awfully april fooled
awfully april fooled
chanlli (chanyeol/jinri)
pg-13
au, fluff, crack
oneshot, ~2k
In which april fools don't enlighten Chanyeol like it used to.
a/n: super late april fools fic that took me 22 days to finish. writer's block these days. sobs
Dark eye-bags, uncombed hair, and a tinge of saliva on the corner of his lips, he wakes up due to his blaring alarm. Much to his dislike. He looks up to the calendar on his night table to sigh, a month already.
Lazily as ever, he walks to wash up for another day of college.
Not long after, he's already dressed up in a blue plaid shirt with a plain white tee inside, not forgetting his washed denim and worn out Converses.
Sighing, for the umpteenth time that day, he gets his car engine started and wishes, that he wouldn’t have to face her that day.
Oh, he also curses himself afterward for forgetting the sandwich he bought the night before that he ends up with growling belly that morning, with the red light wouldn't turn into green when he's 2 minutes left from his morning class.
Way to greet me, April, Chanyeol grumbles inwardly.
On the other side of the city, Jinri, wakes up thirty minutes earlier and she even manages to stare at the calendar that's being plastered to her pink wallpaper-ed wall. She slowly smiles, and moves the smile from the pink lips of her to the free space below the April 1st with a red marker, not forgetting to add a :) underneath.
She hops to the kitchen of her apartment to be greeted with two hams, ready to be grilled. Humming, she heartily packs a box of lunch and takes a spoonful of her yoghurt for breakfast.
Later on, she's already dressed up with her white blouse, tucked under her pink skirt, and she's more than ready for another routine of college with her white Vans.
She smiles even more, seeing the road is not that packed and that she keeps on getting the green light.
-
"It's been a month."
Chanyeol has been moping the whole month, waking up with swollen eyes the past three weeks, not-hyperactive-like-he-used-to-be for the past two weeks, and sulking the whole week.
Today is a no different. He could say today is his worst downfall even.
"Yeah, I know." Sehun answers, patting him on the shoulder.
Chanyeol blinks. "Really?" Sehun is not the type to know all his surroundings' well being except you are either Zitao or Luhan or perhaps, Soojung. He just realized that Chanyeol was once with Jinri a week ago, when all the latter could do is crying his eyes out again at the mention of her name, which all his friends had been avoiding to say in front of him.
Teenagers and their dilemmas, Sehun says, waving his hand in dismiss of Chanyeol excusing himself off the lunch.
"Nope." He grins and Chanyeol could just stare. "Happy April fools!"
He recently ignored the offer to perform at the cafe he and his friends used to come with her-- um, he also turned down Minseok's--senior who he adores with all his heart especially for his cheeks--birthday treat, because at the party there will be also Jin-- um, nevermind. Oh, he also just got asked out by Soojung, which when he wants to reject her, she laughed instead and pinched his cheeks by saying the most popular words these days (or just today): april fools. He mean, Soojung is Jongin's girlfriend for heaven's sake. Why would she-- nevermind.
"Open up." Baekhyun nudges.
Chanyeol rises an eyebrow then complies nonetheless. He waits for anything to happen, but there goes nothing unless a show of Baekhyun eating his sandwhich, in such a disgusting--not delightful like he intends to--way, is called a 'thing'. "So?"
"April fools!" He announces with a full mouth. The words aren't even properly said for him to understand. But he does, anyway.
"What the fuck. It's not even funny." Chanyeol retorts.
"It's not supposed to be funny!" He defends back, "It's a trick! And you fell for it! Ha!"
Chanyeol wants to retort again but he's too tired and he lets out a gasp instead as he sees the one he has been avoiding the past one, nope, 31 days 20 hours 37 minutes 6 seconds.
"Yeol." She calls. "Hi."
He must be dead. He must be dead.
"No you're not, idiot." He hears Baekhyun's voice mocking him. He also hears Jongdae's laugh that's approaching. Wait, there's Sehun too of course. Did he just say it outloud?
The sight of her is smiling is too real for him.
"7 pm, cinema, I'll buy the popcorn."
-
"You've been avoiding me."
"Really?" Chanyeol laughs nervously. "It's--it's not--"
She laughs, and the melody fills his ears, and he just wants to cry. "I understand that. I'm just.. Sad?"
His eyes widen and he waves his hands frantically. "No, it's not like that Jinri it's--"
She laughs again. "You're too easy, you know?"
"What do you mean?"
Jinri smiles and Chanyeol wants to collapse right there. "April fools." And she laughs again and Chanyeol curses the one who made the april fools and all in the first place.
He sulks the entire night after, by answering all Jinri's basic question--how have you been--to her advance question--are you seeing someone now--curtly. He has been avoiding to look at her in the eyes too, and he doesn't eat the caramel popcorn during the whole movie, not even an inch from touching them. It's not that he's on period or something, it's just that he is too tired with all of these not-even-worth-to-be-called-as-jokes, and because it's involving Jinri. Period.
He's sensitive just like that.
"Didn't you like the movie?" She asks on their way to his car.
He shakes his head. "I like it. It's Marvel." Clearing his throat, he avoids her eyes. "I like Marvel movies."
"But you didn't like the popcorns?"
"Huh?" He pretends to cough which Jinri immediately (effortlessly) knows that he's pretending but he does, anyway. "Sore throat."
"Um. Okay." She smiles again, leaving the walk in silence but the sound of their soles grazing the asphalt. "You'll get wrinkles from all the eyebrows furrowing, you know."
Chanyeol stops and looks up for the first time that night, but Jinri already walked passed him that she arrived at the car.
It's been--used to be--a tradition between the two. Cinema, pasta, playground. Cheesy, yeah.
"Um." Chanyeol's voice starts filling up the car. "Where are we going now?"
