call me by my name | binjin

2. Minhoʼs Balance Sheet Equation.

P.S. We need someone to cast Minho, any ideas? Let me know.

“What do you mean she looked at you?” Minho shoves a forkful of his favorite Greek salad in his mouth and Bin winces at the harshness. “Get one thing straight,” it was absolutely impossible to watch him try to much down the contents of the salad in his mouth while he talked but Bin put up with it; he was still his best friend. “Son Yejin doesn't fall in love with people like you and me—” he put a cube of feta cheese directly in his mouth as Bin closed his eyes in horror; things like these downright had him wishing to be relocated to another planet.

Somewhere people had manners, unlike Minho.

“This Greek salad,” he cupped the plastic container in his hands and pointed a finger at it. “This loves me and I love it. These cubes of feta and bellpeppers, they love me.” he pouted at his friend. “That woman—” he jutted his chin out ever so bravely at the table in the middle of the cafeteria, parallel to their own almost corner one. “She does not.” when Bin didn't speak anything and continued to play around with the soggy pasta in his plate, Minho found himself rubbing his eyes with the back of his sleeves as he attempted to push his hair away from his eyes. “To put it in your language; it's like you're trying to equate a balance sheet.” he weighed his hands in the air as if lifting invisible scales. “And no matter how much you try to equate your asset, i.e. your happiness against the liabilities and capital, again, that is, the likelihood of you two falling in love and having babies one day—”

At that, a furious blush overtook his cheeks.

“It just won't equate.” Minho was back to his salad in no time after ending his dreams like that. “And you know why it won't?” He didn't even wait for his answer, “Because you are a nerd and she's a, well...” stealing once glance at her laughing form parallel to them, he sighed. “A fucking goddess.”

“So stop embarrassing yourself. It hurts to see you like this.” Even though he could be brash at times, Bin still understood that his intentions towards him were always pure. No matter how blunt he could be at times around him, and only around him, he realized it was still nice to know that he had friend like him; it was like God had finally heard his cry for a brother whenever he prayed silently in his room while his parents were arguing.

Bin smiled for the first time in a week that day.

Minho knew his friend had been having problems back home again—his parents, were acting up again, being childish even when they were fully grown adults. Sometimes, it seemed like Bin was the only rational one in the family. Even though he was 23 himself, he still acted more mature than his parents; always handling everything calmly from reaching the root cause of their argument every time to completely making them silent post argument. While he knew he was and adult himself, he still had breaking points. When he was alone in his room, crying, Minho was the one who would come to his rescue. He'd leave him a message to come out of the window and both of them would leave for anywhere but here.

Because this wasn't home, it didn't feel like it, it never did.

The toxicity between his parents had given him hope to move out immediately after this last semester at the university.

It was only a matter of a few more months before he could move out. Had he risked searching for an apartment right now, Bin was confident he wouldn't be able to support himself given that he was not even a university graduate yet. If he wasn't a graduate, nobody was going to offer him a job either. Apart from that, even his mamkor savings would drain down the gutter for he knew that he couskmt pay for his fees with what he had saved.

It was only logical to wait.

After the rain, there was always a rainbow to await.

“But all I said was that she looked at me!” Bin reached for the water in his cup, emptying the last few drops over Minhoʼs head.