a paper towel and makes for the door. 

“You are a high school junior. What do you know about getting laid?” 

“Plenty,” Chenle calls cheerfully, disappearing out the door.

Grumbling, Renjun follows. If only Chenle were right. If only all Renjun’s Jeno-fixation could be absolved if Renjun just found some other pretty person and kissed them senseless—but that shit never works. Not in movies, not in real life. If anything, Renjun’s convinced that if he were to go and meet new people, he’d probably spend the whole time thinking about how they’d look better if they were Jeno.

By the time Renjun slides into his seat next to the rest of the guys in the theater, the movie is four minutes in. It’s some action thriller flick that’s either underrated or legitimately bad, judging by how there’s no one else in the theater except for the seven boys. Chenle enthusiastically munches on popcorn, feeding Jisung from his fingers, and after the first ten minutes, Donghyuck gets bored and lies stomach-down on the floor to play Plants Versus Zombies. Mark is the only person who’s actually watching the movie, but Renjun thinks it’s just because he can’t find it in him to be anything other than The Dutiful One.

Jaemin and Jeno’s roles, Renjun decides, are the Ones Who Are Couple Goals. The two of them whisper and giggle to each other throughout the duration of the film, steal sips of each others’ coconut-flavored Icees, and trade casual skinship. Renjun tries not to notice. (But he still does.) (Typical.) 

When the end credits roll, Mark gets up and turns to all of them with a bright smile and says, “So, how does dinner sound?”

“Sounds great,” Jaemin says.

“Renjun?” Mark asks, with an expectant look.

Renjun’s face feels warm when he notices that Jeno’s looking at him, too. “I, uh—sure. Yeah. Dinner.”

 “Great.” Mark claps his hands. “Alright, so where are we headed?”

The next fifteen minutes are a clamor of Donghyuck insisting they go out for spaghetti, while Chenle and Jisung declare that spaghetti isn’t romantic enough. Instead, their suggestion is barbecue. But Jaemin speaks up to say he doesn’t like the way barbecue makes his clothes smell like steak, and Mark agrees that too much beef isn’t healthy anyway, to which Chenle accuses him of just trying to save his own wallet from the chaos of an all-you-can-eat dinner with seven growing boys. Eventually Donghyuck pulls up his phone and creates a Google Survey poll where they can each anonymously select their dinner preferences. The winner ends up being pasta, much to Donghyuck’s glee.

Thirty minutes later, when they’re seated at the pasta restaurant, he and Jisung are still bickering over whether or not he rigged the poll.

Renjun orders a plate of fettuccine, because he’s always been a sucker for cheesy dishes. When the plate arrives, though, he has to admit it probably wasn’t the smartest thing to order—not when he’s sitting in full view of Jeno. Chenle and Jisung were right when they said noodles aren’t romantic. He attempts to roll the pasta onto his fork, but it slips off every time, and he can’t very well slurp up the noodles like a goddamn octopus in front of his crush, so he ends up just stealing pathetically small bites from behind the cover of his hand.

He can't find it in him to participate in the conversation at the table. Currently, the rest of the boys are having a heated discussion over whether or not cereal is a soup. At some point, Donghyuck orders beer for all at the table who are legal, and of course the alcohol make everyone louder—a waitress walks by to check up on them, then backs off quickly, looking appalled at all the noise they were making. Renjun tries to send her an apologetic look. She nods and hurries away.

He sighs and slumps over his fettuccine, wishing he had the bravery to just eat it and not care about what it’d look like. Of course Jaemin is enjoying his own plate of convenient bow tie pasta from where he sits beside Jeno. Renjun wonders if the two of them are holding hands under the table. 

The night wears on. Renjun thinks he might kill Mark for dragging him out to socialize tonight. Fuck Valentine’s Day—Renjun would rather be at home, watching Mean Girls and eating cheese puffs.

“Want to get out of here?”

It’s a deep voice, cutting through the din. Renjun’s head snaps up. “Huh?”

It’s Jeno. ( Jeno. ) He gives Renjun a half-smile from across the table. “I don’t know. I’m kind of miserable right now, and no offense, you don’t look much better, so. Maybe some fresh air would do us some good?”

He gets up and goes to the door. He waves for Renjun to follow. Renjun does, his thoughts feeling curiously like molasses.

He casts a backward look at Jaemin, but the other boy is invested in telling everyone some riveting story about the time he found a pair of lizards in his bathtub, and doesn’t seem bothered that Jeno had just got up and left. Renjun bites his lip, then follows him outside.

They settle outside on the restaurant porch, Jeno leaning against the metal railing. Renjun hauls himself up to perch on top of it. The evening air is cool and crisp in his lungs, a welcome change from the stuffiness of the restaurant.

This whole thing is so casual. It’s as if he and Jeno are friends—as if hanging out like this is just something they do. Go out for drinks, get restless, and step outside to relax in the fresh air. The sun is coming down, and the sky is swept with a litter of clouds in frothy orange and pink; it’s ironic that clouds can be symbolic for sorrow but then also become hella beautiful during golden hour. (Maybe it just goes to show that ugly things don’t really exist in nature.) (Maybe ugly things are just things with purpose.) How many people out there are watching this sunset?

“What are you thinking about?” Jeno asks, his low voice matching the ethereal evening atmosphere. 

“Sonder,” Renjun replies.

“What’s that?”

“I think I’m in love with the universe.” He reaches up to hold himself. His own little sad self-hug. “Today’s inner monologue is all about beautiful things.”

Like right now. This evening reminds Renjun of a lake at sunset: Jeno is the sun, and Renjun is the surface of the water, glassy and stagnant, reflecting the brilliance of all of Jeno Lee’s colors. And all Jeno can see is his surface. The winged eyeliner and the lip tint, the familiar mask of lazy and bored confidence, the calm and collected persona that is the polar opposite of the tsunami thrashing in his gut. 

It’s beautiful to have the ability to present yourself as one thing and then secretly be a different thing altogether. It’s also incredibly, thickly lonely, but what can Renjun say? It’s his default form of existence. 

