always ↬ leading me on || l.dh • h.rj • z.cl

·thirty five·

"Okay, listen, too much shit has gone down in these past few days and I honestly can't stand it anymore," Jeno said as soon as he had reached the group of boys who were perched on the benches outside. He slung his bag off his shoulder and let it fall to the ground as he plopped down and rubbed his temples. "Our plans keep on getting interrupted for everyone's petty feelings and then we always just go back to acting like nothing's happened, that's gotta change at some point."

"We should give everyone time to adjust tho-"

"No, I refuse to go through even another second of this drama, you are all going to take it in turns to talk to whoever you have problems with and you will sort your asses out. End of conversation."

‣‣

"Fuck Jeno," Donghyuck muttered under his breath as he kicked a stone away from him, "he's always such a fucking-"

"I'm literally standing beside you."

"Technically, you can't see me because you're standing near one corner of the wall and I'm standing near the other corner and that means it isn't 'beside' it's at a right-angl-"

"Hyuck," Jeno groaned.

"Fine then, don't fucking talk to me."

"Listen," the elder sighed, "I know you're pissed off and shit because you don't like confrontation, but let's face it, something's up and you're not telling me or Jaem and you know we don't keep secrets," Donghyuck's features drooped a little when he heard that, but Jeno couldn't see.

"So if it's something that you don't want to come to us about, it's probably something big and we can understand that. That's why we wanted you to talk it out with those two, you've been acting up ever since they came into the picture," he smiled ever so softly, straightening himself up from where he was leaning against the wall and getting ready to leave.

"Jen-"

"Yeah, I know you feel guilty for keeping it from us, it's good though, sometimes we can't tell each other everything and that's okay," the laugh in his voice was as clear as day, "just get your shit together, please."

And with that, he was gone.

‣‣

"Fuck Jeno," Mark ran his hands through his hair in frustration, "me and you don't even have any problems!"

"Yeah, I know," Jisung chided, head slamming back against the tree behind him as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath in, "I'm totally telling him you said that though."

"I take it back, we suddenly do have problems."

‣‣

"Fuck you," Jaemin glared, hand coming up to slap Jeno upside the head, "this is gonna make things worse."

"Why does everyone keep on saying that! Like I know I'm sexy bu- okay I'm sorry," Jeno quickly cut himself off as he saw Jaemin raise a fist.

The brunet shook his head and let himself fall next to the other boy, laughter light on his lips, "I wonder how this is all going to end."

"I don't know, but I really just want to do the project and go," Jeno replied, head falling onto the smaller male's shoulder.

"Go where?"

"Somewhere happier. I want to go somewhere happier, with the seven of us together."

‣‣

"Okay, a point has been made that we need to talk to each other, but what exactly do we need to talk about?" Renjun inquired blandly, picking at his finger nails and trying to bite off the excess skin around them.

"Gege!" Chenle swatted the ravenette's hands away from his mouth and let out an undignified screech, "I told you to stop doing that, it's unhygienic!"

"Oh, is he one of those types of people?" Donghyuck teased, making motions with his hands that eluded to not washing your hands after flushing the toilet.

"Ye-"

"I'll slaughter you both, I take personal hygiene very seriously, of course I wash my fucking hands!"

Chenle's familiar laughter filed through the air as Renjun tackled him down onto the sandy, dry ground and tickled him, causing him to squeal and thrash about.

"But seriously," Donghyuck's voice stopped them, "are you guys dating? I know it's not my business- it's just been bothering me for some reason," he let out quietly, twiddling his thumbs together in an attempt to dispell the sick feeling that was building up in the pit of his stomach.

"We're not, but why does it bother you? Do you not support homosexu-"

"No, no, it's not that!" the orange haired boy interrupted in a bout of panic, "i-it's not that, I'm gay myself, but I don't know either. It's frustrating me so much because I don't know what this feeling is but it keeps coming and going and I feel restless."

Chenle watched as the tanned boy sat there, head in his hands with shaking breaths leaving his lips every so often. He had never seen the other like this, he had always known Donghyuck as the bully who hurt him and everything he stood for without as much as a second thought. It was surprising when it dawned upon him, but he realised that he didn't think that the older boy had a sensitive side because he had never been exposed to it.

Looking upon him now, under the fading daylight where all the birds had been silenced and the wind blew stronger against them than with them, Chenle came to understand how easy it was to break someone like him apart.

And so, with a heart that suddenly felt too big to be his own, he crawled forward and reached up to lift Donghyuck's face and brush away the stray hairs that fell into his eyes.

"Feelings are a fire that only you can add the fuel too and you're letting it consume you instead of keeping you warm," he exhaled while dropping his hand back into his own lap, "no one asked you to walk into the flames and no one asked you to embrace them either. Just let them burn on and fan them gently."

Chenle turned his head to stare at his best friend from where he was sitting, observing him with a proud smile on his face, "that's what gege's always told me."