Chapter Text
Jisung always hated being the centre of attention. He wanted to disappear into the background. He tried to make sure he never drew any unwanted attention towards himself. But of course, that failed every time. Being the clumsy, scrawny 17 year old he was, he always managed to make a fool of himself: choking on his drink, tripping over air, dropping his books. And for some reason, it always happened when he was in front of the one person he admired deeply - Lee Minho.
Minho was this gorgeous 18 year old in the year above. Jisung was sure he was created by the Greek Gods. How else could he look that perfect? He had black hair with these deep brown cat-like eyes. His nose was perfectly sloped, a small freckle on the side of it. My god was he the definition of perfection.
They had briefly met when they were 14. Jisung accidentally ran into him backstage at his best friend, Felix’s, dance recital, his face smushed against a bouquet of pink lilies. Jisung never asked his name, thinking that the self-conscious feeling would leave eventually. But it didn’t. He ended up asking Felix who this mysterious boy was.
“The one and only Lee Minho. He’s incredible, isn’t he?”
Jisung giggled nervously, rubbing his nose (his flustered tell), “yeah, incredible.”
And ever since that embarrassing first meeting, Minho never seemed to leave Jisung’s head. At first he thought he was just overly humiliated, until he realised that he couldn’t stop thinking about the way Minho’s eyes sparkled, and how his perfectly pink top lip was slightly fuller than the bottom one. That’s when it came into focus that he had a little crush on Minho.
This crush clearly grew. Jisung was not sure if he could call it fate, but Minho ended up moving to his high school. Felix and Minho obviously had known each other since they had previously danced at the same company, but Jisung was far too terrified to attempt to talk to Minho, so Felix never pushed him to.
Felix was practically his best friend since birth.
Well not really.
When Jisung was 6, he was being relentlessly bullied by these boys in his class for being an orphan. Having no parents made him the butt of everyone’s jokes. That was until a fiery blonde haired boy came raging over, smacking the boys around the head with a book.
“Get a life, nimrods.”
From that point onwards, Jisung knew they were going to be best friends.
Felix introduced him into his other friend, Bangchan, a boy a year or so older who had been teaching Felix how to fight back against the bullies. Chan was quiet and sensible, but he was so sweet and adorable. Even if he was older, he still reminded Jisung of a toddler - his one dimple showing when he smiled.
Chan moved schools just before they went to high school. It broke everyone’s heart, especially Jisung’s. Even though they hadn’t know each other for long, Chan had become his life line. A brother and father figure that Jisung never had. He loved and cherished him deeply.
In the beginning of high school, it was only Jisung and Felix. Until Felix befriended a tall, dark-haired boy, who was also unfortunately gorgeous, but nobody could beat Minho in Jisung’s eyes.
His name was Hyunjin, and at first, they really did not get along. They would constantly argue and spit insults at each other like it was nothing. They would be at each other’s throats multiple times a day, they just could not agree on a single thing. Felix, being the little angel he was, was the peacemaker - he always tried to get them to meet in the middle. He mostly did it in a delicate way, speaking to each boy softly, telling them that they should communicate more and be kinder to each other. But that patience eventually flew out the window after Jisung and Hyunjin were up in each other’s faces for the billionth time that week. Felix locked them in the living room for 3 hours until they made up again.
After that, Jisung and Hyunjin had vowed to stay civil, for Felix’s sake. But they soon realised that they had a lot in common, so they slowly, but surely, became good friends. Now, Jisung would trust Hyunjin with his life, and vise-versa.
Hopefully.
Hyunjin and Felix both made it onto the dance team: no surprise there, they were both incredibly good dancers. Minho also made it onto the team and became dance captain unsurprisingly (he was told by Felix and tried to act like he didn’t care - fyi - he did). Jisung was on the school newspaper as the photographer and co-editor. When he spoke to his co-editor about what would be included in the newspaper, Jisung found a little problem. He would have to take photos of the dance team for their section, meaning, seeing Minho multiple times a week. Meaning, Minho might try to talk to him. Meaning, he might figure out he knew Jisung before. Meaning, he might begin hate him. Hyunjin and Felix teased him for weeks when he first started the photographing, he tried to roll his eyes and brush off their comments but he couldn’t quite keep his face from going red when he happened to point his camera in Minho’s direction. Jisung never dared to look up from his camera, he was too afraid Minho would recognise him and randomly decide to humiliate Jisung and make his life a living hell. That obviously didn’t happen. Jisung was very dramatic.
Now, in his second to last year of high school, Jisung had become much more comfortable in his photography. He now travelled with the dance team to all of their competitions and workshops, becoming friendly with many on the team, all except Minho. His beauty seemed to deter only Jisung from speaking to him: every high schooler tried to talk to him, but thankfully, he was not a very open person.
Sure, he could have a laugh with his dance friends, but other than that, no one was really that close to him. Minho was very reserved, he looked like he was always thinking, but at the same time, looked like there was nothing going on inside his head.
Oh, the duality of man.
On the way to their next dance workshop, Jisung, Hyunjin and Felix sat on the back row of the coach, Felix handing out the brownies he had made at their dorm the night before. It was no lie that Felix was a magician with his brownie making. No one could deny a brownie from him. He elbowed Jisung in the ribs and handed up the half full box, talking with his mouth full of chocolate goo, “do you mind passing them forwards to everyone else?”
