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Jeon Kwangsun learnt the secret to a quiet high school career quickly: don’t make waves. He is perfectly average. Smack bang in the middle of the cohort, grades-wise, fit but not breaking any records in gym class, and known by name to teachers for the simple reason that he’s there every day and nothing more. His mother tuts when she says “average” but Kwangsun likes to think of it as a survival tool.
So he saw Yeon Sieun’s descent into freefall the second he stood up to Jeon Youngbin, and the freefall only sped up when he took out that pen. By extension, he knew that Ahn Suho had sealed his fate the minute he got involved.
Granted, Kwangsun didn’t think it would end like this . One day Sieun and Suho are attached at the hip, and the next Suho is gone, and Sieun loses his mind, attacks a bunch of people, and shows far more emotion than anyone is used to seeing on his face.
Then Sieun is also gone, and Kwangsun settles back into his average existence, thinking that’s the end of that. What seems to be one classmate dead and another shipped to Juvie. At least it’ll be a fun anecdote for university parties.
Well, his average existence must be killing off some brain cells because he’s stupidly surprised when he walks into homeroom on a nondescript Monday a few months later to find the aforementioned duo sitting in their seats like nothing happened. Of course—Kwangsun forgot that Yeon Sieun isn’t only crazy but is incredibly determined. Nothing is getting in the way of his grades.
Not even attempted murder, apparently.
He sort of stops and blinks like an idiot until his friend Baekhyun—another contender for most average student of the year—shoves him harshly.
“Stop looking at them like they’re zoo animals; Sieun will eat you alive,” he hisses.
Probably true, Sieun definitely strikes him as a biter. If he’s being honest (with himself, at least), Kwangsun was afraid of Sieun long before he almost murdered a bunch of their classmates. Something about those cold, expressionless eyes, complete monotony, and penchant for frosty silence set his nerves on edge. He’s surprised Suho’s nervous system isn’t in shambles being friends with him.
Then again, Ahn Suho seems to be his own breed of terrifying. It’s probably a good thing they paired off together.
Kwangsun follows Baekhyun’s advice and sits at his desk. It gives him a perfect view of the domino effect of other students following his reaction—one freezes and is subsequently shoved by another, who freezes, and so on and so forth. It seems nobody was expecting them back, which eases Kwangsun’s worry that he was genuinely that oblivious to the goings-on around him.
To be fair, Kwangsun is pretty sure he heard that Suho was dead , and he’s not sure at all why Sieun is allowed back at Byuksan. He’d definitely heard rumours of a transfer to Eukjang of all places, but apparently that either fell through or was never happening in the first place. He’s not sure if the rumours of him smashing some guy’s ankle are true, but he witnessed the debacle with the fire extinguisher. He’s shocked Junghoon and Sungbin survived it with no apparent brain damage. He’s even more shocked that Sieun bypassed Juvie entirely.
(“The rumours are definitely true,” Baekhyun whispers to him later. “The guy was an MMA fighter on YouTube. He’s disappeared off the face of the Earth and hasn't even been back to school.”
“Maybe he actually killed him,” their friend Seokmin jokes.
Baekhyun hits him around the head. “Dude, not funny!”)
The class is strangely unsettled, like a predator has been introduced into the ecosystem. Even their homeroom teacher, when she arrives, seems on edge.
Sieun then immediately establishes his place back as top of the class, despite the seemingly several-month-long break from schooling, and Suho falls asleep again. Things tick back into order.
Kwangsun stares at them all the way through the day into gym class, aware that he’s being a bit creepy but seemingly unable to stop. He’s sweating through his clothes after finishing the mile run in average time—though if he’s being honest, he could probably do it faster, but that would disrupt his carefully calculated Average Position and that’s not worth the risk.
Sieun is still running. Evidently all the fights he got into did little for his stamina.
“Didn’t that guy die?” Seokmin laments beside him. “How is he still outrunning us all?”
Seokmin, of course, is not referring to Sieun, who looks about ready to keel over and die. No, he’s referring to Suho, who finished his mile in record time and then lapped again, keeping pace with Sieun, who is almost —almost— at the finish line. Suho appears to be doing his best imitation of a cheerleader as he jogs backward.
Show off.
“Probably through the sheer willpower of Yeon Sieun,” he replies. “I bet he manifested him right out of that coma.”
Baekhyun snorts beside him and starts chatting to Seokmin about Sieun’s supposed semi-permanent residency at the hospital the past few months, gossip that normally Kwangsun would be all over.
He isn’t paying attention, though, because Sieun and Suho have finally come close enough to the finish line that he can hear their conversation.
“Go, Sieun! Go, Sieun!” Suho’s chanting. He mimes using pom-poms. “You can do it!”
Sieun’s jog slows to a brisk walk. “You’re embarrassing,” he says.
