YUKHEI

"hey, idiots, did you work out whatever happened between you two?" yuta asks, approaching the table and flopping down onto ten unceremoniously.

yukhei shudders a little and scoots closer to jungwoo, who's on his right side. to his left is mark, who's waiting for donghyuck to get his tray of food so they can go sit with their friends.

feebly, yukhei nods, and jungwoo follows suit.

"good," yuta says, stealing a fry from ten's tray before the latter pushes him off the bench. yuta tumbles onto the ground, but he grabs ten's arm and drags ten with him, too. "that's what you get!"

ten flicks him in the forehead before standing and reverting back to his previous position—crushing johnny with all of his weight. not that johnny minds, though.

"and that," ten grins, his leg darting out so that it blocks wherever yuta was going to sit, "is what you get, dear yuta."

"i hate this family," yuta says blankly, sitting just outside the reach of ten's leg. still, ten scoots closer to yuta and repeatedly kicks him in the thigh. "and to think," yuta exclaims, eyes rolling up to the ceiling, "to think i was finally going to let you guys meet my boyfriend! hmph."

"no, wait!" ten complains, launching himself across the bench at full speed and wrapping all his limbs around yuta's middle like some sort of overgrown koala. "i wanna meet your boyfriend. you won't tell us anything about him."

"because i don't want to subject him to..." yuta gestures vaguely at the table. "all of this. he doesn't deserve that kind of stress."

"come on!" jungwoo pouts. "i'm not bad, am i?"

"no, jungwoo, you're a ray of sunshine and we're all thrilled to have you here." yuta offers his most flattering smile before letting it drop completely. "the rest of you, however, are the devil's incarnates and i refuse to let my sweet and lovely boyfriend be corrupted by you."

ten pouts. "what if we went to dinner?"

"maybe," yuta says, "i'm sure he'd—"

"nakamoto, how have you convinced them that you're still a high schooler?!" donghyuck's voice cuts in loudly.

"i haven't," yuta shrugs, furrowing his eyebrows. "the lunch ladies like me, and i have no classes at the university during this lunch period. i've come here every day since i was a college freshman, donghyuck."

"hm," is all donghyuck says, gesturing with his free hand for mark to stand up so they can migrate to their table shared by other freshmen. he fixes a quick kiss on mark's cheek before beginning to walk away.

yukhei, however, is too quick for him. he stands, grabbing donghyuck's free wrist. "wait!" he says a bit too loudly. the younger freezes. "what are your intentions with the youngest lee?"

"xuxi—" mark plants his face in his hands.

"—technically, 'hei, he's the only lee, considering you're a wong," yuta interjects.

"or a huang!" ten grins.  "or a lucas, if you're feisty."

"my intentions are to love him a lot and scream in his ear really really loudly whenever he's sad," donghyuck says, a smile blooming onto his face. "and to buy him cute clothes. and teach him how to make cats not hate him. and to kiss him. to kiss him a lot."

yukhei sighs his resolve crumbling. he pushes donghyuck forward gently. "go ahead. you're free to go."

mark's face is bright red, but donghyuck pulls mark forward by the hand like nothing had even happened, seemingly unfazed by his own confession.

yukhei defeatedly stumbles back towards the table and sits next to jungwoo as he preciously has been.

"you couldn't even give your brother's boyfriend the shovel talk?" johnny says, breaking his hour-long silence. "that's rough."

"they're soulmates, johnny, give him a break," jungwoo scolds.

"that was cute, though, you've gotta admit," yuta rests his head in his hands. "i basically watched mark grow up. it's like his story's halfway through now."

"shut up, yuta, i don't want to think about our precious mark growing up," ten complains.

"mark is a sophomore, ten. he's not even halfway through his life if you assume he's going to life the average lifespan of a korean man." johnny takes a sip of his drink, but ten slams his head on the table and groans.

"mark lee is an old man!" he cries, earning strange looks from the tables around them, including mark's table, which proceeds to jab at him about growing up. donghyuck is quick to defend mark, however, pushing a younger boy—jaemin, yukhei thinks, because he's seen the boy while he visited mark once or twice—off the bench.

"aw, ten, look!" yuta coos. "i'm nana, and you're hyuck!"

"who the hell is nana?" johnny says, his voice louder than it needs to be. in fact, it's so loud that jaemin—assuming that's the boy's name—waves wildly at johnny from his place on the ground before surging upwards and tackling donghyuck. mark, clearly done with his friend group, pulls his hood over his head and pulls the strings taut so that the fabric of the hoodie engulfs his face, leaving only his nose uncovered.

"nana," yuta says simply. "na jaemin. the cutie who's trying to strangle duckie. the thin one is huang renjun, and the one who's super built is lee jeno."

"what about the other two?" jungwoo asks, his head now resting on yukhei's shoulder.

"the one with the laugh is zhong chenle. i hear he's rich. the other one is park jisung. all i know about them is that they're both supposed to be in the grade below donghyuck, but they were so smart that they transferred to become freshmen."

"so it's a good crowd, then?" yukhei asks. "they're good people?"

"they're like us, but freshmen," ten nods, his usual mischievous face replaced by a reassuring smile. "mark will be fine."

yukhei grins warmly. that's all he could ever ask for.

"i'll make you an offer: we meet your boyfriend the day of homecoming for dinner."

"ten, that's in, like, two weeks."

"hush, johnny, the adults are talking."

yukhei laughs.

and as jungwoo leans a bit closer into him, he thinks that maybe things are going to be okay.

—

xodaniel