Chapter Text
inserts the sound of an alarm ringing
Jaeyoung internally cursed and reached out for his phone. Winter break was over, and now he had to face the harsh reality of waking up early every morning to go to school. He groaned, unsatisfied with the amount of sleep he had. Stress kept him awake up until 4AM, and it was now 6, meaning he would have to go on with his entire day running on 2 hours of sleep. *Incredible*, Jaeyoung thought to himself. But there was no use in complaining, so Jaeyoung got up to take a shower and prepare for his first day of university.
Once he was done showering and doing his skincare, he picked out a simple outfit: a simple white shirt that hung quite close to his skin, a white blue denim jacket and a pair of jeans of the same color. He grabbed a pen and a notebook so that he could write stuff down on the first day and figured he would buy proper copybooks later. Not hungry enough for breakfast, he decided to walk to his bus stop early.
Since it was March, the sky was still dark outside, and fairly cold as well. Jaeyoung cursed himself for not picking a cozy outfit instead, denim jackets feel absolutely horrible to wear when they're cold. Luckily for him, the bus arrived 10 minutes later. He walked inside, all the way up to his middle school best friend, Kim Heeju. The older boy was sound asleep on his seat, which made Jaeyoung laugh. Heeju was truly able to fall asleep anywhere if it was quiet enough, and he found it truly endearing. He sat down carefully so as not to wake up his friend, pulled out a book from his bag and started reading it.
The ride to school was extremely quiet, until the bus violently drove over a pothole, which led many people to scream in surprise and snap Jaeyoung out of his novel. The sudden noise woke Heeju up, who had no idea where he was and nearly jumped as he saw Jaeyoung.
"You startled me! When the hell did you even arrive?" Heeju said, dramatic as per usual, and even more so because he was brutally woken up.
"A few minutes ago, but you were deep in your slumber, so I didn't want to wake you up." Jaeyoung said calmly.
"Hmm... Okay, okay. How are you feeling about school restarting?" Heeju asked, seemingly calming down.
"Well, I'm obviously not too happy. I'm just hoping I don't end up in a mess of a class like last year. As long as I don't end up with Jimin and Jeongyeon, it should be fine." He said, reminiscing. These two had something against each other; nobody knew where it came from, but they kept arguing every single day, sometimes even trying to find reasons to argue. Jaeyoung vividly remembers that day Jimin ran into Jeongyeon's bag purposefully just to blame her about letting her bag on the ground where people could trip on it, or the time Jeongyeon poured her water over herself to pretend Jimin threw water at her as he was holding a bottle.
"Eh, it should be fine. I really hope we're in the same class tho! That's what matters most to me." Heeju said, smiling as Jaeyoung, reminding him why he loved Heeju so much. Heeju made him feel *safe*. It didn't matter if others started making too much noise, because Heeju would be there and protect Jaeyoung from the noise, keeping him grounded.
Shortly after, the bus arrived to the school parking lot. Everyone got down and entered the building. Each class was written on a sheet that had been glued to the wall. Jaeyoung and Heeju searched for their names for quite a while. Jaeyoung was starting to get annoyed, but an overjoyed screech from his friend made him look at a sheet he had skipped. Both their names were written on it. Jaeyoung felt a bright smile come to his face, very happy to be in the same class as Heeju. However, he started reading the rest of the paper and his smile suddenly faded.
Not only was he in the same class as Jeongyeon and Jimin, Sunoo and Ni-ki were also there, which meant corny couple jokes every 3 seconds because these two could not seem to get a room. Heeseung and Jake as well, meaning the disturbance would be twice as bad. He kept reading and it felt like it kept getting worse. Leehan was also in his class. He's arguably a nice person now, but broke Heeju's heart back in Grade 9, and Jaeyoung never forgave him. Riwoo was there as well, meaning every single class would be loud, as he purposefully asks teachers questions to waste time and make the lesson go slower. Jaeyoung sighed deeply, but a particular name caught his attention at the very end of the list.
Choi Taein.
The same Taein that he hated. The same Taein that everybody liked because wow, he's an athlete, and wow, he's so nice and smiles to everyone, and wow, he looks insanely hot. The same Taein that would teasingly push him a bit in the hallways, the same Taein that doesn't know how to laugh at any volume that is not ridiculously loud. Jaeyoung didn't even know he would attend this university but that certainly ruined his mood.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Heeju asked innocently, bright smile on his face, still overjoyed from seeing his name and Lee Jaeyoung on the same paper.
"Choi Taein, Heeju. Choi fucking Taein is in our class." Jaeyoung said, angrily, then regretting his agressivity.
"So... what? What's wrong about Taein?" Heeju asked, puzzled as to why his best friend was so mad at the thought of the boy being in their class.
"Don't you know? I freaking despise him. I usually dislike popular people but he's the embodiment of what I cannot stand. I bet he's fake, hypocritical, and that he doesn't mean a single thing he says. How can someone be this perfect?" Jaeyoung, said frustrated. "There has to be something. I sense it."
"Well, he's just being... nice? He's quite extroverted, I'll give you that, but I like him personnally. He's also pretty hot." Heeju said, chuckling.
"Ah yes, because hot solves being so full of yourself and so cocky."
"Well he doesn't seem arrogant to me, just confident. And yes, even if he was, his arms would be enough material for me to get past that." Heeju laughed.
"Not funny. Your parents told you about stranger danger yet if it was a hot shirtless man coming up knocking at your door, you'd open wide and offer him to stay." Jaeyoung tssked.
"UHM- NOT THAT MUCH???" Heeju said, faking being offended, before dramatically putting a hand to his head. Jaeyoung could never truly be mean to Heeju. Sadly, the bell ringing snapped both of them back to reality, and they hurried to the classroom they were assigned to.
When they arrived, the door was already closed. Heeju cursed, and Jaeyoung pushed him in front of the door, asking him to knock. Heeju gently knocked on the door, and was greeted with the terrifying face of Mr. Jinyoung at 8 in the morning.
"You both are late. Do you have an excuse?" Mr. Jinyoung asked, icy cold as per usual.
"Sorry teacher, we were using the bathroom on the first floor and didn't know it was this late." Heeju blurted out apologetically.
"Hmm. I'll accept it for today, but this better not be a common occurrence. Now find seats and sit down, I don't have any time to waste."
Jaeyoung cursed to himself when he saw that there were only 2 chairs left. Heeju sat on the one next to Sunoo, which he knew from meeting at a mint chocolate ice cream eating event. Ni-ki was on Sunoo's left and did not fear Heeju at all, being aware Heeju's type wasn't the cute guys like Sunoo. That left only one seat for Jaeyoung. And it was next to... Taein. Obviously it had to be next to him, Jaeyoung thought. He tried to hide his annoyance and quickly sat down.
The entire class was pretty boring. Mr. Jinyoung just handed out papers that they had to get signed by the end of the week, as per usual for a first day of school. Jaeyoung couldn't wait to be out of this classroom. He noticed Taein staring at him several times. What does this beach want from me, he thought to himself. They never really talked nor interacted, and Jaeyoung hoped things would remain this way. He wasn't even sure that Taein knew he existed, and he was happy with it.
Little did he know, Taein knew him. And he knew him very well, on top of everything.