Lovesick // TOMORROW X TOGETHER [TaeBin / SooKai]

Chapter 19 - How do I hide away my feelings?

Taehyun saw Yeonjun sitting at his usual spot in the cafeteria again. Nothing much changed since he was absent the day before. He was still sitting alone at his usually full table, staring at the lunch pack his mom made while having this apathetic, wrathy expression on his face.

His friends were sitting at a table at the other end of the cafeteria and looked over to their friend with concern. They once tried to talk with him when Soobin told them what had happened before the summer began, but since then they only watched him from afar, worried about causing another outburst like that again.

For Taehyun, it seemed that reaching out to Yeonjun again might have not worked like Soobin had hoped. But that wasn't his concern at all. He was concerned about Soobin's behavior since he suddenly left school to go find Yeonjun.

He was silent. He had barely spoken two sentences that day and was now absently poking at his food with a fork. It worried Taehyun more and more that Soobin grew distant from him and everyone else it seemed.

Normally, Soobin would go up to Yeonjun and try to convince him to get him to sit at their table. But today he didn't even look over to him just once. He pretended that Yeonjun wasn't there, that he hadn't been in a car and on a road trip with him. He acted like they didn't know each other.

It was something that Yeonjun always wanted. And Taehyun wondered what had happened yesterday for Soobin to finally leave Yeonjun alone just like he had yelled at his face so many times before. What did Yeonjun do to him?

Just as he wanted to ask Soobin if he would want to go up to Yeonjun and ask him about his well-being, Jay, Nick and Jake stood up from their table and went up to Yeonjun. Their steps were careful but determined. It seemed like they had discussed trying their luck again with Yeonjun, just with their gazes, because so far Taehyun hadn't seen them talking to each other before they got up.

But their hope crumbled quickly when Jay put a hand on Yeonjun's shoulder, to either reassure him or to make them notice of their presence, because he flicked him off immediately, stood up without giving them at least a glance and sought the far.

The squeak of the chair legs across the floor was so loud that a few students looked over to the popular boys and started whispering in their gossip voices again. Taehyun never understood those kinds of people. He never understood why complete strangers thought they had the right to judge something they weren't even involved in and in the end just spread pure rumors of what they claimed they heard from up close.

Meanwhile, Soobin had silently watched the drama happening from afar and got caught with three pairs of eyes who looked at him worriedly and with a cry of help.

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In class, Soobin couldn't shake the feeling that Taehyun's eyes were on him. He wanted to look out the window for so long, get sucked into the world far away from all this mess that he caused, but instead his gaze was locked on the school work in front of him. He had scribbled on the paper beneath the actual school work, hiding it from anyone and everyone.

He was embarrassed. How could he even think of him at school? At the place where one of the most important people in his life was with him? Where there was the only person that he introduced to his mom as his boyfriend? How could he dare to think about a long-haired skater boy, who most of the time invited himself to a meet-up that Soobin didn't even approve of?

But in reality he did. He did when he refused to say no, when he said nothing instead. He did when he started taking polaroid pictures with him, when he took a ride on the carousel with him and when he watched the lake with him. Soobin never drew a line with the things he did. He liked it instead. He liked that he was so extroverted. That he was so...himself.

"Taehyun?" The teacher called out and Soobin took a sneaky glimpse over to his boyfriend.

"The answer is 25."

"Correct."

Taehyun tilted his head to Soobin and he quickly flung his head back to his scribbles.

No. No, it is wrong. These feelings are wrong, they are not true. This extroverted behavior is only that, it's only extroverted. It's nothing more. There isn't more. There would never be more.

Soobin felt his heart racing as he sensed the heaviness of Taehyun's gaze on him. He knows everything, after all he can read Soobin's mind and mood like an open book. He must ignore these feelings, the feelings that are just irritating, garbled snippets of thoughts that came up because of all the anxiety he's been feeling lately. Nothing more than just nonsense.

It would hurt Taehyun. If it was real, it would hurt him really bad. Soobin knows about Taehyun's past and how that changed his perception of love. It would destroy him to know that the one person who made him feel that love could be different, that it could be persistent and unconditional, proved him wrong and showed him that the world was just as cruel as he had imagined it to be since he was young.

He would be disappointed. He wouldn't love him anymore. He would hate him. Soobin can't feel like this. He can't feel this gibberish of thoughts and feelings that aren't real and aren't true. He needs to ignore them. They would go away. They would go away pretty soon. Soobin was convinced.

Slinky fingers slipped a small folded paper on Soobin's desk. He lifted his head up from his scribbles and looked over to Taehyun who only nodded to the folded paper for Soobin to read. Heat shot into Soobin's head. When he unfolded the paper, he read what was written on it.

>>Let's go to your nostalgic playground today.<<