SHINee {Minho/Onew ; There's Something About Jinki (1/3)}
Title: There's Something About Jinki (1/3)
Fandom: SHINee
Pairing: Minho/Onew, Jonghyun/Key
Word count: 3,469
Rating: PG
Summary: Onew really doesn't understand what Choi Minho, football captain, loved by the student body as a whole, is doing talking to him, but he'd quite like him to stop. Being the butt of someone's joke was never the point of Onew's high school career.
A/N: uh, okay, so! civilized_era and I started this waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back when, I can't even remember, some point in the summer. We got about 8000 words into it and then I went to Corfu and she went to Australia and when we got back this was forgotten about. We remembered it again not too long ago when we were going through a URGH SHINEE I LOVE THEM phase and we decided to finish this. Still working on it, but it's Onew's birthday today! So we figured, what better time? (we were actually going to post it on Minho's birthday but we ran out of time /shot).
this fic is basically exactly like She's All That or something. We've basically squeezed every single teen romantic comedy film cliche that we could think of into one fic, and you know what, I LOVE IT. hence the title. Also in the running was "Dude, Where's My Pen?" Courtesy of my brain being stupid and Jeny telling me HELL YEAH!
civilized_era: ...happy birthday Onew!
There's Something About Jinki (1/3)
He goes down in the middle of the hallway, trips over his own feet in his usual clumsy manner. The pile of books he was carrying goes flying, a stack of paper and bindings that spreads far and wide across the hallway. There's laughter all around him, but no one makes a move to help as the bell rings a final warning overhead. Not that anyone would help him anyway, even if there wasn't a lesson to be getting to. He's Lee Jinki, friends-call-me-Onew, only he has no friends in this school, the geek from the Chemistry Club. They don't even talk to him in the Chemistry Club, but then that's what happens when you have a tendency to set everything on fire, without quite knowing how. But he wasn't bothered about any of that.
Sighing in a good-natured way, he pushes himself onto his knees, so that at least he's not facedown on the floor, and sets about picking up all the things that he had been carrying for one of the teachers. The worst thing about being clumsy, he muses as he crawls on the floor, is that he can't even blame anyone else, because he knows no one tripped him. His mind tripped him, and it gets him in trouble something rotten.
Silently, someone hands him a book. He reaches out to accept it without really thinking about it, and then slows down because, no one helps him, ever. He looks up, past a pair of legs crouching in front of him up to a face, handsome, too familiar, and then he snatches the book out of the other boy's hand and scrambles to get out of reach. "Thanks," he says, and wills his heart to stop racing.
Minho, that boy whom everyone knows, whom everyone loves, the captain of the football team, just looks at him silently, face blank, before asking, "Are you okay?"
His voice is lower than Onew ever expected. He's never spoken to Minho before, because, well, he's an outcast even in the Chemistry club, and people like Minho aren't going to go around talking to people like Onew often. Except he just did, which is confusing. "Yeah, I'm fine," he stutters out.
"You fell." Minho's voice is also a lot slower than Onew ever thought it would be. Not slow in a stupid sense, slow as if he's thinking about what he's saying, as if words are precious and he doesn't want to waste them. Onew is completely jealous, he would love to be like that. Instead, he babbles.
"Oh, yeah, well, I fall all the time. Clumsy nature, I'm always getting into trouble for it, my mum's always telling me that one day I'll fall down a flight of stairs and break my neck and that will teach me ahahahahaha, but I don't mean to do it, it's just something inside me that makes me -- I'll stop talking now." And he forces himself to do so.
Minho smiles, a smile which comes to his face as slow as words leave his mouth, but it's there, and it transforms him. Onew's breath catches. He's always been aware of Minho being handsome, who isn't, everyone knows that, but up close it kind of makes him want to cry. Who is this person, and why is he talking to Onew? "I'm glad you're not hurt," says Minho, and Onew nods dumbly. Then Minho straightens up, the hint of a smile still on his face. He leaves without saying anything else, and Onew is so late to class that he gets yelled at, unusual for him. It goes over his head.
After that incident, Onew can think of nothing but Minho.
