NCT Oneshots {ot23} | open

Sweet Tooth: LuMin + Shotaro

▹prompt: sweet tooth I eat all of the skittles...
▹word count: 2042
▹genre: fluff, crack
▹warnings: n/a

ˑ༄ؘ ۪۪۫۫ ▹❀◃ ۪۪۫۫ ༄ؘ ˑ

"Another bag?" Shotaro stares at his best friend, who's reaching for yet another packet of jellies from his rucksack, the previous barely having reached the bin. It's the third this day if Shotaro's kept good count. Jaemin shrugs, rips it open, pops a few into his mouth.

"I need the energy if I want to survive this class." He says. His eyes follow the teacher as she strides in and dumps a precarious pile of textbooks on her desk, the sickly sweet and sharp sour flavour of fake orange dissolving over his tongue. 

"Fine." Shotaro relents. He picks out the red sweets and lines them up in the corner of his notepad to serve as his own energy supply and to help his friend by removing his most hated flavour.

As Jaemin said, the classes are always long and laborious, their hands aching beyond relief by the end from all the notes they've scrawled down, their heads spinning with the information overload, but it's always entertaining to see how long they can go before the teacher notices the rustling sweet packets and their constant giggles. Yesterday, a particularly large bag had been confiscated, and they're sure the teacher scoffed the lot right after class.

For his birthday, Jaemin always just asks for sweets. He isn't too fussed over the sort, as long as they're not strawberry-flavoured or chocolates. Shotaro doesn't exactly agree with the obscene quantities of sugar the boy ingests on a day-to-day basis, but he buys him the occasional packet to keep him happy. The way to Jaemin's heart is through sweets. He doesn't care for pick-up lines or café dates or love letters, but buy him a bag of his favourite jellies and he'll be enamoured.

Shotaro will never forget the day Jaemin first came to sit next to him in the school cafeteria all those years ago. His teeth were a little wonky, his black hair thick and bouncing with the energy he was exuding as he thrusted a bag in his direction, urging Shotaro to take a few. At first, he was unsure. It was a bit overwhelming, if he were being honest; one minute he had been chewing his cold slice of pizza and enjoying his favourite book, and the next a boy he'd never seen before was chattering away at a million miles per hour. Jaemin's eyes shone with earnest and a bubbling innocence Shotaro couldn't help but be swayed by, so he accepted the sweets, and they've been best friends since that day.

But Shotaro will also never forget the day Jaemin first set his eyes on Lucas Wong. 

▹❀◃

They'd been sat in the college library, mulling over their notes from their morning's classes and freaking out over an exam later in the week, when Jaemin suddenly dropped his pen. It rolled across the desk and landed on the floor, but he didn't pay it any notice. His eyes were fixed on something else. Or rather, someone else. Shotaro furrowed his brow, tried to follow his line of sight. He realised who's captured his friend's generally short attention span, then rolled his eyes, leaning to pick Jaemin's pen back up.

"Lucas? Really?" Shotaro poked Jaemin's shoulder. His friend just motioned for him to be quiet as Lucas pushed his glasses up his nose and pouted when he couldn't find the book he was looking for. Jaemin watched him, hands frozen as though still writing, until Lucas disappeared from the library. It was only then that Jaemin blinked and snapped out of his daze.

"You have a crush on Lucas?" Shotaro repeated. Jaemin stuffed a few more sweets in his mouth to delay speaking.

"You know him?" He asked in disbelief, eyebrows knitted together in betrayal. Shotaro clicked his tongue.