~~~

They sit in silence for a few seconds until one of the kitchen staff members comes up to their table and shoo them out of the cafeteria.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Jongin checks his watch and internally groans when he realizes they’re all five minutes late to last period. He hears Jongdae and Baekhyun dump their leftovers in the trash cans behind him and he slowly makes his way out the doors.

Once he’s outside, Jongin bites his lip and stares down the deserted hallway. If his phone wasn’t broken, he’d call or text Sehun and ask him where he is, but Jongin’s phone is broken, long gone, to be exact, and the blond curses under his breath.

What was he talking about with those girls? What did they tell him? Jongin thinks, his head reeling. Why’d he refuse to hold my hand when those other girls saw him earlier? Why did he barely even touch me let alone talk to me the entire time? Why’d he introduce me as his friend? Why was Baek acting like that around him? He scratches the back of his head in confusion. Damn it.

Baekhyun appears behind Jongin a few seconds later, grabbing the latter’s shoulders and nearly making him jump out of his own skin. “The hell was that all about?” he asks, laughing a little when he sees how spooked Jongin looks.

“I don’t know,” Jongin mumbles, hoping he doesn’t look as distraught and confused as he feels. “I...don’t know,” he repeats, almost as if he’s trying to reassure himself, while gripping his chest in fear.

Jongdae presses his lips together. “That was en weird,” he says, his words doing nothing to help Jongin’s nerves. “It’s like you didn’t even know each other all of a sudden.” He makes his way down the hallway, skipping a little. “ing , Baek, did you do the homework? I forgot mine at home.”

Ignoring Baekhyun’s remark of ‘you forgetful imbecile!’, Jongin shoves his hands in his pockets while walking past the drawings on the wall. His stomach is churning for reason’s he can’t explain and, figuring Sehun has his reasons, whatever they may be, he mumbles something incoherent before turning the corner and stopping by his locker.

The strong smell of spinach and cheese hits Jongin square in the face when he swings his locker open and he nearly gags, placing the pie on top of his locker and proceeding to grab his Modern Literature textbook, careful to hold onto it tight as to not drop it on his foot. He figures his toes have suffered enough for one day.

“I have no idea what that was all about,” Jongdae says, leaning against the wall and tracing invisible patterns onto the wallpaper. “But you should talk to him about it,” he adds, shooting Jongin a feline-looking grin that most certainly doesn’t make the latter feel any more at ease.

Easier said than done, Jongin thinks before slamming his locker shut and slinging his backpack over his shoulder, nearly whacking Baekhyun in the face. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he presses the power button a couple of times in a desperate (and lousy) attempt to revive it with no luck and he bites his cheek in frustration before angrily shoving it back into his pocket. He has no idea where Sehun is right now and neither does he know where Sehun’s coach is, either, and, surprisingly enough, he also doesn’t know Sehun's locker number which, he figures, makes locating him that much more difficult. I’m probably just overreacting. He has his reasons.

He promptly snaps out of his trance-like state when he’s inches away from walking right into a wall.

1:02 PM

He practically acted like I didn’t even exist.

Does he hate me?

Why was Baek staring at him all the time?

Do I bore him?

Gripping his pencil tighter, Jongin inwardly sighs before trying to focus his attention back on his notebook. He’s pretty sure that in this room, time enters a no-passing zone and he struggles to pay attention to whatever the teacher is saying at the front of the room, only to not absorb a single word and he sighs before putting his pencil down again.

In the upper right hand corner of his notebook, he can barely make out two scribbled out hearts drawn in red marker with the word ‘Sehun’ neatly written in the middle - doodles from three days ago. Seeing them makes his entire chest swell with happiness when he thinks back to last night and how perfect everything had felt, but on the other hand, seeing them also makes the butterflies in Jongin’s gut flap their wings anxiously at the thought of what went down less than an hour ago and he forces himself to close his notebook and look the other way.

Why’d he call me his friend and nothing else? I mean, I know we haven’t technically confirmed anything yet, but-

“Kim Jongin!”

Jongin nearly falls off his chair, pencil nearly flying out of his hand as he emits a squawk of surprise upon hearing his teacher’s voice. After regaining his composure, he blinks when he realizes how silent the room is and he doesn’t even have to turn his head in a 360 degree angle to know that every single pair of eyeballs are looking in his direction, and he feels himself blush a little bit. “Um.”

