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Jaemin stares at the table, sighing heavily as he walks over. The only free, visible seat is next to Chenle. No way in hell am I sitting there. I can’t just sit next to him. I like him too much for that. What if I squeeze in next to Jeno? We have our next course together, and I need to see if my assignment is alright. Maybe I can slip in beside him?
Jaemin sits next to Chenle, and the younger eyes him. “Um, what are you doing?”
“Sitting down.” Jaemin rolls his eyes, directing his eyes to Jeno. “I’m not sure about my Art History project. Mrs. Song speaks too fast, I don’t even think I got what the project was.”
“Fuck if I know.” Jeno held his sandwich in one hand, shaking the other violently. “I have some many hand cramps from my drawing class. We did shading today.”
“That sucks,” Renjun hums, clearing his throat. He takes a long swig of his water. “I haven’t lost my voice yet, by some miracle.”
“You lose it every other week,” Yangyang countered. “Damn, I wish I was in a fun major.”
Sungchan sighed. “So do I.”
Jisung turned to Shotaro. “Shotaro, Chenle, what about you two? How’s dance going?”
“Normal,” Shotaro shrugs. “We’re just choreographing like usual. It’s hiphop this time around.”
“Fun!” Jeno smiles. “Oh, yeah, I was wondering if you guys wanted to do some karaoke tomorrow night? It’ll be a Friday and all, and we’ve all had, like, no work this week.”
“I’m down,” Donghyuck agrees. Everyone else seems to be going, so Jaemin agrees as well. What was he going to do anyways on a boring Friday night?
Karaoke has always been fun. Jaemin watches Renjun perform an amazing cover of Crush’s Beautiful before Jeno and Yangyang take the stage for GD x TAEYANG’s Good Boy. Donghyuck takes on the five roles of CIX’s Movie Star, leaving Shotaro, Sungchan, and Jisung to team up for Ditto by NewJeans.
Sungchan and Jisung sit down, chatting about performing OMG next, but Shotaro seems less interested in that conversation and more in the fact that Jaemin’s spacing out. The former taps the latter on the shoulder, a bright smile already forming on his face as he recites the short plan he’s already made.
“Jaemin, you should perform with Chenle!” Shotaro urges.
Jaemin turns around to look at him. Shotaro, like everyone else, has no idea what Jaemin feels, and disappointing Shotaro is just… ten times worse than disappointing anyone else.
“Fine,” Jaemin huffs. Chenle furrows his brows upon his arrival, like he always does, but Jaemin sticks out his tongue for a moment. “I’m only doing this because everyone else went already.”
“I would’ve thought it was because I chose a love song,” Chenle quips, pressing play.
Jaemin’s less offended by that and more confused as to why Chenle’s chosen a love song, but he can barely ponder that before NCT 127’s Day Dream starts to play.
Jaemin makes sure to completely avoid eye contact with Chenle when he sings the line, “loving you feels like I’m dreaming”, mainly because loving Chenle feels more like he’s on the edge of a cliff. He can feel Chenle staring at him the entire time, however, and he doesn’t know if that’s a good sign or a bad one. Given how Chenle seems to hate him, it’s probably bad.
The rest of the night is… good. Shotaro brings out the Japanese for Fujii Kaze’s damn (which Sungchan adds a bit of background vocals to), Yangyang performs Carefree by KYLE, Renjun and Chenle exaggerate Boyfriend by cignature, and Jaemin joins Jisung and Donghyuck for HIGH4 20 and Hwasa’s HookGA. More songs pass and they end the night with DPR LIVE’s To Myself, but Jaemin feels spaced out throughout the song. His mind still lingers on singing with Chenle, but that might be the last thing he has to worry about.
The group eventually split, bidding their goodbyes. Jeno and Jaemin start trekking to their dorm, and the younger notes the way the former is looking at him. “What?”
Jeno keeps their eyes locked for a moment before chuckling. “God, you really are stupid.”
“I am anything but stupid.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
On Monday, Chenle arrives at the lunch table first, as he usually does, and waits for his friends to file in. He notices as time goes on that Jaemin isn’t comically late like always, and debates how much it will look like he cares if he asks versus if he doesn’t. He figures he might as well try to be a caring friend, so he turns to Jeno to get his answer. “Where’s Jaemin?”
“He’s sick,” Jeno replies, unfazed. “A cold, to be exact. He’s especially sad because he didn’t get to buy any cup noodles, and he was going to do that.”
“You weren’t going to help?”
“We’ve agreed to buy what we use. And I don’t eat cup noodles.”
