STRANGERS. binsung

eight

Seungmin and Felix watched their friend scurry away into the distance, up some stairs, through some crowds, past some bins, in and around the school. His figure got smaller and smaller and smaller until he was just another blob.

He said, "I'm gonna disappear quickly, alright?" and left the two with that. It sufficed. But it was natural that they were curious about why he wanted to disappear for that lunch without telling them what he was doing.

"Changbin, can I talk to you quickly?"

'What the fuck am I doing?'

"Uh, sure?"

How could Jisung muster up the dreaded sentence in front of Changbin's entire scary, cliché, popular friend group? They were untouchable. And who was he to even attempt to reach up at their set pedestal?

It was as if Changbin's acceptance to leave his circle momentarily was a question in itself.

They walked a good distance away behind the science block. Changbin still had a quarter of a sandwich in his hand.

"I'm sorry if this is a bad time," Jisung sighed, scratching his head. "I just — it's just — uhm — it's just kind of important."

Changbin nodded. He slid what remained of his sandwich into his mouth.

"I like you."

Changbin nodded again.

"I'm not telling you because I want to date or something — I wasn't expecting anything anyway — it's just because, for, like, closure?"

Changbin and his damn wordless nodding.

"So I just, uhm, thank you for listening."

Changbin nodded one final time, hearing the silence between them, then coming to the realisation that it was his turn to speak.

"I honestly don't know what to say."

There it was. His response. That was what Jisung was supposed to take as 'closure' for himself. There was no 'thank you for telling me, but sorry, I don't like you back,' or, 'it must have been hard' or anything at all.

"Oh. Well, it's okay, you can go... like, back to your friends, now."

One more nod. Shuffling. Footsteps.

'So underwhelming.'

Jisung stifled a laugh. He, frankly, felt like shit. Especially after that. Was it that hard for him to say, 'sorry, I don't like you back'? Was it that hard?

It was clear he didn't, so why didn't he just say it?

"Oh, Jisung, you're back."

His shoulders slumped forwards a little more than usual, but he returned to being Jisung: the Jisung who was completely and utterly satisfied with his current friends and family and grades and achievements thus far.

'This feels like shit.'

"Where'd you even go?" Felix asked.

Jisung watched as the blond poked at his pasta with his plastic fork.

Then he smiled. "To your mom's house!"

Seungmin heaved out a comical gasp. "You've been banging Mrs. Lee?"

Yeah. He could just pretend that confession never happened. After all, Changbin had been pretending he never even knew Jisung, so what was the harm in doing the same?

Returning to his normal life would be easy. He got closure. That was it.

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