«well if i have five minutes left to live, at least i know that 4 minutes and 17 seconds were well spent»
Na Jaemin's POV
"So, what happened?" I asked Renjun when the dismissal bell rung. After Hyojoo tackled Renjun off of the table, she began to pull at his side burns and cursed at him to keep his mouth shut. He smiled.
"Detention."
"With?" I asked.
"Hyojoo." He shrugged.
"Then why are you smiling?" I asked him, swinging my bag over my shoulder. "Shouldn't you be angry?"
"Well, the teacher is Mrs. Kang." He smiled. "And she hates Hyojoo, a lot. After all, who wouldn't hate the student that caused your prized student to fear for his life?"
"Well," I sighed. "At least your detention won't be hell."
"Thank god!" Renjun jumped with joy. "I did not want to have Mr. Park for detention. That guy hates my guts for some reason."
"Maybe it's because you sleep in his class?" I offered.
"Then why is history so boring?" Renjun asked. "That's why I sleep."
"Whatever." I rolled my eyes. "You should probably get to your detention."
"I should." Renjun sighed. "Bye!" He began to walk in the opposite direction of me, towards his detention class.
I sighed and began to walk towards Jieun's class that she has last period. I waited outside of her science class, checking up on social media for anything. The only thing that blew up was Renjun's outburst at lunch and news spreading around that Hyojoo was back. I chuckled at the death threats made by the smallest people in the school. Especially one that was made by Chenle. That guy can't even hurt a fly if he tried.
"Hey." Jieun poked my shoulder. I looked up and saw her beautiful face looking at me.
"Ready to go?" I asked her. She nodded. We began to walk towards the exit from the dance studio, since it was the closest way out and most secretive. I laced my hand with hers, and we walked out of the school.
"Why aren't we going to the dance studio?" She asked me in confusion. I noticed her eyes darting back and forth between me and our hands. I chuckled at how cute she was.
"Gosh, why are you so cute?" I asked her. She turned away from me, but I could still see her face burn up. "And to answer your question, there's no practice. Whenever one of us gets detention, we cancel practice because we don't want to leave that person out."
"Aww, that's so sweet of you guys." She gushed. "I wish my friends were like that. If one of us is sick, we tend to text in the group chat on what the sick person missed and glorify it so that they feel jealous." I chuckled.
"We do the same." I told her. "It's just that we wouldn't want to leave someone out of dance practice. However, school drama is a different story."
"I guess." She smiled. We began to walk down the street where most of the bushes and trees were coming out from the backyards of the houses. A guy in a suit brushed by me and I looked at him in surprise.
"Sorry." He muttered before hastily walking past me.
"What was that all about?" I asked. Jieun shrugged and we continued on the path.
YO! IT'S RENJUN! I LEARNED HOW TO DO THIS FROM—OH CRAP HERE HE COMES. I looked down at my phone to see Renjun calling. I saw Jieun holding in her laughter from Renjun's ringtone. I shook my head and answered.
"What's up?" I asked.
"Bad news." Renjun whispered. "Hyojoo didn't show up to detention."
"What do you mean?" I asked him, confused at how she didn't show up.
"I think she might've skipped to follow—"
"LET GO OF ME!" I turned around to see the same man that brushed by me as well as another man grabbing both of Hyojoo's arms and dragging her away. I saw them talking to her before she screamed again. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN'T BE IN THIS AREA? ISN'T THIS A FREE AREA TO BE IN?"
I made eye contact with Hyojoo and regretted it. She broke free from the mens' grasp and began running towards me. I quickly tugged Jieun's arm and ran as fast as I could from Hyojoo. I couldn't risk letting go of Jieun in case she got hurt.
While running, I began to notice the difference in speed that we had. Jieun wasn't athletic, so her speed was considerably slow. An idea popped in my head as I began to pull her in closer. Once she was close enough, I slowed down slightly, enough to where it was fast enough to escape Hyojoo yet slow enough to have a set foundation and picked Jieun up like a baby.
Jieun was surprised and the plan in my head didn't go as well as planned. I still managed to pick her up, but one of her legs was dangling while her bag was the only secure holding that I had. I began to pick up the pace and ran towards the closest convenience store.
Once we got to the store, I quickly placed Jieun in a chair, grabbed a pair of sunglasses out of my bag as well as a baseball cap and placed it on Jieun. I then ran inside of the store and pulled out another baseball cap and pretended to be looking for something.
"Hello!" The cashier called out. I looked over to see Mark working the stand. "Yo, Jaemin!"
