Work Text:
“And he scores!” Chenle yells as the ball goes through the hoop. His hands stay up in the air as a smirk draws itself on his face. “I’m pretty good at this,” he tilts his head as he talks to himself.
The basketball bounces off the ground as Chenle walks forward to get it, holding it in his hands. He goes in the middle of the court before he starts dribbling the ball. He does it slowly but then decides to dribble while passing the ball through his legs.
He laughs, “Ah, if only Jisungie was here.” He shakes his head as he proceeds to doing simple basketball drills.
The court is quiet today. It’s one of those rare occasions where Jisung doesn’t accept Chenle’s invitation to, what he says, watch a basketball master practice. Chenle knows for sure that if his best friend was watching him, he’d be hearing many gasps and cheers from the younger — Jisung was always impressed by his skills, despite the simple tricks Chenle would be doing.
It seemed like Jisung was fascinated watching Chenle play. He didn’t seem to mind sitting on the set of chairs in front of the wall even if that was all he did. Jisung knew his cheers were motivating, knew Chenle liked hearing compliments, especially from him.
But Chenle guesses, he wouldn’t have that much to do if he wasn’t watching him anyways. I mean, Jisung’s only got one friend. And that friend is him.
Chenle and Jisung have been friends for many years. And through those years, they’ve seen each other’s differences.
Chenle is popular, you could say. He knows everyone in the school and everyone knows him. He gets several secret confessions every February fourteenth and he wastes no time to chuck them all in the trash — except for the chocolates and candies. He’s a loud and straightforward boy, not afraid to speak his mind, and he easily socializes. He was the one who approached Jisung in first grade and he was annoying enough to persuade Jisung to be his friend.
But even with all the hellos and goodbyes he tells his classmates, even with the guys who invite him to eat with them with lunch, he’s only got one true best friend. His best friend forever after, Jisung.
Jisung is shy. Shyness is about 80% of him. He awkwardly smiles at classmates who ask him for favors, shaking his head instead of saying any words. Socializing isn’t his thing. Chenle does the talking for him. Jisung’s in his own little bubble, secluded from the rest of the world. Others may think he’s a loner, but it isn’t really lonely when there’s a boy next to him who keeps on talking about Stephan Curry. Chenle managed to be within Jisung’s little bubble by annoying his way into it. Jisung swears he will never meet anyone who laughs as loud as Chenle does, who teases him as much as he does too.
Chenle wonders if Jisung not being here, cheering for him, is the reason his head seems to wander off and think too much. He sighs, before taking the basketball into his arm and sitting down, resting the ball beside him. He wipes off the sweat on his forehead and twists open a bottle of water.
Taking his phone, he decides to peep into what Jisung’s doing. That’s when he sees the message, when his eyes widen and his mouth is left open. Jaw dropped.
Jisung: i’ve been talking to this girl
Chenle can’t help but to practically scream, “What?” Jisung spends one day without him and suddenly he’s socializing? Talking to a girl at that?
He has to blink. He does a double take, reading the message again, checking the contact name to make sure he isn’t seeing things.
With a confused face, he turns to calling Jisung instead of sending a message back.
It takes only one ring before the call is answered.
“My good friend of many years,” Chenle stands up, hand in a fist and placed on his waist. “Who can barely hold a conversation, is talking to a girl?”
He hears the way Jisung’s breath hitches. “Chenle—”
“Who is it?” Chenle chooses to tease him instead, trying to hide the feelings that are so weirdly bubbling in his chest. “Do I know her?” he chuckles as he walks in a circle.
“Rina.” Jisung says in a sigh.
Chenle stops his feet from moving, scouring his memories trying to remember someone named Rina. Then it clicks. “Rina?” he playfully scoffs, “Didn’t she like, like me?” He laughs, wondering if she approached Jisung after her failed confession.
“Yeah, the one who read you that poem.” There’s steady beats on Jisung’s line, and Chenle wonders if he’s lying on his bed and his heart is beating out of his chest. “She approached me two days ago.”
“‘Course she did,” Chenle comments in a chuckle. “I don’t think you have the guts to talk to someone new. But,” he picks up the basketball again, “how’d you two… talk?”
“She—” Chenle hears the way Jisung licks his lips and sucks in a breath. “She told me she liked me and wanted to get to know me more. And, I couldn’t exactly just shake my head— I was confused.”
In all the years of being Jisung’s friend, Chenle has only grown more aware of the younger boy’s attractiveness. He can’t lie and say he doesn’t think Jisung has looks. He’d be blind if he did. And in all those years, he has always wondered why no one seemed to look at him. It was always a mystery in his head why he got so many love letters and public confessions and Jisung didn’t get a single one.
