Monday

“You’re an asshole, I don’t even know why I am in love with you…“

Guanlin stares at the tattoo on his forearm for the thousandth time. He wonders who his soulmate will be, who will say these words while looking at him like he hung the moon. Guanlin wonders when these words will slip out of someone’s lips for him to hear, he wonders if he has already met the person but never really talked to them, wonders if it is someone from the school or if it will take years for him to meet his soulmate, maybe when he is working a boring 9 to 5 job in a well-known company.

“Hey idiot, quit looking at your tattoo and help me clean up the gym,” he snaps out of his thoughts and glares at Park Jihoon, who is looking at him with one raised eyebrow and a condescending smirk.

“You’re the assistant coach of the basketball team for something,” Guanlin retorts, throwing him an unimpressed look. “What do I get out of helping you, anyway? Another insult? Nah, thanks.”

Jihoon sighs, muttering under his breath about ‘fucking cocky basketball team captains that are younger than him and should have some damn respect’. Guanlin watches amused as the older boy tries to fit at least ten water bottles into his tiny hands while also kicking a few basketball towards the storage room.

It takes less than 5 seconds for Jihoon to give up again.

“I’ll buy you food,” he sighs with pleading eyes, Guanlin is still not sold though, food once is not enough. “I’ll buy you food this whole week but only during school days.”

Now that’s something that catches his attention.

He smirks at Jihoon and makes a show of standing up, sighing a total of twelve times before he actually gets to work.

They spend half an hour cleaning up, Jihoon sweeps the floor whilst Guanlin gathers all of the water bottles, basketballs and towels and brings them to the storage room, where he proceeds to clean every inch, meticulously getting rid of the dust on and under the shelves.

As soon as they are done the both of them collapse on the floor of the basketball court, Jihoon’s head resting on Guanlin’s outstretched arm and their legs intertwined in a mess of limbs.

“Jesus, I never knew how tiring it is to clean this up, kudos to you,” Guanlin mutters, feeling every pore of his body being completely and utterly exhausted. “How do you do this every day?”

“I ask myself that every time,” Jihoon replies. “I even owe you food now, what a shitty life.”

“Anything that has me in it is everything but shitty,” Guanlin grins as he wiggles his eyebrows, head turning around so he can look at Jihoon’s reaction.

As expected, Jihoon fake gags, eyes falling shut.

Guanlin notices then that the other boy (although he is sweaty, his hair is sticking out in ten different directions and the dark circles under his eyes have reached a new maximum) is extremely handsome.

Somehow though, his dark pink lips catch Guanlin’s attention the most. They make him want to lean in and see if they are as soft as they seem. Maybe even bite them softly to see how plumb they are in actuality.

“What do you want to eat today then?” Jihoon queries as he looks up at the younger boy.

“A burger and a huge amount of fries,” Guanlin grins, almost feeling the taste of the food on the tip of his tongue, seconds away of actually drooling over the image in his head – he sees warm, freshly made potato fries.

“Ugh, you’ll make me gain 10 pounds by the end of this week,” Jihoon whines but Guanlin knows he doesn’t mean it, his complexion already much brighter at the mention of burgers.

“Ey, you’ll look beautiful even with 10 pounds more,” he hears himself blurt out.

Heat spreads all over his face and the tips of his ears. Jihoon is mirroring how he feels right now – surprised, embarrassed and maybe a little bit giddy.

Guanlin rasps his throat, stands up (he hears a quiet thud from what he guesses is Jihoon’s head falling onto the floor) and rushes to the door, yelling “I’ll wait for you outside!” before entering the locker room and slamming the door shut.

Jesus fucking Christ.

***

Jihoon treats him to burgers just as he had promised and although the atmosphere is a bit awkward at the beginning, Guanlin smoothes it over by starting to shit-talk their coach and that weird kid from the grade below him who keeps putting rotten apples in his locker.

Tuesday

The next day, Guanlin doesn’t see Jihoon at all until lunch.

