Today is Wednesday, the big day.  After working out (and maybe ogling at Minseok’s body because why not?), Jongdae would finally muster up the courage to speak with Minseok.  Definitely.  Jongdae had quickly made his way to the basement into the locker room and changed from his street clothes to his workout gear of the school’s gym t-shirt and basketball shorts.  He all but skipped into the weight training room to slowly get back into the rigorous workout schedule he set out for himself.   His Wednesday routine of stretches, leg workout, and cardio is today, and Jongdae believes it is a good way to get himself slowly back into his strict fitness regimen.

Grabbing a soft foam mat from the closet and the light 2-lb. weights from the weight stand for later running, Jongdae sets himself up in his usual area as the other jocks and muscleheads shuffle in, all broad shoulders, bulging muscles, deep voices, and musky scents.  However, behind the tall figures is a slighter and shorter figure.  In a sleeveless tank and running shorts with running sneakers, Minseok’s impressive arm definition and study thighs and calves are fully on display.  A sweatband wrapped around Minseok’s raven black hair completes his look.  He looks like the definition of a personal trainer.  The air from Jongdae’s lungs is suddenly trapped, and he suddenly feels as if the thermostat has been turned up significantly as he feels sweat begin to form on his forehead.  Jongdae nearly misses gym teacher Kris calling out his name during roll call.

“Jongdae Kim,” Kris repeats, having seen one of his most dedicated students walk in earlier and immediately get out the equipment he would be using for the day like the good student he was.

“Here,” he croaks out, voice shaky as he stares at Minseok.  The big cheeked male glances back and Jongdae averts his gaze as he feels his cheeks burn up as Minseok’s name is called out next.

After roll call finishes, Jongdae calms himself down by beginning his stretching routine.  After doing 35 squats to get his legs warmed up, Jongdae continues with his plethora of stretches.  Finally, he finishes his final plank and dusts off his shorts before picking up the 2 lb. weights.  Jongdae makes his way outside of the weight training room and begins running up and down the nearest staircase six times, and breaking out into a light sprint up and down the long hallway outside the weight room six times as well. 

Feeling better from the more intensive exercise, Jongdae reenters the weight room to end his exercise routine on the leg extension.  What Jongdae doesn’t expect to see is a sizable crowd forming around the bench press, counting from 1.  Jongdae elbows his way to the front, and what he sees there is shocking to say the least.

There, pumping 200 lbs. of iron like it was nothing, was Minseok in all of his muscled glory.  He laid there barely breaking into a sweat as if the weight barely affected him.  If not for the slight quiver in Minseok’s arms as the class counted off the tenth repetition, Jongdae wouldn’t even have known he had lifted the heavy weights up that many times.  The veins in Minseok’s arms bulged out, and the light sheen of sweat on his body was irresistible to Jongdae.  Swallowing deeply, Jongdae clapped with the rest of the class for Minseok’s achievement and made a beeline for the leg extension.

Setting the weight on the leg extension for 45 lbs. (His upper body was significantly stronger than his lower body, okay?), Jongdae slowly begin his leg workout.  He thought about his next classes, and the AP Calculus quiz that he had right before lunch.  It wasn’t until someone holding two 50 lb. deadweights cleared their throat that Jongdae got pulled out of his thoughts.

“Excuse me.  Jongdae, is it?” Minseok stated as he dropped the weights to the ground with a soft thud.  “I was wondering if I could give you a pointer on using this machine.”

Jongdae felt slightly offended, as he had been exercising his thighs and calves this way for the enter fall semester.  However, since Jongdae was too caught up in Minseok’s brown eyes to reply, only a single word made it out of Jongdae’s mouth.

“S-Sure,” Jongdae said breathlessly.

“If you sit back into the chair, like this,” Minseok slowly pushed Jongdae back into the chair with a firm push to Jongdae’s firm chest.  “You get a better workout on your obliques as well.”

Who does Mr. Workout fiend think he is, grumbled Jongdae internally.  There’s no way Minseok is right about--.  Oh. Okay, that felt significantly more strenuous on his obliques.

