Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There’s a blinding flash of light and then an extreme close-up of an eye and the bridge of a nose. A small yelp and then the view zooms out to show a full face with curved eyebrows, large eyes with a few streaks of black hair falling in them, a scrunched nose and full lips open in a confused motion.

The lips split apart into a wide grin that pushes up high cheekbones as the boy laughs. The view zooms out again to show the rest of his torso clad in a school uniform with a deep blue tie and jacket with a white undershirt.

“Hi!” His voice comes off as an excitable whisper. “If you don’t know me, my name is Lee Minhyung, but everyone calls me Mark. I’m the student council president of Neo Dream High. The position used to belong to my older brother, Taeyong, but he graduated two years ago so everyone said I should take his position.”

The view switches and shows what’s in front of Mark. It shows the council room in a calm state. The desks and chairs are upright and there are a handful of people inside, either talking to each other or on their phones. Mark’s voice comes again, louder this time, “This is the rest of the council. Well, the major members of the council at least. And this is our room.”

At his voice, the three talking to each other look up and wave at Mark before one with sandy brown hair and a lack of a tie raises his eyebrows at the sight of the camera. “What are you doing, Mark-hyung?”

“Oh uh,” the focus shifts to the ground, shaky as the camera is passed between Mark’s hands, “the principal told me to start a video series for us. Said it’d boost team morale or something like that. I just went along with it since it seemed like a fun idea.”

There was another voice, softer and higher than the two boys who had spoken already, who chimed in, “Is anyone gonna see the videos?”

“I don’t think so.” The camera was lifted again and showed a yellow-haired boy looking up at Mark with an eyebrow raised incredulously, “They’re just for us. I just want to make it seem cool. Like we’re famous celebrities or something who have fans that watch our videos.”

The sandy-haired boy snorted, “Except we’re not famous at all and no one is ever gonna watch these because the rest of the students don’t like us.”

The focus went back to Mark who had a furrow in his eyebrows as he glared at the first boy, “Jeno, bro, don’t kill my vibe.”

The pink-haired boy hit Jeno on the shoulder and he turned to him and slapped him back, causing the two to frown at each other. A few seconds passed before they laughed and the yellow-haired boy rolled his eyes at them, “No, the other students don’t like you two. They like me and Jaemin. But especially Jaemin.”

“Is this about the uniform thing?” Mark’s voice asked again, confused, “Because I gave a valid reason for that. I can’t change them. That’s the school’s job and the uniform rules are set in stone. Hyung had to turn down one of those two. But they didn’t dislike him for that.”

“Because no one can hate hyung. It’s, like, physically impossible.”

Mark couldn’t argue with that but still said, “Why couldn’t we have gotten that gene?”

Jeno just shrugged and turned back to his conversation with the yellow and pink haired boys next to him.

Mark frowned and addressed the camera, “Anyway, that vibe killer was Lee Jeno. He’s my younger brother and vice-president. Though, he prefers co-president. He basically helps me run this place and we work on everything together in the office.”

The camera then turned to the yellow-haired boy and continued, “This is Huang Renjun. He’s our treasurer because he’s the only person in this room I’d trust with money.” That got him a few looks from the two sitting around Renjun and he barked out a short laugh, “He’s the head of the Art Club and from China but sometimes, he’s more Korean than our Korean members.”

The two just shrugged, knowing that Mark’s sentence wasn’t really wrong. The camera then shifted to the pink-haired boy, “This is Na Jaemin. He’s the secretary of the student council and represents Class 4-B. Don’t let the cotton candy hair fool you. He’s not really that sweet.”

Jaemin interjected with disdain, “I’m the nicest person in this entire room.”

Renjun scoffed, “Maybe if you were the only person in this room.”

Jaemin turned to him and gave him a smile so sweet, it was laced with poison. “Are you one to talk, Mr. I-almost-killed-my-best-friend-on-multiple-occasions?”

Renjun gave him back a matching smile and Jeno just turned to the camera, talking to Mark behind it, “I think you should turn away before they start fighting.”

Mark let out a breathy “Okay” before he turned away, stopping the camera on another brown-haired boy who was on his phone. He let out a small sigh, almost undetectable and introduced him, “This is Donghyuck. He just showed up here one day in first year, tagging along with Renjun, who was the representative for 1-A at the time, and then we could never get rid of him. He’s our historian but he prefers the term ‘creative director’.”

