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Jisung has come to find out that he’s terrible at learning how to do—how to do anything, really.
From elementary to high school, he couldn’t focus on any of the material unless he got out of his desk to move around—which always got him sharp reprimands from his teachers. While university offered a new solace in the form of his dance classes, the first two years of general requirements were hell on Earth to grit through. Even in his third year, Jisung can’t avoid his abysmal learning skills when it comes to cooking videos, video game tutorials, or old IT forums that explain why the dance studio’s computer software isn’t working; he reads and he rereads and he stumbles and he never, ever has any idea what he’s actually doing.
Maybe that’s why he doesn’t learn that most people don’t fall in love with two people at the same time.
The beginning of the end stumbles into Jisung’s life twice on an unassuming autumn day: Jeno Lee in the afternoon and Chenle Zhong in the evening.
Jeno Lee sits next to him during his first advanced street dance class with an eye smile and a crop top that has Jisung’s stomach doing flips.
“Your shirt is inside out,” Jeno points out, and Jisung thinks, This is where it all ends.
On his walk back to his apartment, Jisung bumps into Chenle Zhong, whose face has Jisung so distracted, he doesn’t realise Chenle is tugging on his sleeve incessantly to catch his attention.
“You dropped this,” Chenle says, holding up the hamster plushie Jisung brought to his opening exam for good luck, and Jisung thinks, This is really where it all ends.
Thankfully, the world doesn’t end on that unassuming autumn day.
Jisung never learns how to combat the perpetual embarrassment he gets around Jeno and Chenle, though.
As the two appear more and more throughout Jisung’s day to day, it goes from swallowing around a dry mouth every time Jeno lifts the hem of his shirt to wipe the sweat off his face to trying not to die when Jeno gets shy after doing a particularly suggestive dance move; from looking away with a burning face whenever Chenle bites down on whatever he’s holding so he can fish around his pockets to forgetting how to speak when Chenle lowers his voice to speak softly to the kids on their path.
Staying late after class on Wednesdays, taking detours for boba on Fridays, the days start folding into each other. He goes out to dinner with Jeno after a showcase and Jeno pays for his meal with a soft, “My treat. No objections.” The minute he’s back in his bed, Jisung frantically Googles WHAT DOES HAVING A CRUSH FEEL LIKE?
A week later, he crashes at Chenle’s apartment when his toilet clogs and floods the bathroom, and Chenle insists on sharing a bed with a loud, “One night isn’t gonna kill you.” Once Chenle’s breathing evens out beside him, Jisung immediately grabs his phone and Googles WHAT ARE THE SIGNS SOMEONE LIKES YOU BACK??
Jisung bites the bullet one night—after he gets partnered with Jeno for an duet choreography day with way too much body rolling followed by watching Chenle save a cat from a tree—and Googles IS IT POSSIBLE TO HAVE A CRUSH ON TWO PEOPLE AT ONCE???
Then, he Googles IS IT POSSIBLE FOR TWO PEOPLE TO LIKE YOU BACK????
The Google search results are inconclusive. Jisung buries his face into his pillow and makes a strangled noise.
The first time they meet, Jeno and Jisung are staying behind at the studio to work together alone—because that’s a thing now—on the day Chenle offers to pick Jisung up from practice—because that’s a thing now too.
The first thing out of Chenle’s mouth when he steps through the doors is a loud wolf whistle and an appreciative, “Oh, damn!” and the sheer humiliation strikes Jisung down like a lightning bolt from the sky, this time with Jeno flushing bright red too.
Chenle stops offering and just starts showing up to pick them up from then on, sometimes even swinging by early to watch them through the mirrors and shout compliments that have both Jeno and Jisung avoiding eye contact with anything and everything in the room. Jeno starts joining them on their walks back, adding to the idle chatter and buying corn dogs on the way just so Chenle can steal bites out of them. Their steps fall in sync, their schedules start lining up, and their group chat never seems to stop pinging with notifications.
