Work Text:
It’s the last day of preschool, before the summer daycare starts in a week. Jinyoung has so much to do—he’s still drawing up schedules for the next three months, typing out the lists of the kids who would be in full or partial attendance with their contact numbers and permissions, the list of volunteers—Ye-eun’s brother surprisingly one of them—and parent chaperones for field trips, the freaking finances. The budget for this year is more than the last, and he has a feeling that Choi Youngjae might have something to do with it, directly or not.
“Yeah, could you let me talk to her? Yes, yes, of course.” Ye-eun rolls her eyes at him when he looks over, mouthing something about new employees. “Hello? Hi, Jisoo, it’s Shin Ye-eun, from Sunrise—yeah, hey, it’s summer again.” She laughs at something Jisoo says. “No, no, it’s okay, he’s new, it’s not his fault…yeah. So, could we get your open days and times, as usual? Yeah, you can email me, do you need me to…well, I’m honoured—yeah, yeah. Um...wait a sec,” she holds her phone away, “Jinyoung, do we have any specific number of days at the pool or…?” He shakes his head. “Yeah, hi, no, just the list of days and times that aren’t reserved. Yeah, that’d be great…we’ll get in touch with you once we’ve finalized, is that okay? Yes. Thank you! Bye-bye.”
She hangs up, the cheer in her voice turning to exhaustion. “If I have to use a customer service voice to anyone else today, I’m going to flip.”
He snorts, shoving a bunch of signed permission forms at her. “Stay off the phone, then. Do the rest tomorrow.” She takes the forms, disgruntled.
“Are we meeting here?”
“Would that be convenient for you?”
“No.” A laugh punches out of him. “You know that ice cream place, Dixie’s? Down on my street?”
“Yeah.”
“Can we meet there?”
“Sure. My kids aren’t home, so I have no responsibilities.”
“Congratulations.” Ye-eun turns to put the papers away.
Jinyoung’s mind turns to his plans for the rest of the day. It’s earlier than usual, considering the amount of time he spent answering parents’ questions (he did try to assure them that messages would be sent.) The gym, then home. With Jackson.
It seems like everyone is getting heartbroken at the start of summer. Jaebeom is with his best friend today, as some sort of apology. He didn’t get a clear explanation out of him, but Jaebeom had done something. He’s more than willing to let Jaebeom spend time with Youngjae. He kind of does want to get to know the man better—summer will have to do.
Jackson is hurting, too. He called a few hours ago—upset because Mark told him he was returning home to Los Angeles. ”He said he was staying! Why is he leaving now?”
That means a lot of damage control to do.
-
He opens the door, three hours later, to Jackson’s pouty face.
Sighing in pity, Jinyoung waves him inside, along to his bedroom, where an unopened tub of ice cream and his laptop are set up already.
“I’m sorry about crashing your bachelor party,” he says, sniffling. Jinyoung wallops him across the head, because best friends are best friends and this is what best friends are for.
“Do you want to change your clothes?” he asks, heading to the wardrobe anyway. He rummages around for the pair of shorts and shirt that always ends up in his apartment. He finds the shorts but the shirt is missing—maybe the twins borrowed it? He stuffs the shorts into Jackson’s hands and ducks into the twins’ room.
It’s a mess. His lip curls at the unmade beds and objects on the floor. Whatever. He’s absolutely not going to tidy it. He unearths the shirt from Hyunjin’s side of the shelves, but when he tugs it out, something falls to the floor. Paper. An envelope. Eyes narrowing, he bends to pick it up. Already opened. He turns it over to see the JYPE logo.
His heart stutters.
This has to be the reply that Hyunjin received, then? But he didn’t say anything? That can only mean…he didn’t make the cut. Jinyoung knows that the boy would have made a huge scene otherwise. He shouldn’t have found this at all.
He hastily stuffs the letter back between the folds of clothing and retreats to his own room.
-
To be fair, Jinyoung should have known better than to let Jackson watch The Fault in Our Stars when he’s like this. Halfway through, and he’s inconsolable. Jinyoung pauses the movie, carefully moves the sticky carton aside and throws an arm around him.
“I thought I would have more time with him!” he chokes out. “He said he was staying!”
“Jackson. Can you please tell me what he said?”
“We were getting lunch and he said he had something to tell me.” Jackson wipes his face. “And he said he was going home to LA in a couple of days.”
Jinyoung waits for more, and when nothing else is said, bursts out with, “That’s it? That’s all he said?”
His friend winces. “I may or may not have freaked out and run away.”
“Jackson!”
“I know!” He groans, miserable. “I didn’t know what to do!”
“You could have let him explain!” Jinyoung chides. “Idiot! What if he’s just visiting home or something? God, he must be feeling like shit right now! Did he call or text?”
“I turned my phone off.”
