chemistry class IS stupid.

Jeon Jeongguk thinks he's stupid.

Stupid is a harsh word, something you use for somebody you don't like, who's wronged you, made you feel lesser. This wasn't the case. Everyone likes Jeongguk. He's nice enough, tall enough, attractive enough, has sharp eyebrows and a sharper jawline, which compliment his big doe eyes and bigger lashes, sitting atop high cheekbones.

Usually when you hear someone's name and think stupid, you feel malicious intent towards the person. A dislike, possibly even hatred. Jealousy.

Jeongguk doesn't feel any of those things about himself. Just that he's stupid. Wonders if other people feel those things when they call him stupid.

He doesn't take it to heart. Knows it's not meant to be taken to heart. He still thinks that it's true. His best friend knows Jeongguk, knows him well enough to see all the stupid shit he does. He's one of the only people who doesn't call Jeongguk the harsh word anyways.

Kim Taehyung isn't stupid. He knows how the world works, the basics of human behavior, the fundamentals of why or why not, why someone does something and another one refuses to do the same. He's not naive. Won't allow himself to be. Whenever someone thinks the name Kim Taehyung, stupid is the last thing that will come to mind, and he makes sure of it.

Maybe that's why he and Jeongguk work so well, in a weird way. Two halves of a whole. One stupid, one not. Simple.

And here they are, in the middle of their chemistry class, test beakers in between them, shaky hands holding glass tubes filled with neon liquids, the colors contrasting against the bland white table.

"Gguk."

He feels a jab to his side, long fingers poking into the spot just below his ribcage. He ignores it.

"Gguk."

The jab comes again, rougher this time. Jeongguk's shaky hands remain on the beaker, pouring a colorless solution into a colorless base. The base turns pink, which doesn't make any sense to him. He pours steadily anyways.

"Jeongguk."

He gives in.

"Yes?"

Taehyung watches his hands work, probably wondering when Jeongguk's gonna fuck it up. Jeongguk wonders too, but doesn't voice it. Internally, he hopes Taehyung won't voice it either. Also knows he won't.

"Why are you ignoring me."

It's a question, but the voice to his right says it like a statement, and Jeongguk rolls his eyes so hard that all Taehyung sees is white. White like the bland table sitting in front of them, white unlike the natural brown of Jeongguk's eyes, so brown it's almost black, but a nice black, a black like the night sky with stars within. It's not hard to find stars in Jeongguk's eyes. Harder to count them. Taehyung's tried, and Taehyung's also failed.

"I'm not," he pauses when a bit of the colorless liquid hits the table, "ignoring you."

He's not looking at Taehyung, but he can feel the smirk radiating off of his face. "Are you sure, because-"

"I'm not ignoring you."

More liquid sloshes onto the table, and Jeongguk sighs, visibly frustrated. Finally meeting Taehyung's eyes he puts down the beakers, one clear, the reflection of the brick wall magnified in the glass, and the other light pink, half assed. Taehyung was smiling before, but his smile fades now, replaced with a thin line for lips and eyes that frown. Jeongguk doesn't realize he's frowning too until his nails dig into the palm of his hand, making him look down and blink at the crescent marks.

"What's wrong." Another question said like a statement, because Taehyung knows something's wrong, because Taehyung's smart.

"Nothing's wrong." Jeongguk says it firmly, eyes closed, trying to convince himself more than his best friend. Taehyung knows better.

"Jeongguk."

"What?" He avoids his gaze, picking up the beakers again. His hands still shake.

A hand curls on top of his, steadying the beaker. There's liquid all over the table now, some of it pink, some of it clear. Jeongguk wasn't sure when it spilled.

"Jeongguk."

The beakers make contact with the table again, even more liquid splashing, a thud sound coming from the motion. "Will you stop saying my name that way?"

He hadn't meant to be rude, in fact, he wasn't all that sure why he was being rude. Taehyung's face stares back at him, eyes widened a fraction, but he doesn't look mad, doesn't look like he may retaliate. Just looks mildly surprised, then his eyes settle back and he's back to looking at Jeongguk, face a mixture of smug and concerned, a weird combination that he somehow manages to make look attractive. Naturally.

"Saying your name what way?"

Jeongguk meets his eyes, looking for an emotion in them. Can't pinpoint one. "I don't know, like," another pause, more looks cast at the mess of chemicals on the table, which is probably dangerous, "like I'm a porcelain doll or some shit."

