Chapter Text
“What if I go ask the teacher one last time?” Euijoo asks, already looking toward the staff room. His eyes are as wide as they can go, his lower lip trapped between his teeth. Right now, he’s trying to look like the perfect image of a kicked puppy. It’s not working.
Yuma sighs instead of answering. Harua, who has more patience in the mornings, gives him a pitying smile. “We’ve already tried enough times, Euijoo, I think it’s time to accept reality. But we’ll still eat lunch together! And we also have club!” he says, trying his best to sound reassuring.
The bell rings like a final verdict. Euijoo is dragged inside and deposited at a desk with his name taped neatly to the corner. A prison sentence, but make it laminated.
“Bye, love you!”, is the last thing he hears from Harua, who’s already walking hand in hand with Yuma, ready to go to their classroom. The one they share because they got to stay together for their last year in high school, while he got the short end of the stick and was separated from his best friends. “See you at recess!”, Yuma screams from the door.
The rest of his new classmates start to fill the room. Friends call out to each other. Someone asks about summer break, and someone else screeches about how their homeroom teacher is super hot. Euijoo looks around and doesn’t see any faces he knows enough to start a conversation.
This is literally his biggest nightmare as an introvert.
And then, as he adjusts his glasses and confirms the rumors about the hotness of their teacher, Koga-sensei, he notices that his seatmate, who was previously napping, has gotten up. And that this is a face he does know. He looks at the table to the left of his own and confirms that he is, in fact, in his biggest nightmare.
Written there is a name that he can’t seem to forget: Wang Yixiang.
No.
Nicholas.
The Nicholas.
Euijoo looks at the desk again, as if the paper might change out of pity. It does not.
Of course. Of course the only familiar face in the room had to be the one Euijoo had spent two years pretending not to notice.
They had met in first year, when the school decided the two non-Japanese students should probably know each other. It made sense on paper. The teacher who introduced them back then had smiled, clapped their backs, and probably imagined a beautiful international friendship.
Sadly, Nicholas had been hard to approach. He answered in short sentences and stared like he could see through walls, maybe even read Euijoo's mind.
So. That hadn’t happened.
They ended up not talking much more after that first encounter, and when school officially started, their different classes, friend groups and hobbies were enough of an excuse to simply… exist in different spaces.
He hadn’t been able to just forget about him, though. It didn’t help that fifteen-year-old Euijoo had thought Nicholas was terrifyingly handsome. It helped even less that seventeen-year-old Euijoo had not grown out of it.
“Okay! Perfect, then. Please give an applause to Airi Hasegawa, who’ll be your class president.” The claps bring Euijoo back from his daydreaming, and he sees Airi walk to the front of the class and bow.
“After that, your next very important discussion is the Spring Festival. Remember, you have a month to prepare, but also, don’t forget to enjoy it! These will be some of your last fun memories before you start to worry about exams and university.” Everyone groans at Koga-sensei’s words, and he laughs. “Exactly, so do a good job so you won’t regret it later.” He’s about to give the floor to the class president when he suddenly turns. “Yixiang, Euijoo, could you come with me to the teacher’s room? Murata-sensei has some materials he wanted to give you for his Japanese class.”
“Eh? Oh, ah—yes, of course,” And there go the first intelligent words that come out of Euijoo’s mouth. He hears a small laugh while getting up, but when he checks on Nicholas, he has the same blank face from before. They both follow their homeroom teacher outside, and Nicholas is quick to walk alongside the adult.
“Senseeeeei,” he groans, lengthening the word. “Do I still need to do extra homework? Don’t I know enough Japanese already?” A pout forms on Nicholas’s face. Euijoo looks away so fast his glasses almost slip. The pout is new information. Dangerous information.
The scary one turns to be Koga-sensei. “Wang. Yixiang. You think I didn’t check your grades from last year? I’m not just your coach now; you are my responsibility.” He points very hard at the boy’s face. “And listen, consider this your only warning: I don’t care if it’s your last year. I won’t let you put one foot in the basketball court if you don’t get at least a 70 in your first exam with Murata-sensei.”