That’s nothing unusual since Jihoon is a grade above him (so they don’t have any classes together) and  well, he doesn’t even bump into the older in the hallway while he wanders around with Seonho on their break,  so like he said, he doesn’t meet him at all.

When he does spot Jihoon at lunch, he is with Woojin, Daehwi and Jinyoung. They laugh as they eat, probably joking about their teachers or making fun of each other, he isn’t too sure which one of the two options it is. If he were to judge by Daehwi and Jinyoung’s red faces, it’s probably the latter one.  

“Are you even listening?” Seonho asks, snapping Guanlin out of his thoughts.

“Yeah, of course,” he replies. “Can you go search for an empty table? I’ll join you soon. I just have to… talk to Jihoon for a bit.”

Seonho rolls his eyes but does as told, disappearing behind the crowd towards the back of the cafeteria. Guanlin watches him go; laughing when Seonho almost runs into one of their seniors but narrowly avoids the clash by flailing around.

Then, when he feels like he is ready, he walks towards Jihoon with the brightest of smiles on his face.

“Park Jihoon,” Guanlin calls out, smirking when the older boy glares at him for talking informally, his friends beside him just laughing. “Meet me at the gate today after school, you still owe me food!”

“Ask properly,” Jihoon grits through his teeth. “Or I won’t do shit for you.”

Guanlin cackles at that, mostly because Jihoon is cute when he is angry, as he finally arrives in front of the older boy. He squats down so that he is almost eye to eye with the other and, once again, smirks.

Jihoon looks at him oddly, asking Guanlin what the heck he is doing with his eyes. The younger boy responds to that by pinching Jihoon’s cheek, telling the other how adorable he looks.

“What are you doing?” Jihoon whines, slapping Guanlin’s hand away. “I won’t buy you food!”

“But a deal is a deal!” he laughs. “But since you’re older… please buy me something delicious, yeah?”

For some unexplainable reason, Jihoon’s face begins to become red as he continues to watch Guanlin, who is directly looking into his eyes as he blinks repeatedly, trying his best to be cute, going as far as showing him his gummy smile.

He has the weird urge to bop the younger’s nose.  

“I hate you,” Jihoon hisses, low enough for only the both of them to hear. Guanlin’s smile, however, doesn’t falter even for a second. “I’ll wait for exactly five minutes and if you aren’t there, I won’t buy you anything, understand?”  

***

It turns out Guanlin is the one who has to do the waiting.

Almost fifteen minutes have passed since their classes ended – Seonho had long disappeared with Minhyun and Dongho to go eat some meet – and at least ten had gone by since it started to rain. Luckily, he had reminded himself to take an umbrella with him in the morning, if not, he would already been completely drenched.

“It’s cold,” Guanlin can’t help but flinch when he hears Jihoon’s voice.

He turns around to find the older boy soaked through. Jihoon’s hair and clothes are, probably uncomfortably, sticking to his skin as he runs under Guanlin’s umbrella with a small frown.

“Why don’t you have an umbrella? You’re all wet!” the younger boy asks, his tone indicating how worried he actually is. “You’re going to get a cold!”

“Oh, hey, you actually care about me!” Jihoon sing-songs with a smirk as he looks up at Guanlin.

He can feel his heart rate start to speed up. Jihoon is looking at him with a smug smile, face only inches apart as his arms are wrapped around Guanlin’s waist so that the rain doesn’t hit him.

Guanlin is pretty sure he is blushing.

“I-I don’t!” he protests. His words sound fake even to him. “I care about the food I won’t be able to eat if you actually do get sick!”

“Sure,” Jihoon nods, grinning up at him.

They stay like that for a while. Guanlin simply stares at the older boy, admiring his nice features – who would have thought that Jihoon’s eyes are actually really big? And that his nose seems just like the cutest of buttons? Or that, even though they are chapped and could use some lip balm, his lips are kind of irresistible?

“Where do you want to eat?” the other snaps him out of his thoughts.