It's natural, it has to be. It doesn't mean anything, certainly doesn't mean anything mid-page of his organic chemistry textbook in between the words "allyl" and "group" that Minho's eyes appear in his brain like the residual image of a lightbulb flashing from a camera, fairylights on the edge of his vision. Doesn't mean anything while burning the midnight oil well after midnight, memorizing Jungian archetypes at 4.00AM for tomorrow's psych test, and the image of Minho's hands, long fingers and blunt nails, the way they clasp around the edge of a book, all these intimate details that his head (his heart?) took in while he was busy making a fool of himself, playing on the blank wall in front of him like a film reel going in reverse. Onew wonders if the blunt nails are because of a musical instrument. Maybe he plays the trombone. Those lips...
On a sudden impulse, on the way to school the next day, Onew drops by the convenience mart a couple blocks down from his apartment, picks out a thank you card. All they have in stock are the 99-cent kind with the tacky flower motifs (a lily for condolences, violets for I-miss-you, daisies for a birthday), but Onew buys it anyway. A tulip for thank you.
It just figures, Onew thinks, embarrassed and a little miserable while standing inside the student office, that he's too much of a scientist to believe in love at first sight, has up until now seen love itself as nothing more than a bunch of fast-acting chemical reactions inside the body, but he's behaved like nothing less than a complete lunatic all morning. Lying to the school secretary and saying he had an urgent notice for student Choi Minho, she instantly believed him and spent a good five minutes rummaging the student records for his locker number and combination, which she wrote on a small piece of paper that Onew, teeth set and stalking determinedly down the hall, is currently clutching in his hand. A complete lunatic. There was no other feasible explanation for this kind of behavior, nothing logical that he knew of.
Nothing at all logical about his quickened pulse as he shuts the locker door, oblivious to the huge smile on his face and the curious stares of those around him.
Unfortunately, his pulse quickens for a different reason after third period when he spots Saerom headed his way. Saerom's disliked him ever since Onew placed him second in last year's debate regionals. The thing was, Saerom was likeable and well-rounded, a good student as well as on the basketball team, soccer and lacrosse on the side, but he didn't take too well to any real competition.
Saerom leans against the locker next to his, arms folded across his chest in a casual but threatening sort of way. Even the knowledge that Saerom is going to talk to him is enough to make Onew wish for a lovely hole to crawl into. Outside the debate setting, where such tactics aren't allowed, Saerom has a biting, scathing wit that Onew, who probably stopped being witty back when it was considered funny to reply with "I know you are, but what am I?", just cannot compete with. Maybe, if he's very quiet, Saerom will say nothing. He closes his locker. "Hey," says Saerom.
"Oh!" says Onew, like he's only just noticed him. It's pathetic even to his own ears. "Sorry, didn't know you were there."
"I wanted to talk to you," says Saerom. Onew has no idea why, but there's a nasty glint in his eyes, and all things considered, he'd rather not talk to Saerom at all, thanks very much.
"Sorry," he says, and gives a smile-grimace. "I'm kind of busy."
"Not for this," says Saerom. "I hear you put something in Minho's locker."
Onew stares. How did he know that? "How do you know that?"
"Crowded hallways, Jinki-ah. Plenty of witnesses."
His brain screams DENY DENY DENY at him, only he can't do that, because there were witnesses, like Saerom just said. Oh god, he was such an idiot. So caught up in his totally (totally) innocent thanks to even think that there were people around him watching. What a figure he must have cut, Lee Jinki, the ultimate nerd, leaving something in the football captain's locker. No doubt it's all around school that it was a confession or something. He wants to die from embarrassment, and probably will, judging by the way his heart pounds painfully, thump thump thump, in his chest -- surely he's having some sort of a heart attack. "Oh, that," he says breezily. "I had an important message from--" thinks fast, "Professor Choi for him, I didn't know where he would be."
"I heard it was a card." Onew wants to sink to his knees and beg Saerom to just forget about the debate, just let it go, and leave Onew to wallow in self-pity at being caught.
"No." His voice is too tight, too guilty. Loosen up. "Just a message." And he turns and forces his shoulders to relax as he walks off, because he knows from biology that animals can sense fear and he's determined that Saerom knows nothing, nothing at all. Mostly because, well, Onew isn't too sure what's going on either.
He's distracted for the rest of the day, feeling like everyone around him is whispering and laughing at him. He messes up easy integrals in Math class, accidentally says "Where can I buy a prostitute?" instead of "Where can I hire a bike?" in Chinese class, and is so thankful to get away from it all and escape to the school paper room during seventh period that he wants to just sit down in the middle of the room and go to sleep on the cool, cool tiles.
