dicey ↬ nomin

Ch.5

Jaemin looked around the canteen for his friends, to no avail, while being weighed down by his heavy science project. His arms felt as though they were being amputated and he tiredly lay the box down on one of the tables. A few random students threw smiles his way, to which he returned them. He was feeling dead inside at the thought of having to go to class so he wished the morning would last forever.

"Jaemin," his friend's soft voice called from behind him and he spun around. Jisung was standing there with the boy he saw Jeno with yesterday. The boy was awkwardly looking between Jisung and Jaemin, not wanting to get tangled up in anything. "This is my friend. He arrived with Jeno today, so he is in, just in case you were looking for him."

Jaemin shook his head. "Me? Looking for Jeno? Nah, man." He looked at Chenle. "I'm Jaemin."

"Chenle."

"Ah, you're Chinese then. And you have purple hair." Chenle gave him an ambiguous glance.

Jisung looked between the two before offering to help Jaemin carry the project to the science room. "By the way, Chenle and I have been partnered up for a project, so I might not have time to sit with you and the boys at lunch."

Chenle looked at Jaemin for a moment and then helped with the box too. "Can you cut Jeno some slack today?"

"Only if he reciprocates, I'm afraid," the pink haired boy shrugged and they went to the science room. "Are you and Jeno friends? I didn't think he had any, frankly."

"We are friends, but we're more like brothers."

"So you're childhood friends?"

Chenle smiled faintly and spotted Jeno at his locker. "Something like that." He knew that Jeno didn't go around telling anyone that he lived in in a home for children, so he didn't elaborate. He looked at Jisung, who was carrying it without a sweat. They had been acquaintances, for lack of better words, and since Chenle didn't particularly have friends in their grade, he was hoping to take this opportunity to make a new friend. He hoped Jisung, who he'd observed as friendly and quiet, was thinking the same thing, since his friends were in an older grade as well.

"I'll meet you guys there," Jaemin winked and left the project with them.

"Unbelievable," Jisung groaned. "This is his project. We were just being nice and now we're lumped with it."

Chenle smiled at Jisung and patted his shoulder. "We can plan our own project while we walk."

***

Jeno finished shoving everything into his locker and welcomed the quiet of not having lots of people around him. He got overwhelmed a lot when all the students flocked him at every moment of every school day, but today there was a trip on for the girls so they left early. He sighed as he closed his locker, but jumped when he saw someone behind the locker door. There was a flash of pink hair before he comprehended who it was.

"Hi there," Jaemin grinned and leaned against the locker. He just lived to annoy.

"I swear to god, Na. Stop doing that!" He let out a shaky breath and kicked him in the shin.

Jaemin looked closely at Jeno's collar, which was up a bit higher than usual. There was a crescent shaped scab above the rim of the collar. "Wow, that looks sore," he mentioned and gestured to his neck. "Do you have a cat or something?"

Jeno turned his head to look at him and accidentally exposed a few more of the scabs along with a small section of the purple bruise. "Oh, I was trying to hide those. I guess it wasn't a particularly good attempt though." He covered his panic smoothly with a chilled out reaction.

Jaemin's eyes widened at the bruise and particularly the colour of it. "What happened?"

Surprised that Jaemin cared, and thinking that rather than caring he was just curious, Jeno laughed off the idea that he knew Jaemin was concocting. "Two words: little sister. She's a demon, I swear. I don't think she's my mum's daughter."

The pink haired boy nodded after the explanation, knowing about the troubles of little sisters. He almost laughed at himself in his head, thinking he was stupid for jumping to conclusions. After knowing Lee Jeno as the guy he was now, he couldn't imagine the boy just letting someone abuse him. He'd probably shut them down pretty quick.

Unfortunately, this was not the case...

"I have a sister too, but she prefers to pull my hair."

Jeno looked at the boy, wondering how they were suddenly having a civilised conversation for the first time. "I dunno, I don't think I can take you seriously anymore, now that I know you get your hair pulled by a little girl."

Jaemin's face morphed into a sneaky one as he lifted his hand, spinning the lock from Jeno's locker on it. "I had time to figure out your combination code while you were putting stuff in there. So, before you stop taking me seriously, how about you apologise?"

He glared angrily at him and kicked him in the shin again. "I'd rather you put something in my locker than apologise, so there's your invitation."

Jaemin frowned and leaned against the locker again with his arms folded, swinging the lock in his hand. "You're so sour. Like one of those flavours of bonbon that nobody actually likes."

"And you have only two modes: obnoxiously annoying and sickeningly cheery. Now, if you'll excuse me." He tried to brush past Jaemin but Jaemin stuck his foot out and tripped Jeno. Instead of falling forward, he fell sideways onto the other boy, surprising both of them.

The clash of hitting the lockers and then hitting the floor made Jeno feel nauseous, but he pushed through it and opened his eyes, only to spot lots of people watching them wide-eyed while he lay on top of Jaemin, who was laughing hysterically. "You outdid yourself this time, Lee."

He clenched his fists irritatedly and glared. "If this is about Mina, I'm really sorry that she doesn't like you anymore. But I have literally never talked to her before, so I couldn't have possibly influenced her."

Jaemin sat up and pulled Jeno with him, looking at him. "We broke up. This has nothing to do with her; it's my own initiative." He was planning on using his knowledge of Jeno's combination code to put things in the locker - another phase to figure out a weakness, if he even had one. He wasn't best pleased that his ex was brought up, especially since the break-up was still fresh, but it didn't bother him as much as he had expected. Maybe he didn't like her as much as he had thought...

He stood up and looked down at Jeno, passing the lock back to him and walked away. Jeno stood up in irritation and locked his locker, pushing through the small crowd gathered there. He put a hand on his neck and felt the scabs, shakily breathing in and out to stop his hands from shaking. Then, with the ring of the bell, he stood up straight, exuding confidence, and made his way to class.

He hadn't just fallen on Jaemin and they hadn't just had a normal conversation. At least, that's what he told himself.