the clueless loner
the clueless loner
kai/krystal, highschool!AU, fluffy, G, 2206 words
a/n: teehee I was rolling my note book into a telescope shape when suddenly the idea of this sneaked into my head. might be the very first fluffy fic of kaistal and yes I'm exceptionally amused when I typed this.
The loner guy who always took a seat at the very back corner of the class silently looks around to the commotion surrounding him, the trouble makers are in charge of flying paper balls across the room with a bunch of nerd groups as the easy target to be hit. He shook his head to that view and leans back to take a look at many other sides of the class, the smart people gathered at the front row based on their ranks. Five chairs for each rows and only one girl could make it there, the only girl he could ever lays his eyes on. Krystal Jung who’s twirling her hair with her finger, contrast with the other four boys beside her. They’re merging upon a discussion about one of the projects from biology class-god knows how difficult and boring that is, still they discuss it cheerfully-she looks bored while chewing a gum inside her mouth ignorantly. Krystal Jung is one of the most popular girls in school, remarkably capable of handling her routines altogether, including maintaining her status as the lovely pretty girl from cheerleaders team without getting mentioned as a blockish girl who only relied on her pretty face.
She’s currently sitting at the 3rd position in the entire class, proving her beauty is no joke. And to that, Kim Jongin respects her very much. He would never look her down although he’s practically never talked to her, neither with the other girls. That’s just Jongin who thinks that the second row after the smart people’s row is too revealing, he doesn’t really like attentions and lacked in expressions. He’s trying to fix it over the years and seems like he’s still struggling. One more thing that he likes about Krystal Jung is that she’s really nice, unlike many other fame obsessed girls in the entire school who thinks chemics and physics are so boring (they are, but the fact that someone like her actually pays attention to it, is stupendous).
“Kim Jongin?”
Mrs. Gil, their homeroom teacher is calling his name out a little bit louder than she necessarily has to, Jongin then realized that she’s been calling him for a few times as half of his classmates are turning their heads to his direction, he’s unfortunately dissolved in his revery. To that he raised his hand and the teacher moved on to the next absentee, slightly annoyed. Krystal Jung who was busy writing down something in her notebook earlier, looked up and raised her right hand. That’s right, her name is just below my name, Jongin just realized, his eyes widen in awareness.
Many things going on inside his head until he didn’t pay attention to any small details. He’s too busy for that. But suddenly he doesn’t feel so fraught for awhile with all the thoughts as Krystal turned her head around and throwed him a small, friendly smile. He only blinked once she faced to the front again, where he later couldn’t concentrate on the subject.
♦
The very next day, as usual Jongin went to the locker first before he rushed to the class and snatch the usual chair far at the back near the window. He had grew fond of the spot and the chair and didn’t have any plan to move to another place. He took out a rubix cube and tried to play with it as he made his way quietly into the class. The sudden bumped onto his back slightly incurred his wrath, he turned around with glaring dark eyes and found Krystal squatted not too far, picking up her books and stuff. He gasped surprisedly and knelt down to help her.
“I’m so sorry, I wasn’t completely awake yet.” She chuckles as she admitted her mistake.
How could he not forgive her with such a swinging high pitched voice of hers, it’s tickling his hearing. He mumbles a few words of ‘it’s okay’ and walked away to the class immediately. It’s not like he’s rude or anything, but interaction is not really the field he controlled. When he finally sat down on his chair, the whole class is busy with their own routines. The nerdy guys are so into the new version of starcraft, the mean girls are in the midst of gossiping other mean girls, the ever normal people are just being normal, minding their own business. Jongin is back to his rubix cube again when Krystal Jung made her entrance with her confused face, she looked out a several times searching out for someone. And she’s holding a letter neatly covered with an envelope, the color is soft pink almost look like a white envelope. He raised his eyebrows in curiosity and watched her walking away into a trash can where the letter is being throwed into.
She turned around, biting a scrunchy with the edge of her teeth while she tries to helm her hair up into a ponytail. Her long, delicate, skinny fingers are moving elegantly between her hair. Quickly caught him in the eyes-again-the friendly small smile slipped out from her pink lips. The only thing he could do in reply was just his eyes insecurely staring back at her, full of questions and concerns.
♦
Being the loner and probably the one and only observer in the whole class made Jongin less known, he could count how many people that actually knew his name and who he is. That excludes Krystal Jung, his respected dream girl. Let’s say there have been a few girls whom interested in him and he honestly didn’t really know up until those girls sent fan letters to his locker. Let’s just say again that he really didn’t like that kind of girls, Jongin is indeed complicated.
One sunny afternoon when the sociology teacher called for a time off, the students could breathe for awhile and rest. The girls mostly went to the bathroom and the boys are chatting with each other, he checked on his phone and put it back to his pocket. His eyes quickly moved to the very own direction of Krystal sitting nicely at the front row, just like usual. She just took off the scrunchy of her hair, letting it loose down about 5 to 10 cm away from her armpit, she turned to the back and do some little talks with a girl sitting right behind, occasionally playing with the tip of her hair. Twirling it at her will.
