Chapter Text
It was already the second semester and it has been a month since Mark told himself that he’ll get his shit together. But seriously, does his final grade in a Grade 11 French class matter when he’s a 12th grader? He doesn’t really care.
“How has your day been so far?” Madame Lepage, his teacher, asks in French, standing at the front of the class with a marker held in her hand.
Lee Donghyuck, also known as “Danny Lee”, who sits at the line of chairs beside Mark’s and two rows in front him replies, “It’s been a trad-jeudi.” bringing most of the students’ attention on himself.
Mark can’t help but laugh, which doesn’t happen often when Donghyuck cracks a joke or asks his daily dumb questions, but Mark lets this one pass because it was indeed a Tragic Thursday and the joke was actually a good (lame) one.
He wasn’t actually supposed to be in this French class because he didn’t plan to take the course again. He dropped it after grade 10 because learning another language hurt his head and he didn’t plan on getting a bilingual certificate, but he didn’t really have another choice because all the other grade 11 classes were full, and he also needed the credit.
He doesn’t mind it though, even though the eleventh graders in his class were weird. The daily jokes and stupid questions from a specific younger boy sort of became a highlight of Mark’s lackluster senior days.
There’s also the merged Grade 11 and 12 art class that Mark shares with Danny Lee. He refuses to admit to himself that it’s the younger boy that makes art enjoyable whenever he hears- eavesdrops on- pieces of Donghyuck and his bestfriend’s (Jaemin Na) conversations. Mark instead tries to make himself believe that it’s Mr. Valdez, the cool and edgy art teacher, that makes class enjoyable.
Mark isn’t harbouring a crush, really, it’s just nice to see that someone is that extroverted (and funny). It isn’t like Mark doesn’t know other extroverts. Johnny Seo, his English class’ Teacher Assistant is extroverted too, but Donghyuck is different.
It isn’t a crush. Mark doesn’t even follow Donghyuck on Instagram, but that was logical since Mark doesn’t even have Instagram.
He tries to make himself believe that it was just the stress from Senior year- he is graduating soon- that makes him think that he has a crush on a younger male.It’s really not.
-
Mark was mixing his paint when he hears Mr. Valdez talking to Donghyuck and Jaemin, at the table across from his.
“I watched your performance yesterday for Music Night. You sounded amazing!” Mr. Valdez tells Donghyuck as he sits down on a chair at the eleventh graders’ table.
Mark didn’t get to Music Night, but Jisung and Jeno did because Jisung’s friend, Chenle, performed with the school’s band.
It makes Mark wonder why a boy who’s a piano protégé decided to go to this boring school instead of the art school a few miles away from this hellhole.
Jisung and Jeno asked him to come with them, but Mark had an English paper due so he refused. He regrets not going.
Jaemin looks up from his drawing to look at Mr. Valdez. “Didn’t you realize his bad breathing technique?” he whispers to the older teacher, who chuckles at the question.
Donghyuck puts down his paint brush and throws a nearby eraser at Jaemin. “Thank you. It’s nice to know that my hard work is being appreciated,” he tells Mr. Valdez and turns his head to look at Jaemin with a bitter smile.
“Danny, we all know Jaemin’s lying anyways,” the teacher assures him, picking up a piece of scratch of paper left on the table.
“Of course. He actually cried watching me last night. My mom got it on tape,” Donghyuck says nonchalantly, then he laughs and elbows Jaemin’s side.
Jaemin chokes on his spit and curses under his breath because he accidentally shaded out of the lines from the shock. He picks up the eraser Donghyuck threw at him to erase his mistake and replies, “You’ll never let me live that down, will you? I was crying because it was bad.”
“No. It was hilarious..” Donghyuck ignores Jaemin’s insult and dips his paint brush in his water can. “Valdez, you should go to coffee house! I’m performing again. It’s in 2 weeks,” he tells the man who has his body turned from his seat to tell a student at the back that blue and red, in fact, don’t make orange.
Donghyuck stares at his painting before dipping his paint brush in red paint, “Then watch the musical that prod. worked on for 4 months.”
“Please,” he raises the brush off the canvas and looks up to give the man a pleading look. “Help us. We just want to act and we need money. That’s why you should also go to the bake sale at Coffee House,” Donghyuck flashes the teacher a smile.
“This is Danny Lee showing his persuasive demonic side,” Jaemin mutters while checking the measurements of his grids.
Mr. Valdez laughs before standing up to check other student’s progress, “I’ll try what I can, I understand the artistic struggles.”