Onew has taken so many classes that he actually has enough to graduate next month, even though he's still got three to go. It's not really that he likes learning so much as he's clever -- clumsy does not mean stupid -- and he figures that if he has no friends at school then he might as well pass his time in lots of school work. It might make him a geek, but it also means that this senior year is a breeze, and that he gets seventh period free to do what he likes. So he always goes down to the school paper to work on his assignment for that week. He likes writing. He can write down exactly what he thinks and then go back and edit it so it doesn't seem stupid. There's no doing that in real life.
But suddenly, suddenly, he wishes he could do that normally, go back in time and stop himself from ever putting that damn card in that damn locker, because in the tray with his name attached is a tape recorder and a note: Student interview: Choi Minho. Of course, there's a game next week, important to keep up student morale with an interview with the guy who's going to apparently lead them all to victory.
"Fuck my life." He accompanies this with a loud, firm head to the desk.
[in audio]
ONEW: [clearly nervous] Okay, is this thing on-- oh, it is, um -- okay, this is Lee Jinki, interviewing Choi Minho, spring semester, 2009. Uhm [clears throat] first of all, Minho, what spurred your interest in soccer?
MINHO: My father is the coach for the intercity league, so you can say I was born with the interest.
ONEW: How did you get to be number ten on the team?
MINHO: Number ten represents the most excellent, most creative player on the team, so I'm very honored my teammates gave me the number.
ONEW: Most creative?
MINHO: A number of famous, creative players have made it into a well-known icon.
ONEW: Such as?
MINHO: ...Pele, Ronaldinho. You don't watch football?
ONEW: Er, no, not often.
MINHO: Oh.
ONEW: Um...so who is your favorite player?
MINHO: Thierry Henry. Barcelona.
ONEW: And what number is he?
MINHO: ...fourteen.
ONEW: Okay. What do you plan to do this Saturday to make sure our team wins?
MINHO: We've been practicing more in the preseason, so I feel that we're well-prepared. There are many leaders on the field this year, a good sense of discipline and attitude, so as captain I feel very proud and confident that everyone will do their best this weekend. Even if we don't get the results we want, it will be a good experience.
ONEW: ...and I think that's it! Thank you, Minho-sshi for your time.
MINHO: Could I be permitted a question?
ONEW: Of course--
MINHO: Why did you leave me the card in my locker?
[click]
Onew stares at him, a horrible feeling blossoming in the pit of his stomach. "I-I--" he stammers, while his brain is going ohgodohgodohgodohmygod. In a fit of desperation he ends up blurting out something like, "Don't you ever wish you could thank someone for someone they've done?"
"Yeah, well," Minho sits back in his chair, observing him, face unreadable. "Usually a vocal 'thank you' is sufficient."
Onew doesn't get him, this strange, silent, legend of a boy with his random acts of kindness and grown-up way of talking. "But I mean with people like...like doormen. Or cleaning ladies in hotel rooms who leave extra tissues. Taxicab drivers who don't turn on their meters until after they figure out where you want to be taken." If Onew had been able to meet Minho's eyes, he would have been able to see a flicker of understanding, maybe not even so much for what he was saying but for the other boy, an aligned kind of empathy and the sudden, unexpected affection as a consequence. "People who go out their way to be nice, but who you don't think you'll ever see again."
"Ever see again?" Minho cocks his head. "You see me every day, Jinki-ah."
"See you, maybe." Onew snorts before he can help himself. "But talk to you? In front of everyone? Try to imagine," he starts packing up his things, unaware that in contrast, Minho remains still, listening to him intently, "during lunch, the cafeteria packed, and me, walking up to your table, to you, surrounded by all your friends and fans, just to say a mere thank you. They would--"
"They would eat you alive," Minho says softly.
"Wrong." Onew glances up sharply. "They're not so nice. They'd take me apart. Thank you for what? they'd ask. Who do you think you are? What makes you think you think you can just come up and talk the great Choi Minho?" He sighs, the sudden rise of bitterness and bravado leaving just as quickly as it came. "I don't mind, okay, I know it's how things are supposed to go. But sometimes, I just wonder, isn't it tiresome to have a bunch of gatekeepers decide everything for you -- have you seen my pen?"
"Here." Minho holds up the item in question. "It dropped out of your lap while you were...talking."
"Thanks." Onew takes it from him. Their fingers brush. Almost immediately he finds it difficult to swallow. "And thanks for doing the interview on such short notice."
"I wanted to," Minho shrugs, raising an eyebrow. "I still have some say in certain aspects of my own life, after all."