Chenle nods, ah-ing, but he bites the inside of his cheek. How caring does he have to be to showcase a friendly approach? Should he buy the noodles? Does he even have mo– well, he always has the money for Jaemin, but he doesn’t know if he should spend it.
It seems like he makes the decision before he can think. After classes, Jisung questions where he’s going, but Chenle makes a beeline for the closest corner store to buy some cup noodles before turning around and heading towards the dorms.
When he gets there, Jeno is conveniently about to leave and lets him in. The younger navigates the small dorm, stocking up the cup noodles and taking one out to make for Jaemin. Once he does that, he walks up to the older’s door, debates knocking, and decides not to.
Chenle opens Jaemin’s bedroom door, cup noodles in his hands. “I, uh, heard you were sick.” He starts approaching the bed. “It’s not like I, like, care or anything, but it was weird without you talking off my ear.” Translation: I missed you.
Jaemin accepts the meal– well, the college version of a meal. “Jeno totally could’ve gotten this for me, but thanks for doing it instead… I guess.” Translation: I missed you too.
Slowly, Jaemin began to eat, glancing at Chenle. “Are you not going to leave?”
Chenle doesn’t respond to that. “You seem to be enjoying that.”
“You know that cup noodles are my favourite snack.” Jaemin turns away to cough before he squints at the younger. “We didn’t have any in our cupboard, though. Did you buy this?”
Chenle freezes for a moment. “Look… do you want it or not? Does it really matter if I bought it for you or not– which I didn’t! You bought me that one sandwich when I broke my ankle.”
“I just felt a little bad,” Jaemin argues. He is not about to completely blow his cover. “Kind of like how you do.”
“I don’t feel bad, it’s just weird.” Chenle glances at Jaemin’s laptop, which he’s just noticed is open. “Are you seriously doing schoolwork?”
“Yeah,” Jaemin sighs. “Mrs. Song gave out another project, and I still don’t know what it's about.”
“Well, art isn’t my area of expertise, but I could– if you want!– help you with it.”
Jaemin goes quiet, and Chenle wonders if he’s being too forward. Turns out that Jaemin is about to sneeze, so he turns his head away to do just that before turning back to Chenle. “I don’t think you can use my computer at this rate.”
“Ah,” Chenle responds. He’s done everything that he should for Jaemin, but he can’t bring himself to leave. Instead, he sits down, dumping his backpack on the floor, and spends his afternoon with Jaemin.
With Jaemin. Chenle scrawls the phrase on the top corner of his notes. He does it in Korean first, followed by Mandarin, and then he tries to write it in English. He doesn’t know how to spell Jaemin’s name in English for it, however, so he leaves it at with him.
With Jaemin. What an interesting phrase.
Since he’s all rested up and healthy a few days later, Jaemin gets back to his courses. It doesn’t take long for him to find himself in Art History.
Jaemin keeps his eyes locked on his notes, pulling out the few words that he can gather from his professor. She really needs to speak slower! He’s not really sure about anything, so he looks over at Jeno’s sheet beside him. Surprisingly, his page is empty.
Jaemin looks up at Jeno, who’s staring at him like he’s trying to read his mind. “What?”
“Do you like Chenle?”
“Me? Liking Chenle?” Jaemin laughs, extremely exaggerated. “Why woul– what are you even thinking? Chenle? Out of all people, I–”
“Jaemin.” Jeno cuts the younger off. “You only ramble when you’re lying.”
“No I– oh no.”
Jaemin seals his lips, pretending to be interested in the fact that Mrs. Song is talking about Van Gogh for the, like, fifteenth time this month alone.
Jeno leans into Jaemin’s personal space. “You totally like him.”
“No,” Jaemin blushes, denying it for the second time. He knows that Jeno doesn’t believe him at all, and he himself knows that he’s wrong, so who is he fooling?
Jaemin is speechless for a moment, but Jeno doesn’t say anything. In fact, it’s Jaemin who gets the last word.
“Okay, maybe.” He says. “But only maybe.”
Across campus, seated in the library, Jisung is asking Chenle the exact same question, but flipped. “Chenle, can I ask you an invasive question?”
Chenle stops organizing the books he’s taken off the shelf to give a flip-through, turning around to glare at Jisung. “Well, how invasive is it?”
“Do you have a crush on Jaemin?”
Chenle blinks. Out of all the questions he expected, this is not the one he’s planned to create an answer to. How is he supposed to answer anyways?
“You’re blushing!”
“I am not!” Chenle denies, face heating up even more.
“You totally do.”
“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.”
“Ah,” Jisung smiles. “We’ve upgraded to maybe.”
