ADOMANIA || zhong chenle

chapter 44

daiyu had been absolutely right.

chenle and her had not shared a single glance ever since their fight.

actually, she did look at him, and she was pretty sure that he did so too, it just never happened at the same time.

whether she was in history class, or in the cafeteria — daiyu's eyes immediately searched for chenle.

hell, she even found herself scanning the crowd in the hallways between classes, hoping to see him there.

but he would make sure to show her that he wasn't bothered by the sudden distance between them, giving her absolutely no sign of aknowledgement.

to their luck — or dismay? — chemistry class wasn't all about their projects anymore, meaning that they could also avoid interaction there.

daiyu hadn't told any of her friends about the fight, but she was sure that at least seon-ok and yua were starting to notice that something was off.

and if they hadn't, everyone in their friendgroup(s) found out the following thursday at lunch.

"seriously, what is wrong with you two? two weeks ago y'all were all buddy-buddy messing around and annoying us all, but now god forbid that you even look at eachother? did you fight?"

jieun had once again gotten the fantastic idea to invite her boyfriend's friends to their table for lunch.

and as much as daiyu had wanted to run away the moment she noticed what was going on, she figured that it would be way too obvious.

maybe they could just not talk to eachother and nobody would notice.

if only hyewon hadn't called them out.

she didn't recieve a response from either of the two though, making her stand up from her seat and slam her hands down on the table, causing just enough noise to gain the attention from the people sitting at her table, but not the whole cafeteria.

"did you fight?"

daiyu felt like snapping at her and telling her to stay out of their business and worry about what she was doing to her own relationship with the chinese boy, but that would've been really out of line.

so she kept quiet, simply shaking her head, while chenle didn't even blink.

"okay, you aren't kidding anyone. what's going on?"

ara joined the interrogation.

daiyu glanced over to chenle, and to her surprise, he was already looking at her.

for an instant, she could've sworn that she saw a flicker of emotion — something dejected, or apologetic — in his iron gaze.

but just as fast as it had appeared there, it was gone, leaving her staring at those cold, emotionless eyes that she remembered very well from the previous tuesday.

and then — finally — he spoke up.

"it's nothing that concerns you. leave it be."

even his friends seemed shocked at the cold words that came out of his mouth.

something was seriously off.

for a moment, daiyu thought that it may have been something like the day of their grocery-trip. that maybe, he had gotten possessed again.

but then again, it didn't feel like it had that time.

no, this was really him speaking. she was sure of it.

on the other side of the table, jisung and renjun were sharing worried looks.

chenle wasn't usually like that(obviously).

when mad, he'd get annoying and clingy, and try to piss you off.

what they were faced with now though, was the very rare state that chenle was put in whenever he didn't know how to handle his emotions — which didn't happen all that often.

renjun wondered if chenle had told jisung about whatever was going on, but by the looks of it, the younger boy didn't know anything either.

'does chenle even know that himself though?'

of what chenle considered his closest friends in school, jisung knew him the best — but renjun the longest.

when chenle's family immigrated to korea back when the boy was only four years old, the huang family had been one of their only acquaintances in the new country. so it was only natural that renjun and chenle played with each other a lot as kids.

he helped chenle make friends in both kindergarten and elementary school, and was the one who introduced him to jaemin and jeno. in middle school, three other boys joined the group. of course chenle ended up befriending the one closest to his age, but his bond with huang renjun didn't falter.

and in all those years of knowing him, renjun hadn't seen chenle act the way he was acting now more than two or three times.

but he couldn't get around the reason.

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daiyu sat in the shower.

she had finished a long while ago already, and the water was turned off, but maybe you've noticed already — the shower was a great place for daiyu to think.

and she had plenty of reasons to do that at the moment.

after a near-death experience, daiyu had thought that her life couldn't get much worse.

though she had been very happy in the month following the incident.

a lot happier than usual.

there was a small voice inside her head, telling her that maybe, zhong chenle had played his part in that as well.

but that didn't make sense, not when he was currently the reason of all her worries.

but nothing made sense at the moment anyway.

daiyu couldn't wrap her head around why he had gotten angry with her.

just because of seonwoo? or was there some other reason that he didn't tell her about?

or did he know something about him that she didn't? something that he had yet to tell her about, too?

sure, those things he listed were kind of suspicious.

but where was the evidence of him treating his friends badly? chenle could've perfectly made that up.

and why did it matter if he had a tattoo? a lot of kids their age did nowadays, that wasn't anything special.

daiyu would be lying if she said that she didn't consider the option of chenle being jealous too.

jealous of seonwoo for getting along with her, or maybe even jealous in a romantic sense.

but again; that didn't make sense.

after all, there had never been anything between them. not even friendship, probably.

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chenle doesn't make sense to me either ngl

also sneaked in a little insight into 7dream's friendship in the story, and you may have noticed that it's not based on real events at all lol