vichangminous

six

"guys i think i need help- are those lottery tickets?" changmin cut himself off when he saw chanhee's huge pile of $20 tickets.

"no." chanhee monotonously answered, scratching the lottery ticket with a dime.

changmin looked at the others (juyeon, hyunjae, eric and kevin) questioningly, none of them seemed to bat an eye at the lottery tickets.

"why do you need so many?" changmin asked, taking a seat next to kevin.

"i don't." chanhee shortly answered, showing that he didn't really want to talk to him.

"he does this a couple times a month to waste his father's money." eric explained but that further confused changmin. 

chanhee handed juyeon a ticket that he had scratched up. juyeon handed it to hyunjae, who scribbled down a number on his notebook.

"so far, we have $320." hyunjae commented and changmin felt so out of the loop.

"what's going on?" changmin asked kevin, who was in the middle of eating a huge piece of sushi. kevin held a finger up and chewed rapidly, changmin was afraid that he would break his jaw.

"we split the money evenly, chanhee's loaded so he doesn't like to keep it." kevin explained, chanhee threw him a bored look at the mention of his name but quickly went back to scratching the tickets.

"then why-"

"eric told you, i like spending my father's money and i like scratching them." chanhee explained, not taking his eyes off of the ticket he was scratching.

"okay so $320 split into 8 is... oh, split into 9?" hyunjae awkwardly asked, glancing at changmin and chanhee. 

"i'm sure chanhee won't mind changmin joining, right?" juyeon turned to chanhee, a warning tone heard in his voice. the younger turned to look at his boyfriend with an unreadable face.

"you don't have to split it with me, i swear i don't mind. in fact, i'll probably feel bad but if chanhee agrees then i don't mind. that came off weird didn't it?" everyone was now staring at him. "you can just split it into 8, i wouldn't want to interfere in your tradition. not tradition but umm... i'll just shut up." changmin rambled on, shrinking under everyone's gaze.

"you can split it into 9." chanhee decided after a beat of silence, going back to scratching his ticket.

"oh, thank you." changmin mumbled, smiling a little.

"what were you saying at the beginning?" kevin asked, stuffing more sushi into his mouth.

"oh yeah, i was kind of thinking of quitting the best dancer title-"

everyone, even chanhee, looked at him in shock. kevin even started choking on the sushi, eric had to slap his back.

"what's wrong with you?" chanhee asked, looking at him in disbelief.

"listen, it's been really stressful and i don't think i can handle it. i can't even choose a fucking song, it's been three days since i started searching for one." changmin frustratedly said, chanhee scoffed and kept scratching his ticket, clearly annoyed.

"look, i understand where you're coming from but quitting isn't gonna help you.  you're giving up on the opportunities that go along with the title." juyeon softly told him, too busy looking at changmin to notice chanhee look up from his ticket to stare at him in alarm.

"i know but it's just so frustrating, i don't think i can deal with it." changmin sighed out, smiling slightly when juyeon placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

they were too immersed into each other and completely missed the way kevin, eric and hyunjae looked at chanhee in a mix of nervousness and slight awkwardness.

"i'll help you, we can meet up after school today." juyeon suggested, a warm smile on his face.

chanhee's jaw dropped at this, his eyes bouncing from changmin to juyeon's face. he quickly composed himself before pushing his lottery tickets towards hyunjae.

"i have to go meet up with sunwoo." chanhee announced, standing up before giving hyunjae his coin.

"could you finish scratching them for me, please?" chanhee asked, his voice small and it had juyeon turning to look at him questioningly.

"okay." hyunjae agreed with a small smile before turning to slightly glare at juyeon but the younger didn't seem to notice.

"i'll see you later." juyeon told him, the smile he had on before was wiped off. 

chanhee gave him a small nod before walking away.

*

"sunwoo!" chanhee called out to the younger, who was in the middle of a conversation with some guy.

"what's up?" he asked, nonetheless, nodding at the guy as a goodbye as chanhee came up to him.

chanhee then proceeded to tell sunwoo everything, not missing a single detail.

"maybe he just wanted to help? juyeon's not an asshole like us." sunwoo suggested afterwards, sighing when chanhee shook his head.

"you should've seen him, sun. he was smiling at him so tenderly, i was literally baffled. plus, he can be such an asshole when he wants to be." chanhee ranted, pulling on sunwoo's arm.

"you can't do anything about it right now so try not to stress about it. let's just keep an eye out and see how their relationship unfolds, okay?" sunwoo suggested, moving a hair out of chanhee's eyes.

"fine but if juyeon ends up in love with changmin, i'm blaming you." chanhee snapped, rolling his eyes when sunwoo only laughed.

"they're not gonna fall in love with each other." sunwoo scoffed, wrapping his arm around chanhee's shoulders.

"now, let's go to class."

*

"what the fuck was that all about?" hyunjae asked juyeon once the group separated to go to class.

"what are you talking about?" juyeon asked, checking his phone for any messages from chanhee. none.

hyunjae stared at him for a while, trying to figure out if he was playing dumb or if he was genuinely clueless.

"nothing." hyunjae finished off, concluding that juyeon was indeed clueless about the whole thing. 

*

"what was that all about?" kevin asked after a couple seconds of silence.

"what was what all about?" changmin asked, glancing curiously at kevin.

"oh come on, you and juyeon were practically lost in your own little world." eric said, earning a slap in the arm from kevin.

"what?! it's true!" eric exclaimed, rubbing his arm.

"what? no we weren't." changmin waved them off, thinking of the gentle smile juyeon looked at him with.

he looked really cute when he smiled.

"dude!" eric scoffed, shaking changmin's arm a little.

"what?" changmin asked, biting his lip nervously when kevin and eric looked at him with disbelief.

"i called you like 5 times." eric told him, raising an eyebrow when changmin blushed.

"just be careful." kevin sighed out as they finally made it to class.