He can tell which emotion sits within Taehyung's eyes now. Just confusion. "What do you mean a porcelain doll?"

"I mean, you," he fishmouths for words for a moment, not all that sure what he meant either. Takes a moment to figure it out. "You're acting like I'm fragile or something, like I'm gonna fucking break."

Taehyung raises an eyebrow. "I didn't realize."

Jeongguk sighs, and then puts his head in his hands, leaning forward. He isn't sure what he's talking about if he's being honest, but that's standard. He's never sure what he's talking about. The chemicals on his hands smell bad, and he probably shouldn't have them anywhere near his face, but he's acting like an emotional idiot, an idiot who's emotional for no reason at all.

"Sorry." He mutters into his hands, a hand reaching up to touch his back.

"Hey, seriously." His hands leave his face, they're soon replaced by Taehyung's eyes, examining him. "What's wrong."

The sigh Jeongguk lets out is deafening, almost loud enough to make heads turn. It's like he's been holding his breath for 17 years, his entire life, and he just let it out in one go, lungs deflating. "I just," another pause.

"You just-" an urge for him to continue.

Jeongguk thinks, still staring at chemicals, at the pink, at the white, and he can't take it anymore, and-

"Do you think I'm stupid?"

This time Taehyung's eyes widen more than a fraction. His face is taken aback, his eyes screaming I don't know how to answer that question, and Jeongguk deflates, but it's not just his lungs this time. This time, everything else goes with it.

"Because I know I'm not great at the whole school thing or whatever, and I can be really naive. But the other day Mark-"

Before he even gauges Taehyung's reaction, hands are on his shoulders, grounding him, caging him in. "Jeon Jeongguk?"

Jeongguk opens his mouth to respond but only a choked noise comes out because he's really close to Taehyung, and have Taehyung's lips always been this pink?

"You aren't stupid."

And Jeongguk really believes it, really thinks, maybe it's all in his head, maybe he's not stupid, because of the way Kim Taehyung's eyes are staring into his, and maybe he should say something back but this feeling is something he hasn't felt since freshman year and he's seriously just sitting in chemistry gaping at his best friend like an idiot-

And then it sets back in, the awareness, and he was being too hopeful before.

"I feel like you're lying, because-"

"Jeongguk." The grip on his shoulders tightens. Jeongguk isn't sure how to react, just stares.

"You've said my name like 20 times in the past 10 minutes." He manages to choke out, the look on Taehyung's face approaching a smile, not quite there, but close.

"You're not stupid. Mark doesn't know shit." Is all he says, hands slowly leaving, and Jeongguk almost whines, because he doesn't want them to leave. He keeps the sound in his throat, swallows around it, and focuses on chemistry. It's silent for a moment as Jeongguk processes the words, and he wants to listen to Taehyung, to believe, but it's hard-

"Are you sure?"

Taehyung groans, and reaches forward, effectively grabbing the test tubes from Jeongguk's hands, taking control, allowing Jeongguk to breathe, his shoulders to relax. "Yes I'm sure. You're not stupid." He pauses, poors some liquid, and Jeongguk watches as it doesn't slosh onto the table, "Just a little slow."

Jeongguk gasps, reaching over and hitting Taehyung's shoulder with a pink chemical stained hand, and it's definitely dangerous, but now Taehyung's giggling and his lips are curved into a box, and Jeongguk doesn't mind that he's a little slow. Everyone's a little slow, but not everyone's Taehyung's best friend, and he's a corny bastard who needs to stop staring at the white of his best friend's teeth and pay attention to the teacher.

He doesn't. She's rambling about the reason the sodium hydroxide is pink, but Jeongguk doesn't really care. He's staring at Taehyung's fingers pouring the solution into the mentioned sodium hydroxide, and how long they are, the veins that poke out from beneath tanned skin, snake along his hands up to the knuckle.

There's drool at the corner of his mouth. He's staring at his friend's hands, his best friend, and theres drool collecting in his mouth, and he's not gay but maybe he's bisexual and maybe your bisexual awakening shouldn't be with someone you've known since the first grade. Just maybe.

Taehyung interrupts his thoughts. Thankfully. "What did Mark say?"

Jeongguk moves his eyes up to Taehyung's face, tearing them reluctantly from his hands, god, those fucking hands-

"I don't remember exactly."

Taehyung's hands are still steady on the test tubes, and Jeongguk isn't looking. He's really not. Instead he's looking at Taehyung's face, the way his jaw looks slightly clenched, eyes focused but mind seemingly elsewhere. He wonders where.

