Work Text:
Lights flashed and music pulsed and Renjun Huang, age 16, was bored out of his mind. Prom wasn’t really chalking up to be the big fun time he had anticipated it to be. Sure everything leading up to the event had been great, shopping for a tux with Haechan had been pretty fun, the pair walking out of the mall in their brightly colored rentals. Haechan had insisted that Renjun go with the pale pink one in the center display, and as much as he wanted to resist and go with something more simple, after trying it on, he couldn’t deny that he looked and felt great in it. Haechan had made some sarcastic remark about how he’d attract half the female population of their junior and senior class, to which Renjun couldn’t help but laugh since they were both gay.
Shopping had been fun, the thrill and promise of this amazing dance ahead of them, just after the spring musical and right before AP exams. The calm in the middle of the storm, maybe.
A lot of further preparations went without much thought, their friend group of six raring to make their first prom the best it could be. Even though Chenle and Jisung were underclassmen, Haechan and Jaemin had automatically volunteered to take them (and whether Chenle and Jisung actually wanted to go was beyond Renjun, but he also didn’t suspect the younger two would ever fight the will of the older pair).
Dinner was an easy reservation as well, Chenle’s parents offering up a table at their restaurant and a free dining experience as thanks for somehow getting Chenle to agree to leave the house for once. Much to Chenle’s chagrin, dinner plans came a little bit too easily, and even though Chenle couldn’t stand to be babied by his parents in front of all his friends, Renjun was still able to tell he was having a great time.
The vibes were amazing until they actually go to prom. The community center where the dance was held was a little bit plain-looking, but thanks to some elbow grease from the prom committee, it had shaped up to be more pretty appealing than plain. The catering tables were stocked nicely and the lines for the photobooths had barely formed, so their friend group hoped on that pretty early in the night. Jaemin, being one-half of their high maintenance friends, set up each of the photos like a director, to the point where he missed half of them trying to make sure Jisung’s bow-tie was sitting straight around his neck.
Everything had been going great until shit hit the fan. Or rather when Haechan hit his seat, faceplanting into the table. It seemed that, yet again, trouble was afoot in his fairytale long-distance romance with that guy from Canada.
Renjun wanted to be supportive of Haechan that night but wasn’t quite sure how to go about things. Renjun had actually had a few online interactions with Mark, Haechan’s current long-distance boyfriend. He had seemed okay enough, but it seemed like whatever was going down now was pretty shitty of Mark, considering the fact that he knew Haechan would be out trying to have fun.
Renjun looked to Haechan from across the table, watching him as he furiously pounded out message after message, Jaemin leaning over his shoulder, coaching him through the text-argument-conversation. Chenle looked over to Jisung, a bored expression hung on his face, quickly brightening up when Jisung started telling him a story about his new pet hamsters.
That left Renjun and Jeno, infinitely vibing in this new and awkward situation they found themselves in. Truth be told, Jeno was the one person in their friend group that Renjun was the least familiar with. Of course, they were familiar enough for Jeno to have been out with them, but Jeno hadn’t become a recurring face until they had started high school.
As small towns will have it, Renjun had actually had a few classes with Jeno growing up, but never really interacted with him until Jaemin had dragged him over to their lunch table the first day of freshman year. Since then Renjun never really could figure out Jeno. He had a bunch of little quirks that one could regard as cute, from the way he hung followed Jaemin like a lost kid or the way he smiled with his eyes whenever Haechan threw himself into another dramatic rendition of how he and Mark met.
Renjun had noticed a lot of things about Jeno, he believed himself to be a pretty observant person. He seemed to be more on the quiet side, maybe a little bit loud around the various sports team circles he frequented, but still kind and caring all the same. Renjun remembers watching Jeno give another football player a pep talk behind the bleachers during one football game when Renjun had come down off the stands to corral the rest of the flute section.
It was cute the way he hyped up the junior member of the team and Renjun remembers sharing a glance of recognition with Jeno as the two walked away and back toward the field.
Even though Renjun could see all these great things about Jeno, he was at a bit of a loss because Renjun couldn’t think of a moment that he and Jeno had shared that had been that true to Jeno’s personality.
All of Renjun’s interactions with Jeno had been odd… he also didn’t often find himself alone with Jeno that often. Every time they had been alone was filled with awkward silences and unspoken agreements that they really didn’t have much to talk about, but the company was welcome. Even though they totally had a lot they could talk about. They had engineering together and while Renjun was struggling, Jeno was acing it and Renjun wanted so bad to know how when Jeno often napped for twenty or thirty minutes during that class. They also did theatre together and while Renjun was in the cast, Jeno was in the crew, silently and quickly moving things around as actors talked or sang, preparing the next scene’s sets.
