This was definitely blowing up in his face.

            At first, everything had seemed fine. After his initial reluctance, Kyungsoo was surprisingly happy about having Jongin helping the Student Council. He was constantly hovering around him for the last half an hour of practice, thanking him for his help or offering to buy him food. It was both flattering and terrifying at the same time, and Jongin wasn’t sure his heart could take all of this pressure. Kyungsoo was just too sweet dear lord—

            Ahem.

            Of course, being the terrible friends they were, Luhan and Sehun just laughed when they found out what he did, but he ignored them in favor of listening to Yixing and Baekhyun praising him for being such a ‘nice kid,’ and to Jongdae giving him the run-down of what kind of work he’d be doing. It was quite a lot, but Jongdae assured him that they would be there to make sure he didn’t get overwhelmed, so he felt slight better.

            It was Friday when that incident had happened, so he had the weekend to get ahead on his homework and tell his parents (who were extremely happy that Jongin was participating in so many school activities). That day, after practice, Kyungsoo had taken him over to the Student Council room to introduce him to the president, a cheery but extremely exhausted third year named Kim Joonmyeon. He immediately approved of Jongin’s help, and it wasn’t hard to see why he was so eager to have more hands in the office. The president was buried nose-deep in paperwork, barely able to look up from it all to greet him. For what it was worth, he tried his best to make Jongin feel welcome, but with how busy he was, it was a miracle that he was able to spare even five minutes to show him what his duties would be. It was a bit strange, a bit sad, but Jongin appreciated it anyway and found it a least a little settling.

            Once Monday rolled around, however, he was a lot more nervous than anyone should have ever been about doing work. He kept scolding himself internally, willing the butterflies in his stomach to go down as he reminded himself that he’d be busy, that this wouldn’t just be playtime or check-out-Kyungsoo-being-all-serious-and-focused-and-hot-time. It didn’t make any difference, though, as he found himself getting giddier and giddier the farther into the school day he got. Now was his chance, his chance to show off another side of himself to Kyungsoo, to do something for the older boy and to impress him. Hopefully.

            “Hey, you look like you’re about to pass out, you that worried?” Jongdae teased. The older man had insisted on walking with him to the SC Room after classes, though Jongin still wasn’t really sure why.

            “Just a little, I guess,” Jongin replied with a small smile, even though ‘little’ barely even cut it.

            “Don’t worry too much! Joonmyeon hyung’s not really scary, he just looks annoyed a lot because he never sleeps!” The response had Jongin chuckling before he could help himself. “Eh, why are you laughing?”

            “No, it’s nothing,” he barely managed to get out between breaths, his laughter only growing as he saw Jongdae pouting. “You’re just very blunt, in a nice way.”

            “How on Earth is that a compliment?” Jongdae whined, but Jongin just shrugged and laughed once more.

            “Why’d you chose to help the Student Council out, sunbae?” he diverted the conversation, raising an eyebrow when a flush spread across Jongdae’s face. “I mean, you’re not really part of any student government group, right?”

            It was true—within the thrilling of Jongdae, Kyungsoo, and Baekhyun, Jongdae was the only one who didn’t really involve himself in school affairs. Sure, he was known for throwing some of the best parties and being one of the laziest, but best members in the Music club. But besides that, he was just the regular, passerby student that didn’t go ridiculously out of his way to do this. Because of that, plus the fact that he just made friends way too easily, there was practically no information about him in the school’s gossip reel. No one knew his background, his history, his secrets, but at the same time, everyone liked him too much to try digging for it all. So, instead, Jongdae remained hidden to the school, lounging comfortingly in the shadows of his two best friends—or three, if you included Yixing, though how far their relationship went, no one could tell.

            So why would someone like Jongdae suddenly start helping out the Student Council?

            “I-I dunno,” Jongdae answered, stammering over himself as he tried to seem composed. Clearly, he wasn’t meant to be an actor. “Soo just looked so pathetic and worn-out when the old Treasurer left, I figured I’d use some of my free time to help him out. Least I could do, I guess—oh, we’re here!”