Guanlin looks at Jihoon intently, trying to figure out what the best thing would be for the weather – and also trying to find a place that’s near for Jihoon not to have to walk a lot with his wet clothes.

“Let’s go eat ramen!” Guanlin exclaims joyfully, pointing at a restaurant right in front of them.

“Oh, nice!” Jihoon smiles brightly.

The instant both of them stop staring at each other, they begin their walk to the restaurant. Jihoon still has his arm around Guanlin’s waist while Guanlin has his wrapped around the older’s shoulder, tucking Jihoon’s head under his shoulder, shielding him even more from the rain.

They don’t take long to walk to the restaurant, mostly because Jihoon tells him to hurry up since it’s cold, but right before they want to enter, Guanlin stops in his tracks.

“Hold the umbrella for a second,” he commands without a second thought, shoving the item into the other’s hand as he rummages through his backpack. “I need to find something before we go in. It’s important.”

When he finally finds what he wanted to, he cries out in victory and basically yanks it out. He gleefully shoves the object in Jihoon’s face.

“A sweater?” Jihoon asks, skillfully raising one of his eyebrows.

“A sweater?” Guanlin mocks him. “Yes, a sweater, it’s an article of clothing, normally it’s a knitted garment worn on the upper body, typically with long sleeves. You put it on over your head. It is said to keep people warm during autumn and winter.”

He takes the umbrella back from Jihoon’s head and motions for the boy to enter the restaurant but it seems like Jihoon is frozen in place because even after five minutes, he doesn’t go in.

“What am I supposed to do with the sweater?” Jihoon asks, looking up at Guanlin through his eyelashes.

Guanlin feels his heart do a summersault in his chest.

“You are supposed to wear it, you idiot,” he smirks. “I didn’t think you’d want to eat with all your clothes drenched. But if you don’t want it, I can gladly take it back w–“

“No!” Jihoon hisses.

The older boy’s grip on the jumper tightens and he holds it close to his chest, his nose burying into the material. It’s easily the most adorable thing Guanlin has seen in his life.

Then, without another word, they open the door and go into the restaurant. They are greeted by the waiter and seated in one of the corners. Guanlin tells Jihoon to go change his clothes while he orders and surprisingly, he doesn’t protest or whine and just does as he has been told.

When Jihoon returns though, Guanlin feels like he is the one who is going to do all the whining.

The boy is wearing his pink jogging pants and Guanlin’s sweater.

Normally, Guanlin would die laughing at the sight of anyone wearing that outfit, but this time, he feels a blush spread across his face as he admires Jihoon.

On Guanlin, the jumper fits just right but on Jihoon it is way too big, almost seems like the boy could swim in it to be honest. Jihoon plays with its sleeve as he approaches their table, laughing when he sees Guanlin’s gob-smacked expression.

If he could, he would take a picture of this moment so he could keep looking at this – at Park Jihoon, his stubborn, hot-headed, adorable, handsome, beautiful senior, wearing Guanlin’s oversized sweater.

“At first, I wasn’t too sure if I could rock this look,” Jihoon starts as he sits down. “But after looking at myself in the mirror, I have to admit that I’m pretty handsome. Even in your worn-out sweater.”

Guanlin’s answer is to face palm the table.

Wednesday

“Oh? What are you two doing here?” Guanlin’s head turns around so fast he thinks he’ll get whiplash from the sudden movement. “I wouldn’t have expected to see you two here together!”

“Shit,” he hears Jihoon mutter as he rests his forehead on Guanlin’s shoulder.

The younger boy looks around for the voice he just heard – pretty sure that it’s one of Jihoon’s friends. He scans the restaurant he had chosen for today, a Taiwanese one in their school’s neighborhood, with hawk-like eyes. It only takes him a few seconds to find the source of the voice.

Lee Daehwi.

A smile appears on Guanlin’s face as he takes a hold of Jihoon’s wrist and drags the other boy to the table where Daehwi – and apparently Jinyoung, too – is sitting. He waves at Daehwi and then sits down in front of him.

