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Chan wasn’t in the cafeteria.
This wasn’t necessarily a new occurrence as Minho rarely found his boyfriend in the cafeteria during lunch. It normally wouldn’t have worried Minho, but Chan had promised to have lunch in the cafeteria earlier that morning and the older boy rarely broke his promises.
Humming thoughtfully, Minho piled his tray with enough food to feed both him and Chan. It wasn’t a big deal really, Minho would find Chan and they’d eat wherever they ended up. Nevertheless, he couldn’t stop a small knot from forming in his stomach. For the past two weeks, Chan had been stressed out over a track he was recording as an assignment for music class, and today was supposed to be his day off, but Minho got the sinking feeling his boyfriend had decided otherwise.
“Hey, Felix,” he called as he approached their friends’ usual cafeteria table.
The younger Australian was sitting between Jisung and Jeongin today, head in his hands and mouth full of cafeteria fries as he watched the squirrel looking boy bicker across the table with Seungmin. On Jisung’s other side sat Hyunjin and Changbin, who were lost in their own little world, completely oblivious to the battle happening right in front of them.
“Oh hey, Hyung,” Felix grinned, straightening a bit to give the elder his attention as Minho set his tray down to grab a handful of napkins.
“Have you seen Channie-hyung?”
Felix’s face contorted slowly into a frown, his nose scrunching like he was smelling something unpleasant for the first time.
“Not since this morning. I talked to him between first and second. He said he was eating lunch with us today, but,” the younger’s eyes flickered just beyond Minho’s shoulder for a moment, as if checking for Chan there, before returning to the senior, “I get the feeling that’s not happening.”
“Sorry Lixie, looks like the old man’s overworked himself again.” Minho gave the younger an apologetic smile, stuffing the napkins in his jacket pocket before picking up his tray again. “I’ll make sure he makes it up to you.”
Felix shook his head.
“Just make sure he eats.”
The elder nodded, and with a kiss to Felix’s forehead and a ruffle of Jeongin’s hair, he left the cafeteria and headed for the music room.
Chan had music before lunch and often preferred to eat there out of convenience. However, knowing his boyfriend, Minho doubted Chan was planning on eating today.
The walk across the courtyard to the fine arts building was pleasant, the sun gentle and warm on Minho’s shoulders, and the breeze soft, a pleasant change from the unnecessarily cold school hallways that had Minho pulling his leather jacket tighter around his shoulders. Technically it wasn’t even his jacket. It belonged to Chan first, and Minho made sure to leave it at the older boy’s house enough for it to smell like him, but Chan had grown out of it a couple of years ago, and Minho had - quite happily - stolen it from Chan’s closet upon realizing the Australian wouldn’t nag at him for taking it when the day’s got colder.
When he stepped into the fine arts building, he was greeted by the usual gust of cold, and he stopped to adjust the food tray in his hands so it wouldn’t slip during the last bit of his walk.
The music room wasn’t a particularly hard room to find. Others might disagree considering it was tucked away at the end of a long hallway with unreliable lighting and too many twists and turns to count. But Chan practically lived in the room, and Minho went there everyday either during lunch or after school to find him. That being said, Minho arrived at the double doors to the room fairly quickly and stopped to peak inside.
The lights were on and Minho picked out Chan easily against the backdrop of white walls and parallel rows of baby-blue chairs. The elder had styled his hair to flop down in perfect, dark-brown waves, and Minho found himself wanting to run his hands through it, to ruffle it thoroughly and reveal its natural curls. It was always his first instinct upon seeing his boyfriend, and he rarely tried to stop himself from following through with it. Right now though, Minho was distracted by something else.
Chan’s lips were pulled into a thin, flat line, in a way that dimpled his cheeks. His eyes were uncharacteristically passive for a boy who always wore his heart on his sleeve, and his eyebrows were ever so slightly raised, as if he was trying to force them from furrowing. Minho knew that look. It was not a nice look. It was Chan’s “please stop talking I disagree with everything you’re saying and am actually really mad right now but don’t want to offend you by expressing it” look. Minho’s eyes flickered over to the object of Chan’s internalized rage and recognized the back of the cheerleading team jacket, although he didn’t recognize the girl with the long black hair and wild gesticulations who was wearing it.
Oh well , he thought to himself, straightening up in preparation of entering, I’ll apologize to Jihyo later . He’s sure the cheerleading captain would forgive him if he explained that the other girl had been bothering Chan when the boy was supposed to be eating.
