Twenty Fish

Lunchtime rolled in on Monday. Euiheon didn't say a single word and left the classroom by himself. He hadn't talked to any of his friends all morning, even having come to school alone. Of course, Hamin hadn't exactly waited for him, either. He also had come to school alone and a whole hour earlier than usual at that, just to avoid running into Euiheon and potentially pissing him off even more.

Edin was quick to notice something was up with his two friends again. But he didn't do much about it as he was experiencing his own awkward relationship with Yuel. At least in Edin and Yuel's case, the two of them were still on speaking terms. It was just that Yuel refused to look at him anymore.

"Hey, why don't you go talk to Hamin?" Yuel said, staring at the gloomy boy across the room.

"Okay." After taking out Yuel and his lunch, Edin got up and walked to Hamin's seat. "You good?"

Hamin lifted his head to look at his friend. Before he could say a word, a tear dripped from his left eye.

"Woah, why are you crying...?"

"I'm crying?" Hamin tapped both his eyes and felt the single teardrop. "Why am I crying?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"Is everything okay?" Yuel stepped in, thinking Edin wouldn't make much progress on his own. He sat in the chair next to Hamin.

Hamin buried his head in his hands, feeling more tears coming. It was like all these tears had piled up during the depressing weekend he had spent alone in his room, and they were waiting to burst out.

And burst out they did.

"I screwed up!" Hamin cried. "Now, Chewie hates me!"

While Edin just looked confused, Yuel got a rough idea of what might have happened. Yuel reached out and gave a somewhat comforting pat on Hamin's back as the boy continued to bawl his eyes out. If someone walked in, they would think Yuel was Hamin's friend, not Edin.

"Could you get him some tissues?" Yuel asked Edin.

"Uh, sure."

Edin looked around the classroom but couldn't find any tissues around. So he stepped out to retrieve some from the bathroom down the hall. Yuel took this chance to talk more in detail about things with Hamin.

"Hey, so... Did you talk to Euiheon about the kiss?" Yuel asked, thinking this was the cause of the two boys' conflict.

"Huh?" Hamin wiped his eyes and nose on his sleeve. "I mean, yeah. But he said he didn't remember anything from that night, so it ended at that."

"He didn't remember kissing you?"

"Nope, which was why I figured we could just go back to how we'd always been."

Yuel wondered if it could be that easy. Even if Euiheon didn't remember, Hamin still did. But perhaps this was where Hamin's simple nature worked to his advantage. Yuel, on the other hand, knew there was no going back after his short kiss with Edin. He felt too embarrassed to even look at him anymore, after all. But that was an issue he would deal with at a later time.

"I see," Yuel replied. "Then, what happened? Why does Euiheon hate you now?"

"Well... We went to the library together on Saturday, and I kind of messed with him a little too much. I kept tapping his foot. But since he told me to stop tapping it, I slid my foot up his leg, and..."

Hamin paused. He felt his face burn up upon finally realizing how perverted his action must have seemed to Euiheon. He did recognize what he was trying to do in the moment. But he was too focused on getting a reaction out of Euiheon to care about how his friend might have taken his little game. No wonder Euiheon was so mad at him. As touchy as Hamin was, he had never been that touchy before.

Hamin tried to put himself in Euiheon's shoes. How would he have felt if Euiheon had tried to touch him like that? Uncomfortable... right? Well, that was what Hamin assumed at first. But after imagining the scenario, he just found himself blushing even harder.

"And?" Yuel asked since Hamin hadn't finished his sentence.

But the red-faced boy didn't hear him as he mumbled, "I don't think I would hate it. Wait, but why wouldn't I hate it? Am I gay?"

"Huh?"

Hamin turned his body around in his chair to fully face Yuel. In all seriousness, he admitted, "I almost touched Chewie's dick in the library. So I imagined him touching mine, and I'm kind of aroused right now."

"What the fuck?" Edin said from the classroom door, a scrunched-up ball of toilet paper in his hand. "I step out for one second, and you're talking to Yuel about touching dicks? I haven't even gotten to talk to him about that yet."

"What?" Yuel and Hamin said together.

"J-Just come sit down," Yuel stuttered, finding it even harder to look at Edin now.

Edin sat in Euiheon's seat and passed the toilet paper ball to Hamin, who by then had already stopped crying and used his sleeve to clean up all his tears and snot. But he still took the ball and squished it into a tinier ball.

"So, what's all this dick talk about?" Edin asked.

Yuel looked at Hamin. "At this point, you might as well tell him everything, too."

"Too?" Edin said. "How much have you been sharing with Yuel?"

Hamin sighed. "Where do I even begin? So..."

Hamin went on to explain everything that had happened between him and Euiheon until now, the kiss and all. Edin didn't look overly surprised. If anything, he was jealous that his two friends got to do more together than he had with Yuel.

Edin wondered what might have happened that day had his mom not arrived to put a stop to things. Would Yuel have actually tried to kiss him? Would he try again? While Edin pondered over this, Hamin finished his recap by giving the reason he had only talked to Yuel at first.

"Look, I just didn't want you to immediately go spill the beans to Euiheon. And I figured Yuel would better understand me since, you know..."

"I told you, I'm not gay..."

Yuel could feel the stinging of guilt in his heart. He knew how nonsensical it was to say he wasn't gay when his first crush was literally a guy and he even wanted to kiss the boy right in front of him before. But Hamin didn't know about all that, and Yuel had no plans to tell him anytime soon.

"I am," Edin said with all the confidence in the world. "I'm gay for you, Yuel."

"......"

Yuel had no clue what the appropriate reply to such a statement would be. Perhaps no reply would be the best reply in this kind of situation.

"So, are you two dating or what?" Hamin asked.

Edin replied, "Not yet. But we did nearly make out at my—"

"Please shut up," Yuel cut in, slapping his hand over Edin's mouth. He felt his hand get sweaty from making contact with the boy's lips, the same lips he had nearly ki— "A-Anyway, let's get back to the topic at hand. What are you going to do about Euiheon?"

At the mention of his name, Hamin was back to being a sad boy with his sad ball of toilet paper. "I don't know..."

Edin took Yuel's hand off his mouth and clasped it gently in both his own. But he didn't have hold of it for long, as Yuel immediately pulled it away and wiped all the sweat off on his pants.

Grinning, Edin asked, "So, Euiheon said he didn't need a dumbass like you in his life?"

"Ouch." Hamin placed a hand over his aching heart at the memory. "Yeah..."

"Then, why not prove him wrong?"

"Huh? How?"

"Do you want to go back to being on good terms with him?"

"Yeah, obviously."

"Do you want him to kiss you again?"

"...Maybe. Wait, where are you going with this?"

"Okay, I got this crazy idea. Maybe you should ace the midterms and prove to Euiheon you're not a dumbass, that you're worth kissing a second time even though he doesn't remember the first time."

Hamin's eyes glistened as the idea clicked in his head. "You're a fucking genius, Edin! I'll study every waking minute and ace the midterms so Chewie likes me again! And maybe he'll kiss me again, too. Not that I'm saying I want him to or anything. But still...!"

While Hamin kept rambling on about how excited he was to hit the books, Yuel leaned slightly over to Edin.

"Are you sure about this?" Yuel asked, worrying that Edin might just be getting Hamin's hopes up for nothing.

"It's worth a shot," Edin replied with a shrug. "I'll help him out."

Hearing that and thinking about how accepting Edin was of Hamin's whole predicament, even the part about him possibly being gay, Yuel looked at him for the first time that day and smiled. "You know, you're a good friend."

Edin smirked. "I need Hamin to have lunch with Euiheon so we can finally have our alone time."

"...I take it back."