smultronställe

V.

You're fucked.

This much is evident. It's quite late when Jaemin leaves your house, whispering a 'goodbye' into your hair. Extracting yourself from his warm embrace takes everything you have within you, and even then you stand outside, watching him pull away from your house and drive off into the night. You stay there for longer than is necessary, and longer than he exists within your line of sight. You're screwed. Whipped. Floored. You're fucked.

It's easy for you to see just how absolutely enamored you are with Jaemin, with the way he expresses himself using his eyebrows and how leans into his laughter, with how hooded his eyelids get sometimes when he's deep in thought, the way he understands just how to let you know that he's listening, that he'll always be listening to you. It's harder for you to admit this to yourself, which is why you find yourself in a Walmart at half past three in the morning.

You can't sleep, so you may as well shop. By the end of your hour-long stay underneath the hypnotizingly bright fluorescent lights of what can only be described as a liminal space - the walls seem to be closing in on you, even though the store itself is spacious as all hell - you have two pairs of pajama pants you don't need, a single container of hummus, and car freshener (you've been meaning to get some for a while) in your creaky metal cart. Your purchases are questionable enough that you opt to go through the self check-out, though you suspect that all of the human cashiers' eyes are too glazed over for them to even register what customers are buying at this time of night.

Retail therapy, even if it's clothes, car things, and cooked chickpeas, usually takes your mind off of what's bothering you. Tonight, though, your thoughts are unable to stray from Jaemin. A coworker. A friend. Your coworker. Your friend. Your Jaemin.

Perhaps it's because you don't want to have anything in your mind but him.

Once you get home, you pretty much sleep the day away. It's for the best: you have plans the day after, and you're refreshed for them. That, and you always call Renjun on Saturday mornings. You find that you want to tell him about what had happened between you and Jaemin on Thursday night, how comfortable the two of you had been with each other. It makes you giddy - it makes you happy - and you know that, no matter how much Renjun teases you, he wants what's best for you and wants to hear about it.

He's a good friend, just as Jaemin's a good... whatever he is to you. You aren't quite sure yet.

Maybe Renjun can help you figure it out.

♕ ♕ ♕

"He asked to know everything about you, and, instead of sucking his dick, you actually told him everything about you?" Renjun's voice is made tinny by the call quality, but you can still very easily sense the exasperation in the words he speaks.

"I- yes, of course I actually told him about myself, what? It was a two-way conversation, by the way: I didn't just drop all my shit on him and kick him out of my house. I learned a lot about Jaemin, too. I think that's better than sucking his dick." Heat rises to your face the more you keep speaking, but you blame it on your air conditioning, making a mental note of calling a repairman. Your AC isn't even broken, but that doesn't stop you from using it as a scapegoat.

"Keep fooling yourself." Your best friend huffs out, adamant in his ways the same way you're adamant in yours. You don't quite know why you still deny the extent of your attraction to your mutual friend - after all, you've already told Renjun that you're into Jaemin. Renjun does quite know why you deny it: because you refuse to let yourself believe you might have something good in front of you. It's hard to work the hours you all do under the pressure you all face and not lose faith in the idea of any romantic love surpassing that. It's why he says nothing else, waiting for your reply instead.