p e r s o n a l l y ☆ 2jae

f i f t e e n

The bell rang to both boy's disappointment, signalling the end of the lunch period. Next, the pair had a biology lesson together, and so they packed their things and began exiting the maths room. 

Jaebeom had thought that they would walk together, seeing that none of Youngjae's friends were around. In contrary belief, Youngjae was heading in the opposite direction.

"Ya. Youngjae," Jaebeom called out with more bitterness in his voice than he intended.

"Hmm?" Youngjae replied after turning around.

"Aren't you coming to class?"

Youngjae could only shake his head. This lunch with Jaebeom was the only thing he looked forward to, but the rest felt too overwhelming for him to want to deal with. Knowing that biology was next only remined him of a test they had done sometime last week that Youngjae had not even attempted to revise for.
Jaebeom had a mean face plastered on, something that Youngjae wasn't unfamiliar with seeing, but he wished his mean face would turn into the warm one that he had seen when they were studying together.

"You can't skip--" Jaebeom muttered harshly before getting interrupted with a snarky reply.

"Why? You do it all the time."

Jaebeom scoffed, "What's with you?" he asked more to himself than as an actual question.

Just as Youngjae turned away, Jaebeom grabbed Youngjae's wrist with his good hand and without a second thought, pulled him towards their classroom. Youngjae was shocked and slightly embarrassed. With some futile attempts of getting himself released he finally gave up and let the walk of shame happen. Luckily, the door to their class had already been opened and Jaebeom walked in with a reluctant Youngjae following behind. Jaebeom would have rather shoved the door open with his sprained wrist than let go of Youngjae right now. 

They were late. A sea of eyes turned towards the direction of the disruption, which wouldn't have been too bad if not for the grip that Jaebeom still had on the other. Youngjae, suddenly feeling self aware, pulled his arm out of the elder's grasp and shuffled his feet awkwardly to get to his seat.

"Ah. Jaebeom, and Youngjae? If I remember that correctly? You're both late but luckily for you Ms Chang isn't in today."

Jaebeom recognised the substitute immediately from detention and made his way to his own seat, which of course, was right next to Youngjae. 

"As I was saying, I'm your substitute teacher, Mr Dorin. Some of you may recognise me from detention. Ms Chang left me with a lesson plan that we'll be working though."

The lesson began promptly with minimal more distractions. Jaebeom did his best to keep up with the new content, every so often glancing at Youngjae to see what he was doing. 

Nothing. Youngjae was doing nothing. He refused to write notes and simply looked at the board with a blank stare. 

"Does anyone know the definition of homeostasis?" Mr Dorin looked around the class where, unsurprisingly, nobody volunteered. 

"Youngjae? Do you know?" He said, turning towards the solemn boy.

He could only shake his head in response, which surprised Jaebeom more considering Youngjae was the smartest person he knew. 

The lesson continued, when 15 minutes before the end Mr Dorin interrupted again. 

"Ms Chang has some test papers to give back to you."

He walked through the room and dropped papers in front of people's desk. When come Jaebeom's turn, the papers floated down to reveal a 41% circled at the top right corner. A 41% was really good for Jaebeom, considering he only tried to revise the entire contents of the test the night before, compared to his usual 'no revision at all'. It was a start. Jaebeom felt good.

Mr Dorin finished giving out the papers when Jinyoung raised his hand. 

"Sir? I don't have my paper back."

"Oh, I don't see it anywhere here but I'll check in the office," Mr Dorin replied, leaving the classroom swiftly on his hunt.

Jaebeom felt a figure walking over to where he was, he turned to see Bambam standing behind the pair. Bambam and Yugyeom would usually sit at the back of the class together but because of his best friend's medical mystery, Jinyoung had temporarily taken the maknae's place. 

"Hey Youngjae, what did you get?" Bambam glanced down at the test paper. 

29%

Youngjae looked like a ghost. 

"Ahh.." Bambam exhaled after seeing the result, "It's okay man don't worry," He said trying to cheer the boy up knowing how seriously Youngjae took his grades. Some other people peered over to the discussion and were even more shocked at the result. 

Youngjae was smart, not the smartest in the class since technically Jinyoung was the smartest, but the smartest and most popular. A 29% was a shock to everyone who laid eyes upon it. 

"Ya! Youngjae you really failed this time!"

"Wow I must have done good if Youngjae did this bad."

"How come you got so low in this one?"

"Did you revise?"

Bambam constantly tried to deflect the comments from their peers, "Guys it's not a big deal. It's just one test."

But people kept talking over him.

"I mean, I guess the test was a little hard."

"Huh? But I thought it was easy."

"I only got like 30% on this too," Bambam tried to interrupt once more to no avail. 

By this point Jinyoung had gotten up and told everyone to quieten down before the teacher came back, trying his best to pull the attention away from his friend. His friend who he was getting more and more worried about. 

"Youngjae, are you okay?"

"That's the first time Youngjae got less that perfect results."

"Even Jaebeom did better than you.."

Youngjae slammed his fists against the table and stood up, shocking everyone around him and causing them to back away.

"SHUT UP!" 

His yell resonated in the room for a few moments, Jaebeom locked his eyes onto the younger, watching his chest heave with heavy breaths after the anger from that shout. Youngjae grabbed his things and stormed out of the room. The class stood frozen in time until Mr Dorin entered the classroom again. 

"Everyone back in your seats-- where's Youngjae?"

Nobody snitched, but Jaebeom stood up abruptly out of his seat and tried to leave and find him.

"Jaebeom. Sit back down."

"But--"

Mr Dorin gave Jaebeom a serious stare, "No excuses."

He sat down reluctantly, his mind feeling confused at what had just occurred.

.

.

But wasn't Youngjae a good enough excuse?