“You know,” Jeno says, “I don’t want to sound weird or anything. But when I like, look at you, I sort of get the feeling you’re constantly mentally composing poetry.”

“Maybe I am,” Renjun says. He turns to him. Jeno looks cinematic, the sunset smearing the sky behind him in all sorts of wonderful. “Look. I . . . I didn’t mean it when I said fuck you, you know. I was just, like, glitching, because your hair. It looks—really fucking good.”

“Really? Thanks. That’s good to know. I’m glad you don’t hate me.”

Silence slips between them. Jeno sends Renjun a shy look.

Renjun doesn’t miss it.

“I don’t hate you. Why would I hate you?” 

“I—I dunno.” Jeno runs a hand through his hair, an obvious anxious habit. “It’s probably just me being insecure about stuff.”

Renjun is quiet. 

Jeno Lee . . . has insecurities. 

“You know,” Jeno says, “it’s sort of funny that after all these years of being classmates, we don’t really know each other. Like, I mean—I know you in terms of your face is in all of my school yearbooks, and you own three different Pokémon T-shirts, and I used to lend you my red pens when you forgot yours at home — but that’s really it."

“Wait, wait, wait,” Renjun says. He's reeling from the thought of Jeno thinking about him. Being aware of Renjun’s existence. Could he have misheard him? “How do you—how is it that you know I own three Pokémon T-shirts?”

Jeno shrugs. “In eighth grade all you wore were those shirts.”

“Oh. Wow. That’s . . . yeah.”

“Yeah. We shared English together. Second period?” Jeno pauses, shuffles his feet. “If you don’t remember, that’s okay.”

“No!” Renjun nearly trips over his words in his haste. “I remember. Trust me, I do.”

Jeno shoots him a grateful look. “Well. Um, now that you’ve heard all about how I think of you, I think it’d be only fair for you to tell me what sort of person you see me as.”

Shit, Renjun thinks, and belatedly realizes he’s said it out loud by how Jeno’s eyes widen. “No, no. I don’t see you as shit. I swear.”

Jeno laughs, a sound like teal chiffon. “I’ll take your word for it, I guess.”

“Or,” Renjun says, “you could take my number. And we could get to know each other more. You know, hang out, and stuff.”

Jeno bites down on his smile, which is by far the hottest thing that Renjun has seen in this lifetime or the last one.

“Okay,” Jeno says.

The sun finally dips below the horizon, casting the two boys in a hauntingly beautiful golden glow. Renjun meets Jeno’s smile with his own.

“Okay,” he says back.

***

The next evening Renjun is in the middle of practicing calligraphy when Jeno sends him a text. At the notification noise his brush skids off the page, effectively ruining what he’d been writing, but he can’t bring himself to care—he just clutches his phone and stares at it like a spooked raccoon.

Donghyuck leans over his shoulder. “Hmm,” he says, pointedly, seeing the text: hi it’s Jeno !! accompanied by a cute puppy gif.

“I’ve failed,” Renjun says out loud.

Mark’s at the microwave, making a cup of Instant-Ramen. He hisses and reaches for a paper towel when he accidentally spills the hot broth onto his thumb. “Failed at calligraphy?” he says, nursing his hand.

“No. I’ve failed at being the introspective and ruminative person I'm supposed to be."

Donghyuck turns away, returning to his game of Cookie Clicker. “I don’t know what those words mean,” he sing-songs.

“I’m a bad philosophist, that’s what I mean,” Renjun says. “Can you believe it? I’m a fraud. My whole life I’ve been sitting all tall and mighty on my—my fucking high chair, entirely unaware of all of the important things going on right underneath my nose.”

“What kind of things?” Mark says with suspicion. He brandishes the broth-soaked paper towel at Renjun. “Is this about me taking your last granola bar from the secret stash under your bed, I am not going to apologize.”

“No, no, not that. I’m talking about other things. Things like Jeno,” Renjun says. “He’s real. He’s a real person. And—and I’ve just never even known it.”

Donghyuck shakes his head. “Damn, okay, that doesn’t make much sense.”

Mark looks thoughtful. “It does make some sense.”

Renjun unlocks his phone, takes a deep breath, and texts Jeno back: 

Renjun

hey, have you had dinner yet?

Ninety-seven seconds pass (Renjun counts) before Jeno responds.

Jeno

no? :3 is that an offer?

Yes, Renjun types. Then he backspaces on that and types, no i was being sarcastic of course it’s an offer, which he backspaces on and types, haha yeah I want to get to know you better because you’re the love of my life but for some reason all this time I’ve been unfairly judging you and putting you on a pedestal for no good reason and I think it’s time to fix it.

He backspaces on that. Goes with the original response.

Renjun

yes

Jeno

:D 

great i’ll pick you up

Renjun blows out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding. He shows the phone to Donghyuck, who swears in triumph and claps him on the back.

“Want me to do the eyeliner again? I can add glitter this time. Dude, you would look like such a hot mess.”

“No,” Renjun says, after thinking about it for a moment. “I think I’ll pass on the makeup from now on.”

Mark cheers. “Look at that! Jun’s finally confident about his face! I’m so proud!”

“Just eat your soup, ramen boy,” Renjun says, getting to his feet and pulling on a hoodie. (He tries to seem nonchalant, even if it’s obvious how he picked out his nicest hoodie, not just one of Donghyuck’s that is being used as a rug.) He goes to the door.

“I really am proud though,” Mark calls. “This is a good step.”

“Yeah, I know.” Renjun fixes the strings of his hoodie. “I’ll be back later tonight.”

“Or don’t,” Donghyuck pipes up. “Feel free to go tap some ass.”

“Fuck off,” Renjun says, shaking his head with a grin, before shutting the door behind him.

***

Jeno’s waiting for him down at the bottom of the building. Leaning against the side of his blue car, he kicks at the ground, messes with his phone—when Renjun raises his hand in greeting, his head snaps up and he smiles and puts his phone into his pocket.

Renjun gets closer, ignoring the hammering in his heart. He reminds himself to play this cool. He needs the molasses in his head to act as some semblance of a brain right now. “How’d you get here so fast?”