"Oh..." Onew trails off, going red. Now that he thought about it, it was true -- Minho had come to the student offices about an hour after Onew had sent him a note through the school's invoice system. And the deadline wasn't even until Thursday.
"Take care of yourself," Minho says. He reaches out, picks a loose thread off Onew's shoulder. Onew freezes. "Hyung," he adds quietly, then turns away, heading down the hall, movements easy and graceful, leaving Onew to stare after him stupidly, troubled.
When in trouble, go to Key. Unfortunately, this means that when they meet up the next day after school at a student friendly place with cheap drinks, Jonghyun is there as well, because Jonghyun tends to go everywhere Key goes. "You made a fool of yourself," Key says very bluntly, a direct shot to Onew's very fragile heart. Jonghyun laughs. Honestly, Onew doesn't like either of them that much.
"I just wanted to say thank you," says Onew, chin pressed to the table. He tips his drink to try to take a sip out of the straw, and it almost ends up over his head. Miserably, he thinks that even that wouldn't be quite so embarrassing as The Interview.
"Well." Key, Onew knew, would have this placating tone, that kind of "well you've fucked up but here's how we'll make it better" kind of tone that seems to come naturally to him. If Onew actually liked him -- which he doesn't, because Key made Jonghyun laugh at him, and Jonghyun remembers every stupid thing you've ever done ever -- then this would be why he liked him. Key makes everything seem a whole lot better. "It's like he said, you could have just said thank you."
Actually, scratch making everything better. "I don't think you understand," says Onew. "He has these friends. They play soccer too. They're really rather frightening."
"Wait, if you talked to him, would they beat you up?" Key shoots a look towards Jonghyun, who shrugs. "Damn, and I thought our school was bad."
"Beat me up with their eyes," says Onew. "Stare at me until I was a shriveled up Onew on the floor. Tragic."
"You're such a drama queen," tuts Key.
"Irony!" Onew flails a hand.
"If he's really as nice as you say he is, he'd have stuck up for you." Jonghyun, acting as the voice of reason. Doesn't happen often. "Even in front of his friends."
"You don't understand," Onew tells him, a whine in his voice. "You're popular so you don't realise what it's like for us lot under your feet."
"He sounds nice," says Key. "He helped you when no one else would, didn't he? He'd have stood up for you in front of his friends. You should have just thanked him face-to-face, now you just seem like a bit of a creeper."
Onew sinks back down in his chair, chin pressed to the tabletop again in a show of abject misery. "I'm an idiot," he says, and his teeth clank together as he does so.
"I don't know why you're so hung up on this." Jonghyun reaches across, snags the straw in Key's cola, sucks once. "Okay, so it was kind of embarrassing, but it's over now, you never have to talk to him again, and you can just pretend it never happened."
"He has a nice voice," Onew mumbles, not really aware of what he's saying. Key kicks him under the table and Onew almost falls out his chair with surprise -- and pain, there's an awful lot of pain.
"What did you just say?" Key demands. Onew runs what he said back through his mind and suddenly the filter that should have stopped him pipes up, says oops, my bad. He flushes, bright red and hot.
"Nothing," he says. "Absolutely nothing."
"Yes you did!" Onew hates Key's gleeful look most of all. "You said he has a nice voice!"
"He does! Jonghyun has a nice voice too! It means nothing!"
"Lies! I knew there was something strange about the way you kept whinging about this. You like him!"
"No, I don't! I don't even know him!"
"You know he's nice. And that he's good looking. And 'he has a nice voice'," complete with air quotations.
What's the point of being a hyung, Onew thinks as he sinks down to the floor, if your dongsaengs don't even show you any respect?
He seeks haven in the library. The school is still buzzing with the football game, even from two days ago, and he can't live with the way his heart jumps into his throat with fear every time someone mentions Minho's name, and a lot of people are mentioning Minho's name. There's talk of this being the best team they've ever seen, whose captain is coveted; it's as if Minho put the light in the stars. The Interview (it's capitalized even in his mind) still makes his nerves jangle, it's waiting to be printed, and he thinks that if he has to think about Minho asking that question one more time, why did you leave me the card in my locker, he's going to throw himself off the school building. So, the library it is.
He's engrossed in the Advanced Organic Chemistry, fourth edition, when he senses movement to his side, someone coming towards him. He expects they'll just move past, but no, the someone stops. Puts his hand on Onew's shoulder. Clears his throat. Onew looks up straight into Minho's eyes. Well, he thinks faintly. He doesn't know about Minho putting the light in the stars, but someone certainly put the light of the stars in his eyes.