“Why aren’t you paying attention?” she asks, staring at him intently. “This is the sixth time I’ve had to call on you!”

In his peripheral, he can practically feel Baekhyun and Jongdae’s piercing gazes burning holes in his back and, on top of that, he can also practically hear them sniggering to themselves and Jongin fights the urge to stand up and walk right over to them and slap them right in the face.

“I, uh,” Jongin stammers, biting his cheek. He’s way too mentally occupied at the moment to even formulate a coherent sentence. “I...don’t...know?”

“Could you repeat what I told the class ten minutes ago?”

Jongin blinks. He doesn’t even remember what she told him ten seconds ago. “Um?”

“He doesn’t remember,” Jongin hears Jongdae mumble two desks away, closely followed by the latter’s signature snicker, the one Jongin despises so much.

When Jongin remains glued to his chair, mouth clamped shut, the teacher only heaves a sigh of exasperation.

“See me after class,” is all she says before turning on her heel and walking back to the whiteboard.

As soon as she turns around, Jongin screams internally before resting his head on his desk, trying to block out the sounds of Baekhyun and Jongdae’s muffled laughter to his right.

~

“ man, you’re in deep,” Baekhyun mumbles while playing a game on his phone.

Jongin only groans. All three of them have been standing outside the classroom for what feels like hours while waiting for the teacher to open the door and let the blond inside. Half an hour ago, Jongin worried if having to sit through detention would mean missing out on talking to, seeing or simply hanging out with Sehun but, considering the fact that the latter is literally nowhere to be seen or found, and hasn’t been for the past forty minutes, Jongin figures detention wouldn’t be all that bad, after all. He swallows the lump in his throat and opts to keep his gaze fixated on Baekhyun and listen to the latter’s frustrated shrieks every time he loses the game.

“You never zone out during Modern Lit,” Jongdae says, patting Jongin on the arm. “What got you so far out, anyway?” he adds although Jongin knows he most certainly knows the answer.

Despite that, Jongin shrugs. “Haven’t slept enough, a little on edge, I guess,” he says casually, scratching the back of his ear. “Come to think of it, my sleeping schedule’s been ed ever since last week.” He stifles a yawn and pulls out his phone and attempts to revive it for the nth time that day with no success. Of course.

“You gonna get it repaired today or what?” Jongdae asks, gesturing to the blond’s phone as he shoves it back in his pocket with little care. “And come on, don’t bull me,” he adds with a chuckle before grabbing a lock of Jongin’s hair, making the latter yelp.

Hands grabbing Jongdae’s wrists, Jongin forcefully shoves him away before proceeding to fix his hair. Sehun was right, it’s most definitely beginning to fade and Jongin wouldn’t be surprised if he awoke as a brunet tomorrow morning. He makes a mental note to pick up some chestnut colored hair dye on his way home.

Suddenly, he feels extremely sad. Because Jongdae pulling on his hair reminds Jongin of when Sehun playfully tugged on his hair a couple of hours ago by the lockers, which in turn reminds him of Sehun in general, and Sehun in general makes Jongin think back to when Sehun said he might have a thing for white hair, which makes Jongin not want to dye his hair anymore.

And, of course, thinking about Sehun reminds Jongin of the (rather strange) things Sehun said an hour or so ago in the cafeteria and he has to clear his throat to distract himself because the coiling in his gut is far from pleasant, to say the least.

“Sehun distracted you,” Baekhyun says loudly but Jongin doesn’t even bother walking over and slugging him in the arm since he’ll probably never learn to keep his voice down anyway. “Just get your phone fixed and talk everything out later, alright? Don’t freak out so much, it’s not healthy,” he adds, cursing all too loudly when he loses the game again.

“You had that distant look in your eyes again,” Jongdae says in an attempt to lighten the mood but he quickly presses his lips together when he sees the blond’s crestfallen expression. “Sorry. Hey, when do you think she’ll be out? We’ve standing here for a whi-”

He doesn’t even get to finish his sentence when the door flies open and the teacher sticks her head out, beckoning for Jongin to come inside.

With a sigh, Jongin mutters a quick ‘see ya’ to Jongdae, who replies with a ‘see you tomorrow’, and Baekhyun, who sends him a nod.

When the door closes, Jongdae shoots Baekhyun a look. “Don’t stand so close to the damn door next time, numbskull,” he tuts before making his way down the hallway.

