[Neo Zone] Population: 23 Kids

Failed Art

Jeno had zero clue what he was supposed to be doing. He had been working on his art project- an at home assignment- but when he sent his teacher his weekly progress he was told he was doing it completely wrong. Almost three weeks of working on it before he was told that.

So he started over. He only had four days to finish the project, but he started over anyways. He wasn't about to get a 70 for that. And what does his teacher do as soon as he sends her the final picture? Tell him now it fits none of the criteria and he can't get credit for it.

Now he was trying not to get too upset over it, but that wasn't working. He now had another four days to either fix the first project he had been working on, or restart for a second time.

The worst part was he really liked the restart of the project and he really thought he did it right this time. It honestly looked really good. Apparently that wasn't going to cut it.

He felt hot tears slip down his face faster than he could stop them, and he quickly swiped them away. If he had been the only one in the house he would've cried until he passed out for the night, but his parents were downstairs having a dinner party with their boring friends. He was supposed to be sitting with them silently and being polite, but the excuse of school work let him slip away after he finished eating. Now he was going to have to slip out of the house unnoticed and get to the cafe.

Opening his window as silently as he could, he climbed out the fire escape and jumped to the pavement. On a normal night he would've made sure to close the window so no one would break in, but that wasn't where his mind was tonight.

Running down the pavement in his socks and dress clothes with his red eyes probably made him look insane. Not that he planned on being out in public long enough for anyone to truly judge him anyways.

Knowing the cafe was closed for the night, he didn't bother with the front door and went straight to the back door. Yuta was the only one still cleaning up, probably having lost rock paper scissors and was doing tasks that weren't normally his. Those were immediately ignored as soon as Yuta looked up at Jeno.

"What happened? I thought you were with your parents?"

Jeno tried really hard not to start sobbing, unable to respond because he knew if he opened his mouth he wouldn't be able to stop crying.

"Jeno, what happened? Do I need to call the police? What's going on?"

Jeno shook his head.

"Do you want to go downstairs and talk this out or should I bring Doyoung up?"

"Doyoung."

Yuta set down the rag in his hands and went downstairs, not before giving Jeno a quick hug, though. Using the excuse of needing an extra set of hands, Yuta got Doyoung to come without raising suspicion.

"I don't know why you think I'm going to be more helpful than Johnny- oh gosh. Nono, what happened?" 

Doyoung pulled him into a hug, pulling away for a second to wipe his eyes with his thumb.

"Stupid art project." Jeno managed to mutter, Doyoung immediately knowing what he meant.

Doyoung tugged him to the upstairs portion of the cafe, knowing Mr. and Mrs. Suh were out on a date, something they'd been doing a lot more frequently in the past years because the boys could run the cafe themselves. Sitting Jeno on the couch and throwing him a blanket, Doyoung grabbed the ice cream tub from the freezer and scooped some out for Jeno, handing him the bowl.

He then sat down next to Jeno, the younger curling up into his side and sulkily eating his ice cream.

"What'd the mean teacher do now?"

"My second try doesn't count for anything."

"What?! But it looked so good!" Doyoung was being a bit exaggerated in his reaction, but it wasn't too far off.

"I know! It's so stupid!"

Doyoung listened as Jeno ranted, which was a lot better than crying. They're both valid forms of showing emotion, but Jeno just really didn't want to cry, so it worked out.

After Jeno managed to calm down and they created a plan for how to fix the first project he had started, they turned on a movie and watched that until they fell asleep on the couch together. The ice cream bowl was still sitting next to them, but that was a problem that could be fixed later.