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Jay can’t remember every single thing he’s said. It’s quite unrealistic to expect him to.
It’s not that he’s particularly talkative, he’s just a little forgetful. Scratch that, he’s just human.
Sue him.
But when some weird shit starts happening, Jay decides he’d better start keeping track.
It’s another routine, semi-monotonous spring morning when the whole debacle begins.
The end of the academic year (and, technically speaking, schooling for the seniors) is just within reach. They’ve reached the final stretch, so to speak.
Even the birds must be excited, because they refuse to shut the fuck up outside.
Chirp chirp to you too, bitch.
Anyways, it’s all bittersweet and strangely emotional and all that. But, as of right now, Jay is more focused on the fact that the psychology test he has first period is worth 40% of his second semester grade in the class.
And he didn’t study for it all.
Perhaps he is a little forgetful. Perhaps more than that.
“Calm down, bro. Breathe. Are you breathing?”
“What do you think?”
A pause.
“Okay. Message received.”
“Why--” Jay inhales sharply and suddenly. His nose burns. “Why does this goddamn school system--why… I swear, I’m suing as soon as I graduate.”
Nicholas pats him awkwardly on the back. “Yeah, don’t do that.”
“What do I do, then?!”
They’re standing off to the side in the hallway, which inevitably means being pushed into the wall repeatedly as crowds of people walk past.
Needless to say, it’s not a great place to be having a minor breakdown.
“Uh…” Nicholas looks around nervously, and Jay almost feels bad for him.
But then he remembers ‘40% of your grade’ and goes right back to hyperventilating.
“Think happy thoughts?” Nicholas offers.
Jay scoffs. “Yeah, I’ll just manifest a good grade or something.”
“That might work, actually.” Comes another voice, as a stray Sunoo pops up from behind Nicholas. He smiles with those squishy cheeks, and impossibly, Jay’s mind goes even blanker than it was before.
He’s doomed, for real.
Jay can do nothing but scoff again. “I’m gonna fail, oh my god.”
“Why would you go and say that?” Sunoo sighs, pursing his lips and furrowing his brow.
“Fine, fine. I’ll get a wonderful grade and bring honor to my family name or whatever the hell.”
Nicholas cracks a hesitant smile. “That’s more like it.”
The bell rings.
The test is every bit as horrific as Jay expected it to be. Boy just sits there and stares at each question for a good five minutes before giving up and guessing his way through.
Realistically, though, he spends the greater part of the class period drawing sad faces and absentmindedly writing “hellooooo” over and over on his desk. He may or may not get in trouble for that, but it’s in pencil… so…
Either way, Jay leaves the class feeling thoroughly st00pid.
A couple periods later, in study hall, Jay opens his phone and refreshes the damn grading app, bracing himself for the worst.
“Wait, what the--?”
That comes out a lot louder than expected. Mr. Jung raises an eyebrow at him, and Jay, being who is, pretends not to notice.
“What did you do now?” Heeseung asks, barely looking in his direction.
Jay sinks down in his seat. “I got a 99%.”
Sunoo does his tiny clapping thing and smiles, his entire face scrunching up in the process. “See? What did I tell you?”
“What?!” Hanbin slides towards him in his chair, leaning over to look at his phone screen. “On the psych? How?”
“The psych fucking murdered me,” Yoonwon remarks, “My ghost will be attending all my classes for me until further notice.”
Jay squints. “I literally forgot about it until this morning, I don’t know how...”
“You’re fucking magical or something.” Heeseung deadpans.
“Maybe he is.” Sunoo’s eyes go comically wide.
“Ha. Funny.”
Hanbin puts his hands together as if praying. “Please magic me an A juseyo.”
“You don’t need me for that,” Jay snorts, “You’re smart. You’ll get a 100% for sure.”
Right before the bell rings for lunch, Jay gets a message. He squints at the number and the message history (Jimin’s feeble pranks, of course) before realizing it’s Hanbin.
“son i got a 100 how did you do that”
“Bro.” Jay says, taking his seat next to Sunoo at their usual table. “I’m literally psychic, or something.”
“Now you believe me?” Sunoo pauses, tilting his head. “Well then. Prove it.”
Jay freezes. “Prove it how?”
Sunoo thinks about it for a while, his gaze wandering across the cafeteria. “Oh look, there are Geonu and Jungwon.”
Sure enough, the pair are walking over. Sunoo looks at him expectantly, and Jay blinks a few times. “Ugh, fine.” He says, painfully aware that he’s fully bullshitting, “Jungwon’s gonna trip and fall… Now.”
On cue, Jungwon literally trips over air and falls flat on his face on the linoleum tile.
Geonu just stands there and laughs for a good minute, not moving to help him up.
“Whoa.” Jay breathes. He hadn’t expected that to work.
Maybe he is psychic, or something.
“Whoa.” Sunoo echoes.
“What are we whoa-ing about?” Jake leans over, and both of them jump a good foot into the air.
Sunoo’s eyes are all big and filled with wonder, which Jay thinks is a bit overkill.
Then again, Sunoo has always been dramatic.
“Jay’s magical.” He states matter-of-factly,
“Oh.” Jake’s expression doesn’t waver. “Congrats, mate.”
“Thanks, man.”
On the other side of the table, Daniel is bitching about something or the other as usual. Today, it seems to be about having Euijoo as his lab partner.
Euijoo is smiling and agreeing with every insult Daniel directs at him.
Sungcheol sighs, looking down the table at them. “Those two, I don’t get how they haven’t murdered each other yet.”
“Oh.” Taeyong glances in their direction. “It’s bound to happen soon enough.”
Euijoo has taken to poking Daniel’s cheeks while the younger boy continues telling him how much of an idiot he is.