Rubbing the sore spot on his nose, which he hopes to God isn’t broken, Baekhyun whacks Jongdae upside the back of the head when the latter walks past him. “Just because Chanyeol didn’t kiss you doesn’t mean you get a free pass to be an asswipe,” he grumbles before following the taller down the hallway.

6:00 PM

Resting his head against the window of the bus, Jongin listens to the sound of three babies crying in front of him and fidgets with his phone in his pocket. He makes a mental note to press the 'STOP' button in ten seconds before he misses his stop, lifting his head ever so slightly to move closer to the window when somebody takes a seat next to him. The sun is shining outside and threatening to burn his face but despite that, Jongin feels icicles forming inside him and he presses the red button above him, trying to ignore the heavy feeling in his gut.

When the stranger next to him sits down, a blast of perfume hits Jongin’s nose and he nearly coughs and sputters. He’s never been one for perfume, at all, only choosing to wear it on special occasions (such as bubble tea dates), and he’s extremely picky as to what fragrances he finds pleasant, and to say that there aren't many would be an understatement. Now that Jongin thinks about it, there’s only one person he knows who could douse themselves with six million bottles of perfume and he’d still find them appealing.

He clenches his fists inside his jacket pockets. Damn it.

Jongin continues to inhale the (unpleasant) scent of the person next to him and squirms a little in his seat. Although he wishes he hadn’t done that because he soon realizes the seat he’s sitting on is extremely soft and squishy, just like the one he’d been sitting on at the cinema yesterday, and the cinema reminds him of Sehun, and Sehun reminds him of the way the latter held him like it was the end of the world, and Jongin bites his lip in irritation.

Two minutes later, they promptly come to a halt and Jongin couldn’t have gotten off the bus any faster.

~

Opening the door to the repair shop, which took quite a while to find given he couldn’t use the GPS on his phone, Jongin steps inside and blinks in surprise (and relief) when he sees that there’s barely anybody standing in line. He wastes no time in walking forward and standing behind the last person in line, keeping his gaze fixated on the many, many cell phones lining the walls, securely protected by a glass case.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Sehun’s words from yesterday, the ones Jongin vaguely remember as something along the lines of ‘jumping to conclusions is awful’, pop up in his head and Jongin bites the inside of his cheek. No matter how many times he tries convincing himself that Sehun is right (when isn’t he?) and that he is, indeed, over reacting, the only thing that’s cluttering Jongin’s brain at the moment is Baekhyun. To be specific, the redhead's eyes and how they practically twinkled in awe when he stared at Sehun a couple of hours ago. The thought makes Jongin queasy and he hurries to take a step forward when the person at the front of the line turns around and exits the shop.

Jongin stands there, clutching his phone in his pocket, while listening to the monotone sounds of the cashier and the person in front of him talking about God knows what for what feels like years. The man in front of him, the one who’s currently getting his iPad (or at least Jongin thinks it’s an iPad, he’s too short to be able to tell) repaired, is awfully tall and it takes the blond less than three seconds to realize he’s wearing a similar jacket as Sehun - the black, leather one Jongin has grown to love so much. Thankfully, the stranger doesn’t smell like Sehun in the least and Jongin thanks God because he honestly doesn’t think he’d be able to handle that.

Somewhere in his mind, the words ‘tall’ and ‘leather jacket’ somehow fuse together and the next thing Jongin knows, his brain is bombarding him with image after image of Sehun clad in said jacket, the way it sits perfectly on his broad shoulders and compliments his equally black hair. One thought leads to another and, before Jongin has a chance to stop himself, he’s thinking about the warmth that engulfed every inch of his body when Sehun lent him his jacket last night and how much it smelled like him. Jongin feels his fingers subconsciously gripping the air and he mentally smacks himself. God damn it.

Why didn’t he tell Junmyeon and Chanyeol I was his date? Jongin thinks, pressing his lips together. Was he bored? Why’d he call me his friend? Why was Baek gawking at him 24/7??? Why did he sound so bored? Does he hate me???

He’s about to turn around and run away, straight out of the shop when he hears the cashier’s voice.

“Sir, how can I help you?”

Flinching a little, Jongin blinks in surprise and it takes him an embarrassingly long time to realize the man in front of him has left. He struggles to regain his composure, clearing his throat and scrambling to retrieve his phone from his pocket, all while, surprisingly enough, managing to successfully shove all Sehun related thoughts away.

