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dude, how can you be cringing while listening to sugarcoat...
☆*:.｡.☆彡.｡.:*☆

"you're pathetic, jeno." lucas tosses jeno's phone back over to him with a sigh of disappointment. "you really gotta man up and talk to him yourself. i can't keep doing it for you."

jeno catches his phone with one hand before rubbing his face with the other.

lucas was right.

he definitely had to, but the text was so random, he couldn't bring it in himself to do so without panicking over what to say. and he would.

eventually.

when he felt like he was over jaemin; even just a little. maybe it would hurt less if he wasn't in love with him anymore.

part of him wishes he could move on as fast as jaemin did. he just met dejun a month or so ago, and they've already hit it off. so what was holding him back from doing the same?

"anyway, yeeun's mom is making us breakfast," lucas breaks jeno out of his trance, making it so the blonde looks up at the way the brunette stretches. "so make sure to come down when you're ready, hmm?"

with that, lucas makes his way out of the shared guest room they were sharing.

that's right.

they were at yeeun's house.

it was a little far from campus, being it in dongducheon-si. a little north from where their university was.

they all made a goal to speed run their families houses together starting with yeeun, followed by yukhei, jiwoo, and jeno after an intense game of rock, paper, scissors.

though the idea was kinda stupid, jeno believed they could pull it off and make it back in time.

after all, he didn't really have a home in korea to call his home anymore after his parents sold their house before they moved to japan. plus, his parents weren't in korea and his grandparents were dead.

aunt and uncles were out of the question too...

unless he begs jaehyun and taeil to crash at their place for the night, they'd be going straight back to campus after jiwoo's house.

jeno rubs his palm over his face, "i'll just figure this out later." he mutters under his breath.

he too then gets up, stretching a bit before grabbing his shirt off of the corner of the bed and slipping it on.

when he sees himself in the mirror, he sighs. he really hadn't been getting much sleep lately, and most of it was due to the excessive thoughts he had of jaemin and that stupid dejun kid.

such a stupid reason to be losing sleep.

well, maybe it wasn't too stupid. after all, they were about jaemin. someone who was important to him.

so this was fun! this whole week has been great. low energy, low appetite, all because his ex who assumed he was dating his COUSIN was seeing someone else.

literally what the hell.

life blows.

with a final sigh, jeno gets out of bed and goes to the bathroom where he stares at his reflection for a solid 3 minutes.

he notices the bags under his eyes and the couple of pimples he had on his right cheek. the way his roots were growing in and his incapability to give a fuck about it at all.

jeno looked rough. you might as well just throw him in shibuya and have him fighting with gojo or whatever the hell, he basically looked like him enough to pass as him anyways.

anything but this, whatever this may be.

"nice..." jeno notices a pimple smack dab in the middle of his eyebrows, "just GREAT. I HATE EVERYTHING." he slams his forehead on the mirror and then immediately pulls back holding a hand up to it in pain after realizing what he has just done.

"man fuck this." jeno grabs his face wash and a couple of other hygieneic necessities out of his shower bag and begins to do his entire skin care routine in under a minute, not giving a fuck if it was ruining his skin or anything. there was already a pimple in the most noticeable spot on it anyways, who cares.

nothing matters anymore.

and it wasn't like anyone died or whatever, but as cliche as it sounded, jeno genuinely felt like pieces of him were dying seeing jaemin with some other guy he barely even knew.

THEY JUST MET.

jeno fights the urge to start screaming like a maniac from every single thought running through his head— he was extremely overwhelmed with everything that had happened in the last couple of months or so and it was all really beginning to break his shoulders from holding it all up on them.

back bending from all the weight on it.

his friends thought he was a cheater, his ex thought he was a cheater. literally no one liked him anymore over some stupid fucking situation that could've been fixed in 30 minutes had jaemin just given him the chance to explain.

jeno didn't exactly want to blame jaemin for all of this, but this would NOT have happened if instead of walking his ass out of starbucks, he stayed and listened.

"if he really loved me, he would've fucking listened." he sighs out in defeat. maybe he was the loser. the loser who has what seems like the entire world except for 3 other people against him all for a silly little misunderstanding.

closing his eyes, jeno takes a deep breath.

he was supposed to be having a good time with his newly found friends (except for lucas) and their families. so why was he feeling like he had ran around the world 50 times?

once he opens his eyes, he's met with his reflection again, but this time, he doesn't react to it. jeno simply stares at himself like this was the first time he'd ever seen his own face.

he fixes his hair so that it just barely covers the pimple between his eyebrows, tussling it a bit so that it somewhat falls naturally over it.

"am i the problem?" jeno asks himself, "maybe i'm the problem."

with one last glance at the mirror, jeno takes a step towards the door and turns the handle, opening it only to have 3 people fall onto the floor right in front of his feet.

"WHAT THE HELL?"

"heh..." yeeun, who was on top of lucas's back, scratches the back of her neck as if she was a cartoon character who got caught doing somehing they weren't supposed to be doing. "ha! you... got us."

jeno simply stares at the three of them all piled up on top of each other, before sighing. "were you guys thinking i was gonna call him or something?"

"no," jiwoo gets up off of yeeun and proceeds to help her and lucas up, "but we heard you yell 'I HATE EVERYTHING' and then a loud thud and yeeun's mom was scared you shot yourself or something so we came up to check on you."

"yeah that totally explains why you guys had your ears pressed against the door." jeno frowns at them before yeeun throws herself onto him, giving him a tight embrace while sighing.

"jeno, we know you're going through a tough time," she starts off, "with... past relationships platonic or romantic."

lucas pats yeeun's head and looks at jeno with a kind smile, "we're just concerned about you is all. what if you start reading some manifesto while you're in here alone..."

