read this when you're lonely • lee jeno

38.

"oh when will I gain back my sanity while living with a white dog that shows me it's assholee~" jeno sings softly to himself with passion, voice cracking towards the end as he grabs books from his locker.

"what's this about dogs and assholes? bestiality is illegal, jeno"

the male turns around seeing haechan sipping on coffee right behind him.

"I was not singing about bestiality you freak-" jeno says, defending himself.

"I heard dog and asshole. put two and two together and came to a conclusion that jeno lee loves dogs a bit too much" haechan cocks to his head slightly with a so called lovely smile.

jeno chops his neck.

"ow! dude fuck you"

"ask mark"

"jokes on you, I'm one step closer to making him love me" haechan says, sticking his tongue out at jeno.

"look it's mark!"

"where?"

"behind you"

"wha-" jeno pushes haechan back. the latter embracing impact with the floor but instead gets embraced by a stranger behind him.
"woah, dude be careful"

"haha, you're welcome hyuck. pay me back with a nice dinner someday" smiling sweetly, jeno waves and slips away leaving haechan still in mark's embrace.

"h-hi mark" haechan laughs awkwardly.

"hey"

---

jeno purses his lips looking around the class in boredom. the teacher wasn't in, jaemin was sick and eunha probably didn't have time to reply to his texts leaving the poor man dying of boredom due to his lack of social skills and only having one friend he communicated with the most.

"hey"
he hears someone say to him making jeno direct his attention to the person.

she looked familiar.

"hi..?" jeno responds, tone awkward and shy.

"I'm dasom. eunha's friend. we met before at the convenience store when you wanted to.... walk her home"

"oh. I remember you. eunha has mentioned you many times" jeno says, snapping a finger when he recalls memories of eunha talking about dasom endlessly.

"really? how lovely. can I sit beside you? my friend called in sick today"

"uh- sure?" jeno pulls the chair back letting dasom walk over to his other side to take a seat.

"looks like you're alone. no friends in this class?" dasom asks.

"my friend is sick, other friends aren't in my class and eunha- well she's not here at the moment so i won't have her company for a while" jeno says.

"oh yeah, eunha went back to Taiwan. she told us"

"Mhm. so I guess I'm gonna be lonely for two weeks" jeno laughs awkwardly, crying on the inside.

"hm... want me to accompany you? I can be her substitute" dasom nudges his side lightly. "substitute girlfriend"

jeno doesn't respond, only looking at dasom while trying to force a small smile.

"I'm joking I'm joking. I can never be your girlfriend anyways" she sighs. "I mean you already have eunha and all that- it would be nice if I could find a guy like you though. eunha has said a lot about you."

"ha.. ha... I've heard." he holds in a sigh, desperately wanting to slip out of the situation already.

as dasom continues to blabber on and jeno has long tuned out her voice, he pulls his bag into his lap, hand digging inside to find his little gift from eunha.
he hold onto the book, rubbing his thumb across the cover as he continued to endure dasom's talking.

the notebook being like a little form of relief for him.

---

a few hours had pass by with jeno nipping his bottom lip while picking at the skin on his thumb. the lunch bell rang cutting off the teacher mid sentence leaving her to huff in annoyance before dismissing the class.
jeno thought of sitting alone to play battleground during lunch but seems like dasom has other plans.

"hey jeno, wanna eat with me and my friends today? I assume you know jinsoo, hyuntae and minjeong" the brunette says to him.

"I kinda know them I guess. but it's fine. I don't wanna bother ya-"

"nonsense! you're always welcomed. now come on, we gotta go before the other kids take our go do table"

hand hooking around jeno who was too nice to express his discomfort, dasom dragged him to the cafeteria, haechan sparing jeno a confused look when he passed by. jeno mouths to him a "I don't know either" until his poor figure disappears from haechan's line of view.

"great! we got here just in time before someone else took the best table in the cafeteria. I'll go get some food. you want anything?"

jeno shakes his head.

"if you say so" with a little shrug, dasom skips off to get in line for lunch.

"maybe sitting with chenle doesn't sound so bad... " jeno mutters quietly under his breath, banging his head on the table, suddenly finding lunch not that enjoyable for him.

"and he died of constipation~ woah, what's the emo hunk doing at my table?"

jeno turns his head to see minjeong staring at him like a lost child. "first of all, what kind of weird song were you singing-"
"eh, some song eunha made up in the middle of a sad movie. her suddenly singing that while jinsoo and hyuntae were bawling their eyes out will forever be my most favorite memory" she takes a seat. "and what are you doing here? miss eunha so badly that you wanna sit with us?"

"pft" jeno rolls his eyes. "I'm not that deprived. and your friend dasom dragged me here, insisting me to sit here since my friend didn't come"

"dasom?" minjeong looks around, spotting dasom in line for the weekly Thursday gimbap. "yeah, dasom" jeno confirms.

"how.. strange. I'll go get the art boy renjeon to accompany you then-"

"it's renjwin. don't let him hear you mispronounce his name or he might just throw a fit and take it out on me"

"that sounds.... lovely" she smiles at him. "jeno hater" jeno points at her, his pointer finger changing into his middle finger right after"

"don't point that finger at me. I'll bite it off" minjeong bites the air harshly, jeno hearing the prominent sound of her teeth clinking before she walks away.

jeno is left alone, sitting dumbfounded.