Chapter Text
During his entire first year in high school, Jihoon had zero interest in dating. What he always looked forward to was seeing his friends and dance club activities. He never really understood why girls would giggle to themselves over seeing that cool senior Hwang Minhyun (although Jihoon had to admit that Minhyun was kind of heart-fluttering), and why Hyeongseob was more interested in getting Woojin to like him instead of actually passing the physics exam Woojin tutored him for.
That is, until the first day of his sophomore year, when Jihoon saw a very, very, very cute boy at during opening ceremony. The poor boy was trying so hard to keep his eyes open, and he had a mild case of bed head that morning, made obvious by how he towers over the other first year students. Jihoon suddenly felt like he was surrounded by flowers and sparkles at seeing Very Cute Boy.
Jihoon is lucky to find out later on that the boy’s classroom is beside his own, and that the bubbly kid Woojin introduced to him as his childhood friend Daehwi is also a first year who is friends with everyone… Which led Jihoon to finding the boy’s social media accounts on a group photo Daehwi tagged him in, where Very Cute Boy looked kind of awkward with all the freshman kids.
So his name was Lai Guanlin and he was originally from Taiwan (which Jihoon deduced from the flag of Taiwan on his profile). Jihoon's already stalked his Instagram, and he saw that the younger boy posted a lot of handsome foreign men and sometimes really pretty women, but since it was mostly men he hoped Guanlin was gay. Guanlin was foreign so Jihoon was foreign to him… Maybe there was hope that Guanlin could like him. He couldn't really understand most of the photo captions, as Guanlin usually captioned his pictures in Chinese and English (both of which Jihoon had no knowledge of). Thank goodness Google translate gave him a little glimpse into whatever Guanlin was saying.
Guanlin's IG handle kind of gives him second hand embarrassment though. What is edcurry30 even? Did Guanlin like Stephen Curry so much he wanted to marry him, or did he want to be him? Still, Jihoon thinks it's endearing that he was this much of a fanboy. He's kinda jealous of the basketball player if Guanlin likes him that much.
Jihoon checks his ask.fm, the one with the really cool username coolman300, and sees that he has 15 new asks. He sure is popular. He doesn't think he's as handsome as that first year Bae Jinyoung, but he did get his fair share of fangirls. He thanks several of the you're handsome message senders and gives his phone number to 8 of them who asked for it, until he comes across one strangely personal message.
It’s hard to make friends.
It tugs at Jihoon's heart. Who was having so much trouble making friends that they had to resort to asking strangers anonymously for advice? Jihoon had to help this anon out.
"That's not good," Jihoon mumbles to himself as he types out the words. He chews on his lip, deep in thought, before typing and talking to himself again. "Try to talk to everyone as much as you can… If they won't be nice to you, fight them… You don't need friends like that. Hope you meet new people. Fighting!"
"That is terrible advice," Woojin comments unnecessarily beside him. The two of them had a love-hate relationship: sometimes he was a really good friend that Jihoon talked to about anything, but most of the time he was just this annoying side character in Jihoon's life story.
"Shut up, they weren't asking you! They were asking me." Jihoon kicks him behind the shin and Woojin dodges with ease.
Woojin laughs at him. "Sure, coolman300."
-
Jihoon forgets about the troubled anon on his ask.fm, until they send him a follow-up message a week later:
Hello Jihoon hyung. It’s friendless anon. Thank you for your previous advice. I have made some friends now. I would like to thank hyung personally sometime.
Jihoon stops chewing on his turkey sandwich to call Woojin to his desk. “See, the advice I gave out about making friends worked,” he rubs in Woojin’s face.
“I hope anon didn’t fight anyone because of your advice,” is Woojin’s biggest concern. He sits his ass on Jihoon’s desk and Jihoon would have shoved him off he hadn’t asked his next question. “Will you be meeting him then?”
Jihoon hasn’t really thought of the possibility of meeting any of his ask.fm askers. Even though a lot of them went through the trouble to ask him his phone number, none of them texted or called him, so what was the point of their asking him? They don’t really meet him anyway. “How do you even know he’s a guy?” he asks Woojin instead.
“He called you ‘hyung’. Duh.”
