a pearl

ch.8: everything important.

hyunjin pursed his lips, observing his textbook quietly, trying to understand all of the informations that he had missed due to the stupid cold he caught the other day, resulting to him being absent for two days from school.

he glanced at seungmin who was focusing on his worksheet paper with his earpiece plugged in, doing his work silently. his black hoodie makes him look intimidating.

hyunjin sighed, thinking what should he do. should he ask seungmin for help or suffer alone in the quiet library.

seungmin is smart. he's very smart. in fact, he's the smartest person hyunjin had ever met in his life (don't tell his mommy that). the two became study buddies about two years ago. seungmin was the smart and quiet student. he doesn't like attention and he mostly did his things quietly until hyunjin appeared out of nowhere.

the sweet, sweet popular hwang hyunjin. he was popular because he's everyone's favorite person (except for seungmin, of course. because seungmin didn't know him yet at that time, he just ignored everyone.) even the teachers love him.

not only good looking, he's very kind, helpful, funny and clumsy. loud too. a bit too loud for seungmin's liking but for some reason, seungmin just can't push him away like how he always did to other students.

(“hi seungmin!” hyunjin greeted cheerfully in front of another students. hyunjin was happy he met seungmin at the cafeteria.

that's too loud.

seungmin merely glanced at hyunjin and just keeps eating his sandwich, not aware of other people staring at them.

hyunjin laughed awkwardly, lowkey panicking at the attention as he's not really fond of them too. “hey seungminnie...” he smiled again, it was obvious about how awkward his smile was.

oh god, this is so embarrassing.

hyunjin's right eye twitched as tears threatened to drop and roll on his cheeks. seungmin definitely fucked up. everybody knows that hyunjin is a crybaby.

no one can ever forget the day han jisung gifted him a laundry detergent as a present for his birthday and hyunjin cried so much because he loves laundry detergent.

“seungmin...” hyunjin muttered, his lips already wobbling and pouty. his voice stuck on his throat, oh he hates this.

seungmin rolled his eyes and glanced at hyunjin before choking on his rice cake, his eyes wide. “are you okay?” seungmin asked, finally feeling a bit concerned.

hyunjin frowned and blinked his tears away. of course everyone saw that and they started to chant “hug him! hug him! hug him!” repeatedly, it annoys seungmin so much.

“i just wanted to say hi... why do you keep ignoring me..?” he muttered, looking down on his feet.

seungmin sighed, trying to block the chants away from them by glaring other students. “im sorry, im just... not used to having friends.” seungmin mumbled, also avoiding eyecontact.

hyunjin's eyes watered, “do you not want to be friends with me?” he asked, glossy puppy eyes staring into seungmin's brown orbs. its making him uncomfortable.

so he decided to just pull hyunjin into a hug, hoping it'll answer everything.

the other students cheered.)

suddenly, hyunjin showed seungmin his textbook, blocking seungmin from his worksheet paper. hyunjin blinked, handing him a pink highlighter. “uh, can you... h-highlight anything important..? i-i was absent.” hyunjin stammered, looking at seungmin with full of hope.

seungmin glared hyunjin as he take the book from hyunjin's hand before scanning the book. he hummed, “all of this are important though, why were you absent?” seungmin sighed, shaking his head as he started to mark the book neatly.

hyunjin opened his mouth, “i catch—” before he can even finish his sentence, seungmin spoke up. “i don't have time for this. so i'll just highlight some parts.” seungmin stated but hyunjin shook his head. “a—actually... can you highlight everything important?” he asked clumsily.

he gulped as seungmin glares at him.

“d—did you just- highlighted my cheek?”

“everything important.” seungmin mumbled.