eye contact | jikook

one

jeon jungkook walked through the halls of his high school. he kept his head down as he walked into his classroom to sit at the seat by the window.

this was a normal occurrence for the boy. everyday he walks into the school, he keeps his head down, refusing eye contact with anybody.

it became a normal routine that he can find his classroom's just by the tiles on the floor.

he can hear whispers when he walks, teens crowding the halls will stop to look at him and whisper unknown things to their friends.

jungkook never bothered to care. he slowly brought his hands up to cover his ears and smiled to himself when he didn't hear anything but muffled voices.

he wonders if that's how he felt everyday.

as jungkook walked into his classroom, hands now down by his sides, he heard laughter over at the front of the classroom.

he ignored it and sat at his seat, taking out his books from his backpack.

he set them on his table and sighed, another day of boredom.

he decided to look up and let his eyes roam around the room. his eyes landed on the laughter and saw three guys sitting around on singular table.

his eyes stayed looking at them until he noticed them look back at him.

"hey look, he's looking at us again." one with black hair spoke up.

"just ignore him. he's weird." another with light brown hair told the other two boys.

jungkook ignored what they said and paid attention to the lesson as soon as it started.

-

jungkook was woken out of his daydream as the bell rang, signaling school is over. he put his books in his bag and walked out of his last classroom's door.

the whole way out of the school, his head has been tilted down.

he was walking towards his bike to ride it home until he heard an argument going on not that far away from him.

he looked over lazily and saw a guy with red hair holding onto his bike for dear life talking to a guy with black hair who seemed taller than him.

"why don't you just get your own? it's my bike!" the red haired one whines to the taller guy.

"just let me use yours." the taller guy then tried to grab the bike from the other.

this went on and on until they both heard a voice softly saying, "you can you mine."

the taller guy turned around and looked at jungkook.

jungkook of course only looked at his nose to avoid eye contact.

"really? thanks man." the black haired male smiled wide and took jungkook's bike, riding away.

"uh, you're probably not going to get that back you know." the red headed mate spoke up.

"yeah i know." jungkook sighed and started to walk away, not without hearing the shouts of the red head behind him asking who he is and thanking him repeatedly.

once jungkook reached home, his mom greeted him with a tight hug.

"where were you?" she asked with wide eyes scanned jungkook's face all over.

"someone took my bike so i had to walk home." he nonchalantly told his mom and walked past her and up to his room.

"i was so worried." his mom mumbled to herself.

he set his bag down on his floor and sat on his bed. a few minutes passed of him just staring into space until he fell back onto his bed.

"jungkook-ah! can you get some groceries for me, please?" his mom shouted from downstairs at him.

he groaned and sat back up. he slowly walked down the stairs and muttered out a "yeah." as his mother shoved a list into his hand.

"thanks, sweetheart." she smiled cheekily at her son and he couldn't help but smile back at her.

-

as jungkook was walking back to his house, hands full of groceries, he spotted the same red head he saw earlier that day.

but something made him look twice at him, the boy had his bike in hands.

jungkook saw the red head start to look over at his direction and quickly turned his head to the floor.

"hey, you!" jungkook started to walk faster but came to an abrupt stop when he saw the bike wheels right in front of him.

he slowly looked up, his bangs falling in front of his eyes.

the boy had crossed the street frantically to catch jungkook's attention and it seemed as if he got it.

"i got you your bike back! the idiot just left it in an alley way." the red head tsked and shoved the bike in front of jungkook.

"uh— thanks." jungkook awkwardly smiled and put the grocery bags in the little basket on the bike.

"no problem!" the red head smiled a very bright heart-shaped smile. jungkook, still avoiding eye contact, tried to walk away before the boy called out to him again.

"hey, i never got your name." the boy kept his smile on his face as he waited for jungkook to answer.

"oh, uh, jungkook. jeon jungkook." jungkook introduced himself, bowing a little to show respect to the boy.

"hi jungkook, i'm jung hoseok!" the red head reached out for a handshake and jungkook raised his hand up to shake it.

in the process of shaking hands, jungkook made eye contact with the boy.

jungkook has a strategy to avoid eye contact with people. that strategy is to imagine a big X over people's faces.

as he made eye contact with hoseok, he saw the X slowly start to peel off his face.

jungkook smiled, being able to finally see how the boy looked like. "nice to meet you."

"hey, this means we're best friends now, right?" hoseok asked full of hope. (lol)

"i- uh" jungkook started to scratch the back of his neck, looking around.

"i mean, i don't really see you talking that much to people, so i was thinking why not be besties?" hoseok cutely asked.

"i— yeah okay." jungkook gave up trying to find excuses and just agreed to hoseok's offer.

"really? great!" hoseok smiled his bright smile once more before waving goodbye to jungkook.

"see ya tomorrow at school, best friend!"

jungkook waved back with a small smile present on his face.