the only thing straight about him is his hair
Why Do We Work Here“Did you know that raisins are just dried up grapes?”
“Everyone knows that, Jongdae.”
“I doubt it. Only a true genius could know such a hallowed secret of the universe.”
“Jongdae-”
“Shh!” Jongdae presses a finger against Jongin’s lips. “The walls have ears.”
Jongin rips the offending appendage off of his full lips with a scowl. “Even Joonmyun knows that raisins are dried up grapes and he’s the biggest dweeb in the planet!”
Jongdae waltzes to the front of the room, pulling open the door connecting his and Jongin’s study hall to Joonmyun and Kyungsoo’s.
“Hey, Joonmahao!”
“I told you not to call me that, Mr. Kim,” Joonmyun’s soft tone is the calm before the storm.
“Tch, he called me Mr. Kim,” Jongdae snickers, grinning wolfishly at Jongin. The tanned dancer rolls his eyes in exasperation. “Did you know that raisins are just dried grapes??”
“Get out of my study hall!” Jongin hears Joonmyun yell, and then there is a muffled thump and Jongdae slams the door shut before something heavy hits it.
“Why am I alive?” Jongin questions, sinking down into his rolling chair with a sigh. “These are the questions that consume me.”
His eyes scan the room of bored students, fiddling with their phones, typing studiously on expensive slim laptops, or just plain sleeping, head down on their desks. There’s also that group of ever-present senior girls that try to catch his or Jongdae’s attention by hemming their skirts too short and pulling at the collars of their freshly ironed button up shirt in a way supposed to be ‘seductive’.
Jongin has had a few flings here and there, a few girlfriends; but none of them ever lasted long and none ever felt right. In fact, he has more of a relationship with dance than he’s ever had with a girl. Girls were just so clingy and needy- some were really great friends to him, but he found he could never put up with them for that long. Jongin was looking for something else- he just didn’t know what.
The dancer’s eyes wander to the east wall of the classroom- due to the ridiculous cost of tuition at the high school, the administration had plenty of money for fancy structural add-ons; one of which being the glass wall that separated study hall’s from one another. Since no actual teaching went on in the period, it wasn’t considered a distraction and students could look through the wall to see their classmates on the other end.
However, the architectural endeavor proved to be more of a distraction for Jongin than for any of the students.
If he rolled his chair just a little to the right, tilted his head just so, swiveled at just the right acute angle; and now he could see Kyungsoo bending over to rearrange the recycling bins on the floor. Jongin’s tongue darts out to wet his chapped lips and his eyes wander a little further down the small male’s cute form, resting on his . It was really nice.
Jongin’s gaze travel down a little more, taking in a set of plush looking thighs. Why were Kyungsoo’s pants so tight today? Did he always wear them like that? Jongin doesn’t remember Kyungsoo’s legs looking so nice before. They’ve always looked nice, but today, especially nice. Jongin remembers how Kyungsoo once wore a pair of shorts to school, exposing milky white calves; and as the older male jumped deftly over a desk to escape a wild Chanyeol, a hint of creamy thigh.
“-Jongin-ah? Jongin-ah? MR. KIM!”
Jongin starts, swatting at the corner of his mouth to erase traces of wetness. His cheeks flush slightly as he meets the incredulous gaze of Jongdae.
“Why’re you so spacy?”
Jongin’s gaze flickers over to Kyungsoo, who goddammit, is still bending over. He quickly retracts his eyes and tries to look Jongdae in the face.
Jongdae pushes Jongin’s chair to the side, ignoring Jongin's frantic protests, and focuses through the glass wall.
"All I see is Kyungsoo bending over."
"Y-yeah. Nothing special or anything." Jongin stumbles over his words, choking on his own spit.
Jongdae stills, and then his head is turning eerily slow, a strange twinkle in his eyes.
"Jongin."
"Y-yes."
“Were you… checking Kyungsoo out!?”
Jongin jumps from the chair, clamping a hand over the vocal trainer’s mouth roughly, forcing him back against the desk. “Keep your voice down Jongdae! Thats innapropriate and there are students in this room!"
