tutor ↬ chensung

1

sighing, jisung hops off the bus, ready to be faced with another pointless day of pretending he understands anything. "one day," he thinks. "one day, i'll be at the top of the class."

at that moment a tall boy bumps into him, not paying attention. "hey, watch where you're going, einstein" that was a nickname they had for him.

jisung sighs. "but not today" he thinks.

✎ ...

plopping into his seat, jisung thinks about all the time he could be spending having fun instead of pretending to be listening in class.

"hey!" his friend jaemin kicks the back of his seat, passing him a note. "from chenle"

jisung's heart skips a beat, even though he knows it's probably something dumb. he recently realized he's practically in love with one of his best friends chenle, but he won't bring himself to admit it. instead he forces the feelings down and tries to ignore them, but he can't escape them forever. he opens the note, and is surprised to see the words "let's skip next period" scribbled across it. chenle's not the type to skip, but jisung won't back down. he turns around and nods at him, already knowing where to meet. he just hopes their teacher won't catch him.

✎ ...

sliding through the boys bathroom window into the small forest behind their school, the two boys quietly run to jisung's usual spot in the trees and sit still for a while as they drink the sodas they got at the machine they found near the bathrooms. jisung listens to chenle's breathing, loathing how much he yearns to hold his hand. not being able to take the rattling of his thoughts any longer, he speaks up.

"so what brought you to skip?" he asks.

"you," chenle answers simply, making jisung's heart stop for a second. "i heard you're failing ... pretty much everything."

"ah, that's old news." jisung waves his hand at him. "why do you care anyway?"

"because you're my friend and i want to help you." chenle says, beginning to become exasperated.

"what do you mean? like, tutor me?" jisung asks.

"duh."

"oh."

"you up to it?"

jisung thinks of everything that could go wrong

"yes"