“Ah, come on,” Suho says, playfully swinging an arm around Sieun’s—probably horribly sweaty—shoulders. “Run this last bit, and we can start tomorrow’s run at 7am instead of 6.”
Suho does seem like the type to go on disgustingly early morning runs. He’s so glad he’s not friends with him—what a cruel and unusual way to thank the guy who beat up the guys who tried to kill you.
“I run this last bit, and we skip tomorrow,” Sieun proposes.
Suho signs dramatically. “Fine. But only if you cook for me when we get home.”
Sieun rolls his eyes and shoves Suho’s arm off, speeding up into what probably isn’t a run but is definitely faster than his previous walk.
“I’ll take that as a yes!” Suho shouts after him.
Kwangsun blinks. Home?
He’s fairly certain they don’t live together.
… Do they?
-
He doesn’t mean to make it a habit to listen in on their conversations. In his defence, they don’t seem to have any concept of privacy these days anyway, and it’s not his fault that their voices carry. Their stupid little table in the lunchroom has been reclaimed, which just so happens to be next to the table he, Baekhyun, and Seokmin sit at. Kwangsun chews his food idly, an ear open to his friends’ inane rambling and another open to the conversation going on at the next table. He seems to have missed the start, so it’s quite a contextless conversation.
“Sieun-ah, come on,” Suho says, whining.
“No.”
“It’s really not that important,” Suho continues. “I’m fine now!” He hits himself lightly in the head. “See, all in one piece.”
Sieun glares at him and drags his hand back down to the table. “No.”
“Ah, Yeon Sieun,” Suho sighs. “You’re so stubborn.” He ruins his illusion of being upset by immediately stuffing as much food in his mouth as possible.
Sieun is unfazed, though he always looks that way.
“They hurt you. They should pay for it,” he says. His grip on his metal chopsticks is getting progressively tighter, and part of Kwangsun wonders if they’re about to find a home in somebody’s flesh.
Suho doesn’t seem concerned. “I think you made them pay plenty, hmm?”
Kwangsun is pretty sure this is about the people who beat up Suho. To be honest, it’s even irking him how cavalier Suho is about the entire thing. He’s not a violent person, but Kwangsun is sure he could channel Sieun-levels of violence if somebody dared to do that to one of his friends.
“Not enough,” is Sieun’s response.
Suho sighs, sounding aggravated. “If they’re charged, then what you did will come out, and you’ll be charged,” he says, frustrated. It seems like an argument they’ve had a lot. “You shouldn’t ruin your future for this.”
Sieun shrugs. “I don’t care.”
“I do!” Suho says, voice raised. Some of the chatter around them dies down until a pointed look from Sieun has everybody pretending they didn’t hear anything.
“I care,” Suho continues, his voice sounding a bit weaker.
Sieun’s shoulders drop, and his vice grip on the chopsticks relaxes until they’re put down completely. He grasps Suho’s hand gently on top of the table.
Kwangsun is a little thrown off by that. Yeon Sieun always seemed like the kind of guy who’d rather stick his hand in boiling water than engage in physical affection. Yet, here he is not only engaging but actually initiating . Ahn Suho is a miracle worker.
“I know,” he says. “I gave them back what they gave you.”
Kwangsun thinks that might be Sieun’s way of saying he cares too.
“What if they’d killed me?” Suho asks.
Sieun gives him a pointed look.
“Permanently,” Suho amends.
Judging by the way Sieun’s grip on his hand tightens, he doesn’t like that question very much. “I’d have killed them,” he says simply.
Kwangsun goes cold all over. He has absolutely no doubt in his mind that Sieun is telling the truth. In all honesty, he’s surprised no one did die, and there’s a sneaking suspicion in his mind that Sieun wasn’t exactly all too concerned about keeping them alive at the time.
“Ah, Sieun-ah, so intense,” Suho says, acting as if Sieun gave him a compliment rather than admitting intent to commit homicide. “You should eat.”
Sieun wiggles his fingers, which are still enlaced with Suho’s. “My hand seems to be preoccupied.”
Suho feeds Sieun from his own chopsticks instead. It’s nothing Kwangsun hasn’t done himself with his own friends, but something about the way they do it feels different.
It feels much more intimate than when Baekhyun shoves food into his mouth when he’s not looking. There’s certainly never been any hand-holding involved in those situations. He looks away, suddenly feeling a bit like he’s intruding.
“Back with us?” Baekhyun teases when he refocuses on the table. “Looks like someone has a crush.”
Kwangsun pokes him in his side. “Shut up,” he says, face traitorously flushing. “They’re just interesting to watch.”
Seokmin mimes kissy faces at him from across the table. Bastard.
