ADOMANIA || zhong chenle

chapter 54

"...hyewon and seongchul are dating."

daiyu froze.

'i heard that wrong, didn't i?'

"h-ha ha, yeah they could really be with how they act sometimes."

but yua didn't seem to be joking.

"i'm serious, daiyu. they've been dating since school started." her friend spoke.

'wait- she's for real? so that time i saw them in the hallway too — they were actually dating the whole time?'

"...but what about chenle?"

it was almost embarrassing to ask that. she really felt bad at the thought of him finding out about his crush dating someone else.

"he knows. he's known for a long time. ever since you got assaulted, that was the day he cleared things up with hyewon. i actually talked to him that day, and he had lost feelings. so there's absolutely nothing going on with them now."

that was quite a lot for daiyu to take in.

"why— why did she never tell anyone? or do all of you know? i actually saw her with choi in a hallway and it was killing me to think that my friend might be cheating on someone, let alone chenle!"

"seon-ok knows too. just like you, she caught them in front of a classroom. i don't get why they are keeping it a secret, but don't tell them you know. i wasn't supposed to tell anyone."

she nodded in an understanding manner. the last thing she wanted was to be the cause of hyewon being angry with yua.

"i wont tell anyone."

humming, yua started to change into her pyjamas, as there wasn't much to do besides studying anymore and she definintely wouldn't be leaving the dorm again that day.

"had dinner already?" she questioned the older girl, who was sitting on the small table in their dorm now, english books in front of her.

daiyu shook her head.

"i'll make us something later."

'wow, that's unusual.'

with a surprised smile, she directed her attention back to her studies, grateful for her friend's good mood.

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"you know, i really don't understand why i'm getting so worked up over this whole chenle thing."

while stuffing her mouth with the food the japanese girl had prepared, she decided to be completely honest with her.

but yua didn't exactly know how to respond to that.

on any other day, she would have straight up told her friend that she had feelings for the boy, even if it wasn't anything deep or very significant yet.

she decided against it, since it probably wasn't the type of advice daiyu needed at that moment.

she'll just save it for when the time's right.

"i mean— i guess you don't always have to understand everything you feel."

"you're right, i guess. it's just weird. he's done nothing but hurt me lately, and still i miss him."

'is it even possible to be this oblivious?'

if she didn't know daiyu as well as she did, yua would have never expected the girl to be that slow.

"i have a feeling that i might know what's going on, but i'll let you figure that out by yourself."

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"haeun, just this once, please~"

chenle stood in front of the library counter, begging the older student to let him into the library's private slash forbidden section.

"i can't abuse mrs jeong's trust like that, chenle." she argued, referring to the grumpy librarian.

"she trusts me to watch the library, if she catches me letting you in there, i'll lose the job."

"you're rich, you don't need a job!"

don't get him wrong, he isn't one to violate rules like that (fat lie detected), but there were sitations were you simply had to.

"for fuck's sake, zhong, i said no!" haeun whisper shouted, slamming the stack of books she was checking out onto the counter. "besides, what would happen with you if someone saw you there? not everyone is convinced of your innocence regarding the poisoning the other day."

okay, he didn't actually think that far, but to be fair; he had only just gotten the idea a few hours ago.

"i don't care about that. please haeun. this isn't even for me— it's for daiyu's good."

a frown adorned the fourth year student's face now.

"what could you possibly find inside the forbitten section that'll do any good to daiyu?"

slowly getting impatient, chenle groaned.

"please, i don't have time to explain, just let me in there real quick. there's basically nobody here anyway. no one will notice."

massaging her temples, haeun took a few seconds to think.

'fuck it.'

"you better tell me that whatever you saw in there helped you save the world or something, zhong chenle."

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'oh my god.'

frozen in shock, chenle stared at the open book in front of him.

he knew exactly what he had been searching for when first entering the library, and who would've thought that he'd find just that in the fifth book he skimmed through already — well, kind of, at least.

'dark organisations of the joseon dynasty' seemed to be missing a page. only the inner corner of what had been a page on some ancient gang was left, but it was enough to give chenle hope.

a drawing of a very familiar flower was displayed there — the one chenle had seen on kim seonwoo's back.

but what was even more interesting, were the letters at the top of what was left of the page.

in bold, black letters, the title was written there;

sanguinaria canadensis

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these two should honestly just make up and make out already