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Seongbin knows better than to get distracted during practice. It used to not happen so often—until a certain someone decided that constantly rolling around the sidewalks outside of the practice field was, apparently, the best way to get his own practice in. It’s entirely stupid.
Yechan is stupid.
He grins, carefree and unaware of Seongbin glaring at him from the left outfield position he finds himself in. Yechan’s hair blows in the wind, the strands bouncing up and down as he skates along the sidewalk. Seongbin shouldn’t be as surprised as he is, honestly. Yechan’s always been the type of person to act as carefree as possible. At times, Seongbin has been envious of it—other times, he’s wanted to grab his friend by the throat and throttle him into the next year.
Yechan is… pretty. He’s handsome. Seongbin has known that since they were in middle school. Seongbin himself isn’t ugly, but when it came to attractiveness between the Yoon brothers and Seongbin, it was the two of them getting girls (and occasionally, in secret, guys) constantly confessing to them at school or anywhere else. Seongbin doesn’t really compare himself to them, not as much as he used to while growing up. After he figured out that he was only upset that they were so pretty because he was gay, that was when Seongbin really stopped thinking too hard about it all.
Anyway, the point is that Yechan is pretty and Seongbin kind of hates him for it. His smiles are always bright and sunny, white teeth perfectly on display. His jaw is sharp, yet soft at the same time. He’s still growing, so Seongbin is sure that it’ll sharpen out when he’s in his late twenties or early thirties. And his lips—god, don’t get Seongbin started on his lips.
“—y! Hey! Hey, Seongbin!” Someone is yelling at him repeatedly, trying to get his attention.
Seongbin reacts moments too late, whipping his head around from Yechan’s direction and back towards the baseball practice he’s supposed to be paying attention to instead of the dumbass on the skateboard. Seongbin’s eyes go wide as a ball comes hurtling towards him, directly at his face. If Seongbin had been paying attention, his mitt would already be up in the air, covering his face, ready to catch it. But since he had been watching Yechan instead, his gloved hand is still curled by his side, and Seongbin is about to get a face full of baseball for his own idiocy.
In the split seconds between the ball hurtling towards him and Seongbin’s brain booting back online to figure out what reaction to do, he’s able to finally get his body to move. Seongbin quickly lifts his left hand, mitt positioned to catch the ball, right as the ball comes crashing down into it. However, the angle of Seongbin’s glove is off, and the ball is spinning so fast. It hits the edge of Seongbin’s mitt, but goes barreling upwards from the edge.
Like that, the ball goes directly into Seongbin’s face at a different angle. It smacks up into Seongbin, right against his upper lip and his nose, before it rolls up and hits the middle of his forehead. Pain shoots through Seongbin’s entire body as he groans, immediately covering his face with both his regular hand and his gloved hand.
“Seongbin-ah!” Mark’s voice gets closer as he comes jogging up to him. “Dude, are you okay?”
Seongbin can hear several of his other teammates and friends running up to them on the field. When Seongbin pulls away his mitt and his hand, he hears Mark make that “ssst!” noise that he usually does when it looks like something hurts. And, yeah, Seongbin’s face hurts right now.
“Oh my god, dude, your lip!” Eric says as he reaches up to his own mouth, face scrunching up with distaste. “You’re bleeding everywhere, man.”
“Are you alright, Seongbin-ah?” Their pitcher, Seungmin, is pushing his way through the small crowd, already getting to his knees beside him. He winces, especially as Seongbin attempts to speak.
“Okay,” Seongbin responds, but his upper lip trembles and his nose hurts when he speaks, and when Seongbin glances down, he can see that his upper lip is split right up the middle and there’s blood running down both it and from his nose. “Fuck.”
“Yeah—” Mark says, wincing as well. “Fuck, man. Okay, we should probably get you to the nurse. Come on.”
Seongbin nods, though it makes him dizzy, and he grips onto both Seungmin and Mark as they pull him up to his feet. His head almost whites out the moment he stands up properly, his arms sluggish as his two teammates hoist him further up. He manages to drag his feet along the ground as the two drag him along back towards their university campus, Seungmin calling out towards the rest of their team. “Practice is on pause for right now! Take a break, we’ll finish up when I get back!”
Seongbin wants to tell Seungmin that it’s not that big of a deal, but then his head turns to complete fuzz and Seongbin sort of feels like he might throw up soon if he’s not careful. So he keeps his mouth shut, lets his head hang forward, and lets himself be taken to the infirmary.
Stupid Yechan, Seongbin belatedly thinks, staring down at the ground as the world sort of fades away from him.
“Well, the good news is,” the nurse begins, sighing softly, “Your nose isn’t broken, or chipped. However, you did bruise it, as well as your forehead, quite hard. You’ll have to be extra careful with both places for a few weeks. You may be prone to having a few nosebleeds, as well, so be sure to look out for those.”
Seongbin nods, holding an ice pack up against the bridge of his nose, with tissues stuffed up inside of his nostrils. His forehead throbs with dull pain, and he’s pretty sure he’s got an insane migraine now. His entire body feels awful.
