The Staggering Fall of Youth (sequel to SBA)

5 - Take a Hint

"You're locked up in your room all day not doing anything," Luhan admitted.

"First of all, you don't know about my life, Luhan, and you made it very clear that you wanted nothing to do with it," Minseok said, balling his fists. "Let's get this straight, Luhan, I'm not here for you guys, I'm here for Junmyeon, and I don't care if you kick me out, because he'll come with me, and that's all I care about."

"Come on, Minseok! I miss you, we all miss you!" Luhan shouted at his ex-lover.

"Since when??" Minseok said, shutting him up. "I know Kris sent you here, Luhan, I'm not fucking stupid, and if you excuse me," Minseok opened the door, leaving Luhan alone in the room. "I got more pressing matters to deal with than with you so-called adults."

***

"What's taking them so long?" Jisung said, reshuffling the UNO deck for the who-knows-what time. "I could have napped by now."

"Felix and Lucas are dumb asses and Si Cheng is taking your so-called nap," Renjun said, not looking up from his phone. "Although, to be fair, no one's following the punishment at this point."

"Because the adults don't care about us," Jungwoo said, sighing. "They think they can save the world by sitting here all day and eating ramen."

"Imagine speaking so many languages and not travelling the world to use them." Jisung set the deck on the table. "What's taking Chen Le so long?"

"He went to get his magazines from Hyunjin who borrowed them," Jungwoo reminded him for the third time. For an immortal being, Jisung had a bad memory. "Don't ask again."

"Aw, is someone in love with our Chen Le?" Renjun asked in a baby voice, teasing Jisung. "Does someone miss him?"

Jisung's face turned red. "S-shut up," he said, grabbing the deck and shuffling again. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, thank god, I was going to be scared if you were," Renjun lied. "Jungwoo here is helping me ask him out."

"Wait, WHAT?!" Jisung quickly stood up, cards spilling everywhere. "I wanted to ask him out!!"

"We got 'em boys," Renjun muttered, going back to his phone. "Thanks for the confession, Jisung."

"Don't lie about things like that!" Jisung sat back down on the floor, criss-crossed while pouting. "It hurts, you know, it's already hard to know if he likes me back or not-"

"Oh, he likes you back all right," Jungwoo muttered under his breath before his eyes went wide, realizing what he admitted. "WAIT-"

The door to the room slammed open, Chen Le walking in and setting his magazines on the floor. "I'm back!"

Renjun gave Jisung a smile before looking at Chen Le. "Oh, you missed a lot, Chen Le, Jisung over here was talking about-"

"How I'm going to beat your ass in UNO, right?!" Jisung exclaimed, laughing as he scrambled to grab the cards that he spilled earlier, stacking them up again. "I'm going to beat your ass in UNO, Chen Le!"

Chen Le rolled his eyes. "I'm not letting you beat me."

"Wait, where's Minseok?" Jungwoo asked. "I thought he was going to play with us?"

Chen Le sighed. "Luhan wanted to talk to him."

"Don't you mean argue?" Renjun got up from where he was lying from the couch and took the deck from Jisung, who was frantically shuffling them over and over again. "I don't like him."

"Me neither, he always makes Minseok sad." Chen Le sat down on the floor next to Jisung. "Minseok always cries about him."

"At least Junmyeon is nice," Jungwoo said, grabbing the cards that Renjun was handing him as he passed out the deck. "I like Junmyeon."