Chenle rolls his eyes, “Only so you’ll shut up.” He’s getting closer to telling the truth, but he’s not going to let any of his guard just fall. Even if Jaemin isn’t here.
“So a maybe?” Jisung asks again, eyebrow high as though Chenle is going to switch answers again.
“Maybe.” Chenle nods. “Nothing more. Nothing past that.”
Shotaro and Sungchan invite Chenle and Jaemin to bowling, which includes a restaurant inside. While Jaemin isn’t exactly the next big bowling professional, he still decides to show up.
Now, Jaemin immediately notices that Chenle isn’t the strongest at it either. Every gutter that the younger gets is agonizing to watch, and when Chenle steps up for the fourth time, Jaemin does so with him.
“What are you doing?” Chenle asks, but Jaemin doesn’t answer. Instead, he picks up a bowling ball and hands it to Chenle.
“You should put more force into your throw,” Jaemin advises, suddenly an expert in bowling.
“You’re an expert now?”
The older gets behind Chenle, grabbing his wrist to demonstrate the energy that Chenle needs to put into the throw. Jaemin rests his chin on his shoulder too, just making sure that he’s paying attention. “Like this, okay?”
“Okay, thanks.” Chenle’s voice is a little awkward, but he follows Jaemin’s advice and manages to take out a few pins with it.
“Great, Chenle!” Jaemin cheers, rubbing Chenle’s shoulder. “I mean, that was basically all my doing.”
“Uh-huh.” The awkwardness in Chenle’s voice is more like distance, and he basically floats to the seats.
After they finish their game (which Chenle does lose), Sungchan and Chenle go out to get them some food. Shotaro turns to Jaemin, eyes wide. “You… you do know that Chenle likes you, right?”
“Huh?”
“Oh my god.” Shotaro facepalms. “You two are so oblivious it’s painful. Why do you think I forced you to sing a love song together?”
“That wasn’t accidental?” Jaemin shakes his head. “No, wait, wait. He, like, actually likes me?”
“You just need to go for it, Jaemin.” Shotaro drums his fingers on the table, a serious expression on his face that Jaemin hasn’t seen before. “Sungchan and I could’ve gotten together, like, two months earlier than we did if we didn’t just go for it. I don’t know how long you’ve liked him, but you’re already pretty late.”
“Hm,” Jaemin hums as Sungchan and Chenle come back with their food. Shotaro isn’t wrong, and he always seems to be right. Does Chenle like him? They act the same way, sort of. Jaemin pretends to hate Chenle. Chenle clearly doesn’t actually hate him. So… maybe he should just go for it.
Jaemin sits on it for a few days. He takes every single second of his days to think about what could make it certain that Chenle likes him. He wants to get what he wants, obviously, but he doesn’t want to take a blind leap of faith.
There’s a day where Jaemin’s borrowing Jeno’s phone to copy down a technique that he’s done, and a notification comes in the moment he tries to tap the top of Jeno’s phone screen. It’s a Snapchat notification, but nobody even opens Snapchat these days except for Chenle, so it’s one of those notifications that the app sends to get you to open it.
Surprisingly, it’s a private story from (unsurprisingly) Chenle, and Jaemin somehow knows that he isn’t a part of it. It could be that knowledge, or it could be the 17 words on his screen confirming it.
are we pretending to not care about each other or does he not actually like me back
Without a single thought, Jaemin slams down Jeno’s phone, picks up his own, and makes a beeline for the front door. He slips on some beat-up sneakers before bolting out the door, speeding upstairs to a familiar room. Why is he doing this? Why is he rushing? Well, Shotaro did tell him to not hesitate, and he’s already missed a couple of days. It’s now or tomorrow, and he’d prefer to find out if he can kiss Chenle or not today rather than after a good rest where he can really think this through. Logical.
Jaemin is panting by the time that he gets to Chenle’s door, knocking before he can even think. When Jisung opens the door, Jaemin moves past him quickly and throws open the door to Chenle’s room.
Chenle whips his head around from his desk. “Jaemin?”
“Look, I’m going to say this once, you dumbass, and you’re going to listen.” Jaemin slams a hand on the door. “I like you so much, you literally have no idea, and I never actually hated you. Go fuck yourself.”
“Um…” Chenle blinks, taking in the aggression directed at him. “Okay, I’m not saying that… oh, who am I kidding, I have a severe crush on you too.”
“If I were to, like, hypothetically kiss you, what would you do?”
Chenle cocks his head to the side, a sudden surge of confidence in his veins. “Depends if you’d actually do it.”
Jaemin crosses the floor in a few steps, pressing each of his hands to Chenle’s cheeks. “Are you challenging me, bitch? Or do you want me to?”
