Jaejin tried with all he had to get Jonghun out of his mind. He tried so hard his head could’ve exploded. He really did.

But it was no use.

Jaejin grumbled and ruffled up his hair in exasperation for the umpteenth time that morning.

The scene from yesterday reeled in his mind like a repetitive song, over and over again. Jonghun's words. His voice. His face. That annoying, toothy smile. And as the finale, his lips when they'd almost touched Jaejin's. Every single time he thought about it, his chest would thump uncomfortably, and his ears would burn, and his toes and fingers curled. And then the whole thought process would start all over again. He was certain everyone in the room could read his mind, which only heightened Jaejin's embarrassment more.

Jaejin should've never tried to talk to the guy in the first place. It was like Jonghun had taken Jaejin's plan, crumpled and tore it into tiny and insignificant pieces, and let the remains scatter to the floor. Why couldn’t he have seen how obvious it was that his plan would backfire like this?

What really blew about the whole situation was that there was no possible way of getting rid of the guy. The only way Jaejin could get home and to his job was through the subway. His parents worked long hours and his friends lived nowhere near him, and Jaejin didn't want to be a bother to them. The bus was too far, and Jaejin far too lazy. By his calculations, the subway was his only option. He didn't know anything about Jonghun and why he rode the subway, but now with his disturbing interest in Jaejin, he probably wasn't going to stop riding it anytime soon.

Jaejin leaned onto his desk and buried his head within his crossed arms. What did he get himself into?

Suddenly, he felt something tap his head. Jaejin looked up with frustrated, bloodshot eyes. Key stared down at him with an equally peeved look. Jaejin groaned noisily. He didn't have the energy to generate a proper greeting.

"You didn't go to cram," Key said.

Jaejin rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. "You said you'd text me."

"I did text you. Do you ever check your phone? God."

Jaejin whimpered and leaned his forehead back down against his desk. "Okay okay, I'm sorry. I forgot. I spaced out."

Jaejin averted his eyes downward and away from Key. He didn't exactly want to tell Key the whole story. It was all so embarrassing. He didn't need him knowing Jaejin was some kind of lunatic stalker on top of this whole Jonghun issue.

“I guess you don’t really need to go, though. Mr. I-get-100%-on-all-my-assignments.”

“Hah,” Jaejin drawled with not so much as the twitch of his lip. He really wasn’t in the mood to talk, let alone joke around. After a couple of seconds, Key sat himself in the desk next to his and placed his own head on the wooden surface. He let out a concerned sigh. "You look tired. What's up?"

"Nothing," Jaejin said smoothly. It would have been convincing if Jonghun hadn't entered Jaejin's thoughts at that moment, sending his cheeks into another fiery explosion of pink.

“Riiight,” Key said sarcastically. He adjusted his head. “Jaejin, do you know how long we’ve been friends?”

Jaejin scrunched his eyebrows in thought. Then he shrugged. “I’unno, since elementary school?”

“Exactly. That’s like, seven years. And you remember how we met?”

Jaejin deadpanned.

“Go on, say it.” Key waved his hands in a circular motion, ushering his friend to continue. He loved it when Jaejin retold the birth of their miraculous friendship. Jaejin rolled his eyes and let out a heavy sigh in preparation. He recited in a perfect monotone, “you walked up to me on the playground while I was eating lunch and screamed, “hey! You look like Harry Potter!” And then I called you an ugly gorilla and kicked you in the shin.”

Key burst out laughing. He cracked up every single time he told the story. Even with how many times he’d heard the story, a snicker still managed to escape Jaejin. He hated to admit it, but he was already starting to cheer up hearing his best friend's banter, even though he wanted to wallow around in his anger for awhile longer.

“Where are you going with this, Key?”

“Yeah yeah, so my point is,” Key began, taking a breather to calm himself, “we’ve been friends for this long. I probably know you better than you know yourself. There isn’t much you can hide from me anymore. So you can tell me when there’s something going on. Okay?”

Jaejin scrunched up his face. He muffled something inaudible that translated into a form of understanding.

Key grinned and sat up in his chair. The guy had a point. They knew almost every single thing about one another. There couldn’t be much more room for Key to judge Jaejin, right? Jaejin cleared his throat a bit before speaking again, tossing around words he could potentially say, seeing what would sound good. Everything sounded lame. He tried anyway.

“What would you do if some guy you kind of know, but have never talked to, started sort of... following you around?” He worded slowly.

Key’s face contorted grotesquely. “What... Is this happening to you?”

Jaejin blushed furiously again and wildly waved his hands in front of his face. He couldn’t tell Key that he was the one who was doing that. Absolutely not. “No no, I just... read about it somewhere. In a story.”

Key stared through narrow slits, unconvinced. Then he exhaled and leaned back in his desk, clasping his hands behind his head. Jaejin could feel beads of guilty sweat forming on his forehead. “Depends on how well he knows me.”