Jisung nodded, leaning around the seat in front of him, only to be face to face with the dance captain.
Minho raised an eyebrow at Jisung, his dark eyes staring right into his soul. “Would you like a brownie?” Jisung muttered as he felt his ears turn unimaginably red. Minho picked a brownie without his eyes leaving Jisung’s, taking a bite of it. The hand that Jisung was holding the box with slipped, resulting in him emptying the entire tub of brownies all over Minho’s lap.
Nice one, Jisung.
Real smooth.
He apologised profusely as Minho helped put the brownies back in the box, “it’s fine, don’t worry,” he said with a flat tone, making Jisung chew his bottom lip.
Jisung span back around to Felix and Hyunjin, who sat there snickering at him, “you’re such a cluts.” Hyunjin rolled his eyes with a smirk on his face.
Jisung crumpled back into his seat, the box balanced on his lap, and covered his blotchy red face with his hands. Felix rubbed his hand on Jisung’s shoulder, giving him a sympathetic smile before turning away to bury his face in his book.
Jisung was immensely sheepish thinking back to his awkward encounter with the dance captain.
Why does this always happen to me?
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚
They arrived at the dance workshop a few hours later. His two friends slept peacefully, Felix’s sprawled out across both of their laps. Jisung has never particularly been a fan of physical touch, but Lix was one of the exceptions.
The dance club and Jisung clambered out of the coach, heading up the scenic stairs to the dance studios. They were doing a commercial dance workshop today, a little different from their normal ballet-contemporary repertoire. But, as predicted, Minho was mind-boggling. He picked up the choreography with ease, dancing it to the music with perfection. Felix and Hyunjin weren’t far behind - and to be honest the entire dance group was phenomenal. They were so in sync that when Jisung took a photo, they were all in the exact same position.
Jisung moved around studio, careful not to get in the dancers’ ways as he snapped his photos. However, he found himself being drawn to taking photos of Minho. The way his body moved made Jisung feel dizzy just by watching him. In the photos, he look beautiful. Jisung believed that it was impossible to get a bad photo of him.
If only I could be that photogenic.
When he realised the workshop was nearly over, Jisung took some quick photos of the other dancers to make it look like he wasn’t only watching Minho (spoiler: he definitely was). He captured a sweet moment between his two friends: Felix high-fiving Hyunjin once they had finished their choreography, both of them with bright toothy grins. They all slowly packed up, Felix taking a 5 minute power nap on the studio floor. They eventually headed back to the coach which was on its way their hotel for the night.
After stuffing their belongings into the wardrobe, all of the students were given the rest of the afternoon to sightsee around the bustling city. The trio wandered down the illuminated streets, skipping into designer shops to try on silly, fancy clothes. They looked ridiculous when they came out of the dressing rooms in their appalling outfits. They giggled and snorted, taking awful photos of each other in the mirror.
I god hope they don’t blackmail me.
Jisung prayed wistfully.
The two dancers registered that they were hungry so they decided to scour around the line of food vendors in hope of something spiking their interest. As their main, they bought some sushi-sicles (sushi in a push-up tube) so they could eat and sightsee at the same time.
Genius.
Once they had finished their delicious sushi, as a treat, the three friends roamed around the next few streets to find something for dessert: Hyunjin bought churros, Jisung bought a slice of cheesecake, and Felix chose to get bubblegum ice cream… in the middle of winter.
Psychopath.
They sat down to eat their goodies, talking about everything and nothing before Hyunjin sprang from his seat, “woah, look!”
He sauntered towards an alleyway that had fairy lights strung above. Further down, they could see some sort of mural which had clearly sparked Hyunjin’s inner artist. Felix and Jisung followed him, stopping once they reached him standing there, gawking up at the artwork.
“It’s… stunning,” Hyunjin’s mumbles, his eyes twinkling with awe. Hyunjin always seemed to get engrossed by art. I mean, he was an art major so it made sense. He enjoyed going to art galleries early in the morning, taking photos as he goes.
“Art is food for the soul.” He always reminded them.
On the dull red brick wall, there was a beautifully painted chameleon. It had bright pinks, oranges, blues, and purples swirling around it. It was truly gorgeous.
Jisung loved chameleons.
They’re the symbol for transformation and adaptability. Whatever is thrown at them, they change and modify in order to blend in with their surroundings. To protect themselves. Chameleons are strictly solitary and territorial animals that value safety over comfort.
Jisung wishes he was a chameleon: he would be able to disappear into his surroundings, and become unnoticeable to the naked human eye. He could hide and live a peaceful life, alone, far away from anyone who may take advantage of his big heart.
A small nip on the back of his neck ripped him out of his daze. With a thwack, Jisung killed whatever had bitten him - a little black spider was crumpled in his palm, legs twitching slightly before it caved in on itself.
Poor thing.
Jisung didn’t mean to kill it, it was just an accident. It made him feel a little sad, it was probably only trying to protect itself. But ultimately there was nothing he could do about it. He lay it carefully on the ground on a piece of moss that was growing out of the stone floor. Jisung rubbed his neck tentatively. It didn’t ache or sting. Neither did he feel sick or woozy. It was probably just a harmless little spider. No harm done. He should be fine.
Right?