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Lee Sunjae is going to kill Seo Geonhu.
Or do something equally drastic, if not quite as criminal. Although if Geonhu doesn’t stop staring and smirking at him soon, Sunjae knows he will be ready to consider the criminal path.
Never has a lunch hour dragged out so long. As usual, the school cafeteria is busy and noisy, crammed full of students arguing about a thousand different things at once. Sunjae is sitting with his two best friends, and the one remaining chair at their table has been appropriated by Seo Geonhu, as he has been wont to do for the past few weeks. Unlike the past few weeks, however, he has spent the entire duration of the meal staring and smirking at Sunjae. Which is not only annoying and conspicuous, but also suspicious. Haeyi and Danji, both bright girls with no little power of observation, noticed about one minute in, and have since joined in to make Sunjae’s life as miserable as possible with their wiggling eyebrows and knowing giggles.
In short, Lee Sunjae is going to kill Seo Geonhu.
The root of his current predicament is this. Last week, on a hot Friday afternoon, Seo Geonhu cornered him on his way back to class from the teacher’s longue and proceeded to tell him the following words:
“So this is probably stupid, but I’ve decided to tell you that I like you and I want you to go out with me.” A pause. “There, I’ve said it. Do you have an answer now or do you need more time?”
Sunjae remembers gaping and staring at this sudden, absurd turn his life had taken. He doesn’t really remember what he said in return (if he had said anything) or what happened afterwards. Possibly he fainted—not very likely, but it would explain a lot.
It doesn’t, however, explain the harassment that Seo Geonhu now keeps subjecting him to. Or maybe it does. Whichever it is, Lee Sunjae decides that the time has come for him to toss forbearance out of the proverbial window and do something about The Situation.
He abruptly stands, his none-too-gentle action rocking the table between them. The other three react with varying degrees of complaints, Danji’s being the loudest and longest, but Sunjae keeps his eyes on Geonhu, keeps his expression stern, and then nods his head sharply toward the exit.
Seo Geonhu, the jerk, raises an eyebrow, and smiles.
Sunjae is going to kill him.
He dumps his lunch tray and stalks out of the cafeteria, heading for a secluded part of the school. It may seem suspect—and he can already hear Haeyi snickering—but the conversation he has in mind demands for absolute privacy. Or at least as much privacy as someone with nosy friends can have in a school full of nosy students.
Once they’ve got to that place of relative safety, Sunjae immediately swings around and demands: “Will you stop?”
Geonhu’s expression turns from expectant to confused. “You’re the one who told me to follow you.”
“I mean with the staring!” Sunjae hisses, all too aware that his voice is climbing both in volume and pitch. What is it about Seo Geonhu that has absolutely driven him up the wall since day one? “Quit with the staring and smirking and... everything else, for fuck’s sake, what if someone notices?”
“Nam Haeyi already does. And so does your other friend.”
“Her name is Jang Danji,” he says coldly.
“That’s the one,” Geonhu nods, as if it should have been obvious and Sunjae is the one making a mountain out of a mole hill.
Sunjae resists an urge to introduce his head to a nearby pillar. “Look, will you please just stop?”
“I’ll be happy to,” Geonhu tells him, sounding perfectly calm and reasonable. “As soon as you give me your answer.”
“My answer is obvious,” Sunjae says darkly. He may not remember much, but there is absolutely no way that he would accept Geonhu’s overtures, not as long as he’s still in possession of his brain (an increasingly debatable point, to be honest).
“No, it isn’t. Wasn’t. You said—and I quote—‘You’re crazy’. That’s not an answer. An answer would be something like ‘yes, dear Geonhu, I’d love to date you’, or ‘no, you piece of garbage, I’d rather die than date you at all.’”
Sunjae blinks. “That… sounds a bit harsh.”
Geonhu’s face brightens. “You really think so? That means you’re leaning toward the first, right?”
“No! I was just saying! There’s no need to be an asshole even if you’re rejecting someone!”
“I disagree.”
Sunjae blinks again, this time in disbelief. “...what.”
“If you’re going to reject someone, you’ll have to make sure to do it in such a way that leaves no room for misinterpretation,” Geonhu tells him sagely.
“What.”
“Unless you want to raise my hopes.”
“Why don’t you shut up,” Sunjae says through gritted teeth.
Geonhu sighs—and then of course he proceeds to ignore Sunjae’s request, the asshole. “I’m not saying you have to say yes. Although I’ll be very happy if you say yes. Are you saying yes?”
Sunjae glares at the pillar in front of him. “No.”
