Chapter Text
Jinn’s living through a lucid nightmare, one of those that makes you wonder just how fucked up your thoughts have become.
It’s the only reasonable explanation for the words coming out of his mom’s mouth.
“Jinn, dear,” she covers his hand with her own over the tabletop as he abandons his spoon, suddenly losing all appetite. “It’s only a few dance lessons.”
It’s not just dance lessons, not when Jerome will be his student, and they both know it.
“Mom,” Jinn whines, twenty now but still feeling like a five-year-old when his mother’s around. “Do you hate me?”
“Of course not, love,” Jan aims for a soothing tone, her gaze softening. “You’re the best dancer, I know you can teach him.”
The praise feels great, a smile spreading across his face without his permission, but Jinn hasn’t forgotten what it entails.
“The event is yours, why does he have to be there?” he grumbles, unable to even utter Jerome’s name – that’s how at wit’s end he’s gotten with the other man.
That Jerome doesn’t let him obliterate the feelings he’s not supposed to have isn’t really helping Jinn’s case, either.
“Jinn,’ Jan rarely uses her serious voice with him, so he knows she means it now. “J is my best friend’s son, and I want her to be there, her family too.”
“Auntie Jen is nice, pity her kid’s an ass–” Jinn doesn’t get to finish his sentence with his mom’s admonishing look turned on him.
“Jen and I would be really happy if you two could get along, at least a little. Please, son?”
And Jinn can’t say no to her when Jan looks so hopeful, so he nods once, spoon and soup and the loudest groan known to man swallowed down instead of the thousand curses he’d like to unleash on Jerome and his smug ass.
Rounding the table, his mother envelops him in a hug, the same hug she’d give him when he agreed to stop chasing Jerome with the garden hose when they were kids, and Jinn feels the slightest bit better.
“Thank you,” she cheers, shaking him like he’s still five in her mind too.
“I’m doing it for you,” Jinn makes sure to point out, finishing dinner and heading to his bathroom.
“It’s a start!” Jan yells after him, too used to their bickering by now to know that it’ll probably never have an end.
He’s ready for a night out to allow him to, even if momentarily, forget he’ll have to spend even more time than he already does with Jerome, and worst of all, alone with Jerome, but his fucking nightmares have other ideas.
Damned be the day they ended up sharing a friend group.
Jinn’s heart doesn’t race when he sees Jerome in that red shirt from across the street, and his hands don’t tremble at his sides the closer they get to each other, and he’s definitely thinking of slashing Jerome’s tires and nothing else.
“Fuck off,” he spits out, standing much too close for his brain not to conjure up endless scenarios of its own volition, nerves boiling to the surface when all Jerome does is laugh in his face.
“Good night to you too, Jinn.” This asshole has such a punch-able expression, Jinn’s hackled just by looking at him.
“Never a good night when I have to see your ugly face,” Jinn fires back, the shaking of his hands worsening the longer they’re eye to eye.
Fuck, hasn’t he gotten used to Jerome’s staring by now?
Jerome’s smirk is as infuriating as Jerome’s gaze and Jerome’s – well, his everything, really. “Shouldn’t you be happy?” he quips, smile widening at Jinn’s confusion. “You’ll get to see it even more when you dance with me.”
Jinn can feel himself flush all over at the mere idea of dancing with Jerome, yelling at his mind to not think of holding hands and moving together. “As if that’d make me happy.”
“Why?” Jerome uses that teasing tone that has his skin crawling and his knees weakening and Jinn’s certain that there’s nothing in the world more humiliating than this fucking crush. “Afraid that I’m a better dancer than you?”
Jinn can’t stop something inside of him from snaping, always so easily riled up by everything Jerome does or says. “Are you trying to make me mad?” he hisses, fingers curling into the collar of Jerome’s t-shirt, counterproductive in slowing down his heart rate as it is.
Jerome shrugs nonchalantly, and Jinn hates him and hates his smug grin and hates that hating him makes his chest ache.
Tires screech at then of their block, Farm’s car rounding the corner, but Jinn’s too absorbed by his anger to pay it much mind.
“Hey, you two!” Van yells from the passenger side. “Save the fighting for another day and get in!”
Huffing in pure exasperation, Jinn brings Jerome even closer to himself, bad for his head and terrible for his heart, and bites out, “Tomorrow, 3PM, Faculty of Performing Arts practice room. If you’re even a little bit late, I’m gonna tell your mom you’re the one who set fire to the school bathroom.”
He doesn’t miss the opportunity to shove Jerome away as he lets go, smiling to himself as the taller man stumbles back.
Walking away, Jinn hears Jerome yell behind him, “I didn’t do that alone, remember?” And of course he remembers, knows exactly what happened when the smoke alarms went off and they had to run for their lives before the principal could find them.
He’s not gonna tell Jerome that, though, no intention of giving him any more ammunition to use against Jinn, so he merely throws up a couple middle fingers and continues on his way to the backseat of Farm’s car.
Just as he’s about to open the door for himself, a hand wraps itself around his wrist, the surprise making him halt for only a second, yet long enough that Jerome gets the upper hand in their endless game of cat and mouse, spinning him in place and letting Jinn dizzy himself into missing his spot on Mai’s left side.
Rolling his eyes hard enough that he thinks he might be seeing the inside of his own skull, Jinn crosses behind the car and opens the door to the right with enough force that Van makes a mocking sound he can barely register, settling onto his seat with crossed arms.
“Do you ever get tired of being an asshole?” comes his complaint directed at Jerome.
Tongue sticking out, Jerome fires back, “Do you ever get tired of losing?”
“I’m gonna show you who the real loser is.” And Jerome should consider himself lucky that Mai’s in the way of him getting strangled before Farm’s even managed to leave their street.