"Answer the question!"
"I-I was just giving him a friendly once over! There's nothing wrong with appreciating the way your friends look!"
There is a slimy slickness against Jongin’s palm, and the tanned male shudders, wrenching his hand away. “Ew, nasty!”
“You…you want to do Kyungsoo! You want to do him! You want him! You wanna do Kyungsoo!”
Jongin lifts his knee up and sends it hard into Jongdae’s crotch.
The shorter male flails around and trips backward, barely catching himself on the edge of the rolling chair. He manages to regain his balance just in time, crossing his arms with a disgustingly feline smirk painted on his angular features. “Get it? Cuz his last name is Do? It’s like ‘do’ Kyungsoo? Like ?” He gestures toward his crotch wildly.
Jongin sits down heavily in his chair and bangs his face into the desk three times over.
His mental stress is soon replaced with physical and he clutches at his forehead, looking up.
The whole class is staring at the two teachers, obviously appalled.
Jongin groans. “Class dismissed.”
Baekhyun is not a nosy guy. He is forgetful, overly open, bad with secrets, and tends to be obnoxious (around Chanyeol), but he is not nosy. What people do in private is their own business and unless they take it upon themselves to personally tell him, he’s not about to stick his in their personal affairs.
So naturally, when he comes across the thick bundle of papers labeled “NOOB DESTROYER: OPERATION 1; WU YI FAN” he quickly walks away before curiosity can get the better of him.
The problem though, is that Chanyeol is not Baekhyun.
If Baekhyun’s nose is small in the range of nosiness, Chanyeol’s is positively Roman. Or Jewish. Either works.
And so, when Chanyeol sees these papers lying around in the teachers’ lounge, he quickly snatches them up and brings them to Baekhyun so they can look over them together in the privacy of his personal office.
And Baekhyun, being Baekhyun, goes along with it.
“Now maybe we can sabotage them in their plan to sabotage Kris! We’ll come out as reigning lords in this kingdom of filthy peasants!” Chanyeol exclaims.
Baekhyun snatches the thick stack of paper from his tall friend. “Have you been watching historical dramas with Kris?”
“N-no.”
Baekhyun flips to page one and blinks.
The page is covered, margin to margin, in messy hangul graffiti done in an inky black pen that has left disgusting black smears everywhere.
‘Do Sehun got a booty?’ ; ‘SEHUN DOOOOO’ ; S to the E to H to the UN spells SCANDALOUS’ ; ‘Sehun reigns as noob lord’ ; ‘Sehun’s is the size of Jeju Island and just as hot’; ‘All Sehun wants for his birthday is a big booty hoe’
“The .” Baekhyun mutters. “These aren’t plans to prank Kris.”
“I knew Sehun was a chump, but I didn’t know he was an extreme chump. This is like, chump to the third degree. Chump cubed.” Chanyeol rationalizes.
“Well there’s probably more further in.”
Baekhyun and Chanyeol flip past about fifteen more pages of egotistical graffiti before finally finding themselves on the last page, titled: GAME PLAN.
“So, basically, they’re planning to dress as historical drama characters and pretend that they’ve found a hole in space that leads to the teachers’ lounge here?” Baekhyun summarizes after a few minutes of reading. The entire plan was completely ridiculous and not very well thought out for how long the three teachers had been snickering about it.
“I suppose so. And then Kris will respect them for being from the past and developing time travel.” Chanyeol replies.
“But how would that result in them getting a raise? Kris wouldn’t know that they were actually Jongdae, Sehun and Luhan. In Kris’s world, Jongdae, Sehun and Luhan have just skipped work and so the most they’ll be getting is a deduction.”
Chanyeol frowns. “That makes no sense at all, whatsoever.”
“No, Yeollie, this is too easy. This can’t be the real game plan. And why would they just leave it lying around the teachers’ lounge anyway? This has to be a hoax!”
“Watcha gonna do, watcha gonna do, watcha gonna do when the cops catch you!?” Chanyeol sings, pelvic ing into a desk.