“I was in the area,” Jeno says. “Where do you wanna go?”

Renjun considers the question. He doesn’t really have an answer, even though he was technically the one to initiate the meeting in the first place. “Where do you want to go?”

“For ice cream,” Jeno says off the bat, then has the grace to look ashamed about suggesting dessert in lieu of actual food.

“I . . . well, I have a Baskin Robbins coupon,” Renjun offers.

By the way Jeno’s face lights up Renjun thinks he could afford to have ice cream instead of dinner every day for the rest of his life. 

They get in the car, Jeno behind the wheel and Renjun in the passenger’s seat. As they drive, Jeno makes small talk, asking how school’s going, what are his hobbies, what was the highlight of his week, does he have any weekend plans? Renjun normally can’t stand small talk, but he tries his best to keep an open mind and not come across as an asocial ass. The way to finesse this, he decides, is to respond honestly.

“My grades this year are abysmal. My hobbies include doing calligraphy late at night and surfing through Quora forums.” He pauses. What were the other questions again? “The highlight of my week was probably when my friend Mark finally realized that he’s been watering a fake plant for the past six months and that none of us told him. That was peak comedy.”

They pull up at a red light.

Renjun dares to glance over—only to find Jeno’s already looking at him, something funny in his gaze. His voice is faint. “Wow.”

“I’m sorry,” Renjun says quickly. “Did I scare you with those answers?”

“No, no. I just—six months?” Jeno shakes his head like a puppy fresh out of the bath. “That’s evil.”

“What can I say,” Renjun says. “I’m an evil guy.”

The light turns green and they start driving again.

Renjun isn’t sure how to keep the conversation going from here. He brings up something about school, talks about the difficult classes in his music major, then decides it maybe isn’t super attractive to bitch to your crush about your own lackluster IQ, and ends up sitting quietly and staring out the window. When he sneaks a peek at Jeno it looks like the other boy has tuned out a while ago—he’s drumming his fingers on the wheel and gazing vacantly at the road.

Renjun feels a pang. This isn’t how he wanted their first real conversation to go.

“You know,” he says, keeping his voice casual to hide the panic behind it, while also knowing that Jeno likely isn’t even listening to him at this point so fuck it he’s going to speak his mind, “if it were more socially acceptable, I’d take out my phone right now and google a WikiHow page on how to keep a conversation going. Maybe that’d help me out here.”

This seems to get through to Jeno. He blinks and sends Renjun another one of those slightly surprised looks. 

“Why? Don’t tell me—am I—” Jeno’s voice goes small, tentative. “Is it really obvious?”

“. . . Is what obvious?”

Jeno fidgets. “That I don’t socialize much and have a hard time carrying a conversation.” 

Renjun blinks. “What? No. The Wikihow page is for me.”

Jeno exhales. “Well, in that case, I don’t think you’re doing a bad job. It’s me who can’t come up with stuff to say—but I really am listening to all the things you’re talking about, I swear.”

“I was sort of very afraid I was boring you.”

“No!” Jeno sounds so adamant anyone could tell he’s being dead honest. “No. That’s just my face when I’m trying to concentrate on something. My professors always think I’m zoning out in class when I’m really just focusing hard.”

Oh. Oh.

The thought of Jeno focusing hard on being socially adept for Renjun’s benefit is so damn adorable it leaves Renjun speechless. 

Now armed with the reassuring knowledge that Jeno cares as much as he does about these sorts of things, Renjun knows he won’t have a problem loosening up. They pull up to the ice cream shop, Jeno holds the door open for the two of them, and Renjun buys a plain scoop of vanilla at which Jeno wrinkles his nose.

“Are you judging me for my ice cream preferences?” Renjun says, raising an eyebrow. “Because it definitely feels like it.”

“I am not,” Jeno says, but he emits a scandalized gasp when Renjun asks for his vanilla to be put in a cup. “You’re not supposed to eat it like that! The universe created waffle cones for a reason!”

Amused, Renjun watches as Jeno orders three scoops of ice cream: mint chip, strawberry sorbet, and cookie dough. It takes him an inordinate amount of time to select each flavor, and the whole time, his brow is furrowed and his lips are pursed, expressing the same degree of deep thought as an emperor selecting his squadron for World War 3. He rests his arms against the ice cream container; his sleeves are rolled up just past his elbows, and Renjun’s brain sort of fizzles out at the sight of his tanned forearms. 

Once Jeno has finally picked out his flavors (and added chocolate sprinkles and numerous gummy bears as toppings), he and Renjun sit down at a mini table. Jeno bites into his ice cream scoop with his teeth—he notices Renjun’s shudder and laughs a little. 

When Renjun’s done with his share of ice cream, he has nothing to do, so he props his chin up on his elbows and gazes at Jeno. He’s not even afraid of being caught staring—Jeno works through his dessert at a snail’s pace, paying it his utmost undivided attention.

“You’re eating that like it’s the most delicious thing ever,” Renjun observes.

Jeno grins, looks up, licks ice cream off his lower lip. “It’s my one indulgence. The only thing I can’t cut out of my diet.” 

“That’s nice,” Renjun says. He reminds himself not to think about Jeno’s tongue. Or his lip. Or the way that it’d run across his lip. “I was on a diet once.”

“Once?”

“Yeah, it lasted two hours.”

Jeno giggles. It’s a precious sound. “Mine’s lasted eight years.”

Renjun tucks his chin back. “Okay, that sounds fake.”

Jeno shakes his head and dives into an elaborate explanation of how his mom is a vegan yoga instructor and has been telling him his whole life to watch what he eats lest he get high cholesterol or high blood pressure or worse, a sweet tooth. He says that in an act of teenage rebellion he once ate a whole sleeve of Oreos, became hyper, ran a mile in four minutes, then threw up and passed out for four hours. It’s funny, and stupid, and Jeno tells the story with such enthusiasm that Renjun can’t help but laugh.

The whole time is surprisingly easy —which is saying something for Renjun, who has never been especially fast at making friends. On the way back home, Jeno turns on the radio. Out of the speakers drifts an outdated song from an obscure band. For a couple measures, he hums along under his breath, before stopping abruptly, casting a nervous look at Renjun and then back at the road.

