city lights - jaemin

9

JAEMIN entered his house, his back drenched in water and leaving puddles behind him, but a smile was plastered on his face. His mother stopped walking in front of him, confused to see her son with a wet back and a smile on his face.

"What happened to you?" she asked, stepping of the bottom step of the stairs and walking towards her son.

"Oh. Just Jihoon and his brothers on bikes with water balloons." He said, taking his shoes off slowly as though his mind was in a completely different place.

"Of course it was them. But why are you smiling." Jaemin shrugged his shoulders as his smile grew bigger and bent down to pick his shoes and put them on the shoe rack.

"I'll go shower."
He ran off from his mother, almost slipping from his own puddle, but managed to skip up the stairs as his mother laughed at him from below.

He wasn't sure why he was smiling. It could be that his cousin had thrown even more water balloons on him outside his house or was it someone specific. He knew who he was thinking off, but mentally refused to think of it any further and would rather wash all his feelings away under the steaming water.

☁️

"You sure know how to mess it up, Jaemin."
Haechan mocked, poking his tongue out at Jaemin who stuck his finger up. The ball was thrown out of court for the second time, and both times had been Jaemin's fault.

"It's not my fault you keep fucking around and moving as I throw the ball." Jaemin said to Haechan who rolled his eyes and walked off, getting back into position.

"Throw it TO ME this time."
Jeno yelled, from the other end of the court, walking back on and getting in position behind their other friends who were playing as the other team. They weren't having a real game, but rather a messy practice match before the coach arrived to see them practice.

"Let's get serious guys. We have a game soon and we all suck ass right now."
One of the players, Hangyeol said as he walked in front of Jaemin, ready to play.

Jaemin did as Jeno suggested and threw it to him, then it went to Haechan then to Jaemin then back to Jeno. Hangyeol's team ended up getting their own ball and copying the three boys. Only once they had completely ditched practice did they noticed the coach standing there - having seen the three boys and everyone else playing a game of catch instead of practicing.

The gym went silent and the coach only sighed, a sigh that everyone heard even from the far end of the court.

"fifteen laps around football field. go."

Originally, the boys shrieked at the amount of laps they had to run around the football field. but now, they were crying. One player had finished his fifteen laps and he sat in the centre of the field, huffing heavily with an extremely red face, nonstop whining about his legs hurting. He was the fastest on the team as he used to be a track runner, but he got sick of running laps so he tried to escape it, only to have it with basketball too.

The rest of the team were on their eleventh lap before the coach got outside and stood on the side of the football field, watching them while writing on a note board.

Their punishment of messing around was getting harsher as they got older, and it didn't feel like they got any better from it.

Jaemin was running at the back with yujun who had managed to keep a relatively okay breathing strategy.

"so.."
His breathing got messed up again but he managed to stabilise it enough to talk.
"you and micha are friends, right?"

"why do you ask?"
Was all Jaemin could even manage to say before he was gasping for air. They hadn't done so much running in a long time clearly.

"well" He coughed and stopped talking for a few second to breath in a few times before continuing.
"You guys don't talk to each other when we all hang out. I just wanted to make sure you two are okay with hanging out together."

"Yeah. We're fine."

"That's good."
Yujun muttered before focusing on running again and catching up to the rest of the team.

Truth be told, jaemin didn't know if they were fine but he played it off and continued running with the thought of their relationship on his mind. What were they? He felt like he hated her, but he couldn't stop thinking about her.