GET YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME

Kim Junmyeon is a decent guy.

Compared to certain guys in Busan High, decent is decent if it’s graded on a curve. He isn’t the one who set the curve, like how Inguk does, with him receiving more gifts from admirers than any other male in school. Although Inguk accepts it wordlessly—in the most platonic, polite way possible—he doesn’t reciprocate. Rather, Junmyeon receives a gift every once in a while, which indicates he isn’t that bad. It isn’t to say that Busan High’s male population had a hard time getting a girlfriend because they are as they are. It’s to say that Kim Junmyeon is having a hard time getting Kang Jinju to notice him.

Even if he considers himself to be decent, it doesn’t stop him from wondering why Kang Jinju doesn’t acknowledge his feelings.

“Does she even know?” he says, resting his head in his palms, agitation shaking his hands. He’s sitting on the steps, facing the basketball court where Inguk makes a shot, and beside him, Baekhyun pats his back. Inguk glances at them and catches Baekhyun’s eyes, then eyes Junmyeon before looking at him with an unspoken question. Baekhyun nods; Inguk understands quite instantly. Welcome to the club, Kim Junmyeon.

“God, I’m an idiot,” mutters Junmyeon.

“Tell me about it,” Baekhyun replies dryly. Despite the fact that he knew the feelings well—is close friends with is the more appropriate term for it—he did not find the feeling to bring up the sympathy. Ridiculous, Baekhyun tells himself, freaking ridiculous we all are, in the same situation.

“Baekhyun, your sass is unneeded now.”

“My sass keeps me alive, Junmyeon.”

The dejected male shakes his head. “You’re the least lively person I’ve ever met.”

“Me being unlively isn’t the problem here, man, it’s your hopeless dilemma you’ve come to me with.” Baekhyun jerks a thumb towards himself to emphasize. “Hopeless in this case is the definition of a lost cause.”

Junmyeon sighs the most self-deprecating of sighs.

“I don’t know what to do—I gave her flowers, that really expensive Godiva chocolate—but she still thinks it’s a friendly gesture.”

“But Godiva chocolate is like the all-access pass into any girl’s heart,” Inguk says, bewildered as Baekhyun laughs.

“Except for Kang Jinju.”

“Didn’t Jinkyung think you were being a good friend when you gave her those Godiva chocolate on her birthday?” Junmyeon asks Baekhyun, “We’re on the same boat here.”

Baekhyun narrows his eyes at Junmyeon before scoffing, “No, Jinkyung’s too dumb to think it was a friendly gesture. She said that the chocolates were probably not even Godiva because I’m too poor and unemployed to afford anything expensive and then yelled at me for making her fat.”

“Were they really Godiva chocolate though?” Inguk asks as Baekhyun tries to push Inguk but Seo Inguk can’t be fazed by haters, especially by the one named Byun Baekhyun.

“And you’re telling me I’m the lost cause?” Junmyeon his head to the side and stares judgingly at the younger.

“Shut up.”

“I literally was your senpai a week ago, what even happened.”

“Because senpai noticed himself and began to have existential crisis.”

Inguk snorted, nearly choking on his own spit and missing the hoop.

“We’re all in this together. We all have to keep our heads in the game,” Baekhyun states, almost looking way too serious.

“What is that even supposed to mean?”

“It means the motto of the century.”

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

Report cards in Busan High come on a Friday.

It does not matter which Friday—hardly anyone would care—because the value the students look at were really the double digits printed next to their subjects. Seolju and Youngmi awaits this day with a hidden eagerness; Yifan and Inguk do in an easy calm; Jinkyung takes it nonchalantly, along with the other several hundred students.

However, Chanyeol remembers this particular day (February Twenty-Eight, 1997) in vivid detail. Youngmi chooses to walk home with Chanyeol discreetly, because expectations of the Student Body President never expect her to walk with the infamous troublemaking clown. So she does and Chanyeol accepts it without complaints, never asking.

“Did you get your report card?” Youngmi asks, tilting her head to look up. She has to, apparently, because she realizes that she is short against him and it gives her a (only) slightly inferior feeling. Chanyeol nods, pulling out the paper from his pocket, and unfolds it. Youngmi frowns at this. “Why did you fold it?”

He shrugs. “I didn’t want to hold it so I put it in my pocket.”

“Let me see, please,” and Chanyeol complies, whistling one of INFINITE’s less popular songs—which happens to be his younger sister’s ringtone. He listens to Youngmi mumble to herself, accustomed to the mutterings she would make, like while looking over his answers in homework. He wonders if he’s too accustomed with her, knowing that things would return to where they were after she determined his grades were high enough.

It is now.

“Chanyeol, did you look at this?” Youngmi asks in disbelief.

“What?”

“Your grades! You passed—I mean, for the most part, there’s a seventy-two in here and a sixty-eight—but the rest—just look at it! Most of your subjects are in the eighties or nineties,” she rambles, waving the paper in front of his face and Chanyeol takes it, running his forefinger down the list of subjects.

“I did, huh, President Jung,” he affirms. He does not know if he should smile or frown. The statement is said more to himself than to Youngmi, but she doesn’t notice—she is too caught up in her enthusiasm and he in his thoughts—and continues her chatter. It is so unlike her, he realizes, because President Jung is the sociable, rational, and mindset model student—not Jung Youngmi ranting about INFINITE.

(Although, he likes Jung Youngmi much more than President Jung.)