"Shh!" I hunched my back, picked out something random and placed it on the register. "Hyojoo's out there somewhere, and I need to hide."
"Is that all?" Mark asked, winking at me. I looked at the item I grabbed: a pack of tampons. I tensed up as soon as I heard the bell ring as someone entered. "Hello!" Mark chimed.
"Hey, Mark." I sighed in relief when I recognized the voice behind me. "Jaemin, I think you need to change your item."
"I was going to get to that." I blushed in embarrassment.
I grabbed the box of tampons from the register and placed it back on the shelf. I went over to the snacks section and got a load of snacks. I placed them on the register and pulled out my wallet to pay. I saw that Jieun had a plastic bag from a purchase she made while I was spending my sweet time picking out the best snacks the store had to offer.
Once I paid for the snacks, I took a hold of Jieun's hand and walked out with her. We noticed the guy from before beginning to approach us. Instinctively, I pulled Jieun closer towards me and slightly behind me. The guy smiled at my action before stopping in front of us and bowing politely.
"I'm sorry for not introducing myself earlier." He said. He rose. "I'm Kim Sungkook, Jieun's body guard ever since she was a little child." I bowed.
"I'm Jaemin." I introduced myself.
"Jieun's husband." He nodded. "I took care of the student from earlier, but I feel that it would be better if I pick you guys from school from now on."
"Sorry for not mentioning that earlier." Jieun interrupted. "I didn't know if he was supposed to be undercover or not."
"Understandable." I told her. I turned towards Sungkook. "Why don't we talk about this while we walk towards my apartment? Our identities are still a secret from the school, so I don't want to risk talking about it in public."
"No need." He shook his head. "My car is parked a little bit past the corner. We can walk there, and I can drive you home."
"Oh," I said. "Thank you."
We began to walk towards his car in an awkward silence. I looked at Jieun, who only smiled at me in an awkward way. I smiled back at her and looked back at the bodyguard. Once we arrived at the parking lot, we spotted his car. I mean, it did take a while since it was a silver Toyota Camry. Not the kind of car you would expect from a bodyguard.
"Please don't mind the mess in the back." He said, opening up the backseat doors. "I was the designated driver last night to a club."
"No problem." Jieun smiled and pushed me in the car. I could smell the alcohol reeking from the seats. I tried to mask my face and not show how disgusted I was, but I guess it wasn't good enough.
"Sorry about the smell," Sungkook said as he got inside of the car. "Those guys drank a lot and brought some on the way home."
"It's fine." I told him. He chuckled and started the car. He rolled down the passenger window.
"I'll keep this open for now until we get to your apartment." He began to drive towards my apartment complex. We rode in silence, the only sound coming from the wind through the open window. I looked over at Jieun a few times, but I could only catch her slowly drifting off into sleep before she fell asleep, leaning on me. I couldn't help but smile at how cute she was. Finally, we arrived at my apartment.
"Hey, JIeun." I gave her a slight shake. "We're here."
"What?" She got up from her position and looked around. It took a second before she recognized where we were. "Oh, we're here." I flicked her forehead with my finger.
"No shit, sherlock." I chuckled. "C'mon, your bodyguard is waiting outside of the car." We got out of the car and I guided the guy towards my apartment. I opened the front door and allowed the two to come in. "Would you like some tea?"
"I'm fine." He said, sitting down at the dining table nearby. "As I was saying earlier, from now on, I'm going to pick both of you from school to prevent incidents like earlier: stalkers."
"But no one in school except our friends know about our marriage." I told him, sitting down across from him. "We can't just have you appear out of nowhere."
"That's why I had this plan where I drive a taxi around and pick you guys up from school in a taxi." He said.
"But what if other students come to you for the taxi service?" Jieun asked, sitting down next to me. "Why don't we do it a different way? Let's say, having a bodyguard act as a student and walk with us to a convenience store where you'll pick us up."
"That sounds like a good idea." He nodded. "But there are a few things to smoothen out."
"Like?" I asked.
"Who's going to play as the student? Are they going to protect both of you throughout the day?" He asked. "And why the convenience store? Why not the gas station that is in front of the store?"
"Well, we can have WinWin come in as the student. And no, I don't think he should be protecting us throughout the school day because it has to seem as if he really is a transfer student." Jieun began. "As for the car issue, I guess we can stop by the as station. It's only a five-minute walk from school."
"Is this WinWin good at dance?" I asked her. She nodded. "Then we can use the dance club to incorporate WinWin into our friend group, so it wouldn't look as suspicious if the stalking got too serious."
