Summer Crushes | Jeongchan

seven

They don't talk about it until a couple of weeks later. It's not that they were avoiding the topic, they simply didn't feel the need to talk about it when they understood it between themselves that once upon a time, there was a suggestion of feelings between the two of them, and maybe those feelings have not only been re-awakened ever since they met again, but have also evolved into something more than a child's summer puppy love.

More often than he'd like to admit, Jeongin had noticed how Chan's touches lingered a little longer on him nowadays. The older was already fond of showing physical affection but as the days pass, Chan finds more and more ridiculous excuses to place a hand on Jeongin's elbow or kiss his cheeks or anything else that Jeongin doesn't mind Chan doing even without a half-baked explanation before he does it.

He finds it even more amusing when Changbin is close by, always ready to throw a teasing remark at Chan and reminding him of how lovesick he was when he returned from Busan; and Jeongin likes hearing about itㅡ likes the confirmation that he wasn't the only one so hung up on that one summer that even the people close to them can't forget about it.

Jeongin is currently watching Chan doodle something into the back of his math notebook. They were doing homework in the library with Felix and Seungmin after school but the other two were currently in the cafeteria for a quick snack. Chan and Jeongin would have come with them but they weren't too hungry yet.

Chan had already finished all his homework and he could have gone home by now like Minho had but he insisted on waiting for everyone else (read: Jeongin) to finish so that they could leave together.

Not that Jeongin is getting any closer to finishing his history homework when he's currently staring at the older boy seated next to him.

"Are you done?" Chan asks after a while, eyes still on his notebook.

Jeongin blinks out of his reverie. "Hm?"

Chan chucklesㅡ Jeongin makes out a doodle of a snake with a crown as Chan closes his notebookㅡ and looks up at Jeongin with mirth sparkling in his eyes. "With your homework."

Jeongin glances down at his homework and shakes his head. "Nope."

"How about with staring at me?" Chan teases and Jeongin thanks his decision thirty seconds ago to look away from Chan.

He clears his throat. "Maybe."

Chan chuckles again, and Jeongin busies himself with pretending to do his homework as a silence falls over them. It no way awkward but Jeongin can almost sense the internal dialogue Chan is having with himself so he waits for Chan to finish.

When his internal dialogue comes to a conclusion, he pokes Jeongin's shoulder to ask for his attention. When he's granted Jeongin's focus, he takes another moment to gather himself before he asks, "Hey, how about we go out sometime?"

"Like what we do all the time?" Jeongin asks with a short chuckle.

"No, I meant, since I was your first love and all." there's a lilt in Chan's voice that suggests that he's teasing. Jeongin recognizes the glint in Chan's eyes that shines with amusement but also a hint of genuinity that Chan never runs out of when it comes to Jeongin.

"Are you really going to use that against me?" Jeongin groans as much as he could given that they're still in the library and he couldn't make much noise. He compensates by repeatedly tapping the side of his fist against Chan's shoulder in small punches.

"You were mine, too." it was quietㅡ because they were in the library, because Jeongin wasn't supposed to hear it, because Chan was too hesitant to say it any louder, neither of them knowㅡ and Jeongin almost misses the statement altogether but he does hear it, and when he does, his fist stops mid-punch.