Renjun feels offended. He’s a fucking music major—of course he knows this band, The Rose's vocalist is a legend.

The misunderstanding needs to be remedied. Renjun clears his throat and sings along too, a line of bright, pure harmony. Jeno startles, sending Renjun the third surprised look of the night. Renjun’s starting to think that he’s not the only one who had preconceptions about the type of people they were.

They sing the rest of the way home. Jeno’s baritone and Renjun’s tenor sound nothing short of glorious together.

***

Hanging out with Jeno becomes a regular thing. 

They go to the mall together, not to buy anything, just to try on strange and expensive hats and then laugh at each other. They take walks down at the beach and sit on the sand and talk about unimportant things and important things and school and alien conspiracies. They go to the library and procrastinate together. When one of them is in a musical mood, they hang out in Jeno’s dorm, share a set of Airpods, and sing together. Renjun thinks he could get drunk off the pleasure of his harmonies mingling with Jeno’s. 

As he gets to know Jeno, Renjun likes to think of him as a cinnamon roll: looks like a snack on the outside, is soft and squishy and sweet on the inside. There’s so many facets of his personality. The Renjun of a couple years ago probably would have lapped all this information up and organized it into a Kahoot shrine labeled Jeno Trivia—the Renjun of now is a changed man, though, so he just sits back and enjoys the process of discovering how his new friend ticks.

Jeno likes cats. His favorite color is blue. He still drinks banana milk for breakfast. He’s honest to a fault and isn’t great at picking up social cues in terms of knowing what to say or when to say it; it’s a type of awkwardness that isn’t really the cute type, not like the stuff written in the purposefully coy K-drama scripts. No, Jeno’s just plain awkward. But Renjun gets used to it, and in time, their dynamic becomes a comfortable one. 

Renjun tells him all about the sonder, about his unshakeable habit of speaking his thoughts out loud. Jeno confides that he’s insecure about his eyesight. He wears contact lenses so people don’t see him in his glasses— I look ugly when I wear them, that’s why, he complains to Renjun, who scowls and shakes his head and comes close to letting slip that he thinks there’s no way Jeno could ever be ugly ever.

Donghyuck and Mark hound Renjun for updates and developments on what goes on. Renjun has the sense to cringe at himself for excitedly telling his best friends every little detail—how Jeno is taller than him (a bitter truth), how today Jeno smiled at him exactly fourteen times, how Renjun feels like he could make a Powerpoint about all the things Jeno’s laugh does to him.

Donghyuck and Mark listen intently.

“And then he said my hair looked nice, and I said his looked nice too, and then we listened to Lauv’s new song and—”

Mark interrupts. “Wait, wait, wait. Did he say your hair looked nice or did he say your hair looked nice?”

Renjun blinks. “Uh. . .”

“Like, nice nice or nice nice. There’s a difference, you know.”

“There is?”

“Of course there is!” Donghyuck glares. “You have to pick up on these things! Is he complimenting you because he thinks you’re cute? Or does he just think of you as a platonic dude friend?”

Renjun feels vaguely as if Donghyuck has just doused him in a bucket of ice-cold water. “Oh. I. I don’t . . . know.”

Mark groans. “You said you two hung out in Jeno’s dorm today, right? Were you alone?”

“Jaemin showed up halfway through. Jeno said that they had plans to go out for dinner after I left.”

Donghyuck and Mark trade a look.

“What?” Renjun asks. 

“You know what,” Mark says, and leaves it at that.

The bad part is that Renjun really does know what. 

***

“I wish I could have blackout curtains in my heart,” Renjun remarks one afternoon. He and Jeno are taking a walk in the park, drinking pumpkin spice lattes, because yes Renjun’s a cruel realist and prides himself on being anti-mainstream but he’s also allowed to indulge in overpriced trendy drinks when he wants to. Especially if he’s with Jeno. (Honestly, Jeno is just Renjun’s biggest indulgence.)

“Blackout curtains?” Jeno says. “You mean, like, your heart isn’t already dark enough?”

Renjun gives a gasp. “That sounds like something Donghyuck would say. You spend way too much time around him.”

Jeno chuckles. “Hey! Hyuck is charismatic. I think if I were just a little more like him, I wouldn’t be as single as I am.”

The words set Renjun’s heart aflame. He stills. Same here, he wants to say.

If he were just a little bit more like Hyuck (more like just about anyone, just less of himself)—he’d be better. Better at life, better at love. Less of an emotional train wreck and less hung up on his own shitty inferiority complex. Maybe it’d be enough to tell Jeno exactly how he feels—how his smile turns his insides into gelatin, how he wants to keep Jeno safe in his pocket the way you press rare wildflowers between the pages of a book, and how he loves (loves) the everlasting shit out of him in a way that being just friends could never be halfway close to enough.

But Renjun is not Hyuck. Renjun is Renjun. 

A Second Lead™. 

“I wish I had blackout curtains,” he finally says, “so that people wouldn’t be able to look into my heart.”

Jeno stops walking. He takes a long sip of his latte, peering at Renjun over the brim of the cup. 

Renjun stops walking too. “What?” 

“Nothing,” Jeno says. “Just. Do you have a bad history with people seeing into your heart?”

“No?” Renjun says. “No. Quite the opposite. I doubt anyone’s ever tried.”

“Then what’s with the depressing talk about the curtains?”

“Depressing talk is my number one personality trait," Renjun quips. 

Jeno lowers his cup. “Jun. . .”

“Okay fine, I know, I know,” Renjun says, waving his arm. His latte sloshes but somehow doesn’t spill. “You don’t like it when I talk about sad things. Sorry.”

“Wait, no, I don’t mind you telling me about the things you go through,” Jeno says. “I’m just upset because—what do you mean, no one’s ever tried seeing into your heart? What about me? I count, don’t I?”

“Yeah.” A bout of hysterical laughter bubbles up in Renjun, and he tries to tamp it down. “Yeah, but it’s not like you’re my boyfriend or anything. You can’t—can’t help me with my loneliness, not in that way.”

