“Everyone thinks I got in a fight.” Yangyang grins, shameless. He clearly thinks the lingering bruises look cool.

Dejun rolls his eyes, steadying Yangyang’s cast in his grip, across his knees. “Everyone thinks you got the shit beat out of you.”

“I fought back.” A shrug in Yangyang’s voice, a toothy smile pointed to the sky. Dejun’s too deep in concentration to humor him further. He’s tracing a long Sharpie line around the curves of get well messages scribbled along the length of Yangyang’s forearm, crammed by the stiff crook of his elbow, down to Guanheng’s giant H.A.G.S splattered multicolor in the center.

He breaks off the line from there— a new one shoots off to Yangyang’s wrist, somewhere where Kun’s admonishing scribble would be, somewhere in the world he is, instead. Another rounds down right beneath Yangyang’s wrist, where Ten’s neat block letters would rest. From there, he could probably draw out lines from any which way, to new points that will branch again like ink bleeding on the plaster, Yangyang’s veins underneath. Wherever the two of them are right now, it probably beats sitting back home here in the old stomping grounds, but Dejun thinks they would enjoy it here today, at least. After class, light rain, cool concrete, a clean earth scent. Yangyang’s shaggy hair splayed out on the makeshift sleeping bag beside Dejun, like a wild orange dandelion. Sicheng’s line stops right at the edge of the cast, where fading scars Yangyang’s knuckles peek out under.

Soon enough, Yangyang’s own line will shoot off somewhere, now that he’s realized something beyond abandoned buildings nestled in overgrown grass. Dejun’s has his own ready to form, pooled in the tip of his pen. There’s no actual space left to map its path.

“Man, you’re kinda fucking my shit up.” Yangyang’s head lifts to the side, inspecting Dejun’s handiwork. He lifts his arm, so Dejun’s grasp can slip down his slender fingers.

Yangyang never asks for anything directly. He pushed every classmates’ well wishes to the corners of his cast to make room for Dejun’s own whims. He curls those fingers inwards then, so Dejun won’t let go. And he would not ask Dejun to follow where he goes, every one of Dejun’s secrets and dreams and half-formed thoughts heavy in the pocket of his uniform joggers.

For all things considered, Yangyang thought he had kind of gotten the sweet end of the deal.

Bro’s trip to the countryside: cheap booze (sweet), cheaper weed (SWEET), beautiful scenery and the strengthening bond between him and the homie Guanheng (nice, or whatever), and Guanheng even let him drive his car the entire way over.

Then there was the whole falling into the cursed hot springs on a tour thing (it’s over).

But neither of them had drowned at least, so they shook it off well enough until back at the inn, where Yangyang took the shower first and discovered the cursed part of the whole thing.

“Okay, wait,” Guanheng stammered out, eyes covered very gentlemanly, actually. “Lemme go find out what I got then real quick.” And in the timespan between this and a mid-sized panda floundering out of the bathroom, Yangyang checked out his new “cursed” form in the mirror and came to the conclusion: Girl-him was kind of hot (we’re so back?).

-

His internal gloating only lasted until the end of the trip however. The two of them got back home to the city and Guanheng almost immediately flipped the whole turning-into-a-panda-with-cold-water thing into a lucrative at-home photo-op business while Yangyang got slapped with an ultimatum from his parents— reduced rent on an apartment, courtesy of them, on the following conditions:

1) 3.0 GPA at uni minimum.

2) Part-time job on top of that.

3) Dad’s old college roommate’s son’s gotta be his roommate now.

That’s how he got stuck living with Xiao Dejun, who, for someone who’s apparently stuck in the same boat as Yangyang with limited housing options outside of this, has acted like he’d rather die than ever have to interact with his new roomie beyond Venmo-ing his half of rent every end of the month.

Yet even then, it could be worse. Having something of a near-death experience on vacation opened Yangyang’s eyes to a new lease on life. He’s got to get his shit together. He’s pulled his GPA up already from library and study hall stints in-between his not one, but two part-time jobs: the guy taking Guanheng Panda’s pics for Instagram, and the girl passing out club promo flyers at the mall.

He even passed out a flier to Dejun today, to which Dejun turned up his nose and narrowed his eyes, pointedly away from Yangyang’s exposed cleavage. What a gentleman.

“Don’t do that again,” Dejun says in lieu of hey, or how are you even, when he gets back to the apartment later in the evening.

“God Dejun, you’re so— sex-negative or whatever,” Yangyang swings his legs up off the back of the couch, long as they are in guy-form too. He stifles back the giggle when Dejun pointedly looks away again and sits up-right for the lecture he’ll take in stride as penance. It is way too fun to fuck around with Dejun in this way. “See, I pay attention in Gender and Sexuality studies too.” Yangyang grins.

“I am not,” Dejun puffs out his chest— he’s very proud of the steady B he has in that class. “I just know you only approached me to mess around with me. Quit it.”

“I think you wouldn’t even be this bothered by it to begin with if you just gave in to the tension you have with her.” Yangyang shrugs.

“With you.”

“Me?” Yangyang gasps, a demure hand on his chest.

“That’s not— there’s no tension, and she is you—!” Yangyang reaches over with a pat on Dejun’s shoulder as a truce. No more messing with him tonight. Dejun’s red-face and sputtering still but he seems to accept it once he quiets down.

Dejun actually letting Yangyang touch him in any way at all has been a recent development, an improvement on things. It’s clearly not dependent on whatever form either, as Yangyang had once suspected. Dejun had just seemed so…put off by Yangyang essence entirely, from the get-go.

Yangyang can’t say it didn’t hurt his feelings a bit. He wasn’t too thrilled with the living arrangement thrust upon them three months ago either. But there had been something about Dejun anyway, that didn’t make Yangyang want to retreat into an introverted little corner, tail between his legs.

When Yangyang comes out of the shower a little later, back in boy-form, to a steaming bowl of stew left on the kitchen table, the feeling squeezes somewhere in his chest, just a little.

“Dejun, let’s play something together,” Yangyang calls out from the kitchen sink, washing up.

“Don’t get me wet— stop.” Dejun grumbles at Yangyang’s ever-widening grin, shaking out his shaggy wet hair. He hands him a Switch controller anyway. This is definitely the closest Yangyang gets to Dejun, at this point, a quivering little space between their shoulders as they play Mario Kart together now on the couch, occasionally.

It’s been weighing on Yangyang a bit lately, the physicality of that space. Guy or girl, Dejun’s eyes flick away. From annoyance at first, he knew. But now, from just barely catching dark eyes, framed with heavy lashes, skimming across damp skin, the flushed column of Yangyang’s neck?

-

“Dude, you’re actually doing me such a solid right now.” Yangyang jumps a little, just to let them jiggle, just a little. There’s certain things shifting between them lately in their small little apartment, he knows, but. Old habits die hard, what can he say? “They check the trashcans to see if I’ve been dumping these things out.”