“I don’t want you to– well… look, you seem oddly eager to kiss me.”
“And you seem really excited that I will– or might! What if I just step back right now?”
“Aw,” Chenle attempts to pout, but Jaemin is squeezing his cheeks together in a way that forces his mouth semi-shut and he doesn’t know if he’s being understood or not. Still, he fills his voice with sarcasm. “You want me to react because you like me, don’t you?”
“You want me to answer so that you know you have someone who likes you,” Jaemin counters, staring Chenle right in the eyes and trying to not give in yet.
Chenle cranes his neck a little more, closer to Jaemin. “So you’re admitting to liking me? Not that you didn’t just do that, but–”
“Your point?”
“You’re in love with me, Jaemin.”
“Shut up!”
“No!”
“Seriously, shut up!”
“Make me!”
Jaemin presses his lips to Chenle’s so suddenly that the younger has to grip onto the armrests of his chair to recover. He can feel the fury and rage that Jaemin’s put into the kiss, so he lightly places a hand on Jaemin’s chin and tilts his head to the left. Jaemin’s hands fall from Chenle’s face, one now on each of the latter’s arm rests. Chenle takes this as a chance to pull Jaemin in closer, but the older’s lips flutter away before he can. He knows that he looks completely pathetic, but Jaemin doesn’t need to look down at him through those long eyelashes of his and scoff, does he?
Jaemin does exactly that. “You’re blushing, Chenle.”
“I-I’m not blushing!” Chenle slams his hands over his cheeks to hide their colour, ignoring just about every other part of his body and the stutter at the beginning of his sentence. “Fuck you!”
“You’re doing this to yourself, you know.” Jaemin smirks a bit. “Hell, you’re talking to yourself, fucking weirdo.”
“What do you want me to say to you?” Chenle asks, exasperated. ‘Oh, wow, Jaemin, you’re so hot and talented and amazing! I can’t believe you’ve had a crush on me this entire time because you’re just so much better than me. Is that what you want me to say? Because I won’t!”
Jaemin sits on Chenle’s bed, smirking yet again. “I thought you were being sarcastic at the beginning of that, but clearly not.”
Chenle takes his hands off his cheeks so that he can stand up and shake Jaemin by his shoulders. “What does that even mean?”
“You know exactly what.”
Chenle pushes Jaemin so that his back hits the bed, crawling on top of him to mutter out “I fucking hate you” before kissing him.
Jaemin pulls back for a moment to say “likewise” before bringing their lips together again. He cups Chenle’s cheeks again and tilts his head, sighing into the kiss.
Chenle grips onto Jaemin’s collar, relaxing as well and moving his lips against the older’s slowly. When he pulls away, he suddenly gets a question. “Wait, why are you here?”
“Shotaro told me you liked me, and then I saw that private story you posted on fucking Snapchat via Jeno’s phone.”
“You do know that I posted that story, like, three minutes before you showed up, right?”
A smirk starts growing on Chenle’s face, and Jaemin immediately has to deny everything. “It was a notification. And I only came over here to see if you were still flustered over saying things about me on the internet.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Chenle mutters, but his tone is soft and almost as though he’s saying you didn’t need to rush instead. “Want to do something romantic?”
“So we’re a thing now?”
“You ran over here to try and make us one, so I don’t see why not.”
Jaemin rolls over so that he’s hovering over Chenle, pecking the younger’s cheek before climbing off him. He picks up Chenle bridal style, walking towards the living room. “Is this romantic enough for you?”
“Sure.” Chenle nestles into Jaemin’s neck. “But, just for the record, I don’t like you.”
“Because you love me.”
“I didn’t think you were smart enough to figure that out.”
Jaemin laughs. “Well, it’s not like I like you either.”
“Perfect.”
“Perfect.”
(When Jisung catches sight of Jaemin and Chenle kissing, he rushes off to his bedroom and immediately calls Jeno.
The older picks up only after a few rings. “What’s up?”
“Jaemin and Chenle just kissed,” Jisung exhales. “The thing is, they were threatening each other into doing it.”
“That sounds about right.”
“I’m genuinely concerned to look in Chenle’s room right now.”
“Do it, I dare you.”
Jisung pokes his head out of his bedroom doors, finding that Jaemin and Chenle have moved to the living room. Their eyes are locked on the TV, legs intertwined, with Chenle basically on top of Jaemin. They seem at peace, though.
Jisung relays this information to Jeno, and as he does, Chenle glances over. He glares at Jisung with an unnecessary intensity before kissing Jaemin square on the lips.
Jisung gets the message: Fuck off.)