Jihoon stays in front of the table, refusing to sit down no matter how many times Guanlin tugs at his wrist.

“We’re here to eat!” Guanlin replies, finally giving up. “Jihoon owes me because I helped him clean up the gym, so I told him to come eat here with me!”

“Ah, so that’s why you are at a couple hot spot?” Jinyoung laughs.

He frowns at that because he – he hadn’t known about that. As he glances at Jihoon, he thinks that maybe that’s the reason as to why he is standing in front of the table, all tense and pouty.

“I didn’t know this was only for couples,” Guanlin grumbles, unconsciously scooting the chair closer to Jihoon. “But that pretty much explains why you guys are here, right? I’m a little bit disappointed you didn’t tell me personally, Daehwi. Hearing the news from Seonho did hurt my pride.”

Jihoon laughs at that, arm easily wrapping around Guanlin’s shoulder. It makes the younger boy feel pretty proud, a warm, fuzzy feeling spreading across his belly. The fact that Daehwi is now a blushing mess while Jinyoung has coincidentally found something very interesting to look at in the ceiling, makes him feel even better.

“Anyway, are you – are you joining us or what?” Daehwi, after having regained his cool, says.

“Sure!” – “Nope!”

Guanlin stares at Jihoon then. The older boy is looking at him with pleading eyes, his whole body screams “uncomfortable” and well, no matter how much Guanlin likes to tease him, he is not about to make him feel bad while they are spending time together.

He turns around to look at the other two boys, ready to say that he’s changed his mind when Jinyoung interrupts him.

“Okay then, it’s settled, you’re joining us!”

Guanlin smiles up at Jihoon apologetically.

Jihoon just sighs and tells him to move over so that he can sit down. Guanlin follows the other’s order and sits down on the chair next to the one he was sitting on before. He makes sure though that he is sticking close to Jihoon, his hand holding Jihoon’s and one of his legs tangled with the other’s legs. It’s not the most comfortable position but, as Guanlin takes notice of how Jihoon’s tension seems to melt at his touch, he thinks the probable back pain he is going to get for sitting like this is going to be pretty worth it.

***

Their meal with Jinyoung and Daehwi is, fortunately, not a total disaster.

Jihoon had relaxed after a few minutes, joking around and telling Guanlin embarrassing stories about the other two as Jinyoung and Daehwi told him about that one time Jihoon had fallen on his ass while riding his bicycle because he was singing too loudly to “I will always love you” by Whitney Houston.

***

They finish eating after almost two hours. Daehwi and Jinyoung say goodbye with matching smiles as they disappear into the night while holding hands and laughing cutely. Jihoon and him, however, remain standing in front of the restaurant’s entrance.

“Well, that went better than expected,” Jihoon sighs contently.

“Yeah, it was pretty fun,” Guanlin agrees silently, trying to inconspicuously stare at Jihoon’s soft, happy smile. “I don’t even know why you got all tense at the beginning.”

“You noticed?” the older boy asks with a sheepish laugh, scratching the back of his neck. “I… They just tease me about us going to eat together, like we are dating or something, I just didn’t want them to be embarrassing.”

“Ah,” the younger hums, nervously playing with his fingers.

Suddenly, Jihoon lifts a bag in front of his face. It’s cute how Jihoon looks expectantly at him as he gestures for him to take the bag – which is decorated with hundreds of pink and blue ribbons.

He accepts the bag with a smile and takes a peek. He furrows his brows when he sees what’s in it.

“Thanks for borrowing it to me,” Jihoon beams at him, eyes crinkling cutely. “I washed it and everything, so you don’t need to worry about it smelling funny. I’m pretty sure it smells the same as always, to be honest.”

“Keep it,” Guanlin blurts out, automatically giving the bag back to Jihoon.

“Uh, why?” he queries – Guanlin wishes he could take a photo of how confused Jihoon looks. “Like I said, it’s washed! It doesn’t have any holes either, you can’t just not take your stuff back because I wore it once! I don’t have any incurable disease or something. I’m actually quite offended right no –!”

