Chapter Text
☀︎ one week before the summer school festival ☀︎
‘Soonyoung-ah, I—‘
‘Shh,’ Soonyoung gently places a finger on Jihoon's lips and Jihoon feels his entire body on the point where Soonyoung's touch ended. ‘I know.’
Know what? But Jihoon brushes this thought away, along with the weird feeling that everything seems to be going along perfectly with the plan he made, minutes? hours? days? ago. He also can't seem to recall.
Soonyoung reaches for something behind him—a wall, perhaps?—and places a hand on either side of Jihoon, caging him in.
Is he going to—?
Soonyoung continues by giving him a lazy smirk, taunting him, before slowly closing in (Jihoon's brain produces a flashing pink !!!) and pulling down the fire alarm.
WAIT, WHAT?
A blaring alarm rings out as Soonyoung giggles at Jihoon's face and skips away, shattering Jihoon's heart-thudding dream into a dumbfounding reality. Jihoon's brain takes a moment to knock out the floating ??? cloud around his head before sending out the signal to open his eyes.
The question-mark-clouds disperse as the morning light greets him and the cat that's trying to push his wailing phone off the side table.
'Yah, Dubu-ssi,' Jihoon tuts at the tofu-white cat and reaches out in time to stop his phone from falling. He groans and rolls over, pulling the covers along with him. Sigh. Almost. He mentally adds Dream-Soonyoung’s smirk into the SECRET SOONYOUNG FONDNESS FOLDER at the back of his brain. Then blinks away the mixture of sleep and disappointment.
Lee Jihoon, seventeen and sensible to most things (but overly dramatic in his head), is starting to regret the entire situation he recently stuck his foot in.
And whose fault was that?
YOURS, 40% of his brain shouts.
LEE SEOKMIN, the 60% counters.
He wants a re-evaluation of his friend choices.
‘Jihoon-ah!’ His mom calls out. ‘Aren’t you up yet? Are you planning to be late for school?’
‘I’m up!’ He half-shouts over the bustling pans he can hear from the other side of the wall. It seems like his Mom cooked breakfast for the entire building again.
Jihoon picks up Dubu-ssi from the tangle of wires under his desk (Maow, it says disapprovingly), grabs his towel and exits his room towards the wafting smell of egg rolls his mom is cooking. ‘Morning,’ he greets her, plopping into a kitchen chair.
‘You okay, honey?’ she asks, placing fluffy egg rolls on his plate. Jihoon only mm-hmms. 'You look like you almost kissed somebody in your dream but the alarm got to you first.'
The rolls that are millimeters away from his mouth drops onto his plate. Dubu-ssi takes the opportunity to maow disapprovingly at him again. 'M-mom!' he stutters, picking up the rolls with his chopsticks again before the cat gets to it. He shoves it to his mouth, aggressively shaking his head.
'What?' Mom asks innocently, pausing to turn to him and smile teasingly. 'Did I nail it?'
Jihoon ignores the question like how he ignores most of his feelings.
She turns back to finish the last of the side dishes she has been packing. 'Hoonie, will you take some of this to the Chwe's and the Xu’s on your way down? I'm meeting our new tenants on the 2nd floor who moved in last night for formalities.'
'Wehavnoonants?'
'You'd know if you actually came down after I knocked thrice on your door,' she scolds lightly. 'And do not ever speak with your mouth full again.'
Jihoon swallows the last of his rice. 'Sorry, Mom.' he adds sheepishly. Mom pats him lightly on the head before carrying most of the plastic containers and heading out, a haughty Dubu-ssi on her heels.
Now, usually, Jihoon takes the extra five minutes of his morning routine to stare out into space and not think about anything Kwon Soonyoung related (it’s all he thinks about, though.) but he was instead plagued by how he got shoved into Seokmin’s crazy room of ideas.
…
‘LEE JIHOON! HAVE YOU HEARD?!’
Seokmin burst inside the music room, wide eyes and shaking hands. Without pause, he grabbed Jihoon’s shoulder and shoved him back on his seat.
Jihoon made a whiny, protesting sound.
‘Okay, maybe take a deep breath first.’ Seokmin fussed over him. He took off his jacket and placed it on Jihoon’s shoulders, tying the sleeves around him like a survival blanket. ‘There, jacket for warmth. Here, hug this backpack for support. I’ll crack open a window—‘
‘Cut the bullshit, Lee Seokmin.’ Jihoon cussed, glaring.
Seokmin gasped dramatically and slapped a hand at Jihoon’s mouth. It reeked of that cheesy tteokbokki they’d eaten at lunch.
Jihoon fought the urge to spit on his friend’s hand.
‘Jihoon-ah,’ Seokmin said, suddenly solemn. ‘I just heard the most devastating news for your future love life.’
Jihoon was about to spit on his hand—wait. Does he mean—?Jihoon’s eyes widened. Well, as much as they could anyway, which was, not very.
Seokmin nodded, face grave.
Oh no. Jihoon’s brain fired a thousand thoughts but only the most coherent ones came through: Did Kwon Soonyoung get a girlfriend? A boyfriend? Did he confess to a teacher and get expelled? Did a teacher confess to him and get fired? Did he get someone pregnant and eloped before fifth period?
Ah—but no. He’d just seen Soonyoung leave for the Student Council meeting earlier, right as he was heading to band practice.
‘He’s transferring schools, hyung.’
Seokmin’s serious meter was on orange because he rarely calls Jihoon his hyung. Technically, he was born a year later than Jihoon but then he was said to be some kind of a child genius (Questionable, Minghao had remarked one time.) and had skipped a grade.
Jihoon barely registered the news (his brain was still recovering) when Seokmin dropped to his knees and said, ‘Hyung, you have to confess!’ The theatrics continued as Seokmin took both of his hands and proclaimed, ‘You have to profess your love to Kwon Soonyoung!’
It was a little foggy after that. Seungkwan, to Jihoon’s mortification, suddenly popped out (‘I was here the whole time!’) and encouraged Seokmin’s idea, even grabbing Jihoon’s other hand to form some sort of support group circle. They kept on talking over each other, making plans that Jihoon’s brain is only half-absorbing. Error, it flags out meekly.
The other half was a little embarrassed that a middle schooler found out about his secret crush (‘It’s the greatest thing!’) and a little bewildered that two people who only just met had formed a plan together.
‘The summer school festival. Seokmin-hyung is right. That’s the perfect opportunity, hyung.’ Seungkwan nodded enthusiastically. ‘I’ll help you like how you’ve been helping me read music sheets.’
Jihoon would be touched if he wasn’t too focused on not screaming and running away.
When his flight response calmed down and surprisingly realized that the emotional support backpack and survival blanket worked wonders, Jihoon thought,
Okay, screw it. Let’s do this.
…
He is so not doing this.