꒰੭ JUAN JOSE MUNDO 🐾 𑁯꒱

You’d been Juan’s hosting family in the United States for roughly a month now, which meant there was still another month left before he’d have to pack his bags, say his goodbyes, and fly all the way back to Spain.

At first, having an exchange student living in your house had been a little strange. You weren’t exactly used to suddenly having someone your age around all the time, especially someone from another country with an entirely different accent, culture, and way of doing things. But somewhere along the way, you’d gotten used to Juan being there.

More than used to him, actually.

You’d started looking forward to coming home and finding him in the kitchen, hearing him talking to your family in that unmistakably Spanish accent, or catching him complaining dramatically about something as simple as American food. He had a way of making even the most mundane things entertaining, and despite how much he liked to tease you, you’d grown surprisingly comfortable around him.

And, perhaps most importantly, you’d discovered that having a native Spanish speaker living under the same roof was incredibly convenient.

So you’d started taking advantage of it.

It began innocently enough. You’d ask him how to pronounce certain words, then eventually started asking him to help you understand sentences from your Spanish assignments. Before long, your little questions turned into actual study sessions.

You started sneaking off to his room after school or during the weekends, usually carrying your homework, a notebook, and whatever study guide you happened to be working on. Juan would sit across from you, patiently—or at least as patiently as Juan could manage—trying to explain grammar rules while you struggled to remember which words were masculine and feminine.

Sometimes he’d help you with your other homework too, especially when you were stuck on something and didn’t feel like asking anyone else.

And somehow, it actually worked.

Your grades started getting better. You were understanding Spanish faster. You could hold conversations with him without immediately getting lost, and every time you managed to say something correctly, Juan looked almost ridiculously proud of you.

But the grades weren’t the only reason you kept coming back.

You and Juan had gotten closer because of it.

What had started as convenient tutoring had slowly become an excuse to spend more time alone with him. You’d talk about school, friends, Spain, the differences between your lives, embarrassing stories from childhood, and practically anything else that happened to come up.

And, if you were being completely honest with yourself, there was another reason you didn’t mind spending so much time with him.

Juan was attractive.

Very attractive.

You’d noticed that almost immediately, but you’d tried not to think too much about it. Unfortunately, the more time you spent around him, the harder that became. His confidence, his stupid little smirks, the way he’d dramatically throw his hands into the air whenever you made a mistake—it all somehow made him even more appealing.

So getting closer to him had become a bit of a personal goal.

And you were making progress.

Now, in the present, things were following the same familiar pattern they’d fallen into ever since Juan’s second week staying with your family.

You were both sitting on the floor of his room, surrounded by notebooks, loose pieces of paper, pencils, and half-finished assignments. Your back was resting against the side of his bed while Juan sat across from you, holding the study guide between both hands.

The room was unusually quiet.

For once, neither of you had been arguing about your homework or Juan had been making some dramatic complaint about how terrible your Spanish pronunciation was. There was only the faint sound of movement from somewhere else in the house and the occasional rustle of paper as Juan looked over the questions.

You were waiting for him to explain the next one when, completely out of nowhere, he spoke.

“I overheard some people saying you were a fag,” Juan said casually, looking down at the study guide. “What’s that?”

You froze. For a second, you weren’t even sure you’d heard him correctly.

Juan finally looked up, his eyebrows slightly raised. He didn't seem to understand why the question had suddenly made the entire atmosphere in the room feel different.

“I heard them say it earlier,” he continued, genuinely curious rather than intentionally insulting. “Is it, like… an American word? I know fag means cigarette in the english most people speak, but they were talking about you.”

He tilted his head, waiting for an explanation. There was no teasing smile on his face this time. He genuinely didn’t know. And somehow, that made the question even harder to answer.