Jongin slides a bowl of rice to his mother from across the table, scooping soup into it as well. She complained about being hungry the whole trip back here so Jongin decided to make her happy by cooking for her. She compliments his food as she eats, eyes wide and bright as she doesn’t stop chatting about how she was a bad cook when she was his age. Jongin only smiles back in response, letting his mother relieve her stress the way she’s comfortable with.

She’s never been this much of a chatter, mostly listening and nodding along to others instead. But Jongin guesses his mother needs to let everything in her mind out more than she ever did, and quite possibly more than she ever will.

“How’s school?” She inquires. She stares up at him expectantly, like she wants him to tell her everything that’s going on.

Solely because of that, Jongin feels uncomfortable speaking. He only gives a short response as he avoids meeting his mother’s eyes so as to not see the flash of disappointment in it. “School is okay.”

“How are your friends doing?” His mother asks. “I forgot to tell you but when all your friends came to pay their respects, I noticed that tall friend of yours helping out at the back.”

“Hugging for more than 20 seconds releases dopamine too, like smoking nicotine does,” Sehun mutters under his breath.

It puts Jongin’s mind on rest mode, switches his body’s proper functions to just take a break for a short while. So when Sehun pulls him closer into the hug, Jongin finds himself complying because he knows he needs it. Tears are threatening to spill at any moment now, so Jongin takes deep breaths in and out to steady himself.

“Helping? What was he doing?” Jongin slowly chews on his rice, a frown settling in quite comfortable on his forehead.

“He was washing the dishes and ushering the other guests outside who were confused. It’s really nice of him. I want to meet him.” Jongin frowns. His mother resumes eating.

“Tall?”

“Yeah.”

“Red hair?”

“Nope.”

“Who?”

“Oh, he was there during the thing too.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

There were a number of tall lads who visited him. If it wasn’t Chanyeol since Chanyeol had bright red hair during the funeral, it could’ve been Johnny, Jaehyun, Yukhei, Sehun and a lot more. It’s almost impossible to know who. Jongin abandons the thought and turns back to his food.

“I have class after this. Will you be fine alone?” Jongin looks up at his mother who’s already staring at him with a blank look on his face. Jongin gulps. “I rented a few movies yesterday. You can take my bed if you’re tired. The shop’s down the road to the right. I won’t be long. I’ll be back before dusk.”

“I’ll be fine, Jongin.” His mother smiles. “Go out after school if you want. You’re old enough.”

“Then what’s the point of inviting you over.” Jongin pouts.

“Romeo can keep me company. Plus, you’ll come home eventually, right? That’s enough for me.” Jongin’s conversation with his mother gets a little tense and emotional, so Jongin nods his head and quickly springs to a stand. He shoots his mother a restrained smile as he takes heavy steps to the sink to wash his empty bowl. “Thank you for letting me stay here.”

Jongin lets slip a soft sigh from his parted lips. He’s not really sure of how to act around his mother. Especially when she’s in such a bad state. But he knows that if he doesn’t be there for her now, she could most likely let herself fall into an endless abyss of what-ifs and regrets. It’s not easy trying to get out of that mentioned abyss and Jongin knows because he’s gotten out of it once, went back in and got pulled out again for the second time. Now, Jongin’s mother is the type to keep everything to herself and that’s exactly what Jongin doesn’t need at this point.

Jongin doesn’t talk to his mother even after he’s all done washing the dishes. He goes into his room immediately to wash up before heading out for class. He bids his mother a goodbye after kissing Romeo right smack on the forehead. Throughout the whole trip to school, Jongin’s mind is only filled with nothing else but his mother. It’s bad enough that he’s such a mess himself, and now he has his mother barely hanging on too. It’s complicated, Jongin thinks, and his luck is just that bad.

Once he steps foot on school grounds, he already sees two students zooming past him as the one who’s chasing the other screams about not texting his crush. Jongin snickers merrily, inwardly though, so as to not give people the chance to think that he’s crazy just because he’s laughing to himself. Jongin turns back to the front and sees Yukhei and Ten walking side by side into the school.

Excited, Jongin calls out, “Yukhei! Ten!”

The both of them turn around, walking backwards in perfect sync to watch Jongin wake into a jog to get closer to them. They turn back to the front when Jongin slings each of his arm around their shoulders. Yukhei resumes his conversation with Ten as per normal and Jongin chooses to listen in for the meantime.

“But it’s going to be quite different! This year they’re going to actually rent out an amusement park!” Yukhei bounces excitedly with every step that he takes. Jongin has to drop his arm from around Yukhei’s shoulder so he wouldn’t dislocate it or something. Yukhei’s really like Romeo in a lot of ways.

“How can S.U. even afford renting out a whole amusement park?” Ten asks in a disbelieving tone. “Your sources are bull, Luke.”

“I’m telling you the truth!” The way the rims of Yukhei’s eyes enlarges as if he’s just heard the most scandalistic news ever humours Jongin to extents that shouldn't. “My source is Kibum, by the way, and he’s infamous for his chatty mouth so jokes on you!”

“Jokes on you…” Ten breathes out in a laugh, tone mocking the way Yukhei speaks. “What are you? 8?”

“Nope, more like 1.85 meters tall! How about you?” Jongin’s grin widens at the face Ten sends Yukhei. Jongin can tell Yukhei’s trying his best to suppress one of his hyena-like laughters that might as well be called shrieks.