Mark makes a mental note to go to Coffee House and the musical, and to bring money for the bake sale. Not because he wants to support the production team. He just wants to get baked good for each of his friends. At least that’s what he wants to believe.
“Chan, aren’t you in the musical?” Mark asks Chan, his middle school friend who always sits with him during art. They have different friend groups, but they still hang out a lot.
“Yeah. I’m one of the dancers,” the boy replies. “You should watch it. Not to be arrogant or anything, but it’s really good.”
Donghyuck hears their conversation and decides to join in. “That’s not being arrogant, Chan. It’s stating Facts,” he adamantly says.
Chan rolls his eyes and looks down on his paper, “Sure, man.”
Donghyuck sticks his tongue out at Chan then looks at Mark with confident eyes, “You should watch it though. I promise you won’t regret it.”
Mark tries to not show that he’s shocked that Donghyuk even spoke a word to him. “I might,” he smiles at the younger boy.
“Good! Shameless promotion, but also go to Coffee House. There’s a lot of performers and there’s going to be a bake sale. Please.. We’re desperate. We need the money.”
Mark chuckles at Donghyuck’s dramaticness. He can’t say no, so he says that he’ll be there.
Danny smiles brighter, “I’ll see you there then.” He then turns his attention back to his bestfriend, who started on drawing his portrait, to tease him about the video of him crying. Jaemin lets out an annoyed sigh.
That was his and Donghyuck’s first conversation, and he tries to ignore the weird feeling in his stomach, even though he knows what they’re implying.
-
Renjun and Jeno were talking about their soccer schedule at the cafeteria table during lunch when Jisung pulls out a piece of paper with a diagram of a male’s reproductive system printed on it.
Renjun makes a choking noise and smacks his chest with his hand that wasn’t holding his sandwich, and Jeno starts laughing at him. The noise makes Mark raise his head from his biology textbook to see what happened.
His eyes lands on the paper of the 9th grader. “Charles Jisung Park.. what is this?” he asks with wide eyes.
“You’re acting like Jisung has never seen a penis before..” Renjun says, taking a sip from his water bottle.
Mark scrunches his forehead, “No! I meant why do you have this?”
Jisung gives him a look, “Hyung, I don’t carry a diagram of a male’s reproductive system in my bag for the fun of it.” Jeno who stopped laughing starts laughing again.
“What is happening at this table on this fine afternoon?” someone says from behind Mark. It was just Johnny, the English T.A.. He raises his eyebrows at them after hearing what Jisung said.
“Charles is learning about penises and vaginas for health class,” Renjun tells the older, and Jeno adds on an ‘Obviously’. “And Mark hyung’s so terrified about this concept.”
Jeno looks at Mark with a judgemental expression, “He’s almost 18, why is he like this?”
Johnny laughs, puts down his bag on the table, and sits down beside Jisung. “If you need help with the labels, I can help,” he tells the younger one.
“Honestly I don’t even want to know why or how you remember the names of the parts of the penis,” Mark says and puts down his fork.
“There is a child here,” Jisung states loudly, loud enough for the people at the tables near them to hear.
Renjun takes his phone off the table to check it with one hand, his other hand holding on his half-eaten turkey sandwich.
“No phones on the table, Renjun,” Taeyong appears. He sets his bag down the floor and sits beside Renjun, who groans from being ordered to put his phone away.
Taeyong’s a biology T.A. for Mr. Reyes, and Renjun and Jeno are in his class.
It just became a habit for Taeyong and Johnny- and occasionally Yuta- to sit at the group’s table. Mark doesn’t really know why the T.A.’s sit with the students at lunch, it just happens sometimes.
Johnny and Mark’s family are really close, so it isn’t weird that Johnny and Mark talk outside of class. Renjun and Jeno have been friends with Mark since middle school, so they sometimes saw Johnny at Mark’s house when they came over.
Johnny, Taeyong (aka Tae, but the student body just decided to call him T.Y.) and Yuta also went to the same university and were actually friends, so it wasn’t awkward that they sat with Johnny, who sat with Mark’s group of friends.
Mark and his friends only met Taeyong and Yuta around the beginning of January, but the two somehow already ‘adopted’ the group and decided to baby them as much as they can.
“Okay, mom.” Renjun says to Taeyong and puts his phone face down on the table.
“I still don’t get why I’m not allowed to use my phone at lunch. It’s high school, it’s really not that deep,” Jeno mutters, sputtering a piece of his rice on the table due to his mouth being full.