“Because historian makes it sound like I’m some old guy in a dingy jacket who studies the lives of people from the 1700s who never got married and lived with their same-sex ‘best friends’”, Donghyuck immediately retorted, eyes not leaving his phone screen. “Besides, I already told you to call me Haechan.”

“And I already told you to call me hyung,” Donghyuck looked up then with a sneer on his face and lifted his hand, Mark turning away the camera in time to not see the gesture he made, “Hey, this is a family-friendly channel! No birds.”

Donghyuck just shrugged when the camera landed on him again, “You do know you can’t get rid of me, right?”

“Unfortunately so. You may be annoying but you’re good at what you do. Even if you don’t want to accept your actual title.”

Donghyuck shifted his sitting position and crossed his ankles, leaning his left shoulder on the back of the folding chair he was in, slouching as he continued reading whatever he was on and ignored Mark.

Mark turned the camera back to himself to show him rolling his eyes and he walked away from Donghyuck, over to where his own desk was, where the video had first started. Doing a weird motion with his hands, he paused for a moment and seemed to internally cringe, “That’s all for today? Since there wasn’t really a plan? Maybe next time, I’ll actually have something to video.”

He shrugged and put his hand over the lens, resolving the world to black as the video finally came to an end.

Chapter Text

The camera re-opens to a blurry floor that doesn’t resemble the student council room floor and background talking. It lifts to show a few menus next to each other, dangling from the ceiling. Then to a display case showing a few slices of cake and cake pops.

It’s a Starbucks. The camera then switches to show a mask and glasses, the eyes behind them shifting into crescent moons as soon as the boy sees himself. His curly-at-the-ends shaggy, sandy brown hair reveals the boy to be a masked Jeno.

“Mark-hyung doesn’t even know how to switch the lens around, he acts like he’s so much older than he actually is,” he crosses his eyes as he whispers to the camera, then chuckles to himself.

“Are you ready to order, sir?” A new voice joins, most likely the cashier, and Jeno moves the camera to sit down on the counter so only the edge of his face, his torso and his left hand show as he orders six cups of coffee.

He digs into his pocket and pulls out his phone, reading from it, “Three Americanos, two with four shots of espresso, the other with two. All of them grandes. A cappuccino. Whole milk, regular foam, tall. Cinnamon dolce latte, four pumps di cinnamon dolce syrup, venti. And a caramel frappuccino with two affogato-style shots and three pumps of caramel syrup, venti.”

There was silence between the two as the cashier typed in what he ordered, told him the price, accepted the money Jeno produced and asked him, “Name for the order?”

“Jeno.” The cashier hummed and dismissed him. Jeno picked back up the camera and wandered over to a chair, putting the camera down on the table to face him.

He did a few hand signs at first before he started talking, “So, you may be wondering how I got here.” Then he paused and muttered, “I become more like Mark-hyung everyday. It’s disgusting.”

Then he continued his first thought anyway, intertwining and untwining his fingers together as he spoke, “Today, the student council is preparing for the Spring Festival, which is the most important of the four season festivals for the year. So, everything is a mess, pretty much. When I was still in the room, Jaemin had already drunk three coffees, Mark-hyung was yelling at Haechan for being on his phone instead of helping and Renjun was sitting in a corner, hugging a Moomin plushie. Rather than deal with that mess, I offered to go get coffee for everyone.”

He took off his glasses and brushed his hair out of his eyes, before putting them back on, “So, the Spring Festival is the first festival for the year. It marks, well, the beginning of spring,” he then took off his mask fully and placed it on the table beside his elbows, “This is Mark-hyung’s first time being the spearhead behind it so he’s really stressed.”

“Although, of course, he would never admit that. But I did see him with Taeyong-hyung one time and I couldn’t hear what they were talking about but Mark was crying into his arms so he may have just been taken over by too much stress.” Then he stopped and fiddled with his fingers, speaking more quietly than before, “Sometimes I wish hyung would realize that he can tell me things since I’m supposed to be his co-president-”

He was interrupted by the cashier’s voice calling out his name and he mumbled what was most likely a curse under his breath before he got up, shoving his mask into his pocket and picking up the camera, walking with it over to the counter.

