3.
Weighted.
A/N: Okay so I'm pretty much winging this chapter- no previous planning or mapping out. Just writing. I'll make sure to edit it later c:
----
Jinki locked his front door behind him, waiting for the resounding click before starting to walk down his front steps.
Walk an entire block, make a right, walk another block, make a right, continue until halfway down the road and there should be a bus stop.
The directions resounded through his head, the routine of every school day already engraved into his brain. Jinki kept himself occupied throughout the walk by kicking a small pebble in front of him, the rock being his companion for the trip.
The student arrived at the bus stop and his sat on one of the metal benches that was underneath an awning. He removed his backpack and set it next to him before he opened one of the pockets on his bag to take out his cell phone.
"7:15. 10 more minutes before the bus gets here."
Jinki spent the time cracking his knuckles, counting how many birds flew by, and thinking about how much better school would be if Jjong and Kibum didn't live so far away and if they went to the same school then he would have at least a couple of frien-
"YAH, are you gettin' on er' what?" The bus driver spat in Jinki's direction. The student's head jolted up and he fumbled to grab his backpack. He made it up the stairs of the bus and he pulled out his bus pass that he used since he was a frequent user of the busses.
The bus driver waved Jinki off and the student walked to the back of the bus, throwing his backpack into the seat next to him.
The bus pulled out of the stop and it began to drive into the street.
Like every school day, the route would take 20 minutes. Exactly.
Which is why Jinki had to wake up so early everyday, so his schedule and his spotless attendance record would remain untouched.
That is, the bus ride is exactly 20 minutes.. when there aren't any unexpected issues in the route.
"Wait! Wait! Stop please! Wait!" A deep voice was yelling just outside of the bus' doors. The bus pulled over to the side of the road and the doors swung open.
"Hey kid, we're on a schedule. Next time be there at 7:25 sharp, alright?" The middle-aged driver scolded the younger man.
The younger man bowed a full 90 degrees before taking out his bus pass and scanning it. The bus began moving and the man started looking for a seat.
Jinki was uncounsciously staring at the boy, who apparently went to his school. The navy blue and creme perfectly matching the colors on Jinki's own uniform. The other student had longish black hair, the length not too much but not a buzz cut like some of the students at Jinki's school. He was tall -Jinki could even tell from his seat as he looked up at the other- his school uniform slightly loose around the stomach area but taut in the chest area.
Jinki immediately looked away, being reminded of his physique by looking at the clearly skinnier and fitter student.
"Can I sit here?"
The deep baritone rang through Jinki's ears and he unwillingly shuddered. The seated student slowly looked up, his eyes consequently raking over the other student's body before meeting the other's face.
Which was -in it's own respects- very handsome. While he had owlish eyes, his full lips and narrow nose seemed to balance out the male's face- which was currently pulled into a small smile.
Jinki swallowed the lump that had been in his throat and he nodded a bit, his glasses sliding down the slope of his nose. The other student's smile burst into a full out grin and Jinki's eyes widened.
He was extremely handsome- especially up close.
Jinki grabbed his backpack and let it rest in his lap, his fingers fiddling with a zipper on one of the pockets on the bag. The other student sat in the seat next to Jinki, pulling off his bag and mirroring Jinki's position- the backpack sitting in the middle of his lap. Jinki kept his gaze out the bus's window, feeling awkward nect to the other student that he literally just saw today.
"I guess we go to the same school then?" The deep baritone was heard by the glasses-clad student and he tore his gaze away from the window to rest on the other student's face.
Jinki just stared blankly at the other's face and he nodded slowly, his eyes staying locked with the large eyes of the other. The taller student outstretched a large hand, the grin still evident on his face.
"My name is Choi Minho, nice to meet you." The other male's face still donned a grin, Jinki was tempted to raise a hand just to shield himself from the brightness of it.
Jinki awkwardly shook the outstretched hand, a small smile on his face. "Hello, I'm Lee Jinki. Nice to meet you too." Jinki recoiled his hand after the handshake, his hand feeling very warm from the contact.