Fandom: SHINee
Pairing: Minho/Onew, Jonghyun/Key
Word count: 3,469
Rating: PG
Summary: Onew really doesn't understand what Choi Minho, football captain, loved by the student body as a whole, is doing talking to him, but he'd quite like him to stop. Being the butt of someone's joke was never the point of Onew's high school career.
A/N: uh, okay, so! civilized_era and I started this waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back when, I can't even remember, some point in the summer. We got about 8000 words into it and then I went to Corfu and she went to Australia and when we got back this was forgotten about. We remembered it again not too long ago when we were going through a URGH SHINEE I LOVE THEM phase and we decided to finish this. Still working on it, but it's Onew's birthday today! So we figured, what better time? (we were actually going to post it on Minho's birthday but we ran out of time /shot).
this fic is basically exactly like She's All That or something. We've basically squeezed every single teen romantic comedy film cliche that we could think of into one fic, and you know what, I LOVE IT. hence the title. Also in the running was "Dude, Where's My Pen?" Courtesy of my brain being stupid and Jeny telling me HELL YEAH!
civilized_era: ...happy birthday Onew!
There's Something About Jinki (1/3)
He goes down in the middle of the hallway, trips over his own feet in his usual clumsy manner. The pile of books he was carrying goes flying, a stack of paper and bindings that spreads far and wide across the hallway. There's laughter all around him, but no one makes a move to help as the bell rings a final warning overhead. Not that anyone would help him anyway, even if there wasn't a lesson to be getting to. He's Lee Jinki, friends-call-me-Onew, only he has no friends in this school, the geek from the Chemistry Club. They don't even talk to him in the Chemistry Club, but then that's what happens when you have a tendency to set everything on fire, without quite knowing how. But he wasn't bothered about any of that.
Sighing in a good-natured way, he pushes himself onto his knees, so that at least he's not facedown on the floor, and sets about picking up all the things that he had been carrying for one of the teachers. The worst thing about being clumsy, he muses as he crawls on the floor, is that he can't even blame anyone else, because he knows no one tripped him. His mind tripped him, and it gets him in trouble something rotten.
Silently, someone hands him a book. He reaches out to accept it without really thinking about it, and then slows down because, no one helps him, ever. He looks up, past a pair of legs crouching in front of him up to a face, handsome, too familiar, and then he snatches the book out of the other boy's hand and scrambles to get out of reach. "Thanks," he says, and wills his heart to stop racing.
Minho, that boy whom everyone knows, whom everyone loves, the captain of the football team, just looks at him silently, face blank, before asking, "Are you okay?"
His voice is lower than Onew ever expected. He's never spoken to Minho before, because, well, he's an outcast even in the Chemistry club, and people like Minho aren't going to go around talking to people like Onew often. Except he just did, which is confusing. "Yeah, I'm fine," he stutters out.
"You fell." Minho's voice is also a lot slower than Onew ever thought it would be. Not slow in a stupid sense, slow as if he's thinking about what he's saying, as if words are precious and he doesn't want to waste them. Onew is completely jealous, he would love to be like that. Instead, he babbles.
"Oh, yeah, well, I fall all the time. Clumsy nature, I'm always getting into trouble for it, my mum's always telling me that one day I'll fall down a flight of stairs and break my neck and that will teach me ahahahahaha, but I don't mean to do it, it's just something inside me that makes me -- I'll stop talking now." And he forces himself to do so.
Minho smiles, a smile which comes to his face as slow as words leave his mouth, but it's there, and it transforms him. Onew's breath catches. He's always been aware of Minho being handsome, who isn't, everyone knows that, but up close it kind of makes him want to cry. Who is this person, and why is he talking to Onew? "I'm glad you're not hurt," says Minho, and Onew nods dumbly. Then Minho straightens up, the hint of a smile still on his face. He leaves without saying anything else, and Onew is so late to class that he gets yelled at, unusual for him. It goes over his head.
After that incident, Onew can think of nothing but Minho.
It's natural, it has to be. It doesn't mean anything, certainly doesn't mean anything mid-page of his organic chemistry textbook in between the words "allyl" and "group" that Minho's eyes appear in his brain like the residual image of a lightbulb flashing from a camera, fairylights on the edge of his vision. Doesn't mean anything while burning the midnight oil well after midnight, memorizing Jungian archetypes at 4.00AM for tomorrow's psych test, and the image of Minho's hands, long fingers and blunt nails, the way they clasp around the edge of a book, all these intimate details that his head (his heart?) took in while he was busy making a fool of himself, playing on the blank wall in front of him like a film reel going in reverse. Onew wonders if the blunt nails are because of a musical instrument. Maybe he plays the trombone. Those lips...