“Um... you’ve never talked before.”

“Well, I’d probably assume they wanted to me. Maybe in a worst-case scenario, call the police?”

Jaejin paused for a bit. "But say this guy is your age. And smaller than you."

Key squinted his eyes and tilted his head up in thought. "Then maybe he admires me.” Key scoffed at this, his ego peeking through. He sighed and continued. “Who knows. Either way, I would be a little creeped out."

So basically Jaejin was a creepy stalker.

But then, it still didn’t make sense to him. If someone was stalking him, he wouldn’t try to kiss them afterward. No one did that. Except for this guy.

He let Key blabber on and on about what he would do as Jaejin stared at his fingernails, still secretly thinking about Jonghun.

---

The next day, Jaejin practically threw himself into the bus seat. He let out a long, tired groan. He hated this. He hated the train, these people, everything. And Jonghun was right there on top of his ever-growing hate pile, sneering and poking fun at his misery.

Jonghun didn't ride the subway yesterday. Jaejin had been mentally preparing himself for it the entire day. He would spontaneously remember Jonghun, and his palms would grow moist and he would grow dizzy with anxiety. He nearly melted into a relieved pulp when he hadn’t gotten on. But now, Jaejin was again alert and on his toes. He couldn’t assume he had stopped riding the subway. What if he was lurking somewhere behind him? He couldn't take any chances.

As the train rolled into Jonghun's stop, all of the hairs on Jaejin's body stood on end. He tightened and loosened his fists in a rhythm as people filed into the subway car one by one. He peered continuously at the seat next to him to make sure the backpack hadn't moved. No one could sit there if it was occupied. Jaejin could feel his eyes bugging out at people. Many gave Jaejin wary glances, but the boy couldn't have cared less.

As fewer and fewer people filled the car, Jaejin's heart began to pound harder. An unexpected smile threatened to break his serious, trained expression. Naively, thoughts filled his brain. Maybe Jonghun decided to take Jaejin's advice after all? Jaejin wouldn't have to see his face on the train for the rest of his high school years? He was free?

The second Jaejin convinced himself Jonghun wasn't showing up, the mop of black ruffled hair appeared before his eyes. When their gazes met, Jonghun smirked. Jaejin went blank. Jonghun climbed aboard just as the doors were closing and maintained eyesight with Jaejin as he stepped closer. Jaejin gulped. He tried to ward him off with his glare. Go away, go away, go away, he tried to say with his eyes. But more than anything, Jaejin looked like a hypnotized deer caught in headlights. Jonghun broke eye contact and stared curiously at the backpack next to the skinnier boy. Jaejin gulped again.

Jonghun scooted the backpack away and eased into the now-vacant seat.

Jaejin cursed to himself. He hadn’t seen that coming.

The insides of Jaejin's palms were getting sweaty again, so he rubbed his hands slowly across his pant legs. Jonghun was just sitting there, like nothing was wrong. He caught a waft of a soft cologne. Jaejin could see out of his peripheral vision his leg tapping to some unknown beat, and for whatever reason, it made Jaejin more nervous. He counted the taps, one, two, three, four, and Jaejin was about to combust when Jonghun stopped at fourteen to say:

"Hi."

Jaejin flinched at the sound of his voice.

And great, Jaejin was blushing. Again.

Just ignore him, Jaejin. Maybe if you don't respond, he'll get up and go away. He exhaled quietly, albeit shakily, as the silence built up and ate at his mind. Soon, Jaejin felt something hard--most likely Jonghun’s chin--rest against his shoulder and he could feel a hot air tickling his nape, sending an uncomfortable shiver down his spine. His neck muscles tightened.

“That’s rude. You should say something back.”

Jaejin flushed brighter than ever. “Hi,” he croaked awkwardly.

Jonghun smiled next to him and leaned back in his seat. Good, Jaejin thought in relief as he relaxed the tiniest bit. But obviously, now wasn't the time to calm down. Jonghun was still sitting there next to Jaejin. He even glanced at him a second time, just for "good" measure. Yep. He was definitely there. He gulped a second time, but by then, his throat had run dry. He squirmed uncomfortably in his seat.

"What do you want?" Jaejin's words just flew out of his mouth like they needed to run free from the confinements of his mind. It felt good to speak his mind, exhilarating even.

But in a lame response, Jonghun shrugged. "I dunno. I just wanna talk to you."

"But... why?"

"Because I like you. You’re interesting."

Jaejin bit his tongue with brutal force as, yet again, he blushed. Unbeknownst to Jaejin, the other boy smirked to himself.

"Where's your girl-of-the-day today?" Jaejin asked sardonically, a sudden bout of confidence spurring him to.

Jonghun muffled his eyebrows together ever so slightly. "Now why would I bring a girl with with me when I'm here solely to talk to you?"