Going from two and two to three is a process Jisung doesn’t even realise has happened until all of them are at the grocery store, refilling Chenle’s fridge because Jeno’s roommate isn’t back from winter break and Jeno planned on resigning himself to a dinner of precooked chicken breast, which is apparently not a good enough dinner, and neither is Jisung's choice of melonpan and an entire bulk pack of umaibo.
“How have either of you survived for this long?” Chenle chastises as they make their way through the produce aisle. He tosses a million different vegetables into their shopping cart, swapping out the protein powders and candy bars Jeno and Jisung picked out. “If I knew you guys were putting this garbage into your bodies for this long, I would’ve invited you two over every night for the past two months.”
The thought of staying over at Chenle’s every night has Jisung's face heating up, and he can see Jeno clear his throat and look away, cheeks tinted pink.
“Jaemin took all of the cookware back with him,” Jeno protests, inspecting a packet of gummy bears. He slides it under a bag of spinach, hidden from sight.
“Excuses, excuses,” Chenle sighs, throwing a bunch of meat into the cart without care. They bury the gummy bears deeper out of sight, and Jeno looks away to hide his smile. “Jisung, what’s your’s?”
“I’m bad at learning skills,” Jisung replies honestly. “I’m kind of bad at everything.”
Jeno and Chenle both look at him like he’s grown a second head, and it makes Jisung squirm in place. “What? I’m telling the truth! I’m terrible at cooking.”
“You pick up choreography faster than anyone in our class,” Jeno says with a frown. “What do you mean you’re bad at everything?”
Jisung doesn’t get to reply before Chenle is cutting in with, “I’ll teach you how to cook. We need to put more meat on you, anyway. Sometimes I think you’re one strong gust of wind away from blowing off into the distance. You’d make me feel a lot better if I knew you were eating well.”
Autumn folds into winters spent huddled inside hot pot restaurants, bickering over which ingredients to order and which soup bases to choose, which folds into spring, full of flowers the colour of Chenle’s blush when he laughs and skies the colour of Jeno’s freshly dyed hair. Jisung can’t tell if the colours of his world are seeping into Chenle and Jeno, or if Chenle and Jeno are repainting his world bit by bit.
Jisung’s first date with Jeno is at a cat cafe.
They both get banana milk, because only one of them actually likes coffee and tea, and immediately finish so they can enter the play area. All of the cats hide away from Jisung except a tiny orange one named Yuzu barely the size of one of his hands. On the flip side, Jeno only needs to sit down on the floor for every cat in the vicinity to clamber over towards him, climbing into his lap and up his body like he’s a new tree added to the furniture. Despite the sneezes that seize him every few minutes, Jeno talks to the cats for longer than Jisung has ever seen him hold a conversation.
The cat that’s the most affectionate with Jeno is a fluffy black one, cuddling into his neck despite his protests. Jisung tells Jeno who the cat reminds him of, and Jisung thinks he could get used to the resulting smile that spreads across Jeno’s face.
Jisung’s first date with Chenle is at a strawberry farm.
They get these little baskets to fill with the fruit they pick, though it takes them a lot longer to fill them than it should be. Jisung has no real idea what he’s doing, deliberating over which ones look bigger and more red, because that’s probably how you differentiate strawberries, right? His indecision is rivalled by Chenle’s precision, as Chenle compares every single strawberry against each other like it’s a matter of life or death. They both scream bloody murder when a bumblebee flies out of the bushes, then look at each other and collapse into a fit of giggles.
At the end of their picking session, Chenle’s eaten through half his basket without thought. Jisung tells Chenle who he should save extras for, and Jisung thinks he could get used to the resulting pink that dusts onto Chenle’s cheeks.
Jeno kisses like he dances.
