RETROGRADE PLANET

➳ 1.3 | romeo, romeo

"LIM JAEBEOM! You might be able to wait for Shakespeare, but Shakespeare will not wait for you. Don't be late to my lesson again."

Jinyoung is tired of hearing that name - Lim Jaebeom, not William Shakespeare that is. Their literature teacher Mr Kang is very dedicated to the life and works of Shakespeare, as well as a long list of other noteable authors and playwrights, and he's also perhaps the only teacher who can really tell Jaebeom what to do.

"Sorry, sir," Jaebeom says in a casual tone, scuffing his shoes on the flooring as he weaves between the desks to find his seat.

"Pick up your feet, boy, whatever did the floorboards do to you?"

Jaebeom just scoffs a little, but doesn't drag his feet quite as hard during the rest of the journey to his seat. The classroom is filled with nothing but the sound of Jaebeom's sneakers against wooden floorboards and the whispering of the girls at the back of the class, desperate to know, as always, is he single? Jaebeom slumps into the seat a row across from Jinyoung, and Jinyoung suddenly really wants to go home.

"Brilliant, thank you for your interruption, Jaebeom," says Mr Kang, and his crisp tone hushes the whispers from the back as he returns to reading the text. "Now, 'love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake - it's everything except what it is'..."

Time goes by and the class is quiet chatter, rustled papers, and sound of Jaebeom tapping his pen against the desk one row over. Jinyoung can't shake the feeling that Jaebeom is looking at him, staring, maybe. It raises the hairs on the back of his neck.

A carton of banana milk slides its way onto the desk. Jinyoung stares at it. Frowns. Looks over at Jaebeom. Sighs.

Leave me alone.

That's the message he tries to communicate, but he doesn't think Jaebeom's brain can process telepathy. Not in the same way Mark's can, at least. Mark knows exactly what he means with a single glance. But then again, Jaebeom isn't anything like Mark Tuan.

Pushing the carton back onto Jaebeom's desk, Jinyoung fixes him with his deepest glare, brows furrowed as far as they will go. Jaebeom tilts his head with an expression that is more mocking than anything else, and puts the banana milk back on Jinyoung's desk.

Jinyoung gives him the finger.

Fuck off.

Jaebeom smiles and ignores him.

No chance.

Jinyoung feels like he's going out of his mind. The banana milk carton goes back and forth from desk to desk, the victim in the most powerful staring contest of '12. Jaebeom mouths something along the lines of keep it, Park and Jinyoung's response is some profanity-filled I don't want it, stalker! The battle is neverending.

"Just take the banana milk, Jinyoung," Jaebeom says under his breath, and Jinyoung hates how natural his name sounds on Jaebeom's lips.

"I said I don't want it," he hisses back, jaw clenched in frustration.

"Just take it!"

"No!"

And suddenly they're both grabbing hold of the carton, trying to push it further towards the other, and the pressure rapidly builds and builds and builds and-

SPLAT!

-the banana milk explodes. All over the desks, the floor, Jinyoung, Jaebeom, and anything within close enough radius. For a split second, the class falls silent, and then the room errupts in noisy exclamations and bursts of laughter, and Mr Kang's ears are almost steaming as his invested reading of the passage is interrupted once again.