They hear someone dramatically gasp a few feet away from them, which causes them to look at that direction. It was Yuta, “Are you talking back, Jeno?”
“Gross. Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Mark says, sandwich in his mouth, as Jeno wipes the rice off the table.
Taeyong gives both of them a look. Yuta tells Taeyong to scooch over and sits down beside him to steal one of his strawberries.
“I just don’t get it,” Jeno says.
Mark averts his attention from Jeno to look at the others beside him. Johnny’s on his phone and Jisung’s doing his homework.
“It’s something about bonding or whatever,” Renjun tells Jeno who was pouting while looking at his lunch.
“Bonding, right..” Mark starts off sarcastically. “Johnny hyung is literally on his phone, how is this allowed?” he points out and stabs his poutine with his fork. “This is a proof of senior-junior prejudice..”
“It’s nice to talk with the group sometimes instead of just being immersed on technology.” Taeyong tells them and steals one of Johnny’s fries.
Renjun scoffs and stares at his phone on the table, aching to pick it up.
“Anyways, what’s the lunch special today?” Yuta asks them, pulling out his wallet from his bag on his lap.
Jisung looks up from his homework to answer the question, “Chicken soup and tacos.”
“Gross. I’m gonna get a huge cookie and a poutine,” Yuta scrunches his nose and picks up a 10 dollar bill.
“The things that disgust you aren’t even disgusting. You’re disgusting,” Johnny tells him while wrapping a piece cheddar cheese around his banana.
Jisung looks at Johnny and his banana cheese for a second before looking at everyone with a grimace, “This table is a bad influence on me.”
“Excuse me?” Taeyong cries out.
-
Yuta’s the T.A. for Madame Lepage’s French class, but he only appears at least once a week… and it’s always a class full of laughter or debates when he shows up.
Mark doesn’t really know why Yuta was a T.A. for a French class because he knows that Yuta was taking something like Science and Tech in university, but Mark isn’t really surprised considering the fact that Yuta’s really good at speaking French.
The class was having a normal conversation about foods they like when Donghyuck says, “Je daisuki le pain.”
Mark laughs because, honestly, that was the dumbest thing he has ever heard. His knowledge about Japanese isn’t really as big as his knowledge about English and Korean, but he has heard enough to know what ‘daisuki’ means.
“Yamete kudastop,” Yuta tells Donghyuck, with a jokingly sour expression on his face.
The two have always gotten along well since Yuta showed up in their class. They always talk in “memes” though and Mark doesn’t really understand most of it.
“What’s a mey-mey?” Mark asked Jeno once, and Johnny choked on his water.
“It’s pronounced as ‘meem’, you uncultured swine,” Jeno replied.
Donghyuck laughs at Yuta’s comment and says, “Sorrymasen.”
Mark can’t help but cringe. Madame Lepage walks toward the front of the class while adjusting her glasses with a confused expression on her face. She looks at the two and asks, “Are these new memes?”
“Just memes from the anime fandom.. It’s actually cringey,” Yuta realizes. He really hates weebs for this. They’re potentially terms that weeaboos would use and justify by saying they’re just memes.
“Danny, let’s never do that again,” Yuta points at the younger.
“I don’t want Danny to be a weeaboo,” Yuta thinks, even though he knows the boy isn’t.
Donghyuck nods at him with a smile.
One of the boys who sat at the front suddenly turns around to look at the class and loudly proclaims, “I don’t know why everyone likes anime. Why does everyone like anime?”
Mark is kind of worried because the boy, who he doesn’t know the name of, looks very stressed.
“I mean, I don’t get it. It’s so boring,”
Yuta stares at the boy, probably imagining about ways he can get away with murder. But Yuta chooses to not say anything because fighting an 11th grader about anime isn’t the best idea if he wants to keep his reputation (and job)-- albeit it isn’t really that clean of a rep.
“What do you mean it’s boring? You haven’t lived, dude.” The girl beside Mark yells at the guy who’s arguing with his seatmate about Dragon Ball.
“They literally just collect balls, Clarke.”
The class debate gets cut off by Madame Lepage after a minute or so. If she didn’t it could’ve ended up with a fist fight.
-
“Today is a day of debates,” Mark thinks after he watches Mr. Valdez walk over to Donghyuck and Jaemin’s table to check on their artworks.
“Is this the class that talked about baby Hitler? or am I getting older and forgetful,” the teacher asks the two and takes a seat on a chair.