Jaejin began to crumple and un-crumple the bottom of his school shirt as a sort of distraction. "Well, you... you always..." He tried to come up with something clever to say, something powerful, something.

Nothing.

He accidentally glanced to the right, where Jonghun's face was so conveniently placed. He stared up at the boy with large, patient, eager eyes, like a dog waiting for a treat.

Jaejin groaned lowly in embarrassed defeat and turned the other way, triggering a chuckle from the other boy.

If Jaejin could give himself a clean, swift slap to the face in that moment, he would've done it in an instant.

To the dismay of the glasses-clad boy, Jonghun didn’t go in the opposite direction of Jaejin’s house. Instead, he decided to tag along with him on his way home.

With the power Jaejin squeezed his fists, he wouldn’t be surprised if he lost all feeling in his digits from lack of blood circulation.

All he could really do was walk and try to ignore the presence next to him. He thought about yelling at him, screaming and shouting until he created a scene and Jonghun had to go away, or until he got tired of it. But what good would that do? It wouldn’t change the fact that Jonghun would ride the subway the next day. And the day after. And the day after. And what if that plan backfired like his first one? Obviously everything Jaejin could think of was doomed to failure. He had no other choice but to let him walk beside him.

He wondered if this was some kind of payback for Jaejin’s own stalking. He admitted it would make sense. He guessed this is somewhat how it felt for Jonghun. But not really.

The busyness of Seoul slowly trickled into quiet neighborhood streets. He avoided all eye contact at all costs, transfixing his sight to the bushes that lined the sidewalk. It didn’t help. Whenever their footsteps fell into a unified rhythm, Jaejin purposely paused a second before taking another step, which must’ve looked incredibly awkward, because Jaejin felt incredibly awkward doing it.

Jonghun began whistling an indecipherable tune. Jaejin finally broke.

"Don’t you have somewhere else to be?" he asked, whipping around to face the player, who couldn’t do anything but smile that dumb smug grin.

"It's okay. My job isn't too far from here. I'll have time."

Jaejin gritted his teeth. “If I could just... punch you...”

“No, please don’t punch me again,” Jonghun whined uncharacteristically, “my jaw still hurts from your punch on Wednesday. I don’t know if you realize, but you pack a pretty mean hit.”

Jaejin glared, anger steadily boiling, cheeks gradually reddening. Through his teeth, he hissed, “why are you following me?”

Jonghun sighed. “We already went over this, Jaejin. I think you’re--”

“But people don’t just... They don’t just do that, they don’t just... follow...”

He swallowed down his hypocritical last words. ...Random people. They both knew he was about to say it, and it only fueled Jonghun’s disgusting smirk. Jaejin could feel the embarrassment coating him like oozy slime. He decided to keep his mouth shut for the rest of the day.

After a time, Jonghun started humming, hands stuffed into pockets, head upturned to the cherry blossoms dangling over them. Jaejin hated to admit it, but he had a decent voice. Light pink petals descended steadily and dotted the pavement.

"The weather is nice like this. Not too hot. I like the breeze."

Their steps fell into unison again. Jaejin quickly adjusted himself.

“But actually I like winter the best. I like the cold. And snow, I love snow. It gives off this sort of forbidding beauty, I love looking at it. Snow seems so fragile, you know, like touching it just ruins everything. So I just stare at it. I try to think of it like eyeing an expensive guitar in the window of a store but knowing you’ll never have it.”

Jaejin shivered suddenly, but stayed quiet. He refused to admit he was listening to and soaking in every word the other said, and twice as much refused to admit that it was kind of intriguing. Jaejin briefly wondered if this was what Jonghun did with all the girls he took home on the subway. Jaejin blinked hard. That was a weird thought. This wasn’t a date. What was Jaejin thinking? This whole situation was getting to his brain.

Why couldn’t Jonghun just go fool around with his little s rather than sitting here bothering him? How ironic that after Jaejin tried to make Jonghun stop bringing his little girlfriends on the subway, he now wanted him to go back to them. Life is a sometimes, Jaejin concluded.

They reached the break onto Jaejin’s street. Jaejin stopped.

“This is my turn. You can go now.”

“Why?” Jonghun questioned, trailing fingers up Jaejin’s arm. “Won’t you invite me over?”

Jaejin turned and stormed away without another word. He ignored the faint “I’ll see you next week!” called in his direction. He walked faster. His skin tingled slightly in the area Jonghun had touched.

Was his heart pounding this hard before?

Jaejin didn’t try and wait around to think about it.

~~~

.... I'm so sorry..... orz
I've apologized so many times for late updates it's not even necessary anymore ;;;;

So... finally updated.... ;www; I had this sitting unfinished in my computer and since I'm going to attempt and fail Nanowrimo this month, I thought I might as well finish it. So here it is. Sorry it's lame orz ;; I have a lot of other great things planned to happen later on so let's see if this fic stays alive that long -u-