cynical | soonhoon

21 || the begrudging

it had gone better than jihoon had expected it to go, considering jihoon had imagined that the whole room would reject his song and boo him out of the classroom. after all, jihoon had a thing for expecting the worst outcomes in every situation he was in just like how he had a thing for seeing the worst in everyone he met.

jihoon wasn't met with a booing crowd after he gave a mini performance of the song he was working on to the club. instead he got a few cheers, they were from seokmin and soonyoung, the rest of the members clapped loudly for him.

afterwards some of the members came up to jihoon with a few ideas for the song, as well as ideas for their own songs. it was actually pleasing to have other people asking to collab with him, it was such a contrast from writing songs at home to battle his loneliness.

hansol, one of the club members, was one of those who approached jihoon with plans to collaborate for a song. he mentioned to jihoon about how he was a rising soundcloud rapper and even showed off with a perfomance of a verse of his latest song, lotto, to jihoon.

performing gave jihoon such an adrenaline rush, he was sure that given another opportunity to do so again jihoon wouldn't hesitate to perform another piece for the group.

and when he did so, both jun and minghao made sure to make it clear that the next time that happened they were to be with jihoon, dancing along to his song.

"look at you being a big shot now huh? when you get rich and famous, don't forget who stuck by your side even when you tried choking him to death." seungcheol fake cried as he approached jihoon. jihoon scoffed at the bad acting seungcheol was displaying, he was used to his best friend being silly like that.

"look in my defense, I told you not to steal my favorite pencil or else and you did it anyways." seungcheol pouted at jihoon, earning a loud laugh from the shorter male that attracted the attention of their nearby peers.

not many of the club members had gotten to see jihoon's happier side yet so seeing him laugh with seungcheol was like seeing a real life unicorn having a tea party with both bigfoot and the abominable snowman.

"okay but you didn't have to choke me out for a dang pencil." jihoon stopped laughing to see seungcheol crossing his arms at him with an angry expression on his face. it wasn't really because seungcheol was angry, he just liked to pretend he was. I guess you could say he felt more wronged than angry by the near-death experience. "I was like seven!"

"who's talking about choking and how can I get in on this action?" jeonghan appeared practically out of thin air and almost scared the hell out of seungcheol with his sudden question.

really both him and joshua had been on the sidelines, eavesdropping to check for the perfect timing to submit themselves into the two best friends' conversation, but seungcheol and jihoon were too occupied to notice.

"hey if we're choking each other, I call dibs on choking hannie. I have a lot of pent up anger against him that needs to be resolved before I snap and murder him." joshua said in a very murderous tone that made him sound almost inhuman (I'm ready to see joshua get his revenge on jeonghan and hosh).

jeonghan looked over to his partner in crime and the two stared each other down before breaking out into laughter while swinging their arms around each other's shoulders.

"I swear can you both go one day without trying to kill each other?" seungcheol looked annoyed by the presence of the two seniors, sometimes he questioned why he was even friends with them.

"well we can but then we'd crack and try to kill you. it's either us or you cheol." jeonghan answered quite sincerely. next to him, joshua hummed in agreement to his statement. the only time they didn't tease each other was when they were picking on seungcheol.

while the three began to feud with each other, honestly it was more of a jeonghan and joshua teaming up on seungcheol type of situation, jihoon tried his best to ignore them. he looked around awkwardly and spotted soonyoung across the room, standing at the snacks table.

jihoon wanted to go over and talk to the blonde student for once. he felt like thanking soonyoung for the luck before his performance (he almost blushed just thinking about the peck on the cheek) but was stopped short by the sight of wonwoo with soonyoung.

it was weird to see wonwoo alone with soonyoung, mingyu was almost always by his side, and jihoon felt even weirder seeing the two friends laugh and interact with each other in a warm way.

sure it looked like they were fooling around, soonyoung was growling and imitating wonwoo's voice, but both of them seemed really into the conversation.

that was when jihoon decided not to approach soonyoung and stayed with his three arguing friends. he didn't want to interrupt soonyoung and wonwoo's conversation, especially since they seemed to have a thing for each other.

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I couldn't help but write a small new comedic chapter while editing the others 👉👈