“What?” Donghyuck laughs. The sunlight coming from his window hitting his hair perfectly making it shine, “Baby Hitler? Do tell me more.”
Mark stares.
Mr. Valdez wipes off the eraser bits from the table, “A class had a talk about baby Hitler a few days ago. Someone just said ‘If you met baby Hitler, would you kill him?’”
Jaemin starts uncontrollably laughing, making the desk shake due to him leaning forward from laughter. The noise making heads turn to look at them, “Omygod.”
The two best friends thinks about it for a few seconds then Donghyuck scrunches his forehead and sternly says, “I’d kill the child.”
“Right! I’d kill the child too. I’d rather kill him than let him murder millions of people,”
Jaemin finally calms down, but he starts laughing again, “I’m crying.”
Mark realizes he’s been staring at Donghyuck. Shaking his head he picked up his paint brush and fills in his circle with paint.
He decides to join the conversation. “BUT why kill him if you can adopt him and just raise him in a better way?”
Jaemin wipes a tear from his eye, and wipes his finger on his shirt. He nods at Mark and says, “Mark’s a smart one.”
“I didn’t even think of that,” Donghyuck mutters, grabbing his coloured pencil to continue colouring his drawing.
“Yeah cause you’re dumb,” Jaemin points out raising his pen at Donghyuck.
“Listen here,” Donghyuck puts the coloured pencil down on the table jokingly making a loud noise.
“I’m listening,” Jaemin stares back at Donghyuck with a serious face, but the sunlight coming from the window makes him squint his eyes. He starts laughing again.
“I’ll probably adopt baby Hitler and then let him grow up and then abandon him,” Mr. Valdez says before leaving their table to get a canvas for a student.
Donghyuck watches Mr. Valdez leave, and goes back to colouring his artwork as a chuckle fell out of his mouth, “That was weird.”
Mark finds it endearing that Donghyuck’s nose scrunches when he smiles. Danny Lee is really cute, Mark has to admit it.
-
The next day Mark’s English class is blessed enough to be allowed to visit the auditorium and watch the choir’s rehearsal for their Winter performance.
Ms. Pia, his teacher, isn’t there for the day. Something about her child being sick, so they have a substitute and Johnny.
The class doesn’t really have any material to do, so they just went to the auditorium to watch the vocal students. Donghyuck is one of those vocal students, so Mark’s looking forward to it.
There were about 50 people standing on the risers, all arranged in their respective groups. The chattering in the auditorium was loud, and he can hear the yells from the members of the Light and Sounds crew who were also there to test the lights and check the sound system.
Mr. Rei, the vocals teacher, was talking to the pianist about something, so the vocal students were all just lazing around and chatting with each other.
Mark’s class walks to the seats at the middle of the auditorium. Mark pulls down the seat of the velvet chair and Johnny takes the seat beside him.
“You’re happy that we’re just staying here, huh?” Johnny asks, fixing his fringe away from his eyes.
“Maybe I’d rather read a boring poem than watch them,” Mark scans the group of singers. He sees Yeri in the soprano section. He forgot that she sings.
She's talking to Joy while Joy's looking at the middle of the auditorium. Joy made eye contact with Mark and she points at his direction making Yeri turn her head to look at where Joy's pointing.
She sees Mark and yells, “Hey, Mark Lee!”
“Ooh, someone’s famous,” Johnny teasingly says, smiling at Mark.
Mark tries to not cover his face with his hands. “Shut up,” he replies, face heating up from the attention, then waves at Yeri. “She always yells.. So embarrassing..”
“Does she still have a crush on you?” “Oh god. No,” Mark hastily replies. “I hope not. I don’t see her in that way.”
“Oh,” Johnny laughs like a light bulb lit up above his head. “I forgot that you’re into boys.”
Mark chokes and starts coughing, Johnny starts patting his back while laughing. Mark wishes his face wasn’t red as he thought it was.
“Johnny hyung, please.”
Johnny just shrugs, “What? It wasn’t me who came asking in 10th grade about why everyone has a thing for the skin between a girl’s knee socks and her skirt when boys’ muscular arms are ‘obviously’ better.” He even makes finger quotations for ‘Obviously’.
Mark wants to pound his head against a wall, “I can’t deal with you right now.” He rubs his face with his hand.
Thankfully Johnny doesn’t get to reply because the pianist started playing the piano. The soft music fills the auditorium and after 8 counts the choir starts singing. Mark has heard them sing before during school assemblies, and he’s still amazed by how pleasant they sound. Their voices really blend well together making it sound like one voice.
