"What are you doing?" Renjun gives Jeno a look as the latter was looking for something around the cute little store in the mall.

The younger boy smiles and looks up, pausing on his scavenger hunt for a certain item. "Our monthsary is tomorrow, I want to give Jaemin a small gift."

"Why didn't you tell me? I thought we were just here to buy random things?" Renjun couldn't help but chuckle.

"Sorry, I didn't really know what to buy for him." Jeno excuses, glancing at the items on the small display table beside them.

"And you still have no clue, don't you?" He blushes at the elder boy's words, before the latter adds. "You don't have to buy him anything, you know."

Looking up to meet Renjun's gaze, he listens to him saying, "if Jaemin truly likes you, then he wouldn't really be bothered if you have a gift for him or not."

"But what if he has something for me? I'd look dumb and inconsiderate," Jeno mindlessly pouts at the thought.

The elder boy snorts, "stop thinking so negatively, Jaemin knows you well enough. I'm sure he knows you like him, too." He coaxes.

Pausing to inch closer, he looks around as if he was going to tell Jeno a secret before mumbling. "You do stare at him like a lovestruck puppy."

Eliciting a gasp from the younger boy, he giggles while pulling away when Jeno pushes his shoulder. "Njun!"

"It's true, you can ask the others." The said elder boy continues to tease with a shrug of his shoulders.

Still, Jeno's embarrassed. Cheeks aflame as he bites his tongue, "shut up, I just have a habit of spacing out."  He grits his teeth, the warm feeling spreading throughout his flushing face.

"When Jaemin's with you or around the area, yeah. You sure do have a bad habit." Renjun sarcastically agrees to the younger boy's excuse.

Grumbling, Jeno grabs his wrist and tugs him out of the little store, quickly smiling and thanking the lady by the entrance doors for their service as Renjun was laughing at him.

"You know what, I'll just write him down a note and give it to him by his locker before his class starts." Jeno says, giving up at finding a gift for Jaemin.

"Ooh~ old school style," Renjun wiggles his eyebrows to tease the younger boy even more. "Didn't know Jaemin was into that, Jen."

"Shush it, Njun!"

❈

Once his class ended, Jeno rushes out of his History classroom to search a certain raven haired boy somewhere around the school building.

Usually he'd focus more on going to his respective locker to grab a few things for his next class, but there's something much more important right now besides his grades.

Earlier, he told his friends about his plan and they all cheered him on, Chenle suggesting not to do it at lunch instead.

Saying along the lines of, "I already have enough of Donghyuck hyung and Renjun hyung's weird tension."

So here he is, looking for Jaemin just before the next bell rings so he can give him his rushed yet cute little handwritten note.

Spotting a familiar figure, as expected at the person's locker, Jeno feels a sudden energy rush through him.

"Jaemin!" Jeno calls out, running up to the elder boy, who was at his locker grabbing something.

"Yeah?" The elder boy hums and turns his attention away from said locker and now onto Jeno, letting the latter catch his breath once he reaches up to him.

"Did you forget it's our monthsary today?" Jeno raised a brow at him, but his eyes were smiling and showing so much joy in them.

Jaemin all but knits his eyebrows at his words, "what?" He asked, baffled.

Jeno gave him a bored look, "you're being forgetful again, Jaem." He comments, "our monthsary? Hello? I like you too?" He then snickers to himself.

Jaemin paused for a moment, slowly closing his locker shut as he finally spoke up again, "huh? I thought we were just friends?"

And before Jeno could react to his words, the bell rang and Jaemin had left him at his locker, not forgetting to pat him on the shoulder like what bros do.

The small note Jeno was holding, ready to hand it over to the elder boy who he deeply has feelings for, feels sharp and hot.

As if the object between his fingertips is harmful.

The burning feeling on his palms rushes over his body, he's slightly trembling as he froze there like he doesn't have a class to attend to right now.

His throat feelss clogged up, he doesn't know if he wants to scream or cry or throw up, or even laugh at his situation.

Why the hell is this happening? What did Jaemin mean? Did he even mean what he said?

It could be a joke, a stupid little prank Jaemin planned for him to hide something.

Probably a gift, a gift for Jeno too. Jaemin's just saying that to distract him, even in a very mean and hurtful way.

Like some of those prank videos on the web.

"Breaking up with my boyfriend prank." Yeah, that's it. It's probably like that kind of stuff his friends come across through the internet when they're bored.

Jaemin's doing a "Friend-zoning my boyfriend prank." And maybe later, he'll explain his dumb prank once Jeno starts crying.

❈

It wasn't a joke.

Jaemin really did mean what he said.

Because for some reason, he has a small crumpled paper that's been seemingly teared off, in his pants, containing a few digits of someone's number.

Jeno's sure that's not any of theirs. Even with Mark changing his contact number from time to time, Jaemin's one of the first ones to get it.

"Is that from someone in class?" Chenle points out after everyone started to notice and talk about it.

Jaemin nods in reply, "yeah, why?"

"Nothing," the younger boy waves off before asking. "Why do you have it?"

"The girl who gave me this said she likes me," a fond smile displays on Jaemin's face. The same smile Jeno receives everyday at every second they're together.

"And what? You're going to bring her to a date or something?" Donghyuck sarcastically says to joke about. Laughing afterwards but quickly shuts up when Jaemin only smiles.

"NO WAY!" Him and Mark exclaimed while Renjun chokes on his cookie.

"Wait, but I thought–" Jisung couldn't finish what he was about to say due to Jeno clearing his throat.

"Hey, I have to go to the bathroom for a second, I'll be back." A small crack in his voice.

Jaemin, oblivious to what's actually going on, finally laughs and pats Jeno's lower back once the younger boy stood up.

"I told you not to eat the pizza today, baby." He quips.

Usually, Jeno would weakly smack him and shy away. But right now, he wants to throw up.

"Uh, yeah, I should've listened." The younger boy responds as he quickly leaves the room, not noticing Jisung catching up to him too.