notes || jaenoren (norenmin)

douze

Chenle was simply depressed the entire ride to school. 

His driver, Hyojong, assigned to him these past days to escort him to school and back, and to supervise Chenle to ensure he stayed put in his own house at all times, kept looking back on him at stops and wondering what in the name of all loud dolphins was wrong with the adolescent. Although Chenle had tried his best to seem pissed and ignorant of Hyojong's existence because he was only here to restrict him, he had by the third day of sitting in the same car as him started chattering loudly about anything and everything with the driver, Hyojong laughing along and commenting on all the stories he had to tell. However, today, Chenle sat slumped in his seat, as if he was a child who's pet guinea pig had just died. 

Hyojong cleared his throat, unsure of whether to ask Chenle what was bothering him, unsure of whether he had the right to. Chenle remained unresponsive, sitting corpse-like, with an unnaturally vice-like grip on his folder, his small pale knuckles even whiter than usual. 

A trumpet of a beep broke the silence, making Hyojong jump, realising he had been looking at Chenle for the majority of the red light. Chenle didn't even react to the loud noise, his eyebrows only furrowing, more likely at something going on in his head than what was happening around him. Giving up on him, Hyojong just assumed that he had failed a test or something, and turned around, switching the gear and driving ahead. 

Chenle, meanwhile, was barely able to keep up with his thoughts. To be absorbed in your thoughts, you had to understand them. His were bustling around, all different topics from different times, even in different languages. He had been running after them all morning, trying to catch at least one; he had knocked over a cereal box in his efforts at some point, bumped into a chair at another. He just gave up when he had sat himself in Hyojong's car, tired of his futile attempts. While some people might have kicked something, or clutched at their head, he just sat there in pure misery, acquiescing to his thoughts running around, knocking against and shouting over one another. 

He just sat like that for a while. 

Something pierced his mind, in the form of sound waves, and his thoughts fell over for a second. Furrowing his eyebrows, he took one and unraveled it. Ah, yes, the talk he and Renjun had had in their second year of knowing each other. 

They had been sleepy, they hadn't even been looking at each other, Chenle on his bed, and Renjun rolled up in a sleeping bag like kimchi on the floor. They had been conversing in Chinese, though exhausted from the project they had just been working on. Somewhere in the midst of their forgotten whispers, Chenle had suggested something; if they ever were outed involuntarily to their parents, and it didn't go well, they should have a "secret code". He had seen something similar in a movie, and it looked... cool. He himself wasn't out, back then. 

"Why?" enquired Renjun, turning to be heard clearer even though it an uncomfortable position. 

"Because," said Chenle, smiling as he never really thought he would be outed to his parents involuntarily. He wasn't really taking his own words seriously. "If we can't reach each other properly, we can send a short message! And we'll know what's going on, so we can help each other!"  Like those spies...

And he still remembered that night, spent thinking up a catchy code, so that they could reach each other if such a thing ever happened. Neither of us thought it was ever really gonna happen... I didn't, anyway-

"Right, time to go Chenle." Hyojong had parked the car, and clapped his gloved hands together, turning and nodding at Chenle.

"O-okay. Bye."