The song’s in German and it’s slow. It’s something that’s nice to listen to before going to sleep. It’s a soft lullaby, and Mark doesn’t expect it to get even better, but it does when Donghyuck’s solo part starts.
The boy’s voice reminds him of the softly wind blowing on his cheek. It’s so soft and warm, it made him want to gulp it up like a cup of warm tea. Mark feels embarrassed even though he’s the only one who can hear his thoughts.
Donghyuck hit all the notes right on and what Jaemin said about his bad breathing technique was obviously a Big Lie. Mark doesn’t know anything about vocal techniques, but Donghyuck’s obviously an amazing singer and he seems confident about his skill.
Mark can’t help but be mesmerized throughout the whole song. Even when Donghyuck’s solo ended, Mark could still hear his heartbeat in his chest.
He understands now why Jaemin cried during Music Night while watching Donghyuck perform. Mark wants to cry.
“You alright?” Johnny notices Mark’s silence and expression. “Were you that affected?”
“I’m-,” Mark clears his throat. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
-
Mark's alone at the cafeteria table and being alone is really about to make him make bad life decisions. He wishes someone else was there to distract him, but sadly there’s no one, so he presses ‘download’ on his phone and waits for the Instagram app to be installed.
Once the app is on his phone, he logs into his account that he doesn’t even use anymore. His once 324 followers went down to 198.
He goes to his followings and searches up Jaemin Na’s name.
Jaemin and Mark aren’t really strangers because they’re both on the badminton team, and they decided to follow each other on Instagram after being partnered up for doubles. They still talk from time to time.
Mark scrolls down Jaemin’s feed and stops on a selca of Donghyuck and Jaemin together.
“Fuck,” he says under his breath.
“Interesting~” Renjun murmurs, looking over Mark’s shoulder, and puts his bag down on the floor.
“When did you get here?” Mark put his phone down and blinks up at him.
“You’re stalking Na Jaemin?” Jeno asks from beside Renjun. Jeno sets his textbook down, and sits beside Mark, fixing his winter coat on the bench. “No!! What the hell?” Mark defensively says.
Jeno raises his eyebrow at him and Renjun pulls out his salad from his lunch bag and starts eating it, one earphone plugged into his ear.
Mark looks back down on his phone and unlocks it. And ok, Donghyuck is really photogenic.. and pretty. Mark couldn’t believe that this was happening to him.
He continues to scroll down until he reaches the last picture in Jaemin’s feed. He presses back to go back to one of Jaemin’s selcas with Donghyuck, so he could click on Donghyuck’s username and see the boy’s account. Unluckily for Mark, Donghyuck’s account is on private. Great.
The vocalist has 800 followers and Mark doesn’t know if he should be surprised or not. He never realized Donghyuck’s popularity, but the boy is a theatre kid and also a respected vocalist in the school. He’s bound to be popular.
Mark never really paid much attention until he was put in a French class with Donghyuck and also the merged art class. And that time at vocal rehearsal, of course.
(@dan.ny.lee
이동혁
You either kill or get killed)
Mark’s tells himself You Only Live Once and presses the follow button. He’s fucked and he has to buy tickets for Coffee House.
-
“I hate my entire life,” Donghyuck aggressively syas as he walked- or stomps his feet- to Jaemin’s locker.
“Same.” Jaemin takes his lunch box out of the hanger and shuts his locker. “But what’s wrong?”
He locks the lock, and him and Donhyuck start walking towards the cafeteria.
“Jean bailed so I don’t have a guitarist for my performance tonight.. What am I going to do? What the hell. I love her, but she’s honestly a snake. Leah finally asked her out. Literally to coffee house tonight.. where Jean was supposed to perform with.. guess who.. ME.” Donghyuck explains in one breath, stepping on the stairs too hard one step at a time.
His ability to speak that much without breathing still amazes Jaemin. They’ve been bestfriends for 6 years, but Donghyuck’s lung capacity really is legendary and takes his breath away.
Jaemin mentally pats himself on back for making that pun. “Okay, yeah that sucks, but I’m happy for Jean.”
Donghyuck gives him a ‘What is wrong with you’ look. “I don’t have a guitarist.”
“Yeah, I know. You literally just ranted to me,” Jaemin holds onto the stairs’ railings.
“I don’t want to sing without a background track though,” Donghyuck complains.
“It’s not that deep. Go acapella.” They took a turn and into another set of stairs.