“Really?” Jongin asks before sparing Ten a suspicious side glance. “I’m 1.83 meters tall! How about you, Ten?”

“Shut the up,” Ten grumbles under his breath. Both Yukhei and Jongin bursts out laughing, making Ten glower at the both of them threateningly. Seeing that, Jongin laughs even harder. “I’m not kidding! Stop making fun of my height.”

“I know how you feel,” the voice from behind makes all three heads spin around to see who it is. From behind them, Renjun stares back with a knowing smile. “Hi, lads.”

Yukhei immediately falls back to match Renjun’s pace. He drapes an arm around Renjun’s tiny figure and pulls the professor closer to him. They fall into a conversation about something — maybe Yukhei’s trying to convince Renjun to give him a distinction for the latest essay he worked on, or not — God knows what. Jongin titters as he sees the pained expression Renjun harbors upon his face as he talks with Yukhei. Jongin turns back to Ten and they start talking too.

“What were you talking about? Why is the school renting a whole amusement park?” Jongin runs a hand through his hair when the wind messes it up. “What kind of special occasion are we having?”

“You didn’t know? The school organises an annual fair to collect the funds to support each department.“ Jongin nods along to Ten’s words but he still looks a little confused. Ten takes the liberty of explaining even further so Jongin wouldn’t be in the dark about everything. “Sometimes certain departments organises trips for its students, or the school as a whole likes to invite idols and other celebrities from time to time. All the funds collected goes to paying these kind of things. The school already has to pay a huge number of professors for teaching here, I bet they’ll go bankrupt if they have to sponsor school trips too.”

“But how come they can afford an amusement park, That’s a bit of a far reach. Don’t you think so?” Jongin turns back around to Renjun and Yukhei who are listening in too. “Right, Prof’?”

“Well, thing is, I heard the Director of the school has some connections to the elites up there and they arranged for this whole thing.” Renjun shrugs. “It’s a very simple situation actually. Rich people asking rich people for help.”

“But how do you know this?” Jongin frowns. “What’s your source?”

“Not what, but who.” Renjun tries his best to suppress a smile. “I heard it from his son.”

“Oh?” Jongin slows his pace at the same time Yukhei speeds his up. It’s as if they planned to swap places. Now Jongin’s staring at Renjun as they walk next to each other. “His son’s a professor too?”

“Nope, a High School student.” Renjun grins. “I do have a friend after all.”

“That’s nice! What’s his name?” Renjun shakes his head, refusing to tell Jongin who his new friend is. “Come on, tell me!”

“Fine, fine! Stop screaming.” Renjun takes a wary look of their surroundings, seeing people stare at Jongin in confusion at his outburst. “His name is Na Jaemin. Happy?”

“Yes, happy!”

Jongin finally goes back to talking about the school fair right after that, pulling Ten into the conversation once again to ask him tons of questions. Once Ten has to part from them to get to his department, Jongin almost pouts and almost clings onto him. It’s a wonder really, when Jongin got so close to Ten, or how. But Jongin guesses it’s one of those unforeseen things that just happens when it wants to.

“Bye, Jong. Bye, Prof’. See you later, Luke.”

Renjun, Yukhei and Jongin continue talking all the way to class, not minding the people around them as they chat even while they’re seated in class. Chanyeol comes in a few minutes after them — weirdly enough, with Sehun — and his eyes dart from Yukhei and Jongin sitting at their seats and talking, to Renjun who’s at the front of the class, at his own teacher’s desk. Sehun immediately moves to take the seat behind Jongin.

“Why are you guys so talkative this early in the morning?” Chanyeol mumbles out a question as he takes the seat on Jongin’s right. The latter turns to him and beams, saying hello. “You’re scaring me.”

“Did you know S.U. is going to have a school fair next week?” Jongin excitedly asks, hands swatting the side of Chanyeol’s shoulder again and again as the latter tries his best to scooch away.

“I didn’t! I didn— ah! Stop!” Chanyeol resorts to mimicking Jongin, slapping him too. They get into a playful brawl in their seats, twisting and turning as they try to grab each other by the neck to lock it in their arms.

“Okay, boys, please stop,” Renjun calls out when they’re starting to make too big of a scene. Yukhei’s cackling a little too loudly next to them and they’re yelping and shouting in pain a little too loudly too as they wrestle. “Mr Kim, Mr Park!”

Now that Renjun’s yelling out their surnames, they finally have their attention snapped back to the prodigy standing at the front class, staring at them in disapproval. Jongin steals one last punch to Chanyeol’s arm and that almost started another brawling session but Renjun’s already twisting their ears in order to stop them. Breathlessly, they admit defeat and finally settle down.

“Are you guys 3?” Renjun asks with a frown, a sigh pushed out of his system when he turns to go back to his desk.

“As Yukhei said; no, I’m 1.83 meters tall.” Jongin shoots Renjun a blinding grin.

Chanyeol does the same, lips reaching far up and teeth glinting white under the light. “And I’m 1.86 meters tall.”

“How about you, Prof’?” Yukhei asks with a twitch of his eyebrows.

Renjun flushes red and waves them off. “Shut up.”

All three of them break out into a fit of laughter. Jongin’s chuckles fades out into just a wide smile as he leans back on his chair. He tilts his head up then, and he sees Sehun watching them, specifically him. Jongin brings a hand up and waves, trying his best to suppress an incoming headache due to looking at the world from an upside-down view.

“Hello!” Jongin titters.