dicey ↬ nomin

Ch.23

The sports festival was upon our protagonists, leading to mass final training amongst those who were expecting to win. In basic terms, the festival was a series of competitions both individual and group based, which lasted three days from Wednesday to Friday. After the three days, there was a break from school for a week as a sort of midterm break. Jeno and Jaemin had hit a brick wall with their practicing so they were extremely unprepared. However, Markhyuck and Chensung were quite ready to participate because they practiced a lot.

The banners were what caught Jeno's eye first. They were billowing proudly in the breeze above the entrance to the school. The colours were lively and jovial, adding to the hype for the event.

For Jeno, the sports festival was just a waste of time. He considered it an expense for the school to pay without any reimbursement at the end. In his opinion, he could just go to class as normal instead of run around the field for half a day three times.

When he stepped through, the wave of students who had arrived early in their sports gear bombarded him. There was "Jeno! You look good in sports gear!" and "Bro! Good luck with your partner!" and "I hope you win!" heard around the group. He just smiled and thanked them, feeling guilty that he didn't recognise half of them.

"Let's go inside," Chenle tugged on his sleeve while Donghyuck tried to manoeuvre through the crowd.

"I swear to god, Mr. Lee," he grumbled to Jeno while inching past some cooing girls. "If you weren't so popular then we'd have it much easier."

The boy in questioned hummed with a small smile. "It's not my fault."

As they edged towards the door, they were flung towards the flat wood. It opened to allow them into the nearly desolate hallway, if not for the few students at their lockers and those taking a toilet break. The squeak of Donghyuck's sports shoes against the mopped glossy corridor floor made Jeno cringe and Chenle turn red in embarrassment because everyone in the hallway could hear.

"Don't hurt yourself in the competitions, Jeno," Donghyuck ordered, overlooking the squeak of his shoes because he honestly couldn't care less. The sound resonated and caused a few heads to turn and look at them. Chenle was so red from embarrassment.

"Why would I hurt myself?" He answered mischievously, not knowing that his friend was actually knowledgeable about his dealings with Jaewoo. Donghyuck had suddenly become quite protective, although Jeno didn't notice.

After hanging around inside for a while, they heard an intercom announcement from the principal, asking any students inside to make their way outside. Jeno squinted as the sun blinded him momentarily whilst opening the door. The sea of students outside and the group pushing his group from inside the school to go outside made him feel uncomfortable. Donghyuck and Chenle were both gripping onto one of Jeno's arms each, trying to stay together while making their way to the area where some teachers were making an opening speech.

Jeno completely zoned out, seeing the teachers' mouths move behind the microphones but hearing nothing but white noise. He was scanning the crowd for a head of pink hair, his hopes crushed every time a similar shade of pink would reveal a face belonging to someone else. His heart fluttered dangerously at the moment of spotting a pink haired person, making him wonder why he would react that way. Usually he would get annoyed. He did spot a familiar pink head of hair, but unfortunately it wasn't Jaemin. "Jisung," he greeted.

The taller male approached them, squeezing through the group. He smiled faintly and waved. "Hey guys." Jisung's eyes fell onto Chenle, who was blushing and making awkward eye contact with owl eyes. Jisung took his hand from behind his back which, surprisingly, had another hand holding it. Mark emerged from behind Jisung and let go of his friend's hand, red faced from moving quickly through the crowd.

"Mark!" Donghyuck exclaimed, quickly slapping a hand over his mouth when he realised that the teachers were still talking.

"Jeez. Everyone seems so excited," Mark mentioned, not particularly interested in the annual event, much like the rest of the friends. His dark hair was parted at the side and flicked back, aided by a sports band to keep the strands off his face.

Jeno felt like he was third wheeling in both sets of relationships so he kept quiet and watched the four boys interact with each other. He continued to looked around for Jaemin, getting distracted sometimes by the crackling or the squeaking of the old microphones. His eyes darted, getting increasingly nervous when the principal mentioned that they had ten minutes to prepare for the event.

"What's wrong, Jeno?" Jisung asked in concern once he noticed the older boy's actions amidst his conversation with Chenle. He looked from Jeno to the crowd, trying to see what he was looking for. Jeno dragged his eyes from the other students to Jisung, confusedly giving him a tilted head as he knew that he had been spoken to but didn't know what had been said. "What's wrong?"

"I'm..." he glanced around again in confusion before finally settling his gaze back on Jisung again. "I'm looking for Jaemin..."

"Ten minutes!" The teachers called again before disbanding to get equipment. This left the student body to chat and get ready for ten minutes.

"Jaemin?" Jisung murmured and looked somewhere above Jeno's head in thought. "I didn't see him earlier, but he isn't the type of guy to let his sports partner down, let alone miss a day of school. I wonder why he's late..."

Jeno broke eye contact to look back over the crowd on his tippy toes. "I swear, if he stands me up he'll have hell to pay." But that wasn't really what concerned him; like Jisung said - Jaemin never missed a day of school. He was worried that something had happened to his frenemy. Just because he couldn't show that he was attached to the flamboyant personality didn't mean he wasn't. He just hoped that Jaemin wasn't sick or anything.

But at the same time, he couldn't participate in partner-based activities without the boy in question.

"Let's go to the field. I saw all the younger students painting up the boundaries yesterday," Donghyuck said and gently held onto Mark's arm. He wrapped his two arms around it and urged Mark to follow him. Chenle and Jisung followed with Jeno in tow, still occupied by his unnecessarily worrying thoughts about Jaemin.

The different classes lined up - Jeno's class was the first group to participate in the hundred-metre sprint. The boys and girls split for this. Donghyuck, Mark and Jaemin's class was next, followed by the other classes in his year group. And then it would be Chenle and Jisung's class after that.

As Jeno stood at the starting line, stretching his muscles and remembering when Jaemin tried to help him stretch in P.E, he looked at the crowd surrounding the track course. There were banners preventing anyone from intercepting the race from the sidelines and he could see his friends waving and cheering for him. He smiled back and rolled out his shoulders, feeling them loosen up. A lot of female students were ogling at his figure in the sports uniform, much to his dismay.

And even as the countdown began, the tenseness returning to his body as he crouched low with the other boys, he found his eyes falling on his friends. He loved them so much.

And then the buzzer sounded to start the race.