GLOW-UP

02 | banana boy

Taeil woke the next morning with cramp in his back, and already he knew it was going to be another shitty day.

Somehow, he'd managed to fall asleep upside down on the end of the sofa, and now his neck felt broken. Sometimes he wished someone would actually snap it in half. It would probably make his life a whole lot easier.

Yuta and Sicheng were on the other end of the sofa, tangled in each other's arms and fast asleep. Taeil reluctantly pulled himself off the couch and quickly went to brushed his teeth. He headed back across the living room to get to the kitchen...

...only the rug slipped from under him and he went crashing down to the floor again. "Ow," Taeil groaned.

The next time he woke up, his face was squished against the floor and Sicheng was shaking him awake.

"Hyung? Hyung... wake uh-"

Taeil reached out a hand as if to slap his alarm clock, but just cut Sicheng off with a rather undeserved slap instead. Then he rolled over and grudgingly opened his eyes. "What," he yawned.

Sicheng was blurry but the more Taeil blinked, the sharper he came into focus. Yuta was hovering over his shoulder, glancing from Taeil to his phone screen, and back to Taeil again. He looked worried, and that was enough to make Taeil freak out.

Yuta was usually the chillest person alive.

"What's going on?" Taeil demanded, trying to pick himself up off the carpet, using Sicheng's slender frame for support.

"Um... you don't wanna see this," said Yuta quickly, eyes darting back to the phone screen, "but... you're probably gonna want to see this..."

An anticipating batch of anxiety screamed inside Taeil's lungs but he clamped his lips shut and slowly cast his eyes over at the phone screen. And what he saw... was both horrifying, and completely mortifying.

A video clip.

Yuta winced and clicked play.

'Peel that banana!' replayed again and again in the background of the edited clip. So did an annoyingly horrible gif of Taeil choking on the banana, followed by Lee Taeyong's surprised face.

The words #ChokeOnThatBananaDick constantly popped up on the screen in all different colours in the Comic Sans font, as well as 'PEEL THAT BANANA BOI' in the meme font.

Taeil wasn't even sure what a meme was at this point since he never went on the internet, but his housemates had shown him enough for him to know that this was bad.

That's bad with a capital Your Life Is About To Seriously Suuuuuck.

"Hyung?" Sicheng broke the silence after the video ended, reaching out a hand to their token Korean housemate. "Are you-"

Taeil fled the kitchen.

Yuta and Sicheng exchanged a worried look as Taeil headed towards the bathroom.

"I feel awful," Yuta admitted, clicking off his phone screen so it went black. "It's all over social media..."

"So do I," Sicheng whispered. "Taeil-hyung never even goes online... He thought Snapchat was 'Conversational Jujitsu'."

Yuta tried not to laugh then. "Conversational Jujitsu..."

"Shut up," Sicheng chided, slapping Yuta's arm gently. "We need to check if he's okay. What if he's sick or something? What if he fainted?"

"I'm not laughing about that," Yuta pouted. "I just can't believe something like this would happen to someone like Taeil."

"It's wrong in so many ways," Sicheng sighed. "Come on..." he grabbed Yuta's hand and dragged him towards the bathroom.

However, when they knocked and entered, Taeil wasn't throwing up or passing out with shock. He was sitting on the toilet seat shivering, whilst brushing his teeth.

"Are you okay, Tae?" Yuta asked gently from the doorway.

"Mhmphmhm," Taeil mumbled through the toothpaste. They couldn't figure out exactly what he was saying, but the tone of voice was heartbreaking.

"Spit it out, hyung," said Sicheng, guiding the older over to the sink to spit and rinse.

"I can never speak to Lee Taeyong again," Taeil sobbed, wanting to tear out his own hair. "I'm so fucking embarrassed."

"I'm sure not many people have seen it," Yuta lied, trying to make Taeil feel a little more confident.

"Really?" Taeil asked, eyes filled with the slightest ray of hope.

Yuta smiled through the pain. Lying to Taeil was so hard. "Yeah, it's probably not that big of a deal."

Sicheng shot him a worried look. Yuta just gaped helplessly. "Anyway, we should get going," he said. "Lectures start soon."

Somehow, the pair of them managed to convince Taeil to leave the house, though Yuta and Sicheng weren't any less concerned as they spoke through looks and glances and random hand gestures.

The problem was: everyone kept staring. It was only one person at first, so Taeil didn't notice. But his housemates kept seeing how people kept on staring, and whispering, and giggling out loud. It was painful to keep Taeil in the dark.

Does he know everyone knows? was the glance Yuta shot at Sicheng when Taeil wasn't looking.

I don't know! Sicheng gestured back, with something along the lines of, I feel terrible!

"Can we get lunch later?" Taeil asked, and Yuta and Sicheng broke off the intense eye contact conversation.

"Of course!" said Yuta with a grin. "You can choose the place. I've got hockey practise but I can meet you guys after I'm done."

"Okay," said taeil happily, bouncing along towards the science tower.

"Okay," Sicheng repeated, "well, we have a class this way.... so we'll see you later, hyung!" he tugged Yuta in the other direction, shooting Taeil a small wave. The two immediately errupted into a heated conversation, which Taeil by now was too far away to hear.

He adjusted the brown sweater he wore, that was knitted by his grandmother as a Christmas present, and continued towards the lab. When he stepped inside, everyone's eyes turned to him, and all chatter stopped.

Taeil's heart thudded. Nobody ever looked his way. And he didn't want them to now.

"Continue talking," he mumbled under his breath, and shuffled towards his desk.

"Moon Taeil, quite the celebrity," said Kim Doyoung as soon as he sat down.

"Shut up." Taeil wanted to cry.

"Sorry," Soyoung muttered. "I guess it's not so fun being popular."

Taeil buried his face in his hands and let out a muffled screech. "The internet needs to die!"

"Don't worry, everyone'll be talking about something else next week, Banana Boy."

____________________

a | n :
taeil is an embarrassment
to the human species
someone stOp him

jk irl he's adorable

posting the first 3 chapters
of this to give a good intro
to the plot! enjoy!