The day started out fine. Jeongin wakes up on time; he even rolls out of bed with extra time to throw some extra gel in his hair before skipping out the door with an apple in his hand.

 

“Bye, mom! Love you!” he calls as he mentally checked his bags. Homework? Didn’t do it but whatever. Lunch money? Yep. Phone? Yep.

 

Jeongin runs down the driveway, waving at Jisung

 

“Morning, Jeongin! Felix was late, so you get shotgun today,” Jisung says, fiddling with the radio. “Aha, here we go.” One of Jisung’s mixtapes starts blasting through the car, and Jeongin laughs as his neighbor gives them dirty looks.

 

“Don’t you think it’s a little narcissistic to play your own songs?” he asks, still grooving along to the beats anyway.

 

“Uh, have you ever heard of free self-promotion? Being a rising artist is hard!” Jisung crows, skidding around the corner as they wheel into Felix’s neighborhood. “Hey, punk! Get in or you can walk to school!” Felix hustles out, bag hanging off his shoulder and shirt on inside out.

 

As they drive off to school, Felix in the back complaining about not getting shotgun while Jisung raps along to his songs, Jeongin can’t help but laugh as he reaches his palm out the window, letting the breeze wind through his fingers. This must be what it really means to be young.

 

—

 

And somehow, he finds himself in on the floor of the second-floor bathroom in the arts wing. He can’t breathe, the world feels like it’s shrinking in on him and his face is wet, probably from tears or something. As his phone lights up for the third time with another call from Jisung, he hits the ignore button and buries his face in his knees.

 

A minute or so passes, and his erratic breathing calms somewhat. He lets his fingers inch over to his phone which is lying abandoned a few feet away. Scrubbing the tears from his eyes so that he can see, Jeongin scrolls past all the missed calls from Jisung and Felix, even one from Seungmin, until he finds who he’s looking for.

 

“Hello?”

 

Even hearing his voice makes a smile spread across Jeongin’s lips. “Hi, hyung.”

 

“Jeongin! How are you? Shouldn’t you be in class?” Chan’s voice drifts over the phone and envelopes Jeongin. He wishes Chan could be here to wrap him up in a hug, but this will do for him.

 

“Um. Yeah, I stepped out for a moment,” Jeongin explains. Looking back at the moment, now, Jeongin feels a little silly.

 

“What? Are you okay? Are you sick? Do you need me to come pick you up?” Chan worries. Jeongin hears some rustling as if Chan has already gotten up to try to drive all the way to his high school.

 

Jeongin laughs, “What? No, why would you drive an hour just to pick me up? I just wanted to talk to you.”

 

“Oh, okay. Is everything alright?”

 

Jeongin shakes his head, “Can you just… Breathe with me?”

 

“Of course,” Chan sighs, and Jeongin tries to steady himself as he matches up their breathing, even across miles and miles.

 

“I just. I miss you.”

 

Chan huffs a little laugh. “Don’t be silly. I can visit every weekend. Every night, if you want me to!”

 

“Yeah,” Jeongin shrugs, even though he knows Chan won’t be able to see him. “I just. I started thinking about how next year, I’m the only one going to be left. And, you’re a grown up now, and you have all of your cool grown-up friends, but I don’t know what I’ll do, and I really miss you a lot, hyung.” Jeongin knows he’s rambling, and that he’s starting to hyperventilating a little bit.

 

“Whoa. Jeongin, calm down. Listen, breathe with me, okay?” Jeongin can hear the tinny whooshing over the phone and focuses everything in on that. He closes his eyes and hones in until he imagines he can even hear Chan’s heartbeat from miles away.

 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m listening.”

 

“Don’t worry about stuff like that We’ll always be there with you.”

 

“You promise? You won’t leave?”

 

“We won’t leave you. Ever. I promise. We’ll be friends in college, through college, forever. All of us, together.”

 

Jeongin spends the rest of the period on the bathroom floor, but he manages to forget about the griminess of the setting he’s in as long as he can hear Chan’s voice.

 

—

 

Later, Jeongin gets home and finds a stuffed koala on his. He barely has time to let out a, “What?” before he’s tackled from behind. He lands on his bed in a mess of limbs, blankets, and koala bear. Once he orients himself and sees the fluff of silver hair above him, he laughs. “Chan hyung! What are you doing here?”

 

“I’m here to see you, of course. Because I promised you.”

 

---

 

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