It took Renjun until Wednesday to notice.
In his defence, he had been extremely busy with classes and extracurriculars--including attending one he wasn't strictly even a part of, since he'd thought it would be a good idea to stick close to Donghyuck and Jaemin for the time being, all things considered. He hadn't had much reason to check their class board that week, since the year had barely begun and there wasn't much on it he hadn't already seen, so he'd missed it until now.
The first giveaway that something was up was the small gaggle of students, girls and boys alike, crowding around the large board outside his last class before lunch. It just so happened that this was the board for his class, which wasn't strange in and of itself. What was strange, however, was that none of the students currently jostling for space were people he knew. He wasn't even sure they were in his year group yet there they were, fighting for a spot by the wall, near the brightly coloured sign-up sheet he'd helped Donghyuck design.
"What's going on?" he asked a girl towards the back, who ignored him as she stepped around another student to try to get closer to the wall. He frowned, tapping a boy on the back this time, one who thankfully responded. He repeated his question, in response to which the boy pointed a shaking finger towards the board.
"Lee Jeno," he said simply, voice low and almost reverent as he spoke the words. Renjun's mouth fell open in surprise, the name of his unrequited crush the very last thing he'd ever expected to fall from the boy's lips in that moment. He floundered for a half-beat, mouth working overtime to minimal effect, before he shook himself free from his stupor enough to string a sentence together.
"What about him?" he asked, glancing again at the board out of the corner of his eye. One of the students at the front of the group, closest to the wall, had retrieved a pen from her bag and was scribbling furiously on something Renjun couldn't quite see. "This isn't even his class. It's over there." He pointed down the long hallway to his left, indicating a different, garishly-decorated slab of plaster-board.
"My guess is that he was trying to fly under the radar." Both boys turned their attention quickly to a set of twin girls who were now pushing their way out of the group, one still wielding a pen in front of her torso like a dagger. They must have been the ones at the front that he had just seen, Renjun thought. The one with the pen was grinning widely and looked triumphant, like she was returning home from war. "I'm so glad I noticed though," she continued, as her twin nodded. "I can't believe that I might actually be able to spend time in the same room as Jeno-oppa. He might even notice me."
"Notice us," the other girl added quietly but was summarily ignored. The first was already striding off down the corridor, pen swinging loosely in her hand at her hip as she almost skipped across the linoleum. Now thoroughly confused, Renjun managed to clear out most of the remaining students by threatening to report them for loitering upstairs during lunch--a move he wasn't particularly proud of, considering he was planning to do exactly the same thing once they were gone, but he had to know what was suddenly so interesting about his class board. Especially if it had something to do with Lee Jeno.
Moving to occupy the newly vacant space, he skirted around three petite freshman girls who were still chattering away to each other in a huddle, and scanned the array of notes, photos and advertisements already littering the space. Nothing stood out, which confused him even further.
He was just starting to wonder whether the students had been staging some kind of bizarre protest or impromptu fan meet in honour of the 11th-grade soccer player, who definitely had more than enough admirers to make that sort of farce possible, when his eyes finally landed on his friend's hopelessly crooked stapling effort.
Auditions for the Winter Musical, it read, followed by several lines of essential detail that Renjun suspected he knew by heart at this point, having listened to both Donghyuck and Dejun repeat them multiple times, every other day, for the past few weeks. He skipped over the text, quickly finding his own name near the bottom. It was followed by several others, including one immediately below his that made his blood run cold.
Lee Jeno
The handwriting was a little crude, as if the penmanship had been rushed, but the name was unmistakable. A half a dozen other names stretched out below it, none of which Renjun recognised as belonging to students in his homeroom class, but his gaze was locked onto just three characters. He'd subconsciously scrawled those characters across more pages of his notebooks and sketchbooks at home than he cared to admit, so he knew them well.
Lee. Je. No.
His immediate response was elation, a tiny, all-encompassing volcano of pure joy that spread out from his core and enveloped his whole body, as his mind raced through a million different scenarios in a single heartbeat. For a single second, before the rational part of his brain squashed the dreamer within, he imagined the two of them painting sets side by side--their eyes would meet over a tray of paint, fingers tangling as they reached for the same paint roller, and the rest would be history.
