the one where a certain raven haired beauty turns the world of serim high school's star basketball player's world upside down with her secrets and her love.
highest rankings:
#1 in nct127
#5 in nctdream
#2 in najaemin
#2 in jeno
(basketball player...
when they go back to incheon after a tearful (mina cries) farewell, incheon greets them like a breath of fresh air. it's the summer air, the lovestruck smiles that flit across faces like butterflies, and even perhaps a sense of beginning. sooyoung looks especially healthier over the next couple of weeks, growing bubblier and regaining her lost pallor. the only time she nearly relapses into her old, sullen self is when they get the phone call from seoul with yasmine informing them that lee suho was now no longer part of the nct franchise, but since he was a minor shareholder, he would still be profiting a little bit.
"you know, i hate to say it, but i kinda feel like sabotaging nct 127's café just for the sake of suho not making a single penny," renjun says, swinging a tiny (yet menacing) fist of fury in the air. haechan dodges it swiftly, instead hitting jisung square in the adam's apple.
"calm down there rambo. if suho makes no money, neither do the 127s, you know that right?" haechan says, patting the back of an uncontrollably coughing jisung. renjun sighs, flopping back onto the lee's couch, pouting slightly as he ponders various possibilities of completely ruining suho's life.
"but i share the sentiment, trust me," haechan says. "every time sooyoung cries or gets a nightmare because of that bastard, i feel the same exact way."
"you hated her at one point," jisung points out, having recovered from his coughing fit.
"so did you. and jaemin. and jeno. pretty much everyone in here besides chenle, renjun, and jisoo hated her from the get-go," haechan reminds them. funny how things change, isn't it? jisung subsides at that, not having an argument against the truth.
"i invited you idiots over to study for the ksat together. not to eat all my food and send us into poverty," jeno says, holding up the textbook they were supposed to be studying. haechan smiles sheepishly, raising the textbook as well as a sign of defeat, sitting back down on the ground to finish the practice set that he was supposed to be working on. jeno turns to chenle and jisung, who immediately take a hint and dash into sooyoung's room, where she's working on her bed while jaemin occupies the desk.
"jeno got a hold of you guys too?" sooyoung asks, not even looking up from her laptop. from the way chenle jumps onto the bed and stuffs his face into a pillow, he feels the same, sooyoung derives, patting his head sympathetically.
"jaemin, why is your boyfriend so annoying?" jisung groans, settling down onto the floor with a textbook. neither sooyoung nor jaemin looks even vaguely disturbed by jisung's newly coined way of calling jaemin, with sooyoung even joining in on teasing him from time to time.
"dunno. ask his sister," jaemin says, groaning when he tallies up the number of mistakes he had gotten on the korean history section of the sat. jisung then turns to sooyoung, who just shrugs and continues typing away on the document for her resumé.
they work in silence for the most part, with the only real distractions being when coach lee leaves his room (which he had mostly locked himself in for the past two months) to rummage through the fridge, only to return slightly disgruntled when he found nothing in the fridge. there was an abundance of food. there was no alcohol.
both jaemin and chenle register this, with the latter conveniently raising multiple questions all of a sudden on the command of the former. sooyoung, although she gives chenle a weird look for his sudden enthusiasm, suspects nothing, and happily tutors chenle on the math sections he was 'struggling' with.
a couple minutes later, jaemin fake-stretches, rambling out some bullshit excuse on why he needed jeno's help on something. when he safely reaches the room, he hits himself in the back of the head, not quite sure why he had felt the need to over-explain himself and therefore make himself even more suspicious, attracting some weird stares from both jisoo and jeno. jaemin closes the door behind him, making sure no one was coming inside the room, before dashing over to where jeno was writing something.
"everything okay, jaems?" jisoo asks, thumbing a book she was working through.
"yes. no. well, not really," jaemin lands on, shaking his head. jeno looks up concernedly. jaemin was usually the calmer one; jeno was the one who fluttered around a lot, which meant that if jaemin was this worried, then something bad had happened.
"is sooyoung okay?" jeno questions worriedly, nearly leaping out of his seat when jaemin hesitates.
"yes! yeah, she's fine. it's...it's coach lee i'm worried about," jaemin says finally, sharing a knowing look with jisoo. jeno sits back down, leaning against his chair with a confused look.
"my dad? what's wrong with my dad?" jaemin sighs, fidgeting with his hands, not quite sure how to phrase what he was trying to say.
"well, i was talking to my dad the other day and..."
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jaemin stays in jeno's room for nearly an hour. jisung and sooyoung get curious a couple of times, but chenle plays defense to keep them away from the other room, having caught onto jaemin's intentions right when he had heard the grunt of despair come from the kitchen when coach lee closed the fridge.
he contemplates texting jisung what was going on, but decides against it, realizing that it might be better if renjun and haechan, who had definitely picked up on what had happened (given that they were in the living room), had that conversation with him. sooyoung is way too immersed in writing and re-writing all her accomplishments on the document, something that chenle expresses his gratefulness for through extremely strongly worded texts to jaemin to get his ass over here as soon as possible.
by the time jaemin comes back, sooyoung has already finished her resumé, watching the first kung fu panda movie (they were supposed to have a dreamworks marathon the next day). she looks at jaemin curiously, but doesn't press for details, more than confident in her boyfriend and his good intentions.
"the first movie?" jaemin asks, settling in the bed next to her. sooyoung nods, shifting so that the laptop was sitting in between the both of them, cuddling into jaemin's chest. the scene on the computer cuts to a raging tai lung, who has just gotten his paws on a feather.
she's so absorbed in the movie that she doesn't even realize when chenle and jisung sneak out of the room, jisung being more or less dragged out of the room by chenle, more focused on how po was meant to interpret the dragon scroll. jaemin waves them out, glaring at jisung, who trips over the carpet and nearly alerts sooyoung, who almost looks up when she's distracted by a kiss pressed to her forehead by jaemin, effectively placating her.
essentially, when her brother, best friend, and her entire friend group kidnap her father, sooyoung is nonetheless wiser.
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a/n: and here it is! here is the last major plot-point left in the book: coach lee's alcoholism. the rest of the book is really tying up loose ends and fluff, so i'm glad we get to explore this plot point for two/three chapters before that ^^
how was your day today? did you do anything fun? eat any good food?
