Jeongguk had never planned on letting his entire class know about his crush.
What he had planned on, in his freshman year, was that he would keep it ENTIRELY to himself and take the secret to his grave and NEVER let anyone know. Not even his best friend Jeongyeon and his soon-to-be best friend Yoongi.
But of course, things never go the way Jeongguk plans. Ever.
They got ruined in the most horrible way he could ever think of.
And again, the teacher that was out for his blood was involved in it.
It was about five months after high school started, three months after he laid his eyes on the walking greek god, two months and three weeks since he fell for him and broke his nose (metaphorically), and two months and two weeks since he developed the habit of scribbling 'JJK ❤ KTH' wherever he deemed fit to write.
He wasn't the type to complete his notes, so no one would ask for them, so no one would flip back and find about three to four pages filled with his hearts, he was sure.
But to his very bad luck, he fell asleep mid-doodle one unlucky math afternoon and woke up to the entire class hooting like mad fans of a stripper.
He remembered looking around groggily, drool and all, and taking a little while to register the fact that Mr Kim was standing in front of his desk with a book held in his hands and his lips pulled up in an amused smirk. It had taken Jeongguk even longer to realize that the book Mr Kim was holding actually belonged to him, and painstakingly longer for it to dawn that the pages were flipped to the entire back.
His brain had flashed red when he remembered that he had not only scribbled his crush's initials, but also his name everywhere. Like meditating on that name would provide him with some kind of salvation.
"So....Jeon Jeonggu-"
"-LOVES KIM TAEHYUNG!!" his entire class pitched in, making Jeongguk resemble the colour of a setting sun.
Because one - his crush had to cross their classroom to reach the canteen. And that could literally happen at any time. And two - his best friends were looking at him like he had stolen their kidneys and fed them to lizards. And three - his sir knew about his crush when he didn't even want to let his friends know about it!! Especially the sir who never let a chance to tease him go down the drain!!
"Meet me after the class, Jeongguk. I just wanna talk," Mr Kim had said.
Now, if there were any words that were more intimidating than 'I just wanna talk', Jeongguk didn't know about them. He peed his pants every time someone said that. Especially his mother. And his father. And his cousin. And now his sir. Well, the case with his mother was different, because all she had to do was call him by his full name to make him pee his pants, but his point still stands.
"Why Kim Taehyung?" had been Mr Kim's question when Jeongguk nervously followed his teacher out of the class when it ended.
"I-"
He had not expected that.
"I-I don't know, sir. I don't need a reason to like someone. I just do," he had said.
Mr Kim had given him the most judging look ever with his cin jutting out dangerously and had just walked away without another word. It was never brought up again, but Jeongguk became the most frequent target for Mr Kim's bullying from then on.
His friends had pounced on him the second he got back into the class, and had drilled out every single detail about his crush as soon as he sat down at his desk. Without even having to look around, he could say that more than half of the class was paying attention to what he was going to say.
Seriously, what were they going to do with the gossip?
"Come ooooonnn," Jeongyeon had whined when he didn't start belting out facts about his crush.
Well, what was there to say? His crush's name was Kim Taehyung (which they already knew, thanks to Mr Kim), he had two friends Park Jimin and Jung Hoseok (which a lot of people already knew), and he was a basketball player (which the entire school knew), and he was hot (which the entire universe knew).
The teasing started then. The entire class hooted again, and never stopped even after they came to Sophomore year.
Seriously, what was their problem?!
And it wasn't like he was the only one being teased either. Everyone knew Park Jimin liked Jeongyeon. So whenever Taehyung or Jimin or both of them together passed their class, their classmates would turn around to smirk at Jeongguk and Jeongyeon. If either or both of them entered the canteen when Jeongguk and Jeongyeon were already present, the namecalling would begin.
Jeongguk was surprised Taehyung didn't notice that already.
But he was also glad he didn't notice that yet, because like he said, he would disintegrate into fine dust, or maybe nothingness if his crush ever happened to notice him.
Now, when he entered the canteen and already found Taehyung, Jimin and Hoseok having lunch and talking about something serious, the namecalling faded into white noise for him. He didn't even notice people doing it anymore.
Just wondered in a very small corner of his mind why Taehyung was so oblivious to his surroundings.
Or maybe he wasn't and he didn't care about it?
Jeongguk didn't even want to think about that possibility. Even though he was scared shitless of confessing, after relentless pushing from his friends, he now at least had scenarios in his mind of him confessing to Taehyung and the latter accepting his feelings and maybe, just maybe even returning them.
He didn't want to even think of Taehyung not even caring about him.
But it also didn't make sense to him, because he was sure Taehyung didn't even know he existed.
Why would he?
Right?