"Yeah, that could work." Jieun said. "And his place of residence happens to be in the same area as us."
"It sounds great but there is a flaw with your choice." Sungkook spoke up. "Sicheng is on break and at home in China. His break is done in a month from now."
"Well, we can just walk to the gas station alone for now." Jieun said. Sungkook shook his head.
"We can't do that." He said. "She could still stalk you from there. There are plenty of bushes to hide in."
"Then we can walk with Mark to the convenience store. He works there." Jieun said.
"But he's hired in two convenience stores." I pointed out. "The convenience store in our direction and the one towards your family's house. That's why he sometimes has to leave early from dance practice because the convenience store closer to your house is farther away."
"Why is he hired at both stores?" Jieun asked.
"His parents won't give him an allowance because they're afraid that he'll just blow it off. He has to earn the allowance himself. I think he's saving up for a new game right now." I told her.
"When are his work days for the closer convenience store?" Sungkook asked. I paused for a minute to think before responding.
"I think the days are Sunday to Wednesday." I answered. "So, we can walk with him to the convenience store from Monday to Wednesday."
"Haven't you guys walked with him home since the beginning of the school year?" Sungkook asked. "I mean you guys walk in the same direction."
"From time to time." I answered. "Most of the time, we get dragged into an argument between our friends and stick around school for a while before coming home. Mark leaves the school right when practice ends."
"I see." Sungkook sat back in his seat. "So, I can be assured that you guys can walk down to the convenience store from Monday to Wednesday with Mark. And to make sure, he's aware of the marriage and will keep it a secret?"
"Yes." I nodded. "Mark is the one person out of our entire friend group who I would trust the most with the secret."
"But how would we prevent the stalkers?" Sungkook asked. "I'm going to assume that this boy is scrawny."
"I'm pretty sure Mark can fight." I told him. "He's pretty built. In regards to the stalker, he can drive them away. I mean last time she appeared at the table, he was pretty much about to push her off of me."
"Seriously?" Jieun turned towards me. "I thought he was going to scare her away before Jinyoung resorted to violence."
"That too." I smiled, taking her hand and rubbing circles on the back of her hand underneath the table.
"So, I can trust this Mark to safely bring you to the convenience store?" Sungkook asked. I turned back to him and nodded. "What about Thursday and Friday?"
"We can walk with Jeno." Jieun proposed. "Or Jinyoung."
"Jeno?" I turned to her. "Jinyoung?"
"Yeah, they both live in the same neighborhood." Jieun shrugged. "Jinyoung was complaining about Jeno when they were partners for the science project. Then she complained even more when she found out that they lived in the same neighborhood."
"We can walk with both." I told her. She shook her head.
"Don't forget, both you and Jeno have dance practice after school, and Jinyoung hates to stay after school." She said. "We can only go home with one of them."
"What if we convince Jinyoung to stay behind?" I asked.
"I would feel more at ease to know if Jinyoung and Jeno walked with you guys." Sungkook added. Jieun stared at the table for a minute before sighing.
"I don't know if I can convince her to join us." She began. "And I don't know if I can because we're walking with Jeno and the convenience store comes before their neighborhood."
"Do they know about your marriage?" Sungkook asked, leaning in.
"Yes." Jieun answered.
"I can drop them off at their houses before bringing you to your apartment." He offered. Jieun contemplated for a moment.
"That could work." Jieun admitted. "I think I can convince Jinyoung by telling her this."
"It seems like a plan." Sungkook got up from his place. "Tell Mark, Jeno, and Jinyoung about this. And don't forget to tell them that it will be like this until Sicheng comes back. You know how he is. He says that he'll be gone for a month and won't come back until three months later."
"But isn't he on a work vacation?" Jieun asked, standing up as well. Sungkook chuckled.
"He is." He held out his hand which I took, and we shook hands. "But he tends to forget that. But your parents still keep around, so I guess he's good."
"I mean he does help around." Jieun shrugged. She looked at her watch and back at Sungkook. "It's getting pretty late and Jaemin and I still have homework to work on."
"I should." Sungkook went to open the door. "Don't forget to text your friends!" He closed the door behind him, leaving us in silence.
"So, I'll text Jeno and Mark while you're going to text Jinyoung?" I asked her.
"I guess so." She shrugged and walked over to the living room. I guess she forgot that our hands were interlocked because she practically dragged me over. I couldn't help but smile at her when she realized that our hands were still together. I gave her a kiss on the cheek.
"I hope you know that I think you're adorable right now."
so uh lucas on knowing brothers came out... it was quite loud.