Chapter Text
Jeongin
Jeongin is ashamed to admit it to himself—but he has the most embarrassing, humiliating, all-consuming crush of all time on his older brother’s best friend.
He pulls the covers of his bed over his face and tries to repress a scream—one wants to come out just by thinking about it. It’s nauseating, truly. Kim Seungmin should be nothing special, nothing more than some guy who Jeongin sees more times than he can control. He’s stupidly cocky, is constantly pestering Jeongin when they happen to be in the same room at the same time, is only in the year above Jeongin yet acts like Jeongin is still five years old. He’s nothing great, really.
It’s stupid—he’s stupid. Stupidly annoying, stupidly good at baseball, stupidly tall, stupidly hot, has stupidly nice arms and shoulders and—
And yet, Jeongin just cannot get him out of his mind.
Minho had been friends with Seungmin for years, since, like, elementary school. Jeongin has known and has been familiar with Seungmin for all these years as well. Seungmin has been over at their house more times than Jeongin could count, either terrorizing their pantry or terrorizing their Playstation (the Playstation that is, technically, Jeongin’s since it was a birthday gift). He brings them coffee in the morning whenever he comes over, he has given Jeongin rides to school or to his track meets or to Felix’s house or home whenever Minho can’t.
Maybe Jeongin should get his license.
Yes. He should focus on that instead. The fact he’s been seventeen for over half a year and still license-less, that he is so horrendous at driving to the point he has failed the test twice by now, that he passed his permit test with only a hope and prayer and one too many lucky guesses, and don’t even get him started about parallel parking. He should think about this. Not about Kim Seungmin.
Not about how Jeongin’s heart had fluttered when he saw Seungmin across the cafeteria earlier, pushing his hair out of his face while laughing at something his friends had said. How Seungmin had come up to him after sixth period to tell him he had to take the bus home since he and Minho were staying after school for some nerd-shit that Jeongin wasn’t listening to because he couldn’t focus on anything except for Seungmin’s arms.
Seungmin has these eyes. And this… face. And this hair. Has some shoulders, too.
As do approximately the entire male population at their school.
But Seungmin is just different.
Jesus Christ.
It’d been like this for about three years at this point—when it was Jeongin’s first day of eighth grade while it was Minho and Seungmin’s first day of high school. Seungmin had slept over that night—well, ‘slept’ is kind of a reach because Jeongin had heard him and Minho giggling until way past midnight—and Jeongin’s mom had made them all pose together for a photo like they were still children.
Jeongin had rolled his eyes, prepared to refuse since at the time—he was way too deep into his “I hate my mother and everything she does and everything is embarrassing and I’m too cool for all of this” phase (He still winces whenever he even thinks about his middle school self), but Seungmin had laughed this stupidly pretty laugh and pulled Jeongin to his side, his arm falling over Jeongin’s shoulders.
Jeongin doesn’t remember much from this moment—he’s tried to block as much of middle school from his memory as he could, honestly—but what has stuck in his mind, so detailed and alive that he can still feel it now, was the warmth Seungmin’s body had given. It was like a big hug, wrapping around him until he couldn’t think and his mind was just finetuned on the point of contact. The touch couldn’t have lasted longer than thirty seconds, since at that point, the high school bus was already beginning to roll up from down the street and the three were forced to break away, but it had plagued Jeongin’s mind and still does now.
He remembers how the rest of the day went by in a blur because of the fact his mind was still replaying that same moment over and over again like a particularly shitty record player. He doesn’t remember how Jisung had bubbly run up to him prior to first period, already rambling about some cute guy in his homeroom. Doesn’t remember how Felix had brought the brownies he made last night and yelled at Jeongin to try them after Jeongin had zoned out so badly he didn’t even realize Felix had sat down. Doesn’t remember the awkwarndess the first day of school always brought because the teachers are always insitient on everybody sharing their name, their hobbies, their fucking social security number.
He doesn’t remember any of this; all he remembers is catching himself in class thinking about a thirty-second interaction while staring out the window, his cheeks so hot he could feel the fact he was blushing. It was confusing at the time, Jeongin had never even thought about another boy this way before—especially not Seungmin, who Jeongin has had countless physical interactions with his entire life.
