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Applying to work with children is quite possibly one of the worst decisions Jisung has ever made.

At the time, working at an after school care facility seemed like the most logical choice. There would be no extra hours, no need to run from class to get to work early. Just pure vibes and getting to hang out with his best friend.

Even if he doesn’t want to admit it, being to hang out with Hyunjin while they worked a bum ass job was ultimately the selling point. Hyunjin had been working at the center for almost two years and had never complained about anything, never even struggled to keep up with his schoolwork. So, Jisung applied as soon as there was an open position, and got the job.

Unfortunately for him, he’d failed to consider what it was actually like to work with kids. Kids are cool, or whatever, but it becomes apparent early on that kids are weird. Usually this would be no problem, Jisung’s also usually regarded as weird, but nothing could ever live up to how a bunch of pre-teens with absolutely no regard for societal norms act when put into a big group.

On day one, Hyunjin drives them to the building. Jisung has a casual meeting with management to go over the basics and explain what exactly his job is going to entail. The meeting goes well, but Jisung’s not entirely convinced that the sunny disposition of the owner is real and not a stereotypical facade of someone who works in childcare. Still, Jisung feels ready when he makes his way into the classroom. Chan had said the kids were older and could take care of themselves for the most part, they just needed an adult to make sure they were being safe, and Jisung was an adult who could do that.

His confidence lasts until the kids actually show up. Hyunjin pulls him to the entry way as the first van arrives, waving at the woman driving it. Jisung has approximately twenty seconds to prepare himself before the van door is torn open and a hoard of small people rush forward. It seems dangerous and Jisung is preparing to jump out of the way when he hears Hyunjin’s voice.

“Hello everyone!” Hyunjin calls with a bright smile, “How was school?”

The responding shouts vary, from good to boring to stupid to exciting, and Hyunjin nods along as ten different children speak over each other to try and maintain his attention. Jisung is immediately overwhelmed, even more so when a group of eleven year old boys get too close and stare unblinkingly at him.

“Who are you?” One of them asks, eying Jisung from head to toe.

Jisung gulps nervously, “I’m a new teacher.”

The same little boy glares, “Why?”

“Because Ms. Suzy isn’t going to be joining us anymore,” Hyunjin leans over to tell the kids, “so Mr. Jisung is going to take over.”

A little girl groans, “But I loved Ms. Suzy.” Apparently sharing the same sentiment, the rest of the kids moan and groan as well, shoving past Jisung to get into the building and walking themselves to the classroom.

And that’s how Jisung’s first day goes. For the most part he sticks to Hyunjin’s side or sits behind the desk, not wanting to have to interact with any of the children one on one. The kids leave him alone as well. In total there’s forty kids under their care, ranging from ten to fifteen years in age, from different schools across the county. The teenagers mostly sit in the corner and brood, and the younger kids attach to Hyunjin like they haven’t seen him in years. They seem alright for the most part, besides the middle schoolers enacting psychological warfare on one another whenever they fight about petty things, but other than that there’s no real reason to dislike them.

Unless you’re Jisung. In his first week alone there are three separate instances of kids gathering in a group to whisper to each other and point at him. In his second week a kid named Daejung kicks him in the leg. It’s not on purpose, but while Daejung gets a firm reminder to pay attention to the people around him, Jisung has to deal with five teenagers pointing and laughing. That’s it for him.

It’s not that he hates the kids, or even necessarily his job. A twelve year old named Kyungmi had offered him her snack because he had whined to Hyunjin about being hungry, and he’s being paid to sit and watch kids talk to each other. It’s just that he doesn’t know how to interact with them. That’s what Hyunjin tells him at least.

“Didn’t you grow up an only child?” Hyunjin says in the car, driving them both home after the snack incident, “It makes sense that you wouldn’t do well around other children.”

Jisung bristles, “I’m doing fine around the snots. They just hate me because I’m not Suzy.”

Hyunjin side eyes him, “You told Aera to step away from you because she sneezed.”

“She didn’t even cover her mouth!” Jisung cries, “Children are riddled with disease, I need to protect myself.”

And that’s where he is now. His job is fine, the kids are fine, the pay is alright. There’s no moment for Jisung where he feels the urge to go home and talk about the children like they’re the best thing in the world like Hyunjin does. But it’s a job.

Jisung doesn’t even get to hang out with Hyunjin like he originally wanted to. In the classroom Hyunjin’s usually sitting with a coloring book, or pulling a chair into the teen’s circle to help them with their problems. When they go play in the gym he’s running around, or blowing a whistle to call fouls, or hiding under play mats to win hide and seek. Most of the time Jisung’s on the sidelines alone. Every now and then a kid will come up to him and ask to go get water or something from the vending machine if Hyunjin’s too busy to give them the go ahead.

His biggest mistake is starting to interact with the kids one on one besides that. On a Tuesday, Jisung shows up fifteen minutes late, walking in with the kids instead of before them like normal. Chan already knew he needed to stay late on campus for an exam so it’s no big deal, but a bunch of the teenagers push past him while asking if they can go to the vending machine. They have snack time coming, but Jisung knows the snack for the day is fruit bars so he grants them permission regardless and ducks into the bathroom to change into nicer clothes. Although there’s no real dress code in the building, Jisung always tries to look put together, especially after he showed up in sweatpants and Ahnjong, a twelve year old with a vendetta against him after he upheld the companies rule of only two people in the restroom at a time, told him he looked like a hot mess.

Making sure his clothes are straight and on right, Jisung hurries out of the bathroom, not wanting to be any more late than he already is. Jiwoo, one of the older kids who had asked to go to the vending machine, is leaning against the wall playing with her fingers.

“Why are you lingering in the hall?” Jisung asks, “Where are your friends?”

Jiwoo straightens but doesn’t raise her eyes, “They went to get snacks. I was just waiting for them.”

“Why aren’t you with them?”

“Uh,” Jiwoo shifts and shrugs, “I don’t have money to get anything, and last time everyone put their change together so I could get chips. But I don’t want them to feel like they need to do that again so I said I was going to the bathroom so I could wait for them here.”

Jisung’s heart pulls uncomfortably in his chest. Damn kids. Damn kids with no money who have sad little faces that make them look less like demons and more like actual children. He pulls out his wallet because he has to, because he’s unfortunately always been a little too soft and giving, even to teenage girls who laugh at him everytime he trips over his own shoes.

“Here,” He grunts, waving a five dollar bill in her face, “don’t tell anyone I gave you this and go get yourself something. I want Skittles.”

Jiwoo lights up and Jisung stomps on the warm feeling spreading throughout his body. “Really?”

“If you ever laugh at me again when you and your little friends are making fun of me I’m going to make you clean my car out to repay me,” Jisung glares at her, “now get out of my face before I tell Chan you’re wandering the building.”

“You’re the best,” Jiwoo squeaks, ripping the money out of his hand and running down the hall. Jisung yells after her to walk and she doesn’t listen, of course, but he lets it go. She’s probably rushing to get to her friends before they’re done and Jisung doesn’t have it in him to dull her happiness.

Hyunjin’s sitting at the desk for once when Jisung walks into the classroom. It’s actually kind of nice to see him without a hoard of children around, and Jisung has a little bit of a pep in his step as he makes his way over.

“You look smiley,” Hyunjin tells him with a raised eyebrow, “did your test go well?”

“Duh,” Jisung sticks his tongue out, “can’t I just be in a good mood?”

“You’re never in a good mood,” a tiny voice says from behind him. Jisung turns to see Sena, an eight year old who’s only allowed in the older class because Aera is her sister. “You only wear black clothes. Aera says you’re an emo.” Fucking Aera.

“Go play with your friends,” Jisung deadpans, waving her off.

Sena glares up at him, “I need to get a drink of water.”

“Sucks,” Jisung shrugs, “there are too many people out of the room right now.”

“I’ll let you know when the older kids get back,” Hyunjin says prettily, leaning over the desk to meet Sena’s eye level, “is it okay if you wait just a little bit?”

Sena smiles wide, cheeks reddening, “That’s okay Mr. Hyunjin. Thank you.”

Jisung rolls his eyes as she flounces away, turning back to Hyunjin only to be met with his glare. At this point, a month into a job where forty out of the forty-one people he sees daily hate him, Jisung’s used to being glared at. Still, the way Hyunjin’s staring at him makes him the tiniest bit nervous.

“You’re still being too harsh with them,” Hyunjin frowns.

Jisung rolls his eyes as he sits in the chair across the desk from him. “Too harsh to who?”

“The kids.” Hyunjin grits out.

“The kids are too harsh with me,” Jisung complains, “I didn’t even call her any names even though she totally deserved it.”

Hyunjin gapes, “Deserved it? She’s eight years old! Your job isn’t to hit back at children, it’s to guide them into making the right decisions.”

“And guiding them down the right path is letting them get away with everything?” Jisung asks snottily, “Because the monsters could throw me out of a third story window and all you would have to say is that I should’ve been nicer to them.”

“It’s called gentle parenting, Jisung,” Hyunjin bites, “look it up and maybe you’ll get better at your job.”

“You’re not a parent,” Jisung grounds back. He has more to say on the matter, but is distracted by a hand shoving a plastic pouch into his ear.

“Here ya go,” Jiwoo sings, shaking the packaging until Jisung finally grabs it, “You’re welcome.”

