#mysamysa

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The auditorium is surprisingly cold and quiet now that it’s just the three of them. The quietness is to be expected. People usually bring body heat and noise, and crumbs to leave behind even when there is clearly a ‘do not eat or drink in the auditorium’ sign outside the main doors. The air conditioning gets stamped out, erased from their environment, but right now it swirls around them and makes them want to wrap arms around each other, more than usual. There are three boys. One is very young, the youngest, and on the surface he is the most naive. He is only eighteen, and as naive as he is, he’s learned to be an adult already. Or he at least knows how. The boy with his arm curled around the eighteen-year-old’s waist is older, twenty two, and holds him close as if he’ll run away if he thinks of letting go. This one is not really a boy, he’s too old to be a boy, but his face betrays his age on his best days. He only looks tired, and ragged on others. The last one is the tallest, but not the oldest, and he stands a little ways behind them, giving them space that they don’t need. He is the one who holds the curtain back for them so that they can look out onto the empty plane of the auditorium stage. Kris, they call him, one of his many names. Kris rolled off his tongue before he thought it through, and so he became Kris, and he’s been Kris since the three of them met. Autumn day, a young kid wearing a thick knitted hat on his way to school, eyes red and wet. His name is Oh Sehun. There’s someone holding his hand, someone a little taller although that would all change once the growth spurt hit, leading him with hurried steps. This is Lu Han. Kris will never know what happened for sure that day, but it would lead into the future, because he remembers Lu Han from the playground back in China as soon as he sees him, eyes trailing from teary-eyed Oh Sehun’s small fingers to Lu Han’s, up to his face. So we meet again his mind had told him. He’d heard that in a movie. It sounded nice, but Kris only managed a small. “Oh. You,” when Lu Han had nearly bumped into him. Kris snaps back into the now. It almost seems colder here than in the past, on a truly chilled day in the fall, when they were children and were swaddled in coats and scarves. Lu Han is just as he always is, pushing Sehun along, pushing him forward, hand now pressed into the youngest’s back. “Go on,” he says. Sehun hesitates, as he always does. There’s a side to him that is somewhat terrified of making mistakes. He freezes up too easily, so there are times when he forgets to smile, afraid that it will be lopsided or that something will be lodged in his teeth and others will laugh at him. Sehun is a carefully calculated self experiment, and Kris always worries. Lu Han pushes him forward. “Go,” he says. Sehun, the new university student, steps forward in his blue jeans and loose t-shirt, and waits for Lu Han to turn the music on.

--

“A friend of mine hurt his waist pretty bad.” Kris exhales, a white puff of smoke in the night air. Sehun watches it fade. “That sucks.” “He’ll be out of practice for a while, at least a week,” Sehun says. “Teacher’s orders.” “You sound pretty worried.” “I have other friends besides you, hyung,” he laughs. “And Lu Han.” Kris laughs, too, lips clamped around his cigarette, but his laughter melts into the air the way his smoke does. It vanishes. Sehun has other friends. This was never a novel thing. Kris and Lu Han are two people he lives with, the ones who love him; they are friends, but they are more than that, too. He doesn’t know what ‘more’ means with anyone except Lu Han. There are things that they have to keep from Sehun. “I was supposed to dance with him at the next competition,” Sehun sighs, reminding Kris once again of reality around him. “You’ll get someone else, though, right?” “He won’t be as good.” “How do you know that?” Sehun deadpans. “I’ve known everyone in the studio for at least year now,” but he breaks into an easy chuckle. “Maybe he’ll surprise you,” Kris suggests. Sehun had been expecting him to say that. “Maybe,” Sehun mumbles. “Maybe I just don’t pay close enough attention.” Sehun drops the words slowly, like falling papers out of the hands of someone who’s been nearly knocked over. He looks at his toes, points them like he learned in the fourth grade, and nods. It’s always difficult to do with sneakers on, but Sehun likes challenges, even stupid ones. “That’s probably it.”

--

Kyungsoo is always in denial. He's got a decent amount of dignity and he doesn't want to admit that he likes it when Baekhyun's tongue is in his mouth and his longer fingers are tickling the skin of his hips. He would have squealed uncontrollably any other day, squawked like a bird maybe if he'd been caught off guard, but he gives in. It's nice. He cups the back of Baekhyun's neck and tangles their legs. Baekhyun is thin and disappearing right before his eyes, but he's here. Kyungsoo pretends to be less excited than he really is. He's the sort of person that should be fragile and easy to break, but they both know that Kyungsoo is soft, bruised too often by falls and words.

We can protect each other.

We're just boys. Boys who like to sing together.

Two little birds on a tree. One has weak wings and a shy voice, and the other is too thin to hold himself up for long; somehow he manages.

Boys who like to kiss.

Baekhyun tugs on Kyungsoo's thick bottom lip and they both break into smiles. His denial slips, breaks as laughter bubbles up inside both of them.