cynical | soonhoon

18 || fatherly smiles

jihoon grumbled as he made his way down the hallway. it was senior spirit week, which meant all the seniors trashed the school with all sorts of confetti and streamers just to build up anticipation for the volleyball tournament jihoon hated so much. to think he would be doing this next year.

the almost empty hallway filled with noises from the school gymnasium, the volleyball tournament had started. since practically all the seniors were at the tournament, it was easier for jihoon to walk down the halls without having to push his way through the crowd.

seungcheol and his friends were seniors, which did bother jihoon to some extent. it meant jihoon wouldn't be able to spend time with seungcheol since he was stuck at the volleyball tournament with the two devils he called his best friends.

seungcheol was in a few of jihoon's classes and even if they didn't speak to each other constantly during them, jihoon still felt some sort of relief just seeing seungcheol sitting in the same classroom as him.

"HEY JIHOONIE COME OVER HERE!" soonyoung unnecessarily yelled down the hallway. his voice was louder than the school bell that had rung just a few seconds prior to his yelling.

"what-" jihoon turned to look at soonyoung, furrowing his eyebrows at the blonde student because of how annoyed he was at the outburst.

it was causing the few students in the hallway to look at the two on the way to their classes. jihoon wished he had it in him to yell at them to mind their own businesses, but he had way more dire things to address.

like what the hell was so important for soonyoung to talk about that he had to interrupt jihoon by screaming at him halfway across the school's hallway.

"let's go watch the tournament!" soonyoung grabbed jihoon by the wrist and pulled him back towards the school gymnasium. jihoon felt his heart flutter like it never had before, and he still couldn't figure out why. "y-you idiot, that's for seniors only and we have class now!"

"seniors shmeniors, they won't even notice we're there! besides it's called skipping class jihoon." soonyoung scoffed and spoke after jihoon pulled on his hand, stopping the two from running into the gymnasium.

jihoon pulled his arm away from soonyoung, cursing internally at the way his cheeks began to burn up at the slightest contact with soonyoung. "I'm not skipping class to watch stupid volleyball."

the shorter male wasn't the biggest fan of volleyball, not to mention he had never skipped a class before in his whole high school career (I cannot relate seeing as I skip whenever I have the chance, ha I'm cooler than jihoon 😎).

soonyoung smiled at the flustered student standing before him. jihoon didn't know, but the blonde student could see right through his facial expressions and could tell that jihoon seemed a bit skeptical about skipping.

"yeah, we're skipping class to watch stupid volleyball. I'm glad we're on the same page jihoonie, let's go already!" soonyoung exclaimed playfully as he reached for the door to the noisy gymnasium with one hand and held out his other hand for jihoon to grab.

he turned back to see jihoon still looking a bit doubtful about the whole skipping thing. the shorter male kept his head down as he went through all the possible outcomes to skipping; they were mostly negative.

the biggest cons were getting caught and getting detention, along with the fact that jihoon would be basically voluntarily putting himself in a room full of people he hated.

one glance at soonyoung's smiling face though seemed to wash away any doubts jihoon had. he had at least one friend to talk to in the gymnasium, soonyoung was kind of his friend, and he could blame it all on soonyoung if they got caught.

and when soonyoung made eye contact with jihoon, it only pushed him further to agreeing to the bizarre situation he was being put into.

that's how jihoon found himself taking soonyoung's hand as the two crept into the gymnasium to watch the senior volleyball tournament.

it was almost adorable seeing the two kinda friends enjoy their stay in the gymnasium, laughing with each other at all the horrible plays being made by the inexperienced seniors like nobody noticed they were even there.

news flash: seungcheol noticed the two were there the minute they snuck into the gym (okay fine he noticed after jeonghan and joshua pointed it out for him) and was watching them with the most fatherly smile he could muster on his face.

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heavily edited on 08/17/20