The package is unfortunately not full of Skittles like Jisung was wanting, but is full of different kinds of dried fruit. Truly, they all look gross and nasty, and Jisung can’t believe he gave one of his bullies five dollars and they got him wrinkly fruit.

“These are not Skittles,” Jisung says distastefully, face pinched up.

Jiwoo shrugs, “Mr. Chan doesn’t let candy in the vending machine. It’s all supposed to be healthy brain food or some shit.”

“Watch your language.” Jisung grumps at her, “You said you got chips last time.”

“Yeah, banana chips,” Jiwoo says sarcastically, waving her own bag in front of him, “duh, Mr. Jisung.”

Jisung makes another face, pulling open his bag and taking a bite of what looks like it might have been an apple at one point. It goes gooey in his mouth once it mixes with his saliva, and honestly, maybe fruit bars aren’t that bad.

“Go sit with your friends,” Jisung tells her, face still puckered up, “and I won’t be forgetting about this insubordination.”

Jiwoo giggles, covering half of her face with her hand, “You’re so funny, Mr. Jisung.”

“I know, it’s a blessing and a curse,” Jisung responds, putting the bag of fruit decay down. “Now go away.”

Jiwoo finally does, wiggling her fingers as a goodbye, and Jisung turns back to face Hyunjin, who’s smiling way too wide for anything that just went down.

“What?”

Hyunjin shrugs, “You’re just cute.”

Jisung frowns, “No I’m not. Why are you being weird all of a sudden? I thought we were fighting.”

“That was until I found out that you actually love the kids.”

Jisung balks, “Me? Liking the kids? No.”

Hyunjin laughs, as loud and bright as ever, and ignores Jisung. He stands and claps loudly before announcing what they’re all doing for the day (a free day, which is Jisung’s favorite since he doesn’t have to do anything or worry about any broken bones like on gym days) and letting Sena run off to the water fountain.

The kids cheer at the announcement and there’s pandemonium as they shift chairs and argue over craft supplies and toys. Either Hyunjin or Jisung should most likely get involved, but neither are willing to. Jisung had made that mistake once and had his shirt covered in liquid glue as a result. There was no second time.

Instead of going to sit with a group like normal, Hyunjin sits back down at the desk and turns to the attendance book. Jisung can tell he’s not actually writing anything but stays quiet about that particular fact. In the corner of his eye he can see different students turning to call for Hyunjin and then settling down quietly when they realize he’s busy. Deciding to be a good coworker and an even greater friend, Jisung turns sideways in his seat to keep an eye out for anyone who needs help.

“The teens are staring at you,” Hyunjin hums under his breath, still flipping through the book and making random meaningless tallies.

Jisung’s head snaps over to look at him, “No they’re not.”

“They definitely are,” Hyunjin giggles quietly, “I think Jiwoo told them you’re secretly nice.”

“I’m obviously nice,” Jisung hurumphs, turning back to watch the room.

Hyunjin doesn’t respond and Jisung’s distracted enough by a pair of twelve year olds trying to cut each other's hair that he forgets to prove it.

---

Things shift after that. It’s slow enough that Jisung doesn’t even realize it until it’s pointed out to him.

The first thing that changes is Jiwoo. After the vending machine incident, she seems to be convinced that she’s Jisungs friend, sitting with him at the table instead of with her friends and giving him the total run down of her daily life at school. Initially it’s a bit annoying, but middle school gossip is surprisingly detailed and unsurprisingly melodramatic, and Jisung starts to eat it all up.

After a few days Jiwoo’s friends join her and they all end up in a circle for the first thirty minutes of the day, sharing snacks and telling stories about their days. One of them, Eunji, asks about Jisung’s day and starts a new trend of them bombarding him with questions about his personal life nearly daily.

Since they’re kids and Jisung’s being paid to watch them he makes sure to keep it light, mostly talking about some cool obscure fact he’d read an article about or how annoying navigating around campus is. As Hyunjin flits around the room checking on different groups of kids and doing his own thing, Jisung tries to keep him out of the conversation as much as possible. Hyunjin has a sort of image with the little ones that doesn’t include him throwing tantrums over cold showers or refusing to go to class so he can finish a drama. However, with as much as his life is entwined with Hyunjin’s it’s hard not to mention him at all.

“Wait,” Minji interrupts his retelling of how Hyunjin fell down the steps to their apartment building trying to put a shoe on while running out the door, “you and Mr. Hyunjin live together?”

Jisung nods, “Yeah, we have for around two years now.”

“Mr. Hyunjin is so cool and handsome,” Minji sighs dreamily, “it must be so amazing to live with him.”

“He’s alright, I guess,” Jisung shrugs, smirking when he sees Hyunjin making his way over to the desk, “when he’s not breaking plates and serving me pieces of ceramic with my breakfast.”

“I see you’re still breaking libel laws,” Hyunjin sniffs once he makes it to the table.

“I don’t think it counts as libel if it’s true,” Jisung teases.

Hyunjin ignores him, choosing to turn his attention to the people surrounding the table, “Hello girls,” he sings, waving at each of them individually as they giggle. “Is it okay if you guys go huddle together somewhere else? I need to talk to Mr. Jisung about something.”

Most of the girls huff but raise out of their seats easily to relocate, but Jiwoo whines loudly, shifting around to show her distress.

“But I didn’t even get to tell Mr. Jisung about what Hyunwoo told me.”

Jisung leans forward, “Is it about the break up?”

Jiwoo nods enthusiastically, “Apparently Eunjoo didn’t break up with him, he broke up with her.”

“You’re joking,” Jisung gasps.

Hyunjin clears his throat pointedly and Jiwoo groans again before slumping out of her chair and pushing her seat over to the wall. “I’ll tell you more later, Mr. Jisung. When we won’t be interrupted the whole time.”

Jisung stifles his laugh at the look on Hyunjin’s face. He’s obviously not used to being ignored or talked back to in any way and by the time he snaps out of it it’s been too long for him to get onto her.

“Whatever,” Hyunjin grumbles, “I actually need to talk to you about the next couple of weeks.”

“Next weeks?”

Hyunjin nods seriously, glancing around before leaning in and using a rogue clipboard to cover their mouths. “It’s about Jaehyuck.”

Jaehyuck is an eleven year old boy who is stock full of energy. Most of the time he’s yelling, or running, or having fake sword fights with broom sticks. Jisung usually let’s Hyunjin deal with him since he’s better at staying calm, but there have definitely been times where Jaehyuck has come to Jisung with different swatches of marker to ask which looks best. Jisung takes that as them being buds.

“What’s going on with Jaehyuck?”

“He’s going to his dad’s starting this weekend,” Hyunjin tells him lowly. “It’s not going to be a fun time for any of us.”

Thus begins the explanation and warning. Whereas Jaehyuck isn’t much more than a bit of a distraction on the day to day, Hyunjin calls him a genuine danger when he stays with his father. The last time it happened, Hyunjin tells him Jaehyuck spent two full days in Chan’s office with him after going on a rampage and then sobbing inconsolably. Jisung looks over at where Jaehyuck is laughing with his friends and feels his heart break.

“So what do we do?” Jisung asks, “How are we supposed to deal with it?”

Hyunjin shrugs, “We’ll just have to keep an eye out for misbehaviors, and correct those as they come. I’m only telling you so you know what to expect if things go south.”

It sounds like a shit plan to Jisung. Just looking out to correct behavior doesn’t actually help anything besides how Jaehyuck will be affecting others, and Jisung isn’t so sure he wants to join in on some half assed efforts. But Hyunjin had evidently been through something similar before so he lets it go and agrees.

Jiwoo comes back over once Hyunjin leaves and Jisung does his best to follow the love story of two middle schoolers he’d never met.

---

He lasts until dinner.

After work, Jisung heads home and contemplates his options. Listening to Hyunjin’s plan seems like the best way to go on the surface, and if Chan already knows what to do Jisung should probably listen to him since he’s the owner. But Jisung’s mom had always called him a pain in the ass with a head as hard as rock, so maybe the more on brand thing to do would be the opposite of just going along with what other people say.

The more he thinks about it, the more Jisung is convinced he should say something. As Hyunjin orders them take out, Jisung lays on the couch and scrolls through different articles about helping children through a divorce. Not the exact situation they’re in, but close enough. There are a lot of helpful tips throughout and by the time Hyunjin settles in next to him, Jisung feels fully prepared to introduce his way better “Keep Jaehyuck Under Control While Not Ignoring His Internal Feelings” plan.

“Okay listen,” Jisung says, placing his legs across Hyunjin’s lap, “I was reading this article and it said your gig sucks.”

Hyunjin laughs, “My gig? What?”

“That didn’t come out right,” Jisung grumbles, trying to remember the mini speech he had planned out. There were some key points he wanted to make, but the smile on Hyunjin’s face is distracting him. Because it looks so dumb.

Jisung takes a deep breath and tries again. “What I meant to say was that I think we should reevaluate how we handle Jaehyuck next week. I was reading a few articles online and they said that we should take a much more active approach before his behavior gets out of control so he knows he has a safe place to talk about anything he’s dealing with.”

“Sung, do you even know what to say to a ten year old when they talk about their emotions?” Hyunjin asks, eyebrow raising in disbelief as he does.