His second response, as if a bucket of ice-cold water had been unceremoniously dumped on top of that first fantasy, was abject panic. His throat went tight and his cheeks flamed, leaving him struggling to breathe as the images in his mind warped and twisted. He could see it now--Jeno watching him embarrass himself over and over in a hundred of the most humiliating ways possible, standing arm in arm with Donghyuck and Jaemin as they all stood by and laughed at him.
The tiny, merciful sliver of reality left inside his head took a few moments to catch up with his runaway thoughts, but then it finally forced him to turn his back on the board and take a deep breath. With it came clarity and the return of his sanity. He was getting worked up over nothing, and the only logical explanation was that someone had written Jeno's name down as a prank--perhaps even a prank on Lee Jeno himself.
Renjun wouldn't put it past most of Jeno's soccer buddies and, academically challenged as some on the team were, it could easily have ended up on the wrong sheet by mistake. It was merely a coincidence that it was next to his own name, as much as it had initially freaked him out. He had to wonder how long it had been there. Whoever had written it probably hadn't been expecting it to attract much attention from other students, but they really should have. The boy was a magnet for attention and it would inevitably blow up in their faces, as it had done.
Renjun briefly entertained the notion of going to Jeno--or, more realistically Yukhei, who he probably wouldn't hyperventilate in front of--and telling him about it, but he chickened out of that idea almost immediately. He wasn't nearly bold enough for that; as always, it was much easier to pretend his crush wasn't going to cause him endless heartache if he continued it far, far away from the individual in question. Instead, he would just let Donghyuck deal with it, like a coward. Better a coward than humiliated and his feelings exposed to the world.
Snapping a picture of the sheet to show Hyuck, he realised he needed to hurry or he would arrive too late to talk to him before the lunchtime drama session got going properly. He started to jog through the hallway, hoping no one was looking too closely, and arrived outside the drama studio just behind an ever-excitable Chenle, who was enthusiastically conversing in Mandarin with a girl that Renjun didn't recognise.
"Hyuck-ah," he called, stepping inside and immediately spotting his friends in their usual spot near the stage. Jaemin was stretching out his hamstrings on the floor, legs splayed wide and straight as Donghyuck bent over and pulled gently on his outstretched hands. The rest of the room was a hum of noise, and Renjun noted with vague interest that most students were in various forms of gym attire today, but he zeroed in on his friends, crossing the space quickly to reach them.
"Hey, Injunie." Donghyuck greeted him with a smile, hands still occupied by whatever he was doing to Jaemin. The younger boy just grunted as his nose almost grazed the floor, and Renjun accepted that as the welcome it was. He had quickly come to understand that Jaemin sometimes acted strangely around other people, including him. Renjun had no idea why--one day, he could be as affectionate as Hyuck, and then the next, he would barely speak to anyone--but he'd stopped questioning it after the first few times it happened. He might not understand, but it was all part of Jaemin's charm. Just like the way Renjun snarked back at people sometimes, to show them that he cared.
"You should know, someone vandalised your sign-up sheet, Hyuck. The one for Class B," he said quickly, watching as Donghyuck frowned and released Jaemin, who slowly eased himself onto his back and started contorting himself into yet another position that Renjun wouldn't be able to manage in a million years. "Here." He fished his phone out of his pocket and showed the picture to Donghyuck, who squinted down at the screen for a moment before the brightness auto-corrected enough to allow him to make out the details.
"Wow," he said, scooping the device out of Renjun's fingers to look closer. He stared at it for a few seconds, then looked up to meet Renjun's eye. "There's a lot more people on there than there was yesterday. That's awesome." He glanced across the room, towards where a group of seniors were busy chatting as they changed into their gym shoes. "Dejun will be really excited to have such a big backstage team this year."
"That's--" Renjun sputtered, narrowing his eyes at the boy in front of him, as he enlarged the image to focus on the name Donghyuck had clearly overlooked. "I'm talking about this!" He stabbed a shaking finger at the screen, over Jeno's hastily-scrawled name. Again, Donghyuck took the phone from him briefly, gazing intently at it for a few moments, before he let out a loud chuckle. When Renjun's bleak expression didn't change, he let out a quick gust of air in a sigh.
