Chapter 6

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When Jisung walked into school the next Monday, he was attacked by the sight of red, pink, and white posters plastered on nearly every available surface.

On the wall opposite from his locker, there was a pink poster decorated with small red hearts and polka dots of the same colour. In the center of the poster, the words "Valentines Day Dance: Friday, February 12th, 2020" were written in large cursive letters.

He sighed, opening his locker and throwing his books inside with more force than was necessary.

He knew exactly how the next few weeks would go. Couples would suddenly start getting together just in time for the dance, couples who were together prior to the announcement of the dance would start to become more obnoxious about it, and every minute there would be another dramatic declaration of love or proposal for the dance. It was how the event went every year, and Jisung never participated in any part of it.

It had never mattered to Jisung that he wasn't in a relationship or that he didn't have anyone to invite to the dance, because none of his other friends had been in relationships at the time either.

They had always gone to every dance as a group, and even if at some point during the night they split up, Jisung never minded. He had always had Chenle by his side, to dance with him and drink obnoxious amounts of the overly sweet punch that someone had definitely spiked. But now Chenle had Haeun and would no doubt want to go with her.

As Jisung was closing his locker, hands covered his eyes from behind. He could tell it was Chenle by the familiar scent of his shampoo, and also since Chenle was the only one who would dare to sneak behind Jisung in such a way.

"Chenle, I know it's you," Jisung said, and Chenle removed his hands from where they had been covering Jisung's vision.

When Jisung turned around to face Chenle, the older male had a pout on his face that Jisung wanted to wipe away and replace with a smile. He didn't, because in all the dramas and movies he had watched, the only way anyone ever did such a thing was by kissing the frown away, and that wasn't something Jisung had the freedom to do.

"What are you so aggressive for?"

"I'm not aggressive," Jisung replied, scrunching up his nose and shaking his head.

"Could have fooled me," Chenle retorted, but he let the subject drop, smiling at Jisung as he adjusted the backpack on his shoulder, "Can you walk me to my locker? There's something I need to talk to you about."

Jisung fell into step beside Chenle. They walked to the older male's locker together, the other students populating the hall moving out of their way when they passed by.

Jisung knew that they weren't making way for him, they were making way for Chenle, who was practically the king of the school. If Haeun was the most popular girl at the school, Chenle was the most popular boy. Together, they made the stereotypical power couple from every cheesy highschool love story.

Chenle was loved by all, students and teachers alike. Even if he wasn't always the best student, since he could sometimes be a troublemaker, he was at the top of his classes when it came to grades. He was captain of the basketball team, which made him popular amongst the sporty kids. It helped that he was also extremely attractive, which was one of Jisung's personal opinions, but one that the rest of the school strongly supported.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on or do I have to guess?" Jisung said after a while of walking in comfortable silence.

They stopped at Chenle's locker and he started to carefully place his books inside, with much less force and aggression than Jisung had used. He was much more organised than Jisung in general.

"No, I'll tell you, I was just waiting until we didn't have people eavesdropping on us in every direction," Chenle responded, "Well, you've seen the posters for the Valentine's Day Dance, so you've probably already guessed, but I want to go with Haeun."

"And what's the problem with that?" Jisung asked, confused, "She's already your girlfriend, it's kind of expected that you would go to the dance with her."

"I know, I know." A pause in which Chenle looked to the ground, "I just want it to be romantic." He mumbled, so quiet that Jisung barely heard him.

"What?"

"I said I want it to be romantic," Chenle repeated, louder this time, but still not loud enough for anyone around them to listen in on their conversation, "This is the first school dance with us as a couple, so I want it to be special. I want it to be something she remembers, and not just the dance itself but everything. The way I ask her, picking out what we're going to wear, and the dance too."

"Chenle, you're my best friend, and I say this in the nicest way possible but-," Chenle looked at him expectantly, "I've never been in a relationship. I have no idea what you should do." He finished with a deadpan expression.

"Oh, right, sorry," Chenle apologised sheepishly, "Sometimes I forget about that. You're so good at giving me advice, it's weird to think that you're not even in a relationship."

Jisung laughed, but it was fake. He didn't want to think about the dance, or about Chenle going with someone else, or about Chenle wearing a fancy suit to match with Haeun's dress. Those were all things Jisung wanted with Chenle; the romantic dates, the school dances together, the matching clothes, holding hands, soft kisses, and maybe more than that too.

"I don't think I'm going to the dance this year anyway," Jisung commented later, when they had been joined by Mark and Donghyuck.

"Why not?" Donghyuck pulled away from his boyfriend's lips for a grand total of five seconds to speak, pressing another kiss to Mark's lips as an apology once he had turned away from Jisung and back to the older male.

"I'm just not feeling it this year," Jisung said with a fake nonchalant shrug, "It's a Valentine's Day Dance, you know? Everyone's going as couples. I would just feel weird being the only one alone."

"Are you sure?" Donghyuck asked, not seeming to fully trust Jisung's excuse.

"I'm sure," Jisung smiled, internally happy that his friends at least seemed to care enough to worry for him, "I'll have a great romantic date at home with my bed and this beautiful thing I've been lacking called sleep."

- 🐥 & 🐬 -

𝑃𝑎𝑟𝑡 2 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑢𝑝𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑒.
𝐼 ℎ𝑜𝑝𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑒𝑛𝑗𝑜𝑦.
𝑀𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑦 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑚𝑎𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑏𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑠!

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