Baekhyun rolls his eyes. “Shut up you giant idiot.” He grabs the fake game plan and places it back where Chanyeol had found it, in the teacher’s lounge.
“Now, it’s time to do some snooping around and find the real game plan. We already avoided Jongdae’s first step in the game, which was to fool us into thinking the plan was actually stupid. Now, we have to break into his office and find out where he’s hiding the real thing.”
Chanyeol smirks devilishly, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a ring with twelve keys dangling off of it, glinting dangerously in the yellow lighting. “I knew stealing this from that janitor would come in handy one day.”
Baekhyun is halfway out the door when he turns around in shock. “You stole from a janitor!?”
“Details,” Chanyeol mutters dismissively. “Now let’s find that game plan!”
“So, I heard about your little crush!”
Jongin jumps about three feet in the air, clutching a hand to his chest in an attempt to still his pounding heart.
Luhan’s face is within six inches of his, effectively putting the older man in the far-too-close-please-get-away-from-me-spawn-of-satan range.
“What the hell are you talking about!?” Jongin hisses, glancing furtively around the crowded hallway.
The never-aging creep slings an arm around Jongin’s shoulders. “Don’t play dumb with me, kkamjong!”
“Why are you touching me like we’re casual acquaintances!?” Jongin cries, shuddering. “And I honestly have no clue.”
“Oh, but you most definitely do!” Another arm is slung around Jongin’s shoulders and the tanned dancer shies away from Sehun’s hideous (glorious?) face.
“Yeah, uh, Sehun I know we’re best friends but listen I really really do not appreciate your face from this close up-”
“You can’t run but you can’t hide.”
“Oh dear God, Sehun, that’s not even how the phrase goes.”
“Oh, really? Wait hold on- uh- yeah I think I got it- okay- you can run but you can also hide.”
“..No...”
“You can’t run and hide at the same time but you can sprint!”
“Sehun just- Sehun please-”
“You can run and hide but you can’t die!”
“Sehun I swear to God-”
“You can run or hide or die but you probably won’t do any of the above!”
“Wait, why are we here again?”
Jongin sighs, shrugging out of the hold of the two idiots. “What do you actually want? The last bell is about to ring and I have to pack my stuff so I can accompany Kyungsoo after school.”
“KYUNGSOO!” the two troublemakers yell in unison.
Jongin whips his head around the hallway, eyes wild. “Why are you so loud!?”
“That’s why we’re here. We know your little secret.” Luhan says, placing one bony hand on his hip. “And we intend to be… drumroll please, Sehun.”
There is a pregnant pause while Sehun reaches into his messenger bag and fumbles for two pens, which he then proceeds to tap in tandem against the wall.
“Your new wingmen!”
Jongin has never wanted to jump into the east sea more than he does at the moment.
“Why would I need wingmen when I don’t even have a crush in the first place!?” he protests. “And where did you even get this stupid idea from!?”
Luhan opens his mouth but Jongin holds up a hand, his previous headache coming back. “Wait, don’t say it- Jongdae?”
“Someone said my name?”
Jongin screams for the second time during the day, scrambling backwards, hitting the wall, and promptly sliding to the ground, clutching at his chest. “The , Jongdae! Don’t sneak up on people like that!”
“Tch, spiteful . They don’t call me Slenderman for no reason.”
“Jongdae, they called you Slenderman in middle school because you were so skinny. Not because you were stealthy.” Luhan interjects dryly.
“Yeah, yeah, same thing,” Jongdae quickly dismisses. “Anyway, welcome to Jongdae’s school of love.”
“How do I get expelled?” Jongin deadpans.
“Patience, my dear grasshopper. I’m going to teach you the ways of the world.” The short male wiggles his eyebrows saucily and Jongin feels his lunch making its way back up his esophagus, spicy curry burning his throat.
“Look guys, I don’t like Kyungsoo. You’ve all known me forever, and I’ve only dated girls. You know I’m straight.”