Their school has a plethora of stairs, and walking from Jaemin’s locker to the cafeteria meant walking from one side of the school all the way to the other. They had to walk up and down 5 flights of stairs too, maybe that was why Donghyuck’s lungs were amazing.
“You won’t sound bad,” Jaemin assures him just to boost his best friend’s confidence. He knows that Hyuck always hides his insecure side.
Donghyuck looks at him and pouts, “Nana, help me.”
“Call me Nana again and I won’t help you at all,” Jaemin scowls at him. “And I can’t play the guitar.”
“I know you can’t play the guitar. We’ve been friends since we were 10. Who do you think I am?” Donghyuck says holding onto the rails while they go down the stairs.
“Someone I shouldn’t have talked to,” Jaemin says under his breath. Donghyuck smacks his arm, and opens the door for a person behind them.
“I know someone who can play the guitar though,” Donghyuck pauses near the door and smiles so wide at him. “Ok, stop that it’s weird.”
“Your masculinity is so fragile,” Donghyuck snorts and rolls his eyes. “You have other friends than me?”
“I’m walking away. I don’t know you,” Jaemin says as he opens the cafeteria doors, not even holding them open for the older one.
Donghyuck places his hand on the door before it closes on him. He walks faster to catch up to Jaemin’s fast pace.
“Fuck you. I’ll get you a box of 10 timbits,” Donghyuck yells after him.
That catches Jaemin’s attention, that’s exactly what he wants. He stops and turns around to face Donghyuck, “Make it 20 and now we’re talking.” His eyes glimmering with joy.
“Alright,” Donghyuck says in Korean. “You’re so desperate.”
“You’re the one who was crying a while ago,” Jaemin points out, pretending to flip his non-existent long hair at his best friend before walking to their usual table.
-
Jeno was on his way to the cafeteria when he receives a message from Jaemin asking him where he was at the moment. He stops at the stairs to reply to the message. Jaemin sends an instant reply saying that he had to talk to him.
They aren’t really as close as Jeno is with Renjun or Mark or Jisung. But he considers Jaemin as a friend. The only reason they have each other’s numbers is because they partnered up alot during 10th grade math whenever they did group work. They sometimes did homeworks together too.
Jaemin sees Jeno entering the caf, before Jeno even sees him. Jaemin walks over, his and Donghyuck’s table were close to the cafeteria’s door. “Dude, I need your help.”
“With what?” Jeno asks. Jaemin grabs his wrist and moves them to the side near the wall to avoid the people going in and out of the doors.
"Danny’s guitarist friend bailed last minute and he has a performance at Coffee House tonight. He needs a replacement and you’re the only guitarist I know.”
“So, you want me to play for him?” Jeno wraps his hands around the straps of his backpack.
“Uh, yeah. If that’s alright with you, of course. Don’t feel pressured though. Worse comes to worse, he has to sing in acapella. Although that won’t even be bad,” Jaemin laughs, scratching his neck. “He’s so dramatic. I’m tired of him.”
Jeno stares at Jaemin amused, “Sure, I’ll do it.”
Jaemin snaps his head forward, “Seriously?!”
“Ye-”
“I’ll pay you back I swear!” Jaemin interrupts him.
“You don’t have to,” Jeno shakes his head and smiles shyly.
“I know I don’t have to, but I will,” Jaemin’s determined to receive a box of 20 timbits. They aren’t even expensive, he just doesn’t want to pay for them.
“Make it a date then,” Jeno jokes. It’s not really a joke when it comes to their relationship.
He doesn’t know why he even said that. It was just the perfect timing, he has always had a crush on Jaemin anyways. And it’s too late now when Jaemin’s face is the same colour as Jeno’s pink bag.
Jaemin gapes at him again, but was cut out of his reverie, shaking his head, when he hears the beeping of the microwave.
How cute.
-
“I miss Chicago,” Johnny randomly says. Their conversation was about roll up the rim cups, but Johnny just completely ignored the conversation.
“Where’s Jeno?” Mark asks the others. Jeno usually arrives at the table earlier than them.
Jisung looks around the cafeteria and spots Jeno talking to someone, “He’s talking to.. Jaemin Na? I think.”
Renjun turns his body to look at the direction Jisung’s looking at then looks at Mark, “Are you alright with that?”
Mark blinks, confused, “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Don’t you have a crush on Jaemin? But really, we all knew Jeno had dibs on him, so don’t take it to heart. I guess..? Unless you’re really heartbroken. We’re here for you,” Renjun says softly, worry evident in his eyes.