"I'm surprised you didn't notice that before, honestly," Donghyuck said quickly, lips slowly twisting up in a grin as he watched his friend process his statement. Renjun's brows furrowed in confusion, so he continued. "He signed up on Friday afternoon, right when I was putting them up. I wasn't going to mention it because I knew you'd--"
"I'd what?" Renjun's voice cracked and broke as he spoke, so the second word was little more than a squeak. Flushing, he wrapped one hand around his throat, massaging gently as he tried to make sense of Donghyuck's words. "Wait, you said that he did it himself? Why?"
"React like that," Donghyuck answered casually, waving a hand loosely in Renjun's direction. He almost didn't notice, focused instead on the phone in Donghyuck's palm and the image currently emblazoned across it. When he failed to respond, Donghyuck placed a hand gently on his shoulder and squeezed. "As for why, I have no idea. You'd have to ask him yourself." His smile turned mischievous at that and Renjun groaned, shaking off his touch with a pointed look.
"Not funny, Hyuck," he muttered, before rounding on the two boys beside him. Jaemin's face wasn't visible, so he alternated between eyeing Donghyuck's smirking face peevishly and staring daggers into the back of Jaemin's head. "Which one of you thought this would be a good idea? I know you must think I'm crazy for pining after him, but other people actually believed this. There were a bunch of people signing up because of him. What are you going to do when they all turn up and find out he's not coming?"
"Okay, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about," Jaemin told them both, pushing up to his knees so that he could look up at Renjun. The confusion in his eyes seemed legitimate, and they both quickly turned their attention to Donghyuck for answers. He lifted both hands defensively and shrugged.
"Hey, I swear I'm telling the truth, Renjun-ah. He asked me about signing up and then he did it. He mentioned something about extra credit." He paused, eyeing Renjun curiously, his smile fading. "I was actually going to ask you about that, since I obviously have no clue how that type of thing works around here."
"Extra credit?" Jaemin asked, standing so he could join the conversation properly. "Who signs up to an extracurricular for extra credit? There are so many easier ways to get it." Renjun couldn't help but agree with him, and his scepticism only grew as Donghyuck quickly explained to them both the conversation he'd had with Jeno in the hallway on Friday. The way that Hyuck spoke so earnestly, and the way his gaze seemed to bore into Renjun's own so unwaveringly had him convinced, finally, that this wasn't a joke, but that left more questions unanswered than it solved.
"That doesn't make any sense," Renjun told Donghyuck as he finished his story. Shaking his head, he waved his arms in front of him as if a few hand gestures would suddenly help make sense of everything. "I've never seen his report card, but I know for a fact that there's no way that Jeno's failing that class."
Jaemin raised a hand, eyes wide with anticipation, but Renjun cut him off. "No, Jaemin-ah. I don't actually need to see his report card, even if I believed the receptionists would let you have it." The younger boy huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, looking like the wind had been taken out of his sails, and Renjun couldn't help the small laugh that escaped him. "Thank you though." Jaemin smiled at that, so Renjun knew he was forgiven. "Anyway, it's just not logical."
"Why not?" Donghyuck asked. "Is it not possible?"
"Oh, it's definitely possible," he replied with a nod. "Just not for Jeno. He has to maintain good grades to stay on the soccer team, and he's never missed a game." He thought back to the previous year, and to a conversation he'd overheard one of the other Chinese students having with Yukhei one lunchtime. "He even helped tutor Yukhei in Korean last year, just to make sure he didn't get kicked off the team during our mid-season exams."
"I didn't know that," Jaemin interjected. "How did you know that?"
"Just do," Renjun answered, shrugging. It wasn't like he needed to detail just how deep his interest in Jeno and, by extension, his close friends ran. It was blindingly obvious to Donghyuck, so Jaemin would have undoubtedly figured it out too. He didn't have to spell it out for him. "Anyway, there's no way he'd let himself fail a class like that."
"Weird," Donghyuck mused thoughtfully. "I knew it sounded like a lie at the time, but I couldn't be sure. I wonder why he signed up then." The look Donghyuck sent Renjun's way said that he had a pretty solid theory, but he didn't share it with them. Renjun decided not to press him on it, realising that he had a far more pressing issue to address, given Donghyuck's revelation.
"I guess I'm dropping out then," he told Donghyuck, clenching his fists at his sides and avoiding eye contact with either of his friends. It was the only way to avoid embarrassing himself in front of Jeno, he knew that to be true, but he couldn't help but feel like he was letting Donghyuck down. "I'm sorry. I'll just find somewhere else to hide out at lunch instead."
