505

25

"alright, everyone, good morning," minho greeted and dropped his folder on the teacher's desk. a couple of quiet voices replied to him and he nodded to himself, "today we're going to talk about camus. we'll only spend this lecture on 'the stranger' so if anyone's read it, it's your time to shine."

the teacher then sat himself on the chair, something he never did, and looked up to the audience in the auditorium.

"so, the interesting thing about albert kant.. uh, i'm sorry, camus..," he shook his head and fixed his hair with a slow hand.

"damn, someone looks distracted.. hope you didn't break up with him or something, han," changkyun whispered to jisung who he was sitting next to this time.

"fuck off," the boy mouthed and rolled his eyes.

"sorry, am i hearing conversations about 'the sta- i mean, stange-, ughh, stranger'?," minho interrupted. his usual cool interventions didn't seem to work when he stuttered his way into each word. he shook his head to chase away the annoying stammering.

"sorry, mr lee," jisung spoke up for both of them and gave a small bow to the older.

"if you know anything about this, the class and i would be happy to hear it," the teacher deadpanned but when he received no reply in a couple of seconds, he decided to drop it and moved on.

"'sorry mr lee'," changkyun imitated, "you don't even need to kiss his ass in front of everyone anymore," he leaned in again, "he's so whipped. kinda pathetic, right? unless you're actually into that, i mean..," he smirked and lifted a brow teasingly.

jisung wanted to staple his mouth shut with the baby blue device that he saw on seungmin's desk but he didn't want to reply and mess with minho's discipline even more so he kept on looking down to the teacher who struggled but kept going with his lecture instead.

*

"minho was so odd today," jisung reflected aloud when he had gathered with his three friends on a couch in the corridor.

"yeah, i saw it too.. he was out of it for most of the class," seungmin replied and took out a tortilla wrap he'd made himself and wrapped in parchment paper, "but wait, you never told us what you talked about when i left yall," he smirked suggestively and both felix and hyunjin stopped their activities to listen.

"oh, not much.. just small talk," jisung replied and bit his lip, "but he was off today. maybe i should ask him what's up or.. talk to him..," he proposed, waiting for his friends to give advice.

"yeah, maybe he'll like that you're paying attention to him. it's actually cute," felix replied with an encouraging smile.

"or he'll shut you off. you're not his mum or anything, those questions are alarming," hyunjin was the second one to comment and all three shot him looks.

"ha, and what would you do if you were feeling down and changbin came up to ask how you are?," seungmin asked provocatively.

"firstly, i'll tell him everything, while flirting, of course. and then we'll go get a room," hyunjin replied and fixed his hair.

seungmin giggled and lifted an unbelieving brow, "you say that but you freak out when you see him wearing sleeveless shirts.."

everyone shared a chuckle, except for the tallest.

"so what? i freak out when jisung goes sleeveless too. i just like biceps, i guess," he defended and again everyone laughed, "doesn't mean i go dysfunctional whenever he comes up.."

"either way, you should go see him," felix spoke up, ending the friendly argument, "it should be his office hours now, right..?"

jisung's brows furrowed, "what? how do you even know that?," he judgementally demanded.

"oh, chris says his permanency is just after minho's. and he should be in the office at 3, so..," the blonde explained with a smile.

"chris," hyunjin giggled.

"what? it's his name," felix defended and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"yeah, only for you," seungmin also joined in, "we didn't even know he had another name.."

"it's his english na-"

"it's a pet name if only you use it," hyunjin deadpanned and lifted his eyebrow as if to say, 'i said what i said.'

"it's no-," felix tried to speak but he was cut off.

"sorry, lix, i know you're planning to ease your way into it but maybe you should think about picking up the pace a little bit," jisung suggested and leaned on his hands with his chin in his palms, "he seems to be into you and ready to move forward, honestly.."

"um, sorry, no offense jisung, but even you got a better grasp of the situation than felix here," hyunjin exclaimed.

"um, that's not too inoffensive," the shortest muttered and looked down.

"yo, sorry, i didn't mean it in the rude way.. just wanted to say that it's easy to figure it out.."

"not that that's any better," seungmin joked and everyone laughed.

"you know what? i need to go, see you later," jisung declared and stood up without waiting for any questions to be asked.