With his hopes high for Bada, Taehyeon tries not to think too hard about things with Minjun. He supposes that he can accept that this friendship will never quite be what he wants. He doesn't have to like it, but a mature man with common sense to see that his dreams will only ever exist in his head should have some dignity. Taehyeon just about loses anything that might be mistaken for dignity the second time he is invited to spend a breaktime in Minjun's classroom.
"I think I missed some of the context," Taehyeon offers weakly.
Minjun laughs and then points out one of his friends to explain. Kyungran, helpfully comes to Taehyeon's aid.
"Nayoon read about this scientific experiment and she thinks it will help her find her true love."
"True love?" Taeri asks weakly. She glances aside. Taehyeon ignores the pleas for help coming from her eyes. He still hasn't forgiven her for defacing his private property. He has even less reason to forgive her seeing as Taeri showing off Taehyeon's stupid daydream doodles isn't going to bag him the man of said dreams.
"It needs to be continuous eye contact, Taeri," Nayoon mutters whilst pulling Taeri's face back to look deeply into her eyes across the desk.
"In the experiment they had people talking and getting to know each other and stuff like blind dates. Apparently they had a group that were silent but they stared into each other's eyes for thirty minutes. That group was the most successful and some of the pairs even got married, "Kyungran explains. She rolls her eyes and adds, "or so Nayoon says."
"Do you think I would lie about soul mates?" Nayoon screeches into Taeri's face. Taehyeon supposes he does feel a bit sorry for her.
"What do you think?" Minjun asks, shuffling his chair around to face the desk where Taehyeon is perched on the edge. "Do you want to try with me?"
Taehyeon certainly doesn't have the faculties to explain what a terrible idea that would be considering he is already hopelessly in love with Minjun. What he manages to say is, "Er, no."
Minjun pouts. He asks, "Is it because we're at school? What about if you come to my house on Saturday? Would you try it with me then?"
Taehyeon has totally lost the ability to speak. It feels like a good thing seeing as his mind is currently somewhere he doesn't want it to be in school hours. Taehyeon going to Minjun's house. His imagination isn't very good so his mind skips straight to the good stuff: the two of them alone in Minjun's bedro—
"What kind of party is this going to be if you plan on silently making eyes at some random boy the whole time?" Nayoon grouches. Taehyeon notices she isn't looking at Taeri at all anymore. Taeri looks relieved about not becoming Nayoon's soul mate. Nayoon catches Taehyeon's eye and pulls a face before adding, "no offence."
"How is he supposed to not take offence to that?" Kyungran tuts.
"A party?" Taehyeon asks because he's afraid the conversation will move on before he has properly been invited.
"Yeah," Minjun grins, again shuffling his chair closer to Taehyeon. "I'm having a thing on Saturday evening. A party. Can you come?"
Taehyeon nods and then realises what the words Minjun said actually mean.
"I can't. Didn't you see in the group chat? Pilgyu's birthday is on Saturday. He's having a party at laser tag. I didn't know you had made plans."
"Oh," Minjun says. "It's my birthday too!"
"It's your birthday on Saturday?" Taehyeon splutters. "Why are you only telling me now?"
Minjun shakes his head. "My actual birthday is on Friday. My mom said I couldn't have anyone around on Friday so I'm having my party on Saturday." His smile falters ever so slightly and Taehyeon can see the frayed edges where Minjun is pretending this is his usual smile. "So you can't come to my birthday party? Are you sure you can't come to both? What time is Pilgyu's party?"
"It's at seven," Taehyeon says. His face feels oddly numb and he's even surprised himself that the words are coming out properly.
"Oh. My party is at six. You could come to mine for an hour and then… that probably wouldn't work. You'd need time to get from my house to wherever Pilgyu's party is so that you can be ready to start on time. I've heard places like that are strict about bookings."
Minjun is quiet for a long while. Taehyeon wishes he knew what to say. Usually Taehyeon is the sad little loser who never even got invited to a party. He has no idea how he is now looking at a very dejected Lee Minjun. This feels pretty rotten. Taehyeon doesn't think he'd be able to handle being popular if this is what it results in.
Minjun stands suddenly enough that Taehyeon's flinch almost throws him right off the desk. Managing to steady himself and avoid a mortally embarrassing fall, Taehyeon realises that Minjun is dragging his chair back around to the proper side of his desk.
"Never mind," Minjun says to his chair, and then to the inside of his very obviously empty school bag. "Maybe next year."
Taehyeon can only watch as Kyungran smooths her hand over Minjun's back. He thinks he sees Nayoon looking at him from the corner of his eye. He doesn't want to know what expression she has on her face.