“I’ve been doing just fine with the girls,” Jisung sputters, defending himself, “Jaehyuck can’t be that different.”

Hyunjin sighs, “Look, Chan has his degree in social work or whatever. So if things get bad he’ll take over. It’s sweet that you care, but there’s nothing we can really do when we only see him for a few hours a day.”

Jisung frowns. Most of what he’d read focused on teachers, people who were with the children for eight to ten hours a day and had a much larger impact in their lives. Hyunjin’s right that they only interact with the kids for three or four hours a day, and it’s not like Jaehyuck is particularly close with either of them.

“You’re sure this is going to be what’s best for him?” Jisung asks, “I just don’t want him to have a miserable time.”

Hyunjin squeezes his ankle. “I promise I’m doing what I believe is best. If it’s not working we can try whatever is in your articles.”

Good enough. Before his first day Jisung had read up on savior complexes and issues that came out of caregivers believing they could change lives just by being around. Jisung’s willing to change a little bit of his ideals for the betterment of people who have no control over their lives.

“I thought you didn’t like talking about the kids out of work,” Hyunjin teases, “you said it made you itchy.”

Jisung rolls his eyes, “It’s just one kid, one time. Don’t think this changes anything.”

“You’re friends with the older girls though. They’ve never told me about their break ups.”

“You sound jealous,” Jisung winks, “don’t worry, you’ll always be my number one bestie.”

Hyunjin laughs again and Jisung feels something in him shift and settle. Kids were weird, and hard to deal with, but Jisung knows that as long as he and Hyunjin are doing it together he’ll be fine. No traumatizing kids or himself. Hopefully, at least.

---

On Saturday, Jisung goes to get coffee with Jeongin while Hyunjin has people over to work on a group project. Jeongin buys Jisung’s coffee for him, because they’d had to reschedule three different times to fit Jeongin’s schedule and also because Jisung whines until he gives in, and spends almost thirty minutes complaining about his classes for the semester.

“It’s just annoying,” Jeongin sighs, “I’ve had to take a slightly different iteration of child development every semester since freshman year. I feel like I know more about pregnancy at this point than people who can actually get pregnant.”

“How much is there to even learn about pregnancy?” Jisung asks, genuinely intrigued, “Enough that it takes four years?”

Jeongin shakes his head, “It’s not all about pregnancy development. The one I took last year focused more on school age kids. But pretty much every course starts with a unit about pregnancy.”

A light goes off in Jisung’s head.

“So you know a lot about kids and stuff, right? And like why they act how they do?”

Jeongin’s eyes slit, “What do you want from me? Why are you asking?”

Jisung tells him. About Jaehyuck, about what Hyunjin said, about the articles. Jeongin nods as he listens, because he’s a great friend, and his little hums of encouragement have Jisung spouting off more than is probably necessary. Asking Jeongin about what to do honestly should’ve been his first move. He has a few questions Jisung answers as best as he can, and then falls silent like he’s thinking hard.

“You’re kind of right, in a way,” Jeongin tells him. Jisung holds in his whoop of victory. “Correcting the behavior without at least somewhat working through what’s causing it won’t be very helpful to the kid. But Hyunjin’s right that you both don’t see him enough or have the degrees needed to be in his business like that.”

“Then what's the compromise?” Jisung groans, “You should’ve just stopped when you said I was right.”

Jeongin shrugs, “I don’t know him like that. But just try a couple different things to see what works. And if nothing does, take him to the owner like Jinnie said to do.”

Not exactly helpful.

“Jinnie’s annoying,” Jisung huffs, “the kids freaking love him and he’s so smug about it.”

“Freaking?” Jeongin snorts, “Maybe the kids like him because he’s nice to them.”

“I’m nice,” Jisung defends himself, “Those little snot-nosed shits just like him more for no reason.”

“I feel like you calling them snot-nosed shits makes a good argument as to why they might not like you so much.”

“I feel like you’re an asshole,” Jisung automatically shoots back. “They are snot-nosed,” Jisung grumbles, taking a large gulp of his drink, “one of them sneezed without covering their mouth. What’s more snotty than that?”

“You’re more snotty than that,” Jeongin laughs, “remember when you had the flu last year? You laid on Hyunjin for a week wiping your gross mucus all over his shirts. One of them was crunchy by the end of the day.”

Jisung shifts in his seat, resisting the urge to flip Jeongin off just to do it. When he had gotten the flu last year he had thought he was actually going to die from how shitty he felt. His mom had repeatedly reminded him that he needed his flu shot that year and he had ignored her, only to fall incredibly ill two weeks later. Like, incredibly ill. Jisung is pretty sure he was a medical mystery.

Without his mom there to take care of him, Jisung had stayed in bed the entire day, arms crossed over his chest ready for when the morgue would inevitably have to come pick him up. Instead, Hyunjin had busted into his room around dinner time to demand to know why Jisung hadn’t gone to his class and what were they going to eat, he’s starving. Instead of giving the rant of his life, Hyunjin was met with Jisung’s red and puffy face with so many tissues surrounding him it was on the verge of looking like an airport restroom.

Because Hyunjin is infinitely a better person than Jisung, he had sequestered the both of them in their dorm and taken the role of doctor for the next week. Somehow, Hyunjin convinced their friends to come and do their laundry every other day so Jisung could have fresh clothes and sheets to lay in and Hyunjin wouldn’t have to move from his spot on the bed and dislodge Jisung and his crying figure for longer than necessary.

Honestly, Jisung was really snotty then. However, he had the flu and was terrible at being sick so most of the time he was just whining and crying into Hyunjin’s chest until Hyunjin got him back to sleep. These kids had no flu, didn’t really cry that much, and were still the snottiest kids Jisung had ever met.

“It wasn’t that serious,” Jisung denies, not able to come up with an ample comeback, “you’re just being dramatic.”

“Says the one who was sleeping eighteen hours a day,” Jeongin rolls his eyes, “I was washing a new set of sheets everyday because Hyunjin was adamant the sheets your gross ass was laying in had to be clean, and did I ever get a thank you? No.”

“Whatever.” Jisung grumbles. “Thank you. But really, you should be asking Hyunjin for a thank you since he’s the one that made you do it.”

“He only made me do it because you two are obsessed with each other,” Jeonging waves him off, “Which means you owe me the apology, because you made him like that.”

“Made him like what? A good person?”

“Made him the kind of person that blows up my phone for over an hour because he’s worried about you.” Jeongin says, “It’s your fault for being too likable.”

“How can someone be too likable?” Jisung asks, crinkling his nose, “I’ve never been told I’m too likable. And Hyunjin’s just like that, you know that.”

“You’re too likable for Hyunjin’s taste.” Jeongin points at Jisung before he can retort, “Don’t disagree with me. The last time I was sick, Hyunjin brought me soup and left it in front of my door because he ‘didn’t want to get too close to me’,” Jeongin says, air quotes and all.

“Changbin could have gotten you soup,” Jisung points out, “He was already exposed.”

“Binnie was at his parents. Which Hyunjin knew, because he drove him to the airport.”

“How is this my fault again?”

“I’m saying the sheets thing was your fault. Which means I want a thank you from you.”

“I already said thank you,” Jisung says, exasperated, “what more do you want.”

“You were the one arguing, don’t get an attitude with me.” Jeongin narrows his eyes.

It’s times like these that Jisung is positive Jeongin will make a great teacher. With just a single sentence, Jisung has the fear of God stricken in him and falls silent.

Jeongin rolls his eyes at the kicked puppy dog look on Jisung’s face. “Tell me how it is spending even more time with Hyunjin every day than you did before.”

Jisung does.

---

There’s no time where Jisung feels like he has an opening to tell Hyunjin about his conversation with Jeongin. Through the rest of the weekend they’re both busy enough they only see each other in passing, and Hyunjin’s classes start early enough on Monday that Jisung doesn’t see him until they get to work.

He probably could’ve said something while they were setting up the classroom, but Hyunjin spends the thirty minutes they have before children start pouring in going through the lost and found bin and complaining about how kids don’t take care of their stuff.

“Why do you even care?” Jisung asks as Hyunjin holds up a third jacket.

“Because this stupid bin is taking over this entire room,” Hyunjin gripes, “I was in the five to seven year old classroom the other day and it was literally spotless. Minho and Hana must run that place like a military base. It makes no sense that our kids can’t keep track of their belongings as well as the babies can.”

Jisung laughs at the disgruntled look on his face and heads over to help Hyunjin sort the various articles of clothing. Disturbingly enough, there’s at least three pairs of pants even though there’s no point in time where anyone should’ve been taking theirs off. Still, when the first van arrives, Jisung goes to collect them and explain that they need to go through the stuff on the counter and find out what’s theirs.

Jisung has to make the same trip multiple times, since Hyunjin’s watching over the counter to make sure kids aren’t stealing what’s not theirs or fighting over it. The last van he goes to get is from the elementary school Jaehyuck goes to. Jisung keeps an eye on Jaehyuck as soon as his foot hits the concrete, but there doesn’t seem to be anything off about him. The kid walks right past him while fiddling around with something on his bag and heads straight to the snack bin like usual.

With new found confidence that everything will actually be okay, Jisung flounces back to the room with the kids, the last dredges of worry trailing off. Hyunjin’s still watching over the lost and found loot, so Jisung goes to the desk to watch for when the older kids arrive.

