started with a dare | NORENMIN

5 | ALONE

"hey," renjun nudged jaemin's arm, getting the attention of the brown haired male. he gestured his head towards the other brown haired male, walking alone in front of them. "go talk to him."

"what? no!" jaemin whisper yelled to the shorter male, refusing to talk to his other friend. "i can't."

"na jaemin? unable to do something?" renjun teased, nudging the other male once more. "come on, jaemin. just go talk to him. you can't push it off."

"i know... i just... don't know how to bring it up..." the brown haired male's head turned towards the ground, avoiding the gaze of the chinese male.

renjun let out a sigh. putting an arm around jaemin after much difficulty, he tried to comfort the taller male by patting his shoulder and rubbing circles with his thumb in the same area. that motion was enough to make jaemin feel better, renjun could tell by the slight relaxation from the taller's shoulders.

"isn't it too early? should i give him some space?" jaemin asked all of a sudden, unsure if jeno would need more space to think things through or anything before the brown haired male would go up to talk to him.

letting out another sigh, renjun just shook his head. "i think it's better to sort out a misunderstanding as soon as it forms. it might make it harder to talk through it when time passes by."

this time, it was jaemin's turn to let out a sigh. "it doesn't help that i like him..."

right. jaemin has a crush on his best friend, as did renjun. they both had a crush on their best friend, but unlike jaemin, not everyone in their friend group knew who renjun likes. there were most likely, at most, three people who know about the chinese boy's crush, and he didn't plan to tell anyone else about it.

even though renjun already knew he had no hope at winning the heart of the one he loves, he could still hear his heart shatter into pieces for the nth time of his life, and even after everything he has tried, jaemin still doesn't have eyes for him.

renjun was slowly losing hope, and it didn't help that he had to compete with his best friend for his crush's heart, who never had eyes on him since the beginning.
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"so what are you complaining about again?" the voice of jeno echoed throughout the shared dorm room of the three best friends, kicking renjun out of his thoughts as he found himself dozing off while ranting to the brown haired male about something.

snapping (snapping) out of his thoughts, the chinese turned towards his roommate and spent a minute to recollect his train of thought. "what was i complaining about again?"

"how would i know? you were talking about some really expensive t-shirt that you wanted to buy, but couldn't because you were, quote on quote, 'fucking broke despite attending the most prestigious high school in seoul,' and then you suddenly began talking about a cool necklace you saw in that exact same store and how you would most definitely fall in love with the person who buys it for you. after that, you were talking about candy all of a sudden, complaining about not being able to stop by the candy store and get some bubble gum, but then mentioning again that you wouldn't be able to buy the bubble gum because you were broke, which then circled back to the t-shirt that you saw, and i got lost by that point," the brown haired male explained, catching renjun off guard since he didn't think that the other would remember every detail of his rant when he couldn't even remember what he was talking about.

"hmp. and you said you didn't know," renjun said, pouting slightly and watching as jeno turned his eyes away from him.

"i didn't- never mind," jeno cut off his words as soon as he had begun speaking and went back to scrolling through his phone. renjun just huffed, upset that his friend isn't paying attention to him anymore.