Paper cuts & Paper rings | JayWon

06. ice lollies

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It's around noon when Jungwon is forced to go back to school for the day, Saturday being the worst day of the week due to the fact school was both early in the morning and late in the evening. However, there were worse things on Jungwons mind that he was too embarrassed and too flustered to even think about, so he took a chilling cold shower to get himself to stop thinking of such vile, vulgar and imperfect things.

And all those thoughts had only one culprit – Park Jongseong.

He drove himself crazy trying not to think about him, about that day, about that time when he nearly kissed a boy. That time when he became an imperfect scar on his perfect family. Jungwon shook his head and quickly dried himself off. He thought it would be best to pretend it never happened as he tugged on his uniform and combed his hair.

Evening school was slightly different to the ordinary seven hours on the weekdays – it was shortened by three hours, and it was only the three core subjects and fortunately enough for Jungwon he really enjoyed Literature and Science. On the other hand, Math was alright but made even worse by the fact that his seatmate was none other than Jay.

It wasn't all bad though (even though a majority of it felt like a waste of time since he would usually study at this time on weekdays, but he never complained) for he got more time to hang out with his friends and their breaks were much longer than their usual morning classes.

"I thought you weren't going to come today," Sunoo nudges his shoulder once he meets up with him on the edge of the staircase.

"Why?" Jungwon returns the smile and adjusts the bag around his shoulders, feeling oddly light on his body.

"Well, I heard you threw up, and you bailed on Riki and me for getting ice cream," Sunoo muttered with a teasing grin that made Jungwon cringe, "we thought you weren't gonna come." He nods slowly.

"I feel better now," Jungwon hums, "and besides, I would and could never miss school. Do you know how many of our teachers would lecture me and my parents, they would never."

"At least we have an hour's worth of relaxation," Sunoo sighs in contentment, "even though we could have been relaxing this whole time if this school realised the amount of homework and how much we have to study could compensate for these extra classes, but I beg to differ." He grumbles with a pout as they meet up with Riki.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you that Riki has suddenly become well acquainted with Jay even though I swear he was the one that judged him the most."

Before Jungwon was ready to sink into the hour of messing around with his friends and doing nothing, Jay was already there to mess with his head all over again. His stomach churned when his name came out of Sunoo's mouth. It was so strange how much they ran into each other he swore someone above must have done this on purpose just to see him panic.

"R-really?" Jungwon stutters out, hoping Sunoo wouldn't catch onto his discomfort though he would much rather simply escape the situation before anything could come of it.

"Yeah, weird I know but he's actually not that bad – better than most of the entitled people here," Sunoo seems to notice his awkward tone though his words of comfort were useless. Jungwon already knew that, but they didn't know that he was queer.

Nodding tight-lipped, he refused to rile up any more suspicion in Sunoo and decided to hide behind him instead.

When he approaches the two boys outside, he lets Sunoo walk ahead of him, using his sickness from before as an excuse which he obviously bought. He sighed quietly to himself, pursing his lips as he couldn't avoid meeting up with them any longer. He watched as Riki and Jay passed a ball between them, and Sunoo watched idly, too tired, and hungry to play. He can hear Riki refuse to admit Jay is better at football than him, the younger suggesting another game like rugby or basketball, Jungwon smiling at the scene.