They only have to direct the elementary kids to the classroom, all middle schoolers get to walk themselves, but the older kids have a bad habit of thinking that just because they have a little independence they can do whatever they want. If someone’s not staring down the hall, at least one or two of them will wander off to a vending machine, or the bathroom, or another classroom where their younger sibling is and Jisung will have to go tell Chan that kids are missing and it’s a whole thing.

Luckily, Jisung manages to catch the three boys trying to sneak away from the group and shouts after them to get in the room. Jiwoo and Areum laugh at them as they pull chairs up around the desk, and Jisung has to get onto Kiwoo when he flips them off.

“Damn kids,” Jisung mutters, crossing his arms and glaring around the room.

“You always act so grumpy, Mr. Jisung,” Areum tells him, mimicking the way he’s sitting and laughing with Jiwoo, “that’s why everyone thinks you’re secretly thirty.”

Jisung scoffs, “You guys are awful.”

“It’s okay Mr. Jisung,” Jiwoo smiles sweetly at him, “we still like you.”

“Like me enough to go through the lost and found to see if anything in there is yours. You guys are driving Mr. Hyunjin up the wall with all the clutter you leave behind.”

Both girls groan but shove away from the desk to go look. Jisung takes a moment to look around the room and make sure no one’s fighting yet. Everything’s still calm, and by the time Jisung’s done observing the girls are back with even more teenagers.

“You guys are creepy,” Jisung tells them, “it’s like you're multiplying every time I look away.”

“It’s called having friends,” Youngsoo says snarkily, “you should try it some time.”

Jisung rolls his eyes, “One day you’re going to annoy me enough that I make you leave me alone forever.”

After that they go into their usual routine of filling Jisung in on what’s going on in their friend groups and oversharing until he cuts them off. Areum tells him about some kid who’s picking on her and Jisung gives possibly unhelpful advice. He really wants to tell her to hit the kid in the head, but if she followed through he’d most likely be fired, so he just tells her to get an adult at the school involved.

Hyunjin ends up walking over while Jiwoo’s gushing about some drama Jisung’s never seen, and shoos them away.

“It’s my turn with Mr. Jisung,” He smiles apologetically, “sorry girls.”

Areum groans, “Isn’t it always your turn with Mr. Jisung? You get to live with him.”

Hyunjin’s eyebrow raises, “Get to? More like have to. He’s secretly evil.”

“I think he’s secretly nice,” Jiwoo says matter of factly. Jisung reaches a hand over the table to give her a fist bump.

“Well you obviously don’t know him enough then.”

“We'll talk later guys,” Jisung steps in, fully vindicated in knowing that the kids like him so much, “let me deal with Mr. Hyunjin for a second.” The girls get up a leave, taking all the chairs with them to go set up camp in their usual corner. Hyunjin stares at them while they go, an annoyed look on his face.

“You couldn’t be the favorite forever,” Jisung teases, “we both knew this day was coming.”

Hyunjin scrunches his face up, “I’m still the favorite to like eighty percent of this class. Try again.”

“Whatever,” Jisung mutters, sticking his tongue out when Hyunjin looks a little too pleased with himself, “what do you want?”

“I was just bored walking around alone,” Hyunjin shrugs, “I needed another adult.”

Before Jisung can tease Hyunjin for being so needy, Hyunjin’s head snaps to the side as he snaps an “Inappropriate.” to the table of middle school boys.

Jisung’s eyebrows furrow, “What?”

“It’s Jaehyuck,” Hyunjin sighs, “I’ll tell you what he said when there’s not so many little ears around.”

Jisung gnaws on his bottom lip for a second before calling Jaehyuck over to the table. Of course Hyunjin protests, saying that he doesn’t need any consequences quite yet, but Jisung ignores him and hands Jaehyuck the attendance book and a pen.

“Can you go around the room and mark off who’s here?” He asks Jaehyuck politely, demonstrating how to do it.

Jaehyuck nods, “Then bring it back?”

“Bring it back and you can let me know who didn’t show up.”

The kid takes off and starts making his way around the room, stopping at every group to observe who’s there and ticking away at the paper. Jisung keeps an eye on him to assure he’s doing alright but Jaehyuck seems happy to do some managerial work.

When Jisung faces forward again, Hyunjin is eyeing him suspiciously.

“What?” He asks defensively.

“What are you doing?” Hyunjin asks back.

Jisung shrugs, “Giving the kid a moment alone to settle so he doesn’t lose it on one of his friends.”

Hyunjin doesn’t respond, instead focusing his attention onto the lesson board behind them. Technically they’re supposed to spend the day doing arts and crafts, but after they did it last week and three boys went home with glue in their hair the class was on a strict one month ban from art supplies. The replacement activity was a reading day as ordered by Chan, but Hyunjin didn’t want to force kids to work their brains too much after school and had switched it for an extra free day.

The older girls must have been waiting for an opening and as soon as it’s obvious Jisung and Hyunjin aren’t busy, they drag their chairs back over to surround the table once again.

“Do you guys really like Mr. Jisung that much?” Hyunjin asks lightly, “He’s kind of boring.”

Minji frowns, “You shouldn’t say those things about people, Mr. Hyunjin. It’s not very kind.”

Hyunjin flounders for a response, glaring sharply when Jisung fails at holding in his laughter.

“We’re close friends, so it’s okay if Mr. Hyunjin teases me a little,” Jisung promises, “I promise he’s not hurting my feelings or anything.”

Jaehyuck runs back over, finished marking off names, and looks around distrustfully at the girls before pushing through them to hand Jisung the binder.

“Everyone’s here,” he tells Jisung.

Jisung holds his hand out for a high five, “Thanks man. Do you want to sit and hang out for a little bit?”

“Can I talk to you about something?” Jaehyuck asks, and Jisung’s heart drops. “It’s private though.”

They end up leaving Hyunjin in charge and take a walk to the end of the hall. Jaehyuck doesn’t look upset, but Jisung’s still worried he’s going to divulge information that’ll make him have to get more people involved.

“What’s up?” Jisung asks gently, crouching down so they’re eye level.

Jaehyuck peers around to make sure no one is listening and leans closer to whisper, “Minji has a crush on you.”

Jisung reels back. “What?”

“I heard them talking about it when I was doing attendance. She said she thought Mr. Hyunjin was the most handsome man ever until she met you and then Areum said you were too old to be handsome but Jiwoo said you couldn’t be over twenty-five.”

There aren’t words to explain what goes through Jisung’s head at that point. It was obvious that the girls had a little bit of an infatuation with him, but he had assumed it was some kind of teacher’s pet goody two shoes type deal. Not whatever Jaehyuck is laying out.

“I think Youngsoo has a crush on you, too,” Jaehyuck says thoughtfully, “she was really mad at Minji for liking you.”

Jisung shakes his head to clear his thoughts, “Okay. Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “Is that all?”

Jaehyuck thinks for a second, “Can I have special permission to use paint since I did you a favor?”

“No.”

“Then there’s nothing else,” he sighs sadly. Jisung walks behind him on the way back to the classroom, trying to process what exactly had just happened.

Jisung has no idea what to do. He feels kind of icky that a bunch of children have crushes on him, but it’s also just something kids do. He doesn’t know if he should tell them outright he’s an adult and thus many many years out of their reach, or if he should just ignore it and wait for their crushes to fade away into the distance.

He desperately, desperately, wishes he could pass out right there and have enough amnesia he forgets the past five minutes forever, but something about that seems the slightest bit unlikely. Instead, Jisung calmly walks back to his seat at the desk and then zones completely out for at least twenty minutes.

His body must be running on autopilot because when he zones back in there's a full fledged conversation going on and he’s a part of it.

“But Mr. Jisung,” Jiwoo buts into whatever Eunji was saying, motioning frantically with her hands, “He was lying the whole time! Which we know because Eunjoo sent us the screenshots. Can you believe that?”

“I can’t,” Jisung answers automatically. He has no idea what they’re talking about, but with context clues he can only guess how he’s supposed to respond.

“You’re so much better to talk about this stuff with, Mr. Jisung,” Minji sighs, “Mr. Hyunjin never gave us the right reactions.”

Jisung stiffens, not knowing how to respond to her. “Um. Yeah. But Mr. Hyunjin tries his best, so we should give him some grace.”

Sena’s face scrunches up, “What does that even mean?”

Jisung’s face scrunches up right back, “Are you even old enough to be a part of this conversation? When did you even get over here?”

“She’s fine,” Jiwoo waves him off, “Sena likes to gossip too so we let her hang out with us sometimes.”

They should probably have a discussion about excluding classmates and keeping the topics they talk about age appropriate, but Jisung’s head is still all fuzzy and they all seem okay enough with the current system that he just lets it go.

“Giving him grace means excusing some of the things he does that we don’t like.” Jisung explains, “Like yesterday Mr. Hyunjin was supposed to take the trash out and when he didn’t I was upset, but I knew that he was really tired from having a busy weekend so I gave him grace and took it out myself.”

Youngsoo’s face scrunches up, “My mom always gets mad at my dad for that.”

“Are you and Mr. Hyunjin married?” Sena asks so suddenly Jisung chokes on his own spit, “‘Cause my mom and dad fight about the trash too.”

The older girls insist they’re not, speaking over each other to scramble and explain that their teachers were only close friends and roommates at college. Jisung listens detachedly. Sena’s question twirls around in his mind, looking something like a golden opportunity.

