DRAMA CLUB | hyunin ✔

.36

jeongin felt like the child of a divorce, sitting in between both hyunjin and chan at the dinner table while both boys openly tried to outstare each other over his head.

the english workbook was open on a random page, and jeongin was writing nonsense and erasing it, just to pretend that was an actual study session.

hyunjin changed his position, planting his elbow on the table and resting his chin on his hand. he was the first to break the silence: "so, innie, what are you studying? i'm pretty good at english myself!"

chan scoffed. he had his arms crossed over his chest, as if wearing an imaginary straitjacket.

"are you, even?" he said, ironically.

hyunjin's expression changed drastically at the sound of chan's voice.

"uh-huh, I do, actually," hyunjin snapped back.

"really?" chan leaned on the table, "i'm sure you wouldn't mind proving, then?"

there was a quick, sharp motion coming from hyunjin, his hands slapping over the wooden table, then the sound of the chair squeaking against the floor. jeongin flinched, startled.

hyunjin was standing tall above them, fists clenched. he raised a hand to point at chan. his eye was twitching slightly. both he and chan were frozen on the spot, waiting for what he would do next.

hyunjin's finger moved, pointing at something close to chan. he inhaled and proclaimed, in a very strange english: "pass meh dah buh-rah, mate!"

jeongin frowned, completely confused. how could hyunjin speak like that, with such confidence, and get it all wrong? it certainly wasn't right! jeongin cringed, turning to look at chan, and bracing himself for the second-hand embarrassment that would come from watching chan humiliate hyunjin over his flawed english.

but what jeongin saw left him even more confused:

chan had his eyes widened, completely taken aback. what had hyunjin said that made him look like that? was this situation just like when you hiss back to a cat, but your human accent is so bad it gets offended rather than surprised?

chan looked at the plate with a half-finished stick of butter. it was close to the jam jar and a plate full of bread: brain food, his mom had called it. he slowly slid the plate of butter towards the other side of the table.

did... did hyunjin just ask for butter?

the said boy got back to his seat, falling down on the chair heavily and making as much noise as possible, noisily grinding the feet of the chair in an annoying squeak squeak squeak to get closer to the table, all the while staring right back at chan with narrowed eyes and lips tightly closed.

the situation could be comical, but jeongin was just so shocked by all the turning of events that he was terrified of even breathing too loud. where was his mom to save him now?

hyunjin reached for the plate, ignored the knife and bare-handedly grabbed the stick of butter, and stuffed it all inside his mouth.

he chewed it slowly as chan, flushed, tried to get them to finally focus on the workbook.

---

felix let out a loud, joyous laugh at jeongin's face.

"i'm glad you find my suffering funny," he muttered, angrily looking around the hallway, hoping someone would come in so they would be forced to stop talking.

they were back in the same place felix revealed chan was a possible criminal: in a random flight of stairs. this particular place, they came to know, was rarely frequented by anyone else, since it was close to a library and, apparently, nobody in that school ever read a fucking book. nonetheless, it was the perfect hide-out.

in the wall in front of him was a big poster with han jisung's face on it. jisung's mouth was wide open in a big smile and he gave a thumbs-up. the words MAKE SCHOOL COOL AGAIN! VOTE JISUNG! were engraved on it. jeongim cringed at trump's recycled words, but decided it was not far from what his opponent had going on. lee minho's motto was, "ONLY SUCKERS VOTE FOR LOSERS! VOTE FOR MIN AND WIN!"

felix was wiping tears away from his eyes, "really, innie, your life is a movie."

"yes, a horror movie," jeongin retorted.

"a comedy!" felix insisted.

jeongin rolled his eyes.

felix gathered himself together, fixing his hair and unwrapping a lollipop. he sucked on it as he handed a phone to jeongin.

it wasn't only a phone. it was a dinosaur of a phone. a flip up phone! did they even fabricated these anymore?

he lifted his eyebrows at it, "what's this?"

felix slipped the lollipop out of his lips with a loud pop! and pointed at the phone with it.

"this, my dead friend, is our walkie-talkie. our exchanged love letters! our shared journal! a magic mirror!"

jeongin made a move to leave.

"wait, wait! okay," felix sighed, "it's a burner phone. your untraceable way to communicate with me."

jeongin opened it, struggling to figure out how to use it.

felix continued, voice muffled from the lollipop: "if i dare say it, jeongin..." he was back typing away on his phone, "you're my secret agent now."