“Here are some hot and cold strips for your nose.” The nurse smiles gently as she gestures to two small boxes. “When you sleep, just be careful of your nose. I wouldn’t recommend going back to practice while you recover. Give it at least two weeks, okay? You don’t have a concussion, thankfully, but your balance will be off for a little while.”
Not the words that Seongbin wants to hear. Missing practice for two weeks? He’s going to go insane, and his team is going to be upset at him. Especially because of the reason why Seongbin had been so distracted in the first place. Seongbin merely nods again, keeping quiet.
“You’re free to rest here as long as you need or want, until the campus closes. I wouldn’t suggest walking alone for too long, either, just for the first few days.”
Even worse. Seongbin is going to have to be treated like some fragile doll for a couple of days and he wants to die.
Stupid fucking Yechan.
The nurse leaves the infirmary room, leaving Seongbin to his own devices. He frowns deeply, wincing as he does, keeping the ice pack pressed to his nose. It’s starting to feel numb, thanks to both the ice and the painkillers the nurse gave him, but Seongbin feels like if he even so much as moves just a little too fast, he’s going to keel over into an early grave.
“Yo, Bean.”
Seongbin nearly says fuck his injuries to scream. He does not scream.
Instead, he turns his head towards the doorway of the infirmary and stares as deadpan as he possibly can at Yoon fucking Yechan.
Yechan waves a hand in his direction, and Seongbin has to resist the urge to roll his eyes. He’s smiling as he enters the room, stopping a few feet away from the infirmary bed that Seongbin is sitting on. Yechan looks at him, nervous and unsure, despite the smile on his face.
They’ve been friends since they were kids, growing up together within the same neighborhood and going to the same middle and high schools together. Seongbin knows how to read Yechan better than almost anyone, save for Yechan’s older brother, most likely. (Seongbin used to have a crush on said older brother, Keeho, during middle school, but when they entered high school together, Yechan was the one who became Seongbin’s object of affections. He’s been cursed with a crush on the guy ever since.)
Yechan nods his head towards the edge of the bed, next to Seongbin. “You mind if I sit?”
Seongbin glances down. There’s enough room if he scoots over. Does he want to scoot over? His body is moving before he had a chance to think about it anymore. Yechan sits himself right beside Seongbin, on his left. He shifts the hand holding the ice pack from his left hand to his right. There’s that dull aching in his forehead again.
“You got hurt during practice?” Yechan mumbles, turning his body towards Seongbin.
Seongbin looks at him over the ice pack, nodding as he tries to not grimace. “Yeah. Didn’t catch the ball in time or at the right angle, so it smacked me in the face.”
Yechan laughs, light and friendly. Seongbin wishes he could laugh with him. His laugh has always been cute. “Man, I can’t believe you let a baseball get you, Bean. You’re always so good at catching them! What happened?”
You, Seongbin thinks irritability, pursing his lips to keep himself from saying it out loud. Instead, he says, “Just wasn’t paying attention. Got a bit distracted…”
There’s that grinning smile that Seongbin hates (loves) so much. Yechan’s eyes partially disappear, his nose scrunching up. “Yeah? Distracted, huh? By what?” He asks, sounding like he’s teasing him right now.
Seongbin takes a moment, staring at Yechan as he tries to wrap his brain around the words that just came from him. There’s no way Yechan is trying to goad Seongbin into confessing right now, is he? He can’t be. Yechan can’t know about his crush at all. Seongbin isn’t that obvious, right? Right?
“Doesn’t matter,” Seongbin says, shaking his head carefully as he turns his head back to stare at the medical posters decorating the walls and cabinets of the room. “Don’t worry about it.”
Yechan lets out a hum, kicking his feet back and forth slowly. The gentle motion of it is nice. “You know how I used to get hurt a lot as a kid? While on my skateboard.”
How could Seongbin forget? He’s always been fussing over Yechan and his skateboarding for years, since they were little. Yechan would always end up with bandaids covering his hands and elbows and legs and knees. Seongbin got so used to it that he would carry around at least three packs of different sizes of bandaids for Yechan whenever they were needed.
“I’m pretty good at skateboarding and I really always have been, but I get distracted pretty easily, too.” Yechan shifts on the bed, both of his arms going back as he leans back on his palms. “I especially always got distracted because of one particular person.”
Seongbin furrows his eyebrows, that dull aching pain in his forehead returning. His nose is basically numb right now. He drops his right hand down and back, setting the ice pack down onto the bed. “What’s that got to do with my nose?”
A moment of quiet, before Yechan shifts again and turns himself a bit on the bed. “Hey, lemme see your face, Bean.”
Seongbin desperately hates the way that stupid cute nickname kicks his heart rate up. Still, he does as Yechan asks, slowly turning himself to face Yechan on the bed. He almost jumps back and onto the floor, startled by his just close the two of them are right now. His eyes flicker around Yechan’s face, watching him, before he notices the fact that Yechan’s eyes are fixed right on his mouth—specifically, on his split upper lip.