He put it down and the lens shook before he took up the two coffee carriers then stared down at the video camera, wondering where to hold it. The worker must have noticed either his distress or the camera he was lugging around as he asked, “Are you a YouTuber or something?”

Jeno shook his head so harshly, hair fell back into his eyes, “Oh no, this is just a project for my Sociology class.”

There was no response and Jeno looked away from the counter, “Thank you.”

This time, there was a “You’re welcome” in response. Jeno looked between the camera and the drink carriers, then he held the two drink carriers in his right hand and the camera in his left. This tilted the view a bit to the right as he was fumbling with the things in his hands but he managed to exit the store unharmed.

He started speaking again, “This Starbucks is only like a five-minute walk from school and since it’s getting late, it was the best one to go to. The council room, like I said, is pretty much a huge mess. Festival planning is apparently a lot harder to do than it seems. Especially when you’re actively planning it and not just spinning around in an office chair behind your older brothers.”

The facial expression he pulled made it seem as if the very thought was foreign to him, “The school normally closes at 6 but it tends to bend the curfew sometimes. Like, during the season, swimming ends at 5:30 so the swimmers are allowed to stay until 6:30, that’s also the same time the library closes. But for student council, whenever we have festival planning or something else as important, we’re allowed to stay until 7 before they kick us out and we eventually have to work at some park or our house to finish up.”

The five minutes of walking pass quicker than expected and when Jeno stands outside what he reveals to be the door to the council room, at least based on the sign on the back of the door, he adds, “What you’re about to see right now is the complete opposite of what you saw the last time you were here- I’m literally talking to no one. Whatever.”

His hand stuck into frame and pushed the door open, revealing the chaos that was the council room. Jaemin was furiously typing away behind his laptop with one hand, phone held up to his ear as he argued with whoever was on the other end of the line, eyebrows furrowed.

Renjun seemed to have gotten off the floor and was now arguing with Donghyuck over colors, based on the different color cards the two were holding, voices steadily getting louder as it went on. To the point where it almost looked as if the two would start physically assaulting each other.

And Mark was. . . nowhere to be found. Jeno’s voice rang out in the room and seemingly made everyone freeze, “Coffee’s here.”

At the word coffee, the three males stopped and seemed to re-wire, Jaemin being the first one to come over, “Finally, I was going crazy.”

He took out two of the grande cups and leaned in behind the camera, “Thanks, Jen. You’re a doll.”

Then it was Renjun right after, taking out one of the venti drinks, copying Jaemin’s previous action of leaning in behind the camera, taking a sip as soon as he leaned back, “If you had taken literally a minute later, I would’ve killed Haechan.”

Donghyuck came up next, taking the last grande, “I’m not gonna kiss you but bless you for this.”

When the three had gotten their coffee, they were now more peaceful. Renjun and Donghyuck had gone to different sides of the room, the former on his laptop typing away while the latter had finally chosen a color, a nice shade of pink that he picked up more samples of.

“Where is he?” Jaemin looked up at Jeno’s question and pointed vaguely in the direction of Mark’s office.

Jeno traipsed over, only having two cups left so he threw away one of the drink carriers while walking. He knocked on the closed door and with no response, pushed it open anyway. There sat Mark, eyes closed and arms folded as he slept away behind his desk.

Jeno turned the camera back on himself and put his fingers on his lips, quietly putting the coffee down on Mark’s desk without waking him. Then, moving quickly, he kissed his older brother on his forehead and whispered something to him.

Finally, Jeno put his hand over the camera and turned off the video.

Chapter Text

This time, when the camera opens, it's Renjun with a very bright, pink background, something in his other hand only slightly visible from the way he holds the camera. He smiles immediately but the smile quickly flips into a frown as he yells off-screen, “To the right!”

Then he smiled again, it seems his command was adhered to. He finally addressed the camera in his hands, “Today’s the day before the Spring Festival. It’s currently 3pm, I should be in Art but I got a special pardon. After all the chaos that was planning this thing, it’s surprisingly easy to set it all up.”

He switched the view and showed off all the lanterns before he continued speaking, “The theme for this year was created by Mark. He said it was called ‘Cherry Bomb’ so we’re focusing mainly on reds, pinks and purples.”