On a sudden impulse, on the way to school the next day, Onew drops by the convenience mart a couple blocks down from his apartment, picks out a thank you card. All they have in stock are the 99-cent kind with the tacky flower motifs (a lily for condolences, violets for I-miss-you, daisies for a birthday), but Onew buys it anyway. A tulip for thank you.
It just figures, Onew thinks, embarrassed and a little miserable while standing inside the student office, that he's too much of a scientist to believe in love at first sight, has up until now seen love itself as nothing more than a bunch of fast-acting chemical reactions inside the body, but he's behaved like nothing less than a complete lunatic all morning. Lying to the school secretary and saying he had an urgent notice for student Choi Minho, she instantly believed him and spent a good five minutes rummaging the student records for his locker number and combination, which she wrote on a small piece of paper that Onew, teeth set and stalking determinedly down the hall, is currently clutching in his hand. A complete lunatic. There was no other feasible explanation for this kind of behavior, nothing logical that he knew of.
Nothing at all logical about his quickened pulse as he shuts the locker door, oblivious to the huge smile on his face and the curious stares of those around him.
Unfortunately, his pulse quickens for a different reason after third period when he spots Saerom headed his way. Saerom's disliked him ever since Onew placed him second in last year's debate regionals. The thing was, Saerom was likeable and well-rounded, a good student as well as on the basketball team, soccer and lacrosse on the side, but he didn't take too well to any real competition.
Saerom leans against the locker next to his, arms folded across his chest in a casual but threatening sort of way. Even the knowledge that Saerom is going to talk to him is enough to make Onew wish for a lovely hole to crawl into. Outside the debate setting, where such tactics aren't allowed, Saerom has a biting, scathing wit that Onew, who probably stopped being witty back when it was considered funny to reply with "I know you are, but what am I?", just cannot compete with. Maybe, if he's very quiet, Saerom will say nothing. He closes his locker. "Hey," says Saerom.
"Oh!" says Onew, like he's only just noticed him. It's pathetic even to his own ears. "Sorry, didn't know you were there."
"I wanted to talk to you," says Saerom. Onew has no idea why, but there's a nasty glint in his eyes, and all things considered, he'd rather not talk to Saerom at all, thanks very much.
"Sorry," he says, and gives a smile-grimace. "I'm kind of busy."
"Not for this," says Saerom. "I hear you put something in Minho's locker."
Onew stares. How did he know that? "How do you know that?"
"Crowded hallways, Jinki-ah. Plenty of witnesses."
His brain screams DENY DENY DENY at him, only he can't do that, because there were witnesses, like Saerom just said. Oh god, he was such an idiot. So caught up in his totally (totally) innocent thanks to even think that there were people around him watching. What a figure he must have cut, Lee Jinki, the ultimate nerd, leaving something in the football captain's locker. No doubt it's all around school that it was a confession or something. He wants to die from embarrassment, and probably will, judging by the way his heart pounds painfully, thump thump thump, in his chest -- surely he's having some sort of a heart attack. "Oh, that," he says breezily. "I had an important message from--" thinks fast, "Professor Choi for him, I didn't know where he would be."
"I heard it was a card." Onew wants to sink to his knees and beg Saerom to just forget about the debate, just let it go, and leave Onew to wallow in self-pity at being caught.
"No." His voice is too tight, too guilty. Loosen up. "Just a message." And he turns and forces his shoulders to relax as he walks off, because he knows from biology that animals can sense fear and he's determined that Saerom knows nothing, nothing at all. Mostly because, well, Onew isn't too sure what's going on either.
He's distracted for the rest of the day, feeling like everyone around him is whispering and laughing at him. He messes up easy integrals in Math class, accidentally says "Where can I buy a prostitute?" instead of "Where can I hire a bike?" in Chinese class, and is so thankful to get away from it all and escape to the school paper room during seventh period that he wants to just sit down in the middle of the room and go to sleep on the cool, cool tiles.
