dazed and confused - norenmin

four

jaemin

they stood by the arrivals gate, holding a homemade sign with 'renjun' hastily written across in marker pen.
jeno's mum had told them more about this 'renjun' last night,
and jaemin thought he sounded stupid.
well, annoyingly perfect.
speaks chinese, english and korean, top of his class, sings, dances, plays the piano, cooks, even sews.
apparently there's nothing he can't do.
jaemin didn't like how impressed jeno had looked when his mother was listing renjun's accomplishments,
jeno never looked at him like that.

the adults had decided it would be better if just jeno and jaemin were there to greet him,
so they stood there, jeno excited, jaemin moody.
he knew that he had promised to be friendly,
but he wasn't in the mood to play tourist guide to some goody-two-shoes who would take away from his alone time with jeno.

"why hasn't he come out yet? his flight landed a while ago"

"i don't know, he's just wasting our time"

"come on jaemin, play nice"

"ugh, i just don't get why we have to-"

"umm e-excuse me, sorry for interrupting,
but are you guys waiting for me?"

jaemin looked up.
there stood an angel.
he had dark-brown, shining hair and an adorable nose, upon which perched a large pair of glasses.
he tugged anxiously at the sleeve of his oversized hoodie as he shifted from foot to foot, waiting for one of them to respond.
jaemin turned to glance at jeno and saw that he was equally stupefied.
before he had fully processed that the boy he had sworn to hate was super cute, jaemin somehow managed to reply,

"if you're renjun then yeah. i'm jaemin, and this is jeno"

"oh, hi jaemin. hi jeno"

"hi"

"hi"

"okay."
"great."
"coolio."

renjun paused after each word, but as neither of the other boys said anything else he continued awkwardly.

"shall we...go now?"

silence

"or do you wanna just keep standing here, i mean it's up to you,
whatever you want i mean it's your country not mine and you know what they say when in rome do as the romans do
idk if this is some kind of korean tradition but i'm into it if you are-"

as renjun rambled both jaemin and jeno's smiles grew wider and wider, until they both burst out laughing.
renjun rubbed the back of his head nervously, unsure if they were laughing at him or not,
but having decided that they weren't mocking him he let out a small but silvery giggle.
jaemin was struck by the beauty of the sound,
and impulsively pulled renjun into a hug, with jeno soon joining in.
there was a moment of awkwardness, before all three relaxed and smiled.

"wow, this feels really nice"
"god - sorry if that was weird, i'll stop talking now"

"don't stop, i like your voice"

"i second that"

"well i like you guys too - i-i mean i like your voices too"

*****

jaemin's thoughts:

i thought i was gonna hate him
but he's so  adorable
i just wanna cuddle him
actually no
i just wanna cuddle him and jeno
*sigh*
stop jaemin ur gonna catch feels
he's probs not even gay
in fact jeno probs isn't either
and neither of them know i'm gay
i didn't even know i was gay until this summer.
but - holy shit
now i do

jeno's thoughts:

renjun is...
perfect.
like in every way
i mean jaemin is also perfect-
wait why do i always start thinking about jaemin-
anyway
imma try and get to know renjun
see what happens ;)
...
i'm disappointed in myself

renjun's thoughts:

they're both hella cute wtd
thank you jesus
summer here i come!
let's not fuck this up!

author's note

yayyyy!
they met!
okay this is my favourite chapter so far,
i can feel the awkwardness

xxx