fangirl | renjun

Chapter 4

Aera returns to the bleachers much later than usual, because as she sat down, Yuri was already on her way to her usual spot. Yuri's color of choice for the day was red, the blinding kind of red with two white stripes at the side. Aera's face immediately smiles when she sees Yuri on her way to sit with her.

"Yuri!" She puts both her hands up like a child waiting for her mother to carry her.

Instead of getting hugged, Yuri pushes both her arms backward making her lie down on the bleachers. All this with a huge smile on her face. "I saw the opportunity, I took the opportunity." She says in between her laughter as she sits Aera back up.

"I haven't seen you the whole weekend and that's how you treat me?" Aera pouts at Yuri, who finally takes a seat right beside her.

Yuri pauses and then turns her whole body towards Aera. "Exactly," her eyebrows knit together, "I haven't seen you all weekend, yet the first thing you do the moment we bump into each other in the hallway was run to Renjun." Her pout was giving out the fact that she was indeed sulking.

She looks away from her friend the moment she mentions Renjun. She still needs some time to gather enough courage to lie to her so blatantly. "Well," she prolonged the word, "we can have lunch tomorrow if you want me to make up for it."

Yuri sits up straight and pretends as if she was pondering about something. This time, Aera looks at Yuri waiting for a reply, a response from her, but with her hand on her chin and a teasing way of expressing what she was thinking, Aera knew that her response would take a while.

She was still humming when Shotaro arrived first among the three. "What's going on with her?" Shotaro, instead of taking a seat on the lower bleachers, takes the seat next to Aera. It was known that Shotaro was rather a clingy person, he would only sit on the lower bleachers when Haechan or Renjun arrived first.

Yuri looked at Shotaro with the same teasing expression she had on her face when she was looking at Aera. "It would be best to ignore her if she wouldn't give me her answer." She was just about to turn towards Shotaro instead when Yuri grabbed her wrist.

"Fine!" She immediately responds to Aera. "I also have something to tell you."

"She didn't even last more than a minute after I arrived." Shotaro's signature smile was plastered on his face as soon as Yuri broke from her weird humming.

Aera smiles and almost immediately she reaches out to squeeze Shotaro's cheek, but is stopped by his hands. "Just this once, Taro?" She puts a pointer up basically pleading to squeeze his cheeks just this once.

"You know," Haechan finally arrives as both Shotaro and Aera was in the middle of their little exchange, "that he hates having his cheeks pinched, right?" Haechan reaches towards Aera and pushes her head away from Shotaro as Haechan takes a seat on the lower bleachers. Shotaro, just as he usually does, follows Haechan and takes a seat right beside him.

"Haechan!" Yuri rummages something in her bag. "It's bad for the skin to be sitting under the sun." She hands over a stick of sunblock towards Haechan and Shotaro who, unlike their seat, was not sitting beneath sunlight.

Aera didn't notice it. She watched as the sun reflected off of the two boys as they thanked Yuri for the stick of sunblock that she was letting them use. In an instant Haechan roughly puts it on his face.

"Be more gentle!" Yuri scolds him with a little push from her hand to his head.

In an instant, as if Haechan was the type to always listen, Aera takes note of the much gentler application Haechan was doing. It was nothing romantic, in fact, it felt far from it. As Haechan and Shotaro were busy chatting as Haechan put sunblock on, it was more reminiscent of a mom watching over his child.

Yuri was caring. So much so that she would often give to others the things she has rather than have it to herself. Even if it meant for her to give away her romance to someone else, even if this was the first time she's probably experienced something like this.

Haechan finally hands Shotaro the sunblock stick and as Haechan's body turns around a smile is immediately plastered on his face. "Here I thought you weren't going to show up." His remark directed towards someone behind them made both Yuri and Aera turn around.

Aera turns around to see Renjun walking towards them making a mocking face towards Haechan. It was odd how shy she was feeling the moment she saw him. She immediately turns around, she was probably the only one who didn't wait for him to arrive before turning herself around. There was nothing to be shy about.

"Red!" Renjun raises his hand towards Yuri with the same mocking face he had on after Haechan greeted him, though Aera wasn't able to see it this time.

"You're oddly late today." Yuri points out as he was usually the first one after Yuri who comes to the bleachers.

Aera's ears perked up and no one else but Renjun, who was standing nearly over her, took notice.

As Renjun was about to take a seat right beside Aera, though no bag was put down, he had not shown any signs of sitting down at all, except that he was lingering over the spot where Shotaro was sitting down, the football team coach sounded their whistle. Aera raises her head and peers over to the team that was making their way towards the bottom of the bleachers where they usually left their things.

"That's my que." She stood up and was about to head down, but the moment she turned to the left, she was standing face to face with Renjun.

Aera's eyes grew wide when their eyes met and she couldn't help but notice that Renjun was trying his absolute best not to laugh at her.

"Move." She almost hissed at him.

Renjun, still trying to hold his smile back, put both his arms in the air and moved to the side. Allowing her to pass through.

"Aera!" Renjun called out her name even before she could step down where Jaemin had gathered with the teammates. Now, with the proximity her group at the top of the bleachers had with the team, even the team looked up at Renjun and at Aera who was only a few steps away to greet them as she would usually do. "We still need to talk."

It was as if his statement was the most controversial thing that they all heard. If it was possible for the whole field to go quiet, it was at this moment. Even the coaches were surprised to hear Renjun say something like that to Na Jaemin's fangirl.

It didn't help that Aera was still awkward with the set up that she convinced him to agree to. Her ears immediately turned red and her cheeks were definitely following suit. If she could dig a hole and hide in it right now, she would. But the closest thing she had to a hole was to run towards the football team instead of responding to whatever ploy Renjun had planned and failed to inform her with.

"You," Yangyang doesn't even wait for her to take a step down on the level where the whole football team stood watching, "and Renjun?" She points towards the guy that took the empty space beside Yuri.

"Ah," she hesitantly shakes her head, not entirely sure what to respond with.

When she turned towards Jaemin, it was so obvious that he had something to say as well. It was odd how similar Jaemin's expression was with Renjun's when they met eye to eye earlier. It was as if he wanted to crack a joke towards Aera, but there was something more behind that smile of his.

"Jaemin," she steps down from the bleachers with a frown on her face already expecting a joke to erupt from the boy she fangirls over, "if you have anything to say just say it."

Jaemin turns around surprised with her sudden burst, but the smile that he was holding back grows on his face. It wasn't the smile that she was nearly obsessed with it, it was one where he wanted to obviously crack a joke. "It's something straight out of a shoujo manga." Jaemin picks up his stuff and ruffles her hair. "It's like he confessed to you just now." His actions were followed by a hearty laugh before walking towards the lockers.

He looked so bright.

"And here I thought he would be upset that his fangirl got a dude crushing on her." Jeno stands right beside Aera as he carries his stuff in his arm as if it was a baby. "Not to mention," Jeno pauses and whispers something to himself that Aera didn't seem to catch at all.

"What did you say?" She turned towards Jeno.

He shakes his head, "nothing."