            Jongin didn’t get a chance to ask anything else, because they were suddenly at the Student Council room, and Jongdae was rushing in immediately. He felt a bit bad—he hadn’t meant to grill the upperclassman so hard, but Jongdae just seemed uncomfortable with the whole thing. Jongin just had a hard time controlling his curiosity, though he wasn’t sure that made him any better than the gossips.

            Taking a deep breath and shaking his head to keep his mind off of it, he entered the room after Jongdae, letting his eyes wander around. Practically everyone was there already and starting on their work, so he immediately felt out of place. He turned to ask Jongdae what to do, only to see that the man had already disappeared from his side. Eyebrows furrowed, Jongin looked around only to the see that the upperclassman was at the end of the room, tugging on the president’s sleeve and pouting.

            “Hyungggg, where’s my work?” Jongdae whined, but Joonmyeon didn’t even react, still typing away incessantly on his laptop. “Hyung, are you paying attention to me? Hyung, you don’t even have your headphones in you can’t use that excuse—”

            “That’s enough out of you,” Kyungsoo cut in suddenly, grabbing Jongdae by the ear and ignoring the boy’s protests as he dragged him to another end of the room. “Work on the Field Day budget plans and shut up, alright? Oh, Jongin, you’re here.”

            The mentioned boy froze as he was suddenly noticed, and even Joonmyeon looked up to give him a welcoming smile. He returned it hesitatingly, noticing how Jongdae’s pout grew at it. More than that, though, he noticed how Kyungsoo was coming closer to him, and he had to remind himself how to breath when the upperclassman was suddenly right in front of him.

            “Here, I’ll show you what you need to do,” Kyungsoo offered, and Jongin could only dumbly nod and follow as his mind practically froze, a broken record chanting Kyungsoo hyung Kyungsoo hyung oh god Kyungsoo hyung—

            “Do you know how to use Excel?” Kyungsoo questioned, and Jongin nearly jumped in surprise as he was pulled from his obsessing.

            “Uh, y-yeah, I do,” he answered shakily. Kyungsoo gestured for him to sit down at the desk they’d walked to, before pulling out one of the school’s laptops and starting it. Once he’d booted it up, he handed Jongin a manila folder filled with a stack of papers. 

            “This is a bit tedious,” he started explaining, “but could you input all the data from these files and make some scatter plots? The exact ones you need to do are marked in the files, it’s just a lot of a entering and compiling.”

            “Yeah, I can do that.” Jongin was a bit relieved it was such a simple task this time around—he didn’t want to make a fool of himself from the very beginning. Kyungsoo gave him another one of his heart-fluttering smiles before nodding.

            “Okay, thanks. If you need any help, feel free to ask me or Minseok sunbae.” The mentioned man waved his hand shortly, and Jongin lightly bowed his head in greeting. “Once you’re done with that, I’ll give you your next task.”

            “Sounds good,” he responded, forcing a bright grin onto his face to help mask his nervousness. It wasn’t a big deal, just some data analysis. He could do this. It was fine.

            “Welcome to hell,” Minseok chirped jokingly, and Jongin laughed shakily in response before getting to work.

            The work itself wasn’t all that hard, just tedious as Kyungsoo said. No, it was more difficult to tune out the distractions all around him. It wasn’t like everyone was loud, but there was just so much to see. It was hard to stop himself from wanting to observe things around him.

            Like how Minseok had the habit of involuntarily moving his hands the same way, so if he was holding a pencil with his right hand, his left hand would also be curled, as though around an invisible pencil. Like how Jongdae, when he actually got down to work, could be quite quick and efficient, but when he wasn’t working, felt the need to bother anyone around him—Joonmyeon, Kyungsoo, or any of the other members. Like how Joonmyeon seemed to be the only one willing to entertain Jongdae’s whims, but only slightly. Like how happy Jongdae seemed to get when Joonmyeon paid attention to him. Like how many times Kyungsoo would have to punch Jongdae to get him to go back to work. Like how Kyungsoo seemed to be the perfect model of work ethic, busting out paper after paper, report after report, in no time all. Like how Kyungsoo could be attractive even when he looked like he wanted to kill someone or burn the entire building down to the ground in frustration. Like how Kyungsoo… just, was Kyungsoo.