“H-here,” he mumbles dumbly, practically throwing his phone down on the counter. He mentally smacks himself when the man behind the counter stares at both him and the phone with un unreadable expression. “I, uh, I’d like this repaired,” he adds in a low voice.

“What happened to it?” the man asks, carefully inspecting the phone after picking it up. He’s handling it with such a great amount of care Jongin nearly chuckles because it's not a newborn baby, for God's sake.

Jongin presses his lips together. I let it fall to the ground after coming to the conclusion that my love interest ran away, never to return, the hell does it look like. “I um, dropped it down the stairs,” he mumbles, shoving his hands in his pockets. He looks to the right and inspects the rows of cell phones inside the glass case and bites his lip when his eyes land on a phone that looks exactly like Sehun’s. He quickly turns his face away.

“I see,” the man says, not looking up from Jongin’s phone, and the latter doubts he’s convinced. After a few more seconds of careful inspecting, he nods a little. “It’s nothing too severe, you just need to replace the battery, it shouldn’t take too long, have a seat,” he says after a while, gesturing to a chair a few feet away.

Mumbling a low ‘sure’, Jongin gingerly trudges over to said chair and proceeds to sit down. He watches as the man behind the counter bends down and retrieves the tiniest screwdriver he’s ever seen in his life and the blond watches in both horror and fascination as he proceeds to unscrew the rear case to his phone before practically peeling it off and removing what Jongin assumes is the battery. Despite the fact that he’s sitting a good twelve feet away, he can see how damaged and scratched his battery is. No wonder it refused to turn on, he thinks. The damn thing was pretty much long gone from the very start, anyway.

I shouldn’t jump to conclusions, Jongin thinks, all Sehun related thoughts suddenly crashing back down on him like a freight train. Not that he minds, however. I’ll talk to him tomorrow, maybe he was having a bad day, he thinks, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets. He figures Sehun’s behavior can be justified, anyway, or at least explained because, in all honesty, Jongin figures that if Sehun’s best friends, those being Chanyeol and Junmyeon, were anything remotely like Baekhyun and Jongdae, he wouldn’t be very talkative, either.

The floor is so neatly polished Jongin can see his own reflection in it and he promptly regrets dying his hair blond, or white, because Sehun’s right, it’s definitely fading and it’s fading fast. He runs a hand through the matted locks and sighs internally.

“There we go.”

Jongin hears a click to his right and snaps his head up, just as the man behind the cashier finishes tightening the last screw before he puts the screwdriver back. He quickly gets up and walks over to the counter without a word.

“Thank you,” Jongin mumbles, staring at his phone, which doesn’t look any different, like it’s a grenade ready to explode. While he’d been expecting for it to go sort of fast, he certainly hadn’t expected it to take less than two minutes and he blinks in awe.

The man seems to notice Jongin’s surprise because he lets out a small laugh. “Is there a problem?”

Blinking rapidly, Jongin tears his eyes off his phone before fidgeting a little bit. “Uh, no, nevermind,” he babbles, limbs flailing everywhere. “It’s just that, well, I’ve been unable to get it to start up for the past 24 hours and it’s just...well, this took like ten seconds and-” He runs a hand through his hair before clamping his mouth shut. Jesus, what a fool.

“It just needed a battery replacement,” the man chuckles, handing Jongin his phone. “The previous battery was pretty much useless so it’s a good thing you came to me now,” he adds with another chuckle.

“Jesus, it was so far gone I thought you’d need to perform open heart surgery on it or something,” Jongin mumbles, scratching the back of his ear, not caring about how corny he might sound. He doesn’t know if it’s because he’s exhausted or because Sehun is starting to rub off on him. He figures it’s the latter.

“You should never assume anything,” the man chuckles, shooting Jongin a small wink as he proceeds to punch in the digits to the cash register. “Sometimes the truth is far more simple than you think,” he adds and misses the way Jongin swallows a little.

Jongin stands nailed to the floor before reality catches up with him and he scrambles to locate and retrieve his wallet in his backpack. A small, barely visibly smirk slowly creeps up his face.

10:57 PM

Jongin closes out of his, Baekhyun and Jongdae’s chat and turns his phone off before placing it on his desk. He’s spent the past half hour reading through every single message from Baekhyun and Jongdae that he’d missed while his phone was broken, and there were quite a lot, to say the least. In fact, he doesn’t even know why he even bothered reading through everything in the first place considering the fact that majority of them were the exact same, particularly Baekhyun’s.