Yechan frowns lightly. “Damn, that’s rough… does it hurt?” He reaches his hand up towards his face, and Seongbin sits there in agony and shock as Yechan’s thumb comes into contact with his upper lip, gently pressing into the small injury. It pulses under his thumb.
Seongbin forgets to wince, even though it does hurt. He shakes his head a little, Yechan’s thumb still brushing against his lip as he does so. Seongbin’s heart is dangerously close to bursting right now. Yechan’s eyes turn up, looking into Seongbin, and Seongbin gulps, hoping that it isn’t too loud.
“Yechan—”
His hand falls away as he asks, “Do you remember that one time in high school? Our freshman year? When I fell off my skateboard trying to grind for the first time and nearly broke my leg?”
“Yeah. I was terrified when it happened. I cried.”
“Yeah, I remember.” Yechan laughs a little, light yet still full. “I kept telling you it was okay, but you wouldn’t believe me.”
“I kept blaming myself,” Seongbin quietly laments, frowning softly. “If I hadn’t been talking to Keeho-hyung—”
“That was why I fell.” Yechan interrupts.
It takes Seongbin off guard. He startles a little, his eyes going wide as he stares up at Yechan, unsure of what to do. “…what? What do you mean—”
“I was jealous,” Yechan says, the corner of his lips twitching upwards. “Because you were paying more attention to my hyung than you were to me.”
“You were… jealous?” Seongbin blinks owlishly. “Of Keeho-hyung?”
Yechan nods, looking nervous once more. His eyes glance away, before coming back to Seongbin’s face. “I could tell that you really liked him,” he says, and something like guilt squeezes itself around Seongbin’s heart. “So I started taking skateboarding more seriously ‘cause I thought that would make you like me more. I thought if I could do all these cool tricks, then you’d start paying attention to me instead of hyung.”
Seongbin can feel his entire face heating up. So Yechan’s severely twisted ankle and leg had been because of him, but for a completely different reason that Seongbin’s been lead to believe. “But… why would you be jealous?”
Yechan gives him a look, like Really? and Seongbin almost cringes to himself. That definitely was a ridiculous question to ask. “Seongbin, I’ve had a crush on you since we were like ten years old. Do you know why I haven’t really gotten super injured since we’ve gotten older?” Seongbin slowly shakes his head. “Because I don’t need to get injured to have your attention anymore. I used to get hurt on purpose a lot so you’d spend more time with me. I liked that you worried over me so much. And I was petty enough to like that it kept you away from hyung, so you wouldn’t like him anymore.”
Seongbin feels dizzy again, and it’s not because of his baseball injury. The entire time that Seongbin’s been upset over his crush on Yechan, thinking that the guy just doesn’t see anything and that he just couldn’t care less about Seongbin liking him—it’s been entirely wrong and misplaced. Especially in their now older age.
“That’s why you were so happy when I said I was going to a different university than Keeho-hyung,” Seongbin says rather lamely, staring at Yechan’s face. “Because that meant I didn’t like him.”
Yechan nods, firm and resolute. He seems almost too happy to hear those words coming from Seongbin right now. “Yeah. I was so glad you weren’t trying to follow him around.”
“You know I stopped liking Keeho-hyung in high school,” Seongbin says, “Right?”
Yechan bites his lower lip, like he’s trying to not smile. “I figured it out after a while, yeah.”
“And you still kept getting hurt until our senior year.”
“I told you, I liked you worrying over me a lot. You’re cute when you worry. And it meant you would be touching me, even if it was just to help my injuries, so.”
Seongbin deadpans at him. “You’re a fucking idiot, Yoon Yechan.”
Yechan laughs loudly, his eyes crinkling and his nose scrunching and so utterly perfectly pretty. “Yeah—yeah, I kind of am, huh?”
They stare at each other for several moments, quiet settling between them. It’s almost palpable now, this silence. Yechan keeps glancing at his mouth. Seongbin can’t tell if it’s because of the injury, or—
“Yechan,” Seongbin mumbles, “Are you trying to kiss me, or is my split lip really that interesting?”
He watches as Yechan’s ears go pink, and Seongbin can’t help but feel rather proud about it. Yechan grins, crooked and handsome, before Seongbin feels his hand cupping his jaw and tugging him in. Yechan kisses him sweetly, a mere press of the lips because of Seongbin’s split upper lip. It’s a good first kiss, one that Seongbin’s imagination could have never conjured up before.
“We’re definitely doing this again when your lip heals,” Yechan mumbles as Seongbin winces from sudden pain, the bridge of his nose aching. “And your nose.”
“This is all your fault, you know.” Seongbin grumbles, playfully glowering at Yechan.
Yechan grins again, careful as he gently nudges his nose against the side of Seongbin’s nose, trying not to agitate any pain. “I know. I could feel and see you staring at me.”
“I hate you.”
“You love me.”
Seongbin really wishes his lip wasn’t busted and his nose wasn’t broken.