His cheeks ache at the position he’s been resting in for about a few minutes now. Sehun giggles at a thought and Jongin’s head bobs along to the movement of his shoulder. The latter swats the other then, telling him to stop moving. The girls running pass them spares a glance or two at how extremely close they are but the girls still kept their opinions to themselves.

“Didn’t you see the way Mr Lee fell this morning?” Sehun titters again after a while. “It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever witnessed.”

“It’s not that funny,” Jongin mumbles, “you just have a ty sense of humour.”

“It’s funny because I hate Mr Lee. He’s always picking on me.” Sehun huffs out in agitation. “I didn’t even do anything wrong to him.”

“Leave him be.”

“You’re just saying that because he likes you. You’re his favourite student.” Sehun scoffs.

“No, thanks.” Jongin snorts before he twists his head to rest his chin on Sehun’s shoulder. Jongin then grins, practically beaming as he looks up at Sehun with his hair falling over the top of his line of sight. “You’re my favourite student.”

“I overheard your classmates saying it and I stopped and just asked myself if it’s true.” Renjun waves his fork mid air, acting out his words before he stabs it back into a shredded piece of his chicken. Before he takes a big, harsh bite, he says, “I don’t think I’m biased. I can’t be.”

“To be honest, you actually do pay me a lot of attention. More than the rest.” Jongin does a little jerk of his shoulders and Renjun figures it’s a shrug. Jongin nibbles on his food, mumbling something under his breath so softly that Renjun has to make him repeat it again. “I said, you’re not biased, though.”

“Really?” Renjun’s voice hitches up two octaves higher as he asks in disbelief.

“Yeah. Actually, I think you’re more strict to me. Which is unfair because if I’m your favourite student, why are you treating me so badly?” Jongin’s petulant whining has Renjun glaring at him with the scariest expression he could muster up. The former grins in response but doesn’t say anything more in hopes of not making the situation worse.

“I don’t know. I think I like you and Sehun the most. My favourite students.” Renjun smiles. “Maybe it’s because the both of you spent the most time with me as candidates.”

“But why aren’t you bad to Sehun too? Why only me?” Jongin starts whining again.

“Because you’re terrifying sometimes and I get scared and have to make sure you don’t hate me. If you hated me, you would’ve treated me badly in return,” Renjun simply says, shrugging. “Plus, you do a lot of dumb .”

“Not really. Have you heard what the Psychology kids do during lessons? Someone actually brought a whole microwave and they baked. They. Baked.” Jongin punctuates his words by stabbing the fork into the plate, scaring Renjun at the loud sound it makes.

“Okay, am I teaching Psychology? No,” Renjun grumbles.

“But Sehun does dumb too!”

“No, I don’t.” Speaking of the Devil, Sehun slides into the seat next to Renjun and brings his backpack to his lap. He then hugs it, turning his attention to Renjun who’s waving at him.

“You do,” Jongin counters back. “Remember when you ordered three boxes of pizza and ate it all on your own?”

“I gave some to Renjun.” Sehun blinks. “When you do dumb , you have to be smart about it.”

Renjun glares at Sehun. “You and him are the same.”

“Objection!” Jongin thumps his fist on the table. “I’m more good-looking.”

No one says anything in response to that but Renjun does fling a soggy fry in his way. Jongin dodges it in time but Renjun’s already tossed another soggy fry to his face and too quickly that he ends up having a disgusting, greasy, french fry stuck to his face. After they’re done eating, Sehun turns to Jongin with a little noise emitting from deep in his throat, the noise he makes when he realises he forgot something.

“What is it?” Jongin asks with a frown.

“I came here to look for you, actually. To ask you what to do for this Representative thing. I heard the other candidates already started to work on their projects.” Sehun adjusts the strap of his backpack while he talks, looking like he’s scared Jongin would suddenly burst into tears.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Jongin snaps.

“What?” Sehun stares back into Jongin’s eyes, his glinting, sparkling, tear-filled eyes.

“You’re looking at me like I’m broken. I’m not, Hun,” Jongin says through gritted teeth. A few seconds of silence gives Sehun time to think about what to say, but Jongin beats him to it. He suddenly throws his head back, takes a deep breath and sighs before shaking his head. Jongin lets a little laugh out just to mock himself and Sehun. “It’s insulting. You think of me as charity. I’m not.”

“I don’t—”

“Save it!”

Sehun’s always piercing Jongin with his intruding gaze that way. It’s like he’s just waiting for the next two seconds till Jongin finally bursts into a rainfall of tears. Or throw a temper. Whatever it is. Jongin hates it. He doesn’t know what kind of person he appears to be in Sehun’s eyes now but he knows he hates it.

Renjun’s already stalked off to teach another class, and Jongin’s only left to stare at Sehun. He’s becoming more agitated the more he sees the way Sehun looks at him. They’re standing right outside the doors to the main building of the cafeteria and Jongin doesn’t like the way the other students are watching them. It’s none of their business what they do, and Jongin can’t seem to ignore their pointed stares. Due to that, it adds on to how agitated he already is.

“Why do you look at me like that?” Jongin tries to be more restrained so he wouldn’t come off as snappish. He’s just truly, really curious.

“Like… what?” Sehun takes a small step back. Jongin steps forward. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t know.” Compared to Sehun’s quieter nature, Jongin sounds like he’s screaming at the top of his lungs. “Like you’re scared of me or something that I’d do.”