He leans back in his chair and eyes his backpack, which is sitting on his bed on which he’d tossed his bag two hours or so ago. In desperate need of distraction, he reaches across and grabs it, pulling out his notebook and textbook, along with his sheet of vocabulary words before slamming everything onto his desk with the full intention of (probably) not doing any of it.

Opening his notebook, he’s ultimately greeted with the sight of at least seven different doodles of hearts, all drawn by him during whatever lesson, and he hurries to flip to the next, and thankfully blank, page before grabbing the nearest pencil and opening his textbook. It’s the same textbook he’d (accidentally) dropped on his foot this morning and his big toe throbs at the memory. On a side note, he realizes he left Baekhyun’s pie on top of his locker as well, and Jongin makes a seventh mental note (he’s really beginning to run out of space in his head for all his mental notes) to bring it home tomorrow. 

Setting up a chemical formula for an element he’s already forgotten the name of, Jongin wonders why he didn’t just scrap the idea of doing his homework and go straight to bed instead, but instead, he finds himself reaching into his bag and grabbing his earphones, cursing under his breath when he sees how tangled they are. He decides to listen to the theme song for the movie (that he’s forgotten the name of, too) he watched with Sehun yesterday for no particular reason.

He’s halfway through untangling the endless cords when he hears a knock on his door and he stifles a shriek.

“Jongin?”

Tugging on his earphones a little too forcefully, Jongin bites his cheek. “Yeah?”

“Can I come in?”

“Uh, sure,” Jongin mumbles, closing his notebook and textbook. At least I’ll have a reason not to study, he thinks to himself before spinning around in his chair and facing the door.

Poking her head in the door, Jungah throws it open with a lot more force than necessary before proceeding to skip into Jongin’s room and throw herself down on his bed, stretching her (surprisingly long, at least for a 14 year-old, Jongin’s always thought) limbs and rolling over so she’s staring the blond square in the eye. “Your hair. It's awful.”

“What,” Jongin squawks, instinctively reaching up to card his fingers through his hair. “I know, stop reminding me, why does everyone feel the need to-” He promptly cuts himself off before shaking his head. “What do you want?”

“I know you aren’t busy,” Jungah says as a matter-of-factly. “Anyway, let’s talk about your new boyfriend, okay?” she asks, resting her head on her hands and staring at Jongin intently. "I'm curious."

Squirming in his chair at the word ‘boyfriend’, for reasons he can’t explain, Jongin scratches the back of his head. “Um,” he stammers, eyes roaming around the room because quite frankly, he’d rather be looking at anything else but her right now. “What do you wanna-”

“Sehun, was it?” Jungah asks, although judging by the tone of her voice, Jongin can tell she already knows the answer. “When will I get to meet him? I wanna see if he’s as handsome as you keep griping to me about!”

Jongin sinks lower in his chair. “Yeah, and I actually don’t know,” he says in an honest tone. “Soon, though, I guess,” he adds with an awkward nod. He checks his watch. “Can we talk about this tomorrow? I-”

“That’s what you said three days ago, and now I’m here,” Jungah interrupts before sitting up and sitting on the edge of the bed, swinging her legs back and forth. “You didn’t really answer this yesterday, but,” she starts, a -eating grin on her feminine features, “did he kiss you?”

Blushing a little, Jongin clears his throat before nodding ever so subtly, hoping Jungah won’t notice.

Jungah does notice, obviously, and she nearly bounces up and down on the bed while clapping her hands together. “Gee, that’s so neat!” she exclaims, ignoring Jongin’s squawk of ‘quiet, Dad’ll hear!’. “Is he a good kisser?” she adds and Jongin groans because he really isn’t getting out of this anytime soon.

“Uh, yeah, actually,” Jongin mumbles, a warm feeling erupting in his chest. “He’s never dated before in his life, which I find kinda...hard to believe,” he blurts out and nearly covers his mouth with his hands.

“Really? He hasn’t?” Jungah asks, bewildered, cocking her head to the side. “Sounds to me like he’s a keeper, though, so I wonder how he does it,” she adds, mumbling mainly to herself. “Consider yourself special, Nini.” She shoots him a bright smile and a thumbs up and cackles when Jongin nearly whacks off of her face.