“You look cuter in it than me.”

It’s decided. Guanlin is going to immigrate to a deserted island somewhere near the Caribbean and never talk to another human being again.

Fuck his brain-to-mouth filter, when he dies, he is going to ask God for a refund.

“Ah – uhm, thanks?” Jihoon blushes, tiny hands holding the bag tight against his chest as he smiles at Guanlin.

“Yeah, no problem, I’m going!” Guanlin mutters before he runs away.

(He doesn’t know that Jihoon stays in the same spot for almost fifteen minutes, trying to calm his beating heart as he fondly stares at the black hoodie inside of the bag.)

Thursday

Guanlin is sweaty, and exhausted, and pretty much just wants to die.

The coach had made him run suicide laps because his team had lost in their practice game because “if you are the captain, you need to make your team win, no matter what”.

His teammates are long gone, Jihoon being the only one still in the court with him. He watches from where he is lying on the bleachers as the other boy picks up some water bottles and then proceeds to angrily curse as some of them fall down.

It takes Jihoon almost forty-five minutes, with a little of Guanlin’s help, to finish all of the tasks he had to do today.

Both of them are – again – lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling when Guanlin speaks.

“I really, really don’t want to stand up today,” he mutters.

The younger boy turns around so that he is facing Jihoon, who looks at him with an unimpressed look. Guanlin smiles at him, gums showing, and inches closer so that he can rest his head on the older boy’s chest.

“Treat me to food on Monday too instead of today,” Guanlin pleads.

“Nope,” Jihoon makes sure to pop the “p” as he says it.

He is pretty pleased when he feels Guanlin wiggling in protest and he hears the younger whine his name in ten different cutesy tones. The other begs him for food for another ten minutes before Jihoon interrupts him.

“I have lunchboxes for us, you moron, so stop complaining,” Jihoon laughs, softly shoving the other’s head off his chest in order to stand up. “I figured both of us wouldn’t want to eat out so I cooked something instead.”

“You’re the best person to ever exist on this planet,” he hears Guanlin yell excitedly.

Jihoon snorts.

He hurriedly walks over to his backpack and pulls out two lunchboxes. Yesterday, while telling his mother all about why he was spending twice the amount of money on food than he normally would, she had suggested for him to cook something for Guanlin rather than to always eat junk food.

“Here,” Jihoon says as he tosses the younger boy the box, cheering when Guanlin successfully catches it. “My mother helped out so I’m 100% sure it tastes delicious.”

“Thank her for me, will you?” Guanlin comments as he starts to gulf down the food.

The older boy walks to where the younger is sitting and plops down beside him. Jihoon watches Guanlin eat with a fond smile because, even as the other eats non-stop, looking at the food like a kid would look at their favourite toy, he looks so completely stunning it kind of takes Jihoon’s breathe away.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” the other asks, suddenly stopping all of his movements with his chopsticks mid-air. “It’s really good!”

Jihoon snaps out of it and nods. He smiles down at box as he opens it. It’s weird but he feels a sense of pride bubble inside of him as he hears Guanlin compliment the meal both Jihoon and his mother had prepared.

It doesn’t take Guanlin more than five minutes to finish the lunch box. Then he lies down, talking about how full he is and how nice it is to eat something delicious after training so hard.

“I haven’t eaten a homemade meal in years, thank you,” Guanlin suddenly whispers.

He looks at Jihoon while he says it, a thankful smile on his face. As he watches the others reaction – he embarrassedly scratches his neck, saying it’s nothing at least ten times before going back to his own meal – his heart fills with affection for Jihoon.

Guanlin realizes in that moment that he likes Jihoon in more ways than he had thought. The realization isn’t as surprising as it should be.

Friday

“It’s the last day I have to treat you to food,” Jihoon mentions while they walk out of the school together, Guanlin holding an umbrella over both of their heads as it rains heavily. “Where do you want to go?”