“Better, right?  It engages more parts of the body so you don’t have to do as many sit-ups later on,” Minsoek beamed, picking up the deadweights and returning to do his arm workout.

“Thanks, Minseok,” Jongdae managed out after watching his arms flex over and over.  The boy was driving him crazy with his fit body.  However, with the changed position, Jongdae found himself struggling to complete his leg extension workout effectively.  It didn’t help that Minseok keep glancing at him as he continued working out.  Minseok smirked at him.

“I think I’m finished.  Do you want a turn?” Jongdae asked.  Minseok stopped what he was doing as if in thought.

“No thanks.  Today is strictly arms and abs day for me.  But seriously, do you even lift?  With those slight arms and you struggling to use the leg extension under a load of 45 pounds, I can’t believe that you work out on a daily basis.” Minseok said, chuckling a little.

“Hey!  That’s not true!  I started work out three days a week at the beginning of the school year, and today isn’t my arms and abs day!  Those days are Mondays and Fridays!  Today is my legs and cardio day.  You can ask Kris.  He knows my workout routine,” Jongdae stated in defense.

“I’m just messing around with you.  I can see the definition in your arms.  They’re still developing, but I can see the progress.  You obviously do workout, and you do it very well, since you have physical proof of it in such a short amount of time,” Minseok retorted.

“Thanks,” Jongdae mumbled out before going to the other leg extension that was in the corner, free from smirking big cheeked Asian males that judged his workout method.

At the end of the period, Jongdae lifts up his shirt briefly to wipe off the built up sweat on his face before leaving the weight training room.  While putting his shirt back down over the waistband of his shorts, Jongdae caught Minseok looking at the smooth flesh and faint outline of abs that Jongdae flashed the whole class before turning back to his conversation with Kris about renovating some of the worn out equipment using some easy fixes.  Jongdae muttered curses under his breath, thinking about how he embarrassed himself greatly in his first proper conversation with Minseok.

After reaching the locker room, Jongdae quickly went to the row labeled K, as the high school put the students’ gym lockers in alphabetical order.  After finding his name label above the brown metal door, Jongdae begin to work on the combination lock.  Already there was six-foot tall freshman Jongin Kim (Why was he shorter than a freshman?) who already had solid 6-pack abs and a sinful smirk to match his fit body that just validated his popularity with the rest of his freshman class.  Jongdae knew this from staring at Jongin discreetly as he changed (Because of course that is what the locker room is for). 

Jongdae all but ripped his locker door open as his sullen expression remained on his face.  Jongdae missed the glances at Jongdae that Jongin returned with a worried expression.  While changing back into his street clothes after dousing himself in body spray and toweling off the sweat the best he could, Jongdae realized something.  Minseok had just seen his abs, but Jongdae had never seen Minseok’s abs in real life.  With this new thought coming to light, Jongdae audibly groaned and banged his head against the unopened locker next to his that had another “Kim” label written neatly on the label above the door.

“What’s wrong, hyung?” asked Jongin softly as both students finished dressing.

“Nothing, Jongin,” Jongdae let out a sigh.

“Are you sure?” Jongin pushed, placing his arm on the small of Jongdae’s back.

“Uhhhh,” Jongdae replied dumbly.  Jongin knew something was wrong; the freshman always had a sixth sense for these sorts of individual internal problems.

“Hyung, you know you can trust me,” Jongin said, flashing his heart-melting smile.  Jongdae relented.

“Okay, fine.” Jongdae motioned for Jongin to come closer as he spoke in a hushed whisper.  “I love Minseok Kim and I’m confessing to him at the end of today.”

“Oh.  Why didn’t you say so, Jongdae hyung?  I’m all for you dating,” Jongin said.  “And look, here comes the person of your desire right now.”

“What?” Jongdae stated, confused on his face.  Alas, to Jongdae’s dismay, walked back towards the lockers was Minseok.

“See you later, hyung.  Go get’em!” Jongin raised a fist in cheering spirit and grabbed his backpack from his locker before shutting it and coolly strolling out of the musky and body spray scented locker room.

“Hi, Jongdae,” Minseok greeted. 

“Hey,” Jongdae replied weakly.  Minseok quickly unlocked his own locker and stripped himself of his clothes, and that was when the breath was knocked out of Jongdae. 