Having a bunch of teenage girls crushing on a fully adult Jisung was beyond uncomfortable, and Jisung knew he would never be able to slip into conversation that Jaehyuck had spilled the beans and they needed to focus their attention on someone their own age. But if Jisung is dating somebody then they’d have to reevaluate and eventually lay off, right?

“I am dating Mr. Hyunjin,” Jisung blurts out. The five heads in front of him snap to attention.

“What?” Minji cries, “How is that possible?”

Jisung can feel the beads of sweat accumulating on the back of his neck. “Um, he asked me out and now we’re boyfriends. Kind of simple.”

“Mr. Jisung,” Jiwoo admonishes, “how could you keep this from us for so long?”

Jisung shrugs helplessly, “I thought you guys would figure it out.”

There’s a clamour as questions are thrown at Jisung faster than he could ever understand. To make matters worse, Hyunjin chooses that moment to walk over and figure out what’s going on.

“Is everything okay over here?” He asks, glancing worriedly at the crowd.

Jisung answers before anyone else can, “We’re fine. I’ll explain what’s up at home.” Jiwoo squeaks and Jisung glares at her sharply until she covers her mouth with both hands to stifle her giggles.

“Alrighty then,” Hyunjin says cautiously, “let me know if you need anything before then.”

“Will do,” Jisung nods before rethinking and throwing out a “love you.”

Hyunjin’s eyebrows shoot up when he says, “Love you too.” and has to walk away to a cacophony of squeaks from the peanut gallery.

---

It only takes Jisung until the end of the day to realize how he’s just screwed himself. Hyunjin waits not so patiently as they head back to campus and Jisung knows he has a very limited time to figure out how he’s going to explain the happenings of the day to him.

There are two options that he can rationalize in his head. One, lie. Pretend nothing had happened besides some gossip that got out of hand and tell the girls not to say anything to anyone so they don’t get in trouble for dating a coworker. Downsides include having to lie to his best friend and relying on the capability of a bunch of teenagers to keep their mouths shut. Very unlikely to work. Two, tell the truth. Lay out what Jaehyuck said, how anxious Jisung was about it, and how the original lie just fell out before he could think about it. Downsides include having to explain how Jisung’s number one go to was to convince a bunch of kids he was dating his best friend.

Neither of them are great choices. By the time they arrive home, Jisung still hasn’t decided on which plan to follow.

“What was going on at the center?” Hyunjin asks as soon as the door closes behind them. “You guys looked like you were having a wild time.”

“Hm?” Jisung hums distractedly, “What was that?”

Hyunjin repeats himself. Jisung doesn’t respond.

“Jisung,” Hyunjin enunciates, “Hello?”

“Sorry,” Jisung mutters, rubbing his eyes and falling onto his bed, “I’m tired.”

Hyunjin’s quiet for a moment and Jisung almost thinks he’s gotten away with not answering the question.

“Are we going to live in silence or are you going to give up whatever dumb shit you did?”

Jisung sighs and shoves his face in his pillow, “I told them you were my boyfriend.”

“What?”

“I told them you were my boyfriend,” Jisung repeats, turning his head so it’s not muffled. “That’s why they were being all weird and giggly.”

It’s quiet for maybe twenty seconds before Hyunjin starts cackling louder than Jisung has ever heard him be.

“Yeah yeah,” Jisung mutters, “laugh it up you giant bag of dicks.”

“Can I ask why?” Hyunjin gets out, barely able to breathe, “Are you just so desperate to fit in you had to lie to impress the girls?”

“You are such a fucking asshole,” Jisung snaps, “that’s not what happened at all.”

“Then tell me,” Hyunjin says as he settles down, “explain what the hell you did.”

Jisung almost doesn’t want to, as punishment for being an awful friend, but he does anyway. It’s only fair since he dragged Hyunjin into it in the first place. Hyunjin, for all of his giggles and teasing in the beginning, is surprisingly attentive as Jisung tells him why he said it in exact detail. There are definitely some questions that Jisung has to answer, but by the end of it Hyunjin’s nodding along thoughtfully.

“It’s actually not a half bad idea,” he tells Jisung, “it’s not like they’re going to expect us to make out in front of them to prove it or anything.”

Jisung sighs, “Yeah I guess. Are you okay with fielding any of the questions I’m sure they’re going to bombard you with?”

Hyunjin snorts, “I know you’re new to this, but I’ve been working with these kids for over a year. I’m used to it, promise.”

“As long as you’re sure.”

“I will say,” Hyunjin says slyly, “it’s sweet to see you looking out for your boyfriend.”

Jisung throws a pillow at his head.

---

Against his better judgment, Jisung agrees to go out to drinks with his friends on a Tuesday. Normally he wouldn’t, but the kids are just rowdy enough that he and Hyunjin have an after hours meeting with Chan about keeping their classroom under control, and Jisung’s worn out enough that he caves. Hyunjin stays at the center to clean up a little more and try to figure out how to organize the room better. He promises to head over to the bar when he’s done, but Jisung’s not convinced that he really has it in him.

Still, Jisung makes the trek there alone and only has to awkwardly stand in the middle of the room and look around for under thirty seconds before he sees Changbin’s arm waving in the air. He makes his way to their table easily, putting his bag down next to his chair before flopping onto it with a groan.

“Long day?” Seungmin asks, sliding a drink Jisung’s way.

“Long day,” Jisung agrees, knocking his drink back.

Changbin hums, folding the wrapper from his straw around his finger over and over again. “What happened?”

“The full moon happened,” Jisung sighs, “Werewolves don’t have to emerge and kill everyone because the kids do it for them.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Changbin admits.

“It has to do with gravitational pull or some shit, I don’t know. Chan tried to explain it to me but I thought he was joking so I wasn’t really paying attention.” Jisung rubs at his eyes, silently apologizing to Chan for not taking him more seriously last week when he had warned him. “It makes people weirder than normal, which includes kids. But kids are already weird so it just makes them rabid animals, apparently.”

“Shouldn’t you be good at dealing with rabid animals considering you are one?” Jeongin tilts his head.

“That was lame, even for you,” Jisung narrows his eyes, picking himself back up, “can we move on from my tragic life?”

“Well, Seungmin almost got fired yesterday,” Jeongin offers.

“I did not!” Seungmin hits him on the arm, and it takes off from there.

Jeongin tells them all about how Seungmin had been left in charge of calling up the people who bring them all their fruit to order more dried strawberries while their manager went to a different store to hunt some down, and had ordered a hundred twenty pound bags instead of a hundred pound bag. Changbin’s laughing so hard by the end of the story Jisung’s genuinely worried he’s going to throw up.

In an attempt to get back at him, Seungmin divulges the story about how on Jeongin’s very first day working he slipped in the back and spilled the seven drinks on his tray all over himself. Apparently he was so embarrassed he cried and the manager had to let him calm down in his office before he drove home to change.

After Felix brings up how Hyunjin worked as a camp counselor, and then got rejected from the same place the next year when he re-applied (and why), Jisung decides it’s time to change the subject. Anyone who brings up embarrassing stories about their friend without them there to defend themselves is not to be trusted. And with how much shit these people know about him, Jisung is fully aware he’s the next blinking target for them to hit.

“I don’t know,” Jisung shrugs innocently, trying to make the transition of topics as smooth as possible, “Work is one thing, but school’s been kicking my ass lately.”

“Oh, totally,” Seungmin nods seriously, “On my way to the maths building I saw Jisung completely eat shit down a flight of stairs.” Felix snorts hard enough Jisung’s worried about his throat.

Changbin laughs raucously. “Nothing beats the time he fell and spilled an entire cup of iced coffee on the carpet of our shared class. I was embarrassed for him.”

Jisung cringes. He should have expected this, really. “You didn’t even save me a chair and I had to spend the whole class sopping up liquid from shitty carpet because you refused to help.”

“I couldn’t move!” Changbin defends himself, “It was like my feet were frozen to the floor.”

“Or what about the time he—” Jisung slides down in his seat, looking at the clock and praying Hyunjin shows up soon.

Hyunjin eventually does show, with a bang instead of a clatter like usual. Changbin’s explaining what he’s having to do for his internship with a non-prof, long forgoing the terrible memories of Jisung’s dark past after he stopped reacting, when Hyunjin flounces to the table and throws himself around Jisung’s back, grabbing his jaw to slap a wet kiss on his cheek.

“Eugh,” Jisung wipes his face, “what the hell.”

“Hi guys,” Hyunjin sings, wiggling his fingers in greeting and shoving his elbow into Jisung’s side to get him to scoot over in the booth.

Felix laughs, “Hey. What’s up with the kisses?”

“Sungie didn’t tell you?” Hyunjin gasps in mock outrage, “We’re dating now.”

Changbin chokes on his beer and Jeongin dutifully hands him a napkin to dab at the spots that had landed on his shirt. Jisung rolls his eyes.

“That took long enough,” Seungmin scoffs, “when did this whole thing start?”

Jisung pauses and looks at Hyunjin who’s smile has been wiped from his face and replaced with blatant shock. “What?”

Done cleaning himself up, Changbin clears his throat, “I never thought I’d see the day when you two stopped dicking around each other and actually did something about it.”

