shot clock || na jaemin (the court series #1)

quarter two: minute seven

news travels fast when it comes to high schoolers and any sort of drama. they were practically bloodhounds, sniffing out drama and sharing it like it was an std - that is to say, everyone fucking had it. (get it?)

so when the school finds out about the basketball game, sooyoung has barely stepped onto school grounds before she's swarmed by random girls she has never met before, grilling her about why this game was so exclusive. 

did she plan it? was she dating one of the dreamies? did she know about jisoo's reputation? didn't sooyoung hate her brother? also was her name sooyoung or serena? was she still the manager of the basketball team? did her mom die? how did she die? we heard she committed suicide.

it had taken three of sooyoung's friends and jisoo's sharp tongue ("fuck off like the pests you are.") to finally calm her down. how dare they insult her mother like that. or her brother's girlfriend. or any of the people who were close to her. 

jeno wasn't much better. the girls who had fawned over him before he started dating jisoo were now whispering behind his back, saying nasty things about their relationship and how she had 'seduced' her with her siren powers or something. disgusting.

sooyoung slumps onto the bench next to jisoo, the older female rubbing her shoulder sympathetically.

"it's been a long day and it's literally lunch period. why the hell did we decide to come to school again?" sooyoung mumbles, leaning her head onto jisoo's shoulder, accepting a root beer lollipop in fatigued gratitude.

"because some idiot over here actually convinced us to," chenle says, equally tired. he sticks his tongue out at jisoo, who just hands him a blue raspberry lollipop, grinning at the prospect of sweets.

"GUYS IT'S FRIED CHICKEN FOR SIDE DI - oh. i see. that rough, huh?" haechan says sympathetically, fried chicken flopping pathetically in the grasp of his chopsticks. 

"what's gotten into all the babies today?" jaemin asks, leaning over to snatch up one of jeno's fried chicken pieces. jisung practically hisses at him, burrowing further into the confines of his hoodie.

"it's finals season for them, dimwit. they've got a lot of work to catch up on," jisoo says, snatching up the other piece of fried chicken from jeno's tray. she meets sooyoung's eye, conveniently choosing not to mention the witches who had cornered her earlier today. thank god. jeno would've gone ham on them, and that's not what she wanted right now. not when things were finally starting to get back to normal.

"fine, eat all my food. i'll just starve. basketball captain. just starving," jeno says with a grump, leaning back on the bench. jisoo pecks him on the cheek quickly, pointing at the extra beef on his plate with mock nonchalance. renjun fake gags, turning to the side to mime throwing up. haechan looks as if he might actually throw up.

"that's disgusting. you do that one more time and i'm going on a fucking hunger strike," chenle says, resting his chopsticks on the tray. sooyoung rolls her eyes.

"now you see the torture these two make me go through?" she says, spooning a little rice and radish into her mouth. jisung's nose twitches at jeno's puppy eyes, as if he had smelled something particularly nasty.

"well, if you ever need to escape, my house's free. i mean, we've got to study for finals anyway, right?" jisung says, finally raising his head to eat his food.

"wait, we could actually form a study group! sooyoung's good at english and shit at chinese - don't look at me like that, you know it's true - so she can help us with english. i'm good at chinese and terrible at math so jisung could help us with that. and jisung's...well, you've got a lot to learn, buddy," chenle says with mock seriousness, patting his best friend's back with the air of their school principal.

"all in favor of killing chenle and disposing his body in haechan's apartment?"

"hey! why mine?"

"it's the closest to school."

"that's fair i guess - aye!"

"we're gonna fail finals, aren't we?" jisung says, staring at the number of red x's on his science sheet. sooyoung looks down at her chinese paper, unable to see her original answer's under all of chenle's corrections. chenle's practically eaten his pencil, refusing to look at the half empty english worksheet.

"what if one of us turned on the sprinklers in every single testing period?" chenle says, snapping his fingers. jisung flicks him with his finger, chenle yelping in pain and flicking him back.

"you've said a lot of stupid things, dude, but that's gotta be the stupidest thing yet," jisung says. sooyoung looks at him in mock disbelief.

"you, andy park, should be the last person on the planet saying that," she says, resting her head on her textbooks. jisung's nose twitches again, giving away his displeasure at her comment. sooyoung has to contain a giggle at that, realizing that jisung was looking more and more like ginger (her pet hamster when she was five years old), every day.

she's about to tell him as much when suddenly, there's six separate screeches, foreign chairs surrounding their window table at the café the three of them were 'studying' at.

"what are you guys doing here?" jisung says, eyes widening in surprise. haechan raises a notebook, waving it in the air.

"well? we can't have the babies of the group flunking school!"

"we are not flunking school."

"that's not what your chinese worksheet says, soo-soo."

"we have got to come up with better nicknames."

+++

a/n: and so the fluff begins! 

this chapter was heavily inspired by 'true beauty'. honestly, you never know the truth behind any incident unless you were there personally. things are warped and morphed to fit each individuals' personal agenda. spreading rumors and being all around nasty people by invading others' privacy is never cool.

but enough of my sjw rant! i hope you all had a great day today :)