Jeno scratches the back of his neck. “I . . . Well, I guess, if we’re talking about the romance department. But it’s not like you need romance to be happy. You’ll find someone someday.”

Renjun presses his lips together tight. He doesn’t want a someone, someday. He wants Jeno. Today. Every day. 

“Yeah,” is all he says.

Jeno nudges him with a smile. “So cheer up a little, will you? Don’t make me resort to dancing to Twice’s Cheer Up or something.”

“You wouldn’t,” Renjun says, certain Jeno wouldn’t want to embarrass himself in front of all the other people in the park right now.

“Is that a challenge?” Jeno places his coffee cup on the nearby bench. “Hell, I know the whole choreography. I’ll do it, right here. Watch me.”

"You wouldn't . . ." Renjun says again, eyeing him, but then Jeno legitimately starts to begin to dance and Renjun lunges for him. “No! Stop! Please!” He grabs Jeno’s arms, pinning them to his sides. “You’re going to make a scene.”

“I’m okay with that,” Jeno says gamely. Eyes sparkling, he tilts his head down at Renjun. “Look, it worked. You’re smiling.”

“Only because you’re a laughable idiot,” Renjun mutters, pushing him away. 

“And I’m okay with that, too,” Jeno says, retrieving his coffee from the bench. “I’ll be your idiot if it makes you smile. Sounds worthwhile.”

Renjun stiffens at that, and keeps his gaze on the ground as they start off again. His words echo in Renjun’s mind: someone, someday. Renjun can’t believe Jeno has the audacity to call himself Renjun’s when he all but admitted that he doesn’t see Renjun as an option in the "romance department."

They finish their walk, toss their coffee cups in the recycle can.

That night in bed, Renjun hugs his Moomin pillow pet to his chest and listens to the playlist he and Jeno made of all the songs they like.

He scrolls past R&B tracks, past mellow indie beats, past the jazz singles. He settles on a song, listens to the first half minute, then skips to the next one, only to become restless and leapfrog his way through almost the entire playlist before giving up. 

He rips out his earbuds, sits up in bed, stares out the window into the moonless sky.

You’re not even a Second Lead in Jeno’s life, whispers a scathing voice. You’re a background prop. 

He climbs out of bed and busies himself by cleaning up the dorm, taking care not to wake his roommates. He organizes his colored pencils. Tosses Donghyuck’s used makeup wipes into the trash. Plugs Mark’s laptop into its charging port. Digs underneath his own bed for a new pack of granola bars and eats two of them, then trudges to the bathroom to brush his teeth. As he’s squeezing out the toothpaste, he tries not to make eye contact with himself in the mirror—inevitably, he fails. 

Staring at his reflection, he sees a chubby, acne-scarred face that probably needs one hell of a touch-up. 

His heart sinks. Don’t be a basic bitch who succumbs to body dysmorphia, he tries to tell himself, but what can he say? He’s a basic bitch with body dysmorphia. Always has been. 

He turns off the bathroom lights so that he can finish brushing his teeth in darkness where he doesn’t have to see his reflection. When he reenters his dorm room, he puts his earbuds back in and lies back down on his bed. He switches to a different playlist. This one is full of sad songs.

***

It’s Valentine’s Day again. 

Renjun tries not to grumble too much when his friends drag him outside to the movies again with Jeno’s group of friends. He wants to point out that going to the movies is a redundant activity—it’s just a sad repetition of last year, and since then, nothing significant in Renjun’s love life has changed. If anything, it serves as a brutal reminder that he’s a Lost Cause and should erase Jeno’s name from his To-Do list.

“Don’t be such a downer,” Donghyuck says. “Wait. Do you actually have a To-Do list?”

Renjun hides his sheet of Sumikko Gurashi stationery. “No.”

“The movie will be fun,” Mark tries. He sends Renjun a meaningful look. They’re in the car right now, on the way to the theater, and there are rain clouds brewing outside the window that Renjun has been staring at for the past ten minutes.

“Hey Jun. Jeno texted me.”

“Oh. Did he?” Renjun tries his best to sound casual.

Mark sees right through him. “Yeah, he wants to know why you’re avoiding him. I didn’t know you were avoiding him. Did he fuck something up?”

“No. And I’m not avoiding him,” Renjun says, as if he hasn’t just been gazing at those rain clouds and thinking about how the last time he and Jeno hung out was when they’d gone cloud watching three weeks ago. Three weeks is an unprecedented amount of time, especially since they’ve been literally spending time together as often as possible for a full year now.

Since the cloud watching, Jeno reached out a couple times to ask if he was free, to which Renjun always responded with a sorry idk maybe next time. Jeno would send a flurry of sad chicken gifs, until finally giving up and leaving Renjun alone. 

“So then what’s going on between you two?” Mark asks.

“It’s . . . it’s me, not him,” Renjun says, and it’s truthful. These days, his melancholic Spotify playlist is constantly on his most-played shelf. He can’t shake the feeling of not being good enough. He genuinely feels like he just isn’t—he isn’t the material to be someone’s number one. At night he lies awake and counts his flaws: not brave enough. Not smart enough. Not sweet enough or or handsome enough or just enough in general.

“Are you playing hard to get?”

Renjun slants him a look. “I’m not that type of guy.”

“You’re right, you’re not.” Mark purses his lips. “Let me think. Hyuck, help me think.”

“Naw,” Donghyuck says, not looking up from his phone. “Gotta ace this game of Cupcakes 2048.”

Mark rolls his eyes. They ride in silence for the next couple minutes, until they pull into the theater parking lot. 

“I don’t know what’s going on with you and Jeno,” Mark finally says, parking the car, “but I think I need to get you two to sit beside each other tonight so you can talk things out.”

After going in and buying snacks, they find their way to their auditorium and settle down in front of the screen. In a couple minutes, Jisung, Chenle, and Jaemin show up, Jeno in tow. But before Mark can say anything to bully Jeno into sitting beside Renjun, Jeno slips into the seat on Renjun’s left.

Renjun startles and his shoulders shrink on instinct.

