Equation¹¹

Jonghyun's P.O.V

Jonghyun felt strangely nervous as he stood in front of the door to their dorm.   

“I’m home,” he announced quietly as he finally entered and started to take his shoes off, making sure to place them in the shoe caddy afterwards.

“And how did it go?” He slowly looked up, unconsciously scanning the pair of tight dressed legs in front of him before reaching the owner’s face. The latter sent him a curious look and decided to add a drawn out: “so?” onto his sentence, as it seemed like Jonghyun was going to use forever answering his rather simple question.

Watching Key with that hopefully expression written all over his face, he felt his knee go weak under him and his lips shivered, as he finally got himself pulled together and answered: “To be honest I have no idea. I was so nervous—hell, I still am. What shall I do if I actually fail this ?”

Key made his way into the living room and Jonghyun automatically followed.

Taemin – who was sitting in the couch, occupied with the television – turned his head towards them with a caring smile. “You have done yours already Jonghyun hyung. You can’t do anything else than wait for now, so why don’t you go and take a bath or something to calm your nerves?”

Jonghyun had just been to this school year’s first math test.

Everyone on the campus already knew what this test meant for him and his future. If he failed he would have to say goodbye to his music career, and if it couldn’t get any worst, he even had to grant his father wish about going to Business College for education.

Just try to imaging it: Jonghyun dressed up in a nice outfit with a suitcase in his hand, going around being all serious and stuff.

No, just no – that definitely wasn’t the reality Jonghyun he was dreaming about.

No wonder he was nervous for the outcome, because even though that Key had been teaching him a lot lately, it was a whole different matter to be sitting in an enclosed local with no Key by his side.

He eventually went to take a shower, as Taemin he had suggested, hoping that the water would be able to calm his nerves.

It did.

But only for a moment, because as soon as he entered his room, Key’s hopefully expression wandered into his mind and it slowly made him wonder if the younger boy actually would get disappointed if he failed.

It was a silly thought, wasn’t it? Here he was, not able to fulfill his dream if he failed and then he was using his time wondering if another boy would get disappointed at him.

Jonghyun waited for a whole week before his math teacher decided to them their tests back – and then, when she eventually had handed it out to everyone else than him, and afterwards announced that he should stay after class, he felt like he was about to die of nervousness.

It was a big surprise for both him and his teacher, as he figured out that he actually had passed, and that his teacher only had praising words, as she told him to keep on the good work and so on.

As he finally got to leave with his test result that afternoon, he was surprised to see Key waiting for him in the hallway just outside his class room.

“Key? What are you doing here?” He questioned taken aback and quickly tried to cover his way too obvious smile.  

“I met Onew hyung on the way to our dorm, he said that you were getting your tests back, and that the teacher had asked you to stay after class,” Key explained and straightened up, after had leaned against the opposite wall for a while. 

“So you came to check up on me?” Jonghyun asked – feeling honored if that really was the case.

“Call it whatever you want to and start telling me how the test went instead of,” he insisted and crossed his arms.

A big smile formed onto his face as he went to hug Key tightly, most likely lifting him up from the ground and swinging him around a couple of times out of pure happiness – hell, he might even have had planted a kiss onto his cheek without noticing it.

Realization soon hit him as people walking by looked strangely at them, and he quickly sat Key down again, feeling just a little bit embarrassed, as he happily explained: “I passed!”

“You did?” Key’s face lit up, smiling – but a hint of confusion was showing behind it.

“I did!” Jonghyun confirmed, smiling even more than just a second ago.

“That’s great, congratulation hyung!” Key said, sincerely sounding happy for him.

“Thank you, I couldn’t have done it without you though—Oh!—What about I take you out for dinner to show you my gratitude?”

"Dinner?" Key mumbled almost inaudibly to himself making it sound like it would be the end of the world to go eat dinner with him.

"Or not...?" Jonghyun's words trailed off and his eyes showed nothing but hurt, but he tried to hide it by looking away and kicking into nothing but air, "it's alright... I'll just go celebrate by myself then."

Jonghyun knew, that he had no reason to feel so down, but he had really hoped, Key would had agreed. He hadn't given it a thought, why it was so important to him though.

Turning his back to Key all happiness about passing his test had left every corner of his body, as he slowly took a few steps down the hallway, which for once seemed awfully long.

"Wait!" Key's voice filled Jonghyun and a smile found its rightful place on his lips, as he turned around to face the younger boy, "I didn't mean it like that - I'll love to go celebrate with you!"

"Then why..." before Jonghyun had a chance to finish his question, Key lifted a hand to stop him.

"I just had another appointment tonight, but you're more important! I'll just cancel!" Jonghyun found it hard to figure out whether or not Key was forcing himself to smile, but Jonghyun decided that Key weren't the type to cancel, if it really wasn't important, which made him light up even more. 

Written by Legende