A small nejileeten just because. under the cut!
At first they’re embarrassed. Embarrassed by their odd-looking, over-working teammate, and embarrassed by the way their stomaches knot together whenever they’re dragged into ‘uplifting’ speeches and bone-breaking hugs. When they’re young they hear the whispers and jeers, and they quickly learn to repress those heart flutters and face flushes, because it’s better when Lee is the target and not them. The others give them sympathy, and sympathy is better than gossip. And when they grow older they figure it might only be physical because Lee is a sculpture of hard work. He’s all muscle and sweat and the both of them have a hard time glancing in his direction on heated summer days when his suit clings to him like a second skin. But he’s still doing push-ups until he passes out, and they’ve convinced themselves they’re only there to make sure he doesn’t kill himself. And as they get even older, they still hear the jeering and the whispering and instead of embarrassment knotting their insides, it becomes anger. Because they didn’t know Lee. They didn’t know spine-cracking embraces, loud exclamations of love and happiness, too-fast kisses, and fingers intertwined in iron grips. They didn’t know pure sincerity, calloused fingers ghosting over skin, arms draped over shoulders protectively, and soft hair brushing across jaws and collarbones. They didn’t have any appreciation for passion and joy and determination, because they didn’t appreciate the man who embodied it so fully and truly. And maybe Lee would always be too much for them to handle and they’d still sigh as he bounded down the road like an over zealous rabbit, because it had been years and Lee was still the same person people would laugh at and whisper about. But the embarrassment was gone, replaced by beating hearts and giddy stomaches, and it sometimes made them wonder how they could ever be embarrassed of an emotion that made them feel so full and so happy.