“Was this already going on when we got coffee the other day?” Jeongin asks distrustfully, “And you just didn’t tell me?”

Similar to a rolodex, Jisung’s brain starts spinning to figure out what’s going on. His palms are starting to sweat the more he tries to work it out in his head, and with everyone at the table staring at him he’s getting more and more uncomfortable with the whole situation.

Hyunjin shakes his head, “I kind of have absolutely no idea what the hell you guys are talking about. I was joking when I said we were going out.”

The table is obviously confused, so Jisung takes a moment to tentatively explain what had happened the day before. There’s more awkward silence as Jisung tells them that he’d lied about dating Hyunjin, and Hyunjin chimes in to say that he’d only said they were dating to tease Jisung, and the others say nothing to excuse themselves or help them understand why they had accepted them being a couple so easily.

A part of Jisung wants to ask, but he’s not sure if knowing would clear things up or make it all that much more confusing. Hyunjin doesn’t seem to have the same reservations.

“You guys are so dumb,” he huffs, “how could you fall for such a low level joke?”

Jeongin’s eye twitches. “Yeah. I wonder.”

Hyunjin leaves the table to go get a drink from the bar and leaves Jisung alone with the sharks, who all immediately turn to him with their questions. It’s an interesting situation to deal with on his one, especially since Hyunjin’s the one who spilled the beans, but Jisung maneuvers through it the best he can.

“I still don’t understand why you’re pretending to date Hyunjin,” Seungmin tells him.

Jisung sighs, “I told you I just accidentally blurted it out. We aren’t actually pretending to date, we’re just not saying the opposite to the kids because they're weird and have crushes on fully grown adults when they absolutely shouldn’t.”

Changbin rolls his eyes, “You’ve totally had a crush on at least four of your professors.”

“I never told them!”

“I meant I don’t understand why you lied about having a boyfriend when you could just get a real one,” Seungmin interjects, “there’s really no reason for it.”

“Was I just supposed to run out of the building and pull in anyone who looked like an adult and tell the kids I was dating them?” Jisung asks sarcastically.

Felix’s head tilts. “You’re so dumb, but you say everything so confidently. It’s insane.”

Jisung pointedly does not respond. There are a lot of things that can be said about the situation, but it wasn’t that big of a deal before Hyunjin blurted it out and everyone got all weird. They can be as confused as they want, because Jisung knows exactly how functional his little white lie is. And he doesn’t need anyone’s approval other than Hyunjin’s to make it work.

---

Probably the aspect Jisung had overlooked the most when he said he was dating Hyunjin is how invested the kids get in their relationship. At first they’re happy with their quiet observations, silent rooms whenever Hyunjin and Jisung talk, the girls asking leading questions to get Jisung to talk about his everyday life with Hyunjin.

There’s nothing crazy, but as the days pass the questions start to become more and more bold until they’re just demanding to know everything about the couple. Jisung tries to keep it vague so as to not get tangled up and caught, but he finds it surprisingly easy to describe the stuff they normally do and twist it the tiniest bit to make it more romantic. The girls eat it up. The whole class knows, which Jisung isn’t surprised about, and eventually all the girls in class circle Jisung’s desk to talk about it.

Hyunjin is left out of this new tradition for the most part. For whatever reason. Jisung’s convinced it’s because he was smart enough to slip away from the questions from the beginning. Or maybe it’s his karma for lying.

Jisung’s only life line ends up being Jaehyuck, who sits with him for most of the day after he takes attendance. Jaehyuck has a better week than expected, but Jisung still makes sure he knows that he can have a chill out at the desk whenever he needs one. Despite all the excitement that’s constantly going on, Jaehyuck takes him up on it, and most of the time he’s the only one who tells the girls to stop talking about Jisung’s relationship. The girls don’t listen, of course, but the thought is there.

“Mr. Jisung,” Jiwoo waves her hand in front of his face to gain his attention, “Eunji asked you a question.”

“Sorry,” Jisung smiles guiltily, “I wasn’t paying attention. What did you ask?”

Eunji sets her shoulders, “I asked why you and Mr. Hyunjin tease each other so much if you’re dating. My mom said boyfriends are supposed to treat you nice and buy you things.”

Jisung shrugs as casually as he can, “Just because.”

“You should try to flirt with him,” Jiwoo says decidedly, “so he doesn’t get bored and leave your bum ass.”

“Watch your language,” Jisung warns sternly, “Where did you even hear something like that?”

Jiwoo rolls her eyes, “Tiktok, duh.”

“I flirt with Mr. Hyunjin plenty,” Jisung promises, “I don’t need help.”

“I don’t know,” Jaehyuck interjects, “sometimes you and Mr. Hyunjin don’t even talk in class.”

Jisung gapes, “Et tu, brute?”

“What?”

"Nothing,” Jisung sighs. “What do you guys even know about flirting? You’re all kids.”

“I’ll be in highschool next year,” Minji frowns.

Jisung doesn’t know how to break the news that that means she’s still a kid so he doesn’t. There are some harsh truths that he thinks someone else can let them in on so he’s not always the bad guy.

“You should tell him he’s pretty,” Areum whispers, “my sister's boyfriend always calls her pretty and she gets so red. It’s really funny.”

“Let’s not,” Jisung shakes his head. The kids ignore him, because of course they do, and Sena slides out of her seat to run and get Hyunjin. The other students start pulling their chairs back as Areum and Jiwoo order him to keep an eye on them for instructions. Jisung should be stopping them, all of them, and reestablishing order, but things move so fast that he’s left gazing around and trying to make sense of what’s happening. It’s not until Hyunjin stops in front of him that he realizes.

“What did you need?” Hyunjin asks, dropping into a chair left behind from one of the kids, “Sena said you were choking, but I can obviously tell she was just being dramatic.”

“I think the kids are just being weird,” Jisung laughs nervously, trying to ignore where Jiwoo’s waving both arms frantically in his peripheral.

Hyunjin clicks his tongue, “This is why I said they shouldn’t hang out with you too much. Your weirdness is rubbing off on them.”

“You’re an asshole,” Jisung tells him, glancing over at the kids. Areum is holding up two pieces of paper that say TELL HIM HE’S PRETTY. Jisung shakes his head and Jiwoo holds up another piece of paper. This one reads: NOW >:/// and the kids look threatening enough sitting in a group and glaring at him that Jisung decides it can’t be too harmful to just listen

Jisung coughs awkwardly, “Um, anyways. I just wanted to tell you that you look pretty today.”

Horrifyingly enough, Hyunjin’s face flames up, and the redness creeps all the way down his neck. Jisung can see Areum pointing it out to the others from the corner of her eye.

“Thank you,” Hyunjin stutters. “Um. Was that all?”

Not knowing what else to say, Jisung nods and Hyunjin quickly takes off. The kids quickly bring their chairs back to circle Jisung again as he tries to cover the redness he can feel taking over his own face.

“I told you guys he’d get red,” Areum gloats.

Jisung groans, “You guys are so annoying.”

---

It doesn’t get brought up again for a few more days.

The first week of dealing with the children and their invasiveness has come and passed without incident. Jisung’s honestly impressed with himself for keeping his cool all week and not saying or doing anything to tip the kids off on his little lie. After the day at the bar, his friends stopped asking questions as well. Overall, everything was going to plan and Jisung couldn’t be more relieved.

Currently, he’s burritoed up in bed watching Hyunjin get ready to go out to lunch with some of his classmates. Jisung had been invited as well, but he usually doesn’t go out on Sundays so Hyunjin was going to represent both of them.

“If that one girl is there tell her I dyed my hair brown again,” Jisung mumbles around where his face is shoved into his pillow.

Hyunjin raises an eyebrow, “Haeun?”

“I think,” Jisung scrunches his face up, “the one who always does her hair in heart patterns.”

“That’s Haeun,” Hyunjin nods, “I’ll let her know.”

There’s nothing else to say, so Jisung goes back to switching between staring at Hyunjin as he does his hair and scrolling through Twitter. It’s relatively quiet between them and Jisung finds peace in listening to Hyunjin hum underneath his breath. He’s almost asleep when Hyunjin breaks the calm aura.

“Do I look pretty?” He asks flirtily. Jisung lurches into a seated position.

“What?”

“Do I look pretty? Like on Thursday.”

Jisung groans, “I told you the kids were threatening me.”

Hyunjin wilts. “So you really don’t think I’m pretty? Like, for real?”

“I mean, of course you are,” Jisung admits nervously. “You don’t need me to tell you that though.”

“But it’s nice,” Hyunjin shrugs. “It’s nice to hear it from you.”

Jisung’s brain pauses. Restarts. Pauses again. There’s a blinking ERROR: 404 message going off and stopping him from being able to figure out what to say. Something in him is giggly and shy, but Jisung’s partially convinced that’s a possession and not actually him.

“Well you are very pretty,” Jisung manages to choke out. “You look good.”

Hyunjin’s face breaks into a pretty glittering smile. “Thank you,” he sings, turning to show off his entire look, “it’s appropriate for a casual lunch, right?”

“For sure,” Jisung assures, trying to hide the fact that his heart is pounding all the way in his throat.

“Do you want me to bring you something home?” Hyunjin asks once he’s in front of the door.

Jisung gives him his order for the sandwich shop down the street from their dorm building, and Hyunjin blows him a kiss as he leaves. It only takes a couple of minutes for Jisung’s body to chill out.

