drama⚘⚘ nomin

four

The next day, I'm sick. Not just because I don't want to go to school but because I actually am. My head hurts, and I have a temperature. My mother demands I stay at home so I text Jeno that I won't be there today.

He replies quickly and seems to understand that my illness isn't the only reason why I'm staying home. But he doesn't say anything about it, just promises to come over and bring me the papers.

I've been awake for ten minutes when he texts me he's arrived. I hurry down the stairs - not easy with a headache this bad - to open the front door.

"Hey," I say quietly.

"Hi," Jeno smiles, "how are you? Did you sleep? You look like you slept until just now."

"Yeah," I reply, turning around to let him enter. "How's school?"

"Just the usual." He smiles gently while handing me papers. "I copied some stuff for y-"

"Jeno," I interrupt him, "what's that?" I point to his reddened knuckles. "What happened?" He follows my eyes and I slowly but surely start to panic.

"I just punched someone. No big deal."

"No big deal? What did you do?! Tell me, now!"

He gives in, sighing. "Daesook talked about you. He made fun of you. Saying you stayed home because you're afraid of what's going to happen to you. Saying you should stay home forever. I just couldn't stop myself," he mutters, "I got so angry in like a second, I don't even remember hitting his face. He stumbled backwards, blood running out of his nose, and I... I think I said something like 'does anyone else want to add something?', but I really don't remember. Nobody said anything, and in the end Donghyuck and Renjun dragged me out of the classroom and we skipped the next lesson."

"Please tell me you didn't have to go to the principal."

He looks down on his feet.

No.

"She called me in for Friday afternoon," he mumbles.

"Can you please stop getting in trouble because of me? They already hate me enough," I whimper, feeling tears rise inside me. Something invisible clutches my chest, making it difficult to breathe.

"I can't help it, Nana." He looks at me with guilt, immediately wiping away the tears as they leave my eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't think about how it would affect you."

"You can't just hit them because you want to," I sob, "they're going to hate you, too."

"I'm trying, I really am. They won't hate me this fast. And even if they do, I don't care."

"You should. You can't get your image ruined just because of me."

He sighs with a loving tone in it. "You really care too much about what's going to happen. My looks are already enough for them to like me, and I'm still the one who helps them out with everything. You're my only weakness," he adds, "you're the only thing I hate all of them for. They treat you so bad, just because you talk to me, and I just... I could send them all to the moon for that, you know. You're amazing and they don't appreciate it at all. It probably doesn't help what I'm doing and I'm sorry, but their behaviour makes me terribly angry. They're so stupid for judging you this fast. They've never even bothered to talk to you and just decide they don't like you. Why are people like this? Why can't they just be neutral towards someone?"

"I don't know," I whisper, choking on the tears.

"Come here," Jeno smiles softly and pulls me into a loving embrace. I sob into his shoulder. My emotions have always been stronger when I'm sick and I hate it, but with Jeno, I can bear it.

I'm in love. I'm in love with him.

Jeno stays until my mother gets home and tells him to leave since I'm still as sick as this morning, but I'm glad he didn't care about it. He helped me with the homework and even explained some of it to me and promised me to visit me until I'm healthy again.

It doesn't really help me liking him less, but I guess I have to deal with these feelings now, too. I catch myself wondering about how his kisses might feel and get so embarrassed I'm glad he's not with me anymore.

I'm struggling with expressing my gratitude towards him so I end up typing endless thank you-s into a message to him that was supposed to be about our homework.

He replies quickly. Don't worry, followed by a heart. I hope you'll feel better soon

He really got rid of his abbreviations. It makes me smile.

So does the heart.

Can I cancel this? I applied without wanting it.

❃

I stay home for another two days and after the weekend, Jeno insists on going to school with me. I tell him I don't want him to go all the way just to walk back with me again, but he doesn't stop until I give in and tell him the time he has to be here. I think about leaving earlier than I said, but he'd go all that way for nothing so I just accept the fact that he'll get up way too early just to go to school with me.

I'm nervous enough to lose sleep from Sunday to Monday, so I'm barely ready when Jeno texts me that he's there. After saying goodbye to my parents, I hurry out on the street to see him standing there smiling, facing the sun. He opens his eyes as I get closer to him and his smile gets brighter when they meet mine.

"How are you, are you feeling better?"

"If I didn't I wouldn't be here, would I?"

"Hopefully not." He holds out his hand towards me. Hesitantly, I put my fingers between his. "I'm glad you're not sick anymore."

"I guess it's good," I mumble. We start walking in comfortable silence, our intertwined fingers making my heart race way too fast.

"So," I ask reluctantly, "how did it go with the principal?"

Jeno sighs, clearly wanting to avoid talking about that. Nevertheless, he answers. "She didn't do anything except warning me not to repeat that kind of behaviour. I explained what had happened so I guess she understood, but she won't talk to anyone else. Though they're the ones always starting it. It's probably better if she doesn't do anything about it, but it still annoys me she doesn't care about it more." I gently squeeze his hand and the frustration in his eyes decreases slowly.

"It's good you told her the truth and even better that she understands, at least enough to not do anything to you. And I... I'm glad she doesn't want to talk to them. It would make things worse."

"I guess you're right." Jeno sighs again. "But I wish it didn't. I wish they could see how stupid they're acting with you and would change it. But I guess you can't change people like them, right?"

"You changed," I whisper, "you chose me."

He stays silent for a few seconds. "I didn't hate you like they do. I didn't hate you at all. You were just one of my classmates. Until I noticed how your friends treated you. And still, I didn't want to talk to you at first. Because I didn't want them to hate me. But it just started to get irrelevant for me the longer I watched you. And here we are." He lifts our hands for a moment. "I seriously didn't think we would end up being close to each other. But I like it," he adds quietly, "I really do."

A smile crosses my lips. "Me too."

❃

He never leaves my side, not even when we're in different classrooms. He spends every break with me and walks me to my next class, waits until the teacher arrives and always picks me up in time when the lessons are over.

"Thank you so much for doing this," I manage to say when we walk home. He smoothly interlaces our fingers and squeezes mine carefully.

"It's fine. I want you to be safe. I started getting you into trouble," he smiles with a hint of sadness, "so I'm going to keep you out of it."

04/18/20