Chapter Text
2009
The results to Jinyoung’s history exam were being announced today. Jinyoung wasn’t afraid. History was a subject he had always considered an “easy A”—at least, that’s what he believed everyone should consider it as. Jinyoung was always ranked first in his class, but it wasn’t like it was a hard feat to accomplish. He studied, just like any other student, but the difference was that he was definitely destined for greater things—and other students simply weren’t.
Honestly, if any of his other peers tried even just half of how much Jinyoung did, it would certainly even out the competition just by a little bit—they still wouldn’t beat him, of course, but they would certainly make the gap smaller.
But simply studying and attending tutoring classes wasn’t everything. Grade grubbing was also an important component to Jinyoung’s stellar academic record. It would be statistically impossible to score perfect grades in every single semester, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything he could do to change that. Jinyoung could be charming. If he wanted to. And when he wanted a perfect grade, he got it. He would never let anyone, or anything stand in his way of achieving the most important step of his life plan—admission to the country’s most prestigious university.
“89 percent. Not your best work, Jinyoung.” The test paper landed on his desk louder than Jinyoung thought possible as he stared at the numbers written in red. Eighty-nine? A fucking eighty-nine?
Jinyoung felt his blood boil. This was the worst grade he had ever gotten in a very long time. This was going to bring down his entire grade average. This was going to absolutely ruin his future and destroy his plans. This was going to change Jinyoung’s life.
He stared at his history teacher. He was one of the few teachers that could never fall for Jinyoung’s charm. In other words, grade grubbing would never work for this class. Fuck. Jinyoung was going to be stuck with an 89 percent in this class. His future was absolutely ruined. Jinyoung couldn’t afford to receive such an awful grade.
The continued thought of his ruined future made his heart beat quickly. His throat began tightening up and it felt like the world was closing up around him. Class was ending in a few minutes, but Jinyoung felt like he was going to die right then and there. His mind blanked for seconds, making him feel like he was falling in an endless void. Jinyoung closed his eyes shut and tried to remember what he usually did in these situations.
His mind went straight to a tool shed. Jinyoung knew what to do.
Discreetly pulling out his phone under the table, Jinyoung began composing a text.
Shed in 5? Please.
It took barely thirty seconds for him to receive a response.
Way ahead of you
Jinyoung let out a breath of relief. He was always one step ahead of him. It was annoying at times—to know that someone was slightly better than him at something—but in times like these, it felt like an absolute lifesaver.
As soon as the class ended, Jinyoung bolted out of his seat and sprinted towards the tool shed at the back of the school. It was time for lunch, which meant he had forty minutes to calm down and pull himself together. The area was normally restricted for students, but there was an alternate passage through a broken maintenance door that could never lock. It was through this door that Jinyoung hid the biggest secret he ever had.
Walking past the entrance, he made his way to the small wooden tool shed just a few steps away from the school building. The person he had texted was probably already inside, Jinyoung deducted, starting off without him. He quickly marched to the door and did their special knock—two hard bangs, followed by a knock, and three more hard bangs. It spelled out “MJ” in Morse code.
After a few seconds, the door was opened, and Jinyoung found himself meeting a cheerful, wide-eyed face he saw more frequently than he liked to admit. It was Youngjae—his drug dealer.
“History?” Youngjae asked, his eyes slightly pink, but sympathetic. Jinyoung only had the strength to nod before the other male handed him the joint in his hand.
Jinyoung’s biggest secret was simple—from time to time, he would sneak to the tool shed and smoke a bit of weed with the school drug dealer. Except the words “time to time” were beginning to mean “every other day” with the pressure of his final year of high school slowly consuming him.
It wasn’t that Jinyoung was a stoner or anything like that—in fact, he’d punch the daylights out of anyone who would dare call him that—it just helped him calm down. His final year of high school, with the looming fear of university admissions and exams, was making it very difficult for him to stay sane and off the ledge of the school rooftop. It was through Youngjae, their school’s resident drug dealer, that Jinyoung found a much better alternate route.
Jinyoung took a hit from the joint he had been given and felt his entire body loosen—it was like his gears were being oiled and he could move again. He knew it was bad. He’d heard all the drug talks before. But he’d tried worse alternatives, and those led to his head resting on a toilet bowl.
“Fucking ridiculous. I got an 89! Eighty-nine!” Jinyoung shouted, crossing his arms. “If I was in America, I wouldn’t even get an A-!”
Youngjae chuckled and took the tiny roll from his fingers. “Why do you care about what grade you’d get in America?”
“Youngjae, this is serious! I’m not going to have any future with these grades! This is going to completely derail—”
“Hey, sshhhhh, stop, stop.” The other male silenced his rant by gently placing the joint between Jinyoung’s lips. Youngjae smiled as he placed a comforting hand on Jinyoung’s shoulder. He was awfully close.
“In,” Youngjae commanded softly, and Jinyoung did as he was told. After a moment, Youngjae pulled the joint from his lips. They were only inches apart, and the sheer lack of space was making Jinyoung feel nervous—he’d never been this close to anyone before. “Out.”
Without having any thought, Jinyoung blew the smoke directly onto Youngjae’s face. The act felt so oddly intimate that it seemed to catch both boys off-guard.
“Uh. I’m going to open a window.” Youngjae muttered as he pulled away from Jinyoung.
