Walk You Home • [Lee Jeno]

Part 1: Not that I'm complaining

I glanced at my watch and sighed as I rushed my way through the hallway to the locker room. An hour had passed since the last bell rang and if it was not for the detention, I would not be this late.

When I reached the locker room, my lips automatically curved a smile as I saw a tall figure leaning his back against my locker with a book in his hand, reading. It was Lee Jeno, my bestfriend. He looked up from his book and smiled when he saw me.

Lee Jeno and I had been friends for as long as we could remember. We were in the same grade but different classes, so he always waited for me at the end of the school session in front of either my class or my locker.

Our houses were two houses apart and we always walked to and from the school together. We were kind of inseparable and our parents always teased to marry us off when we grow up, but we denied them wholeheartedly like it was the strangest idea that they could come out with.

We bickered a lot, roasted each other a little too much and pranked each other endlessly. But we always had each others' back when things were going rough on our paths.

We talked about everything but one: relationship. It was too awkward to even start the topic so we never did. I once tried to talk to him about a friend of mine who liked him and tried to hook them up but he ended up raising his voice at me and we did not talk for three days until he apologized first on the fourth day as he could not stand not talking to me.

Since that day, I swore to myself that I will never bring that topic up ever again. He was really scary when he was mad.

Then again, I started to had a little crush on him since few years back when we were still in middle school when he stood and fought for me against the boy who bullied me. Well, he did win. But he also ripped his favourite jeans on the knee when he fell to the ground as the boy pushed him down.

I always stood up for myself, but having someone else standing up for me against the world was kind of nice too. He was like my knight in shining armour and I fell for him hard. But I was too afraid that it will ruin our friendship if I confessed, so I just kept it to myself.

Okay, back to the locker room.

"Sorry I couldn't tell you that I'm going to be late. I forgot to bring my phone. You should have left earlier though."

I put my things inside the locker, grabbed some books before putting it in my bag and closed the door. I always bring two bags; my backpack and an extra bag to carry my books because the books were quite heavy to be carried all in one bag.

"It's okay. One of your classmates did said you're going to be late when I asked them earlier. Besides, it would be boring to walk back home alone by myself. I don't have anything to do at home to get back early either."

Jeno replied as he grabbed the bag of books from my hand and started to walk out of the room, leaving me behind.

"Ya, you don't have to do that."