"Are you not hungry?" Minjun asks, looking between Taehyeon and the untouched cake.
"Not really," Taehyeon says. "You can go ahead and eat."
"But that would be rude. I can't eat your birthday cake. That wouldn't be fair. I'll put it back in the box so it is safe for you. How many people do you live with? I guess you might need to cut it into really small slices if they make you share with them."
Watching Minjun slowly get the box out of the bag is a big enough clue. He is clearly hinting at something. Taehyeon is glad he retained enough sense to recognise that.
"No, it's fine. Let's eat it now. There's a different stomach for cake, right? That's what my sister says anyway."
Minjun's face lights up in an instant. Taehyeon doesn't know why he feels so guilty seeing such naked joy. He at least has the excuse of eating cake so he doesn't have to say much.
"Oh, I forgot! Here, I thought we should have some Sprite too. I don't have anything else if you don't like Sprite though. I should have asked."
Taehyeon struggles to choke down the boulder of cake he shoved into his mouth as quickly as he could. He doesn't manage to catch all of the crumbs as he thanks Minjun and he wonders how quick the process of transferring schools could be.
Cruelly, Minjun keeps on asking questions. Much like that walk to the bus stop on Thursday night, Taehyeon is struggling to imagine why Minjun would want to ask him all of this. Today the questions are mostly about school but Taehyeon mostly doubts that Minjun is capable of memorising every student in Taehyeon's class or his timetable for the week. All the same, Minjun is making an effort to try for some reason. Taehyeon isn't even sure whether he should be volunteering information like this. When he finds himself getting beaten up by a selection of kids from his class, he will only have himself to thank.
When the cake is done, Taehyeon assumes this must be the end of this strange meeting. What more could possibly happen?
"Wow, can I see your hand?" Minjun requests. Before Taehyeon knows it, Minjun is carefully holding Taehyeon's left hand and inspecting his fingers. This is… normal.
"Do I have something on my hand?" Taehyeon asks through the tightness in his throat.
"No. Your hands are just really pretty. Like, they're graceful, you know?" Minjun strokes his index finger along the back of Taehyeon's ring finger and asks, "Do you play piano? You should. These look like some real pianist's fingers. Spread your hand out. Look at that hand span. You could reach the whole octave with hands like this. Look at my hands, they're kind of small, but don't tell anyone. I'm not great with piano or keyboards because of that. It's stupid, right? I have no idea how those super smart little kids play like that."
Minjun's smile is so charmingly open that Taehyeon can only surmise that he's the only one aware of what is actually going on here. Their hands are pressed together, palm against palm. This is the worst thing that has ever happened to Taehyeon. The amount of self-control it is taking not to close his fingers around Minjun's hand is astounding. Fighting reflexes is a difficult thing. He can't do this.
Taehyeon takes his hand back and flexes against the cramping from keeping his hand so rigidly straight.
"I don't think your hands are that small. I wouldn't have guessed that you'd have any trouble."
"Really?" Minjun asks, having the audacity to sound glad about that.
Right away he shoves his own hand towards Taehyeon. It's so sudden that Taehyeon can't stop himself from holding his hand. When he tries to put some space between their hands, Minjun presses his hand more insistently closer. Taehyeon is going to need to take the loss and hold Minjun's hand. There is no telling whether Minjun would chase Taehyeon's hands all the way down to his lap.
Pushing those sorts of thoughts away, Taehyeon appreciates the chill in the air blasting him in the face. He holds Minjun's hand safely above the remnants of the cake. Miles and miles away from his crotch, thank goodness.
"My sister gave me some tips to disguise how small my hands are," Minjun says easily as though Taehyeon didn't just have to battle with himself over whether hand-to-hand or hand-to-crotch contact would be more embarrassing. "She's really fashionable so she knows about things like this. My wrists aren't too narrow but she told me to wear big, chunky chains like this anyway. With all these rings, apparently it disrupts something so your eyes won't notice right away that my hands are like this. It's a good trick, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Taehyeon agrees hoarsely. "I was totally fooled."
Minjun's fingers filling in the gaps inside the rings can't possibly be ignored. He even squeezes Taehyeon's hand and smiles.
"You know, I really couldn't believe it when I heard that you wanted to be my friend. I don't think a boy has wanted to be my friend since middle school," Minjun says with a small laugh. "Actually, the only boy who wants to be friends with me now is this middle school kid who lives in my building. There's nothing wrong with him, of course, but he's just young. Things are simple for him and I can't tell him secrets and stuff. Not that I want to tell secrets or talk about my problems or anything. That's… people say that the things I expect from friendship are girly. It's because boys don't really want to talk to me so I've forgotten what it's like to be friends with boys and what we're supposed to do together. But now I have you, Taehyeon. That's really cool."
Taehyeon hopes that his thoughts aren't showing on his face. He would hate for Minjun to know what he is feeling right now.
Minjun wants a friend. That isn't so unusual. Taehyeon is the weird one. Minjun is cool for not being put off by Taehyeon and even speaking as though there is a warm future for them (though common sense might suggest that Taehyeon is the only choice for someone starved of… male companionship.) Taehyeon is clearly ungrateful. He expects too much.
Is holding hands and sharing meaningful glances supposed to be gay? Obviously Taehyeon is the idiot for assuming something like that.
No. Taehyeon needs to consider the fact that Minjun has no idea what sort of signals he appeared to be giving off today. In Minjun's world, sharing birthday cakes and holding hands and talking about minor complexes must be an ordinary part of friendship. He's innocent to the things that Taehyeon had been thinking of. Minjun is just a guy who wants to be friends with at least one boy.
