angel horns ; norenmin [ ✓ ]

epilogue³⁶

a year has gone by.

jaemin's feeling really, really happy.

ushered out of the hot building along with his best friends and fellow students he graduated with, happy voices filling the air as he stepped outside with the thankfully cool breeze.

many things were happening at once: chenle was hugging jisung tightly with tears falling down his cheeks, mark and donghyuck were celebratory kissing each other for everyone to see, yangyang was being hugged by his parents, yukhei was just smiling lovingly at jungwoo as he held his hand... everyone looked happy.

jaemin looked away from his friends, seeing daehyun off with his mother, looking proud while his mother look rather sulky. she had the same pointed face and black hair, a tight frown on her young-looking face. daehyun caught jaemin's eye, suddenly had the same frown as her, and urged her to walk away.

jaemin just smiled — he had enough of seeing that jerk's face.

"so," came yuta's voice as he neared, sicheng and their son, shotaro, right behind him. "you did it. you finally graduated."

"yep!" jaemin's eyes shone.

"that's mean it's definitely time to start thinking about the next step," yuta went on cheerfully. "college."

"uh-huh, college..." jaemin nodded with a more awkward smile on his face now. see, his plan with staying with his royal boyfriends doesn't exactly make space for college of all things to be added. sure, he and sicheng knew that he was dating again, but they didn't exactly know about that.

"we're proud of you, nana," sicheng said kindly, though his eyes looked shiny. "gosh, i feel like a proud parent."

"you basically raised me," jaemin reminded him and his brother-in-law gave him a watery smile.

"you aren't leaving, are you?" shotaro suddenly asked sadly. "dad said you don't stay when you go to college but i want you stay, uncle nana!"

"i can always visit, taro," jaemin said, the young adult patting his young nephew's head. "i won't be gone forever."

"really?" that got shotaro to smile. "yay!"

he hugged jaemin tightly, the taller male hugging him back with a chuckle. when they pulled apart, yuta spoke again. "didn't you say you were heading off to celebrate graduating at some party?"

"oh yeah, i did," jaemin said. though, he had a feeling he wouldn't even go, even if his group of friends were.

"then, we'll leave you to do that, just get home before nine," yuta said. "just because you're eighteen now, doesn't mean you can't follow the rules, since you still live under my roof."

"alright," jaemin resisted the urge to roll his eyes. yuta gave him a tight hug before leaving with his family, letting jaemin walk off back to his friends.

chenle was still crying tears of joy, his boyfriend wiping away his still falling tears. everyone looked just as happy as jaemin was, grinning at each other, not exactly excluding chenle, of course, who was giving jisung a watery, soppy smile full of affection.

"we did it!" donghyuck burst out, one of his arms around mark's neck. "i can't believe it."

"you always make everything so overdramatic," mark said. "of course we were going to graduate."

"i dunno, i had doubts," yukhei started.

"oh, no, you didn't," jungwoo cut in.

"i'm honestly not ready for college though," yangyang said.