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Wooyoung and Mingi didn’t cry— at least, not in the way you’d think.
Mingi only cried when he was alone, behind closed doors or under blankets, only letting the tears fall down when they were hidden. And even then it was quiet, a silent stream of tears with no sob or sniffle.
Wooyoung has never cried. Not even as a child, when he got pushed around, or called names, or scraped his knee. Before his face could contort in pain or sadness, a smile covered it right away, with an exclaimed “I’m okay!”
That’s how it’s always been between them. No one has ever seen them cry. Maybe only each other, but that was rare enough.
San, meanwhile…
Well, neither of them knew what to do with him.
It was lunch break at their usual spot, on the bench under the tree behind the school building, and when San suddenly broke down into tears, they were a little lost.
They watched as his shoulders stuttered, head bowed so the tears spilled over his rice. They were only soft sobs and sniffles, but for the two it might as well have been loud wails that cut through the silence of chewing and Wooyoung’s chatter.
Wooyoung and Mingi locked eyes. “What did you do?” Wooyoung mouthed with his brows furrowing.
“What? Why me?” Mingi mouthed back, lips setting into a frown.
If there was an advantage about growing up together, it’s that they could understand each other even without speaking, through only small gestures and faces, even with a person sitting between them sobbing their eyes out. “I told you, stop scaring him,” Wooyoung continued.
It earned him a stomp on the foot from Mingi, which made him let out a small “ow!” . San paused for a second at the sound, but he was back to sobbing just as quickly. “Was not!” Mingi huffed. “Maybe it was you.”
Wooyoung returned the dirty look, before he switched his attention back to San, changing his glare to something he hoped was more comforting. His hand hovered and hesitated over San’s shoulder, before finally setting it on top. “San-ah, are you okay?” he said, in a tone he hoped was soft.
San lifted his head, looking at him. A light pink dusted his nose and wet cheeks, his mouth flitted into a pout, and he sniffed. “‘m fine. It’s nothing. Sorry.”
At his words, Mingi shrugged and went back to eating.
Wooyoung sneaked a hand behind San and gave Mingi a shove, almost sending his food flying. It was obviously not nothing! San was crying out of the blue, so that meant he was sad, probably. He needed comfort. Probably.
Though they’ve only known him for a month or so, and they were less familiar with him than they were each other, they’ve grasped that San was a little… different.
A bit more sensitive, though for him it wasn’t anything to hide. Quick to pout at every small jab, but just as quick to smile widely at each small gesture. Open too, heart on his sleeve, heart on his shy expressions, on his eyes that sparkle when he laughs. Anyone could get to him. In a way, they had to protect him, which was what Wooyoung was trying to communicate to Mingi through a series of rapid blinks and nose scrunches.
Mingi sighed, putting his lunch safe on his lap so he could awkwardly pat San’s head. “Uhm… It’s okay. Don’t be sorry.”
San cried even harder, burying his face in his hands. Wooyoung squinted at Mingi in a way that said, wow, great job!
Mingi threw his hands up in surrender.
“Shh, it’s okay, really. What’s wrong?” Wooyoung cooed, now rubbing his back, concern lacing his voice because he was still crying and they still didn’t know why. “Was it something Mingi or I said?”
San shook his head. “No, it’s not you,” he said, muffled through his palms.
“Did someone touch you?” Mingi said. He wasn’t naive to not know students liked to pick on transferees, he just didn’t know if said students were naive enough to target San when everyone knows he’s his friend. “Who? I’ll kill them.”
San shook his head again.
Wooyoung and Mingi locked eyes again, now more lost than they were earlier.
“San-ah,” Wooyoung started, “you… we’re here for you.”
Mingi nodded. “Yeah,” he said helpfully.
“Uhm… Don’t be sad.”
“Yeah.”
“You can talk to us about it. If you want.”
“Yeah.”
Wooyoung was just blurting out words he remembered well-intentioned teachers saying to him during his anxiety attacks, though he was starting to regret it because they never worked on him, and he didn’t know if it was working on San.
