Amor de mi Alma || 2Jae

Chapter 20

If Youngjae would've known that coming into the Band Room the following Monday as one of the last would be so awkward then he'd definitely come in as one of the first.

Of course, he is used to being stared after in the hallways, but being the centre of attention that is obviously bad and judgemental is bad and gives Youngjae an odd feeling in his stomach, and when he tries to find Jinyoung's eye the older boy ignores him completely.

This isn't the first awkward thing that happens today. Everywhere he goes, everyone seems to be silent and looking at him strangely with something in their eyes that Youngjae can't comprehend. And earlier in Physics today, Yugyeom flat-out refused to even cooperate on their project, leaving Youngjae to do everything on his own while Yugyeom began playing games on his phone, despite the younger boy being extremely set on teamwork and finishing homework and assignments.

Youngjae puts his bag down beside the instrument shelf and hesitantly takes his music book from the table behind the bass drum, setting it up in front of the bass drum, where there is a stand, before walking to Jaebum and tapping him on his shoulder.

"What's wrong?" Youngjae asks. "Why's everyone looking at me as if I murdered someone right in front of them?"

He doesn't get an answer, instead, he gets an angry glare from Lexie, which shocks him; Lexie is always kind and bright and bubbly. So he really doesn't expect that glare or to be pushed back to the bass drum by the girl, and he especially doesn't expect a swear-word to fall from her lips as she says, "Stay the fuck away from him, asshole."

He can't ask her what's wrong either, though, for Mr. Divins walks in rather briskly and tells everyone to stop playing sharply, and Youngjae really wonders what is wrong with everyone.

After class, he manages to catch Jinyoung by the arm before he leaves, and he is met with yet another glare from him.

"What's wrong with everyone today?" Youngjae asks. "I didn't do anything, did I?"

"Oh, don't you fucking dare play dumb with me, Youngjae," Jinyoung hisses. "First you make him believe that you love him and then you decide to pull a fucking sick trick? He's back on his pills because of you, Youngjae!"

"What are you talking about?" Youngjae asks fiercely. "I didn't do anything!"

"Oh really?" Jinyoung pulls his phone from his pocket and opens up to an app, then shows Youngjae his phone, which shows Youngjae's Instagram account opened up to a post that is completely black and a one-minute video, and Youngjae is shocked to hear him and Jaebum talking about Jaebum's social anxiety, along with some Korean words in the description and one English line; Such a fucking idiot fool, haha! "This surely screams 'I didn't do anything!' to me!"

"Jinyoung, I didn't do this," Youngjae says quickly. "I don't even know Korean - Jinyoung, please! I didn't -"

"It's your account, Youngjae," Jinyoung hisses through gritted teeth. "I really thought I could trust you but you know what? Fucking rot in hell. This is a sick and disgusting move, so good luck trying to even talk to Jaebum!"

Jinyoung pushes his saxophone into its place and then flips Youngjae off before storming away, fuming. Youngjae picks up his backpack and quickly leaves the Band Room, too, and walk to where he assumed Jinyoung had gone; the cafeteria. 

Talking is heard all around him but it dies down when Youngjae enters the cafeteria, but he ignores it and makes his way to his usual table. At it sit his friends, and to his surprise, Jaebum too. But then he realizes that everyone already knows, most likely, so Jaebum really has no reason to hide anymore.

It's awkward and no-one shuffles around on the bench to make space for him and after a minute or so Youngjae turns on his heel and walks away, turning around the corner to get away from all the staring and judging eyes.

He feels broken and unfair. He wouldn't ever have thought about doing something like that and so someone else must've done it and he doesn't know who, and in his blind rage Youngjae lets out a muffled scream. To him, Jaebum is a precious little bean and to know that someone revealed to everyone that Jaebum has social anxiety and is blaming Youngjae for it hurts him. Not even his friends, who should know that Youngjae doesn't even know how to write Korean to begin with, seem to believe that Youngjae isn't the one who posted that video, but he has no clue who else could have posted it because it's his Instagram account and he is pretty sure no-one knows his password.

Deciding that it'd be better if he were to go back home to figure out what happened. On his way home, Youngjae deletes the post, despite knowing that it has no use. Everyone probably already saw it. Whatever happened happened, everything was ruined because of one single post Youngjae didn't even post.

Only Jaehee is home, Youngjae's parents are one a long business trip to somewhere in China and she immediately seems to sense what is wrong, though it might be from Youngjae's messed up hair or simply how he slenters into the house.

"What happened?" asks Jaehee immediately. She stands up and walks to Youngjae. "Is it about that strange post on your Instagram?"

"So you saw it too?"

"Yeah."

"It wasn't me, I swear. I would never do anything like that to Jaebum," says Youngjae quickly. "Someone else must've done it, but it wasn't me."

"I know." Jaehee stands up and places her hands on Youngjae's shoulders. "And let me guess, Jinyoung exploded at you for it?"

"You know how protective he is over Jaebum," says Youngjae. "Can you call school and tell them I went home sick?"

"But you didn't even sign out, I believe."

"I don't care then, let them just mark me absent." Youngjae looks away and moves back, out of Jaehee's hands. "I'm going upstairs. Take a shower, or something."

His shower turns into an hour-long of standing underneath the water streaming from the showerhead, contemplating what to do now that he is practically deemed as the school's liar, the school's asshole who is 'fake'.

Tea.

As you can tell, I had no clue how to end this.