Leaf Me Alone // minsung

「⸙ ch.34 ⸙」

JISUNG

Felix pulled out his phone and pressed record with a shit-eating grin on his face.

"I believe in you, Ji! Use those squirrel cheeks for good!" He yelled. I sent him a thumbs up and a confident nod.

Minho and I were both sat on a bench with a table propped up in front of us. Both of our hands were flat on the table, and I was eyeing a mass of cotton candy held in front of me by Chan. Changbin held a similarly huge cotton candy ball in front of Minho.

This was war. And the prize? A chance at winning Minho's cooking for two entire weeks.

Minho bumped his hip into mine, eyes ablaze with passion. I shoved him back, determined to finish the cloud of pink-stained sugar faster than Minho; if he won this round, I would automatically lose since he'd won the race.

Seungmin refereed. With a timer in hand and a chequered flag that I had no idea we owned, he allowed Hyunjin to dramatically announce the stakes of this competition with an imaginary microphone.

"To your left, we have Lee Minho, currently having a staring contest with a fluffy cloud of sugar. All he has to do is finish it faster than Jisung - his one and only competitor - to grant his wish, as he left our poor Jisung eating his dust in the running race-"

I looked away from Minho for a second to holler at Hyunjin, "Okay, we get it, I suck at running. Get on with it, beanpole!"

Hyunjin turned to Seungmin. "Can we dock points for that? Leave Jisung starting at a negative value please."

Pouting when Seungmin shook his head with a (fond) roll of the eyes, Hyunjin spun back round and gripped his imaginary microphone with excitement as he pointed at me. "As for our second contestant... it is the man, the myth, the legend, Han Jisung! Although his thin stick legs gave him little advantage when sprinting-"

"Fuck off!"

Hyunjin ducked as I picked up the empty cotton candy container and launched it at his small pea brain. "- his hamster cheeks may gain him an advantage in the speed-eating competition that is about to take place before us. But first, a huge round of applause for our beloved referee, Seungmin!"

He whooped and clapped at an embarrassingly loud volume, nudging Jeongin who gave a few begrudged claps before motioning for Hyunjin to continue.

"The rules of this competition are simple: first to finish the cotton candy wins. Seungmin will sync up the stopwatches and time Minho's cotton candy speed, whilst Jeongin will track Jisung's. Best of luck to both competitors!"

Chequered flag in hand, Seungmin handed the second stopwatch to Jeongin before turning to face Minho. Raising the flag in the air, he paused.

"Contestants at the ready. The competition starts in 3... 2... 1!"

Both Jeongin and Seungmin started their timers. Sparing a glance to Minho, I saw him grab the cotton candy from Changbin and start biting into it, eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

Amateur.

Ignoring the stick entirely, I whisked the cotton candy from Chan and began to shove handfuls of bright pink sugar into my mouth. Cotton candy was really just a mass of spun sugar and air, so it condensed rather nicely from a big cloud into a compact ball. Spurred on by Chan's open-mouthed shock, I chewed quietly, swallowing once before grinning and opening my mouth to show that I was completely finished. With an air of incredible disbelief about him, Jeongin stopped the timer. Chan still hadn't recovered enough to shut his mouth.

Of course, none of that was the main point. The main point was: I had won this round, which took me one step closer to the promise of free meals for a fortnight. To my right, Minho was still blissfully unaware of his swift defeat, still working hard to finish the cotton candy in front of him one bite at a time. Sidling over to him, I tapped his shoulder before leaning in. My lip brushed Minho's ear as I took it upon myself to inform him.

"You lost, my lady."

Minho turned to me, eyes wide with surprise and underlying skepticism. He still had a bit of cotton candy stuck to the corner of his mouth. In a brief bout of strange confidence, I reached out and brushed my thumb against his lip, snagging that piece of sugar on it before licking my thumb with a grin and a raised eyebrow.

For some reason, that bit of cotton candy tasted sweeter than any treat I've ever tried.

Pointing him to Jeongin, I put my hand on his shoulder in mock comfort as we both looked at my time: 14.03 seconds. In the distance, Felix and Hyunjin were high-fiving and screaming their heads off at my victory. Hyunjin pumped his fist up in the air, "Hell yeah, we got this in the bag! Jeekies for the win!"

"Jeekies for president!"

"Jeekies is our king!"

Deciding against asking what they were on about - what the hell are 'jeekies' anyway? - I turned to Minho still feeling very smug.

"It's okay, Minho. I'll go easy on you when I win. If anything, you should be honoured that you get to be my personal genie. I should paint you blue and give you a shiny lamp."

Minho smiled, the competitive sharpness turning into something softer. "If you win, you are absolutely not turning me into a smurf for your entertainment. I will move to a different country."

"Aww, don't be like that, Minho. I could never live without you."

He was silent for a moment. Still. My words hung in the space between us, and everything seemed to pause, weighed down by unspoken wishes. All this time, he simply looked at me. For a moment, it was almost like he could see right through me, could contemplate the innermost thoughts inside my heart that even I refused to face.

He turned away. "Round three? I'm winning this one for sure."

I blinked. The strange stillness was gone. Jogging to catch up with him, I bumped my shoulder against his. "You wish, genie. Victory is mine."

He simply smiled back at me. "Whatever you say, squirrel."

*****

first of all, hiii :D im not dead writing has just been a drag and i feel like everything is getting too repetitive and ugh

second of all im sorry for such a short chapter lakdhflskd i did consider extending it but it was nicer to cut it here T^T i promise the next chapter will come out faster than this one aaaa

song rec: best friend by rex orange county

love yall <3 see u soon (hopefully)