GLOW-UP

01 | moon taeil

Taeil took a step forward. Which was his second huge mistake, because he was already stepping on that untied lace of his. He went flying, the banana went a little too far down his throat, and he managed to splash Taeyong's coffee all over the poor boy.

"Oh god," said Doyoung.

As soon as he could cough out the goddamn banana, Taeil scrambled to his feet and fled the building, face burning. He couldn't believe he'd just done that. And yet, in some weird way, he could. The world just seemed to have it in for Moon Taeil.

"Oh, Taeil, wait up!"

Great, more people to humiliate him. Taeil stormed off even faster, but the two voices behind managed to catch up. As it turned out, they were just his housemates - Nakamoto Yuta and Dong Sicheng. People who didn't know them tended to refer to them as Japan and China, respectively.

Taeil turned to face them, hating the fact that he had to look up. He had to look up to everybody and by this point in his life, it was getting fucking annoying.

What made him even more pressed was the fact that Yuta and Sicheng seemed to walk around campus without a care in the world, like they were from a real K-drama. Scratch that, Yuta actually was straight out of an anime, and Sicheng... whatever the Chinese version was called.

Taeil despised Sicheng and his soft pink sweater and fluffy blonde hair in that instant. Why could he just be fucking adorable like him? Or like Yuta - dressed in that stupid grey-blue shirt that shouldn't look good on people but looked great on him, well built and handsome, star of the university's ice hockey team. Taeil longed to be cool, and seeing his housemates pissed him off.

"What," he monotoned, as the feeling of self-loathing sank deep into the pits of his stomach.

"Are you okay?" Yuta asked, frowning. "You look kinda-"

"-Fucking angry? Yeah I wanna kill myself," Taeil finished moodily, stamping one foot on the ground, which just hurt his foot.

"Whoa, calm down, hyung," said Sicheng in a gentle tone. "What happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it." Taeil shook his head at them.

Yuta and Sicheng exchanged glances and puzzled looks whilst Taeil burnt holes into the tarmac with his eyeballs.

"Hyung, let's just go home," said Sicheng, linking arms with the shorter. "You don't have any more lectures today, right?"

Taeil slowly shook his head again, and Yuta linked arms with him from the other side.

"Well, I can make sushi, if you want?" Yuta offered with a beaming smile. "And then we can all watch Death Note together."

"What is it - Weeaboo Day?" Taeil scoffed.

"Aw, you love Japanese culture," Yuta objected, squeezing Taeil's cheek with his spare hand.

"Fucking hate it."

"You love it."

"Yuta'll use his mom's sushi recipe!" Sicheng put in quickly, which was a remark to end all arguments.

Taeil considered this for a moment as they walked along through the middle of the campus. Yuta was sometimes a fantastic sushi chef, but his food was often hit or miss, and his mom's sushi recipe was on another level. Taeil narrowed his eyes and thought about how they hadn't finished watching Death Note together yet, and it was really important to finish a TV series. It was simply unacceptable to leave a show unfinished.  "What episode were we on?" he asked eventually.

Yuta and Sicheng reached behind Taeil's head to high-five each other, grinning in success.

"Episode Nineteen, wasn't it, Cheng?" Yuta pondered casually.

"Yeah, I think it was," Sicheng agreed with a smile.

Taeil paused. "You will be using your mom's recipe, right? because your sushi usually sucks."

"Obviously," Sicheng drawled.

"Hey!" Yuta protested.

"Just kidding, Yu-ge," Sicheng giggled, throwing Yuta a smirk.

"Okay, okay," Yuta grumbled, trying to hide his own smile from the younger.

"Why don't I get to be Taeil-geh?" Taeil demanded.

Sicheng nearly tripped up from laughing at Taeil's pronunciation. "Please take Mandarin lessons," he said, gasping for air.

"No, he'd rather learn Japanese," Yuta pointed out.

"Can we just go?" said Taeil.

So they went back to the apartment they all shared that was close to the university for a weeaboo evening that practially transported Taeil to the heart of Japan... except not really.

Even the sushi and the Death Note marathon couldn't really cheer him up. He wished the ground would open and swallow him up. Or at least that he could forget about what happened today, even if he could never face Lee Taeyong ever again.

But the world wasn't finished with him yet.

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a | n :
new book yeet
johnil is kind of
an underrated ship
but 'touch' is making
it rise! hope you
enjoy this ♡