As discouraging as that is, Taehyeon shouldn't be ungrateful. Minjun has unknowingly carried the heavy load of emotional labour of being the person Taehyeon has had various categories of dreams about at all times during the day. Considering the fact that Minjun has been as gracious as to lend his face to all manner of fantasies, the least Taehyeon could do is try to be Minjun's friend. Minjun messily iced a cake for him after meeting four days ago for goodness sake! Taehyeon shouldn't be rude or inconsiderate.
"I'm glad we can be friends too."
What on earth was in that cake? Taehyeon sounds like he has attempted to swallow several large rocks. He's sure that his horrible and croaky voice hasn't gone unnoticed until Minjun drops his gaze and blushes — was that a conscious action? Taehyeon has never seen anybody with such uncanny control of their nervous system before. Taehyeon is totally only interested scientifically. As in: scientifically, what the hell does any of this even mean?
"Do you have some more time?" Minjun asks, face blooming like a bush of prize-winning peonies and still holding Taehyeon's hand as easily as if it had become part of his own body. "I've heard that this is the best time of year to see the pink muhly."
Succumbing to his terrified irritation (see, Taehyeon has no control over his own nervous-system and he scientifically wonders whether Minjun can see him trying to ignore his fight-or-flight response), Taehyeon asks, "what the hell is pink mule wee?"
Minjun laughs with his entire body. Cute except for when he knocks the cake onto the floor and almost gets a faceful of Taehyeon's crotch.
Taehyeon has won out over his fight-or-flight response. He very consciously realises that offing himself wouldn't be so bad right about now.
*
Pink muhly is just fluffy, pink grass. Whilst Taehyeon isn't particularly enchanted by the wide patch of pink grass, Minjun is impressed. He wheedles and wheedles and there is no way that Taehyeon is about to give in and pose for a picture. He can't think of too many excuses not to take pictures of Minjun crouching and posing amongst the field of pink.
"You are really good at taking pictures," Minjun says whilst smiling down at his phone. He grins at Taehyeon. "I am still absolutely certain that you'd do even better on the other side of the camera. Why are you being so shy? Can't I even get one picture of you? It would be a shame to just go home without commemorating the day."
In truth, Taehyeon isn't afraid of commemorating anything — privately. He is being reasonably cautious about this specific instance.
Taehyeon can be honest (with himself). When the love bug first bit him, Taehyeon's feverish reaction was an attempt of cyberstalking Minjun. He has past experience of surfing the web-based seas in search of social media profiles and he used every trick he learnt to find traces of Minjun. Unfortunately, just like his petite and compact hands, Minjun's digital footprint is tiny. Non-existent, even! All the same, Taehyeon could have been out-smarted by Minjun's maverick intelligence. He doesn't want to risk being made a laughingstock on a super-secret account which will leak out onto his real life reputation.
"Why do you want a picture of me? What are you going to do with it?"
Minjun blinks as though trying to refocus his vision after a blow to the head. The incomprehension seeps into every corner of his smile. "What do you mean?"
"Are you going to post it online or something?"
"Online?"
Taehyeon quickly becomes concerned about the prospect of having to explain the internet to Minjun.
"Oh, like on Twitter or Instagram or something?" Minjun asks. "My mom says I shouldn't use websites like that. I just want the picture to look at. Why? Should I be showing it to everyone? I can send the picture to people I know and maybe one of them could put it on the internet for me or something. Oh! Or you could—"
"No! No thank you," Taehyeon says quickly. He feels like he just ran a marathon. As illuminating as this has been, learning so much might push him right into a heart attack. "I don't want the picture posted anywhere online. If you just want the picture to look at yourself, I can take a picture with you."
This is apparently enough to turn Minjun ecstatic. He spends a long time directing Taehyeon where to stand and which direction to face. Several times everything seems to be perfect until Minjun decides he has seen someone walk across the scenery behind them.
After all of that, only one blurry selfie is the end result. Minjun convinces Taehyeon to pose alone for a few pictures and Taehyeon can't claim they're horrible. As awkward as he looks, shoulders hunched from the cold, he doesn't look like a hideous monster. That doesn't mean that Taehyeon totally understands why Minjun smiles so happily at the pictures as they walk back to the bus stop.
The two of them are quiet. Taehyeon is relieved that he doesn't need to answer to all the quirks of Minjun's curiosity. The problem with the silence is the fact that Taehyeon doesn't know what to do with himself. He has been left with the remainder of the salvaged cake and the assertion that he didn't eat enough, and he is going to be too embarrassed to explain that if anyone at home asks him. All the same, he shouldn't be ungrateful.
"Thank you for the cake. And I guess the whole surprise party thing."
Minjun's face lights up, horrifyingly similar to the earlier blush but without the shade of warning. "It was a shame that I missed your actual birthday. If we had been introduced just a bit earlier I could have done something properly for you. Next time."
Taehyeon wonders what exactly that means. The national exams for all the university hopefuls are only a few weeks away. Minjun will graduate in February and they won't be at the same school anymore. If they had met earlier it would have lengthened their scant time together but Taehyeon doesn't know to what end that would have been.
Friends. That's what they would have been. Taehyeon needs to get his head screwed on properly instead of thinking stupid things.
It is only now that Taehyeon realises that there is something he doesn't know.
"When is your birthday?"
"November."
There is only around a week remaining of October. The response doesn't really narrow things down much when Minjun's birthday could take place any time at all during the entire month. Patiently, Taehyeon asks, "when in November?"
"Near the beginning."
Taehyeon decides not to push. Minjun might have a reason for being frustratingly vague. That's fine. There is still time to try to get the answer out of his dear friend Taeri from his class.