“If you were straight, why were you staring at our Kyunggie’s and drooling!?” Jongdae accuses.
“I- I wasn’t staring at his ! And when did he become yours?”
Luhan chuckles, throwing an arm around Jongdae’s shoulders. Jongin does not like the sound of that chuckle. “Welcome to the club, young . You are so gay.”
Jongin rolls his eyes and stumbles back to his feet, dusting off his pants. “I have to go meet Kyungsoo. I’ll see you bastards later.”
He sprints down the hallway, desperate to put distance between himself and the three deluded people.
They were crazy. He didn’t have a crush on Kyungsoo.
He was straight- and he would be, forever.
Jongin skids into the vocal department just as the last students trickle out, leaving Kyungsoo at his desk shuffling through some papers.
Jongin smiles at the sight, forgetting the previous confrontation. The small boy looks dwarfed by the size of the mahogany desk he sits at. “Hard day?” he asks.
Kyungsoo looks up, face breaking into the radiant heart shaped smile Jongin adores. “It’s not so bad now that you’re staying. I was thinking we could get dinner after?”
Jongin smiles. “Sure.” The thought of walking with Kyungsoo through Seoul at night, stuffing their faces with cheap street food seems oddly appealing to him at the moment. Minus the fact that Korean street food has never really agreed with him- he’s willing to put that thought aside if it means extra time with his favorite hyung.
"You look kind of flustered," Kyungsoo notes as Jongin crosses the room to join him at the desk. "Did something happen?" The vocalist reaches up to press the back of his hand against Jongin's forehead. "You're warm."
Jongin smiles at the elder's concern. Kyungsoo looks adorable when concentrated, plump rosy bottom lip tucked between his teeth, eyes widened slightly in inquisition.
"Nah, it's nothing. Just got ambused by Jongdae, Sehun and Luhan again."
Kyungsoo removes his hand, and Jongin admires the way his dark eyelashes fall against his creamy white skin. "They're always causing trouble, aren't they?"
Jongin nods his agreement, remnants of the confrontation with the three idiots making its way to the front of his mind. He pushes the thoughts back, changing the subject quickly. “So who’s staying for extra tuition?”
The elder sighs, shoulders slumping. “Lee Chansung, Park Kibum, that whole group of troublemakers. They obviously don’t care at all about music. I don’t understand why they even come here. Couldn’t their parents waste their money on some other school?”
Jongin nods in understanding. “I know the feeling. Only, I don’t offer after school tuition so the slackers just have to suffer.”
“You know, that sounds incredibly genius.”
Jongin smirks. He is a genius.
The students staying for tuition start walking in, and Jongin takes a seat in the back, watching the way Kyungsoo plasters a smile on his face, immediately beginning to lecture on reading music and when to breathe and dynamics and tempo.
It makes him happy, seeing Kyungsoo so passionate about something that he’ll go out of his way to try and help students improve, even students that don’t care.
‘We know your little secret.’
‘You wanna do Kyungsoo!’
‘Welcome to Jongdae’s school of love.’
Jongin’s eyes widen. “Get out of my head.” He mutters, tapping his temple in frustration.
Kwang Minhee turns back to look at him and he coughs awkwardly, sending her a stern glare. Earning respect is so hard when you’re barely five years older than your students.
‘You are so gay.’
‘We know about your crush.’
Jongin shakes his head, hoping to push the thoughts out.
Friends were allowed to be proud of other friends! They were allowed to want to hang out with their friends and they were allowed to acknowledge their friends’ good looks and appreciate their personalities. It was completely normal to want to keep a smile on your friends face and make them happy all the time, protect them, keep them safe… push them against walls and-
Jongin shudders. The thing is, he does not want to push Sehun against a wall and do anything with him. And Sehun is his best friend. In fact, he doesn’t even want to keep Sehun happy all the time.
Actually, now that he thinks about it, he likes seeing Sehun suffer.
It’s surprisingly gratifying, since behind the confident smirk and powerful dance moves lies an overgrown five year old.
