Taehyeon should hurry, but he takes a breath to steady himself first. Apparently that is one breath too many. The bathroom door bursts open and someone falls into the small room, their arms windmilling until they stumble right into Taehyeon. The fact that Taehyeon is sitting on the toilet lid is a great convenience to the clumsy person who can steady themselves by pushing 80% of their body weight onto Taehyeon's shoulders — it's Minjun, he's the clumsy person who uses Taehyeon to prevent a worse overbalancing.
Unfortunately, Minjun has arrived just in time to see Taehyeon go from ordinary human sitting down to panicked weirdo flailing and screaming because they have somehow fallen into the toilet bowl.
"Shhh!" Minjun hisses unhelpfully. Realising that pressing his finger to his lips is no help whatsoever, he goes to close the bathroom door and lock it. He pulls Taehyeon's arm and rescues him from the toilet. This is just about the worst thing that has ever happened to anyone and Minjun is smiling as though he didn't cause any part of this. As innocent as anything he asks, "how did you break the toilet seat?"
"You broke it. It wouldn't have broken if you didn't fall on top of me," Taehyeon insists. His face is too warm but this isn't just embarrassment. He was invited to a party and ditched and he can't help but feel like he has been positioned to fall victim to a miserable prank. He doesn't want to be walked over whilst Minjun is laughing about the broken halves of the toilet seat lid. "Did you do this because I like you? I know it's weird but I'm not doing anything wrong. I was going to stay away from you anyway so you don't need to do all of this."
Minjun straightens up whilst holding one of the ruptured halves of the broken toilet seat. It hinges open in Minjun's bewildered silence and whacks him in the thigh. Minjun doesn't react to that. "Do you think that I did this on purpose? I wouldn't do that, Taehyeon. It was an accident. I'll tell Dabin that it was all my fault so that you don't get into trouble."
Taehyeon isn't even thinking about getting in trouble. That is the least of his worries when his social image has faced multiple assassination attempts today.
"You pushed me over into mud this morning, and now I have wet trousers because of you. You told me to come to this party and ditched me right away. I don't know anyone here and I don't know how to talk to these people. I think it is all on purpose and you just wanted to humiliate me. It definitely feels intentional."
Minjun drops the toilet seat and claps his hands together. "Let's swap our trousers."
Taehyeon wonders whether he hit his head without realising.
"What?"
Minjun's belt is already undone and he quickly hops out of his trouser legs. He grins confidently at Taehyeon and pushes his trousers into Taehyeon's hands.
"Let's swap. I will tell everyone that I broke the toilet seat and fell into the toilet," he says. "You shouldn't have to walk around with wet trousers. If anyone wants to laugh, they can laugh at me."
This is weird and confusing. He has had silly little daydreams about Minjun being nice to him but this is nothing like what he imagined. He is so sure that he is the butt of a cruel joke but he is continually being misdirected.
"I don't get it," he admits.
"Oh," Minjun says, lowering his voice but not by much. "Are you shy? I won't look. You can go and stand in the bath. I'll pull the shower curtain around like a private changing room."
Somehow Taehyeon ends up standing in the bath with the curtain drawn around him. Well. He doesn't really have a choice in the matter now. Before Taehyeon really commits to this, he hears a soft click and the whisper of socks against ceramic. A rolled up towel is thrust through the narrow gap at the edge of the shower curtain.
"I don't know if your bum or your legs got wet but this might help."
Even whilst taking the towel, Taehyeon is confused. The densely packed towelling is soft against Taehyeon's hands. Just this is enough to melt most of his focus out of his ears. The clicking sound is just about loud enough for Taehyeon to remember what he had been wondering two seconds ago.
"I didn't see a cabinet or anything out there. Where did you get the towel from?"
"There's a cupboard behind the mirror on the wall," Minjun supplies. He always sounds the same when he isn't looking at Taehyeon, like he hasn't said the most absurd thing to be heard by human ears. It isn't fair that Minjun sounds like the whole world is simple and he isn't concerned with any of it. He's probably even smiling as he adds, "the cupboard door and the bathroom door are really awkward and cramped together. Their hinges are practically touching. The door at least opens the right way but the cupboard door is hung backwards. Actually it is noticeable because the hinges of the cupboard aren't flush with the wall. It looks like whoever did this was almost going to anchor the screws into the tiles. The wall would have just crumbled away. Maybe they had to reinforce this part of the wall. Just in the tiny sliver between the two doors, the tiling comes out way more than the rest—"
"Minjun?"
"Yeah?"
"What are you talking about?"
Minjun laughs but it sounds like the joke is only with himself. He doesn't mind Taehyeon's silence. Eventually, he says, "I'm nervous. I feel guilty too. I didn't know that you would feel like I abandoned you. I was so bothered about how I was supposed to talk to you that I had Kyungran and Nayoon give me a pep talk. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I must have been thinking you would be okay whilst I try to get out of my own head. I probably don't seem like a good person to be friends with."
Taehyeon can't answer that either way. He doesn't know how to take Minjun and each guess his mind comes up with makes the things Minjun does more confusing. Every single thing the logical part of Taehyeon's brain assumes a human would do is completely at odds with the things Minjun does. He is weird. His unpredictability makes his existence uncomfortable and awkward. Taehyeon doesn't think that he will ever understand.
Taehyeon does understand being nervous. That is how he has felt all day.
"What do you have to be nervous about?" Taehyeon asks through the flimsy curtain. "You're a star on just about every sports team, and you won today. Everyone wants to sit with you at lunch, and you get invited to parties on school nights, and everyone wants your attention. You're the coolest boy in school."
"I'm not cool," Minjun laughs.
"Okay, well you're wrong."
"I'm right," Minjun insists. "I'm an idiot, you know! I'm failing most of my classes. I think the coolest person in school is probably Park Sooyoung. She's really smart. She's popular because she's so smart."
Taehyeon doesn't doubt that, but he thinks that Minjun is missing the point. That sounds about right considering how everything else has gone.
"Anyway. Thank you for swapping trousers with me. It's kind of weird but I appreciate it."
Taehyeon extends his arm beyond the plastic curtain to pass his own trousers to Minjun. Instead of just taking the trousers, Minjun tears the curtain open and grins up at Taehyeon.
"Even though I made you feel bad today, I want you to rely on me for things. I should look out for you."
Taehyeon nods. "Are you going to put those trousers on?"
"Hm? Oh yeah. Oh no. I need to roll these up." With only one leg in the trousers, Minjun bends over and tries to tuck the excess hem into the leg. He chuckles to himself and hums happily. "My mom needs to turn up all of my trousers. It's not because I'm short. I'm normal height, but my sister has been working as a stylist lately. She says that if I show a bit of ankle my legs will look longer. Oh. But on you my trousers look like really bad jack-ups. Sorry about that. Nobody will notice."
Taehyeon assesses the absurd crop of his trousers. Anywhere else, Taehyeon would be embarrassed. He agrees with Minjun on this point though. Nobody at this party is bothered about paying attention to Taehyeon.