"Wait, why would you quit?" Donghyuck asked, at the same time that Dejun called for everyone to gather in the centre of the room. Renjun eyed his spot in the corner, glad to see it empty as usual, even if he wouldn't be using it much longer. The stagehands would mainly be in the art department during sessions, but he'd have to avoid the whole scene like the plague to avoid any accidental run-ins. "I would have thought that you would want--"
"Because," he said plainly. Donghyuck's eyes said he understood, even if he didn't agree, but Jaemin didn't quite have the same tact.
"I know I don't particularly like the guy," Jaemin began, before glancing apologetically over at Donghyuck. "Sorry, I know he's on your list and all, Hyuck. I just don't. But that doesn't mean that you need to run away from him, Renjunie. He's not exactly intimidating." For a moment, neither boy spoke, both just staring at Jaemin, then Donghyuck rolled his eyes and sighed wearily.
"Come on, Jaemin. For someone who has a vested interest in this, you are quite possibly the least observant person I know. Use your brain." Renjun wasn't sure exactly what Donghyuck meant, but from the dawning, horrifying realisation on Jaemin's face, it certainly meant something to him. Jaemin flushed crimson and then fell silent, staring at Renjun with an unreadable expression.
"You're not quitting," Donghyuck told him quickly, as he pushed a distracted Jaemin towards the centre of the room, where people were waiting for them. Renjun didn't reply to that, mind already made up that he had no other option, but he settled into his spot without further protest and retrieved his history essay from his bag. He could debate this with Donghyuck later. Much, much later. Maybe even after the musical was over, if he could help it.
--
Forty minutes later, the group of students directly in front of Renjun were putting the finishing touches onto a simple hip-hop dance routine. He had completely forgotten, since it barely concerned him, that today was the day that the dancers had planned to teach the drama students some basic dance moves, since many of them had little or no experience. Those in singing roles probably wouldn't need to dance too much, from what Renjun recalled Jaemin mentioning about Les Miserables, but Dejun and Soonyoung had agreed that it would boost teamwork and morale to teach each other new skills.
There were small several groups dotted around the room, and snippets of various upbeat songs had been mingling in the air around him throughout the session, each group using different ideas and techniques to choreograph a simple dance routine. The dancers had been showing off a little, much to the awe and amusement of the drama students--and Renjun too, if he was honest, after he'd given up on his homework--but there was a sense of camaraderie among the group now that hadn't been there before.
"How do you even make your body do that?" Renjun heard Chenle ask breathlessly. He glanced up to see Chenle poking at Jisung's arm as the freshman practically vibrated each part of his body individually. He wasn't sure what kind of dance that was, but he could admit it was impressive. Chenle seemed to agree, because he was suddenly begging for Jisung to teach him.
"Really?" It was the first word Renjun thought he'd ever heard from the boy, who always seemed uncomfortable and awkward around everyone except Jaemin. He knew he did talk to Jaemin sometimes too, because the other boy had spoken several times of Jisung's surprisingly dry sense of humour when in his element, but he had yet to experience any of that.
He didn't catch what Chenle said in response, distracted momentarily by a sweaty Donghyuck dropping down to the floor beside him, but the next time he saw the pair they were huddled together, both boys speaking rapidly as they conversed with one another. He pointed them out to Donghyuck, who was busy wiping his forehead with the collar of his shirt, and the boy smiled so widely when he saw that Renjun thought his face might break.
"I'm glad they're finally getting along," he told Donghyuck earnestly, both of them watching as Jisung grinned--actually grinned--at something Chenle said. In response, Chenle's whole face lit up as though he'd just been given the best gift in the world, and he returned the smile immediately.
"Me too." Donghyuck shifted slightly so that he leant against Renjun's arm, Renjun instinctively moving closer at almost the same moment to allow him to make himself comfortable. He hadn't even realised he'd moved until Donghyuck's head landed on his shoulder, but he liked how intuitive things had become between the two of them. Renjun knew that there was a lot more going on in Donghyuck's life than their friendship, but he was grateful that Hyuck seemed increasingly comfortable to lean on him for support--both physically and emotionally.