“I asked her about you, ‘cause you know, the confession and all. But she said she moved on.” Chenle’s certain the boy is on his bed from the shuffles he’s hearing. And he knows for a fact that Jisung’s phone is pressed to his ear and against the pillow. “Silly crush, she said. Apparently I then caught her attention and it didn’t hurt her to try so—”
“So she gave you her number?”
“I gave her mine.”
“Ah,” Chenle starts dribbling the basketball in his hand. “Bold much, Jisungie?”
₊˚⊹♡.𖥔 ݁˖☆⋆.˚
Chenle is grateful, to some extent, that his seatmate in Math didn’t come to school today.
Sure, he doesn’t have anyone to turn to when he doesn’t understand the words coming out of the teacher’s mouth. But on the brighter side, he has the space to stretch his arms out and, well, not listen.
He has one arm propped up on what is meant to be his seatmate’s work area with his head leaning on his hand. He can easily sleep if he tries his best to mute the annoying voice that’s talking about numbers and letters being multiplied or added together— or whatever his teacher was talking about. It’s easier to let the words fly by instead of soaking them up and trying to understand them.
But he decides to be somewhat of a good student.
In exchange for what could’ve been a good thirty-minute nap, Chenle picks up his pen that sits on his empty notebook. He spins it between his fingers to entertain himself. His eyes stay unfocused on the door as he waits for class to be over.
Lucky Jisung, he thinks as he remembers the boy must be on lunch break right now.
That’s when his eyes focus on the tall figure outside the small window of the door. A tall, awkward, and smiling figure.
It’s Jisung. And he’s smiling. Chenle’s brows furrow and he has to contain the urge to scream “What?” so he shouts it in his head instead.
Chenle can’t recall the number of times Jisung has smiled when they were friends but he can recall that each time he smiled, it’s because of him. A smiling Jisung that is caused by someone else is new, undoubtedly.
Chenle’s arms fall flat on the table, astonished. It may have been too loud but not as loud as the way the chalk scratches the board. He moves his head to try seeing who Jisung could possibly be with. Then he sees a girl tucking her hair in behind her ear. There’s Rina smiling right back at Jisung.
He has to look away before his heart starts doubling in speed. He drops his head down.
Maybe it’s a good time to try sleeping.
₊˚⊹♡.𖥔 ݁˖☆⋆.˚
The Astronomy club hasn’t been open to students since last year. Jisung was devastated to hear the teachers reject his appeal to keep it open but Chenle and he knew it wouldn’t work from the start.
When the club was still open, the members consisted of Jisung, Chenle, and a group of seniors. It’s no wonder that it had to close when the majority of the members graduated.
However, the school never got to cleaning out the classroom specially designed for the club.
When Jisung and Chenle got into the club, they were welcomed with being able to put a piece of themselves in the room. The younger boy got the idea of getting glow-in-the-dark stars and sticking them to the walls and the ceiling. He had also made a small paper telescope that he stuck on the wall too — pointed to a cluster of stars.
Jisung gave Chenle the idea to make paper balls resembling planets. They painted the planets together, better the two of them than just one. Then, Chenle hung them on the backs of every chair in the room with string and tape.
Chenle will be honest in saying he only joined the club because of Jisung, but his interest in astronomy could only grow each time he listened to his best friend tell him space facts. The stars were in Jisung’s eyes, Chenle swears.
Now, it’s a place Chenle goes to between classes to practice dribbling when the gym is being used.
There are several things Chenle has accidentally smashed while he passed the basketball from hand-to-hand, but it isn’t like they’re in use. That’s what makes it a pretty perfect and quiet place.
When he picks up the ball, he tries balancing it on one finger. When he does so successfully, he tries his best at spinning it. The ball keeps falling from his finger but he isn’t one to give up easily.
Even if the door creaks open, his focus is on the ball.
“Oh, Chenle,” Jisung says, seemingly surprised the boy is there.
Chenle doesn’t look back at the door. “Hm?” he balances the ball on his hand before trying to spin it again, “Are you gonna use the room?” When the ball drops from his grip once more, he turns to look at the one boy next to the door.
Except it’s not just Jisung. And Chenle freezes in his place. Rina is looking at him and waving her hand. It may be impolite to not wave back but Chenle’s too in shock to even try to.
Jisung scratches the back of his neck and giggles. “Not really, it’s fine.” He diverts his eyes from Chenle and to the girl by his side. “We’ll get going. See you, Chenle.”
“Yeah,” Chenle furrows his brows. The door closes shut and it feels too quiet. “See you later, or whatever.” He whispers as he picks up his basketball again.
He dribbles the ball a bit too hard this time. His face scrunches up when the ball falls out of his reach and knocks against a chair. As the chair squeaks back against the floor, a paper planet falls down with it.
