Leaf Me Alone // minsung

「⸙ ch.5 ⸙」

okay I lied here's another minho pov

*****

MINHO

The dining room filled with the low hum of people talking. Bored, I toyed with my phone, throwing it into the air before catching it again. It's a habit I'd picked up, and my poor phone screen had suffered a lot of cracks because of it. Staring at the tray of food in front of me, I picked up my fork, shuffling the barely edible canteen food around on the plate. Shoving my phone back in my pocket, my eyes travelled to Chan, who was sat beside me, discussing something about music production, recording, blah blah blah (something along those lines, anyway) with Changbin. Jeongin hadn't arrived yet, and I didn't know enough about making songs to join in with their conversation.

The sound of shuffling feet neared, and I looked up to see a freckled ray of sunshine dragging a very unwilling squirrel to sit at our table. A smile tugged at the corner of my lips. Finally, my favourite person was here.

I saw him look up and down the table, no doubt hoping not to see me here. So when he happened to send his gaze my way, the first thing to do was obviously give him a wink and one of my most charming smiles. As I grinned at him, I could already predict the massive eyeroll I was going to receive.

As predicted, the squirrel scoffed and rolled his eyes, turning away to join the conversation about music production. He was in Chan and Changbin's classes, apparently, and the two of them - especially Chan, the adoptive father he is - could not stop talking about how sweet his vocals were or how genius his lyrics were. Usually, I would have blocked my ears the moment they started gushing about something music-production related - look, I love that they love it, but I don't need a two-hour lecture on a class I'm not even taking. I major in dance, for god's sake!

But since it was my favourite little squirrel, I could make an exception; I didn't mind them singing praises about him 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I wanted to know every little thing about him, be the one to make him smile, be the one that he runs up to greet first every morning. I wanted to know him inside out, know him better than he knows himself, and be able to keep him happy forever and ever.

Right now, though, the only feelings I'm getting from him are anger and frustration. Oh well. We'll work on it.

As part of my genius plan to make Jisung like me (or at least not try to actively kill me with glares every single time I see him), I slid my tray to sit opposite him, next to Felix. The freckled Aussie was not-so-subtly undressing Changbin with his eyes, and since Changbin was also checking Felix out, they made eye contact often and ended up blushing every five seconds. I sighed, and chose to - much more subtly, I believe - sneak glances at the cute little squirrel sitting opposite me, stuffing his mouth with food that filled out his already round and squishy cheeks even more. How could he deny the fact that he looks like a squirrel when he eats like this?

As I was imagining what it would be like to (lightly) nibble on Jisung's cheeks - they'd be springy and chewy like marshmallows, I think - a loud clatter jolted me out of my admittedly weird thoughts. Hyunjin - he's in my dance class, I think - panted as he slammed the tray down onto the table before crouching to retrieve the spoon that had slipped from the tray due to his dramatic entrance. He was followed closely by Jeongin, who placed his tray down much more elagently.

I looked back at Jisung again, just because I can't help it, and found his eyes fixated on something. His whole being was practically glowing, and his eyes were rounder than boba pearls, sparkling with want.

Curious, I turned my head, trying to see just what he found so interesting. I stared at Hyunjin's tray. There was nothing special on there, just normal school canteen food. He had gotten the same dessert as me, a slice of cheesecake that looked like the most edible thing on the school menu.