Jongin is reminded of that one time in kindergarten when he told Sehun that having a lisp was a sign that he was marked by the devil.
Sehun had cried for days and Jongin had just laughed.
But the thing was that Sehun and Kyungsoo had completely different personalities. Sehun was the spawn of satan and Kyungsoo was closer to an angel on this earth.
This thought makes him happy again and he spends the rest of the hour exchanging knowing glances with Kyungsoo over the heads of the students.
Jongdae, Sehun and Luhan could just go die. Jongin was as straight as a ruler.
The class is soon over and Jongin gets up from his desk, stretching his sore limbs. It’s been a while since he’s just sat down for a whole hour- teaching dance as a full-time job makes sure that he’s always moving.
Jongin meets Kyungsoo’s gaze from across the room and the older boy looks away swiftly, a soft pink painting its way across milky skin.
Jongin can’t help his slow smile.
“So I was thinking ddeokbokki?”
“Mm, sounds good.”
Jongin holds the door open for Kyungsoo on the way out and relishes the way their skin brushes.
Yep. Totally straight.
“I feel like I’m in a James Bond movie or something. We should do this more often.”
“What, breaking and entering?”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, I’d agree with you if we were wearing black bodysuits. We should really invest in some black bodysuits.”
“Good idea.”
Jongdae’s office door opens with a click and Baekhyun takes a second to take in the sheer amount of posters of Super Junior and SHINee that cover the walls. There’s even a shirtless picture of Siwon, with ‘my ideal type <333’ scribbled underneath the s in Jongdae’s nearly ineligible hangul.
“Where do you think he’d hide it?” Chanyeol asks, heading to Jongdae’s file cabinet. He swings the black door open, ignoring the huge poster of Onew, and ruffles through unopened packs of construction paper, broken metronomes and stacks of Christmas song books. Jongdae is obsessed with Christmas ballads.
“Not sure… I mean there has to be a plan somewhere, though. Jongdae always writes out his plans.”
Baekhyun heads over to Jongdae’s desk and reaches to pull out a drawer when there is a muffled thump and a low grunt.
His heart freezes, then picks up at double time.
“Yeollie.”
Chanyeol stops banging around in the file cabinet and turns slowly.
“Yeollie, did you hear that.”
Chanyeol gulps and Baekhyun watches his adam’s apple bob.
Baekhyun takes a hesitant step back from the desk, eyeing it with extreme caution. Last night he watched Insidious and honestly anything could happen and doors could open by themselves and people could levitate and demons could spring up from hell in a flurry of fire and drag him away with them and he was just really really scared right now and there are goose bumps on his arms.
Baekhyun hears a low cough from under the desk.
“GHOST!”
Baekhyun clears the desk in one jump and lands more or less on top of Chanyeol, the two of them crashing to the ground amidst piles of music books and sheet music. "Get me out of here Chanyeol! Jongdae is a ghost whisperer!"
The two are scrambling off of the floor when there is a loud banging sound and then a blonde head appears from under the desk. “No ghost. Just me.”
“Y-Yixing!?” Baekhyun cries, incredulous. His heart rate is slowing down, only to be replaced with confusion.
“Hey guys.”
Baekhyun gets off the floor and helps Chanyeol to his feet, shaking his head.
“What the hell were you doing under there!?”
“Same as you. And I got my hands on the game plan.” Yixing brandishes a single piece of white paper in his hands. “It’s actually quite impressive for those peasants to come up with all on their own.”
“What is up with all this historical drama jargon?” Baekhyun mumbles to himself. “And how’d you get in here?” His heart is still racing from the previous moment, and he's sort of embarassed at his less than manly reaction.
Yixing reaches into his pocket, pulling out a ring of twelve keys. “Stole from a janitor.”
Baekhyun splutters while Chanyeol smirks.
“Well, hand it over.” Chanyeol says, after a few moments of stunned silence on Baekhyun’s side. “We have to figure out how to sabotage them!”
Yixing smirks slowly. “Not so fast, my friend. There’s a price to pay for this work of art.”