            No, bad Jongin, focus. There was a reason he was doing this after all. Though he wasn’t entirely sure what good being a friendly helping-hand for the Student Council would do for his love life, he wasn’t about to let Kyungsoo get disappointed with him. Like Kyungsoo would get upset with him. Even if he completely ed up his work, he’d probably just get upset at himself for giving Jongin such a ‘hard job’ or some bull. Kyungsoo was too nice to blame him for anything, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to work hard for the upperclassman. Even if he wasn’t sure what good it would do, he wanted to prove he could do something for Kyungsoo, even if it was just this. Besides, joining the recital made them closer, didn’t it? Who’s to say this wouldn’t help too?

            Shaking his head, Jongin read over his work once more. He was looking too much into everything again, going too far into his own head. It didn’t matter what happened, all that mattered was that he was doing a good thing by offering to help out a friend (he and Kyungsoo could be called friends, right?). Now he just didn’t want to it up.

            “I’m done,” he announced quietly, looking back and forth between Kyungsoo and Joonmyeon to see which one would notice. Eventually, it was Kyungsoo who budged first, eyes wide with both surprise and intrigue.

            “Well that was quick,” he praised, walking over to see what he’d done. Jongin tried to force his heart to calm down when the upperclassman looked over his shoulder, analyzing his charts and trying to look for any obvious issues. “This looks good, thanks, Jongin-ah.”

            “It was no problem, hyung,” he responded modestly, trying to fight off the blush that was threatening to make its way onto his face. It was a fight he was destined to lose, though, especially as Kyungsoo chuckled and brought his hand up to ruffle his hair, just as always.

            “You’re such a good kid, Jongin-ah,” he said out-of-the-blue, and if that didn’t have Jongin’s beating out of his chest, then the way Kyungsoo leaned in even closer certainly did. He tried to focus as Kyungsoo pointed out some more things on the data, asking him to do different analyses and whatnot. Nodding at the right times, he barely managed to breathe until Kyungsoo finally pulled away, but not without another hair ruffle and appreciative smile.

            God, how the was he gonna survive any more of this?

----

            Eventually, the time for recital practice arrived, and Jongin couldn’t help but feel slightly proud of himself. He’d gotten quite a lot done, according to Minseok, for his first time around. Even Joonmyeon noticed how well he did, praising him occasionally when he would finish his work particularly quickly. Jongdae was ecstatic, probably just because it meant he had less work to do himself. Of course, Jongin still wasn’t doing much besides data work, but it clearly wasn’t something any of the others were willing to do unless they had to, so Jongin’s work was well-received, at the very least.

            “Oh yeah, when’s your friend coming, Jongin-ah?” Kyungsoo asked as he, Jongin, and Jongdae walked down to practice together. “The guitarist?”

            “Hm? Oh, Chanyeol? Sehun’s bringing him over,” he responded.

            He had completely forgotten about Chanyeol up until this point, though he wasn’t too sure if he wanted to remember the older boy. Their friend had been reluctant to agree when they asked him about joining the recital, only agreeing because him, Sehun, and Luhan all had blackmail of him. Though, considering how it was Chanyeol, just because he agreed to perform, didn’t mean he’d be too keen on daily practices, let alone very polite about it.

            Jongin could only hope the older wouldn’t offend everyone too soon.

            “Park Chanyeol, right?” Jongdae asked, and Jongin nodded.

            “You know him?” Kyungsoo questioned, eyebrows furrowing as his best friend scoffed.

            “Soo, he’s literally in our class, don’t you remember?” Kyungsoo shook his head. “Well, considering it’s you, I’m not surprised. You’re way too oblivious, man. I’m surprised Baek doesn’t remember him though, since he usually remembers everyone.”

