Adamant Adoration | Soonhoon

D-Day

Jihoon went to school with 0 sleep, keeping awake with 5 mugs of Americano, jittery nerves and pure determination. He thought a lot about what Soonyoung said and decided to stop being such a perfectionist, stop overly preparing for everything just so he could calm his anxious heart knowing he was prepared for anything. Because maybe taking risks was what Jihoon really needed to be brave.

When he met up with Jun and Wonwoo, he quickly told them to ignore his message and carry on with their initial plans. Jihoon was anxious about facing Soonyoung because he didn't prepare what to say, and instead decided to take a leap of faith and just go with the flow.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, Jihoon couldn't decide) Soonyoung didn't seem to recall anything that had happened, not even Jihoon's text message because the only thing he remembered was 'having a weird dream that didn't make sense'. Jihoon was sceptical but brushed it off, proceeding to set things up for their performance.

As the ceremony commenced, Jihoon mentally counted down the minutes left until it was their turn to go on stage. The nerves piled on top of one another in his stomach, squelching and churning and leaving the poor boy restless. Before Jihoon could fully untangle the knots inside of him, their time was up.  

The performance went off without a hitch. In fact, it was the highlight amongst all the other performances and boring speeches.

Jihoon really went all out with the song. It successfully showcased the composer’s soothing vocals, allowed for a dance break for the school to witness Jun and Soonyoung’s powerful moves, and had Wonwoo’s supersonic rapping in between the vocal verses to perfect it.

Soonyoung didn't slack off with the choreography either, as he made formations that no one had ever seen, all with only 4 dancers. He took Jihoon's and Jun's height difference into consideration, making sure to match the dance moves with their respective singing parts so that the attention would be on them. Of course, he didn't forget about Wonwoo, giving him enough time to breathe while his rap parts came on and making the other 3 of them do some simple moves in the background so as to not draw the spotlight away from the star rapper.

It was great, it was fantastic - everyone loved it. They received a standing ovation, the cheers louder than anything the boys have ever heard.

"We're going down in history," Jun whispered as they took their bows.

"They have to put this in the book of records," Wonwoo added, flashing one of his rare smiles which received high pitched screams in response.

Soonyoung leaned down and whispered into Jihoon's ear.

"Told you it was perfect, Ji."

Jihoon stiffened. Was Soonyoung saying this in reference to Monday or yesterday night? Deciding to pretend that their little talk at 2 a.m. didn't happen, Jihoon returned Soonyoung's smile and nodded.

All four of them linked hands and took one final bow before they were off the stage, their final performance together coming to a close.

The rest of the graduation ceremony went on as normal.

Except: whenever Jun, Soonyoung, Wonwoo or Jihoon got on stage to receive something or to give a speech, their obnoxiously loud group of friends would be the first to stand and give them loud claps and cheers, the loudest being Seungcheol, Jeonghan, Jisoo (because the 3 graduated and didn't care for their image here any longer) and Seokmin and Seungkwan (because these 2 didn't really have a proper image in the first place).

Jihoon looked away and pretended not to know them every single time but it probably didn't work since this happened more than twice for each of the 4 graduating boys. Thank goodness he would never have to see any of these people ever again, or he would never be able to live it down. The way his friends couldn't care less about how they presented themselves in public was a second-hand embarrassment Jihoon could hardly bear.

When the ceremony ended, Jihoon took off immediately, hastily thanking those who congratulated him as he ran into the deserted hallways to locate Soonyoung's locker. Retrieving his letter and a sticky note, he hastily scrawled the destination and slapped it onto the envelope. After sliding the letter in through the slit, Jihoon ran out of the school, haphazardly putting on his coat as he headed towards his meeting place with Soonyoung - the park they used to play in back when they were kids.

Soonyoung had always been a romantic sap. Confessing - or rather, answering to Jihoon's confession - at such a sentimental place was more or less ideal.

There was no particular reason why, but Jihoon felt pretty confident. Maybe it was the aftereffects of last night's conversation, but Jihoon had a good feeling about this.

Approaching the tree he'd specified in the sticky note, Jihoon took a seat on the marble bench and rubbed his hands together to keep himself warm. The weather was turning cold awfully fast, and he wished Soonyoung would hurry up and come.

Time went by agonisingly slow for Jihoon. Seconds to minutes and minutes to an hour, Soonyoung was still a no-show. But Jihoon wasn't worried. After all, his mind was all over the place as he rewrote the letter, and it turned out longer than his 'perfectly' drafted ones. If Soonyoung was reading all of that while walking, it would definitely take a while.

Time waits for no man, and the hands on Jihoon's watched continued to tick even after 2 hours of waiting.

It was getting much colder now that the sun had set and the evening was fast approaching. Still, Jihoon waited, faith not wavering.

His eyelids, however, weren't holding up as well, feeling heavy as his head started dipping. The sudden movement jolted him awake every now and then.

'Ah, shit. I'm getting sleepy.'

A huge yawn escaped from Jihoon’s mouth and he didn't bother trying to hide it as he shoved his frigid cold hands into the pockets of his overcoat. It was 4.15pm in the late afternoon in winter, definitely not the warmest time of the day.

'Soon will wake me up when he arrives, so I guess it should be fine...'

With blind faith in Soonyoung, Jihoon huffed out a breath of air and shifted into a more comfortable position on the cool marble bench. Ever so slowly, his eyes fluttered until they came to a shut.

The next time Jihoon opened his eyes, it was to the sound of his friends yelling his name and warm, water droplets that didn't belong to him dripping onto his face inside a pristine white room, unable to feel his face and barely able to move.