Not once he took off his eyes of her, every single move she made are being watched by him. Talk about being creepy, but watching and observing her from afar is getting to be a part of his daily-dos. The next few minutes before the subject would start again; she took a medium long sized notebook of hers and rolled it from side to side until it shaped into a telescope look alike. She then put the rolled notebook to the front of her right eye, pretending to be one of those sailors in cartoons. Jongin chuckled at what she’s doing right now and smiles unconsciously, something he doesn’t do everyday.
He didn’t realize that the telescope girl is pausing her binocular activity right at him, he stopped giggling ridiculously, his smile faded away into a nervous stare. His lips closed tightly as he cautiously bends down to look at his shoes, awkwardly pretended to have an untied one. As he finished pretending to take care of his untied shoes, he looked up to find Krystal is still there only with her rolled notebook replaced with a sincere, wide smile spreads across her face. She laughed sheepishly before she turned frontward again, leaving Jongin silenced and absentmindedly on his chair. Shyly scratches the back of his neck even though it’s unnecessary.
♦
The bell rings, school’s over for the day, students trickled all over the hallway from each classes. Jongin is still thinking about what just happened a few hours ago, was it real, was she putting a prank on him, was she starting to be mean like the other girls and had him as her first easy target? Questions popping up from his mind and he couldn’t even walked right as he almost slipped on the stairs.
“You have to be careful.”
He was shocked to hear the ever adorable voice of the girl he’s been dying to talk properly with, chiming right beside him. In the midst of a sea of people dying to get out from the school as soon as they could. The stair is crowded by all of three level of grades, Krystal pushed herself closer to where he stands, later they made their way out together although some of her friends are eager to asked her to join them to a saloon and a coffee store after school. She rejected them all kindly with “I have homeworks to do” as her reliable reason.
“So...”
“Um-”
“You talk first.” She offered.
“No, you talk first.”
“Oh, come on!”
She giggles ticklish and blinked her eyes in gawk, which he found really cute to look at.
“Well, since we’ve never actually introduced ourselves... I guess-well, um...”
Again she laughed at his reactions, somehow sounded nervous and confident at the same time-he’s not really sure either-and tighten her books closer to her chest. Waiting. Jongin sighed deeply and scratched his head.
“Let me just get this straight, I don’t know if you’re pranking on me now, but I don’t know why were you out of the blue started smiling at me-correct me if I’m being self-praising-I mean-”
“Krystal Jung.” She lets her hand out to a handshake, giggling ridiculously at the attempt of introduction again. They’re classmates anyway, be acquainted or not, they must’ve been familiar of each other’s names.
He laughed lazily and welcome her hand with his larger sized of palm, it felt warm in her hand.
“Kim Jongin. So you’re not pranking on me?”
“Pranking on you?” she paused for a chirping cheerful laugh and covered her mouth as she confused him. “I’m not pranking on you, silly. I’ve been noticing you’re watching me closely since... I don’t know, since the start of 2nd semester? I’m not sure... Anyways I’ve been crushing on you since the 2nd year of school. Remember the letter?”
Jongin’s jaw dropped open at her statement. Which drives her to laugh louder more ticklish than before.
“No way.” He said.
They’re both start walking out from the gate as Krystal tries to explain him the real thing here, he doesn’t look like he’s believing any of this.
“Yes way! You’ve always been the mysterious loner kind of guy and that attracted so many girls, especially the juniors. You’re so not sensitive to any of that and even throw my letter away.” She pouted for awhile and continues, “Then, when I finally caught you in act a few days ago, I was worried that I might mistaken. So I decided to try little by little, because I knew that when I keep waiting for you to approach me first, that wouldn’t happen. Ever.”
She finished it off with a silly cheerful laugh while still tighten her grip on all of her books in front of her chest she carried all the way from the class. Jongin snorts awkwardly and shook his head in disbelief, and nodded obediently at her matter-of-fact statement. He couldn’t be the one who approached her, it’s too absurd for him, and he’s afraid of rejection too. What if she didn’t like him? But when the truth revealed like this, he regretted himself for being a coward, letting her steps forward first. How gentleman he is. He keeps exchanging stares to the books she’s holding, back to her eyes, to elsewhere, and back to her eyes again. Trying to regain his consciousness and pull it together. He laughed again for the last time and stared at her confused eyes gazing straight to his too.
“Let me carry your books.”
“Nooo, I can carry this by myself.”
“It’s heavy.”
“No it’s not.”
“Don’t make me feel bad, let me at least carry the thick ones.”
Krystal sighed in succumb and handed over the chemistry book. “That’s the heaviest one.”
“Chemistry? Yeah it was hard to find our own chemistry too, right?”
“Oh my god, you’re actually trying to rag!”
The laugh just came out from her mouth uncontrollably while Jongin is blushing in embarrassment.
“Stop laughing at me.”
“I can’t!”
She keeps on laughing until they’re arrived at a bus stop. She took a few deep breaths and finally could look at him without laughing out loud anymore.
“Okay, okay. I’m done. But you’re right, it is hard to find any chemistry between us.” She looked to him and smile, like she’s in the midst of reminiscing her hard time back when she sent the letter over to his locker.
“Sorry about your letter.” He shrugged innocently and tilted his head.
“Don’t be.”
“Mind for a talk in a café, then?”
“Sounds good.”
The bus arrived and both made their way inside while still chuckling sheepishly upon each other, cheeks blushing pink, awkwardly innocent and pure.