Jongdae had been pretending to gather his books and arrange things in his locker while subtly stealing quick stares at Minseok as he undressed.  And there in all of its sweat covered glory, was Minseok’s defined 8-pack.

“Like what you see?” Minseok asked, and Jongdae’s eyes widened when he realized that he had been caught red-handed.

“I, uh, I--. I have to go,” Jongdae choked out, quickly locking his locker door and rushing out, hearing the faint noise of his name being called out by the big cheeked male as he all but sprinted out of the locker room.

Jongdae rushed up the stairs and speed walked to his first floor English class.  With a high sigh, Jongdae sat in his seat and pulled out his school loaned copy of the current class’s novel they were analyzing.  Throughout the class, Jongdae all but failed to push the embarrassing moment with Minseok away to the deepest corner of his mind. 

Thoughts of Minseok swirled in Jongdae’s head as he rushed upstairs to get to his AP Calculus class, greeting Mr. Chang, an intelligent former college professor in his mid-60s.  The lesson for today was simple and intuitive enough, but that quiz was distributed during the last ten minutes of class was definitely harder than he had expected.  Even math whiz Junmyeon had stayed 20 minutes after class frantically scribbling down calculations as Jongdae got up from his seat.  The classroom was now empty as the other students had given up and given in blank sheets.  Jongdae was confident in at least getting four of the five questions correct. 

With a content look upon his face, Jongdae turned in his paper to Mr. Chang and made his way downstairs to meet up with Chanyeol and Baekhyun for lunch.  Boy, did he have stories to tell them about his crush. 

Maybe I should just give up pursuing Minseok.  He’s way out of my league, thought Jongdae sadly.

As Jongdae reached the first floor and opened the door to the stairwell into the hallway, Jongdae marveled the quietness of the hallways that were usually bustling with hundreds of students.  The only person he had come across was Kyungsoo, and Jongdae had just told the hall monitor that he was headed to lunch before he sent Jongdae on his merry way. 

He was passing the classroom door right next to the cafeteria stairwell while thinking about how to properly relay his run-in with Minseok to his best friends when he saw a bright orange post-it note stuck to that very same door.

“ ‘Jongdae Kim, please enter when you read this’,” read Jongdae aloud.

What? Jongdae though internally.  He scoffed at himself and began to walk to the door of the stairwell to the cafeteria.  And he almost made it too. 

Out of nowhere, a solid feeling hand grabbed Jongdae’s own forearm and muscled him into the empty classroom.  Jongdae let out a high pitched yelp as he was fully dragged into the room by a figure about his size.  The person’s face was covered by a black hoodie.  After muscling Jongdae deep within the room so he couldn’t easily escape, the hooded figure shut the blinds of the window of the door and turned around, head tilted downwards so Jongdae couldn’t see the kidnapper’s face.

Jongdae began to hyperventilate as the hooded figure made purposeful steps toward him, chuckling darkly.  Jongdae thinks that he has heard that voice before, but his fight or flight instinct suddenly kicks in.  Grabbing the first thing he spots near the whiteboard, he chucks the whiteboard eraser in the general direction of the figure.

“Ow! Jongdae, that hurts!  Man, you are definitely stronger than you look.” whined the hooded male as he rubbed the spot that the eraser had made contact with that particular spot on his forehead.

“How do you know my name?  Don’t get any closer! I’ll scream for Kyungsoo!” shouted Jongdae, marker in hand and aimed at the hooded figure’s head.  The figure closed the gap between himself and Jongdae, effectively trapping Jongdae against himself and the wall.

“Jongdae, It’s me, Minseok.  I just want to talk,” the identified male took off the hood and flashed a small smile down at Jongdae.

“Minseok?  Why do you want to talk with me?  Look, I know I’m weaker than you and you can strangle me to death if you wanted to, but please, please don’t kill me for staring at you in the locker room.  I really like you, that’s all.  Honestly, you have awesome biceps and abs and-- “ Jongdae stammered out in genuine fear before being cut off by Minseok’s soft voice.  He hadn’t been expecting to admit his feelings for Minseok like this.

