home, jaemin

chapter forty-eight

"please, please, explain. i really don't want to believe what i think is happening," he said quickly and quietly, more tears falling from his eyes.

"n-no, it's not like that, i promise. i'd never do anything like that to you, jaemin. and jeno wouldn't ever think about doing that to nayeon. you know that, right? i promise." she rushed out.

jaemin nodded, he believed her. he had no reason not to believe her.

jiyoung reached upward, wiping a few tears off of his cheeks. "their anniversary is coming up. i was helping jeno plan it because he knows nayeon and i hang out a lot."

it made sense. their anniversary was only a few days away. jaemin's shoulders released their tense as his arms went around jiyoung's body, wrapping her in a tight hug.

"can you just answer a question? just one?" he asked, not lifting his head from her back. jiyoung nodded, waiting for the question. "why.. why was jeno fixing his shirt when we saw you guys. i heard what you said before you saw us. you said something was cute."

jiyoung sighed, removing her arms from his waist and pulling away to reach into her back pocket to pull out her phone.

she opened her camera roll and went to one of the last pictures.

jeno wearing a matching tux with a giant polar bear stuffed animal- nayeon's favorite animal.

"jeno's mom wanted pictures of him in his tux with the stuffed animal because she thought it'd be cute. hence why he was fixing his shirt under his hoodie. i hadn't seen the bear until today and joked that it was so cute nayeon would choose it over jeno when she saw it. when we were in the hallway i was looking at the photo and said "it's still cute" or whatever and put my phone away but jeno was still jokingly upset at the joke i made because he wanted to be nayeon's favorite."

jaemin listened attentively. everything made sense to him. all the puzzle pieces went together. except for one. "why are you guys at the school, though?"

"only jeno and i know about his surprise so we couldn't hide it at anyone else's house. obviously, since we both spend so much time with nayeon, she's bound to eventually find it if we were to put her gifts at one of our houses. so we asked the school and they let us use an empty supply closet to store everything."

"can i see it?"

jiyoung hesitated, not too sure if it was best to take jaemin to the closet without asking jeno first but she knew that the two were also best friends and jeno probably trusted jaemin enough.

"promise you won't say anything to anyone?"

jaemin nodded eagerly, wanting to know what all jeno was hiding and why it was taking so long to put together.

the two walked hand in hand through the school and made it to the door holding the surprise. jiyoung used her second key to open it and get inside, letting jaemin look at everything.

inside was the big polar bear, a few boxes of lights, flowers, presents- labeled for both their anniversary and some with a few other names of the group members wrapped in christmas paper.

"i'm guessing that's also why he didn't want to tell us?" jaemin asked, pointing at the christmas presents in the corner.

jiyoung grimaced, forgetting she and jeno had literally just put those presents in here to keep from everyone else. "secrets out, huh?"

jaemin laughed, once again giving her a tight hug. "i never liked secrets anyways."

this was kinda just a filler chapter before all the actual drama begins