Johnny nods, sipping on the straw of his iced americano, “Ren’s right. Today’s society’s motto is ‘First come first serve.’ but we’ll understand if you need your space.”
“Hold up, I don’t even like Jaemin,” Mark says with a high pitched voice. “I’m so confused.”
“Weren’t you stalking his instagram?” Jisung asks from beside him. He’s doing his math homework, as usual. Looking at it hurt Mark’s head.
“For a completely different reason though,” Mark turns his attention to Jeno and Jaemin again. Jaemin’s blushing and Jeno’s just smiling at him.
Mark has known Jeno for a long time and he may look like he’s calm and cool on the outside, but Mark knows when Jeno’s nervous and freaking out on the inside. Judging from the way the younger boy’s shifting his weight from one foot to the other and his hands clasped tightly behind his back, Jeno’s obviously nervous. “And he scored,” Mark mouths.
“Do you think he asked him out?” Renjun asks, turning around to look at the pair again. “I didn’t think he ever would. What came over him?”
Renjun averts his attention from the two and reaches across the table to take a small piece of Jisung’s cookie.
“Maybe he thought Mark was going to steal Jaemin from him or something, so he made the first move,” Johnny theorizes.
“Someone like Jaemin won’t ever go for Mark,” Jisung replies, taking a bite from his cookie.
“You brat-” Mark starts but Jeno interrupts him by arriving at their table.
“Guess who scored a date?” he announces, smiling widely. His eyes doing the magical smize thing it always does when he’s genuinely happy.
“Not Johnny hyung,” Jisung mutters, pressing on the keys of his calculator.
Johnny makes a strangled sound, he was about to deny it, but Jisung was right. “Congrats though. I’m proud of you,” Johnny tells Jeno and pats him on the back from his seated position.
“Just to clarify, I never liked Jaemin-- If it ever came out that way. You know I follow the bro code,” Mark tells Jeno who was standing at the end of the table.
“It’s okay, I didn’t think so anyways,” Jeno smiles.
“Okay good.” Mark sighs in relief. “I’m proud of you.”
“I didn’t think you had it in you,” Renjun looks at Jeno, pretending to wipe fake tears away. “Congratulations,” he says in Korean.
"Thank you,” Jeno grins.
“Now come sit down,” Johnny tells Jeno.
“I actually can’t stay. I have to go help Danny for his performance tonight. His guitarist bailed last minute.”
Johnny puts down his americano and says, “What an asshole.”
“Language sir!” Mark yells at the older one, smacking Johnny’s arm with his hand.
“It’s okay Mark hyung. I’m turning 15 soon, not 10. I know what an asshole is,” Jisung assures Mark, his attention still on his homework.
"Mark acts like health class doesn’t exist,” Renjun pokes his salad.
Mark ignores Renjun. “But really? Danny Lee?” he asks Jeno for clarification, a hint of excitement in his voice.
No one comments on it.
“Hm, yeah. Jaemin asked me to help him, since they’re best friends and I said sure, then I asked him out on a date as a payment,” Jeno tells him.
“That’s like a punishment as a payment,” Renjun utters and chuckles at the joke he made.
“Shut up, Renjun,” Jeno rolls his eyes at him. “Let me live.”
Someone yells Jeno’s name from the other side of the cafeteria. They all turn their heads to look at a boy who only has his head poking out the door. It’s Donghyuck.
“Jesus Christ. That’s Mr. Talent. I gotta blast.” Jeno says before running to Donghyuck.
Johnny yells a “You’re growing up” after him.
There’s silence at their table and then Johnny turns towards Mark. “So, Mark.. Danny Lee, huh?” Johnny wiggles his eyebrows at him. “I saw the look you gave him. And how can I forget your face after you heard him sing a few days ago?”
“Omygod. You’re so annoying,” Mark takes a bite from his pizza forcefully.
Renjun looks up from his phone confused at first before realizing what Johnny meant. “No way,” he whispers.
“Exactly there’s no ways.” Mark replies, trying to not let out an embarrassed laugh with his face heating up.
“You like him?!”
For some reason, at that exact moment Taeyong and Yuta arrive at their table.
“Who likes who?” Yuta asks, extreme curiosity evident on his face. This is the Face of a gossiper.
“Mark hyung likes Danny Lee,” Jisung informs him. “I didn’t even know that Mark hyung swings that way.”
“Ahhhh, Mark.. No wonder you always laughed at his jokes,” Yuta laughs, recalling the times Donghyuck said dumb things during French class.