“What?!  Jongdae, I’m not going to kill you.  I just wanted a private way to tell you that I like you too,” Minseok chuckled out.  “I’m sorry if you got scared by me dragging you in here.  I was expecting you to come in on your own terms, but you looked like you would have run away if I didn’t do anything.  I really just couldn’t keep it in anymore, Jongdae.  I’m still working on being romantic and not having serial killer tendencies, though,” Minseok said as he backed himself off of Jongdae and blushed as he stepped back and looked down at his sneakers.  The two faced each other directly in front of the whiteboard.

“Why did you have your hood over your face, though, Minseok?”  Jongdae asked. 

“Oh, I just wanted it to be a surprise.  But I didn’t think about how creepy the scenario would be.  I’m genuinely sorry for scaring you, Jongdae.  But seriously, I do like you, and I have liked you since the start of this year when you walked into economics.  You had those high cheekbones, Cheshire grin, sharp jaw, and developing abs that definitely have potential.  Your amazing voice I kept hearing in your choir class was beautiful.  You even answered those economics questions in Mrs. Choi’s class like they were nothing,” Minseok said.

“Oh, Minseok.  To be honest, I really like you too.  I mean, I didn’t know about your muscles until Monday when I Facebook stalked you but I liked you before that too,” Jongdae confessed, being bashful at his sudden admission.  “You’re smart and have a need to give back to the community.  Truthfully, I really was supposed to confess to you later today after economics class.  But I was so scared that you would laugh at me, especially after weight training.  I was seriously rethinking my love confession.  To be honest, if this didn’t happen, I probably would have never told you my true feelings.  So despite the weird conditions that we are confessing to each other under, I still really want to get to know you.”

“Jongdae, even if you hadn’t said anything and this event didn’t happen, Chanyeol and Baekhyun would have still gotten us together.  My god, Baekhyun practically shoehorned you and your intelligence into every conversation he had while working out together on the weekends,” Minseok replied.  “I guess I just helped it along.”

“Baekhyun what?  Oh, I’m going to definitely have a word with him,” Jongdae huffed out thinking about his best friend meddling in his love life.

Minseok laughed and looked straight into Jongdae’s brown eyes.  He again stepped closer to Jongdae, closing the gap between themselves.  He placed his arms around the other male and pulled him into an embrace.  Jongdae leaned into the hug and kissed Minseok on the lips.  It started out shallow, but quickly become deeper and more desperate as Jongdae’s carded his fingers through Minseok’s soft locks.  The two explored the caverns of each other’s mouths with curiosity and timid inexperience.  With soft groans coming out from each other’s lips, the two finally pulled apart when they felt the need to pause for air.  Jongdae grinned at Minseok in elation.

“That was amazing,” Jongdae whispered out.

“There’s more where that came from,” Minseok said.  “But lets start slow.  We can begin by going on proper dates, and then maybe we can think about going to prom together and getting married in the far future. ”

“Sounds like a plan.  I can’t wait to get to know you.  Just don’t do any more of these shenanigans and we should be okay,” Jongdae said.

“Of course.  I totally agree.  First things first.  Lets get each other’s phone numbers so we can text each other gross couple text messages late into the night,” Minseok replied.

“Sure!” Jongdae agreed. He pulled out his iPhone from his back pocket and handed it to Minseok.  Minseok quickly typed in his info and Jongdae texted back in a heartbeat.

“Very funny, Jongdae.  Now I’ll remember that your first text to me was an eggplant emoji.  Now, shall we go to lunch?  I think your friends are waiting for us,” Minseok stated.

“Hey, I just sent a very typical vegetable message.  No meaning whatsoever.  In the meantime, I think I want to keep you for myself for now,” Jongdae said.  “And we should probably leave now.  Kyungsoo probably heard my scream.”

“Yeah, your voice was super loud.  Perfect for reaching those high notes, but not so much for keeping a low profile in school.” Minseok stated.

Suddenly, hall monitor Kyungsoo’s voice resounded from the other side of the door, frantically banging on the wood as he heard no answer.

