Blue {DoTae} | complete

Jeno: Where can I go?

Jeno bites down on his fingernails. Again. He'd gotten better at restraining the urge, but the habit has returned over the recent weeks. The school canteen is loud, the voices of his peers that he's never really spoken to bouncing off the walls and making his ears ring from all the commotion. He can't think straight. The food in front of him doesn't even look edible. He's not hungry anyway. He continues to nibble on his nail as his eyes dart around the room in search for his boyfriend. Jaemin is nowhere to be seen.

The boy wasn't in class this morning, but Jeno suspected he might have just overslept. Although if that's the case he always texts him to let him know. Jeno checks his phone under the table to avoid the hawk-like gaze of the staff prowling around the rows of students. There are no notifications from Jaemin.

None from Doyoung, either. It's been a day.

Jeno wants to cry. He presses the palms of his hands into his eyes, his limbs begging for sleep, but all that achieves is a throbbing headache that doesn't relent even when he chugs from his water bottle. Class sucked this morning without his boyfriend sending him flirty eyebrows and silly grins across the room. The teacher set extra assignments and Jeno is almost more worried if Jaemin's going to be able to catch up with it all. He accepted long ago that the younger just doesn't turn up to class sometimes. That doesn't mean he's not worried.

Someone hollers across the room and Jeno buries his head in his arms, creating a dark space that muffles the chaos around him enough for things to cloud over, sleep his main focus.

Jeno is exhausted. Between being ill, fights with his parents, long silences in the house and sobbing in Jaemin's arms, Jeno didn't sleep for more than three hours last night. He hasn't missed the strange looks he's been getting from teachers, either. He's never been the most hard-working of students yet he achieves near perfect grades, so him getting less than half marks on a spontaneous history quiz had the teacher pulling him aside to ask if things are okay.

No, things are not okay. Jeno wanted to scream in her face, to let everything out and curl into a tiny, protective ball after. Instead, he forced his lips into tight smile and reassured her that it was just a bad day. No one ever checks a second time.

Doyoung is missing. His parents keep snapping at him for breathing. And now Jaemin hasn't showed up for school.

Jeno shifts his head to rest his chin on his arm and gaze around the canteen. He can easily spot people from his classes, but there's no one that he's close enough with to have the confidence to get up and join their conversation. Jaemin is his safe haven. Anyone that's not Jaemin has his stomach twisting into knots.

His heart is heavy in his chest. His fingers are numb when he scrapes his food into a bin and his feet drag across the floor, toes curling from the need to buy some bigger shoes, until he collapses back into the same chair in the far corner. Pulling his phone out again, he stifles a groan at the reflection of his eye bags and unbrushed hair. He straightens his tie to at least avoid getting sent home for inadequate uniform, and ignores the rest. His appearance is at the bottom of his list of priorities no matter how much it stresses him.

The clock tells him that he still has forty minutes until his afternoon classes. He goes back to biting his nails.

"Hey, don't do that, love." Jeno drops his hand from his mouth and parts his lips at the sight of Jaemin sitting opposite him.

"Nana?" Jeno asks in disbelief.

"The one and only." Jaemin grins and Jeno sighs out, relieved and already comforted by the presence of his favourite person.

"I missed you." Jeno sniffles. He squeezes Jaemin's hand tight, then the younger gets up to round the table and sit next to Jeno, who slides onto his lap and buries his face in his neck. "I missed you. Please don't go."