Euijoo laughs softly. He had forgotten they knew each other thanks to the basketball club, where Nicholas is recognized as one of the top players of their school team. It’s also kind of cute seeing Nicholas drop the cool persona.
He’s staring at his shoes when he sees the other student waiting for him, one of his hands holding the door of the teacher’s room, where he didn’t notice they had already arrived. He’s still outside.
“Um, should I, uh?” His arms start moving around, not sure what to do. Nicholas opens his mouth, maybe to tell him to hurry up, but they’re interrupted by their teacher coming back from his little office space with two stacks of paper.
“You didn’t have to wait outside, you know?” he says, staring at them a little bit weirdly, one brow going up to his hairline.
“Whatever, we’re done here, right, sensei? I mean, we should go back already, then.” Nicholas starts walking again, a lot faster than before. It’s not long, though, before he turns around and comes back. Euijoo and their teacher are still standing exactly where he left them; he grabs one of the stacks, murmuring something about forgetting it, and continues on his way.
Euijoo looks at the teacher in confusion. Koga-sensei is already staring at him. He receives his own extra homework before following his classmate, and he thinks he hears something like “young boys” behind him, but he can’t be sure.
They are still on the stairs, going to the second floor, when a loud “What?!” bursts from their classroom. Thinking they must be arguing about their stand for the festival, he decides to open the door slowly. It doesn’t seem to really matter in the end, because everyone is already looking at him.
He tries to understand what’s going on by looking back at everyone, anyone, and then the words on the blackboard catch his attention:
"Butler’s café"
-Lead hosts: Nicholas Wang, Euijoo Byun (they should be flirty!! / make up will be done by Kaori)
There’s more information underneath, but Euijoo’s brain is stuck on the first line.
“I’m doing what?!” is what he ends up saying. Or asking. Or screaming. He’s not even sure anymore.
“Not you too!” Airi is saying. “You and Nicho are the tallest, and we need pretty boys so more people come! Both of you must do this. It has already been decided by everyone.”
“What about what I think, Airi?” Nicholas asks, annoyed but not angry.
“I don’t really care, Nico. Democracy has spoken,” she shrugs, going back to the board as if there really isn’t anything else to say. “Ok, now: anyone knows how to do latte art?”
📕
Euijoo spends the rest of homeroom staring at the words “they should be flirty!!” until they start looking less like handwriting and more like a threat. By second period, he still hasn’t recovered. When the lunch bell rings, he practically jumps from his seat and runs to Harua and Yuma’s classroom.
He can see the boys just coming outside, and so he grabs both their arms and pulls them along to the cafeteria. They are so going to hear his cries about this!
It takes him three minutes, two dramatic hand gestures, and one near-choking incident over his juice box to explain everything.
“She’s not wrong though, you could make a pretty hot couple for the café,” Harua says, placing his tray of food at one of the tables. Yuma is laughing by his side, nodding.
“We are not going to be a couple!”
“Ah, but you do believe you look hot together,” Yuma says, pointing at the boy with his chopsticks.
Euijoo wants to scream, but the cafeteria is full, so he decides to grab his friends’ desserts instead. They make sounds of complaint about it, but he doesn't care.
“Bad friends don’t deserve melon pan.”
Yuma sighs. “I mean, I don’t really understand what’s so bad about the situation. You’ll probably win, too, with Nicholas being as popular as he is. You’ll definitely get a lot of customers.”
“That’s exactly the problem! He’s popular, he’s… objectively good-looking, and a bunch of people will come see him. I’m just—how will I be able to do a good job with him beside me? We’re supposed to be flirty… and—and like, do romance-y stuff.”
His friends share a look, Yuma nodding at Harua before facing him again.