“Jackson—”
“I panicked!”
Jinyoung rubbed his temples. “Such a drama queen. Can you chill, for once? Maybe listen when people are talking to you?”
He hangs his head.
“Jesus Christ.” Jinyoung leans over and grabs the ice cream tub. He deserves this. “Don’t you go home every now and then? You remember how upset you used to be back in college, when you didn’t have time? Mark must be feeling the same way, right?” Jackson doesn’t respond. His lips twist like he’s just realizing how selfish he must have seemed. “Hey, I get that you’re upset that he’s going to be so far away. You two just got together, like officially. This is…what’s it called? Honeymoon phase or something. I get it. But you can’t deny him his family, right?”
“No.”
“Personally, I don’t think a little distance is going to destroy you guys. It’s not going to be forever. Mark might come back. And even if he doesn’t, so what? You’ll find a way.”
“And if we don’t?”
“Then you’ll move on, Jacks. Mark doesn’t even have a job here, does he? Didn’t he come here as a favour to his friend? He probably stayed this long for you.”
There’s uncharacteristic silence.
Jinyoung spoons ice cream into his mouth. He’ll have to burn this off later. While he waits for Jackson to come to his senses, he pulls out his phone and sends Jaebeom a picture of his dessert. i have icecream ha ha.
It takes about a minute for Jaebeom to notice. He receives a photo in return—of a table piled high with food. way ahead of you.
The doorbell rings.
“Oh, what now?” Jinyoung pushes himself out of bed. The door swings open to reveal—a man. A handsome man. Vaguely familiar. “Hi, who…?” The answer comes to him as soon as he says it.
“Mark.” They both say.
Jinyoung chuckles, sticks a hand out. “Hi. Jinyoung.”
Mark nods. “I know. Nice to meet you. Is Jackson…?”
“Yeah, yeah, come in.” And then, turning, “Jackson! Look who it is!”
His friend—his dumb best friend—trudges out of the room, sees Mark, and comes flying into his arms. Jinyoung hears only a question of how did you know I was here? and the reply, something along the lines of Namjoon told me—and he slides away into the kitchen. Let them sort things out themselves.
-
Jinyoung has no idea how it all ended up like this, but the next thing he knows, he’s sitting on the floor between the sofa and the coffee table, drawing 4 cards and listening to Jackson’s screeching laughter.
He’s pissed. He blinked once and he’s playing UNO, which, okay, fine, but his best friend just threw him to the wolves? Just when he was about to win?
“You better hope I never get a goddamn wild card, Wang,” he seethes, staring grumpily at his new hand. It’s pathetic. He has nothing.
“It’s just a game, Jinyoung,” Jackson drawls. “Don’t get angry.”
Mark is nearly red in the face from laughing so much. Jinyoung wouldn’t have guessed within the first ten minutes of meeting him that he could be. so. loud.
Jesus, they’re perfect for each other.
Mark sets down a blue 7 and the game goes round. It’s as if Jackson knows exactly what cards Jinyoung is holding or something, because blue remains the theme and he doesn’t have any blue cards. He keeps drawing while watching the other two lose their cards rapidly. Jinyoung’s fucked.
It’s only when he looks up on his turn from studying the cards and catches Jackson peering up at his face that it clicks—oh, he’s such an idiot. The reflections!
“Are you seriously staring at my glasses?” he shrieks, whipping a pillow at Jackson. His cards go flying and he yelps, keeling over. Jinyoung keeps slamming the pillow at his butt and legs. “Cheater!”
“Your fault!” he gasps, reaching to gather his cards.
Jinyoung huffs. Slides his glasses off and sets them aside. Mark’s forehead is plonked on the table, shoulders shaking with laughter. It’s Jinyoung’s turns anyway, so he draws a card.
Everyone sobers quickly.
Jinyoung stares at the card he drew and hopes he’s making the right decision. “Mark, do you have a reverse?”
Quick to catch on, Mark jumps to set down a blue reverse. What luck.
Jackson pales.
Jinyoung slams down his newly acquired draw-4 card and yells, “Take that, Wang!”
“Oh fuck you!” he wails, sprawling on the floor dramatically. “I had one freaking card! You couldn’t have waited?”
“Oh shit, you didn’t say ‘uno’!” Mark exclaims. “Penalty! Draw five!”
Jackson freezes.
“Yes!” Jinyoung draws his cards for him, counting exaggeratedly. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Suck it.” He high-fives Mark. This is nice. He could get used to game nights like this. If the twins were here, they could play Monopoly.
Or maybe not, actually.
“Since when do we have a penalty for that?!”
“What’s the point in saying ‘uno’ if there’s no penalty?”
“I don’t know, getting in touch with our Spanish roots?”
“It’s just a game, isn’t it, Jacks?”
Jackson sobs and rolls over.