school skirt 🍑🍉 nomin

three

It's just a few days later that Jeno visits Jaemin after school for the first time. But Jaemin managed to convince him to go home first – he needs to hide some things first, including the huge amount of plushies piled up on his bed. No way he'd let anyone see them except for his best friends, and definitely not Jeno. He checks his wardrobe, hides the few childhood pictures in his parents' bedroom, even the yearbooks find their places on the room's floor. He goes through the whole house, multiple times. When Jeno arrives, he's just finished. But he forgot something very important.

"Hi," Jeno smiles as soon as Jaemin opens the door. The younger automatically smiles back. Of course he recognizes how good the older looks in his regular clothes, and Jeno secretly starts loving Jaemin in his slightly oversized clothes.

"Hey." Both of them are happy to see the other again, though barely two hours ago, they left school.

Jaemin briefly shows Jeno the house before they go to his room. The older notices there aren't any childhood pictures of Jaemin and it confuses him so much he doesn't even think of asking.

"You must feel pretty lonely when you're parents aren't home," Jeno remarks. Jaemin doesn't own any pets, though he'd love to.

"I'm used to it. I've always been more of the alone-type anyway. It's peaceful." Plus, there's already enough going on in my own life, Jaemin adds in his own thoughts.

"You should at least get a small pet, a bunny or something." Smiling, Jeno sits down on the floor while Jaemin chooses his bed.

"I'll consider it." Jeno doesn't reply; he's looking at something underneath Jaemin's bed, squinting his eyes as if he couldn't believe it's really there. Jaemin is too confused to stop him, so he just watches him. And when Jeno reaches forward, Jaemin realizes what he forgot earlier. The school uniform's skirts.

Which is exactly what Jeno holds in his hands.

"Skirts?" he asks, looking up. Jaemin looks back, terrified. Jeno's puppy eyes make him cry in less than a second.

He wasn't prepared. Not in the slightest. It's too early.

"Don't cry, Jaemin-ah," Jeno says in a soft tone, "what for? Because of these?" A desperate sob leaving Jaemin's lips breaks Jeno's heart. "Jaemin, please, you don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to, I'm good at forgetting things."

Jaemin shakes his head. "I'm sorry–" Jeno drops the dark fabric and sits down next to him, not thinking about it when he wraps his arms around the sobbing boy.

"It's okay," Jeno whispers, carefully caressing the soft blue hair under his chin. After that, he stays silent, constantly moving his fingers through Jaemin's hair strands until the younger sits up straight, wiping his cheeks pretty much dry.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly.

"It's okay, Jaemin." The honesty in Jeno's eyes makes Jaemin's vision blurry again. "Do you want to tell me? You don't have to."

Jaemin gulps. Without a word, he gets up and leaves the room, startling Jeno extremely. Why would he do that all of a sudden?

But when he comes back, Jeno understands. Jaemin has a pile of yearbooks and picture frames in his arms and drops them on the bed, sitting down on the same. Jeno turns towards him and watches him flick through the first book. As he stops and looks up, the fear has filled his eyes once again.

He hands Jeno the yearbook. "Find me," he says.

Jeno stares at the pages for a few seconds before looking at the students – they must be around twelve years old – one by one. Over and over again, until his eyes rest on the face of a girl, standing on the very left, with shoulder-length hair, surrounded by boys.