"So, what year are you? I'm a senior but I just moved here." Minho seemed to be overly excited, but it was only the bus's bouncing that made Minho move in his seat.
"I'm also a senior, I might see you in some of my classes." Jinki smiled and kept polite conversation, not wanting to seem cold to the new student.
Minho nodded, his lips unknowingly pouting, making him seem much younger than he actually was. Jinki chuckled to himself at the sight of the manly looking student appearing like a 5 year old girl in thought.
Minho's head snapped up and his gaze went straight to Jinki's eyes, their gazes locking. "What is it? Did I do something?" Minho tilted his head to the side in question.
Jinki covered his mouth with a hand, the other waving off the other male. "No, nothing. It's just me being weird." Jinki averted his eyes to look out the bus window. The bus had just pulled up to the stop next to the school gates.
Jinki grabbed his bag the same time that Minho grabbed his, and they stood up from their seats. They awkwardly maneuvered until Minho finally went forward first, with Jinki trailing behind the other.
They went down the bus's steps and they looked up at the school. The brick exterior added to the greenery that surrounded the school made it pretty to look at.
'Too bad it's my personal hell.' Jinki thought bitterly, his lips pursing and his brow furrowing.
"So what class do you have next Jinki-ssi?" Minho chirped besides Jinki and- oh yeah, Minho was definitely taller. Jinki was a bit taken aback by the suddenly friendly term by which Minho called him.. he wasn't too used to this sort of attention.
Jinki tilted his head back a bit to look at Minho's face, which was smiling down towards him. "Uh.. I have English, you?"
Minho held up one finger on his right hand, his left hand bending back to reach into a pocket in his backpack. He pulled out a folded slip of paper, Minho then unfolded it and traced a line of typed font across the page.
"I have English too! Who's your teacher?"
Jinki smiled a bit at the thought of having a friend a school before he answered. "Mr. Kim.."
Minho brought the folded paper down and he raised his hand up for a high-five. Jinki reluctantly high-fived the other, conscious of the stares that he was getting from the students walking by, and he recognized a few seniors that were the usual bullies.
"Same! Alright, we can walk together then!" Minho grinned and he re-folded the paper and stuffed it into the back pocket of his uniform pants.
Jinki was tracing the cracks along the sidewalk, trying to avoid making eye contact with any of the four bullies that had tormented him since freshman year.
"Oh look, it chubby!"
'ing hell.'
Jinki groaned, making Minho look towards him. "Hmm? Jinki? What is it?" His large eyes were filled with confusion and worry. Before Jinki had a chance to respond, he was shoved back, his shoulder hitting the brick wall that surrounded the school.
"Hiya Jinki! What's up? Got a new friend? Or should I say- you have a friend?" The leader of the group laughed and the rest of them laughed along with him, their laughter part of Jinki's personal soundtrack from school.
"Leave him alone. He's new here, he didn't do anything wrong." Jinki half mumbled, his eyes glaring at the leader in front of him- who stood with his arms crossed and legs spread.
"Aw, are you protecting the tall giraffe? Or what.. did the giraffe and the elephant become friends?" A student on the right side of the leader spat, the rest of them cackling to their own sick joke.
Jinki opened his mouth to speak, when a large figure moved in front of him.
Minho glared at the group of bullies, he wasn't scared. Hell, he was taller than all of them.
"Leave him alone. Just go through the gates and get to class, we have to go too." Minho had a calm look on his face, but his tone was almost growling, making Jinki's eyes widen as his body froze in initial shock.
"Hey kid, I know you're new here, but this guy here,' the leader gestured behind Minho towards Jinki, 'is a nerd. A dork. A loser. A chubby nobody with no friends. It's best for everyone if you just step aside and run along to class and stay away from him."
Jinki felt his eyes water at the blatant insults. Even though he heard them everyday it didn't mean that it didn't sting when the same names were thrown at his face.
