Jongin’s legs burn as he races top speed past milling students along the school grounds, cutting through rose bushes and grassy patches. He’d get detention if he was caught stepping on well-tended flower beds, but he doesn’t care.

The exhilaration of running courses through his veins and the excitement of unfolding what he calls his grand plan, code Mission Impossible as Sehun insisted on, is enough to make his legs zoom in a vicious cycle instead of tripping and face planting himself to the ground. That would be embarrassing, no thank you.

“Kkam-jong!”

Sehun emerges from behind the huge shed across the bleachers where the school stores all sports equipment. Jongin pants, hands on knees as he catches his breath. The bouquet of pink roses is a little wrinkled from where he’d gripped it too much, a little disarrayed from being windswept from all his running but overall, it looks pretty.

“Woah, you blew all your savings for that didn’t you?”

Jongin rolls his eyes at Sehun’s low whistle of appreciation. Sehun is right but he’s not about to admit that.

“Okay, so you know the plan. When she hugs me, that’d be your cue. But-“

“If she hugs you not mere five minutes after you’d sat with her that means she’s tackling you, not hugging you which specifically means it’s not yet time to come out and blurt sappy love songs about teenage kisses and-“

“Yeah. Yep. You know what to do.” He grumbles, questioning why he’s friends with a brat like Sehun.

“Where are the others?” he asks, looking around for signs of his other friends. They weren’t hard to miss; they were always a rambunctious bunch.

“Yixing and Kyungsoo went with Zitao to the cafeteria to buy some snacks. They probably brought the whole stock by now.”

Jongin huffs in irritation. Why of all times did Zitao choose to go hungry now? He can’t afford to have his friends ruining his moment. It’s his time to shine and everything needs to be perfect.

He shoves the precious bouquet to Sehun’s face and glares at the latter.

“Take care of that, you hear me?”

“Aye-aye! Go lover-boy.”

Despite Jongin wanting to choke the living daylights out of the brat, he channels his inner chi to calm himself. Focus, and he shall succeed. Not five steps towards the fields though; he blanches and runs back to his friend.

“What now?”

Sehun deadpans lazily, running a scrutinizing eye over Jongin. Head to foot, and back.

“What if she says no?” Jongin whispers. There’s an image of Nara whacking him face first with the bouquet and stomping all over the scattered pieces of his broken heart. He cringes.

“Then try again? Better luck next time?”

Jongin grimaces at the amount of sass Sehun lugs around. He’s got too much of it that it’s annoying.

“Seriously, Jongin. You’ve got to have much balls than this.”

Jongin squats squarely on the ground, defeat already creeping up his bones that it makes standing a much complex task than it really is. He sighs, sinking his head between his knees. He can stay here and die of heat . That actually sounds like a much better plan than getting rejected by Nara.

“You can’t give up without even trying, Sherlock. Miley Cyrus once said ‘ain’t no ‘bout what’s waiting on the other side; it’s the climb’. So do it bro. And then mope if you fail afterwards.”

“Don’t go Hannah Montana on me, .”

Despite all that sass, Sehun is right. He won’t get answers if he won’t ask. Besides, it’s just Nara, his best friend. Best bud, childhood chum.

Goodness.

It’s not just Nara.

It’s Nara the girl he’s been pining for since kindergarten. The same Nara who laughs at him and calls him a wimp for not scoring a goal when he’s practicing with her. She’s the Nara who up to him when she needs to copy long- assignments and calls him oppa for good measure so she can copy all of his formulas and solutions for Math.

It’s the same Nara who stuck by his side when he failed an exam and hid with him at the playground bringing snacks so that his mom wouldn’t find him and lecture his ears off. Nara who tosses paper planes behind their teacher’s back just so she could sit through horrible detention with him and eat bubblegum flavored ice cream with him afterwards. Nara who trudged through the rain with him to look for his lost puppy the day he slept and left the door open for the tiny creature to wander off.