Onew has taken so many classes that he actually has enough to graduate next month, even though he's still got three to go. It's not really that he likes learning so much as he's clever -- clumsy does not mean stupid -- and he figures that if he has no friends at school then he might as well pass his time in lots of school work. It might make him a geek, but it also means that this senior year is a breeze, and that he gets seventh period free to do what he likes. So he always goes down to the school paper to work on his assignment for that week. He likes writing. He can write down exactly what he thinks and then go back and edit it so it doesn't seem stupid. There's no doing that in real life.
But suddenly, suddenly, he wishes he could do that normally, go back in time and stop himself from ever putting that damn card in that damn locker, because in the tray with his name attached is a tape recorder and a note: Student interview: Choi Minho. Of course, there's a game next week, important to keep up student morale with an interview with the guy who's going to apparently lead them all to victory.
"Fuck my life." He accompanies this with a loud, firm head to the desk.
[in audio]
ONEW: [clearly nervous] Okay, is this thing on-- oh, it is, um -- okay, this is Lee Jinki, interviewing Choi Minho, spring semester, 2009. Uhm [clears throat] first of all, Minho, what spurred your interest in soccer?
MINHO: My father is the coach for the intercity league, so you can say I was born with the interest.
ONEW: How did you get to be number ten on the team?
MINHO: Number ten represents the most excellent, most creative player on the team, so I'm very honored my teammates gave me the number.
ONEW: Most creative?
MINHO: A number of famous, creative players have made it into a well-known icon.
ONEW: Such as?
MINHO: ...Pele, Ronaldinho. You don't watch football?
ONEW: Er, no, not often.
MINHO: Oh.
ONEW: Um...so who is your favorite player?
MINHO: Thierry Henry. Barcelona.
ONEW: And what number is he?
MINHO: ...fourteen.
ONEW: Okay. What do you plan to do this Saturday to make sure our team wins?
MINHO: We've been practicing more in the preseason, so I feel that we're well-prepared. There are many leaders on the field this year, a good sense of discipline and attitude, so as captain I feel very proud and confident that everyone will do their best this weekend. Even if we don't get the results we want, it will be a good experience.
ONEW: ...and I think that's it! Thank you, Minho-sshi for your time.
MINHO: Could I be permitted a question?
ONEW: Of course--
MINHO: Why did you leave me the card in my locker?
[click]
Onew stares at him, a horrible feeling blossoming in the pit of his stomach. "I-I--" he stammers, while his brain is going ohgodohgodohgodohmygod. In a fit of desperation he ends up blurting out something like, "Don't you ever wish you could thank someone for someone they've done?"
"Yeah, well," Minho sits back in his chair, observing him, face unreadable. "Usually a vocal 'thank you' is sufficient."
Onew doesn't get him, this strange, silent, legend of a boy with his random acts of kindness and grown-up way of talking. "But I mean with people like...like doormen. Or cleaning ladies in hotel rooms who leave extra tissues. Taxicab drivers who don't turn on their meters until after they figure out where you want to be taken." If Onew had been able to meet Minho's eyes, he would have been able to see a flicker of understanding, maybe not even so much for what he was saying but for the other boy, an aligned kind of empathy and the sudden, unexpected affection as a consequence. "People who go out their way to be nice, but who you don't think you'll ever see again."
"Ever see again?" Minho cocks his head. "You see me every day, Jinki-ah."
"See you, maybe." Onew snorts before he can help himself. "But talk to you? In front of everyone? Try to imagine," he starts packing up his things, unaware that in contrast, Minho remains still, listening to him intently, "during lunch, the cafeteria packed, and me, walking up to your table, to you, surrounded by all your friends and fans, just to say a mere thank you. They would--"
"They would eat you alive," Minho says softly.
"Wrong." Onew glances up sharply. "They're not so nice. They'd take me apart. Thank you for what? they'd ask. Who do you think you are? What makes you think you think you can just come up and talk the great Choi Minho?" He sighs, the sudden rise of bitterness and bravado leaving just as quickly as it came. "I don't mind, okay, I know it's how things are supposed to go. But sometimes, I just wonder, isn't it tiresome to have a bunch of gatekeepers decide everything for you -- have you seen my pen?"
"Here." Minho holds up the item in question. "It dropped out of your lap while you were...talking."
"Thanks." Onew takes it from him. Their fingers brush. Almost immediately he finds it difficult to swallow. "And thanks for doing the interview on such short notice."
"I wanted to," Minho shrugs, raising an eyebrow. "I still have some say in certain aspects of my own life, after all."
"Oh..." Onew trails off, going red. Now that he thought about it, it was true -- Minho had come to the student offices about an hour after Onew had sent him a note through the school's invoice system. And the deadline wasn't even until Thursday.
