DANDELIONS.

No. 44

Given the chain of almost unpredictable occurrences that had lined up in Mingyu's daily life, one would assume the boy no longer had any cowardice to spare. He found that he was no longer plagued with pitifulness and tinged with constant timidity after he had finally found it within himself to face the lingering fears that left a lonely feeling of guilt in the pit of his stomach. Mingyu had long shed the apprehensiveness forming a shell around him, no longer dreading plausible consequences and instead anticipating the future of potential awaiting him from the moment he decided to make choices for himself instead of being suffocated by uncontrollable doubt.

Unfortunately, Mingyu didn't have the luck of being able to foresee the string of outcomes corresponding to his actions. While he wanted to confess to Minghao, he didn't want to frighten the boy by coming on too strong. Mingyu was well aware that Minghao was far from trusting him in a relationship, knowing too much about his chain of exes to believe that Mingyu could actually stay loyal to one given person. It wasn't that Mingyu couldn't handle serious relationships; it was that he hadn't found someone who he wanted to have a serious relationship with. But he liked Minghao, and if the other boy was okay with it, Mingyu would very much like to grab him and kiss him, at least once, just to see if it was the way he had imagined.

Until he could figure out how to achieve that without frightening Minghao, he'd just have to stick with staring longingly from the other side of the room.

Minghao's face took on a heavenly glow as the afternoon sun left streaks of honey on his skin. The ends of his lips curled upwards into a tiny smile, growing just the slightest bit wider with every passing minute until it stretched across his face and his eyes began to sparkle with excitement. Mingyu couldn't help but wonder what could have been going on within the yellowed pages of that book that made Minghao grin like world hunger had just been solved, but he didn't dare to ask, far too afraid of ruining the gentle warmness entrenched upon the younger boy's face.

Perhaps Minghao found solitude in the redolent scents of dog-eared pages yellowed with age, inked with sugarcoated words of happy endings or something of the sorts, an ending he yearned to achieve but didn't raise his hopes to receive. He could find his own happily ever after only in books of fiction and falsehoods, ones that had been written far before he even had the chance to decide how unsatisfied he was with the unfortunate turnout of every decision he had made.

Minghao sucked in a shaky breath and shuddered silently, reminding himself that he did not live in a make-believe land where his wildest imagination came to life. He brought himself back to reality - he was almost done a really good book, he had a lot of homework to finish, and while he was daydreaming, Mingyu had managed to inch a lot closer.

Minghao didn't bother to refuse. He never did. He didn't like pushing Mingyu away, not when the boy threw around those irresistible, hurt puppy eyes so carelessly and casually. After their shoulders began to brush, Mingyu sat still; Minghao wasn't surprised. He never moved any further than that.

It almost seemed like a cycle, like a routine, something that always happened without fail. It had become predictable. After Mingyu was finished fidgeting and not-so-discreetly inching closer, they would sit in silence until the horizon completely swallowed the sun. Then, Mingyu would leave. That was how it always went.

But it was unusual. Mingyu's movements felt unfamiliar; his hands had been clenched together since he arrived, but they had relaxed suddenly on his lap, no longer showcasing the obvious fear hidden in his eyes. The distance that had once been between them had disappeared completely as Mingyu twisted to look Minghao in the eye, watching him with a gaze that could only be described as loving. Minghao blinked in surprise, his face shifting into one of confusion and shock, but not rejection - he would have leaned into Mingyu's touch had it not been for how sudden the movement was.