“Jongdae?  Are you okay?  Jongdae, answer me!  I heard your scream.  I know you’re in there,”  Kyungsoo said from outside the door.  Talk about coincidence.

Minseok rushed to hide behind the door. 

“We’ll talk more later,” Jongdae whispered to the big cheeked male.  Minsoek gave Jongdae a thumbs up in response.

Slowly but surely, Jongdae opened the door after picking up his forgotten backpack form the ground.  He was met with Kyungsoo’s disgruntled face appearing in the space between the door jam and the now opened classroom door.

“Kyungsoo, my man, what’s up?” Jongdae squeaked out.

“Jongdae.  You’re okay,” Kyungsoo said in relief.  “Why are you in there?  Class is starting soon,” Kyungsoo said, peering behind Jongdae into the empty classroom.

“Oh, right.  Umm, I was just, getting a book I forgot in here.  Clumsy me,” Jongdae said.

“Really?  You never misplace things,” Kyungsoo retorted.

“I um, look, there’s a first time for everything,” Jongdae said, giving Kyungsoo a nervous laugh.

“Hmm, okay.  But why were you in there for so long?  More importantly, why did you scream?  I heard you yell out 15 minutes ago.  I guessed that you were near the cafeteria since you were making your way in that direction before, and this classroom is the only one I hadn’t checked.  Teachers don’t normally leave the classroom open with closed blinds.”  Kyungsoo questioned.

“I just needed an empty place to study,” Jongdae replied.  “Now if you’ll excuse me.”

Jongdae pushed past Kyungsoo, closed the classroom door behind him.

Kyungsoo stared at Jondgae’s retreating figure in confusion and thought about his strange conversation with Jongdae as he went to the office to give in his hall monitor vest and picked up his own backpack to go to his afternoon classes.

*****

(Two weeks later, beginning of February)

After economics class had ended and Mrs. Choi sped out of the class quickly than the speed of light, Jongdae practically skipped over to Minseok’s seat across the room.

“Hey, Seokie,” Jongdae said, deciding on that nickname during his afternoon class before economics.

“You know, I actually like the way that sounds,” Minseok said as he flashed Jongdae a small smirk.

“That’s good, because I have no intention of calling you anything other than that,” Jongdae said.

“Well, that’s good, because I’m all yours.  You should check out my new profile picture and updated bio,” Minseok stated as he shoved his iPhone into Jongdae’s face.

 “ ‘Currently taken by the one and only Jong-bae <3’,“ read Jongdae aloud.  In place of fluffy sweater Minseok was instead a selfie that he and Minseok had taken last week during a mall date, both grinning widely at the camera with the requisite v-sign.

“Aw, Minseok,” Jongdae said lovingly as he gave his “not quite boyfriend yet but definitely will be in the future” a quick peck on the lips.  “I’ll always be yours.”

“Definitely,” Minseok replied back.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AN: Hello everyone! As always, thank you to the new subscribers that decided to follow this story even as it is wrapping up and (shameless advertising) I also received a lot more subscribers to my first story even though it is a completed one shot! Anyways, I'm finally uploading the chapter that should have been uploaded on Saturday, June 3rd but I couldn't since the internet went down in my home on Thursday morning. I was disappointed because I wanted you guys to read this next chapter as soon as possible since Chapter 2 seemed like filler more than anything. But now I have (much faster!) internet service and I am ecstatic. So now, onto this chapter. Yes, this is my favorite chapter, and yes, Minseok's confession was a little weird, but come on, high schoolers like to do strange things like this and they definitely do not think things out completely (I should know, I just finished not too long ago). There should be an epilogue to this and that's it for this silly-high-school-sweethearts-that-stay-together-for-life Xiuchen au. I will be taking a break after this story because I have summer classes in university (I'm not behind, I just want to be ahead in my studies because I'm weird like that). However, I will be staying on AFF to read stories and comment occasionally, so if you guys ever want to talk, feel free to leave a message! Also, if you guys have any pairings or story ideas you feel I should write next, shoot me a message or comment. I may just choose one of your ideas since I would love some new inspiration. Don't forget to comment on anything of interest because I love comments (sorry for being needy I'm terrible). See you guys in the epilogue!