"I should go back to my classroom before the break is over," Taehyeon says feebly. "I'll see you at lunchtime."
Nobody does more than mutter some sort of response at Taehyeon. He makes his escape without any problem. Except there is a problem. A huge, horrible problem.
Taehyeon doesn't make it to his classroom. On the stairwell, he presses himself face-first against the wall. He hears some kids laughing and asking what the hell is wrong with him but he can't answer questions like that.
He remembers his own birthday. Well, no. It wasn't his birthday but Minjun bought a cake and had him make a wish as though it really was. That stupid wish. Should Taehyeon have made a wish after all? He would have just wished for something stupid anyway, like for Minjun to like him back. Imagine if he'd made a wish like that and then callously announced that he wouldn't be able to go to Minjun's birthday party. Minjun looked disappointed enough now. If Taehyeon had made a wish for Minjun to like him back it would have been even worse than this.
"Taehyeon?"
The chirping sound is familiar. Turning to see the source of the sound, Taehyeon finds Han Taeri standing behind him. "What's up?"
"Can I talk to you?"
Taehyeon needs to consider that question for a moment. He staunchly decided not to forgive Taeri. Maybe he's just being harsher on her because she has the same name as his evil sister. All the same, he can't imagine he's about to hear anything nice and pleasant from the person who outed him to the guy he likes.
"What about?"
"Saturday," Taeri says.
Taehyeon nods. If all goes horribly, there is a window just a few steps away that he could jump out of. He isn't athletic enough to convince himself he'll land safely but he is prepared to break a leg or two if that's what it takes to run away from Taeri.
"Minjun really wants you to come to his party."
"I already said I'd go to somebody else's party. We're all in the same group chat, how did he not see that it's happening on the same day? It's like Wednesday. Why is he only saying it's his birthday this week now?"
"It's Tuesday," Taeri chirps. "Isn't there some way you can go? He really, really wants you to go to his party."
Taehyeon narrows his eyes at Taeri. He reminds himself not to trust her. She is being very suspicious right now.
"Are you recording our conversation or something? Why are you being so weird?"
"What a weirdo. Who would want to record a conversation with him?" someone sneers. They're right but that is why Taehyeon is so confused.
Taeri trills in exasperation. "Don't tell anybody I showed you this." She shoves her phone in Taehyeon's face and huffs. There is a lot of pink blur and it doesn't look like much of anything.
"What am I looking at right now?"
"It might not be clear because I took a picture of his screen when he showed us. His mom got a banner made for his birthday. The picture on it is a selfie of the two of you in this pink field thing he wouldn't stop going on about."
"Okay."
"Okay?" Taeri squawks as Taehyeon pushes past her. "What does that mean?"
Taehyeon doesn't think he could explain himself to Taeri no matter how he tried.
Bada, thankfully, is exactly where Taehyeon needs him.
"What if I'm secretly gay married and I broke my straight husband's heart?"
Bada's eyes practically pop out and he almost falls out of his chair. Taehyeon considers whether he's naked and this is one of those dreams that makes him want to take the next day off school. No. Taehyeon isn't naked, he's just at school, standing in Bada's classroom. Right. He really needs to stop talking. He does find a convenient distraction.
"Jeongwon, why are you crying?"
Jeongwon quickly scrubs her hands over her eyes and shakes her head. "I'm not crying."
Taehyeon isn't sure that he believes her.
"You look a lot like someone who is crying right now."
"I'm really not," Jeongwon insists. Taehyeon's disbelief apparently isn't enough here because her eyes flicker around as though in search of a distraction before she asks, "So what's this about your husband?"
"Stop!" Bada yelps. He only manages to look pained as he fakes a laugh and makes a gesture like he's trying to turn Taehyeon invisible. "Why are you still here? Get out!"
Taehyeon tries not to feel too offended about that. He's sure there's a reasonable explanation for why Bada is being so rude to him. He hasn't thought of any reasonable explanations by the time he returns to his own classroom but that apparently doesn't matter when Minjeong turns in her seat to glare at him before he has even sat down.
"Hello?"
"She told me to convince you to go to some stupid birthday party," Minjeong grumbles whilst jerking her chin at Taeri. She looks startled for some reason and Taehyeon has to wonder why she wouldn't expect anything like this from the girl who sits in the seat in front of them.
"You don't need to bother."
"Whose party is it?" Minjeong asks even more loudly than before. "Is that cow Jeongwon throwing a birthday party? Are you all going to have fun with Lee Dongmin's glamorous and sophisticated university girlfriend?"
Taehyeon drops his head onto the desk. It isn't hard enough to knock him out but just enough to make his ears ring whilst Minjeong starts ranting about hating her best friend.