Chenle reaches for the paper ball when he crouches down, instead of taking the basketball back into his hands. He’s squashed it a bit — the paper model he made of Jupiter that he remembers Jisung painting delicately. He pauses for a second, inspecting it. He finds the tiny letters JS signed on it with a pen which assures his memory of the younger being the one who turned paper into a gas giant.
He sighs as he stands up. He walks over to the table that still has craft materials on top, taking the roll of tape and scissors. He heads back to the chair he had pushed back before taking a piece of tape and attaching the string of the paper ball to the chair again.
His eyes unfocus for a minute. He hasn’t exactly processed the last minute. It just happened.
He brings his hand to his chest, feeling his heart rise and fall. Maybe he should take a seat.
So, with his basketball in hand and a chair in front of him, he sits down. He rests his elbows on top of the basketball, slouching his back with his head falling to his hands.
Maybe he wants to rip his hair out.
Chenle liked it better when Jisung had no other friends. When he could be the only one who saw Jisung’s cute gummy smile. When Jisung was God’s gift for him and only him.
₊˚⊹♡.𖥔 ݁˖☆⋆.˚
“Jisungie,” Chenle comes behind the boy in the cafeteria. He rests one hand on Jisung’s shoulder, laying his head over it as well.
Jisung turns his head slightly, to meet the older boy’s eyes. “Huh?”
Chenle lifts his head up and lets his hand fall when Jisung starts walking. He follows the boy closely behind him as he spots a table to occupy. “Let’s have a sleepover!”
“Hm?” Jisung sets his tray down and takes a seat. “So suddenly?”
The other boy sits right across him, placing his packed lunch down on the table a bit too loudly. He looks at Jisung with a raised brow. “Woah, I can’t believe Park Jisung doesn’t want a sleepover.”
Jisung waves his hand, “No, no, it’s just that—”
“You have plans.” Chenle doesn’t mean to say it as an accusation. It just happened to come out sounding like that.
Jisung’s mouth opens to say a word but he only takes in a sharp breath. His hands fall, “I always have time for you, Le.”
“Tonight, then?” The older says, hopeful.
Jisung nods, “Tonight.”
After what Jisung calls a rigged series of rounds of Mario Kart, their eyes are on their phones.
Chenle lies, back against the foam, with his head on the very edge of his bed. When he loses the game of Tetris he so very passionately played, he let out a groan. He drops his phone to his chest and his hands fall on his face. Maybe he should stick to basketball.
He rubs his eyes before flipping his body around. He finds Jisung sitting down on top of his make-shift bed on the floor, leaning against Chenle’s bed frame. And he’s laughing.
If Chenle didn’t know better, he would think one of Jisung’s relatives sent something funny in their family group chat. But Chenle knows better. And he knows which girl is making him laugh like that, as much as it hurts him to admit.
“Is she really that interesting?” Chenle doesn’t realize how the rhythm of his heart seems to be growing faster. He doesn’t realize how the cogs turn in his head wishing that Rina wasn’t all that.
He sees the way Jisung turns his head to look at him. He sees the confused look that’s painted on his face. “What?”
Chenle shrugs. He places his elbows against his bed and rests his head in the palms of his hands. “I’m just saying, never really found her entertaining.”
“Well you wouldn’t know,” Jisung sighs as he turns his phone off and moves to lie on the floor. He aligns his head to be below Chenle, making the older’s eyes hover over his figure. He places his phone on his chest. He continues, “You rejected her right after she confessed.”
Their eyes are locked. And Chenle’s mind is fuzzy for a moment. He rolls his eyes to stop looking, “‘Cause I knew I’d never be interested, duh.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m not,” Jisung chuckles slightly.
“Okay,” Chenle reaches down to Jisung, grabbing his phone. “Lemme see your texts.”
Jisung was never really quick with his reflexes. “Hey—” Chenle has already snatched his phone and he doesn’t even try to get it back.
The older boy thinks it’s silly how Jisung’s password has always been his birthday. One-one-two-two-zero-one isn’t even a strong password, it’s easy to guess with the double ones and double twos. He found out it was Jisung’s password by accident but the boy never seemed to change it even after knowing Chenle could take his phone and snoop all he wanted.
Chenle opens Messages and when he sees Rina’s name, he debates on reading their conversation or blocking her.
Rina: [attached video]
Rina: my friends call me stupid cheese cat :P
Jisung: wah the banana cat is totally chenle though? Kkkk
Chenle scoffs, “You’re talking about me!” But Jisung only laughs. The older lets out a heavy sigh, “Talking to her about me means that I’m the one that’s interesting, dummy!”
Jisung’s a laughing fit on the floor and Chenle can’t stop his eyes from rolling.
“Why do you even keep talking to her?” He narrows his eyes at Jisung.
The younger’s laughter dies down and he stares at the ceiling. He shrugs, “She calls me handsome.” He ignores the disgusted look on his best friend’s face. “She says I’m funny, nice, and even,” he pauses to smile, “cool.”