Jinri chuckles, almost too faintly to his ear to catch. "You forgot already?"
"No!" His voice comes a bit louder than he had expected, and it kinda startled Jinri off. "Wait, ugh, sorry. I didn't mean to."
Jinri just nods, telling him it's okay and she keeps on putting on conversations the whole ride, while still slipping some lame april fools jokes in between.
Sometimes, Chanyeol glances her way as she excitedly tells him how she manages to pass her calculus test (which he actually has known because he had been updated for what she had done during the whole test from Baekhyun because he simply wouldn't work on the test for real), how she thought she almost died because of choking a lollipop around 2 weeks ago (which he has also known that he was practically crying from the corner where he was watching her and Sehun was too tired to sigh at the sight) and how fun the party at Minseok's was.
"So, you've been well, I suppose?" He says, quietly.
She shrugs happily, "As you can see." She looks down at his plate where she can see the strings of fettucini are already cold. "You're not going to eat that?"
"What? Oh." He puts down his fork, and Jinri really wants to hug him right there but it's not the time. Not yet. So she stays still, putting on the same concerned (on the pasta) face. "I'm not into pasta these days."
"Really. Like you're not into popcorns?"
Chanyeol somehow starts wanting the night to end.
"I wonder." Jinri sways on the swing slowly. "Where have you been?"
"What do you mean?"
"I haven't seen you lately." Chanyeol wants to cry that he's even invisible by then. "I don't know, is it just me?" She laughs and he once again wants to cry and bury himself deep under her feet. Is he that invisible by then?
They call it a night and he drives her home. It's almost midnight already and Jinri's eyes can't lie, he knows about that perfectly. She would yawn once every three minutes, rub her eyes after she realized she has been closing them for a minute or two, and would always ask something that's somehow irrelevant. Like a drunk, but not like a drunk. You know.
"Jinri, we're arrived." He says quietly, turning off his engine.
"Oh." She opens her eyes and she has her cheeks rosy and she yawns once again. "What time is it?"
"Almost midnight." Chanyeol says, looking at the clock at his player. "Go inside. You looked pretty worn out."
Usually he would place his palms both on her cheeks and shake her shoulder (kind of) violently until she opens her eyes to snap at him.
But it's in the past. Right now he's really longing to ruffle that messy hair of her, and he just wants to kiss those crimson cheeks goodnight. But Jinri just stays there, looking down to her lap that he thinks she's asleep, again?
"Err. Jinri?" He calls.
Jinri looks up and his stomach twists. What is this. Is this a good sign or bad sign but Jinri is smiling to me and she looks awfully pretty tonight. Sweet, sweet Lord.
"Yeol, I've been thinking this past one month ever since we.. Broke up? And I told you that I need some time to think? And I guess.. I made my mind and that's why I asked you out in the first place?" Jinri says almost smoothly, without missing any eye contact from the shaking boy in front of her.
"Yeah?" He squeakes.
She smiles, as she takes both his hands that's as cold as tonight's breeze. "I think, you've been avoiding me these past 4 weeks--"
"32 days 3 hours 15 minutes 56 seconds."
"--yeah, that." She stops to chuckle a bit, "okay, that period, didn't help much for me to think in peace."
He widens his eyes. "What? I'm-- I'm sorry, Jinri I thought--"
Her chuckle now turns into a laugh. "Man, how many times do I have to say this? April fools."
"What." He whines, exasperatedly. "Jinri.."
"Okay okay." She holds up both his hands again. "Here's the thing. I think, I also didn't enjoy the movie, couldn't taste the melting cheese of the pasta, wouldn't swallow a popcorn.. I simply couldn't do anything properly ever since we broke up. And all the things I told you and from everything you've heard and seen, it's not that.. Real. I just don't want to make it harder for me, or for us." She takes a deep breath, "I still cry myself to sleep too. So.."
Chanyeol blinks and his hope is slightly rising. Maybe this day is not that bad after all. "So..?"
"So," she smiles, the smile he's been very fond of, "should we make up?"
It takes Chanyeol approximately 12,5 seconds to let out his trail of responses. Gaping, widening eyes, grasping Jinri's hands in his huge ones, and finally letting out a deep, deep, voice of him, "Are you serious?"
And it takes Jinri approximately 5,7 seconds to reply back. Smiling, eyes forming crescent moons, turning her smile into a grin, finally laughing, way out loud. "Am I?" She leans in and Chanyeol instinctually backs off, "April fools!"
Life couldn't be any crueler.
"Good night, Chanyeol." She says and gets off of his car, leaving him dumbstruck.
"What." He mumbles silently, staring at the empty spot on the passenger seat. Slowly, he tilts his neck and pulls down the window, seeing Jinri smiling as ever walking backward to her door, still looking at him like what she just did is not a sin. Hurting other people is considered a sin, right? Right? Right.
What the fuck is happening.
"Jinri--" Then something inside him snaps. He quickly looks at the clock by his player and the numbers feel like laughing at his face. "Jinri! Jinri! It's-- it's midnight past 6 minutes already!" He stammers and gets off of his car as well, almost tripping by Jinri's dwarf statue on the way.
She blinks at him, "Really?"
"Yes! Yes!" He finally catches her and it's actually not a distance from his car to where she's standing but he feels like the oxygen is so thick around that he's out of breath. "It's not April first anymore!"
Jinri just stares at his hopeful face for barely a minute when his face drops, and he chuckles almost bitterly, and Jinri can't hold herself back anymore so she steps forward to plant a kiss on his cold left cheek, leaving him once again dumbstruck.
"Well, I guess we're back together, aren't we?" She grins and opens her arms, "Hug?"
Chanyeol finally sleeps in peace that night, and he somehow feels grateful in whoever made April fools in the first place.
Well, just for a bit.