French Hazelnut

He loses Jongin in the span of forty nine seconds.

“Jongin! What the fu-“ he clears his throat abashedly when the last few idling parents shoot him harsh looks from where they’re situated in their respective cars, “-Jongin, what fun things are you up to?” he spits out serenely between gritted teeth. In the distance, Joonmyeon hears piercing screeches and over-animated banter of students long since reunited.

 “Hyung! I made friends!” Indistinct chatter trickles in through muffled static and Joonmyeon offhandedly wonders how many years of scorn will be punishment for abandoning his charge and being on his merry way. Calculus starts in ten and Park Seonsaengnim always expects him to hand out the pretentious sheets of ‘How to succeed in advanced calculus!’ before class. He still has to get Jongin acquainted with his classes and locations.

Jongin had evidently bounced away the minute Joonmyeon had parked and swung around to retrieve his bag and keys. It took a couple of seconds of uninterrupted silence for Joonmyeon to notice the absence. A couple of seconds apparently can do a lot for enthralled little freshmen boys, Joonmyeon supposes wearily.

“That’s great Jongin.” No, really. It really isn’t. A single fat drop of water lands square on his nose. The heavens mock him dully as menacing clouds collect around the skyline, sporadic patches of grey and violet warning of the forthcoming torrent. “But, I’ll need you to come back here. Like. Right now.”  

Joonmyeon gets a shrill honk in response.

He mutters vulgarities under his breath, side-eyeing to test out the reach of the sound barrier. His choice of diction remains undetected by the parental regulatory assemblage.

Just as he’s resorting to casting forlorn glances from his phone to the sky and back, he thinks he catches the uncanny swathe of floppy hair at a questionable distance. That’s also when he sees the trademark black Porsche parked obnoxiously beside the same gaggle of students, smooth engine revving along to hoots and howls emanating from the exuberant crowd.

He hears the identical reverberations through the tinny speakers of his phone. “Hyung, they’re really nice! Se-Sehun?” he hears a nasally voice hum in affirmation before Jongin tunes into the line again, “Sehun, here tells me that I can hang out with his friends. Isn’t that nice of him, Hyung?” and in a more hushed, conspiratorial whisper, “His friends are like, loaded. Lu Han Sunbaenim owns a Porsche! Like the slick black matte one we saw on Modified? It’s so cool!”

Immediate alarm bells go off in his head at the name and constant, flashing streams of no no no, flood his lethargic thought processes. Capitalized, bolded loads of trepidation packed tight, to the brim, into one maddening conjecture.

Joonmyeon thinks he hears the warped version of Anna Karenina sequence hitting it’s crescendo.

He might have a thing for melodramatics, he would muse later on.

“Jongin, that’s very nice. And yes, Porsches are super cool, all right but I need you,” he checks his bare wrist wistfully for the metaphorical time before continuing, “to come with me to the office. Your timetable and classes will be handled by the nice lady there. Can you do that for me, Jongin?”

Joonmyeon hears Jongin bemoan vaguely through the handset, hand presumably pressed over the receiver to block out the sound from Joonmyeon’s ears. He still picks up the begrudging, “Bye, guys. I guess I’ll catch you later, during lunch or something.” to which a few jumbled au revoirs and brutish whapping noises could be heard. Jongin’s sunny laughter filters in and it sets Joonmyeon at a comparative ease. But not quite.

Joonmyeon breathes once, twice and then picks up the little, teetering pieces of his lucidity from the ground.

Petrichor tickles at his nose and he sneezes woefully. It really is too ing early for this.

He sees Jongin’s gangly figure breaking away from the group, wavering and then walking around in circles, aimlessly. It’s kind of endearing. Joonmyeon dispels the fondness away with a purse of his lips.  

“Okay, Hyung-” Jongin has this tendency. A Very Peculiar one he chooses to write off as a sideffect to his inborn agility and grace and whatever else is quintessential for a dance club member. Jongin also never pays much heed to walking straight, if there’s no beat demanding rhythm out of him. But it does a complete three-sixty when a viable tempo picks up in the background. It’s off-putting.

 Joonmyeon watches apathetically as Jongin skids over gravel and twists his legs awkwardly to straighten himself, arms wind-milling. He smiles brazenly, as if it had been some grand paradigm of smooth and suave saves. Jongin then picks up his fallen phone and dusts it off, frowning faintly as if the gadget had caused him much inconvenience, putting it to his ear once again.

“-Uh, so. What’s the game plan? Where should I meet you?”

“Look straight ahead-no, no, the opposite way, look the opposite way. You see me?”

“No, but I see a short, old man waving wildly at me. Should I be worried? He seems a little crazy, ya know? I think I should be worried.”

Joonmyeon lowers both of his arms and plucks the cellphone from in-between his shoulder and cheek.

“How funny. Walk faster.”

Another droplet pelts the side of his face. Joonmyeon tries unsuccessfully to glare the storm away. This time, distant thunder rumbles, creeping under skin and burrowing there, as if to spite him. It’s all very cliché.

Jongin only grins genially from across the school grounds.

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A/N

Joonmyeon puts up with so much .

Let's not talk about it.