DRAMA CLUB | hyunin ✔

.20

at the next project group meeting, everything felt a gazillion times more awkward. not for less, if you count the events before. it was not exactly comfortable to be in the same room with the guy you punched.

the tension was thicker than molasses, drowning jeongin in quicksand which each second he sat there, on the floor of his room, trying not to look at any of the boys who were also trying to avoid each other, sitting on opposites of the room.

as chan was beside jeongin, hyunjin had taken a place on jeongin's bed, still chewing on that damn toothpick while all his limbs were splattered over the mattress, reminding jeongin of careless summer afternoons and his mom's baked cookies. was there ever a moment in his life when jeongin thought of him like this? the audacity! how could he look that while they were trying to concentrate on the project!

one of hyunjin's foot hung out of the bed, moving freely through the air back and forth, back and forth, back and forth...

"... so when we mix it with iron," chan was babbling in the background, "it turns out blue."

hyunjin's foot was still performing its hypnotic movements, so chan's words sounded kind of cloudy, especially when hyunjin eyes caught his and he arched a defined brow which oh, god... did he do his eyebrows? they didn't unite in an unibrow anymore, and maybe that was what was trapping jeongin's eyes on him.

a hand fell on his thigh.

"jeongin." it sounded like a reprimand coming from chan. jeongin has flashbacks of his detention teacher. "you know the project isn't only doing the experiment, right? you guys have to explain, too."

jeongin bowed his head, trying to focus on chan's explanation rather than hyunjin's face. what a turn of events it had come to. there was a time where not even an earthquake could tear his attention from his senior.

"good. so, when you mix the thiocyanide ion with iron, you get a reddish col--"

"thiocyanate." hyunjin interrupted, making both of them startle.

chan frowned at him. "what?"

hyunjin still looked unbothered, foot still moving, tooth still picking. he just said, "you pronounced it wrong."

chan chuckled in disbelief, "no. i didn't."

"sure you did." hyunjin insisted, "maybe you were thinking of ferrocyanide, the one that turns h2o blue. they're quite similar, i guess."

either jeongin was turning crazy or chan was turning red.

"anyways." he turned to jeongin, back facing hyunjin. he concentrated only on jeongin as he went back to explaining: "so, the chemical reaction of iron in water makes it so that--"

"you can't just say 'water' in a scientific setting. it's h2o, pure water. you've got to put emphasis on that, or you're just going to look like an amateur." hyunjin said.

jeongin looked wide-eyed at hyunjin over chan's shoulder. when did he become so studied in this area? that was... really impressive.

chan clearly didn't seem to think the same.

he turned slowly at hyunjin, veins in his neck popping out as if he was turning into hulk or something. oh, no.

"and you know a lot about being an amateur, don't you, hyunjin?"

hyunjin spat the toothpick on the floor right in front of chan, a cocky smile painted his face when he said, "it takes one to know one."

and then hell broke loose.

jeongin wasn't strong enough to stop chan from hurling himself into hyunjin. the next second, they were rolling on his bed, aimlessly throwing punches at each other. jeongin was surprised to see hyunjin had a fair chance on the fight. did he grow muscles in such a short amount of time?

jeongin tried to separate the two, fearing they were going to break his bed. on the scuffle, jeongin ended up in the middle of the two, facing hyunjin as chan apparently used him as a human barrier.

hyunjin's pupils were blown and nostrils open wide, breathing heavily as he stopped a fist from colliding with jeongin's face at the last second. he had a small cut on his jaw, but that was it.

his door creaked slightly open and then his mom's head popped out.

"jeonginne, are you and your boys finished? i brought snacks!"

gee, ma, jeongin thought, thanks.