The first time Jonghyun had seen him, Jinki was twirling a pen.

It was the middle of the day, Jonghyun was bored sitting and waiting for his guidance councilor in the office, ready to receive a long “talk” about his delinquent behavior(failing grades, dress code violations, skipping classes, occasional overuse of colorful words, ya’know, the usual), when he saw a boy with long black hair sitting at the front desk. The boy had a serious expression, and when Jonghyun followed his gaze, he’d found the boy twirling a pen between his fingers.

Realizing that he was staring, Jonghyun was about to look away, but in that moment the boy’s fingers awkwardly caught the pan and it went flying. At first the black-haired kid looked confused and surprised, his expression nearly making Jonghyun laugh, but then he broke into a wide smile that make his eyes disappear and gums show while simultaneously taking Jonghyun’s breath away.

After that, Jonghyun found himself looking for and damn near following Jinki around school.

Their classes where no-where near each other, so most of the time Jonghyun made him self late for class when trailing his crush, but considering the fact that most his time in there was spent sleeping anyway, that probably wasn’t a very big deal.

Lunch was different, though, because they both had it for the same period, but Jinki never seemed to spend it in the cafeteria. It was an adventure trying to figure out if Jinki was in the office, library, clinic, or some other obscure place during lunch. The black-haired teen always seemed to spend his free time off socializing with the teachers, helping them out and stuff like that.

At first Jonghyun was a little disappointed to have fallen for such a up(although an admittedly attractive one), but over time that feeling changed as Jonghyun learned that Jinki was just a generally nice person, hanging out with the unappreciated members of school staff, the hard workers overlooked. It was almost refreshing considering how many selfish people Jonghyun encountered in a day.

But still, even if Jonghyun’s heart throbbed every time Jinki smiled, and he practically stalked the upperclassman, he couldn’t bring himself to talk to the boy. He had plenty of opportunities, sure, but he was scared. Jinki was intimidatingly stunning and Jonghyun, normally rash and reckless, didn’t want to leave a bad impression.

He also didn’t want to regret never getting to confess, or talk to the boy.

So, in a chicken’s way of dealing with the problem, he procrastinated and decided that on Jinki’s graduation day(which was almost a year away), he would pretend to be suave and cool and slip the boy his number. If he got rejected, he’d probably cry because he was an emotional , but at least he wouldn’t have to face the gorgeous boy every angsty day of the week.

But now, with the surprising and sudden notice of “oh hey, forgot to tell you, Jinki has stomach cancer,” Jonghyun was panicking, and super pissed at the world because cancer is like a super serious death thing that’s only supposed to happen in movies, and your high school crush is defiantly not supposed to have it and be in the hospital before you get a chance to confess to his sweet, lovable, undeniably cute .

Also, he had a feeling he shouldn’t let his class mate see him cry when this is the first time they’ve met.

“Do you know what hospital he’s in?” Jonghyun finally asks after a long moment of silence.

”_____ memorial,” the guy replied, obviously intimidated by Jonghyun’s unstable demeanor, ” why—”

“Tell Mr. Kim that I had to leave early,” Jonghyun says starting to rush outside of the classroom because— dammit, he had to just do something. ” Tell him it was an emergency!”

——

Jinki sighed as he poked at the food on his plate, setting his fork down after a few satisfying jabs. He loved food, and he wasn’t one to complain, but everything they gave him here tasted… stale. Really he couldn’t wait to get out. Jinki wasn’t very fond of hospitals, although he had yet to hear anyone say they liked them, so maybe no one ever was.

For him, though, it wasn’t the bad food, the scratchy gown, or the constant smell of disinfectant. Considering how often he fell down and injured himself, from his years as a child to his present day adolescence, he had long since been well acquainted to sterile smells and tight bandages. That wasn’t why hospitals bothered him.

It was just so quiet.

Jinki was bored, simply put, and that’s why he hated spending time in hospitals. He had no one to talk to, nothing to read, and nothing on good on TV to watch because at this time of day everyone was working or in school and broadcasters didn’t feel the need to put in any effort. The only thing to entertain him was the beeping of a monitor that kept him awake every time he tried to sleep through the boredom.

He seriously couldn’t wait till surgery was over and he’s finally be out and walking again with the regular people, no one to worry over his health and send him presents with glitter that was a chore to get off of himself, his blankets, and any other surface it decided to cling to.

“J.. Jinki!” Jinki’s head snapped in the direction of a loud voice, his dark brown eyes looking at the very familiar broad-shouldered form of a certain Kim Jonghyun.

Jinki had no idea why the guy who had beaten up some freshman at the beginning of the year, who was constantly pulled into the office to be lectured, was at the door to his hospital room, panting and sweaty while holding a bouquet of flowers and looking incredibly desperate.

“Uh,” he said dumbly, voicing his confusion in the most intelligent of ways.

“I- just, I, um,” Jonghyun said, apparently as intelligent and verbally skilled as Jinki, ” Just take this.”

He shoved the bouquet into Jinki’s arms, effectively pushing Jinki’s food tray onto the floor. Jonghyun looked horrified, scrambling to the floor to clean up the mess while apologizing.

“…What’s this?” Jinki says, slightly amazed because the bouquet was very pretty.

“Well, I heard you had… c-cancer? So, I dunno, I thought, flowers or something.” Jonghyun said.

“Oh, no,” Jinki laughs, ” You must have talked to Taemin.”

“What?”

“It’s not cancer,” Jinki explained. ” It’s a benign tumor in my stomach lining, I’m just here to get it removed. I keep trying to tell him it’s not cancer, but he just says ‘well, if it’s benign why do you need surgery?’ and then goes off to his friends crying that his favorite hyung is dying— sorry, I’m rambling. People just keep on coming in here thinking I’m on my deathbed or something.”

“That’s.. ok,” Jonghyun says. Jinki thinks it’s seriously cute how relived he looks. Is this really the Jonghyun that has a million and one horrifying rumors flying around school daily?

“So, um…” Jinki says, the folded tag hanging from the flowers. When he opens it he finds numbers lined up like a phone number, “Isn’t school… in session, or something?”

“Probably,” Jonghyun shrugs, sitting down in a chair meant for visitors.

“Wanna watch TV?” Jinki suggests, because apparently Jonghyun isn’t leaving and Jinki doesn’t really mind the company of an attractive blonde who had apparently just given Jinki his number.

“Sure,” Jonghyun, scooting the chair a little closer as he reaches over Jinki for the remote.

——

a/n: hope the ending isn’t . also i had fun writing this, but characterization is hard. it’s so hard.

also i at titling things.