Jeongin hadn’t felt like that when he was ten, laughing while balancing on Seungmin’s shoulders as they went against Chan and Minho in Chicken; hadn’t felt like that at 11, gripping onto Seungmin’s hands so tightly while conquering a rollercoaster he’d always been afraid of going on; hadn’t felt like that even at 12 after a particularly embarrassing moment of waking up on Seungmin’s shoulder in the car after an exhausting beach day.
Basically: Jeongin had been in physical contact with Seungmin on a plethora of occasions.
So, what was different then?
Maybe it was because Seungmin had reached his growth spurt and now towered over Jeongin. Or maybe it was because after Seungmin’s busy summer away at baseball camp, he had come back with these toned arms that made younger Jeongin’s brain buzz like static whenever he was able to catch a glimpse.
Whatever it was, it had, very unpredictably, changed the course of Jeongin’s life.
Jeongin had hoped and assumed this crush—a word he hadn’t even begun to stick onto this feeling until an entire year later because of how final it felt—would fizzle out after a few days. Weeks, even.
But then Seungmin had continued growing. Continued ruffling Jeongin’s hair whenever he walked by. Began going to the gym and worked harder at baseball and grew these biceps and legs that Jeongin refused to let himself think about because then his mind began wandering to places it, frankly, shouldn’t.
He hadn’t told anyone about how deep this crush truly ran through Jeongin’s body. Jisung and Felix know he finds Seungmin cute, sure, they think that too; Jeongin has never actually went into detail about how sometimes, he wakes up in the middle of the night after dreaming about Seungmin—dreams that ranged from sweet kisses to silly dates to Seungmin’s hand trailing down Jeongin’s body to places that made him blush furiously whenever he thought about it.
And Minho could never know.
Like. Genuinely.
Jeongin didn’t really want to think about or know how Minho would react to knowing his younger brother was into his best friend. Minho was weirdly territorial over his friends—he makes faces whenever Chan speaks to Jeongin, rolls his eyes whenever Jeongin dares to ask for Hyunjin’s help for an art project, even downright yells at Jeongin whenever he is anywhere within a fifteen mile radius of where the four of them are trying to hangout in the house.
It’s infuriating. And Minho already cares enough about Jeongin trying to meddle his way into Minho’s social circle; he'd probably flip out if Jeongin and Seungmin dated.
Which.
They wouldn’t.
Obviously.
Because fortunately for Jeongin, just as all his almost-somethings and crushes do, this will crash and burn. If Jeongin is particularly lucky, it will fade away naturally as he matures more and learns that Seungmin is possibly the worst person to have a crush on.
Jeongin doesn’t really pursue the people he’s liked, anyway, he’s far too nervous of rejection and embarrassing himself for that. Therefore, this is all useless and probably just some dumb high school thing that for some reason, his heart is incredibly stubborn on.
He lifts his face out of his covers, blinking wearily as his room comes back into focus. His eyes adjust to the darkness, he’d been trying to sleep for the better part of the past two hours to no avail. His mind wouldn’t shut up; it had the same topics it always did on rotation. Seungmin, track, whether or not he passed his recent test (he did not), if Jisung was serious about hanging out this weekend or if Jeongin was about to get flaked on yet again, Seungmin, Seungmin, Seungmin.
Jeongin hated how Seungmin took over his life. It’s nauseating. It’s horrendous. It’s downright humiliating. But, alas, Jeongin can’t do much about what the heart wants; he just has to deal with it.
He huffs out, blowing the strands of hair that had fallen in front of his face out the way before swinging his legs over his bed. He needed water. He needed food. He needed to do anything except think for the next thirty minutes—possible his whole life. He taps his phone screen, illuminating it to life, and squints against the brightness. It’s past midnight, and he has school tomorrow.
Within logic, Jeongin vaguely knows that he should probably get back into bed and try once more to fall asleep, but he of course—per usual—does not listen to this part of his brain. He steps across the room, his footsteps silent as his feet pad against the carpeted floor, before quietly shutting the door behind him.
The house is quiet, the only noise audible being the crackling hum of the air conditioner. It doesn’t do much to cool him down, Jeongin can feel that he is flushed right now—honestly, the mere thought of Seungmin is able to do that to him.
He’s doing it again. Thinking about Seungmin. What is wrong with him tonight?