The night of their midterm recital, he tugs Jisung into his dressing room with no regard for Jisung’s loud squeak, pressing their lips together. Under the mirror lights, Jeno is teeth and tongue and hushed praise. Instead of his usual reserved, careful demeanour, Jeno is insistent from head to toe, pouring every last ounce of urgency into Jisung, like nothing in the world could ever matter more.
Chenle kisses like he cooks.
The morning after, he asks Jisung to taste test his omelette, then rubs his thumb over a stray drop of oil on Jisung’s cupid bow and before Jisung can register the roughness of his finger, Chenle’s leaning up and closing the space. He tastes of spices and warmth, impossibly soft and gentle. When he cages Jisung against the kitchen counter, everything is languid, like they have all the time in the world.
They stop when Jisung tears his shirt sleeve, and then they stop when Jisung knocks over a salt shaker.
But each time ends in a fit of uncontrollable laughter, and each time, Jisung learns he can ease the painful thudding in his chest when there’s four other hands willing to help him hold up his own weight.
(They kiss each other too, at first when Jisung isn’t looking, then only when Jisung is looking, until it comes as easy between the three of them as breathing.)
The studio, the boba shop, the sidewalks that lead them on their meaningless strolls around the city, everywhere Jisung comes from, goes to, stays, all of it becomes theirs.
At the heart of it all is Chenle’s apartment. They study on the floor, pile onto the couch to watch movies (and F1, when Jeno gets the remote), and they sit on the kitchen counters until the sun rises, talking about workout routines and coworker love life drama and the ever-expanding state of the universe. The shoe shelf has two new pairs of inside slippers, the bowl for keys near the door gets upgraded to fit wallets, rings, cat treats for strays, and good luck hamster plushies, and the fridge has a whiteboard full of notes written in three different types of penmanship: Don’t forget to buy scallions. Don’t forget your exam tomorrow. Don’t forget we love you.
Chenle’s bedroom has become something of a second home, and tonight—after their first official date at a noraebang—isn’t any different. Fitting three tipsy bodies into a single shower and trying not to slip or accidentally elbow each other is an Olympic sport, and figuring out the bed configuration is even harder.
“Jisung,” Chenle whines, squirming around under the sheets, “Stop kicking me—”
“I’m not! Why am I in the middle, anyway?”
“What am I touching right now?” Jeno asks, and he’s immediately answered by a shriek from Chenle as he jolts around like he’s been electrocuted.
Without any help from an increasingly ticklish, increasingly hysterical Chenle, they manage to manoeuvre themselves into a semi-comfortable position on the mattress, crammed close enough where Jisung can feel both of their breaths against his cheeks and both of their heartbeats against his chest.
Chenle breaks the silence first with a yawn and a mumbled, “I’ll get a bigger bed when we move in together.”
Before Jisung’s half-asleep brain can even begin to process how he’s supposed to feel about that, before the panic hits him hard enough for both of them beside him to feel through his skin, Jeno shoves a pillow into Chenle’s face. “Can you get a better router first? So you can’t blame all your League losses on lag.”
At some point in the middle of the night, Jisung finds himself stirring, a slight ache building at the back of his head. He hoists himself up and reaches over Chenle’s dead weight body for the painkillers Jeno set out the night before, swallowing them down with water from Chenle’s Golden State Warriors reusable cup. Chenle doesn’t rouse from the movement, even burying himself deeper into Jisung’s side with a soft sigh.
To his right, Jeno sits up against the headboard, scrolling on his phone while wearing the glasses that make him look fresh out of Jisung’s teenage dreams. He looks up from his phone and under the sheets, he wriggles his arm around so he can give Jisung’s thigh a squeeze.
“Hey,” Jisung rasps, voice still sore from the karaoke.
“Hey you,” Jeno replies, laughing a little at himself even though the comment wasn’t funny in the slightest.
Jisung realises then that he’s never learned how to speak his thoughts, either.
