In the college there was a large open area full of picnic benches which served as both a study area and a canteen. Taeil didn't usually eat there, but he was looking for Yuta or Sicheng (either would do) and the ice hockey team often ate there so he figured it was a good shout.
Needless to say, he didn't expect to be eating lunch with Johnny Suh that day.
"Oh, Moony! Over here!"
Taeil spun around to see Johnny at one of the central tables, laughing and joking round with a bunch of his friends. He waved him over with one hand, and it wasn't a hand you could just ignore, as much as Taeil wanted to. With extreme reluctance, he gave a deep sign and shuffled over to Johnny's table.
"Come sit with us, slave," said Johnny in that easy-going manner of speaking he always seemed to adopt.
"Slave?" asked a small foreign-looking guy in English, and raised an eyebrow with a suspicious smirk.
"Yeah, we got a deal going on, Ten," said Johnny casually. He raised a hand to pat the seat beside him for Taeil to sit on, but the bench was full both sides. "Uh... just sit here, Moony," he added, and patted a thigh with one hand, like it wasn't even a big deal at all and his friends, even reluctant ones, sat on his lap all the time. (Taeil didn't think he was one of those friends yet.)
Taeil blinked. "Sit on your... your-"
"My lap, yes," Johnny interrupted briskly. "Now hurry up before I change my mind."
So instead of making an escape, or continuing his endless search for his housemates, Taeil found himself sitting on Johnny Suh's lap that day. The others on the table didn't seem to care too much, except for maybe Ten - who found the entire ordeal particularly amusing. As for the others... Taeil recognised Jung Jaehyun from the ice hockey team - and from the terrible handwriting he'd seen on the book Doyoung had been scribbling into yesterday. But Jaehyun wasn't eyeing up the lap situation or anything - he was just trying to finish some homework. The last guy at the table was much younger, probably a freshman, and was absorbed in some sort of game on his phone which required insistent tapping and seemed extremely frustrating. Ten - the foreigner with the suggestive look in his eyes - was still smirking at Taeil whilst he licked his ice cream off the spoon.
"Oh, these are my friends, by the way," Johnny spoke up, almost as if he'd been reading Taeil's mind. He gave the three of them an Squad Introduction that rom-coms would probably rate about a minus eleven out of ten. "Jaehyun's across from us, Mark over there, and this is Ten."
(Ten didn't seem like the sort of person who even needed an introduction. But when it came to meeting new people, he was more than happy to give his own.)
"Ten?" Taeil repeated.
"Yeah, I'm from Thailand and my real name is Chittaphon but nobody can fucking pronounce that shit," Ten explained with a surprisingly friendly smile. "So I figured it would be easier for people to just call me what I am. A ten, that is. Out of ten."
"Ah..." Taeil laughed awkwardly as the Thai boy winked at him, "I see..."
The joke made a lot more sense in English than in Korean.
"Anyway!" Johnny interrupted, slapping a hand to the picnic table. "We want pizza, and you're going to order it for us."
Taeil tried to squirm around to glare at Johnny, but since it was impossible he just kicked his shin with the back of his heel instead.
"Hey, what was that for?!" Johnny protested loudly. He wrapped his arms tightly around Taeil's waist and rested his chin on his shoulder, pouting with the expectation of his request.
"Order it yourself," Taeil told him. no longer willing to put up with Johnny's antics and strange demands, he tried to wriggle off his lap, but success was not in sight. (It was so far away that Taeil couldn't even see it anymore.)
Johnny just tightened his grip around the shorter boy's waist and held on so tight that Taeil wouldn't have managed to escape if he was a fish. "Oh no, you're not going anywhere until you order this pizza," Johnny said, and the way he said it made it sound like it was a Google-able fact, set in stone.
He jabbed the number into his phone and pressed it into Taeil's hands, urging him to speak up when the call connected. Taeil tried to step on his toe in annoyance, but Johnny's legs were too long and his foot was too far away. That just pissed Taeil off even more.
"Hello, how can I help you?"
"Tell him we want four large pizzas," Johnny instructed thoughtfully. He was very serious when it came to pizza, and he put together an order like he was solving a complex math equation. "Three meat feast, and a vegan one for Mark."
"What?" Mark blurted, glancing up from his game and then cursing when he lost. "Since when am I vegan, hyung?"
"Markie," said Ten, grabbing Mark's hands and holding them in his own, "last week you cried when we watched the goat die in that movie."
Mark's expression turned into a grimace. "Don't remind me about that!" he whined. He snatched his hands away from Ten's and went back to his game, cheeks flushing red in embarrassment. "It was traumatic," he muttered.
"Go on then, Moony," Johnny prompted, poking Taeil's shoulder expectantly. "Could we order...?"
"Uhm... could we order, uh... three large meat feast pizzas please?" Taeil squeaked into the phone. "Uh, and one veggie one, p-please..."
"Will the vegeterian also be a large size?" questioned the pizza guy on the other end of the line.
"That's the way you like it," Johnny breathed down Taeil's ear.
"That's the way you like it," Taeil repeated without thinking. Then his eyes widened in complete horror. "I'm sorry! Uh..."
Johnny was nearly pissing himself laughing, about to fall off the bench and drag Taeil with him. Taeil felt like having a mental breakdown. For probably the sixth time that day.
"Johnny!" he hissed, jabbing his elbow back into Johnny's chest. He flung the phone into Johnny's hands and sat there, fuming.
"Can we get that delivered to the college c-campus?" Johnny finally wheezed down the phone.
When he hung up, Taeil desperately fought the urge to slap him. "What was that for?" he demanded.
Johnny shot him a mischievous smirk. "I told you what Step One was, Moony," he explained, trying his best to keep from laughing again. "You have to get more confident! It's all part of the deal."
"Yeah, but I didn't ask to get with the pizza delivery guy," Taeil argued, looking both hurt and irritated all at once.
"It's all practise," Johnny reasoned, that stupid grin still spread across his face. "In fact, you might as well stand on this table and tell the whole campus the truth! It's in that dumb video anyway."
Taeil suddenly looked terrified. "No way," he burst out in fear, "I would never-"
"Don't be shy, Tae," Johnny grinned at him. "Come on, I'll get everyone's attention..."
He slid Taeil off his lap and climbed onto the table, nearly stepping all over Jaehyun's homework (which Jaehyun quickly moved out of the way for him). With a loud whistle, Johnny easily caught the attention of the entire area. "Excuse me!" he called loudly. "My friend has something he wants to say!"
Taeil gaped at him, tears forming in his eyes as panic took over his senses. He stared up at Johnny and for a second their eyes met. Then Taeil tore away from the table and ran as fast as he could, nearly tripping over the laces of his second-hand sneakers.
"Moony...?" Johnny's voice faded out as he watched the small boy bolt in terror.
There was only one thing he could see in those eyes. Betrayal.
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idk what this was lol
i'm on a mission to update all my books tonight, so i keep finishing half written chapters like this one haha
hope you're still enjoying the story tho
johnil is literally sOOOO UNDERRATED
idk if i asked this before but what underrated ships do you ship in nct?
♡