Baekhyun gasps. “Yixing! Who taught you the ways?”
“I was born with the ways.”
“Oh.”
“I was also born with these dimples.”
“I’d be scared if you weren’t.”
“So what’s the price!?” Chanyeol interrupts.
“Jeez, calm down. Let me work my way there with some witty banter. I spent like an hour on tumblr looking these lines up, goddammit.”
“I never pegged you for a tumblr-er.” Baekhyun muses.
“You don’t know a thing about me.”
“Or do I?”
“Do you?”
“I know everything.”
“What’s my favorite food?”
“Jajangmyeon.”
“Favorite body part?”
“Neck.”
“Favorite cuss word?”
“Goddammit.”
“Goddammit.” Lay mutters. “How do you know all this?”
“Kris keeps profiles on his favorite employees. I hacked into his computer last Thursday when he was out.”
“I’m one of Kris’s favorite employees?”
“Apparently so. Along with Joonmyun, Tao and Kyungsoo.”
“There’s a list, isn’t there.”
“There’s a list.”
“Wait, let me guess. Sehun, Jongdae, Luhan.”
“Actually, not Luhan. But I think Kris is just too scared to put him down.”
“Luhan is one scary motherer.”
“Can we just have the plan!? I’m hungry!” Chanyeol whines.
“Fine, you big baby. What’s the deal, Yixing?”
“You know, I was gonna ask for 20,000 won. I think I’m just gonna have you teach me how to hack into Kris’s computer. I know he has a tumblr and I’m dying to see the kind of heartfelt hipster he posts.”
“Done.”
Yixing grins and hops over, shoving the paper in Baekhyun and Chanyeol’s faces. “Read this masterpiece.”
- Steal Kris’s keyboard when he’s gone.
- Take keyboard apart.
- Stuff wet Kleenex and garden cress seeds inside
- Replace, leaving small gaps between keys.
- Wait; approx. 3 days
Ongoing: arrive at work ten minutes early to remove all but 3 to 4 staples from Kris’s stapler. Every day. Wait.
“I… don’t get it.” Chanyeol says.
Baekhyun rolls his eyes. “It’s not even that great of a prank, I’ve already seen this all over reddit. It’s just the stupid keyboard thing where you grow cress between the gaps in the keys. It’s just gonna freak Kris out for a couple of hours.”
“s.” Chanyeol mutters.
"Yeah, the masterpeice I was talking about was the stapler part. Kris is gonna be so pissed," Yixing snickers.
“There’s no way we can even sabotage this.” Baekhyun sighs. “All we can do is watch the fun happen.”
“Nuh-uh,” Yixing grins. “I already replaced every keyboard in the office with wet Kleenex and garden cress seeds.”
“So?” Baekhyun asks. “Jongdae, Sehun and Luhan have been planning this for a few days. I’d say Kris’s keyboard is due to sprout by tomorrow, which is why they’ve been snickering like crazy. Their prank is going to happen before yours.”
“Mhm,” Yixing smiles. “Exactly. So everyone will blame Kris, thinking it’s his way of getting revenge.”
“But what’s the point if the prank isn’t even that funny?”
“Kris is going to be forced to replace the crappy old desktop computer he buys us with actual laptops. Laptop keyboards are unprankable. And way more responsive. Microsoft 2013 and .”
“Damn. You’re good.”
Yixing places the paper in Jongdae’s middle desk drawer with a flourish, then shimmies out of the room. “I’m going home, losers.”
“Wait! How'd you get those keys!?" Baekhyun yells after him, rushing into the doorway.
The only response he gets is a short laugh and a slamming of the exit door.
omg hi everyone.
did anyone notice this is pretty much exactly double the length of the last chapter why am i so cool
also i have no life and so i neglect my homework to present you with this. sorry if its gross and unfunny but jongin is in denial and i promise the and fun times comes soon otl i am a ert
thanks for all the subscribers and it means a lot when you comment! i enjoy comments so much
also, yixing is a badass and there will be a lot more minseok and tao in the next chapter
see you then!
again no picture because im lame
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