“Don’tfriggingcallmethat,” Jongin screeches in embarrassment at his nickname, the one Jungah had given him when he was six and she was two years old, back when she couldn’t properly pronounce ‘Jongin’ and had to settle for ‘Nini’, a name that she’s continued to call him ever since then and a name that’ll haunt Jongin to his grave. “Don’t frigging call me that,” he repeats, slower this time, burying his face in his hands.

“Come on, it suits you, you're even fluffier now than you were as a kid, don't blame me. I mean, you're still the biggest kid I know, but still,” Jungah whines before walking over and ruffling Jongin’s hair, much to the latter's unamusement. “Hey, want me to help you fix your hair? I think Mom left a box of brown-ish dye behind before she left on that business trip of hers on Saturday,” she adds and huffs when Jongin widens his eyes in surprise. “Please, come on! I’ve dyed your hair before, remember? Besides, just think of how hot Sehun’ll think you’ll look!”

Jongin drags a hand down his face. He doesn’t know if he’s against or for the idea. One half of him wants to do it since the whiteness on top of his head is making him feel a lot like a reincarnated version of Albert Einstein but the other half of him doesn’t want to on account of Sehun’s alleged liking to white hair. Damn it.

“I don’t know,” he mumbles and yelps when Jungah tugs on one of his matted locks. Come to think of it, he vaguely remembers Jungah helping him dye his hair back in 9th grade for reasons he suppressed ages ago, and, when he thinks even harder, he also recalls being surprisingly pleased with the result. Despite that, he remains sceptical. “I don’t care about looking hot for Sehun,” he adds, crossing his arms over his chest and turning his face away. He nearly rips one of Jungah’s pigtails right off of her head when she proceeds to emit a cackle that nearly awakens the entire house.

“Yeah, right,” she wheezes, wiping her eyes. Her voice suddenly turns serious and she leans in closer, way too close for Jongin’s comfort. “What if he cares about looking hot for you?”

Jongin blinks. The thought of whether or not Sehun actually puts in actual effort to look good for him has never really crossed his mind and in all honesty, he never believed it to be true until now. He’s still unsure, though, even though the thought of Sehun putting in extra effort to look good for and impress him, and only him, makes him feel embarrassingly giddy on the inside. Either way, it makes the butterflies in his stomach go haywire and he has to place a hand on his chest to get them to calm down. “I don’t know.”

“He does, shut up, don’t deny it,” she huffs with an eyeroll. “I can see you freaking the hell out on the inside from here, by the way,” she adds and nods when Jongin visibly stills. “It’s okay to admit he makes you go crazy, you know, it’s a telltale sign you love him if anything.” She gestures to the bathroom door and stares at him expectantly. “Shall we?”

Jongin bites his lip, head still reeling a little. Promptly shoving the thought of whether or not Sehun wears his black leather jacket solely to impress him, he shakes his head. “I don’t know-”

“Come on!” Jungah groans, slightly tugging on Jongin’s arm and ignoring the latter's squawk of 'language!'. “I promise you’ll get to blame me if it ends up looking like cow , but seriously, it’s a white- mess and you need to fix it!” She furrows her eyebrows when Jongin’s face falls a little. “What? Are you seriously getting upset over the fact that I insulted your hair? I mean, I know you're gay and all, but-”

“I don’t know if he’s really that into me,” Jongin blurts out before he can stop himself, yanking his arm back. . “Well, not anymore, at least,” he adds, instinctively turning his face away, choosing to keep his gaze fixated on his notebook.

Jungah is silent for a while. “What makes you think that?” she asks, letting go of Jongin’s arm and sitting back down on the bed. “Come on, tell me,” she pries, staring at Jongin with a look of...concern? Jongin can’t really tell. “I mean, you got together what, three days ago and you’re still hung up on whether or not he’s into you?”

At first, Jongin keeps his mouth clamped shut, cursing himself and his big mouth for all eternity. But then, as if on cue, Sehun’s words of ‘talk to her’ appear in his head in shining lights and before he knows it, he’s opening his mouth to speak. “It’s nothing, it’s just...he acted kinda weird today, that’s all.”

Jungah raises an eyebrow. “How so?”

“It’s just that...he introduced me as his friend to his friends, as well as Baek and Dae, and he uh, didn’t sound that interested when Chanyeol asked him how the date went, and he seemed to avoid me at all costs, even though were sitting next to each other at lunch,” Jongin says all in one breath. He bites his lip, running a hand through his hair, the familiar feeling of uneasiness settling in his gut once more. “And he just...he seemed so different and I don’t know why. He just seemed uninterested to even talk to me and-” He quickly closes his mouth. “Yeah.”