            “To be fair, knowing Chanyeol as a person, I’d try my hardest not to know him, too,” Jongin pitched in, grinning when Jongdae cracked up and even Kyungsoo snickered.

            “Oh c’mon, he seemed okay when I did a lab report with him,” Jongdae retorted half-heartedly, pushing the doors open to the auditorium. “He can’t be that bad—”

            “Did you just me?!” Baekhyun’s screech rang through the air as soon as they opened the auditorium doors, and Jongin felt his heart sink and his head ring.

            Chanyeol.

            “Woah, woah, what’s going on here?” Jongdae questioned, immediately rushing over to Baekhyun’s side as the other glared at a frantic Chanyeol.

            “N-no, I didn’t—I mean I did, but like, it was an accident and—Jongin!” Chanyeol screamed as soon as he saw Jongin, and the younger boy wondered if it was possible to spontaneously combust right then and there. “Help me out, dude!”

            “What did you even do?” he eventually conceded, shooting an apologetic glance at Baekhyun as he went to stand by his friend.

            “He me!” Baekhyun repeated indignantly, only quieting down when Kyungsoo poked him harshly in the side.

            “I didn’t mean to!” Chanyeol protested weakly, stuttering over his explanation. “It was an accident, I just wanted to smell you because something smelt good but then you moved and my mouth was open and—”

            “You were smelling him?” Jongin cut in, not sure whether he was baffled or just exasperated. “How does that make this any better?”

            “Not him specifically, okay? It’s just, something smelt nice around him and I ended up leaning towards him—I know that look, stop judging me!”

            “I don’t think it’s possible for Jongin to not judge you,” Sehun deadpanned, but before Chanyeol could say anything else, Luhan was stepping in.

            “Alright, alright, that’s enough outta you,” the older man snapped, pulling Chanyeol away from the area with a quick snap of, “You’re going in timeout, ParkPark.”

            “Sorry about him, hyung,” Jongin apologized quickly once he walked up to Baekhyun. “He’s an idiot, but he probably didn’t mean anything wrong by it. Trust me, he’s really good with his guitar, though!”

            “…Just tell him to keep his tongue to himself and we’ll be fine,” Baekhyun relented begrudgingly before walking over to the stage to announce practice starting.

            “Well, that was… interesting,” Kyungsoo finally said, and Jongin smiled sheepishly at him. “You sure have some interesting friends, Jongin-ah.”

            “The great quartet we are,” he played along. “Luhan hyung, the scary one, Sehun, the bored one, Chanyeol hyung, the dumb one, and me.”

            “What’s your definer, then?” Jongin put a hand to his chin, in fake-thought.

            “Hm… the dumb one, part two?” Kyungsoo chuckled and shook his head.

            “Nah, you’re not dumb, Jongin-ah. I mean, your work today proved that.” Jongin resisted the urge to blush at the compliment, and instead opened his mouth to give a quick word of thanks and end the conversation. But something within him made him stop and rethink that. Something in him felt that wasn’t enough, like he should be more… bold.

            “So what do you think I am then, hyung?” he shot back testily, nearly losing his nerve when Kyungsoo looked at him with a curious eyebrow raised. “If I’m not another dumb one, what am I?”

            “The cute one, obviously.”

            Kyungsoo didn’t even seem to notice that Jongin had completely frozen, and instead continued his walk down to the main stage. Jongin, on the other hand, was wondering if all the blood from his body was suddenly in his face and neck, because it sure felt like it. Was he running a fever? No, he just was the biggest lovesick loser to ever exist, probably.

            “Jongin?” Kyungsoo asked worriedly, finally noticing that the boy had stopped walking with him. “What’s wrong?” There was such curiosity and concern in Kyungsoo’s eyes, and Jongin felt the part in his heart for the upperclassman growing more and more, if that was even possible.

            “N-nothing, hyung!”

            This was definitely blowing up in his face, but maybe—just maybe—that wasn’t so bad. 

betcha thought i completely forgot about this didn't you
betcha thought i lost count of all the things i was supposed to be writing and updating didn't you
well you'd be right
im horrible lol sorry