Must just be symptoms of hunger, he thinks, and doesn’t question anything again.

---

Just as Jisung’s convinced they’re out of the weeds with Jaehyuck, chaos strikes. The beginning of the week starts out like normal, but mid-way through, Jaehyuck has a meltdown over someone taking one of his pretzel sticks.

Somehow Jisung is the first one over to his table. It only takes him a second to grab Jaehyuck by the arm and guide him away, but that second is enough that Seojun starts shouting back at him and Hyunjin has to come grab him. The rest of the class is staring at the four of them, and Jisung leads Jaehyuck into the hall so Hyunjin can deal with the rest of them.

By the time they’re in the hall, Jaehyuck has been reduced to a puddle of tears instead of the ball of anger he was before. With a sigh, Jisung drops to his knees and pulls the kid into a hug.

“Alright, let it all out,” he mumbles, “take a minute to calm down.”

Jaehyuck does. Jaehyuck does for a while.

Jisung patiently waits out the tears, taking the opportunity to try and sort out what he’s supposed to say in such a situation. It feels like the blow up was mostly his own fault. He was the one who should’ve been keeping an eye on Jaehyuck while he stayed with his dad, but instead of being vigilant he’d spent the past week and a half gossiping with a bunch of teenagers and lying about dating his best friend.

Eventually Jaehyuck’s tears run out and Jisung takes him to the bathroom so he can clean up. They’re quiet in bro solidarity, but once Jisung’s sure Jaehyuck won’t re-meltdown at the slightest provocation he asks what happened.

“I was just so angry,” Jaehyuck mumbles to the ground, “I didn’t react correctly. My mom’s going to be upset.”

Jisung sighs, “I think if this is the only time something like this happens we can keep it in class. But the next time you feel yourself losing control you should tell me or Mr. Hyunjin, okay?”

Jaehyuck nods, gaze still on the floor. “Are you going to tell my dad?”

“Not today,” Jisung tells him, “but if something similar happens I’ll have to.”

“Are you mad at me?”

Jisung’s heart fractures. “I’m not mad,” he promises. “Are you going to be okay? Or do you want to hang out here for a little longer?”

They end up sitting in the hallway for ten more minutes while Jaehyuck tells Jisung about the level he’s working on in one of his games. By the time they make their way back into the classroom Jaehyuck seems back to normal, and even goes over to apologize to Seojun without being told to do so. Still, after he’s done he returns to his spot next to Jisung and stays there for the rest of the day. Jisung’s just happy he’s not going to have to strain himself trying to keep an eye on the kid.

---

After the excitement early in the afternoon, Jisung’s happy to bring back some of the monotony he’s gotten used to when the girls circle him and Jaehyuck. Youngsoo immediately starts spouting off about her friends from school and how they got in a fight over a rubix cube, and Jaehyuck is quickly pulled into their conversation. It seems helpful for him to be with some of the older kids and he starts to come out of his shell more and more the longer they all talk. As per usual, they find some way to twist the conversation around and start grilling Jisung about what he’s been up to.

“I’m not telling you guys about my weekend,” Jisung shakes his head, “y’all don’t need to know me like that.”

“Why not,” Minji whines, “we just want to know more about our favorite teacher.”

Jisung sighs, “What do you even want to know? I just stayed home all weekend.”

“Did you do anything with Mr. Hyunjin?” Eunji asks innocently.

“We live together. I did pretty much everything with Mr. Hyunjin this weekend.” Jisung deadpans.

Jiwoo groans, “Mr. Jisung, you should’ve taken him out on a date.”

“Mr. Hyunjin doesn’t like dates,” Jisung lies, “he likes to rest when he can because he’s always busy.”

“Then you should take him out on a resting date,” Eunji berates with her face scrunched up, “You’re not a very good boyfriend.”

“I’m a great boyfriend.”

Hyunjin appears behind Jisung to ask, “You’re a great boyfriend? Are you trying to convince a bunch of kids?”

“We’re not kids, Mr. Hyunjin,” Youngsoo interrupts, “we’re teenagers.”

“Oh yes,” Hyunjin winks, “I meant a bunch of teenagers.”

Jiwoo takes a breath, “Mr. Jisung was trying to think of a date he could take you on this weekend,” she lies.

Jisung gapes, “No he wasn't. He would never talk about that with a bunch of kids.”

“Teenagers,” Hyunjin corrects gently.

“Sure. Teenagers.”

“He wanted to take you to a spa,” Eunji adds, “so you can relax.”

Jisung rolls his eyes, “Now he knows you’re lying. I don’t have the money for a spa date.”

“Whatever,” Jiwoo sticks her tongue out at him, “he still wanted to ask you on a date. He told me.”

Hyunjin smiles, “Jisung? Is that true?”

With no other option, Jisung begrudgingly says it was. And that’s how he ends up taking Hyunjin out on Saturday.

---

As much as Jisung insists they’re not going on an actual date, Hyunjin refuses to say the same and spends an hour before they leave in the bathroom so Jisung won’t see him. It’s annoying, especially since Jisung has to pee and Hyunjin makes him go out to the communal bathroom, but it’s also the smallest bit exciting. Not that Jisung thinks this is a real date of course. But still.

Hyunjin makes Jisung pick the date location since he was the one to ask, and Jisung makes Jiwoo and Eunji figure it out for him since they’re the ones who forced the date on him in the first place. The kids end up sending them on a roller skating date, and Jisung has to find out when their 20+ hours are so none of their students end up following them there. Jiwoo throws a fit about it when he breaks the news, but Jisung holds his ground and compromises by promising to show the kids pictures when they see each other again.

Surrounded by other adults, Jisung finds himself really enjoying his time with Hyunjin. They both know how to skate so it becomes a bit of a competition to see who can make it around the rink the fastest, or who can turn more than the other. At one point Hyunjin grabs Jisung’s hand and doesn’t let go. They end up like that for a while, slowly making their way around the rink while latched together and talking about nothing.

Usually Jisung has no problems keeping conversations going. Especially with Hyunjin. But for some reason he can hardly remember how to form sentences as Hyunjin goes on and on about every thought that passes through his head. It’s like every time Jisung tries to add anything to the conversation that’s not a simple agreement everything he wanted to say slips out of his head and he’s left bumbling through a simple sentence like an idiot. Hyunjin takes it like a champ, moving along to a new topic seamlessly, but Jisung can’t seem to gain his footing.

“I wish we had more free time,” Hyunjin sighs, “I like being able to spend time with you without being surrounded by children or textbooks.”

“Yeah,” Jisung nods, “uh, totally.”

Hyunjin squeezes his hand, “Maybe we should do stuff like this more often.”

“Maybe,” Jisung laughs nervously, pulling his hand out of Hyunjin’s to wipe it on his jeans. “Do you want to go get snacks? I’m kind of hungry.”

They head over to the snack counter and while Hyunjin doesn’t reach for his hand again, he sticks extremely close to Jisung’s side. The person working the counter has their back turned as they fill up the popcorn maker, and it isn’t until they turn back around that Jisung realizes it’s Minho from the younger kids' classroom.

“Minho?” Hyunjin exclaims, “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you two the same thing,” Minho says, eyeing the two of them suspiciously, “I work here.”

“We’re on a date,” Hyunjin divulges, “I had no idea you worked two jobs!”

Minho nods, “My family owns this shithole, so sometimes I come to pick up a shift or two when they have no one else to do it.”

Jisung cuts in before Hyunjin can start grilling Minho for his life story, and orders enough snacks to hold them both over until they can leave and get dinner. Minho doesn’t seem to mind the interruption, even as Hyunjin elbows Jisung’s side and glares. Once they get their goods and Jisung pays, the couple settles at one of the tables near the arcade.

“I’ll get the tab next time,” Hyunjin says lightly, “so don’t feel like I’m dead weight or anything.”

“Okay,” Jisung shrugs, “I don’t mind spending money on you though.”

Hyunjin’s cheeks bloom red. “Oh, thank you.”

Jisung’s able to remember how he normally talks the longer they sit there, and soon enough the pair are chatting and giggling together like normal.

“Do you remember when we got paired up to room together?” Hyunjin asks, “And I said I didn’t get along with emos?”

“Somehow I do,” Jisung says, “I bought a pink shirt after that just to prove you wrong.”

Hyunjin laughs, “I learned you weren’t really emo, just emo adjacent.”

“Oh really?” Jisung asks, eyebrow raised. “Please explain what emo adjacent is.”

“I think to real emos you’d be called a poser,” Hyunjin goads.

Jisung reaches over the table to steal his drink, “Probably. But only because I spend so much time with a prep like you.”

They quickly finish the food, rolling to the trash to throw it all away. Jisung turns to get back to the table, but another group of people are settling around it and he doesn’t know how to force them away.

“I hate it when people do that,” Hyunjin mutters, “I’m gonna go say something.”

Jisung grabs his arm. “Let’s just go play games or something.”

Thankfully Hyunjin lets himself be pulled into the arcade portion of the building without any altercations. Jisung makes sure to distract him with enough games that he doesn’t even think about the stupid table.

At the claw machine, Hyunjin spends nearly ten dollars trying to get a unicorn plushie until Jisung pushes him away from it.

“The thing is only worth like two bucks,” Jisung tells him, “you’re just wasting money at this point.”