Nara who’s so much more than a friend, more of a puzzle piece his heart was missing since day one.

Jongin could go on and on about her and how he couldn’t afford to lose her. He’s not terrified of her rejection. Well, actually he is, but he concedes that what he’s most afraid of is losing this friendship he has with her.

Nara, is Nara. Forever unpredictable despite the years of them fostering a bond comparable to wheels rolling alongside each other, not one without the other. And that is something Jongin knows he can’t live without.

“Just go, Jongin. Before you think about anything else, remember that she’s always your friend. And she won’t judge you for anything. You know she’s better than that. You’d probably both be laughing your asses off after all this.”

Jongin stands and Sehun pats him. The brat’s been right too many times already and he knows he’ll gloat about it later but he’s glad that he can find solace in his friend, brat or not.

“Atta boy!”

And Jongin marches on to the fields where Nara is practicing with her soccer team. As he jogs for the bleachers, he spots her large Nike sports bag and heads to sit beside it. She spots him making his way for the second row, and she waves despite the coach barking at her to do additional sprints. Jongin cackles at her misery.

After ten minutes, their practice ends and Nara trots over to where he’s seated. She’s sweaty and her pony tail’s a tangled mess around her face. She tackles Jongin in a hug.

“Ew. Get your gross, sweaty, oily body away from me.”

She laughs, loud and ringing and my she’s pretty beneath all that gross.

“Where were you, Jongin? I thought you wouldn’t come and I’d have to walk home alone,” she asks as she grabs a bottle of Gatorade out of her bag and a she takes a huge gulp. “Want some?”

Jongin shakes his head. “I got stuck with Sehun. You know how he is.”

“Uh-huh,” she replies, preoccupied with stuffing all her things inside her bag. Jongin can only stare as he braces himself. He feels like every second is ticking off a bomb and it’ll explode any minute. If it doesn’t then his chest probably will because it’s constricting way too much to be considered normal.

He clears his throat and asks “So, I heard Sunyoung and the girls talking about getting prom dresses downtown earlier.”

“Did you now, you ert?” she’s still arranging her stuff inside her bag but she tilts her head to Jongin’s direction.

“I’m asking if you’re going with them, smart-mouth.”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Why?”

Her hands hover over her bag’s zipper. “What do you mean why?”

“You’re getting prom dresses. Do you even have a date?” he shoots, albeit a little afraid that he might have set foot upon dangerous waters.

“I don’t need a date to wear a prom dress Jongin.” She huffs haughtily, zipping the bag close. Her face scrunches up a little, like Jongin’s words were a blow below the belt.

“I could always come with you, you know. You could just ask me.”

He strikes a pose, one where he rests his thumb on the bridge of his nose while the other arm supports him as he leans back with what he can only wish as macho.

“I’m sorry Jongin. But Chanyeol already asked me to be his date this morning.”

With that, she cackles and shoves him off the bleacher as she saunters off with the sports bag on her shoulders.

“Be back in a sec, I need to change out of my uniform.”

There’s a sharp pain that shoots up Jongin’s tail bone where the metal collides with his body with much force. It’s a terrible feeling but it’s incomparable to the ripping that’s slowly dragging across his chest. He stares at his best friend’s retreating figure and he wonders if this is what rejection feels like. It’s not numbing, as most movies showcase.

It hurts, like ten times the amount of pain when landing onto solid cement after falling off a tree without something to catch you. Jongin knows because he’d fallen off a tree once while trying to save a kitten, but he’d rather much go back to that and break an arm, than fall in love without someone waiting with arms wide open to catch you before you hit rock bottom and end up with a broken heart.

Out of his peripherals, he sees his group of friends emerging from behind the shed but a subtle shake of his head stops them mid-tracks. The excited looks on their faces are wiped out faster than Jongin can stand. He leaps off the bleachers and takes off with hot tears slowly b out his eyes.