He zoomed out a bit more and showed some trees with streamers hanging off them, “We are not professionals. This was not done by professionals. We are simply stressed teenagers that stressed ourselves out further by planning this.” Then after a short pause, he added, “I’m running on seven combined hours of sleep for this entire week, it is Thursday. I am tempted to just not show up tomorrow.”

“If you don’t show up tomorrow, I’ll stay outside your back door and cry so loudly, your neighbors will think you’re a murderer,” the camera (and Renjun) turned to see Jaemin standing next to him, face very serious as if he didn’t just say what he did.

“Do you even know where I live?”

“I can find it.” The camera, still pointed at Jaemin, zoomed in on his face for dramatic effect before Renjun turned it back to the trees.

“You’re so creepy.” The camera jolted all of the sudden and Renjun let out a yelp.

The camera was removed from his hand by Jeno, who smiled at the two, before showing what was happening. Jaemin had thrown himself onto Renjun dramatically and was now wailing in mostly incomprehensible gibberish.

“Can you two stop for just five minutes? We’re almost finished. You can be in love afterwards.” Mark’s voice came from somewhere off-camera and Jeno turned to him, revealing the president’s hands busy with holding balloons on strings.

“Hyung, you look dumb.” Jeno’s sentence caused Mark to furrow his eyebrows at him.

Mark raised an eyebrow at his younger brother, “Would you like to hold them then?”

“On second thought, you’re doing great with those balloons, love that for you,” Mark rolled his eyes and walked away.

“There isn’t really that much to show. Like, it’s all still being finalised right now but by tomorrow, it should all be done.” Renjun spoke up from where he was being smothered inside Jaemin’s arms, resigning himself to his (un)fortunate fate. “May as well stop the video until tomorrow.”

Jeno turned the camera back to himself and shrugged before covering it, then turning it off. It reopened to Renjun's face again with an actual smile on, yellowish hair being tossed and whipped from side to side presumably with the wind.

"Today's festival day. Mark-hyung and Nono have been here since the crack of dawn, Haechan is nowhere to be found and Nana is sleeping in a third year class somewhere."

His voice came out crackly as the sound of wind almost overpowered him. He flipped the view and showed a stage decorated with large papier-mache flowers and a grand podium in the middle with a flower trail along it.

Even the trees had a similar flower trail design along all of them, the entire courtyard a beautiful blur of pinks, reds and purples. Renjun showed a satisfied smile on his face.

"We really have to thank the Art Club. They did amazing with all the paper flowers." Mark's voice came from beside the camera, impressed.

"Well of course," Renjun was smug, "Someone has to make this school look pretty."

"Injunnie, just you being here makes this school pretty."

"Jaemin, you really just woke up and chose to flirt?" Mark's voice was incredulous and Renjun turned the camera to Mark raising an eyebrow at the grinning pink-haired boy.

"Can we please focus on the ta-"

"Good morning beautiful people!" The loud, enthusiastic voice came from Donghyuck, who was now sporting a head of tousled purple hair instead of his usual brown, Mark near to him looked like he was seething, either from being interrupted or from the fact that Donghyuck had dyed his hair such an atrocious colour.

Renjun must have seen the pure fury in Mark's eyes through the lens as he covered it not even a second later, turning it off. When it reopened once more, it was Jeno with his hair in his eyes and confetti in his hair, eyes crinkled into a smile.

"The day's in full swing already, Haechan proposed a karaoke competition so now he, Renjunnie and one of the first year reps are up there since everyone else dropped out."

He said something more but it was completely covered by a powerful, loud high note by who was revealed to be the first year when the camera turned. Everyone around looked at him in awe before they started clapping. “Guess the first year won. Now we’re legally required to have him get inducted into the school council.” Mark muttered, with a smile evident in his voice.

Donghyuck looked over to the camera in shocked amusement before looking across Renjun to see the guy in question, he seemed to notice them as well, because he immediately started walking towards them, giving Donghyuck a small, but tight hug, which made the older giggle.

Once he let go, he sprinted over to where Mark was holding the camera and did the same to him, causing the two to laugh. “Hi, I’m Chenle! I’m the class representative for 1B. I’m so excited to be a part of the student council. Please take care of me!”

He said the last part while holding Mark’s hand and bowing as deep as he could go, causing Mark to panic-freeze before just patting his hair.

The camera became shaky for a moment as Jeno’s voice came again, “Ladies and laddies, the start of a new era.”