“How cute of our Mark Lee,” Taeyong muses beside Yuta. He peels his orange and then looks at Renjun, “Renjun, get off your phone.”
“And yes, baby Charles,” Johnny says. “Mark does swing that way. He’s just in denial about it, so he doesn’t go around telling people he likes boys who sing and act and have good humour.”
Yuta starts laughing loudly, Taeyong looks like he was about to as well, but he tries to not let it out just so Mark won’t get embarrassed any further.
Renjun props his chin on the palm of his hand, elbow on the table beside his abandoned phone. “I don’t think Danny swings that way though,” he shares.
Yuta who stops laughing and judgmentally looks at the Chinese boy, “He’s in theatre and he sings.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s gay, Yuta!” Taeyong hisses and takes a sip from his kelp shake.
Mark has had enough, “I don’t even like him!!!”
Chenle, Jisung’s friend appeared. He sometimes sit at their table whenever he has the time. Jisung once told them that Chenle spent lunch hours playing the piano in the music room. That’s how passionate the boy is. But Mark doesn’t believe it cause he saw Chenle in the video game club once.
“Mark, why are you so red?” Chenle asks once Johnny moved to the side to give the boy space to sit beside Jisung.
“Mark has a crush on Danny Lee,” Jisung shares to Chenle. Mark clenches his fist.
He fights the urge to call Jisung’s mom and tell her how much of a snitch her son is. The 9th grader knows that Chenle’s friends with Donghyuck. And Chenle knowing this (false) information is just embarrassing for Mark.
“Omygod,” the boy laughs. “I should tell Danny.”
“I’ll murder you with my own two hands Chenle Zhong,” Mark yells at the boy who laughs at Mark’s distressed state.
“I only found out that Mark hyung was gay today,” Jisung mutters.
“Keep the crush a secret though, Chenle,” Taeyong tells the boy. “Let Mark deal with his own love life. He’s old enough.”
“So, Mark has been outed twice today and Jeno asked out Jaemin Na. It’s been an eventful day,” Renjun laughs.
“Seriously?” Yuta yells and claps his hands together. “Nice one Jeno. Go get some.”
“All our juniors have better love lives than us. That’s so sad,” Taeyong says to Johnny who’s looking at his food with a sad expression.
Then Yuta looks at Jisung and asks, “Do you even know what gay means?”
“I wasn’t in the GSA club for no reason,” Jisung replies to Yuta’s question. “I’m 14, I know what gay is.”
“Gender Sexuality Alliance?” Taeyong whimpers around his straw.
“Yeah hyung, what’s wrong with that?” Jisung asks. He’s not doing homework for once since Chenle’s there.
“That’s like the worse club to go to when you’re gay,” Johnny says. “And everyone on this table is pretty gay.”
Yuta nods, "There's better gay clubs out there. My favourite one is downto-"
"Please, Yuta." Taeyong looks at the boy beside him with disbelief before pushing him to the side.
Yuta laughs at Taeyong's face. "I'm straight though," Jisung says.
Chenle gives him a look. "Okay then," Renjun looks between the two.
"But seriously, Jisung.. don’t go to GSA. That’s a place filled with straight people who say they support gays, but they’re really just undercover homophobes,” Mark informs the younger one. He shivers from the thought of the GSA club.
“Not all of them are bad. I know that they have informative events about LGBT a few times a year, and Ms. Jun runs the club. She’s lesbian and educated about a lot of LGBT+ issues and cultural issues,” Renjun says.
“Yeah, that’s true, but,” Taeyong starts. “They’re just-” he makes a face.
“For sure there are some Fujoshis and Asiaboos in there, and racists. I hate those people,” Yuta says with a disgusted expression.
“What’s a Fuj--” Chenle struggles to say.
“Fujoshi. They’re those female fans who fetishize- basically obsess over- gay relationships,” Yuta tells them.
“And Asiaboos are people who change their racial identity and appropriate cultures ‘cause they want to be Asian,” Johnny adds on. “And I’m sure you guys know about racism.”
“Yeah,” Chenle nods.
“They’re disgusting,” Taeyong mutters. “Basically, try avoiding those people in the GSA club. It’s a great club with a great purpose, but some are there just to pretend to be educated.”
Jisung and Chenle nods in understanding.
“See, this is why we don’t go on our phones, so we can have bonding moments,” Taeyong sweetly tells Renjun, and puts his arm around the younger boy's shoulders.
“I hate this family,” Renjun cries out the meme he likes to use a lot from a vine he watched. They all laughed.