SHARK
(itzy/stray kids) chaeryeong/hyunjin
college au. 1.2k.
there'd been signs. big, neon, fully-capitalized WARNING!! kind of signs.
a/n: ummm because hyunjin and yeji should really be twins!!

(IMG CR: 1 / 2)

Chaeryeong's fiddling with the window switch in the backseat when Changbin says so nonchalantly that it's almost suspicious: "Hey, I heard that Hyunjin's back in town."

"Oh," she manages. There's not many ways things can get more awkward than ending up at the same uni as your older sister's boyfriend, and having him act as your no-pay Uber driver ("That's Chaeyeon unnie's seat," Chaeryeong frowned the first time Changbin pulled up to the curb in front of her dorm and he told her to ride shotgun. They all used to be neighbors, and Chaeryeong had to deal with an entire year of hearing Chaeyeon giggle flirtatiously in the passenger seat on the way home as Changbin recounted something Jisung did to get him into detention in homeroom. "Is this your version of the shovel talk?" Changbin sighed, starting the engine back up when he realized Chaeryeong wasn't going to budge. She chose not to respond to that), but Chaeryeong guesses you learn something new everyday. "That's..." The wind coming through the window keeps slapping her in the face. She closes it. "Great."

Changbin snorts before stopping in front of the grocery store and unlocking the car doors. "Sound a little more soulless, will you?" Chaeryeong presses her lips together, grimacing. "Don't say I didn't warn you, alright? I'll be back in thirty!" Only after his shiny new Corolla is halfway down the street, Chaeryeong realizes she should've told him thanks.

There'd been signs, Chaeryeong thinks as she grabs a basket and heads straight to the refrigerated beverages aisle. Big, neon, fully-capitalized WARNING!! kind of signs. Something that about having such a tight-knit group of friends, and friends of friends, and friends of friends-of-friends is that everyone gossips. "You know what Jisu told me?" her roommate, Ryujin, had brought up a couple weeks ago, as Chaeryeong was brushing her teeth. "That Yeji told her," (Chaeryeong already wanted to crawl under her bed and hide forever at this point. She and Yeji had dated for a month during first semester, and while it had ended amicably, Chaeryeong was still slightly traumatized by Yeji's kind hey, I think we should go back to being just friends rejection), "that Hyunjin's coming back next week from that study abroad program or whatever." Ryujin pulled the lollipop she'd been talking over out of . "Wanna hang out with all of them?"

Chaeryeong reaches for two coffee cans and plunks them down loudly enough to drown out the memory of her own squeaked-out, "Sure." She still hadn't looked at the Facebook event invite. Or given Ryujin a plausible-sounding excuse to get out of it. Okay, yeah, so Chaeryeong was still thinking of the excuse. But that didn't mean –

"Chaeryeong?" Someone's standing beside where she's kneeling with an arm halfway into the refrigerated shelf, and that someone is wearing these all-too-familiar Stan Smiths, well-worn and turning gray at the tops. Well. Chaeryeong winces. There'd been signs.

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