He entered quietly, thankful that the door hinges were well oiled and didn’t squeak as he gently closed the door behind him, releasing the handle slowly to avoid the click. As he did so, he caught the tail end of the girl’s argument.
“Look, Chan, it's just one song, it's under three minutes, and it won’t even take that much time to create. I’ll even give you credit for it when I perform! I just need original content and I don’t want to pick from that stupid, lyricless, uncopyrighted list they always give us. You understand right?”
Oh. Oh. That’s what this was about.
Minho had to hold back a snicker. There was no way Chan was going to break his number one rule for a girl who didn’t want to put any effort into finding an original song herself, not when he had refused the exact same request from Hyunjin just the week before.
You see, if Chan was going to make music, any music whatsoever, he had to be emotionally invested in it. He had to want to do it; it couldn’t just be for some random dance performance where it would only be heard once. Sure, Chan had plenty of tracks left unfinished without lyrics that seemed to sit on the creator’s computer for the sole reason of taking up data. But they were Chan’s, and they existed because Chan wanted them to.
It was the reason Chan had been so stressed out over his current music assignment because he had nothing he wanted to make in the beginning. Of course a week, a few days of lost sleep, a couple of red bulls at 2 a.m., and an unhealthily philosophical discussion with Jisung at 3 in the morning had changed that. But if Hyunjin’s pleading eyes, Felix’s encouraging smile, and the pressure of Mrs. Kim herself breathing down his neck at a rather terrifying rate couldn’t get Chan to create something out of necessity, then a girl with almost no connection to him and one of the worst excuses Minho had ever heard wouldn’t either.
Minho walked over to the pair, careful to keep his footfalls soft, and caught Chan’s eye before the girl even noticed his presence. The change was almost immediate. Chan’s eyebrows lowered slightly, his eyes brightened, and his lips undid themselves from their firm line and turned into a small but welcoming smile as Chan slumped just the slightest bit in his seat. Minho grinned back at him, happy to see some of the tension drain from the elder’s body, but the grin quickly dropped as the girl realized Chan was no longer watching her and turned to see who had caught the beloved producer’s attention.
“Oh, hello,” the slightest bit of annoyance bled into her voice. “Can I help you?”
“You can’t.” Minho moved to stand next to Chan, giving him a secret smile. “I came to eat with Channie-hyung, but you’re occupying his time.”
“Oh, well it's a simple matter, we’ll be done in just a moment.”
Minho’s eye twitched as the girl turned back to Chan, insistent upon getting her answer.
“Well?”
“I’m sorry, Soomin-noona, but I can’t. I already have so much on my plate, and I still have my own songs I need to finish for the fall festival. I don’t have time to make a song for you.”
“Oh, come on Channie! It’ll only take a moment, I know you’re quick.”
Sure, Chan’s quick. Chan can be fucking lightning when he really wants to be. But only if he wants to, and that’s only if he’s invested.
With a purposefully grating sigh, Miho set the food tray down on the seat beside Chan, and straightened up to look the older girl in the eye, trying not to be too pleased that she was two inches shorter than him.
“Soomin-noona,” his grin didn’t reach his eyes, voice sickeningly sweet as he stared her down, trying to burn a whole in her head, “you asked,” probably more than once , “but Channie-hyung doesn’t have time for you right now,” and probably never will , “so please fuck all the way off, so I can enjoy my lunch with my boyfriend.”
Soomin’s mouth hung open like a fish out of water, gasping for air. Minho’s grin grew sharper, eye twitching at the girl’s floundering, until she snapped her mouth shut with a resounding huff and stormed out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her. Minho almost wanted to laugh.
“Minho.”
The younger boy turned at the older’s call, grin softening to a warm and gentle smile that shone like sunlight in his eyes. He was expecting a scolding, or at least the smallest “that was rude” as per usual. Instead Chan let out a relieved sigh.
“Thank fuck.”
Minho let out a small giggle at that, lifting the food tray to plop down next to his dimpled boyfriend and offer him some food.
“What would I do without you?” the Australian sighed again, lovingly.
“Starve probably.”
“Hey!” Chan’s dopey grin fell to a pout, which only caused Minho’s smile to broaden. “I was going to come to the cafeteria! But Soomin stopped me after class and said it would only take a minute, and the next thing I knew it had been ten and there was no stopping her.”
“Please, you could have told her off.”
“That’s rude, Minho.”
“I’m rude, Chan-hyung. Now hush and eat your food before I make you.”
The elder stuck his tongue out but still dug into his lunch with vigor, and the smile returned to both their faces once Minho did the same.
“Jihyo’s gonna be so mad at you later.”
“Oh, fuck off.”