"Take care of yourself," Minho says. He reaches out, picks a loose thread off Onew's shoulder. Onew freezes. "Hyung," he adds quietly, then turns away, heading down the hall, movements easy and graceful, leaving Onew to stare after him stupidly, troubled.
When in trouble, go to Key. Unfortunately, this means that when they meet up the next day after school at a student friendly place with cheap drinks, Jonghyun is there as well, because Jonghyun tends to go everywhere Key goes. "You made a fool of yourself," Key says very bluntly, a direct shot to Onew's very fragile heart. Jonghyun laughs. Honestly, Onew doesn't like either of them that much.
"I just wanted to say thank you," says Onew, chin pressed to the table. He tips his drink to try to take a sip out of the straw, and it almost ends up over his head. Miserably, he thinks that even that wouldn't be quite so embarrassing as The Interview.
"Well." Key, Onew knew, would have this placating tone, that kind of "well you've fucked up but here's how we'll make it better" kind of tone that seems to come naturally to him. If Onew actually liked him -- which he doesn't, because Key made Jonghyun laugh at him, and Jonghyun remembers every stupid thing you've ever done ever -- then this would be why he liked him. Key makes everything seem a whole lot better. "It's like he said, you could have just said thank you."
Actually, scratch making everything better. "I don't think you understand," says Onew. "He has these friends. They play soccer too. They're really rather frightening."
"Wait, if you talked to him, would they beat you up?" Key shoots a look towards Jonghyun, who shrugs. "Damn, and I thought our school was bad."
"Beat me up with their eyes," says Onew. "Stare at me until I was a shriveled up Onew on the floor. Tragic."
"You're such a drama queen," tuts Key.
"Irony!" Onew flails a hand.
"If he's really as nice as you say he is, he'd have stuck up for you." Jonghyun, acting as the voice of reason. Doesn't happen often. "Even in front of his friends."
"You don't understand," Onew tells him, a whine in his voice. "You're popular so you don't realise what it's like for us lot under your feet."
"He sounds nice," says Key. "He helped you when no one else would, didn't he? He'd have stood up for you in front of his friends. You should have just thanked him face-to-face, now you just seem like a bit of a creeper."
Onew sinks back down in his chair, chin pressed to the tabletop again in a show of abject misery. "I'm an idiot," he says, and his teeth clank together as he does so.
"I don't know why you're so hung up on this." Jonghyun reaches across, snags the straw in Key's cola, sucks once. "Okay, so it was kind of embarrassing, but it's over now, you never have to talk to him again, and you can just pretend it never happened."
"He has a nice voice," Onew mumbles, not really aware of what he's saying. Key kicks him under the table and Onew almost falls out his chair with surprise -- and pain, there's an awful lot of pain.
"What did you just say?" Key demands. Onew runs what he said back through his mind and suddenly the filter that should have stopped him pipes up, says oops, my bad. He flushes, bright red and hot.
"Nothing," he says. "Absolutely nothing."
"Yes you did!" Onew hates Key's gleeful look most of all. "You said he has a nice voice!"
"He does! Jonghyun has a nice voice too! It means nothing!"
"Lies! I knew there was something strange about the way you kept whinging about this. You like him!"
"No, I don't! I don't even know him!"
"You know he's nice. And that he's good looking. And 'he has a nice voice'," complete with air quotations.
What's the point of being a hyung, Onew thinks as he sinks down to the floor, if your dongsaengs don't even show you any respect?
He seeks haven in the library. The school is still buzzing with the football game, even from two days ago, and he can't live with the way his heart jumps into his throat with fear every time someone mentions Minho's name, and a lot of people are mentioning Minho's name. There's talk of this being the best team they've ever seen, whose captain is coveted; it's as if Minho put the light in the stars. The Interview (it's capitalized even in his mind) still makes his nerves jangle, it's waiting to be printed, and he thinks that if he has to think about Minho asking that question one more time, why did you leave me the card in my locker, he's going to throw himself off the school building. So, the library it is.
He's engrossed in the Advanced Organic Chemistry, fourth edition, when he senses movement to his side, someone coming towards him. He expects they'll just move past, but no, the someone stops. Puts his hand on Onew's shoulder. Clears his throat. Onew looks up straight into Minho's eyes. Well, he thinks faintly. He doesn't know about Minho putting the light in the stars, but someone certainly put the light of the stars in his eyes.