“Man, just imagine what would happen if they were stuck with each other as partners for the rest of the year.” Jay remarks offhandedly.
“Oh-ho, that’s evil.” Sunoo props his head up on his hand. “Wait a second--”
“It’s probably not gonna happen, man.” Jay says quickly, not wanting to subject Euijoo and Daniel to that fate.
“But--”
“I was kidding, seriously. They’re all just coincidences.”
“I--”
Jimin leans over. “What are we talking about?”
“Jay’s magical.” Jake says, straight-faced.
Jay sighs.
The next morning, Sunoo meets Jay outside the entrance. He smiles warmly, and Jay feels unsafe.
“Do you know how much trouble we could cause?”
“H-hello to you too.”
“Hear me out.”
The narrowed eyes, the beginnings of a smile… It takes Jay longer than he’s proud of to realize that Sunoo is scheming.
Kim Sunoo, evil genius.
Jay raises an eyebrow. “Proceed.”
“Okay, well, let’s start here.” Sunoo clasps his hands together. “You’re aware half of our friends are raging gays, right?”
Jay was not, in fact, aware. He blinks a few times.
Yeah, Heeseung’s hour-long ode to Seon’s eyes should have tipped Jay off, at the very least.
And Hanbin sitting in Nicholas’s lap for a week was a little less than straight.
… Jake and Sunghoon touch each other a little too much to be bro’s.
Not to mention the whole Pocky game thing… which… No, not reliving those memories.
Conclusion: Jay is just really, really oblivious.
“Uh, sure.”
“And some of them are, like, blatantly in love with each other--”
Now, now. Hold on a minute. Jay needs time to process…
“--So we technically wouldn’t be in the wrong if we, y’know, gave them little pushes--”
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“--just as well-meaning friends. What do you say?”
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“H-hold on,” Jay stutters, “You want to… You want to set our friends up?”
“Well, technically, they’ll be doing everything.” Sunoo continues, his half-smile widening into a deceptively innocent grin. “Thing is, everything you’re saying is coming true, but we’re technically not doing anything--”
“So,” Jay tries again, “You want to superstition our friends into liking each other?”
“They already like each other, Jay. Also, I didn’t know ‘superstition’ was a verb.” Sunoo pauses, all traces of previous evilness leaving his face and being replaced with his usual pure look. “So, what do you say?”
How does Jay say no to that face?
He sighs. “You manipulated me into this, don’t even deny it.”
Sunoo goes >.< and something inside of Jay dies.
This is a very, very bad idea.
“I can’t believe it, for god’s fucking sake.” Daniel slides into an empty chair across from Jay, as far as possible from Euijoo.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m stuck with that snake until the end of the year, I’m gonna jump out of a moving train…”
“Pro tip.” Youngbin leans over. “Don’t.”
Sunoo raises an eyebrow. “For the rest of the year, you say?”
Jay is frozen in place. 🙂.
Taki leans over, his hair flopping in the way that it does. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you two will figure something out! Be positive!”
“Man, who the fuck has time for positivity anymore?”
Taki looks wounded.
Jay’s overcome with the urge to punch Daniel. Out of love, of course.
Niki pulls Taki back towards him, ruffling the younger boy’s hair and shooting Daniel his Glare of Death.
Daniel sighs.
From the other side of the cafeteria, there’s loud laughter.
Everyone turns to look as Seon slaps Kei on the arm, forcing him to sober up for exactly five seconds before Kei buries his face in his hands and dissolves into a fit of giggles again.
Seon swats at him repeatedly.
Heeseung scrunches up his nose. “Ew, domestic.”
“Please, not this again.” Jaeho begs, slamming his head down onto the table.
“Have y’all learned nothing from last time?”
“Shut up, Jaebeom.”
“Shut up, Kyungmin.”
“Y’all really would lose their shit if they dated, huh?” Jungwon asks with a tilt of his head.
Yoonwon grins. “Please, it’s less a matter of ‘if’ and more ‘when’.”
“Sooner rather than later, at the rate we’re going.” Jay adds quietly.
Sunoo looks at him, eyes wide.
“What?” He asks, oblivious.
Sunoo just shakes his head, incredulous, his dark hair doing its bouncy thing.
Jay’s mind says :] and little else.
wait
“Oh!”
“Oh what?” Sunghoon asks, leaning over and raising an eyebrow on the frozen expression of panic on Jay’s face.
“Nothing--”
Sunghoon looks unconvinced, but looks away.
“--’s gonna happen, Sunoo.” Jay finishes, whispering.
“Yeah, tell that to your face. Look like you’ve seen a ghost, SMH.”
“Did you just say SMH out loud?”
“... No.”
At the end of the day, Sunoo and Jay stand outside the school together for a few minutes before leaving.
Jay remembers something, quite suddenly. “Hey, what did you mean when you said some of us are in love with each other?”
“Just that.” Sunoo states, as though he’s explaining something to a particularly incompetent child.
“Yeah, but who?”
“Are you serious? Jake and Sunghoon seem to be the only two who don’t know they’re dating.”
Jay thinks about it for a while. “Hm, you’re right.”
“I know.” Sunoo smiles sweetly.
“They strike me as the type who’ll get married or something and then never let anyone within the vicinity forget how much they love each other. Gross, but also kind of cute.”
“Nah, I agree.”
After a second, Sunoo raises an eyebrow. “You’re going and causing trouble all on your own, what do you even need me for?”
“Who else is going to be disappointed in me at all times?” Jay replies.
Sunoo smiles, his eyes going crescent shaped. “Literally everyone.”
The birds continue their incessant chirping from above.
“Ladies and gentlemen, my best friend.”