A small part of Jeongin’s brain thinks it’s because in only two months—Minho and Seungmin will both graduate and move away and only see Jeongin for the holidays. Minho had already gotten accepted to a university three hours away, and now, for most of April, Minho had been buzzing with an excitement that made a part of Jeongin’s gut twist whenever he thought about it.
It’s dumb. Jeongin himself only has one more year of high school, he’s going to college soon too. But he doesn’t think he was really prepared to see Minho so excited to leave—leave this town that they’d grown up with, leave his friends, leave Jeongin.
It’s not personal, of course it’s not, it’s just university and Jeongin knows that he is overreacting, but Jeongin still remembers how weird fifth and eighth grade were. He’d been so used to attending school with Minho, not realizing that when Minho isn’t a familiar face in the hallway, the building seems less alive.
So, what will Jeongin do when Minho is three hours away? He’ll be an hour ahead of Jeongin now, probably too busy with school or work or his friends or just having a life to constantly be there for Jeongin as he usually is.
Frankly, Jeongin doesn’t know if the sick feeling in his stomach right now is from the fact that Minho is leaving, or because he’s so upset about Minho leaving. He’d been building up the mentality that he hated his older brother for about the last seventeen years of his life; he couldn’t tear those walls down now.
But with Minho leaving, so is Seungmin. Seungmin is getting to live out his Divison One baseball dreams at a university practically across the fucking country, and Jeongin is happy for him, seriously. This means that now, hopefully, with some distance—Jeongin’s crush will wither away. But it also means that Jeongin is only going to see Seungmin on the regular until the end of summer, and for some reason, his heart squeezes whenever he thinks about it.
Jeongin steps into the kitchen, not knowing what he’s hungry for, and damn near jumps out of his skin at the sight of a figure slumped over the counter; scrolling on his phone.
Minho must’ve heard his gasp, because he turned his head, raising an eyebrow. “Why are you awake?”
Jeongin glared at him, his hand still on his chest like he could’ve caught his heart jumping out of his chest. “Why are you?” He says, sharply inhaling to catch his breath before opening the fridge. Though, nothing looked very appealing.
“Becasue I’m not going to school in the morning, so I can stay up tonight,” Minho shrugs, turning his attention back to his phone. His fingers lazily grip the spoon sitting in an empty bowl with a small remainder of milk left inside, one or two Fruit Loops stuck to the sides.
Jeongin hums, about to grab one of the last of the yogurt pouches, before making a sound of confusion. He turns to Minho. “What do you mean, you’re not going to school in the morning?”
“I have a doctor's appointment at, like, nine. I’m skipping first period.” He snorts, then looks up at Jeongin. “Oh. Right. You can’t drive yourself." Minho laughs under his breath like he told the funniest joke.
Jeongin makes a show of rolling his eyes—somehow, the fact that Jeongin cannot legally operate a vehicle is hilarious to Minho. (Hilarious until their mom is telling him to drop Jeongin off somewhere, then it’s just annoying, apparently.) “Fuck off.”
“I’ll text Seungmin to take you. Give me a water bottle.”
Jeongin’s deeply ashamed of the way his heartbeat picked up. “Um,” He chokes out, hoping the darkness of the kitchen covers the redness of his cheeks. “It’s fine. I’ll just text Felix.” He slides the bottle to Minho.
“Okay,” Minho shrugs. He didn’t care what the hell Jeongin did, honestly. He stands up, dropping his empty bowl into the sink before grabbing the water. “‘Night.”
Minho didn’t wait for a response before already turning out of the kitchen. “Goodnight,” Jeongin mutters back, mostly to himself. Jeongin rolls his eyes again as he watches Minho disappear down the hall. He cannot believe that he’s going to miss Minho, no matter how much he doesn’t want to admit it to himself. His brother is an asshole.
He cringes, though, standing in the middle of the kitchen with his yogurt unopened. This was his problem—he has opportunities presented right in front of him and doesn’t take them. Jeongin knows that he didn’t deny a ride from Seungmin out of nerves; it was because he knew that if he was alone, in a car with Seungmin, he would do something very, very stupid. Like kiss him.
These fantasies are fine to stay in his head, though, because at least he won’t be alone in a car with Seungmin.
Jeongin is sitting alone in a car with Kim fucking Seungmin.
His hands are folded into tight fists on his lap, trying to focus on anything except the boy next to him. The song Seungmin’s playing on aux, quiet and serene and absolutely nothing yet completely like Seungmin; the scent of Seungmin’s air freshener, something woody and cinnamony that makes Jeongin’s nose twitch from how good it smells; the gentleness of the wind bellowing into the car from the opened windows.