Now Jihoon feels dumb to not having come up with that conclusion himself.
“He’s a guy and he’s younger than you. His writing is a little strange too, like he isn’t really used to writing? Is he from the countryside? What if he’s foreign?” Woojin blabbers on like he’s in a detective anime.
The keyword ‘foreign’ ticks in Jihoon’s brain and he shoves Woojin off of his desk. His friends tumbles on to the floor, laughing at him even when Jihoon tackles him. “Don’t give me the idea that it’s Lai Guanlin, stupid,” Jihoon hisses at him.
-
Friendless anon drops him a few asks once in a while, always signing off with friendless anon so Jihoon knows it’s him. He’s become Jihoon’s favorite asker now, as he always asks a wide variety of things ranging from do you like dogs or cats? to practical life advice like where to get good frozen yogurt.
“Ooh, I saw that hyung has a regular fan on ask.fm,” Daehwi greets him excitedly when they see each other at school. “I think I have an idea who it is too.” He gives Jihoon a playful wink that would have looked cringey if it was anyone else but Daehwi who did everything in a cute way.
That leaves Jihoon pondering about it after Daehwi sprints away to his group of first year friends. Right now Daehwi was hanging out with Samuel and Somi, but Jihoon knew Daehwi was a social butterfly and was friends with a lot of people. Hell, the kid even had more friends in Jihoon’s year than Jihoon. At the end of his Thinking Spree, Jihoon is left with zero idea of who Daehwi was friends enough to know their crushes.
-
Jihoon is entirely surprised when he and Friendless agree on a time and place to meet about a month after the first question. He’s calm and pretty excited to be meeting this mysterious friend of his at the bleachers at the gym on Friday at lunch time, specifically near the door…
Until he finds Lai Guanlin sitting on that exact spot Friendless decided on.
“Um.” Could it be him? Lai Guanlin stares back at him with his big eyes that make Jihoon’s heart want to explode even more than it wants to with the thought of just being here with Guanlin. He clears his throat to not let Guanlin notice that the flesh is about to burn off of his face. “Was there anyone else here?” Jihoon wants to punch his own dumb face over how awkward he sounds.
“Just me.” Guanlin goes back to staring blankly at the boys playing a casual game of basketball on the court.
“Oh.” Friendless must not be here yet. Jihoon stumbles sitting down beside The Cutest Boy in the Whole School. “I’m waiting for someone. Is it okay if I wait with you?”
“I should leave to give you guys privacy,” Guanlin suggests, but before he can make a move to get up Jihoon stops him by grabbing on to the sleeve of his shirt. Aggressively.
Mortified at the realization that his impulse control has failed at the very presence of Lai Guanlin, he quickly lets go of Guanlin’s sleeve quickly, filing this event to the List of Things Woojin Will Never Let Him Forget. “Sorry! You were here first so you don’t have to leave.” God, he must look so utterly desperate now and Guanlin must hate him and Jihoon is drowning in self-loathing.
Guanlin gives him a curt nod, an unreadable expression on his face, and sits back down beside Jihoon.
The first few minutes are the most awkward silence Jihoon has ever experienced in his entire life. He can’t even fucking breathe because Lai Guanlin’s stupid perfect profile is absolutely dazzling, his bangs down today looking all fluffy and adorable. He hopes Friendless hurries up and meets him before Jihoon a) has a heart attack, b) combusts, c) makes a fool of himself in front of Guanlin AGAIN, or d) all of the above. Well, if Friendless showed up any moment now then Jihoon should probably take this chance to talk to Guanlin and-
“Do you like Crunky?”
Jihoon turns his head to Guanlin and makes a sound that is probably what dumb would sound like.
“I said: do you like Crunky?” Guanlin repeats. He produces a Crunky bar from the messenger bag beside him. “We can share.”
Jihoon dumbly takes the half of his most favorite candy bar ever that Guanlin hands him, and they eat in silence until Guanlin decides it’s time to go back to class.
“See you around,” Guanlin tells him as he gets up and collects his things. He gives Jihoon a shy smile and a small nod, both of which have Jihoon’s brain short-circuiting.
Once Jihoon’s brain works again, he realizes that he’s late to his next class and that he’s been stood up.