ADOMANIA || zhong chenle

chapter 36

"you're... really close right now."

daiyu froze, trying to register the boy's words.

'he's right, i am rather close.'

yet she couldn't get her body to react.

in her mind, daiyu was screaming at herself that she should back away and put some distance between herself and chenle.

but something was holding her back.

it was as if her body had stopped functioning and her muscles just froze.

'just fucking move back already, daiyu.'

she didn't, but instead noticed that his face was slightly red.

it could be a blush of embarrassment, maybe he was flustered because of their position. or maybe it was just because they were exercising.

his hair was a mess too, and his eyes were wide open, staring at her with yet another emotion that she was not able to read.

finally, her body seemed to break free from whatever state of shock that she had been in, and she stood up, extending her hand to help chenle up.

"...sorry..."

she awkwardly muttered an apology, hoping that he wouldn't think too much of what had happened.

"it's... it's nothing, i guess."

he too seemed to be having trouble looking at her, as the gym wall suddenly had gotten very interesting to him.

"l-let's just keep training." he eventually declared, and daiyu agreed.

the rest of the session went by pretty fast and uneventful.

though not completely, the awkward atmosphere between them cleared a little, and they could at least make eye contact again.

'is he uncomfortable with me now? god, does he think that i was trying to do something?'

when walking back to the changing rooms after bidding goodbye to chenle, she felt like disappearing from the face of the earth.

he on the other hand, was still incredibly confused and overwhelmed with what had happened.

'what was that?! and why the hell did she not back off?'

chenle couldn't bring himself to understand why the girl had stayed there like a statue.

"why so pensive?"

sungchan's voice brought him back to reality. they were now in the locker room again, though most boys didn't change back to their normal clothes and would just head straight home to change.

"hm?"

"you look like something's bothering you."

he didn't get a proper response from the chinese boy, so he kept talking.

"look, i'm sorry if i made you mad earlier by asking about daiyu. i was just genuinely curious and uninformed about whatever y'all got going on."

"but you're still my friend, and i care about you. so talk to me if something's wrong."

needless to say, chenle was touched by his friend's words.

he had long gotten over their argument already, but that didn't really mean that he felt like telling sungchan what had happened with daiyu earlier.

hell, he wasn't even going to talk about it to jisung.

"don't worry about it, sungchan. i did overreact a little."

with a nod, sungchan seemed to have understood that chenle didn't want to speak about it and started changing.

chenle finished a whole lot earlier than his friend.

bored, he leaned against his locker and let his eyes wander around the room.

on any other day, he would've taken out his phone to kill time, but since it was buried deep inside his bag, he was way too lazy to take it out.

there weren't many interesting things to see in the changing room though.

the walls were painted a dull grey colour, lockers were lined up at the sides, and two long benches were placed in the middle.

on the wall further away from the door, a few sinks, as well as a mirror — where he could see his uninterested expression looking back at him — were placed.

as most of the students had gone home by now, there were only five or six boys left in the room, excluding chenle and sungchan.

and one of those boys caught chenle's eye.

more specifically; his back.

or even more specifically; a black mark on his back, shaped like a flower.

'what seventeen year old boy already has a tattoo?'

chenle was shocked, to say the least.

though the tattoo was pretty — a simple, yet very detailed flower —, a feeling if uneasiness sparked up inside of him.

he felt as if he recognised the mark from somewhere. or maybe he had just seen the flower somewhere before?

'damn, mark would absolutely know what this is.'

being an earth shifter, chenle knew that his older friend was an expert when it came to flowers and plants.

just then, the boy put a clean shirt on and turned around, making chenle quickly look away.

his heart felt like it was about to explode from how hard it was beating, the realisation of who the boy had been hitting him.

'something is seriously wrong here...'

"chenle! i'm done, let's go."

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dojaejung debut‼️

i wanted to put talk about this a lot sooner lol but i ended up forgetting abt it everytime 😭

but like, i personally can't wait for it 😁