“That’s not true.” Sehun waves it off.

“Really?” Jongin’s voice hikes up at the end, brows raised to the sky as a small smile dances in the corner of his lips. “Then why are you trying to move away all this while?”

Sehun looks around and true to Jongin’s words they’ve shifted quite far from the cafeteria doors. He straightens up almost immediately, clearing his throat as he desperately tries to think of something to say in the span of 2 seconds.

“I’m not… doing it intentionally.” Sehun tries to explain, his hands shaking tremendously as he tries to stop Jongin from coming closer. Jongin complies, seeing as how Sehun’s genuinely about to get an anxiety attack soon enough.

“What’s the matter, Sehun? Why are you scared of me?” Jongin asks again, face rendered of any emotion as he inches away from Sehun to give him some space.

“I’m not,” Sehun starts to deny Jongin’s assumption. One part of Jongin believes him, but the other is throwing a huge temper just to state that Sehun’s lying.

“You’re not going to tell me anything? Why?” Jongin leans a little closer, peering his sharp gaze right at Sehun’s stressed expression. He looks like he’s trying his best to scold his expression into an impassive one, and Jongin hates that. He hates the way Sehun shuts away like that. Jongin knows he does it too, he likes to withdraw from everyone from time to time, but he still comes out eventually. Sehun doesn’t. “Do you not trust me?”

“Do you want me to trust you?” The tremor in Sehun’s voice silences Jongin, puts him on hold as he stops his train of thoughts to assess what’s going on.

Jongin’s being too intrusive. He realises that now. They’re not friends, and they have boundaries they can never cross. Jongin just did. He took a big step over the line that marks a certain boundary and he stumbled right at Sehun’s feet. Dumb. That’s what he is. Jongin’s dumb enough to let himself get carried away.

“I’ll…” Jongin clears his throat. “I’ll, uh, text you when I figure something out for the project.”

As Jongin takes the first step of his walkout on Sehun, the latter calls his name out and stutters out a question, “I don— it’s okay, you know? To ask me what’s wrong and pester me till you get an answer. You can do whatever you want with me.”

Jongin hugs the thick books he couldn’t manage to fit in his bag closer to his chest. He brings a free hand up and gives Sehun’s shoulder a hard punch. It’s full of meaning, full of hatred, full of anger, full of strength, but it’s not the strongest punch he’s ever given to someone. Sehun’s mouth is agape as he eyes the way Jongin’s brows twitch into a menacing frown.

“You’re really full of ,” Jongin accuses, now repeatedly jabbing a finger into Sehun’s chest. The latter stumbles a little at first but he gets his balance back soon enough. “You’re making me feel bad.”

“That’s not what I intended—”

“Yeah, well, that’s what I feel,” Jongin cuts him off, poking his chest again but this time a lot harder. “You’re making it really hard for me not to hate you.”

“You hate me?” Because of the way his voice fades out towards the end, Jongin can’t help but to think that Sehun sounds like a puppy, whimpering when they’re sad. Jongin almost laughs at the thought.

“I don’t hate you. That’s the thing.” Jongin shakes his head. “Which is ridiculous because you wouldn’t tell me anything. You haven’t explained anything and now you’re telling me I can do anything I want with you, treat you however I like. And yet, I still can’t bring myself to hate you.”

“Should I stop, then?” Sehun grimaces, the uncertainty of knowing what to do making him feel small, way smaller than he actually is.

“I didn’t tell you to stop, did I? Don’t be a , Hun.” Jongin groans. “God, I can’t believe I was in love with you.”

“You what?”

And it suddenly dawns on Jongin, as his own words hover around his head, deafeningly ringing in his ears again and again, that he’s dumb. Jongin has always called himself brain dead stupid, but he never actually thought it was true. He’s so clumsy, physically and verbally. And that trait of his might get himself 6 feet under the ground one day.

         “I hate myself, Baek!” Jongin folds his upper body over, hanging his head in between his legs with his face buried in his palms. Jongin groans into his hands, the sound coming out extremely muffled. “Why did I say that?”

“The longer I know you, the more I get to see your dumb side.” Baekhyun snickers, nibbling on a baby carrot as he listens to Jongin’s incessant whining.

“Shut the up. I hate you.” Jongin whimpers. It reminds him of earlier today when Sehun whimpered. Jongin thrashes wildly on the couch, throwing himself sideways so his face would plant right into one of the cushions.

“I think I farted on that pillow,” Baekhyun casually states.

Jongin immediately sits up, face crumpled into a grimace as he stares into blank space. “Disgusting. I disgust myself. You disgust me. I hate everyone, I hate you, I hate myself.”

“Come on, Jongin. It’s not that bad!” Seeing as how Jongin’s actually beating himself a little too much over it, Baekhyun figures he’s taken his teasing far enough for now. “He already knew, right?”

“He knew I had a thing for him, but he didn’t know I was in love with him!” Jongin rakes his fingers through his hair, violently clawing at his scalp as he pulls on the taut strands till some of them comes loose. Jongin combs his hair from the front to the back a few times and widens his eyes at the sight of a small lock of hair resting daintily in his palms. “I’m balding!”

“No, you’re not. You pulled them out yourself.” Baekhyun slaps him hard in the shoulder twice to get his attention on something that’s not his hair. “Were you actually in love with him?”