“It’s just that I don’t like waiting very much,” Geonhu continues in a long-suffering tone. “Besides, I thought you’d want to get it over with quickly so you could focus on the next mock exam.”
“Yes, I do want that,” Sunjae hears himself say loudly.
“Okay, so? Yes or no?”
Sunjae takes a deep breath. This should have been extremely simple, and yet, for reasons unknown, it’s only with extreme difficulty that he finally manages to force himself to say, “No.”
Geonhu’s shoulders sag. He looks… not disappointed, exactly; just infinitely sad, as if he has lost something precious.
Sunjae begins to hate himself a little.
“Okay, fair enough.” Geonhu sighs. Nods. Straightens his back a little. Looks at Sunjae in the eye. “So you won’t mind if I start flirting with someone else, will you?”
“Ye– no– what…?”
There is a moment of silence as they regard each other, Sunjae in dawning horror and Geonhu in pensive wonder. Gradually, something much more diabolical than a smile begins to spread across Geonhu’s face.
“So, is it yes, or no?” he asks, slowly advancing toward Sunjae. Who is forced to retreat one, two steps, only to find himself backed against a pillar a moment later, curse his lack of geographical planning. “Can I flirt with someone else?”
“That’s entirely your business,” Sunjae blurts out, hating the way he sounds. Hating the way he can feel Geonhu pressed close to him. Hating how he knows he should be pushing him away because someone might turn around the corner any moment now and see them like this and Sunjae would have to live the rest of his life in seclusion should that happen—and yet, for reasons maybe not so unknown after all but definitely and categorically denied, he hasn’t tried to push him away.
Geonhu says nothing for the longest time. He only looks at Sunjae, whose face is getting redder and redder by the second, and if Sunjae feels a little like being devoured, what’s with the close proximity and the unrelenting gaze, then… his only choice is to bear it. Mostly because he cannot trust himself at the moment. Chances are if he tries to so much as move, let alone escape, he’ll end up doing something else entirely instead, and that just… will not do.
After what feels like several lifetimes, Geonhu finally concludes his scrutiny and nods to himself. “Alright, then.”
“…alright?” Sunjae repeats dumbly, staring at the tiny mole on the curve of Geonhu’s neck, peeking from under his collar. There’s no way that he can look at him in the eye right now.
“I’m not going to flirt with anyone else until we’re done with the mock exam,” Geonhu declares.
Sunjae’s heart flutters—a thoroughly unpleasant experience, he stubbornly tells himself. “You’re… not?”
“But let me just tell you that once it’s over, I’m going to ask you out again.”
“You’re crazy,” Sunjae says faintly, somewhere between lightheaded and terrified.
Geonhu makes a small amused sound, but then he angles his head, drawing Sunjae’s eyes to meet his gaze. Sunjae’s heart makes a terrific leap. He can’t help it. Geonhu has no right looking at him like that, with such a warm, open smile.
“You can say no again,” Geonhu tells him. “Though I’ll be much happier if you say yes.”
You’re crazy, Sunjae could have said again, but it would be redundant since they’ve established that point. And he isn’t at all sure that his voice would be steady enough to carry the words, what’s with the way his heart is trying to beat itself out of his chest.
“Alright, that’s that.” Geonhu suddenly withdraws, straightening up. “Now I’m going to ask Nam Haeyi to teach me Math for tomorrow’s test.”
As soon as the much safer topic is introduced, Sunjae seizes it at once. “Are you still pestering Haeyi to teach you?” he demands, trying to sound as indignant as usual.
“Jealous?”
Sunjae scowls. “Absolutely not. I was just–”
The rest of his words die a premature death because Geonhu is suddenly too close—and Geonhu has been killing everything, from Sunjae’s eloquence to Sunjae’s brain cells with the kind of rapidity that will probably leave Sunjae on the doorstep of senility at the ripe age of eighteen. His lips, dry and chapped, presses briefly on the corner of Sunjae’s lips.
Sunjae’s entire mind goes blank.
“Because you’re too distracting, Lee Sunjae,” Geonhu mutters, the words stirring what little air left between their lips. This close, the brown of his eyes is dark and mesmerising and Sunjae finds himself drowning. “I’m not going to learn anything if you’re the one teaching me.”
Sunjae stares, frozen, mouth open slightly. Geonhu, he only notices a few seconds later, is staring at his lips.
Sunjae quickly raises his hand to cover his mouth before he can do something he will enormously regret.
Geonhu smirks, taking a step back. “Like I said, very distracting.”
End