“Jun, have you been ghosting me?” Jeno asks immediately. 

Renjun purses his lips. He takes in the other boy’s serious, worried gaze. Jeno has probably spent a lot of time thinking about this question and preparing ways to say it—all at once, Renjun feels like a shitty friend. He's supposed to keep Jeno from being anxious, not be the reason why Jeno is anxious.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because he is. “I . . . just had some personal business to take care of.”

It’s a half-answer. Jeno’s face falls when Renjun doesn’t elaborate. “Oh. Okay. I understand.” He visibly casts about for something to say. “Can I share your Icee with you?”

Renjun blinks, then looks down at the cherry-flavored slushie sitting in his cup holder. He laughs, a thin sound, and flicks Jeno’s baseball cap. “In your dreams. Get your own.”

“But I’m broke,” Jeno wheedles, and grabs for it. Renjun tries to defend his precious cup of calories, but his elbow accidentally hits the brim of Jeno’s cap and knocks it to the floor.

And holy shit. He freezes in his tracks at the sight of Jeno’s now-exposed hair—it was brown last time they’d hung out, but right now it’s peroxide blond. Heartbreaker blond. Last Valentine Day’s blond. 

Jeno seizes the moment of Renjun’s defenselessness and snatches the Icee. He tucks the straw into his mouth and sucks up a long, sinful sip.

When he notices Renjun staring, he asks, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Renjun manages. He takes in Jeno’s whole outfit: dark blue denim, form-fitting and crisp and as gorgeous as if it belonged to some contemporary Disney prince. He gulps.

Jeno is so out of his league.

The movie starts and Renjun turns away, resolving to stare at the screen and not think about how that Icee dyes Jeno’s lips a dark, pretty red. Halfway through the film, he fails in his mission, and steals one— just one , he promises beforehand—glance at him. The blond has his wide eyes fixed on the movie screen as he absently chews the tip of the straw. He leans over to whisper something to Jaemin, who’s sitting on his other side—Jaemin laughs and whispers something back, then rests his head on Jeno’s shoulder.

Renjun tears his gaze away. 

Before he knows what he’s doing, he’s quietly standing up, heading out of the aisle, and walking down the ramp to the exit door. Jeno doesn’t call for him. That, or he just doesn’t notice he’s gone. Renjun leaves the theater quietly, stepping out into a humid evening that pounds with a heavy drizzle.

He has no umbrella. He has the feeling that even if he had one, though, he wouldn’t feel inclined to use it. He hugs his arms and starts off down the street.

***

He walks around the block eight times. 

He’s not sure why he does it. It was a stupid idea. (Then again, he has always been good at going along with stupid ideas.) As he walks, he doesn’t bother with the pretense of acting like he has somewhere to be—he just walks and walks and ignores the strange looks that other passersby send his way. He wonders if any of them wonder what his story is. If any of them feel sonder when they see him.

There have probably been several million cases of broken hearts in this world, Renjun thinks. Just like the several million stars in the sky, burning trivially, interminably, all in vain for some future that won’t happen. He is just another one of those stars buried in an endless galaxy of conventionalism.

The thought of being a cliché is more uncomfortable to Renjun than the sensation of being drenched in rain. By the time he’s on his ninth loop back to the theater, the movie has already ended, and Jeno’s hovering by the front doors, peering out into the street with his brow furrowed and his fingers drumming against his phone. He looks like he’s waiting for someone. 

No, you fool, it’s not you he’s waiting for, Renjun thinks inwardly. Don’t delude yourself.

But it’s so unfortunately easy to let himself fantasize that it is. Especially when Jeno catches sight of him and straightens, putting away his phone. As soon as he gets close he takes Renjun's arm and pulls him underneath the safety of the canopy— “Where have you been? You totally disappeared. You didn’t answer my calls.”

“I . . . Uh, I needed some fresh air, that’s all.”

Now. Now is when he should walk away from Jeno. Say good night, save himself the double-sided torture of being in Jeno’s presence during this moment of misery and fatigue. He’s technically still supposed to be avoiding him, at least until he figures out how to deal with his inferiority complex. 

But Jeno—he’s wearing that outfit, that navy denim jacket with those navy jeans, and it’s making him look badass, even though the look in his eyes right now as he gazes at Renjun is anything but badass. It’s sweet, and confused, and gentle. Like a puppy. Renjun can’t walk away.

“Are you okay?” Jeno asks softly.

No, Renjun thinks.

Jeno frowns and Renjun wants to kick whoever it is that put that frown there—before he realizes that it was him, because he’d spoken out loud and couldn’t keep his damn thoughts to himself.

“You’re dripping wet,” Jeno says, and takes off his jacket. He’s wearing a white tank top underneath. 

Alarm bells go off. Renjun has no mental capacity for Jeno wearing a sleeveless muscle tee. His thoughts, for once secured safely in his mind, are frantic: Jeno fuck you you’re making it worse please stop you’re making it so much fucking worse please just stop —

Jeno tucks the jacket around Renjun’s shoulders, then buttons it up. When he’s done, he leans back to survey his work, and smiles.

“I’m trapped,” Renjun protests, showing how his arms are now pinned to his sides. The empty jacket sleeves flop about.

“We’re both trapped,” Jeno points out. He gestures to the canopy above them. It’s made of plastic, and they can see raindrops glistening on its clear surface. “The rain might not let up for another half hour or so.”

Renjun grimaces. “We could make a run for it? I’ll hold your jacket over the both of us.”

“That sounds like you took it from a K-drama.”

“I did take it from a K-drama.”

“The jacket would get drenched, wouldn’t it?”

“True,” Renjun says thoughtfully. “But I’m already drenched as it is anyway. I’d have nothing to lose if I just walked home in the rain.”

“No,” Jeno says. “No. I say no. You'd get sick. That sounds like a bad idea.”

“It sounds like a sad idea,” Renjun corrects. “Another K-drama trope. The sad heartbroken wannabe tsundere trudges to his house all alone on Valentine’s Day and stays up all night trying to get drunk off his roommate’s supply of vodka. But he can’t, because he’s got such a damn high alcohol tolerance. It really isn’t as much of a gift as people make it out to be, you know—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Jeno interrupts, “why are you the sad heartbroken wannabe tsundere?”