His face refuses to calm down as he takes a large mouthful of rice to avoid talking. It probably is weird that he’s staring so much. He’s surprised Sieun and Suho haven’t noticed and called him out on it, but he’s probably lucky that they’re too tied up with each other to notice anything else.
Still, he makes a promise to himself there and then that he’ll be normal about them for the rest of the day.
-
As fate would have it, the promise is, of course, broken within the first 5 minutes of their next class. Kwangsun flips open his notebook only to see that it isn’t his, as identified by a drawing of Suho staring back at him. Looks like his talents with a pen are wide-ranging.
It’s quite good, actually, obviously drawn by someone who knows him well—it feels almost intimate to have Suho smiling at him like that. That narrows down the culprit to exactly one person. A few more flips through the book show that it doesn’t seem to have any schoolwork at all, just sketches of Ahn Suho in various stages of detail and completion. Kwangsun’s cheeks burn a little.
He flips the book shut to check the name even though he’s fairly confident of its owner.
‘Yeon Sieun. ’ It even has a little heart doodle.
As expected.
He’s not sure how or why the mix-up happened, but there’s a creeping sense of dread setting in when he realises he now has to go up and talk to Sieun. Kwangsun doesn’t think he’s done anything to warrant being stabbed with a pen, but maybe flipping through the book was an invasion of privacy. Maybe he’s going to end the day in the ER.
It would probably be worse to keep it, though, and he really needs his own notebook if he’s going to survive math class.
The classroom is quiet, so the scrape of his chair when he gets up resounds. Kwangsun tries to pretend his hands aren’t shaking a little as he approaches Sieun’s desk and tries even harder to pretend people aren’t staring.
“Um,” he says, voice embarrassingly breaking. “I think our books got mixed up.” He holds it out awkwardly.
It’s probably the first proper interaction he’s ever had with Yeon Sieun.
“Good drawings,” he adds, and then mentally kicks himself. Why would he say that?
Sieun’s expression doesn’t change at all. He’s not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing.
“Thanks,” he says, taking the notebook. He shuffles through the stack on his desk until, sure enough, Kwangsun’s beaten-up notebook peeks out from the pile. He offers it wordlessly.
“Thank you!” he squeaks before bowing and scurrying away.
Seokmin is already leaning over onto his desk when he gets back and throws himself down.
“Dude,” he says.
Kwangsun groans. “I know; that went terribly.”
“ Nice drawings? Seokmin continues, incredulously.
“ I know ,” Kwangsun parrots. “Why would I say that?” He sighs dramatically. “They were nice drawings, though,” he adds as an afterthought.
“I never pegged Sieun as an artsy guy,” Seokmin muses. “What does he draw?” He hums. “I bet it’s like… violence and blood and stuff.”
Kwangsun shakes his head, amused by how off-course his friend is. “It’s Suho. Just pages and pages of Ahn Suho,” he reveals. It’s quite sweet, really. He doesn’t share the contents of the first drawing of the book with his friend, though.
Suho in a hospital bed will probably haunt him. He’d never properly considered the implications of Sieun being at the hospital so much, that he was sat beside his friend’s unconscious body for months just waiting for him to wake up. It makes him feel a little nauseous.
He’d be obsessed with capturing Suho awake and alive, too, after that.
Seokmin snorts. “Of course it is. Those two are obsessed with each other. Earlier I saw Suho argue with him for three minutes straight until Sieun let him carry his bag.”
Yeah, that tracks .
-
From there, it feels like Kwangsun is seeing one or both of them everywhere .
He goes to his academy? There’s Sieun climbing off of Suho’s bike.
He goes to karaoke? There they are again, with a girl this time, Sieun rolling his eyes but following them nonetheless.
He goes out to eat? Suho serves him while Sieun stacks the fridge in the corner, still in his school uniform.
“They’re definitely together,” Seokmin declares one day after school as they walk home.
“Do you want to die?” Baekhyun asks, hitting him over the head. “Don’t gossip about them so loud.” He pauses. “Yeah, they must be, though.” He turns his violence towards Kwangsun and hits him in the arm. “Hey, resident stalker! What do you think?”
He rolls his eyes. “I’m not a stalker ,” he mutters, knowing it’s a lost cause. “But I bet they’re together.”
“Have you noticed that Suho keeps crowding him against walls? I half thought they were going to start making out right there and then,” Baekhyun adds.
Oh, has Kwangsun noticed. The two of them have moved from being figuratively joined at the hip to almost literally joined at the hip. Suho usually has two bags slung over his shoulder and one arm over Sieun’s shoulder. If they’re standing, Sieun is probably being pressed into the wall, and Suho probably has his hands messing up his friend’s hair.
“I think Suho likes the height difference,” Seokmin says.
Kwangsun thinks that gossiping about their relationship like this is a surefire way to get in their bad books—something that historically ends badly—but he also just can’t stop himself.