The sight of Seungmin in gray sweatpants, highlighting every damn good thing about his legs and—
Jeongin refuses to let himself look any higher than Seungmin’s legs. It was eight a.m., he had to have a bit of decency.
Missed opportunities, truly.
This is such bullshit. He had texted Felix, but had forgotten that Felix goes to school early on Thursdays for Student Council. Then he texted Jisung (which, in itself, was already a last-effort thing. Jeongin can’t drive himself so he has no room to judge, but he knows that Jisung should definitely not possess a license, either), who gave three very unconvincing coughs as he claimed he was “sick.”
Jisung was not fucking sick. He just didn’t want to go to gym class today. Jeongin’s not an idiot.
And, so, alas, it was down to walking to school or texting Seungmin. He would’ve ridden the bus if he had known nobody could take him—but, honestly, he tries to avoid the bus as much as possible. And, plus, he would’ve had to wake up like an entire hour earlier. So, he weighed the pros and cons and decided on the fact that one ten minute drive with Seungmin—a situation he has been in countless times—was not so bad.
God. He just didn’t account for the sight of Seungmin lazily steering the wheel with one hand, his body relaxed against the seat, discreetly checking his phone every goddamn minute before glancing up at Jeongin like he hoped he hadn’t seen.
“Keep your eyes on the road,” Jeongin finally mumbles—the only words he’s spoken except for ‘Good morning’ this entire drive.
Seungmin laughs, more breath than sound, but pointedly sets his phone down. “My bad.”
A silence, one that is truly not awkward but Jeongin’s brain likes to make up stories, falls between them. Jeongin stares out the window. Should he say something? Should he go on his phone? He never knows how to act whenever he’s alone with Seungmin. In the moments he is with Seungmin in a car, Minho is usually there, which makes it a hell of a lot less weird. Now, he doesn’t know what to do. He can see their school in the distance, and for teh first time, Jeongin is truly grateful for the sight.
After a moment of silence, Seungmin glances up at him again. “So,” he begins, pausing like he doesn’t quite know why he’s talking either. “Got any tests today?”
Jeongin makes the mistake of looking back at him. His face is so much closer than Jeongin had thought it was, and his eyes look so beautiful in this lighting. All brown and warm, the morning light reflecting off them, his lashes long. He looks beautiful. The way his hair falls into his face, how his nose iis sloped just perfectly, how his skin is so clear. Seungmin is so handsome, so lovely to look at—Jeongin doesn’t ever want to stop.
The moment lasted maybe half a second before Seungmin averted his eyes back on the road, but Jeongin swears time had just slowed down. Had Seungmin felt that, too? How everything, just for a moment, seemed to fade and just leave the two of them there, looking at each other, staring into each other’s eyes—
“Jeongin?”
Jeongin blinks, his eyes coming back into focus. He can feel a heat rushing up his neck. Oh. It happened again. Jeongin taking a normal fucking human interaction and his mind turning it into the most delusional images it could possibly conjure up. If Jeongin had stayed like that for even a second more, the images probably would have somehow turned into their wedding day.
“Hm?”
“You good?”
“Yeah,” Jeongin breathes out. “Just tired.”
“I know, right?” Seungmin snickers, his voice light with a hint of ‘I’m only talking to be nice, not because I want to be talking.’ “Just today and tomorrow, though. Then it’s the weekend.”
Jeongin can only meekly nod in response, but by then, they’re already pulling into the busy parking lot. He must’ve not even waited a minute before Seungmin turned off the car before he was opening the door, grabbing his bag off of the floor.
“Thanks,” Jeongin calls out in a last attempt of courtesy. They got to school early today, the bell wont ring for another fifteen minutes, but Jeongin doesn’t think he could’ve lasted a minute longer in that car.
Seungmin waves his fingers in response without looking up on his phone, still slumped in the driver’s seat. He’s being normal, taking as much time as he could before having to get up just to avoid entering the school—Jeongin is the one being irrational here.
Jeongin finds Felix sitting at a table in the Commons, laughing about something on his phone that Jeongin can’t see from here. Jeongin’s face scrunches up as he walks towards him, dropping his bag down in what he hopes is anger but probably doesn’t come off as anything except mild annoyance. “I cannot believe you.”