The musical had just ended, so Renjun supposed he could bring up something about that, but there probably wouldn’t be much to say as they both knew the highlight of their cast party at Denny’s was Haechan’s sugar high after taking multiple shots of creamer mixed with packets of sugar (a pre-meal snack that Jaemin had introduced to them during their freshman year - it was absolutely horrendous, but Renjun had to admit, it hit the spot when you’re surrounded by that many theatre kids).
But instead of inviting the awkward silence in like they usually did, Jeno actually spoke up for once.
“Do you wanna go dance, maybe?”
Renjun was actually kind of surprised that Jeno would propose such a thing given his quite bashful nature. The room was dark, but Renjun could tell that Jeno was blushing a little as he looked at Renjun - correction - past Renjun, because Jeno was definitely trying to avoid making eye contact. Renjun figured this was a little bit out of character for Jeno, but went with it, standing up and announcing that he and Jeno were going to hit the dance floor.
Haechan moaned into the table and Jaemin shooed the two of them off, saying that they’ll catch up with them soon. After about half an hour of sitting and watching Haechan mope, Renjun felt freed hopping onto the dance floor. It was a little bit awkward to watch Jeno shake his body, not really having ant rhythm with the songs that were playing, and every once in a while the two would make eye contact and laugh.
Renjun had to admit that Jeno was being awfully cute in the way he danced, not really realizing the comments in his head had actually been said out loud until he saw Jeno’s reaction. He blushed and turned his head away and Renjun laughed taking Jeno’s hand and dragged them deeper into the crowd of high schoolers. In the middle of the crowd, the lights were a lot brighter and it really gave off the feeling of what Renjun figured a club would be like.
Jeno seemed to become a bit shyer in this new spot but after a round of the Cupid Shuffle, he was back to his old self enjoying the music. Renjun had to admit he was enjoying this side of Jeno, it was so refreshing for them to share a moment together that wasn’t awkward.
As the night went on, so did the number of people on the dance floor. Haechan still hadn’t emerged from his funk yet, but Renjun could help Jaemin deal with the aftermath later, he was still pretty stuck on dancing to his heart’s desire with Jeno, who didn’t seem too worn out either. They had found themselves moving through different genres of music, even through a slow dance - which should’ve been awkward because of Jeno - but instead ended up being rather fun, Jeno showing off that he somehow had some skill for slow dancing (he said he’d never done it before, but Renjun was convinced he was lying - there was no way Jeno would’ve known how to dip him so easily).
Before long it was time to head home, Jeno, being the driver of the friend group getting everyone to pile into his mom’s minivan. Haechan had seemed a bit better now, having gotten in a dance or two after fixing things up with Mark and the ice cream they had gotten on their way to dropping everyone off had certainly been a nice way to top of the good mood Renjun was feeling. Jeno pulled into Chenle’s driveway first, Jisung getting out with Chenle because they were having a post-Prom League of Legends session. After that, they pulled into Haechan and Jaemin’s neighborhood and let the two of them out, promises of an outing to iHop the next morning.
Renjun lived the closest to Jeno, so the two ended up in the car together, Jeno bopping his head to whatever top 40’s song had just come on the radio. Renjun looked over to Jeno, observing his side profiling, the cute way he bopped his head, his strained singing voice from a night full of talking and laughing. Renjun totally saw Jeno in a different light now… Renjun had known Jeno to be cute before, but never this cute. Renjun could kiss him… a new thought that had started plaguing him halfway through the Electric Slide (which they still didn’t really know how to do despite Ms. Kang’s attempts in teaching them). Watching Jeno mess up which step came first and getting a little flustered made Renjun laugh; he couldn’t help but laugh at the way Jeno puckered his lips and furrowed his brow together when he did the whole step sequence backward. He was definitely also having fun, but cute little moments like that would probably never leave Renjun’s head…
When they pulled into Renjun’s driveway, Renjun was still looking over at Jeno before he realized where they were.
“Well, I had a really good night, what about you?” Jeno asked, a quirk in his eyebrow.
Renjun giggled a little. “It was great, seeing you dance and have fun… it was a whole different side of you.”
They looked at each other across the center console and Renjun was a bit amused with how Jeno was staring at him a bit too intently, waiting for him to finish speaking. Yeah, Renjun really wanted to kiss him, and oh - Jeno moved in closing the distance between them and they were kissing. Renjun hadn’t ever thought that Jeno’s lips would be so soft, but god damn, they were so soft and it was only a short and small kiss and Jeno was smiling like a dope and Renjun knew he probably was too and as he bid his farewell to Jeno and walked back into his house he couldn’t help, but wonder what the future held for him and Jeno.