“They’re cute,” he admits. “I’m happy for them. God knows they deserve it after everything.” It’s wildly out of character for him to be so sentimental, and he’s waiting for the teasing, but his friends just hum thoughtfully instead.
“Yeah,” Baekhyun says softly, Seokmin humming in agreement. “You’re right.”
It’s weird to think of Sieun like this—for so long he’s been an untouchable figure. Seeing him and Suho flirting—because what else could it be?—makes him seem so human .
His friends’ casual acceptance does something to him too—Sieun and Suho are weird and off-putting for sure, but not because they’re gay. He’s not entirely sure why it matters so much to him, but it is not the time or place for introspection.
They all part ways not long later, Kwangsun waving goodbye and continuing the remaining 15-minute walk home. He’s pretty sure Sieun lives this way somewhere, having seen him walking home before Suho started giving him a lift all the time.
That ‘pretty sure’ becomes ‘definitely’ a few paces later when Kwangsun spies two people standing outside of an apartment block about a foot away from him. He knows it’s Suho and Sieun from Suho’s eyesore of a motorbike, but he’s still surprised he didn’t notice them earlier.
Sieun is still wearing his (Suho’s?) helmet, and they’re standing… pretty close.
Like, really close .
Kwangsun genuinely means to just keep walking. Suho and Sieun don’t actually know him, and it would be weird to just stop and stare.
He really means to, but then Sieun rises onto his tiptoes and kisses Suho squarely on the mouth. Kwangsun has stopped and spoken before he even realises.
“I knew it,” he says, before slapping a hand over his mouth. He vainly hopes they didn’t hear him, but that hope is dashed when they separate and stare at him.
“I am so sorry; I didn’t mean to say that out loud,” he adds, face burning in humiliation.
Is this how he dies? Kwangsun can feel a hysterical laugh bubbling up, and he clamps his hand back over his mouth to try and subdue it.
“Knew what?” Suho asks, head tilted. Kwangsun can’t tell if it’s a challenge or genuine confusion.
Still, he’s in deep enough already. May as well power through.
“Well, um… that you’re together,” he says quietly, wincing at how it comes out. “I don’t have a problem with it!” he hastens to add.
Suho opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.
“You interrupted that part,” says another voice. Sieun.
Kwangsun moves his gaze, surprised he’s voicing anything at all in this painful conversation. “What?”
“I was about to ask him. You interrupted.”
Suho brightens beside him. “Really? Ah, Sieun-ah, you’re so cute!”
Kwangsun is stunned. “You’re only getting together now ?” he asks. It’s like the words have a life of their own. “Are you sure?”
Why would he ask them if they’re sure? It’s their relationship!
Now all three of them look equally confused.
“Yes,” Sieun says. It’s not quite a question, but the look on his face screams confusion. He glances at Suho, who looks just as bad, if not worse.
“But…” Kwangsun flounders for a moment. “What about the notebook?” He’s painfully aware of the fact that he’s basically flirting with Suho for Sieun, but he just can’t stop.
“What notebook?” Suho asks. He turns to Siuen. “Sieun-ah, what notebook? Ah, are you keeping secrets from me again?”
“The notebook full of drawings of you,” Kwangsun answers. Approximately a second later, he realises that Suho didn’t know .
Whoops.
Sieun looks like he has no idea what to say. His hand is gripping his bag strap so tight that his knuckles are turning white. Kwangsun momentarily fears for his own safety.
“You draw me?” Suho asks, voice so soft that Kwangsun immediately feels like he’s intruding. Not that he wasn’t intruding before—the feeling is just considerably more pronounced now.
“Yes,” Sieun says simply.
Suho’s looking at him as if he’s the only person in the world.
Kwangsun clears his throat awkwardly and gestures over his shoulder. “I’m, uh… gonna get going. Good luck!” Then he flees before either of them can say anything.
He wonders if skipping school for the rest of the year is a viable option.
-
Kwangsun panics for a few hours in the morning before deciding that he’s more scared of his parents than Suho and Sieun. He goes to school, albeit running almost late.
He’s the last person to sit when he sprints to homeroom, his watch showing four minutes until the bell tolls. He doesn’t even notice the object on his desk until he’s slumped over to catch his breath.
It’s a chocolate bar.
That’s confusing. It can’t be Baekhyun or Seokmin, notwithstanding the fact that they’re looking at him eagerly from their desks—because they’d just hand it over. There’s no one else in the class he’s particularly close… to…
He looks over at Suho. Suho winks. Kwangsun feels his cheeks turn probably a brilliant shade of red.
He guesses Suho said yes to Sieun after all. Who could have seen that coming?
Baekhyun and Seokmin poke him in the sides but stay quiet as their homeroom teacher starts to speak. Kwangsun smiles privately. He’ll tell them at lunch.