Felix blinks as Jeongin slides into the seat across from him. Then blinks again, looking at him in confusion. “Huh?”
“I had to—” Jeongin lowers his voice down to a hushed whisper, like this is some particularly juicy gossip anybody cares about and not just him being an idiot. “Seungmin had to drive me to school today! You could’ve driven me!”
“...So?”
“So,” Jeongin huffs out, “He— you know!”
“I really do not. Hey, do you know where Jisungie is?”
Jeongin scoffed. “He’s sick.’” He makes a point to emphasize the quotation marks around ‘sick.’
Felix snorts. “Oh, yeah, totally. For sure. Probably deathly ill for… what is it? The fifth time this month?”
Jeongin grins back, his initial bad mood fizzling away. “He’s going to fail gym then have to retake it next year.”
“Don’t even speak that into the universe. He’s annoying enough about it already. I don’t fucking get why he didn’t just take it freshmen year like us.”
“Because he procrastinated it,” Jeongin hums, and Felix nods like this is an acceptable excuse. “Wait— you’re distracting me! Let me be mad.”
“I don’t know what you’re mad about,” Felix groans, finally setting his phone down. “So, you had to ride with Seungmin, big deal.”
“Very big deal!” Jeongin squeaks.
“Why?”
“Because!”
“Can you stop being fucking ominous for, like, two seconds?”
This time, it’s Jeongin’s turn to groan. He hangs his head down in defeat, mumbling something that Felix can’t hear.
“What was that?” Felix asks—and Jeongin can hear the smirk. Hear the amusement in his voice. That bastard.
Jeongin repeats it. “He wore gray sweatpants.”
“And? What does that— Oh.”
“Yeah,” Jeongin snorts. “Oh.”
“Since when have you—”
“Since always!”
“Wait, do you actually like him? Or? Is this just you appreciating a good man in some nice pants?” Felix asks, cocking his head. His blonde hair falls beside him with the movement, like a pretty curtain. A pretty, incredibly bleached, dead curtain. But a curtain, nonetheless.
Jeongin stares at Felix, trying to figure out how to answer the question in a way that doesn’t make him sound absolutely insane.
I think I’ve been in love with him since I was thirteen, and everything he does drives me absolutely crazy, and my heart physically hurts whenever he’s not around or whenever I think about the fact he’s leaving in just a few months.
“I don’t know,” he decides to say. Safest answer. “I guess I kind of like him. I’m not sure.”
Jeongin internally winces when Felix’s face splits into a wide grin, his eyes gleaming with a certain joy that Jeongin has only ever seen whenever a recipe works, or when Jisung does something stupid. “Lix—”
“That’s so great!” Felix exclaims, maybe a little too loud, since Jeongin sees people turning their faces. “Everybody you like is just a mediocre white boy who turns out to be evil.” Jeongin purses his lips, deciding not to take offense to that. It’s not wrong, exactly. His roster of boys is not exactly the strongest.
“Seungmin is actually a good guy. Plus, you know him.” Felix seems to not take count about the fact that Seungmin is Minho’s best friend, or maybe he just hadn’t put two and two together about why this is, in fact, not so great.
“Could you keep your voice down?” Jeongin hisses, his eyes darting around the room in hopes nobody was overhearing their conversation. Over the loud chatter of the Commons, he assumes not, but you never know.
Felix sheepishly smiles, the gesture gentle on his delicate face. “Sorry—” The sound of the tardy bell interrupts them, and everybody around starts picking up their bags as they stand up. Felix and Jeongin follow along. “I’ll see you at lunch.”
Jeongin swings his bag over his shoulder, calling out a goodbye to his already retreating friend. He wants to dwell on it, the fact that he has finally told somebody or maybe just this entire morning in its entirety—but the people around him are already trying to shove their way through, and he can see the minute change on the digital clock mounted on the wall that is like a ticking bomb for his tardiness.
With a sigh, he heads into the direction of his first class. His legs embarrassingly burn climbing up the three flights of stairs, and he’s a little out of breath by the time he slumps into his seat, but that’s beyond the point.
And as much as he hates to admit it—he spends the entire class period not paying attention to his teacher drone on about physics, but with his mind stuck on this morning with Seungmin.
He slumps down farther into his seat.