Guanlin smirks at the older boy mischievously.

He had spent the whole night thinking about what to do for the last day – mostly because he was sure that afterwards Jihoon and him would not be spending much time together, what with the basketball tournament and finals coming up.

“Let’s go to the arcade,” he suggests.

The way Jihoon’s face brightens just at the mention of the arcade makes Guanlin feel proud of having chosen the place.

“I’m not paying for the games though!” Jihoon grins before he sticks his tongue out at Guanlin.

“Yeah, yeah,” Guanlin rolls his eyes but smiles after approximately 0.2 seconds of doing so. “I figured, don’t worry, that’s on me today.”

Jihoon throws his arms up in joy as he wiggles his butt and dances happily.

“You’re still paying for the food afterwards!” the younger yells as he starts running, leaving Jihoon defenseless against the rain.

He turns around to smirk at Jihoon playfully. The other just mock-glares at him before he starts running after Guanlin while laughing.

***

When they arrive at the arcade, it’s relatively empty. There are only a group of girls playing with the shooter games and three boys walking around while trying to decide what to use first.

“Let’s play with the punching machine!” Jihoon says as soon as they enter.

Guanlin laughs but he lets himself be dragged to the very back of the establishment, Jihoon’s hand warmly wrapped around his wrist.

Surprisingly, Jihoon is really good. He beats Guanlin – and the current record on the machines – in every single machine, whether it’s the one where you punch with your hand or your leg.

The younger boy is thoroughly impressed by the older’s skill.

“Why don’t we go play with the basketball machine over there?” Jihoon chuckles smugly. “Maybe then you have a chance of winning against me.”

The younger just scoffs at him.

“Be prepared to fucking die,” he announces, arrogantly walking towards the machine with a smug smile before he breaks out into laughter, not able to keep up the conceited douche act. “Hurry up! I want to win, too!”

Jihoon jogs up to him with a small smile and then motions for him to put in the coin for the machine to start the game.

Unsurprisingly, Guanlin actually does win.

***

“I’m surprised you are so good at punching, I mean, your hands are tiny but they are very strong,” Guanlin points out while looking at Jihoon.

They are sitting right in front of each other on a table at the McDonald’s that is right in front of the arcade. The both of them had decided that since it was their last meal together, they should pig out on junk food for the last time so what better – and cheaper – place to do that than at a McDonald’s.

Jihoon glares at him while he stuffs a handful of fries into his mouth, Guanlin can’t help but laugh at him. The older boy, like always, looks incredibly handsome as he eats with his eyes narrowed at him.

“Ah,” Guanlin suddenly sighs, slumping down in his seat in front of Jihoon.

He receives a worried glance from Jihoon, who gets up immediately to get a better look at him. Jihoon points at Guanlin’s body as if to ask if everything’s alright but Guanlin doesn’t answer, just stares straight ahead with a blank expression on his face.

“Is everything alright? Are you feeling well?” Jihoon asks, voice full of concern.

“Yeah, it’s just….” Guanlin breathes in, eyes downwards. “I just imagined how sad a life with such tiny hands must be, I mean, you can’t even carry more than one bottle of water in one hand! That must be so tough!”

The brown haired boy kicks his leg from under the table, he seems utterly satisfied when he sees Guanlin laugh and almost cry simultaneously at the pain.

“You’re an asshole, I don’t even know why I am in love with you,” Jihoon sighs, going back to his fries.

The world suddenly seems to be at a standstill.

His wrist starts to burn, heat crawling all over his arm until it reaches the part where… where his tattoo is. Guanlin removes the sleeve of his pullover anxiously, trying to see why he is hurting so much – why he feels like his wrist is about to fall off.

When he actually sees the tattoo, he can’t help but gape at it.

At the beginning and the end of the tattoo there are now two quotation marks, indicating that the phrase has been said by his soulmate and Jihoon’s name appears under the quote – and Jesus fucking Christ.

“You’re my soulmate, you douche!” Guanlin exclaims excitedly.