"You don't have to give me an exact recollection. Just what basically happened."

Jeongguk's turn to raise an eyebrow. "What's it to you?"

Taehyung shrugs, shoulders moving but hands remaining steady. "Someone's a dick to my bestfriend. Wanna know what happened."

Jeongguk tries not to let it get to his head. Fails drastically, and almost stutters when he speaks again. "Uhh, I was in line at the cafe."

Taehyung nods, setting the beakers down into the pool of liquid on the table. One is filled with pink, the other empty, and Jeongguk wonders why it's pink, how two seemingly bland and colorless things can mix together to make something pretty. He's sure the teacher's currently explaining it, but he's also pretty sure he wouldn't understand anyways. "Right."

"And Mark was behind me, but I was still deciding."

Taehyung keeps his eyes trained on the experiment, appearing to be concentrating, but he's not. He's hanging off Jeongguk's every word, waiting for himself to feel anger at the sorry ass excuse of a human Mark who can't let his bestfriend catch a break-

"And he said my vacuous ass couldn't even read the menu fast enough to order my drink within the next week," Jeongguk swallows, his own eyes staring at his fingers that rested in his lap, fumbling with each other nervously.

"And I really wouldn't let that get to me but I didn't even know what the word vacuous meant, and I had to go home and search it up on google," it's all one run on sentence with a couple pauses inbetween, Jeongguk too scared to look up and see a reaction, "and it just got me thinking, maybe I really am stupid, not like I have a low attention span and I'm failing math stupid, but like, genuinely, dropped on my head as a child daft, and-"

A beaker slams down on the table, making a loud smacking noise, Jeongguk effectively jumping in his seat. The class falls into a silence, staring at Taehyung, who's looking at Jeongguk with this sort of, I'm super angry but not at you type face, and the beaker that just spilled practically everywhere on the table, a trace amount dripping onto Jeongguk's white shirt.

His eyes don't even move to look, instead stare at Taehyung's own, wondering why he looks like someone just said something degrading about his mother and then tried to backtrack like it never happened- Taehyung's very defensive when it comes to his mother - and the whole class is still looking at them, confused, specifically the professor who happens to have a personal vendetta against Jeongguk and Taehyung for being incapable of silencing themselves.

"Mr. Kim!" her voice clips, high pitched, but Taehyung's eyes don't leave Jeongguk's, he just hums absentmindedly in her direction, some weird stare down taking place that Jeongguk isn't sure of the reasoning behind, "The chemicals are meant to be combined, not spilled."

His back muscles are taught, Jeongguk knows because he can see them flexing in his peripheral as Taehyung moves his arms, hands retracting from where they were clasped so tight around the beaker his knuckles turned white. "I understand Ms. Song," he bites out, eyes still staring directly into Jeongguk's, and Jeongguk has the not-so-sudden urge to pull his shirt collar up over his head and hide there.

"Good," she says, quaint, and Taehyung's still fucking looking at Jeongguk, why's he so pissed, can't he look anywhere fucking else, "now clean that up please."

Taehyung finally looks away, giving Ms. Song his best attempt at nodding without a bonechilling glare gracing his features, and murmurs a "yes ma'am," before getting up wordlessly and grabbing paper towels from the back of the classroom. Jeongguk is left stunned, wondering what had just transpired, eyes slightly widened as reality sets in at the same time the rest of the class reverts back to normal.

Once voices fill the room again, Jeongguk gets up, chair screeching, and walks to the back of the classroom where Taehyung is hunched over the sink, wetting a paper towel.

"The fuck was that?" he just asks, getting a bit closer and bracing an elbow on the counter to lean on it, matching Taehyung's height when his back is bent over that way. He stares at the side of Taehyung's face, doesn't miss the way his jaw clenches and unclenches as he takes his free hand and turns the sink off.

He inhales, and then turns to look at Jeongguk, face desperately trying to remain passive but Jeongguk can still see the remnants of it, of anger. "The fuck was what?"

The scoff Jeongguk lets out is impossible to stifle, involuntary. "Are you joking?" Taehyung's eyes narrow, and then his eyebrows raise, feigning ignorance, "no, why would I be-"

"Taehyung, you nearly broke a glass beaker filled with sodium hydroxide in the middle of chemistry class with the world's most butthurt teacher. What. Was. That."