“Y-yeah. That’s a good idea.” Jinyoung turned around and sat on a chair, trying to get his mind out of the state it was previously in. He watched as Youngjae pushed the old window open, spreading an attack of dust all over the tiny shed. Idiot, Jinyoung thought to himself, his lips playing at a smile.
Despite his occupation, Youngjae was probably the only person Jinyoung could tolerate at their school—on some days he even considered him as a friend. Jinyoung wasn’t stupid. He knew his ambition and attitude scared people away and he knew what they said about him behind his back. Jinyoung was good at pretending like he didn’t care, but he was still an eighteen-year-old, and small words still hurt him much more than he liked to admit.
Youngjae was different, in a way. He took Jinyoung at face value, and he worked with it. His ambition and occasional (maybe a little more than “occasional”, Jinyoung) selfishness didn’t seem to draw him away. Spending time with Youngjae was also good for his mental health, Jinyoung admitted. One would think that a drug dealer would be intimidating—downright scary even—but he wasn’t like that at all. He was undeniably welcoming and warm-hearted, not an attitude he was used to receiving from others. Jinyoung decided from an early age that friends were a distraction—he could make friends in his forties. So he was never friendly with anyone, and nobody was ever friendly with him in return. Except Youngjae.
“You know this isn’t going to completely derail your life, right?” His drug dealer questioned, leaning against a wall beside Jinyoung.
He sighed. Jinyoung knew he was being a tad dramatic. “Maybe.” He mumbled, staring at the ground.
“You’re still going to be president of the world or something. One history exam isn’t going to fuck up your life. Trust me.” Youngjae looked at him earnestly. Jinyoung felt himself melt a little at the thought that someone cared about his problems.
“Neurosurgeon.” Jinyoung corrected, his lips forming a small smile. The correction made Youngjae laugh, and the tiny structure they resided in was filled with the sound of his full laughter. On some days, like today, Jinyoung allowed himself to admit that he liked this sound.
Once his laughter died down, Jinyoung remembered something else that had happened that day. “Hey, how did you do on your biology exam?”
Youngjae shrugged. “Bad.”
Jinyoung groaned. One thing he absolutely hated about his drug dealer was his lack of ambition. At least academically.
“How are you going to graduate if you keep failing your exams?” He was nagging now, but he didn’t care. This was happening much too often for Youngjae to be so calm.
“I’ll be fine,” Youngjae took another hit from the joint and blew the smoke in Jinyoung’s face, wanting to get him riled up. It was beginning to anger him how Youngjae wasn’t taking any of his academics seriously. Jinyoung took the tiny bud from his fingers and threw it on the ground, crushing it with his shoe. There wasn’t much left in it but the act still made Youngjae gasp. “Hey!”
“I know you want to be a singer or whatever, but you still need a goddamn high school diploma,” Youngjae rolled his eyes at the comment and bent down to pick up the squished joint from the ground. He sighed once he realized it was completely gone. “You need some ambition.”
“I do have ambition. Just not for school.” That was a statement that Jinyoung found difficult to process. School was all there was for Jinyoung—it was what consumed all his thoughts and was the end goal for all of his actions. For Youngjae to say directly that he didn’t care about school was almost blasphemous.
“Do you…do you need tutoring? You know biology is my life.” Jinyoung reminded. Youngjae looked up at him and raised his eyebrow.
“Do you even enjoy biology?”
“Doesn’t matter.” He responded a little too quickly. Jinyoung refused to have his entire life plan be compromised by one simple question. He refused to think about his question at all. “Do you need tutoring?”
Youngjae chuckled, probably seeing right through him. “No, Jinyoung, I’m okay.”
Jinyoung groaned at his rejection loudly and looked away. “Don’t be fucking stupid. Just take my offer…while I’m being nice.”
“While it is flattering to see the almighty Park Jinyoung care about someone else for a change, I can figure it out myself.” The drug dealer replied, shooting him a reassuring smile. Jinyoung rolled his eyes and found himself feeling growingly frustrated. Whatever. Why do I even bother caring?
They stayed silent for a moment, with Youngjae rolling a new joint on the floor as Jinyoung watched him work. They had been doing this for a little over a year now, and Jinyoung always watched whenever the other male rolled his little concoction for them to smoke. Jinyoung considered himself a very fast learner, but for some reason he could never get this one thing right. They would always be too thick or too loose, and Youngjae would always roll around and laugh his honey-like laugh whenever Jinyoung presented his own creation. Jinyoung wasn’t used to being second place at anything—he used to hate how Youngjae always made fun of his lack of skill—but for some reason, he learned to let go. Whenever they went to the shed together, he’d let Youngjae do his thing and he would watch, noting how carefully he handled things and listening to whatever new pop song the boy would be singing as he did. It was still strange how easily he was able to let himself go in this tiny wooden shed.
“Hey,” Jinyoung called out suddenly, pulling Youngjae’s focus away from the joint he had lit up. “Are you going to keep in touch when you get famous and all?”
Youngjae’s lips formed into a wide smile. “Well, who else is going to keep you from jumping off a building over a grade?”
Jinyoung felt a tiny smile creep at his lips as he heard his response. Jinyoung didn’t need anyone, but on some days, he considered Youngjae his friend—today was one of them. A part of him began hoping that maybe a decade from then, they would still be hiding around a back corner, smoking and irritating the most out of each other.