Jihoon is staring at him with his eyes and mouth wide open in surprise, probably speechless as he keeps on taking turns between gaping at Guanlin and then Guanlin’s wrist.

Guanlin is about to snap the older one out of his daze, when he starts to hiss all of a sudden and directs his attention to his own wrist, which by now also has two quotation marks.

The younger boy feels weird because fuck, there is too much space – a freaking table to be precise – between them and he feels the urge to hold hands, hug and kiss Jihoon at least two hundred times.

It seems like Jihoon is thinking the same because the next time Guanlin looks at him, the other is standing up and barreling into Guanlin’s arms. Jihoon wraps his own arms around Guanlin’s torso and buries his face deep into Guanlin’s chest, squeezing the younger boy tightly.

Guanlin laughs giddily as he rests his chin on top of Jihoon’s hair, his right hand going up to caress the older boy’s hair softly.

His mind is racing with all the things he wants to do with Jihoon, all the dates they are going to go to, how he is going to tell his parents that he found his soulmate at the tender age of 16, how Jihoon’s family is going to react to all of this, how Seonho will act after he finds out that Jihoon is Guanlin’s soulmate, how –

“I’m so, so glad you’re my soulmate,” Jihoon says, his voice being muffled by Guanlin’s sweater.

“Me too,” Guanlin replies happily. He smiles at Jihoon, who is now peering at him from under his eyelashes. “This past week has been driving me crazy, I was trying not to be too obvious about liking you, but that was… really fucking difficult.”

Jihoon grins at him, his eyes sparkling at Guanlin in the cutest of ways, and well, Guanlin can’t resist him.

Guanlin leans in and pecks, a taken aback, Jihoon softly on the lips.

The brown haired boy hits him playfully as a blush starts to spread out on his face and his ears start to get bright red, matching the color of his cheeks.

It’s so cute Guanlin just has to kiss him again. And again. And again.

“Guanlin,” Jihoon whines, his hands coming up to cover his mouth. “We’re in public!”

“Park Jihoon,” Guanlin whispers, loving the way Jihoon glares at him because he is speaking informally to him. “I don’t care.”

He carefully removes Jihoon’s hands from his mouth and cups the older’s cheeks with his own hand in a swift motion. Guanlin guides Jihoon’s face towards his own until they are only inches apart.

Just before he kisses Jihoon again, he smiles lovingly at him.

This kiss is different – mostly because it is an actual kiss and not a peck. It’s slow paced, soft and just overall perfect.

Guanlin loves the way Jihoon’s lips are soft and plumb, balancing out his owned chapped ones. He loves the way Jihoon’s hands rest on his chest as they kiss.

Well, if he is honest, he just loves the way Jihoon kisses him.

“You’re stuck with me now,” Jihoon breathes out when they part. Their foreheads are still touching and Guanlin likes how he can feel the older’s every breath on his own lips. “Which means you will have the honor to help me clean up after every basketball practice, congrats!”

Guanlin can’t help but roll his eyes.

“Way to ruin the mood,” he groans.

“That’s what you call revenge, kid,” Jihoon laughs contently as he starts to play with Guanlin’s pullover.

Guanlin doesn’t reply to that because there is nothing much he can say and also because, hey, Jihoon is a beautiful human being and staring at him makes Guanlin happier than bickering with him.

“So what are we going to do now?” he asks out of the blue, his happy smile disappearing.

“Hm, I don’t know,” Guanlin answers honestly. “We’ve got time to figure that out, right? It’s not like we have to decide on our future right now.”

“Yeah,” Jihoon nods.

“And well, whatever it is that we end up doing, it doesn’t matter that much anyway,” Jihoon looks at him confused. “Because we’ll be together and that’s the only thing I really care about.”

   (Guanlin had expected for Jihoon to be touched after he heard what are probably the cheesiest words that ever came out of Guanlin’s mouth but instead he pretends to puke and cringes, saying how he is not sure if he will be able to spend all of his life with Guanlin if he is always like this.