Hyunjin shoves against him to try to get back to the machine, “The memories of us here are priceless though, so let me try again.”

Jisung moves to the side so Hyunjin can work on his little game, and Hyunjin blows fifteen more dollars before he finally gets the stupid toy.

“Here ya go,” Hyunjin grins as he holds the unicorn out to Jisung. “For you.”

“You’re giving it to me after you spent all that time and money?”

Hyunjin shrugs, “Yeah.”

Jisung takes the plushie and squeezes it, hiding his red cheeks in the rainbow mane.

---

Jisung wakes up at nearly three in the morning, panting and lurching up and turning to where Hyunjin is sleeping peacefully in his own bed.

“That asshole totally said we should date,” he whispers, “oh my god.”

Hyunjin turns over and Jisung glares until he settles back down. “Asshole.”

Jisung pointedly turns to face the other wall and decidedly does not think about it as he falls back asleep.

---

Jisung’s so good at not thinking about it that he says nothing the next morning. He acts as normal as possible, but gives no indication that he’s had any sort of revelation the night before.

On Sunday he sneaks off to go study in Changbin and Jeongin’s room while Hyunjin goes to get coffee with Seungmin and Felix, and hides there until it’s late enough that Hyunjin will be asleep. He’s not avoiding Hyunjin (even though Changbin insists he is), he’s simply taking some time to understand what he’s feeling and thinking.

There are two different objectives he hopes to accomplish. First, understand what Hyunjin’s intentions were/are and how they affect him. Two, figure out what the hell he wants to do about it. The first one is pretty easy to accomplish with Changbin and Jeongin in his ear the whole day.

“Do you think it’s just a coincidence that all of your mutual friends automatically accepted that you and Hyunjin were suddenly dating? Do you think we all just coordinated in order to confuse you?” Jeongin asks after Jisung refuses to admit he and Hyunjin have ever acted as more than friends.

Changbin snorts, “He’s right. You guys have been at least half dating for the past year. Like two thirds dating for the past couple of weeks.”

“Me too?”

“Yes,” Jeongin groans, “you too.”

Jisung waits until he’s home to divulge his second objective by writing furiously in his history notebook from the year before. On one hand, he and Hyunjin have been three steps away from something more than friends for a while, he can admit that now. On the other, pushing that into an actual dating phase threatens the foundation of their friendship. Jisung’s old enough to be confident that he could stay Hyunjin’s friend even if they’re not great at dating each other, but there’s still a threat that either one of them could mess up enough to ruin that. Further, there’s no evidence to prove that they’d be able to successfully make it to boyfriends, even if they both really do like each other.

More than anything, Jisung’s worried he will be the one to ruin things between them. Dealing with the guilt of hurting someone that means so much to him would be worse than never doing anything at all. But will successfully dating someone that means so much to him, and knows so much about him, be worth more than any negative that could maybe possibly happen?

Jisung goes to bed still unsure.

---

Blessedly, Jaehyuck is back at his mom's place by Monday and seems happier than ever. While Jisung feels a bit sad to see him pull away to go back with his friends, Jaehyuck still breaks away to sit at the desk and go through Jisung and Hyunjin’s date selfies, so things haven’t changed too much.

Jisung’s head is still a mash of unanswered questions and a refusal to dive into any one particular issue. He distracts himself with the mindless gossip the kids always fill his time with, and the not so mindless gossip they push on him with no warning.

“My mom said my aunt probably had crabs, but I don’t understand why that would be a bad thing,” Youngsoo tells the group, “mom loves doing seafood boils.”

Jisung’s brain fills with dread. “Change the topic,” he demands, “no family stuff.”

Youngsoo glares, “Are you serious? You get to talk about your dates but we can’t talk about our families?”

Jisung gapes, “I get to talk about my dates? You guys harass me until I give you the information you want.”

“You love us, Mr. Jisung,” Jiwoo rolls her eyes, “We keep this place interesting.”

They do, but Jisung refutes the fact vehemently.

Hyunjin stops by a few times throughout the day to check on everybody. There’s no reason for him to, but he does anyways, touching Jisung’s shoulder each time he leans down to talk to the kids. Jiwoo looks like she’s going to pop a vein from trying not to say anything, but every time she looks like she’s about to say anything, a look from Jisung is enough to reign her in.

Truthfully, Jisung feels the same need to burst energy as her, but holds it back a bit better to keep his image in front of his disciples. The feeling still runs through him like a current every time he sees Hyunjin make his way over, but he’s not thirteen anymore and is mostly able to ignore it.

By the time all the children have left, Jisung is so keyed up he can barely focus on his clean up tasks. He nearly locks himself out of the building when he takes the trash out, without the keys to the building or his phone, and he decides there and then that this has to stop.

Jisung’s an adult kind of, and he’s more than capable of having an adult conversation with his best friend/roommate/coworker/fake-boyfriend-he-wants-as-a-real-boyfriend. With the trash gone, he has nothing stopping him from storming back to the classroom, ready to get his life together.

But when he gets back to the classroom Hyunjin looks up from where he’s sweeping and smiles the prettiest smile Jisung will probably ever see. The light makes Hyunjin’s hair glow like a halo, and Jisung is so done. He storms over to Hyunjin and glares up at him, refusing to be entranced by the sparkling of his eyes.

“Can I kiss you?” Jisung asks, fed up, and Hyunjin barely nods before Jisung pulls his mouth down to meet his own.

They stand in the middle of the room that takes up all of their time, that surrounds their lives, that led to them pushing their relationship in the first place, and Jisung stops fighting. It’s then, with Hyunjin fully wrapped around him, pushing closer to get more, more, more, that Jisung realizes the risk is worth it. It’s barely been a full day since he first asked himself that question, but it’s become so abundantly obvious that Jisung can’t hold it in anymore.

Hyunjin pulls away first and Jisung wants to shout it from the rooftops. That he’s learned his lesson. That he’s willing to try. That he learned about fumbling childish puppy love from a bunch of teenagers, and was pushed to follow through with it by the overwhelming care that he’d ignored for so long.

But they’re still in the center, and Jisung thinks he can mold his affection into Hyunjin’s skin in private.

“I might mess this up,” he whispers, “but I’m sorry for brushing you off for so long.”

Hyunjin laughs softly, “I’ve always known you were a little slow on the uptake. I was always willing to wait.”

They leave the rest of the cleaning up for the next day, rushing to get out of the building. Jisung barely has half the mind to stop by the five to seven year old room to let Minho and Hana know to lock up. Hana tries to ask if he’s okay since he’s so obviously frantic and disheveled, but Minho quickly stops her when he sees Hyunjin standing behind Jisung, tapping his foot impatiently.

Humiliating as it is, Jisung has no time to dwell on it. Hyunjin pushes him towards the door, and they both giggle giddily as they finally make it outside. The sun is starting to set, and they’re both covered in layers of pink and gold as the last rays of sunshine fight to stay visible just a little bit longer. Hyunjin grabs Jisung’s hand, and when Jisung turns to him, his smile battles the sunset for the most captivating image of the night. Unable to hold it in any longer, Jisung grabs Hyunjin’s face and kisses him again, shoving his body as close to Hyunjin’s as possible. Hyunjin grabs Jisung’s hands gripping his cheeks and holds on tightly, like he’s afraid if he lets go Jisung will slip through his fingers.

It’s perfect. Perfect enough Jisung feels like he’s in a movie until there’s the click of a camera and a mother hissing at her child.

“Delete it immediately,” Jisung hears before jumping away from Hyunjin like he’s been burned. Standing to the side of them is Jiwoo and her mother, Jiwoo’s phone being held in a way that makes it obvious she was the one taking the picture.

“Mrs. Kim,” Jisung gasps, “I’m so sorry. We um, we thought everyone was gone.”

She waves him off, “I’m sorry for coming back after you’ve all closed. We made it all the way home before Jiwoo realized she’d forgotten her school blazer in the classroom, and we tried to make it before everyone was gone for the day. Is there any way you boys could let us in to collect it?”

“Minho and Hana are in the first room on the right,” Hyunjin tells her quietly, “They’ll be able to let you in the room.”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Kim smiles before turning to her daughter. “Say you’re sorry for interrupting their time after hours.” She says sternly.

“Sorry,” Jiwoo says offhandedly.

Mrs. Kim glares, “And apologize by invading their privacy in a private moment.”

“I’m sorry,” Jiwoo groans, “but Youngsoo didn’t believe that you guys were dating so I needed proof! It’s not like either of you post about each other online! It’s been hell trying to convince her.”

Jisung shakes his head, “Of course you’ve all stalked us online.”

“I already deleted the picture, Mr. Jisung,” Jiwoo admonishes, “there’s no reason to try and make me feel guilty now.”

With another apology, Mrs. Kim pulls her away, muttering to her daughter about respecting her elders and following boundaries. Jisung waits until they’re inside to collapse to the ground.

“Come on,” Hyunjin says softly, nudging Jisung with the tip of his shoe, “at least Mrs. Kim was cool about it.”

“The kids are going to hold this over my head for the rest of my life,” Jisung whimpers, “I’ll never know peace again.”

Hyunjin nudges him a little harsher, “Jisung. Do you want to lay on the dirty concrete and mope or do you want to go home and make out?”

Jisung’s never moved so quickly in his life.