“Would you rather have the role, then?”

“No, I—just, who broke your heart?”

Renjun blows out a long breath. He searches Jeno’s face for a long moment, trying to gauge if Jeno is asking the question because he’s being an asshole or because he honestly doesn’t know the answer. (There’s no way in hell that he doesn’t know the answer.) (Unless he doesn’t.) (Because he’s Jeno fucking Lee, who is incapable of being an asshole.) 

Renjun gets distracted by just how perfect Jeno’s face is, which makes him forget what he was searching for in it, so he turns away and looks out at the rainy street, wondering if his life really is just a bad romcom. One where he’s destined to rot as the laughable sidekick for the saga of Jeno and Jaemin’s star-crossed romance. Figures, he thinks.

“Figures what?” Jeno says.

“This. You. Me.” Renjun waves his arms. “Also, is it bad that I’m not even surprised anymore by how people can hear my thoughts?”

“No,” Jeno says. “That’s normal. But what’s out of the ordinary is how weird you’ve been acting lately, Jun. You don't answer my texts even if I send you cute gifs, you were acting really tense during the movie, and you even let me take your Icee. Your 5-dollar Icee. We're broke college students and don't have that sort of money to spare. So that's why I'm asking: are you okay?”

It’s the second time he’s asked this question. Renjun has the sudden urge to look him dead in the eyes and say no, and then say not unless you kiss me, and then wait for him to kiss him, and then get impatient and do it himself. 

If Renjun could kiss him, even once, just once —maybe it would fix everything. Get this stupid crush out of his system. It’s also the most he could ask for: a single makeout session in the rain like a proper doomed romance story, and then Renjun would have the willpower to disappear from Jeno’s life, vanish as if he’s never been there in the first place. Maybe one day, all he would be to Jeno is a memory, tucked away in a mental file folder named Odd Encounters With Nobodies.

But, doing that would make Renjun sort of an asshole. He made it his business to only be an asshole to other assholes. Which Jeno was not.

In his back pocket, Renjun’s phone buzzes. He digs it out. It’s a bit of a struggle, considering how his arms are pinned to his sides by Jeno’s jacket, but he eventually manages it.

“Hello?”

“It’s me,” says Mark. “Where are you?”

“Dead in a ditch. Why?”

“Renjun," Mark complains.

“I’ll take him home,” Jeno speaks up, leaning close to the phone so Mark can hear him. “Once the rain lets up.”

“Oh! Jeno!” Mark sounds pleased, and now Renjun really wants to go crawl in a ditch and lay there for two or three forevers. “Okay, no problem. Feel free to take Renjun back to your place, if you want, I wouldn’t mind.”

“No, wait,” Renjun says (whines). “Mark, what if I’d mind?” 

“But you wouldn’t,” Mark says, and there’s a shit-eating grin in his voice.

Renjun scoffs. “I can’t believe this. I hate you.”

“You know you love me,” Mark laughs, before Renjun jams his thumb so hard against the end call button it’s possible he sprained it.

“Aha,” Jeno says, in the silence after the call is disconnected, and there’s a tone of realization in his voice that makes Renjun’s hairs stand on end.

“Aha what?”

“I get it,” Jeno says, again with that tone, “I think I finally understand now.”

“Understand what?”

“Mark,” Jeno says. “He’s the one. Who broke your heart.”

Renjun’s eyes grow so wide they hurt. Jeno looks as if he’s just solved the world’s largest Rubik’s Cube. 

“What,” Renjun begins, but Jeno cuts him off.

“It makes sense! Mark keeps trying to set you up with me, and you keep getting upset at him for it, and you’re heartbroken because he doesn’t see how much you care about him, and . . .” Jeno trails off. “Okay. Uh, judging by the look on your face, I’ve got it wrong.”

“Yes,” Renjun says. His voice is faint. “Yes, you’ve got it wrong.”

“But then who is it?” Jeno looks lost. “There’s Donghyuck, but he’s too busy playing video games to break people’s hearts, and there’s Chenle, but he’s like, twelve years old. And that’s all the people I can come up with, in terms of your friend group—”

“If you’re trying to point out that I only have like two friends, you’re doing great.”

“Who is it?” Jeno says urgently. “Who is it that’s making you not okay?”

Renjun wants to laugh. “Why do you wanna know?”

“I . . .” Jeno presses his lips together, thinking. “I don’t know. I could punch him.” He curls his hands into his fists. “Yeah, I’d punch him for you.”

“You’d get hurt.”

“My knuckles will heal.”

Renjun frowns. “You’d only hurt yourself.”

“Come on, is the guy really that ripped?” Jeno glances self-consciously down at his arms, flexes one of his biceps— oh lord, Renjun thinks— “I think I could take him. I work out.”

“No. I’m not letting you lay a finger on him.”

Jeno looks up, eyes wide. “Oh. Okay. Um.” He swallows. “Sorry.”

Oh my God Jeno, Renjun thinks.

“Yes?” Jeno says.

Are you even real?

“Yes,” Jeno says, uncertainly.

You’re so soft, but so hot, that’s not fair.

Jeno’s voice cracks. “You think I’m hot?”

Renjun steps closer. The alarm bells in his head are still going off as the seconds tick by, but fuck it—if he’s going to be a second lead, then he’s at least going to go down swinging. I wish you’d be a little bit more of an asshole, just so I could be sorry about doing . . . this.

“Doing what?” Jeno whispers.

Renjun stands on his toes. This.

“Renjun—”

 Renjun tilts his head and kisses him on the mouth. 

Jeno releases a small, unintelligible noise, and Renjun soaks in the sound, nudging their faces closer. Jeno’s lips are cool, soft—he kisses back, and Renjun captures his lips the way he has been dying to all this time, all these painful, want-ridden days. 

And then Jeno’s mouth opens underneath him and Renjun has no more thoughts. 

When they finally pull back, Jeno’s eyes are still shut. They flutter open with a dazed look.

“Wow,” he breathes.

