"A penny for your thoughts?" Jaemin snaps his head up to see Jeno standing before him, smiling somewhat awkwardly that has the younger boy frowning in return.

Scooting to the side to give him some space, Jeno brushes the spot a little before taking a seat beside Jaemin.

"Thought you said you were going home."

"Needed a breather and decided to stop by somewhere." Jaemin smiles sheepishly, almost as if he was caught doing something behind Jeno's back.

"At least stop by where food is near," Jeno jokes about with a scoff escaping his lips following suit. Opening his bag and reaching his hand in to get something.

Soon handing Jaemin two macaroons that were sealed in a Ziploc bag. The latter takes it whilst mumbling his thanks for Jeno's generosity.

"What's on your mind? Unless you don't want to share right now, that's okay too." Jeno adds some reassurance at the end.

The blond haired boy beside him fumbles with the small bag containing food and sighs, "argued with them."

Jeno didn't needed to ask who Jaemin was talking about, it was obvious enough anyway. So he nods and quietly listens for more on what Jaemin has to say.

"They're trying to stop me from hanging out with you, and it's really frustrating. Especially when they keep talking shit about you and not wanting to listen to my side of the story."

"That makes two of us, darling." Jeno bitterly inserts a comment, muttering beside him with an equally bitter smile.

"I don't know how you managed to brush them off as if it was nothing throughout how long it has been." Jaemin says, "I'm already at my breaking point and it's been two days or so."

"I don't know either, but my friends kind of helped me with the whole distraction. So I wasn't really focused on them as much later on." Jeno answers nonetheless.

Jaemin nods curtly, pursing his lips as he then brings up. "About your friends..."

Jeno perks up as well, raising a brow in confusion. "Are they making you uncomfortable? Did they say something bad?" He instantly asks, eyes filled with worry.

The sweet treatment itself has Jaemin chuckling at him, a little amused especially when the brunet boy glares afterwards, thinking Jaemin's kidding around.

"No it's not that... It's just..." Jaemin is struggling a bit on how to word it out.

Although he isn't that close with Jeno's friends yet– because he can't predict the future.

He doesn't want to come off as a jerk to any of them– especially when the topic is about rumors.

And he knows how Jeno feels about rumors. Specifically fake ones at that just to bring someone down.

Another thing is he doesn't want to offend Jeno while at it, he's talking about the brunet boy's own friends for goodness sake, it could literally go south because of this.

Seeing him hesitate to continue, Jeno places his hand on Jaemin's knee and pats it lightly. "Tell me what you want to talk about, didn't I tell you I'll listen regardless of what the topic is?"

"I just don't want to upset you... Any of you..." Jaemin mumbles.

The brunet boy sighs in reply, "like I said." Briefly saying with his thumb now caressing Jaemin's knee in circles.

"Can you tell me more about them? I mean... At least a few facts that I should know about– that everyone should have," he croaks.

Jeno blinks, a little flustered as he didn't expect that. He expected for Jaemin to ramble a long string of complaints about his friends, but he didn't.

In fact, he wanted to get to know them– by asking Jeno due to obvious reasons.

"Were they acting nice to me because of what we have or...."

"Ahh, I know now." Jeno lightens up a bit as he hums when he realizes Jaemin's intentions.

The latter is quite doubtful, he can't blame him of course. After everything they've came across so far, Jaemin is at no fault for not feeling completely sure towards Jeno's "clique".

Besides, the assumptions about them didn't really help– it just made things worse by convincing Jaemin the wrong image of them.

"I can surely tell you that none of that was an act today," Jeno smiles at him as he scoots closer. "First fun fact, they're all great actors." Winking at the end.

Jaemin rolls his eyes at that. "We really made you think we're a bunch of cocky, ignorant and egotistical assholes, huh?" Jeno snickers.

"Shut up." Jaemin looks away, somewhat embarrassed for his own ignorance. "I at least know now, right?"

"Mhm," Jeno happily hums at his positivity at the end. "Not a lot of people do, so consider yourself very lucky!"

Jaemin chuckles as he lets Jeno continue. "Which one of them really seemed like a bitch to you?"

"Oh come on! I can't answer that!" Jaemin whines.

"Why not?"

"I'd sound rude and once they hear about this, they'll think of me badly."

"Aww, you're scared they won't accept you to be mine." Jeno purrs with his eyebrows wiggling in a joking manner.

It has Jaemin snorting, finding it silly but his words were true in a way.

"But fear not, hot stuff, I can assure you that won't happen because you're amazing. And hot, did I mention that?"

Jaemin blushes and clears his throat at Jeno's behavior today, feeling very flirty and confident– almost like before.

But now Jaemin doesn't hate it.

He low-key craves for more.

"Yes you have."

"Good, because it's true." Jeno smiles proudly, leaning in with his index finger now tracing circles on Jaemin's knee.

"Patrine." Jaemin squeaks out, resulting Jeno to lean back a little to scan him with his eyebrows furrowed.

Brushing off the voices scolding him for ruining the damn moment himself, he gulps. "Patrine... Uhm, I know she already apologized–"

"That's understandable, she's most likely the one to be misunderstood, I'm in second place." Jeno shrugs his shoulders in nonchalance.

And Jaemin feels bad, hearing that, it makes it obvious that Jeno and his friends are misunderstood quite often but they act completely fine on the outside.

"Patrine can be mean and strict, in ways. But if it's not because of her mask, then she's just in a bad mood and you're in a bad timing." He says.

"When we go to parties, it's a distraction for all of us. Even Amy," Jaemin raises a brow at that. "You didn't expect her didn't you?" Jeno giggles.

Getting a nod in reply, he continues to explain about Patrine– Jaemin's sort of main point.

"What about that time you hosted a party at your place? You sounded really tired and didn't want to do it..." He brings up.

Jeno hums and ponders in thought to explain it clear enough.

"Patrine was going through some shit, she needed a getaway and because there wasn't any parties nearby, especially hosted by people from school, my place was the option."

"Why not hers or the others?"

"They also had shit going on, with my parents out for months, there wasn't any other choice." Jeno says and then adds, "don't worry, I always ask permission."

"You know, Patrine was the first one out of all of them to really understood me. I know it kinda seemed like some fake friendship and all that, but what can I say? We can be moody at times."

Sighing, Jeno smiles a little. "I'm not defending them because they're my friends, but because that's just the truth."

Jaemin nods in understanding, thanking the heavens that he's finally gotten some more information about these damn rumors and images of these people.

Jeno leans in to kiss his cheek, "can we share the macaroons? All this explaining stuff has me starving."

Seeing the pout on Jeno's lips, Jaemin can't help but laugh wholeheartedly, cooing as he unzips the bag before they started sharing the food with smiles on their faces.