“You know everything I’ve taught you—you don’t need me now. You can finish this year with all your subjects in the nineties, I bet.” Chanyeol purses his lips. “It’s not like you’re hopeless, because you’re not. Right—”

“Youngmi, I want you to go out with me.”

The world suddenly stills and she stops in her tracks.

Youngmi can only stare.

“What?”

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

“I have ninety-nine problems and they all happen to be Kris Wu,” Seolju says out of the blue as Jinkyung snorted into her milk.

“That’s nice to know Seolju—and Jesus Christ Jinkyung, that’s gross,” Baekhyun says as droplets of milk hit his face. He frowns, disgusted, and rushes to wipe his face.

“I don’t appreciate your sarcasm right now,” Seolju replies back in a rather snippy way.

“First Junmyeon and now you?” Baekhyun groans. “Is everyone just ganging up on me or what?”

“I think we’ve always ganged up on you though. Isn’t that how we first met? I pushed you off the swings and all because I was on it first. The perfect punching bag.”

“Go a—”

“WHY HELLO CHILDREN!” Kyori practically yells as she pulls a reluctant Jinju down with her.

“We’re all older than you,” the three say at once as Jinju stares at them weirdly. Kyori just lets out a—could you even call it a laugh? It was a mix between a gurgle and some sort of voo-doo cackling witch laugh.

“You guys are so in sync, it’s weird.”

“You really shouldn’t be talking Kyori,” Baekhyun says as everyone nods in agreement. For once, Baekhyun is correct.

Kyori ignores Baekhyun as she turns towards Seolju, a wicked smile making its way onto her lips. “So, according to some little birdies, you have boy problems.”

Seolju stares at Kyori, perplexed and intimidated.

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

“Wait, wait, wait, wait—she did what?”  

“She slapped me,” Kris deadpans, eyes looking anywhere with his mind elsewhere. His hand touches his cheek, now having returned to its regular color after the incident had passed.

Minki winces at the thought and stares at the spot he assumed there used to be a bright red handprint. Perhaps he had underestimated Seolju. Minki understands there is a high-strung tension between the two greatly intelligent students, and that one would be foolish to go in-between them. But, he had least expected Seolju, with waif-like arms and legs, to slap a towering, basketball-playing Kris. Even more so that he had been affected if he was recalling the incident with great memory.

“What did you even do?” Minki asks, bewildered.

“What did I do?” Kris repeats and there is an offense taken in his tone. “Nothing!”

“Somehow, I’m doubting that,” and Minki raises a skeptical eyebrow. He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms in a haughty manner. He’s known Kris for a while now and Minki has an uncanny ability to read someone at the drop of a hat. Their books on the table are practically forgotten, but this is (much, much more) interesting.

“Nothing! No, really, I didn’t—”

“If Seolju slapped you, you had to have said something,” Minki interrupts Kris, narrowing his eyes, his tone mocking at the younger. “So spill.”

“Don’t you have to tutor Jinkyung or something,” Kris says, avoiding any further conversation about Seolju. The trouble this girl has got me in.

“Nah,” Minki replies, “kid’s got a tutor date with Seol—actually, how about I call her right now and ask why she slapped you? You think she’ll mind? Or what about her older brother?”

“No, you don’t!” Kris says, letting out a cry of war before leaning over the table to tackle Minki.

“Lee Minki and Wu Yifan, quiet!” the librarian hisses, face flushed.

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

NINTH GRADE.

BUSAN, SOUTH KOREA. FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL.

“We should go to college together,” Baekhyun says all of sudden. Jinkyung laughs.

“And I thought I was the stupid one,” she states. “Whatever university you’re going to, there’s no way in hell I’ll get into it.”

He nudges her gently, just to sway her in her steps. “Oi, Jinkyung, where’s your self-confidence?”

“We literally just started high school—high school, Baek. You realize the next few years determine the rest of our lives right?”

He nods, noncommittally, too casual for such a serious question. “So make it count.”

Instead of looking straight ahead like she usually does, Jinkyung turns to look at him with a cryptic gaze. He can never understand what she’s thinking if she looks at him like that, but he goes along with it anyways.

“Okay.”

Going along with it surprises him.

“What?”

Jinkyung rolls her eyes. “You just wanted us to go the same college, dude. Did you change your mind or somethin’?”

He raises an eyebrow. “You usually aren’t so—what is it—oh. Agreeable. Like, to anything.”

She scoffs. “You know, Baekhyun, just ‘cause I’m an to you doesn’t mean we’re not friends. You’re an too, you know, and you’re the longest friend I’ve had and you’re gonna be for a long time. Sorry if you walked in the wrong business, but you’re stuck with me.”

Jinkyung shrugs, grinning cheekily, and Baekhyun stops suddenly, regarding her with a new light in his eyes. His mouth is slightly agape and she looks so different suddenly, and doesn’t know how she did so quickly. Maybe it is him—but he was sure it wasn’t. He convinces himself that it’s the way the sunset’s light is angling on her face. How her brown hair shines a pale orange reflection—and what the hell, he thinks. It’s the sunset. Yes, that must be it, because the annoying Jung Jinkyung can’t become (pretty) just like that.

She inhales sharply, exasperated at the lack of his response. “Don’t take it so seriously, alright? I’ll go to the same college as you, idiot.”

(The first day of high school, while walking home, is the day Byun Baekhyun blames the sunset for making him have a crush on long-time friend, Jung Jinkyung.

What a liar.)

AUTHOR NOTES: one word, enjoy.