Sins Are for Angels || 2Jae fanfiction

Nineteen - Feeling Feelings

Day 43 Thursday

It is Thursday and just short of 24 hours since that insanely unreal thing happened in the auditorium. No one but the people present knows anything and even they seem a bit confused as to what happened in there. It was last night, though, that Jaebum seemed to get just a step closer to a conclusion. To be fair, it was his mum more than it was him but he likes to think drawing the point out from her words was half the job.

"Youngjae must care immensely about you. I know how stubborn you are and to hear, and see, that he has changed your mindset so radically must mean he cares a great deal about you. It can't have been easy work," she had come up to his room to say. She left again with a little smile like she knows something that Jaebum really doesn't want anyone to know right now, let alone his mother. Jaebum's conclusion was not hard for him to find or remember but he wrote it down on the opposite page of the lyrics in his rushed handwriting from the night before. It is quite simple and has been underlined thrice.

The bell calls for an unpredictable lunch break. The warm day invites most students to sit outside and eat. Jaebum feels like a new person walking down the hall where people are behaving as if Jaebum hasn't changed. No one knows what is going on behind his calm gaze. Not Jinyoung, not Mark, not his mother, no, not even Youngjae. He watches the students passing by him with a distance that he hasn't before. He knows that he is different from most of them. He is aware that he holds a secret that could declare him bottom of the hierarchy in seconds. This thought seems to drift off with the warm breeze the second he sees Youngjae's face glowing in the mid-day sun. He is sitting next to Jinyoung and they are chatting cheerfully. They have made a little circle of everyone with an obvious space in between Jinyoung and BamBam reserved for Jaebum. Jinyoung feels it immediately after Jaebum has sat down. The connection between the person on each side of him tickles his face as it brushes past him. He looks over at Mark who has spotted it too. There will be talk of this later.

The group goes on without stating the changed mood as noticed and Jaebum watches lips move and listens to conversation flow from panic over that article about the world running out of rice to the hype over Jackson's brand-new sneakers that are white and a rosy pink. He watches everyone, Youngjae especially. Maybe the bottom of the hierarchy is not as bad as Jaebum has been thinking. Youngjae seems fine and he is not keeping secrets from the rest of the school. When Jaebum really thinks about it, Youngjae is not even in the hierarchy. He realises how smart Youngjae truly is for rejecting the ladder instead of trying to climb it. He took the stairs, the kind that take you towards something and not endlessly and aimlessly upwards. Instead of building up a reputation that can crash and ruin you any second, he simply just stays himself to himself. It is no one's business whether Youngjae likes girls or boys and if they find out, well, then that's fine too. If they – meaning everyone who is shallow enough to care – find out about Jaebum on the other hand, then he is done for. The whole school will know before the day is over. It will not miss a single person because somewhere along the line while attempting to hide, he waltzed right into the spotlight with his silly leather jacket and his cigarette smoke that hid the sadness in his heart.

"I think they look great!" Youngjae claps his hands and his eyes crease. "I also think I saw this girl bite her lip at you earlier." Jackson's eyes light up with interest.

"Really? Who?" He presses a hand anxiously into his thigh.

"This girl with bobbed hair and a fringe. She has kind of chubby cheeks and it's really quite charming. She's so cute." Jackson does a little excited whine. Just the idea of someone crushing on him is enough to make him feel like butterflies are flying around in his stomach. Jackson is a hopeless romantic just like Youngjae. One would swoon at the number of nights they have fallen asleep on either one of their beds after a whole night of talking about the concept of love, how it feels and what kind of a person they want to fall in love with. Recently, these nights have revolved around Jaebum.