"Hey, Hyuck?" he started to ask, thinking back to their previous discussion of a certain handsome soccer player, but the pocket of Donghyuck's jacket chose that moment to vibrate behind them on the floor, halting the train of thought he'd been about to embark upon. Reaching a hand out blindly behind his body, so as to avoid dislodging Donghyuck, he managed to pull the phone free, handing it to him.
"It's from Jaehyun-hyung," Donghyuck said after a moment, staring down at the screen as he swiped up to view the message. Renjun knew that it had been a while since Jaehyun had been home, not since Donghyuck and he had worked through their differences a few weeks back, and he also knew that Hyuck missed him. They had been texting back and forth, but Jaehyun had initially mentioned some issues with one of his roommates and then he'd had assignments that had kept him busy.
"Did he ever agree to you visiting him?" he asked, as Donghyuck read whatever was on the screen. The brothers had discussed it several times since he'd asked, but Jaehyun had always been reluctant to agree. Donghyuck thought it had something to do with not wanting to introduce his kid brother to his college friends but, whatever the reason, Donghyuck hadn't stopped asking. The boy was nothing if not persistent, which was endearing when you weren't on the other end of it. Renjun secretly suspected Jaehyun would give in eventually, just to get Hyuck to stop asking.
"That's what this is about, actually."
"Really?" He was surprised. He'd just thought about it, sure, but he hadn't expected that to be what Jaehyun was messaging about.
"Well, partially." Donghyuck angled his phone so Renjun could see. There were two messages on the screen. The first, just as Donghyuck had said, was offering for him to drive up on Friday after school and to stay overnight at Jaehyun's dorm. The second...well, the random sequence of numbers and miscellaneous punctuation that followed was completely beyond Renjun's comprehension.
"What does that mean?" He pointed at the second message, and Donghyuck's silent laugh shook his shoulder in response.
"I have no idea." As they pondered the possible explanations for Jaehyun's use of twelve ampersands in a row, the phone lit up again, this time with his brother's caller ID. Donghyuck pushed up off of Renjun, folding his legs in front of him, and pressed the phone to his ear as he answered.
"Hyung?" Renjun couldn't make out what was being said on the other end, but the sounds of several different voices blended cacophonously as they threatened to overwhelm the speaker in the small device. Donghyuck pulled it away from his ear a little, wincing as the chaos continued to rage, and fumbled for the volume control on the side.
"Yeah, I can definitely hear you," Donghyuck said with a smile, nodding even though his brother wouldn't be able to see the movement through the phone. He sighed good-naturedly as someone said something on the other end, then nodded again. "And I can hear you too." He paused, then grinned. "Of course I'm excited to meet you."
The studio was starting to empty rapidly as students left early to change out of their gym wear, leaving only a handful of people scattered around the room. Renjun watched Chenle and Jisung leave together, still talking animatedly to one another, as Jaemin headed over and dropped down heavily on Renjun's other side. Donghyuck turned to them and grimaced apologetically, before focusing his attention back on the call.
"I'm with Renjun and Jaemin." Donghyuck raised an eyebrow at the two boys in question. "I'll tell them, don't worry." He listened intently for another few moments, then grinned. "Can't wait. I'll see you on Friday, hyung."
"What was that all about?" Jaemin asked Renjun, as Donghyuck ended the call and reached around the older boy to drop his phone back on top of his jacket. Renjun shrugged, and Donghyuck took up explaining duties.
"That was Jaehyun-hyung...," he paused, "...and Yuta-hyung. They both say hi." The name rang a bell and Renjun found himself on the same mental page as Donghyuck almost immediately, as the younger boy pointed at Renjun's pocket. "I guess you can go ahead and tick Yuta off already. That man is a force of nature everywhere in the universe, apparently." He smiled again, and the feeling was infectious. "That second message was from Yuta. Jaehyun-hyung never actually told any of his roommates he had a brother--for obvious reasons--so they're very excited to meet me."
The bell rang then, and the three of them scrambled to their feet quickly, realising that they would be late yet again. Donghyuck and Jaemin were still out of uniform, so it was inevitable at this point. Renjun would need to be careful, he thought, or he'd start getting into trouble for being late repeatedly. It would be worth it, of course. It was so worth it, but he still needed to be careful. He didn't want his mom finding out, because she would end him, newly rekindled social life be damned.