There are a million and one words on the tip of his tongue, waiting for permission to be breathed into the air. There are words that have been waiting since that unassuming autumn day—you’re pretty when you smile, I hope my shirt being inside out didn’t permanently ruin our chances of being friends, I think I like you—and there are words that hit him now—you look beautiful in the moonlight, I want to kiss you but my breath tastes bad right now, I think I love you.
His anxiety gets the best of him. “Will this—?” Jisung swallows. “Will this really work?”
Jeno’s expression softens into something subdued. “Why wouldn’t it?”
There were a million and one reasons running around Jisung’s head last night, too loud for even the endless belted trot songs and laughter to drown out, but now, Jisung can discern what the centre of it all is.
“Because I’m—I’m scared.”
“Good,” Jeno murmurs, turning back to his phone. Jisung makes a noise of confusion and Jeno explains, “You’re too scared, and Chenle isn’t scared enough. You balance each other out.”
“What about you?” Jisung asks quietly. “Are you scared?”
That gets Jeno to set his phone aside and think. After a short pause, he reaches his hand up to ruffle Jisung’s hair. “Maybe a little,” he answers honestly, “But not as much as you are. I trust you two too much for that. You can trust yourself, too.”
“I want a dog,” Chenle says, so out of the blue, Jisung almost spills the bowl of eggs he’s beating onto the tile floor. It’s the morning after, and Jisung wonders if hallucinations are a symptom of hangovers.
Chenle continues without a care in the world. “I want a balcony too,” he muses while tossing mushrooms in his frying pan, “and a galley kitchen and a park area nearby to walk our dog around and in-unit laundry.”
He sets the pan back on the stove and takes the eggs out of Jisung’s hands in exchange for a quick peck on his cheek. “Bigger bed can be first, though.”
There are a million and one words on the tip of Jisung’s tongue, waiting for permission to be breathed into the air. There are words that have been waiting since that unassuming autumn day—you’re cute when you’re annoyed, I promise I’m not as cringey as my good luck charm makes me seem, I think I like you—and there are words that hit him now—you look gorgeous under the sun, I want to kiss you but I don’t want our breakfast to burn, I think I love you.
“How is it so easy for you?” Jisung mutters.
“It’s Chinese cooking custom, you designated your left hand for pots and pans, right hand for utensils, that way you learn consistent control instead of alternating all the time—”
“Not the flip,” Jisung interrupts. Chenle looks over at him, confusion in his furrowed eyebrows, and Jisung scrambles to explain, “Don’t get me wrong, that flip was really cool, but I mean—this.” He gestures between the two of them, at the fridge with the whiteboard and the bowl with the pocket junk and the bedroom with the sleeping third. “Us. How is it so easy for you?”
Chenle shrugs and flips the omelette in the pan again. Jisung’s watched him cook almost every day of the week for the past couple of months now, and yet the view still feels brand new to him. The morning streams through the window and hits Chenle’s face just right, washing him in a golden glow.
“I love you and I love Jeno,” he answers simply, “What’s so hard about that?”
Spring folds into summers spent moving boxes up and down the sidewalks and collapsing on the floor of their new apartment—their new apartment!!—soaking in as much of the AC as they can. They buy boba with extra ice and don’t actually end up buying a new bed, because mattresses cost an arm and a leg for some reason, and those arms and legs go right to stocking their freezer with ice cream. Chenle can’t even bring himself to make raunchy comments about the tank tops and loose shirts Jeno and Jisung opt for, not when the heat is so oppressive they’re all practically reduced to one singular melted puddle.
The world begins on an unassuming summer day, after the last box of furniture is unpacked and all the pieces are laid out in the living room.
On his last day of summer classes, Jisung stumbles out of his intermediate choreography class realising that for another year in a row, he’s still pretty sure he hasn’t learned how to be an adult yet.
However, when he gets back to their apartment to see Jeno and Chenle bickering over whether or not the extra wooden part in their IKEA couch is supposed to be a leg or an arm, Jisung thinks he’ll have enough time to figure it out along the way.