"guys, i'm not on the suicide watch list." jeno huffs out, "but i understand, and i'm grateful i at least have you guys to confide in. i haven't had this kind of support in a while."

"you'll always have us jookie!"

"what the hell is a jookie?" yeeun takes herself off of jeno to look at jiwoo with her mouth formed into a straight line.

"jeno and pookie... i don't know, what else am i supposed to say?" jiwoo frowns over at yeeun who rolls her eyes, rubbing her face with the palm of her hand as if this was the single most stressful moment of her life.

lucas ends up joining in on the conversation and jeno finally lets loose and let's out a sigh of relief.

because even if it was for one fleeting moment, he felt like the world finally started to spin again. seeing the people he loved showed that they loved him back was enough to ground him somehow.

even if it was just briefly.

"you guys are insane." jeno chuckles out before they all snap their necks to look at him, "you guys turned your heads faster than baby birds in a nest when they see their mom with a worm hello..."

"you're crazier dog, you literally slammed your head on the mirror, because that's what we're assuming the thud was, and," lucas goes to lift the hair jeno had so carefully placed in front of his giant zit to show his forehead off, "you... DID A BOTFLY GET YOU??? GOD DAMN THAT THING IS HUGE."

"QUIT IT." jeno slaps his hand away while looking back at the mirror and fixing his hair again while the other 3 laugh about his giant visitor on his face.

and for once,

jeno forgets about what he was mulling about earlier.

- 🍒 -

the morning was spent looking through yeeun's baby photos with her mom and older sister all while yeeun was trying to rip every single last eyelash off of them out of embarrassment.

it was quite fun, jeno was having a good time finally in what felt like weeks.

learning how to have fun for the first time in forever was... nice.

after the ordeal in the bathroom, yeeun had told him to leave the drama behind at their college and live in the moment. so he shut his phone off and started being more present in conversations.

he felt a little bad knowing he kinda blew off yukhei's grandpa to go cry in the fetal position in his dark ass room, but he'd apologize to him about that later.

when it was time to leave, and after yeeun bawling her eyes out in her mother's arms and punching her sister in the arm, they were off to jiwoo's family home that was closer to campus for the remainder of the day. the following would be right back on campus.

in his dorm.

that he shared.

with jaemin.

jaemin.

jeno cringes without realizing it and yukhei, who was looking over to the right to see if traffic was clear, noticed it and instinctively turned the music down.

"dude, how can you be cringing while listening to sugarcoat..."

"huh?" jeno looks over at yukhei who was looking right back at him, "i wasn't cringing, what are you talking about?"

lucas whistles before turning the car and getting onto the next street, "i glanced over to check if i could turn and i saw the nastiest expression on your face. natty should NAWT be making you feel like that."

"that's unless you're thinking about jaemin again."

jeno turns his head away to look outside at the window, seeing all the street lights and people walking along the sidewalk move past him quicker than he could count to one.

"what's it to you."

"well," lucas stops the car at a red light and starts to tap his fingers on the steering wheel, "it comes down to process of elimination because i know for sure it's not the music and it's not my driving because i'm a great driver." he emphasizes the great in his sentence before pressing down on the gas pedal when the light turns green.

"so it has to be the only other entity in your life that could make you make a face like that."

"i guess." jeno keeps his eyes on the objects outside of the window, "was just thinking about having to go back on campus tomorrow. not too psyched about it to be honest."

there's a moment of silence shared between the both of them, plus just all around silence in the car because the girls had fallen asleep somewhere along the way. jeno not knowing what to say and lucas focusing on the road.

"hey," lucas breaks the silence, pulling into jiwoo's parents driveway, "i'm sorry for being harsh with my words this morning."

"it's fine, you had a point anyways." jeno mumbles.

"sure i did, but i didn't mean to word it the way i did... you're not pathetic, i understand why you're acting like this. i guess i just— i don't know, i don't like seeing you like this." he takes the key out of the ignition, the lights turning on in the car simultaneously as he does so. "like it sucks seeing someone whow as once so lively and full of energy so dull and sad."

"you mean a lot to us, jen. we want the best for you and this... is not the best for you. so my word of advice to you would be to really get up and do something about this or leave jaemin back in high school."

jeno bites his inner cheeks, there's no way either of those choices could be that easy. talking to jaemin and his old friends properly was difficult just thinking about it, in fact, the thought of it made him want to throw up.

leaving jaemin and thw relationship they once shared in the past also made him want to throw up because no doubt about it, jeno still loved jaemin.

what the hell was he supposed to do?

"either way jen," lucas places his hand on jeno's shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze, "what ever you decide to do, we'll always support you and have your back."

"just... make sure to act on what you think is right for yourself and for jaemin."

FILLER ASFFFF LMMMAAAOOOOO

sowwy it's so short

y'all how long has it been, i lost track

like i'm 21 n i have a bf now LMAO i started this at 16. SIXTEEN.... can y'all honestly believe that

i can't

imma have to reread this because i honestly forgor the plot and what was going awn, i'm sorry for being so ia i honestly have the time at night to be writing, but i also have had writers block for this n also i've been playing hello kitty island adventure

i cant make any promises bcz unfortunately i'm an adult w responsibilities, but maybe i'll start to update this again and finally finish it bcz it's been almost 5 years since this started

i lost interest in this book at some point in 2021 and was gonna discontinue it last year tbh but ig we're back in business until further notice

love y'all for supporting this dumpster fire🤍 u guys are the real ogs

i also cant remember what year this takes place in, but  jujutsu kaisen will now be part of this bcz i love nanami n all the others so likeeeeee dont come for me if the timing of this story and the timing of when jjk came out don't align i honestly dgaf anymore

see y'all next time >:)