He didn’t have to worry for too long, because after a few sniffs San lifted his head up and his glassy eyes met Wooyoung’s. “You’re gonna think it’s stupid.”
“No! No, of course not!” Wooyoung said quickly. It was his turn to give Mingi a stomp on a foot, and Mingi’s turn to let out a flat “ow”.
“Yeah. No. No we won’t.” Mingi said. At least, he’d try not to.
It took a few more sniffle before he started talking again. He averted his eyes, instead looking down at his fingers that he was now fiddling. “I lost Bobo.”
“Bobo? Who’s Bobo?” Wooyoung asked.
“My plushie,” he said, shrinking in on himself, pout deepening.
Wooyoung inwardly sighed. At least it wasn’t anything severe. But, it didn’t explain why he was crying so hard. Neither him nor Mingi knew what else to say.
“What happened?” It was Wooyoung who spoke again, quick to not let the silence linger too much.
“We lost him in the move,” San said quietly, his sobs now reduced to occasional sniffs. “And… and it was my fault because I was supposed to pack him myself, and I only finished unpacking now, and if I wasn’t so lazy I would’ve noticed sooner, and…”
San trailed off, and when he saw Wooyoung’s taken aback expression with his mouth slightly opened, he burst into sobs again.
“You think it’s stupid,” he cried out, turning and pressing his face into the closest thing— Mingi’s shoulder.
Mingi tensed, but after feeling San’s hand gripping the front of his uniform he let himself relax, and let him melt into him further.
“It’s not like that!” Wooyoung panicked, trying to inch closer, but Mingi stuck his tongue out at him while wrapping a protective arm around San. “Maybe… maybe it was just his time, you know?”
Mingi raised an eyebrow in a way that said what does that even mean? “Don’t listen to him,” Mingi said near San’s ear, patting the hair on his nape. “He doesn’t keep plushies, so he wouldn’t get it.”
“Hey! I do. Sometimes,” Wooyoung protested with a sad frown.
Mingi ignored him. “Was Bobo important to you?”
San nodded, getting tears all over Mingi’s uniform. “I had him since I was a kid. And he was with me through all the times I moved. So I feel really bad…”
“It sounds like he’s more than just a plushie, then,” Mingi said, unconsciously running his fingers through San’s hair, a comforting gesture he got from his grandmother. “Just because you left him doesn’t mean he won’t be with you anymore.”
San turned his head away from where he buried it in his neck. “How?”
“Maybe he’d show up again, just in a different form. Like a different plushie, or through new people you’ll meet. Whatever it is that will stay. Maybe that’s him again, finding you.” Even though Mingi was sort of running his mouth, there was a bit of truth to it. San seemed to be pondering his words, tears subsiding and leaving only a pout.
Wooyoung, meanwhile, was grinning the grin that Mingi knew something bad would come out of. Before he could open his mouth, Wooyoung waved him away. Who would’ve known his nonchalant best friend would be so good at comforting like this? “That’s right, Sanni. It’s not your fault you lost him,” Wooyoung cooed again. He leaned closer to wipe away the tears and snot on his face with the sleeve of his uniform. “No more crying, ‘kay?”
He sniffed. “‘kay. Sorry.”
“No more saying sorry either.”
San opened his mouth, then closed it just as quickly, the pout still on his face. He needed to get rid of it quickly.
“Sanni,” Wooyoung said, pulling back, “what does Bobo look like?”
San’s eyes lit up. “He’s a little dog, a little Shiba Inu, he’s orange and very soft, I used to…”
The rest of lunch period was Wooyoung and Mingi listening to San talk, watching as his pout faded into a big smile. As they chewed on their food, a silent understanding passed through the both of them. Although this was the first time they saw him cry, it likely won’t be the last. They’d be with him during then, too, hopefully when they were less awkward about it.
The lunch period the day after, when Mingi gave San his plushie that looked similar (the one he kept all these years, after Wooyoung won it for him at a fair), San cried so much harder, and this time they didn’t know how to stop it.