“Euijoo, be honest. I know you are shy, but are you worried right now about the work or who you’re working with?” Harua asks in the end.
Euijoo can feel his cheeks getting warmer by the second, and his friend’s previous serious faces start forming malicious smiles. “I just don’t want to look awkward,” he tries, but it’s too late.
He can see the gears turning in their heads in real time, and his lamenting period starts feeling a little bit more like he should have just shut up. Harua starts searching around until he finds what he was looking for. Or who he was looking for. He realizes who it is just a tad too late.
“Then the solution is obvious,” Harua says.
Euijoo does not like the sound of that.
“Hey, Nico!”
The boy is at the other end, sitting at a table with most of the basketball team. He looks up at the call, and before he can do something about it, Harua is already halfway there. He can’t really hear what he says, not sure if it’s because of the distance or because he’s so mortified thinking what Harua could be doing that his ears have stopped working.
Less than a minute later, Harua’s back at their table, and right then Nicholas and his friends all get up to leave.
“Prepare yourself, because starting tomorrow, you’ll be using your club time to practice with Nicholas for the festival!”
A few seconds pass before anyone says anything else. “I’ll have to kill Harua,” Euijoo says faintly. “And then myself.”
Yuma pats his shoulder. “I think you got your thought and speech bubbles mixed up, Euijoo.”
Across the cafeteria, Nicholas glances back once before leaving. Euijoo immediately looks down at his stolen melon pan. He didn’t look annoyed, thankfully, but there’s still time for that.
“Starting tomorrow,” Harua repeats, far too pleased with himself. Euijoo stares at him.
Club time had never felt so much like a trap.
By the time he makes it back to the classroom, he had accepted three things.
One: Harua was a traitor.
Two: Yuma was an accomplice.
Three: Nicholas Wang is sitting beside his desk like the hot human embodiment of a problem Euijoo did not know how to solve.
He sighs and finally sits.
Biology comes and goes without much fanfare. Euijoo pays attention to the exam dates, takes some notes, and even remembers to use the new pretty pencil he bought for the school year.
He absolutely does not look at Nicholas every few minutes out of the corner of his eye trying to guess what he's thinking. About him. About the situation.
And it’s good that he doesn’t do that, because if he did, he would obtain nothing from his desk mate. Not one look at him, not even a word when Euijoo gives him the eraser he dropped. Just a nod.
Which was fine. Great, even. Euijoo could survive silence. Silence was safe. Silence didn’t ask him to practice being flirty after school.
He’s not mad about it, either, just glad. Maybe Nicholas already forgot about Harua’s request. Or maybe he was just joking when he accepted, and Harua didn’t get it. Although that would be pretty mean. He may be shy, but Euijoo isn’t about to just let someone be mean to his friend.
His thoughts keep getting darker and darker while he starts putting his books inside his bag at the end of the day, and he has decided to try and say something to Nicholas before he leaves the school grounds.
He walks towards the shoe-changing area at the entrance, trying to be as fast as he can, when a hand catches his sleeve, then immediately lets go like the person regrets it.
Euijoo turns around with his best attempt at anger already loading on his face. It disappears the second he realizes the culprit is Nicholas.
“Euijoo.”
He freezes, surprised to have been found by the exact person he has been trying to find. Nicholas is looking directly at him. Not at the window, not at another student. Not vaguely in his direction. At him. His nervousness only calms down a little when he becomes aware of the few centimeters he has on Nicholas.
Cute.
…
Anyway.
He doesn’t look angry. That is the first problem. He looks a little anxious, maybe, but mostly determined.
"Tomorrow," he says. “Club time, right?”
Euijoo’s brain produces several possible answers and rejects all of them for being stupid.
"Right," he says, which is unfortunately not much better.
Nicholas nods once, like that settles it. Then he smiles. Just a little. And walks out with his bag over one shoulder.
Euijoo stays there for a second too long.
He has the horrible feeling that the trap has just confirmed his attendance.