Chenle exhales sharply, trying to stop his eyes from rolling again, because how can that be your only descriptions of Jisung? How can you not look at him as if he just hung the stars? As if he’s brighter than Polaris itself? “You cannot be that attention-deprived, Jisungie.”
“Chenle!”
Chenle’s shoulders go up, “C’mon, what does she know about you?”
“Well, she knows about space—”
The older is eager in not giving Jisung space to breathe and speak slowly. Chenle’s eyes wander around every part of the room except for the one person who seems to have all his attention. “Can she point out where Polaris is when she goes stargazing? Can she look to the stars and name the Big Dipper? Would she go stargazing with you?” He continues rambling, “I just mean, like, does she know your favorite constellation? Can she tell me how many kilometers per second light travels? Will she listen to hours of alien theories just because you sent them?”
In between Chenle’s words, Jisung sits up and looks at him softly. “Chenle—”
“Would she get matching space phone cases with you? Listen to you ramble about Interstellar and watch it like two-hundred five times with you? Would she hold your hand even tighter if you headed toward a black hole instead of letting you go?”
Jisung raises his voice, “Chenle, are you jealous?”
It causes Chenle to have a double take, his eyes finally meeting Jisung’s again. He blinks, eyes stuttering just like his voice is, “I— I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Chenle,” Jisung dares to move closer. “Would you hold my hand tighter if I headed toward a black hole?”
The older’s face is a nice shade of red. He shies, “Yes?” He only nods faintly before repeating, “Yes I would.”
Then there’s the prettiest smile on Jisung’s face and Chenle has doubts that he’s smiling because of him. “Why?”
“‘Cause,” he thinks it’s unfair that Jisung looks like he’s about to burst into giggles while he’s on his bed, stuttering his every word. “‘Cause I care about you,” he sighs, “‘cause if you were going to put yourself in danger, I’ll be right beside you, dummy.”
“And why is that?”
Chenle bites the inside of his cheek before answering, “I guess, I— I like you.”
Jisung brings his hand up to squish the boy’s cheek. “Took you long enough, huh?”
His face scrunches up, “Jisung!”
“You’re the dummy, Zhong Chenle,” Jisung brushes away the pieces of Chenle’s bangs that cover his pretty eyes, “I’ve liked you for years.”
Chenle’s eyes widen, “You have? Then— what about Rina? I thought—”
“I thought I was a lost cause with you,” Jisung chuckles, “thought maybe I should try moving on from you.”
“And?”
“Someone liking me and taking interest in me was cool and all and I,” Jisung shrugs, “you know, enjoyed it of course. It made me feel really, really cool. But if I compare, Le, and I just can’t help but compare— it’s not the same feeling. Hanging out with someone I’ve known for a couple days stands no chance against ten years with you.” Jisung laughs as he watches Chenle let out a grateful sigh.
“But,” Chenle pauses to think, “you always smiled with her, I saw you guys. And the Astronomy club…” The other boy’s eyes widen slightly like he was intrigued. “Sorry— I’m being silly.”
Jisung shakes his head, “Don’t say that, I’m the only one who can call you a dummy,” he chuckles. “I can count the number of times she made me smile on one hand. She was supposed to be a distraction but when I talked to her I always found myself comparing her to you.”
Chenle narrows his eyes and pulls his lips in a straight line, “That’s not nice, Jisungie…”
“But it’s you who was the one running around in my head? Won’t you take responsibility?” Chenle flushes red and he’s too speechless to bring words out of his mouth. Jisung continues, “It was nice hearing how she grew to like me, made me want to give it a chance. But ultimately, she wasn’t you and she can never be who you are to me, no one can.” There’s a sparkle in his eyes and maybe Chenle hung the stars in them, “So stop being a dummy with that jealousy in your face, be mine instead.”
It takes a split second for Chenle to bring his head down, covering his face with his arms. And even if he’s always been someone who goes directly to the point, Jisung makes him too shy to do so. There’s yearning in his chest and a heavy tongue that wants to say yes.
“This better not be you rejecting me, Zhong Chenle, I’ve heard way too much of those through the years.” The younger brings a hand to ruffle Chenle’s head of hair.
Chenle bites his lips, thanking God that Jisung can’t see his face. “I’m too shy, Jisungie!” he blurts out.
“But is it a yes?” Jisung’s hand crawls to find Chenle’s, to hold it. To be his. “Look at me,”
Chenle raises his head, pulls his heart out of the water. Their eyes meet and there’s no better feeling. There’s no better feeling than finally realizing love has been right in front of you this whole time.
“Don’t stop holding my hand.”
“I—” Chenle squeezes Jisung’s hand tighter, “I’ll only ever hold it tighter.”