“I’ll take a wow,” Renjun concedes, going back in for another kiss. This time, he’s less chaste, more daring—he wants to see if he can taste the lingering flavor of the cherry Icee. He drags his tongue across Jeno’s bottom lip, and Jeno responds, leaning in with a soft groan. A groan.

Renjun’s decided he’s had enough of his arms being trapped in this denim jacket. “It’d be great if you could unbutton this coat, babe,” he murmurs against the corner of Jeno’s mouth, and then Jeno’s deft fingers are undoing the buttons, one by one. 

The jacket falls to the ground. A shiver runs through Renjun’s body, but not because of the cold. His arms are finally free—he reaches up, cups Jeno’s face in both hands, and kisses him harder, deeper.

Jeno jerks back. “Wait.” He’s breathing hard. “We can’t.”

The words snap the wings of the fluttering bird in Renjun’s heart. 

“Why not?"

“I still don’t know who it is,” Jeno says, “that you’re in love with. And I don’t really want to be your rebound, you know, no matter how much I like you or how good of a kisser you are—”

Renjun bursts out laughing. Jeno falls silent and looks at him, eyes wide in hurt and confusion. He really is just a puppy.

“You idiot,” Renjun manages.

When Jeno still doesn’t get it, Renjun reaches down and takes Jeno’s hand. He curls Jeno’s fingers into a fist. Jeno blinks cluelessly and Renjun lightly uses Jeno’s fist to punch its owner in the chest. 

“There,” he says. 

And he sees it come together in Jeno’s head. 

“It’s—fuck.” He looks starstruck. “ Fuck, wait, Renjun, it’s—it’s me—”

“Don’t worry,” Renjun says, “kiss me more and my heart will be all healed up.”

Immediately Jeno surges forward, kissing Renjun as if his life depends on it, and Renjun laughs against his mouth at his earnesty. There’s no telling how long they stand there, alone on a street on a rainy evening when the rest of the city is asleep or indoors. It’s achingly romantic, but in a thrilling, delightful way, because finally Renjun thinks he’s starting to understand what it’s like to be the main lead of the drama that is his life.

“I can’t believe . . .” he murmurs between kisses, “that you thought . . . I liked . . . Mark.”

Jeno huffs a chuckle. “Yours truly.”

It’s an eon before they pull apart. Jeno’s arm is warm around Renjun’s waist, and the starlight of his grin makes Renjun feel limitless. Jeno presses a kiss to his nose, then his forehead—for once, Renjun isn’t bitter because of their height difference. He’s the perfect height for forehead kisses from Jeno.

“How long have you liked me?” Jeno murmurs.

Renjun hums. “Since fourth grade, more or less.”

Jeno makes a cute sound of disbelief. “What? Why have you never said anything about it?”

“Well, why have you never noticed it?” 

Jeno seems like he’s going to make a retort, before he deflates, giving Renjun an apologetic look with big round eyes so sincere it sort of makes up for all these years Renjun has spent pining all alone.

“But anyway, it doesn’t matter,” he says. “It’s only been a year since I’ve actually gotten to know you for who you are as a person—you know, as a Jeno Lee, not as an idol in a painting I owned.”

Another kiss on the forehead. “I wouldn’t mind if you owned me,” Jeno whispers. “Remember when I told you that you looked like you were constantly mentally composing a poem?”

“Yeah,” Renjun says softly.

“I think I was wrong. I think you were the poem all along.”

Renjun blinks, then breaks into a smile. “I love that.” He slips his arms around Jeno’s neck and hugs him as hard as he can, harder and harder and harder. His heart is a hurricane of happiness—he knows Jeno can feel it, beating rapidly like a runaway bird in the space between their chests. Renjun can feel Jeno's fast pulse too. “And to think I thought you were in love with Jaemin.”

At that, Jeno pulls away.

“In love with Jaemin?” 

Renjun’s cheeks grow warm. “Hey, it’s valid. He and you are always cuddling and stuff—hey, don’t laugh at me.”

“I’m not laughing at you.” Jeno is definitely laughing at him. “Oh my God. Jaemin? I—hell no. He’s like, my brother or some shit.” He leans down to kiss Renjun with that smile. “I can cuddle you instead from now on, if you want.”

Renjun nods emphatically, and Jeno giggles, that precious golden sound that Renjun wants to bottle up in a mason jar so he can replay it on dark days. Except maybe from now on, there will be less dark days. He might even delete his sad ballad Spotify playlist.

“The rain’s stopped,” Jeno eventually comments. “We should head home.”

“Yeah,” Renjun says. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“I don’t know, though.” Jeno peeks at him. “I kind of want ice cream?”

And it’s lunacy to have ice cream at eleven in the evening right after a rainstorm, but Renjun’s always been a bit fond of lunacy (and more than a bit fond of Jeno), so he just smiles and says, “Alright, but you’re paying.” 

And when they sit across a cafe table, sharing a single chocolate sundae with small silver spoons, Renjun feels an acute sense of deja vu. He wonders how many times he’s sat at a cafe alone and gazed at a happy couple sharing desserts. How many times the sonder-ridden strings of his heart have yearned for a day when he might too find solace in another person’s smile. 

“What’s on your mind?” Jeno asks, poking Renjun with the handle of his spoon. 

“I'm just . . . thinking.”

“Think out loud for me,” Jeno says. “I like it when you do that.”

Renjun sends him a smile. “You know, you’re the first person who’s ever told me that. I think everyone else is afraid of my brain.”

“I fucking love your brain.” He reaches for Renjun’s hand, lifts it up, and brushes his lips across the shorter boy’s knuckles. “And I love you.”

Renjun scrunches his nose, but all it does is sweeten his smile. “You corny dummy.” My dummy.

“Yours,” Jeno agrees, pressing a searing kiss against the inside of Renjun’s wrist.

And I love you too.

Jeno looks up, grins like a giddy puppy. “It feels so good to finally hear you say that.”

“Yes. Now kiss me properly,” Renjun says, leaning across the table.

Jeno meets him halfway. The kiss tastes like ice cream, chocolate syrup, and home.