Beautiful // Nomin

~38~

It was a Friday night a week later, and Jaemin was working at his fairly new restaurant job. A group of girls were in line next and he was asked to waiter their table; he might have preferred not to, since he immediately recognized the girls were from his school, but what right did he have to complain about that to his manager?

"Annyeong Jaemin-ssi," the girls were giggling. Jaemin smiled pleasantly and nodded while giving them menus.

"Could I—" Here Jaemin paused as he just noticed Kiara was part of the group— "get you all drinks?"

He took orders around the table. Kiara was sitting in the corner, the last to speak. She ordered sweet tea with a frown and avoiding eye contact. Apparently she'd been dragged into coming here, and Jaemin just had to be their table waiter. The other girls didn't mind at all.

While Jaemin left to get the drinks, the girls all huddled together and started whispering and giggling about him. Kiara sat back in her chair, disgusted.

"He's still single, literally."

"I know right. I'm so wondering who he's gonna bring to senior prom."

"I wonder who's asked him? I probably will sometime soon."

"Girl, no, because me too."

Kiara was finally annoyed enough with their fangirling and leaned her elbow on the table to come closer to the gossip group. "Guys," she tried to get their attention.

They all turned toward her, and one girl suddenly asked straight-forwardly, "Kiara, why do you hate Jaemin so much?"

Kiara ignored the question and instead posed her own statement to her friends. "Not trying to break y'all's hearts but just telling the truth: he wouldn't say 'yes' to any of us if we asked, no matter what, 'cuz he's gay. He doesn't like girls."

Literally everyone at school knew that. That's why guys (besides Jeno) never hung out with him either.

One girl piped up, "Everyone says that. But I mean does anyone actually know? Who even came up with it in the first place? No one actually knows about Jaemin at all!"

"Exactly!" another spoke up. "And by the way do any of you know his IG? I can't find it."

Indeed they couldn't find it, because Jaemin had changed his account name to something random so no one could search him up.

"Find him in Lee Jeno's following," someone suggested, and all the girls started looking at their phones.

Having her boyfriend's name surface into the conversation made poor Kiara feel even worse. The fact that everyone acknowledged the closeness between Jeno and Jaemin made her miserable. Why'd she even come today? She felt awkward her friend group now, who'd literally only been talking about Jaemin recently.

"Is this him?" One girl raised her cellphone for all to see an Instagram account with a profile picture of a landscape, @___photoj.

Park Jinae searched up the user in her bar, and pressed it. The account was private, but it did tell her that @___photoj also followed Jeong Jaehyun (whom she followed). "I think it's him. See," she said, pointing to Jaehyun's name, "that's his brother, so."

"Wait Jaemin has a brother?" her friend squealed.

Jaemin happened to return at this time and heard the last question, feeling embarrassed and uncomfortable that the girls were talking about him and trying to find him (and successfully finding him) on social media.

"Here are your drinks," he ignored their conversation and placed each drink in front of the right customer, trying to maintain a steady face although his ears were turning pink.