Taehyung turns his head away, jaw unclenching and clenching again like clockwork, flipping the sink on again with a cutting upward motion of his hand, getting more paper towels saturated with water.

"Nothing really, just," when he's satisfied he flips off the sink, grabs a few more dry towels, and then stops for a moment, looking Jeongguk dead in the eyes, and there's that anger again, "I'm gonna kick Mark's ass is all."

When Jeongguk blinks again he's standing there dazed, a small shiver running down his spine, and Taehyung's already walking back to their table, leaving Jeongguk just standing there and gaping like an idiot. He watches Taehyung start soaking up the pink liquid from afar, and his brain feels like it's melting, because fuck, that was hot.

It really shouldn't have been hot, seriously, Taehyung has trace amounts of anger issues despite being the most understanding person to walk the earth, and Jeongguk knows this, so encouraging that kind of behavior all on Jeongguk's behalf is really being a shitty bestfriend, but.

Just but.

The way their eyes locked, the way the words rolled off his tongue with an almost growl, how his jaw tightened, Jeongguk's knees nearly buckled.

So he stands there for another 30 seconds, trying to gain his composure because? That's his best friend? And best friends don't fantasize about tracing each other's jawlines, about how their jawline would look if the jawline in question's mouth was open and moving up the skin of his torso, and best friends most definitely don't refer to their best friend as merely a jawline.

Oh, god.

After mentally slapping himself he follows Taehyung in suit, brushing past him and taking a seat while Taehyung calmly wipes over the residue with a wet paper towel, cleaning the table. Jeongguk thinks of what to say, mouth opening and closing a few times, before he settles on, "you know, Tae, it's not really a big deal, so if you see Mark, please don't-"

Taehyung stops him there, eyes not looking anywhere near Jeongguk, just staring at the paper towel as he moves it and interrupting Jeongguk's words with a nonchalant, "How're things going with Mina?"

Jeongguk blanks. "What?"

"Mina." Taehyung finally meets his eyes, stopping his motions.

Jeongguk's mind is stuck on the complete dismissal of his statement, mouth opening, "Taehyung, I'm being serious, there's no need to kick anybody's-"

"Jeongguk," and he says his name like Jeongguk is the exact opposite of a porcelain doll, "Just drop it."

Their eyes are still locked and there's a sinking feeling in Jeongguk's chest, but Taehyung just swivels on his heels and bounds over to the trashcan, throwing away the paper towels and leaving Jeongguk to gape, mind blank.

His eyes follow Taehyung while he walks back, simply pulling out his chair and sitting back down, hands coming together to rest on the desk, "so," his eyes look anywhere but at Jeongguk, "Mina."

Who?

Mina. Oh, that's right.

Oh thank god, he forgot about Mina. Mina who's chestnut bangs perfectly frame her face, who's eyes are big and get half lidded and sultry when she wants them to, who wears short skirts and long pants and everything inbetween and looks like she's trying to mimic the sun in them all.

Mina who isn't Kim Taehyung, Mina who doesn't have big hands with snaky veins, rounded eyes with big pupils, a sloped nose and a square jaw, moles filling the spaces in between. Mina whose skin isn't quite as tanned, whose lash line isn't quite as defined, Mina who can't make heat pool in his stomach just from a touch to his shoulders.

He's so screwed.

"Good," he pauses again, mouth suddenly dry. He doesn't look at the veins, says, "She invited me to that party this weekend."

Taehyung's eyebrows raise and Jeongguk wants to reach forward and touch them. "You know what that means." He effectively cuts the tension with the lighthearted statement, Jeongguk's mind easing. He still feels weird, but less weird. Less uneasy. Taehyung has that effect on him.

Jeongguk forces a smile, bottoms of his teeth poking out, just barely. "I hope so."

A lie.

Taehyung's about to say something back, mouth opening, but then high heels approach the desk and both are silenced, mentally and figuratively.

"Boys."

Taehyung closes his mouth, sound dying in his throat.

"If you don't stop running your mouths, you'll both be in detention this afternoon."

Right, because the white table is now stained pink, and it's mainly because Jeongguk and Taehyung were talking about little things as if they were big things, resulting actions being nervous near mental breakdowns, anger flare ups, and white lies, all adding up to make Jeongguk feel like he wants to crawl out of his own skin.

"Right Ms. Song." Taehyung nods at her apologetically, and Jeongguk confirms within himself that his lips have always been this pink, he just hasn't allowed himself to notice.

"It won't happen again."

-