“Hm,” Jungah says, apparently deep in thought. “I refuse to believe he’s uninterested, I mean-”

“But the weirdest part is that this morning, he acted so loving and caring towards me and the minute he stepped into the cafeteria, he became a completely different person,” Jongin continues. “I mean, we were partially alone in the morning but yeah, the cafeteria wasn’t exactly over crowded either,” he adds, sighing audibly. “He just acted like I didn’t exist, like I was just some...nobody.” He swallows the lump in his throat.

Making sure Jongin is finished, Jungah speaks up again. “Maybe he’s just nervous and doesn’t know how to act around you?” she asks, shrugging. “I mean, you’ve recently become a couple and you, well, barely know each other, it makes sense why he’d be a tiny bit unsure and or uncomfortable since he doesn’t know what you're like and such. Everyone acts differently when they’re alone with the person they like and when they’re surrounded by people, it’s natural,  I don’t think you should beat yourself up over that, come on, you know better than that.” She shoots him a smile of encouragement before muttering a ‘be right back!’.

Jongin watches as Jungah disappears into the bathroom. He hears her rummaging through the boxes of makeup they have sitting at the bottom of one of the shelves and he rests his head on his desk, a foreign feeling in his gut, one he can only describe as relief. He doesn’t know if Sehun is the type to give godly advice and whatnot, but he’d be lying if he said talking about...whatever this is, with Jungah has lightened his mood by at least 80%. Not that he’d admit it to her or anybody, though.

He lifts his head when he hears the bathroom door open and smells Jungah’s sweet perfume as she enters his room again, a brown box in her right hand.

“Here, there should be enough left for you, y'know, since you've got significantly less hair than Mom,” she says gleefully before grabbing Jongin’s arm. “Come on, we both know you look a hundred times better with brown hair anyway, this isn’t even about Sehun anymore,” she grunts under his weight as she attempts to pull him up and out of the chair with little success.

“I don’t know if I want to,” Jongin blurts out in the whiniest voice he’s ever heard himself speak in. “I’ve uh, gotten used to it by now,” he says (and lies) defensively before running a hand through his white locks and cursing under his breath when his fingers get tangled in one of them. “Damn .”

“See,” Jungah tuts, shaking her head in disbelief. “You need to fix your hair, mister, and look good for your man when you see him tomorrow. By the way, the hell’d you dye it with when you dyed it white? Food coloring?” she asks only half jokingly, gesturing to Jongin’s hair with a mildly disgusted look on her face. Jongin doesn't blame her.

“No, three dollar dye sold in a drugstore in the sketchiest part of Town,” Jongin mumbles under his breath. Realizing Jungah isn’t taking no for an answer, he stands up and puts his hands up in defense. “Fine, I’ll go back to brown,” he says. “But if it ends up going to , which it probably will, you owe me big frickin’ time, just saying.”

“That goes without saying,” Jungah mumbles before shaking the box in her hand. “By the way, talk to him about all this tomorrow, okay?” she asks, nodding at Jongin. “And shut it, it won’t go to , the hell are you saying? I’m a great barber!”

You were an adequate barber two whole years ago. Jongin nods, looking at the floor. “M hmm.”

“And if you’re that desperate for an answer, maybe you should try texting him about it?” Jungah suggests. “Although I prefer doing stuff face to face, but that’s just me.” Her eyes widen a little. “Hey, have you tried texting him?”

Jongin shakes his head. “Nah. I’ll talk to him tomorrow,” he mumbles, suddenly feeling the strong urge to leave the room and do something else. “He was probably in a bad mood today and took it out on all of us, I should leave him alone, I mean-” He doesn’t even get to finish his sentence when he sees his phone screen light up in the corner of his eye and he instinctively grabs it. The hell does Baek want now.

“So basically, you feel like he doesn’t want anything to do with you right now?” Jungah asks, eyeing the box in her hand. “Damn. That frigging . Hopefully it’ll be sorted out tomo-” She flinches like she’s been burned when Jongin suddenly shoves his phone in her face.

“Not anymore,” Jongin says, a small grin on his face.

iMessage |11:22 PM

Sehunnie~

Hey babe (*^^*)♡ wanna meet me by the largest field next to the sports centre in fifteen minutes??? ❤❤❤🏈😊


 

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