Jinki expected the taller student to just agree with the leader, to walk in through the gates and go to English class and pretend to have never met the chubby, glasses wearing kid on the bus.
What Jinki didn't expect to hear in the deep baritone was, "Well he has a friend now. So you guys leave before I head to the office and report all of you." Minho crossed his arms over his chest, his height making his authority much higher than those (literally) below him.
The group looked at each other with furrowed eyebrows and glares thrown towards Jinki, their confused and concerned tones melding together.
"Fine. We'll leave. But don't say I didn't warn you about this.. thing." The leader spat in Jinki's direction, even though most of what he said was directed towards Minho.
They all began to move towards the gates before one of the students in the group turned his head and sneered, "Have fun protecting your boyfriend." The others started laughing as they walked towards the school.
Jinki's eyes were still focused on the ground, his vision blurry with tears even though he wasn't tormented as badly as usual- maybe it was because it was in front of someone that he just met.
"Hey.. you alright?" Jinki looked up to see the same owlish eyes looking at him with concern, the taller student putting a large hand on the other's shoulder to comfort him.
Jinki faked a smile and nodded his head before he looked up with a concerned look of his own. "Are you okay? They kind of called you- er, us- gay in a way.."
"I am."
Jinki's eyes widened and his gaze gained intensity from that statement. "W-What? You are what?"
"I'm gay. Nothing new." Minho smiled at the other, the angry tone in his voice from the earlier encounter wiped away. Minho leaned down, his eyes now level with Jinki's.
"How about you, Jinki-ssi?" Minho's full lips were quirked up in a small smile.
Jinki gulped and looked down at the sidewalk, his eyes tracing the cracks in the cement like before. "Uh... yeah... I am..." Jinki felt his cheeks flush and he wanted to punch himself in the face for ing blushing, in front of his new friend nonetheless.
The shorter student felt his glasses being pushed up the bridge of his nose and his chin being held so that his head was level again. Jinki only felt his cheeks getting hotter to see that Minho was staring at the other's face, an amused grin on his own.
"Let's go to class, yeah? Wait..." Minho suddenly looked serious as he looked at Jinki once again. "Those s aren't in our classes are they?"
Jinki blinked about 10 times before he shook his head back and forth. "No, I don't have any classes with them.. I think."
Minho took a 180 degree changed from his serious expression when he began laughing loudly. Jinki's eyes widened and he flailed his arms a bit, his face looking flustered.
"What?! What did I do?! Why are you laughing?!" Jinki tried to look at the other's face so that Minho could see that he was trying to talk to him.
Minho only laughed a short while before he wiped a tear from one of his eyes. "Nothing, nothing."
The taller student's arm reached out and his hand pinched one of Jinki's cheeks, the flesh becoming flushed again at the contact. Jinki's eyes still widened as he locked gazes with Minho.
"You just act adorable sometimes Jinki-ssi." Minho grinned and walked past Jinki, heading towards the open gates.
Jinki stayed frozen to the spot, the place where Minho's fingers had touched his skin feeling hotter than the rest of his face. Jinki's arms were rigid on his sides, his breathing stunted from the sudden intimacy between them.
Jinki felt a large hand on his shoulder, turning him arm and forcing him to walk towards the school.
"Let's go Jinki." Minho sighed, a smile evident in his tone as he pushed Jinki towards the front doors of the school.
Before the pair had even reached the doors, the morning bell rang through the school yard and Jinki groaned at the sound, while Minho just kept pushing his body so he could keep moving forward.
That was the first time Jinki was ever late to class.
----------
A/N: Yayayay, okay thrid chapter- COMEPLETE!! Sorry for lagging on this story, I'll try to add more background info for everything since it's bit of a freewrite kind of thing that I'm doing (I didn't really plan out this chapter- like I said in the beginning lol). I hope you enjoyed!
Please subscribe & comment! Also please check out my other new story "Under the Radar"- it's a SHINee OT5 story~ c:
Comments