started with a dare | NORENMIN

25 | SOLVED (part 2)

"i'm sorry... you like me?"

a sigh escaped from renjun's mouth, listening to jeno's question towards the other brown haired male. he honestly kind of found it surprising that the said male didn't know that beforehand, but as always, it was expected. there wasn't much else to expect from jeno.

a nod was the only thing jaemin gave as a response, triggering jeno's confusion further.

"i can't... i don't..." jeno was so confused. he didn't know that jaemin had a crush on him. he couldn't even tell. he thought that there was no way that what his friend was telling the two of them was true. it seemed so impossible for jaemin to like someone like him. they're so close to being polar opposites.

letting out a sigh, the brown haired male dropped his head to look at the ground and ruffled his hair before looking back up to jaemin. "since... since when?"

and before jaemin could open his mouth to say a response, the only chinese male in the room spoke up before him, answering the brown haired male's question for him. "he's liked you for the longest time now. you're just the only person who didn't know."

jaemin could only nod his head and agree with his friend's words. there was nothing else he could add onto that since that was literally what the situation was. but it felt wrong to only be talking about his feelings for jeno when he also likes renjun the same way.

and his feelings for the red haired male was also valid in every way.

"but i like renjun, too, for longer than any of us actually knew."

hearing it being mentioned again, the chinese male lost himself in his thoughts. so that's why. that's why renjun had thought that the eyes of his two brown haired friends were the same. that's why he suddenly couldn't tell the difference. they looked at him in the same way. they both liked him in the same way, as more than friends, and because of that, the gazes from jeno and jaemin that were directed towards the chinese male were the same.

although the chinese male wasn't able to pinpoint exactly when their gazes were the same to him, it didn't necessarily matter by this point. the only thing that was important was the fact that the three of them liked each other.

and how they wanted to approach this situation was all up to them.

however, it looks as if jaemin wanted to approach this in the worst way possible. "but why does it matter how i feel? it's not like you even return my feelings. you like renjun, and renjun has some sort of feelings for you, too. i'm only going to be holding you guys back from moving forward and that's the last thing i want to do."

"you're not interfering, if that's what you're thinking," jeno replied to his friend, holding onto the other brown haired male's shoulders to try and refrain from raising his voice again. the last thing he wanted to do was repeat what had happened earlier in the summer, where he and renjun had a fight that caused him to leave without a word.

but jaemin wasn't helping the situation as he only shook off the hands of his friend and looked towards the floor. "you don't understand..." he muttered barely above a whisper, but somehow, his friends were able to hear what he had said, most likely because of the quiet atmosphere of the room.

"what is it that we don't understand?" jeno was growing more frustrated with every passing second. his brown haired friend that usually wears his heart on his sleeve and has no shame in playing around or talking about things that annoy him, bother him, or make him happy, is being reserved and keeping his own emotions inside. that was something that jeno didn't want to happen at the moment, since this was a case where everyone needed to be open about their feelings.