Chapter Text
"How could you say that Taehyun?! I can't believe my own best friends would betray me like this. Pokemon X is better than Pokemon Ruby. End of story." Kai said, accentuating the last part of the sentence and looking at his friend with exaggerated disappointment.
'Taehyun' rolled his eyes at the words of his best friend who was, as always, being overdramatic.
"I mean, I just said I prefer Pokemon Ruby. But Pokemon X is really good too." He empathized his words by moving his hands like it would help Kai understand his point. After a short silence, he smirked and crossed his arms. "In any case we can all agree that Pokemon Black and white is the best." He winked at Kai who in return just pretended to throw up at the vision of Taehyun winking at him.
Sunoo slammed his locker door, startling and catching the attention of his two best friends who were too immersed in their debate too realize they were still with their other best friend, Kim Sunoo.
"Ya ! What's wrong with you?" Kai asked Sunoo who seemed to be angry at this moment for an unknown reason - if you asked Taehyun, he would say it was definitely for a trivial reason. Sunoo wasn't known to be the most rational in their group.
"Taehyun. Kai." He looked at them with an uncharacteristic seriousness.
Taehyun and Kai exchanged a glance, gulping because never before had Sunoo been this serious in their 10 years of friendship. Well, almost never.
Such an event had occured twice. The first was when they were 12, and a girl from their class started mocking the trio for watching the Hit Girls in class - a pretty normal activity - by saying it was too childish. So like any sane person Sunoo casually shoved his desk over and started attacking the girl. "DON'T TALK ABOUT THE HIT GIRLS LIKE THAT YOU BITCH !" The result? The two ended up fighting and Sunoo's already abysmal popularity plummeted further. Though Sunoo considers winning the fight one of his biggest achievements, always bragging about how he managed to do it thanks to the Hit Girls' power. He would never understand how someone could consider the Hit Girls as childish when it's the best cinematic piece of art he never seen.
His second moment of seriousness was when he was 14, two years ago. His longtime crush Park Sunghoon, got into a relationship. It had been Sunoo's first time experiencing heartbreak. To be honest, Sunoo's crush on Sunghoon was a bit superficial, after all, Sunoo barely knew anything substantial about Sunghoon, but he already had everything Sunoo dreamed of ! Sunghoon was pretty, popular, nice, handsome, a talented ice skater, and most of all, he never looked down on Sunoo.
To Sunoo's despair, he was never part of the popular crowd. In fact, most of them were even mean to him (the hit girls accident never really escaped their collective consciousness.) and of course Sunoo disliked all of them. But one day, a particularly bad day for Sunoo, he accidentally shoved Sunghoon onto the floor. He had expected Sunghoon to mock him or even get too angry, like any other popular kids would do. But Sunghoon smiled at him, apologized despite being the victim, and then helped Sunoo get up.
And that was when Sunoo's jealousy for Sunghoon, the perfect guy, blossomed into love. The love that gave birth to tears when Sunghoon announced his relationship with Wonyoung, one of the prettiest girl Sunoo had ever seen. A pretty guy with a pretty girl, this was logical, the perfect match as he likes to bitterly call them.
Despite of always having been a loser, maybe even because of that, Sunoo had grand dreams about living a main character life like in rhe rom-com teen movies he cherish so much. He fantasized about Wonyoung being a bitch (she was clearly a nice girl), about Sunghoon falling in love with him (he never looks at him, he is not even aware of Sunoo's existence: if for Sunoo, the only moment they talked was one of the best moment of his life, for Sunghoon it was nothing). And most daring of all, he dreamed of becoming popular so everyone in the school, especially Sunghoon, would fall in love with his amazing personality and they would start seeing him as "Sunoo the school's sunshine" and not as "Sunoo the loser who is crazily obsessed with the Hit Girls" (even if that last part wasn't exactly wrong).
So yeah, Taehyun and Kai were really curious about what caused Sunoo's serious stare this time.
"Sunoo? What are you thinking about?" Taehyun asked slowly, worried about Sunoo's state of mind and sanity right now and not wanting to disturb it more by talking with an unconscious aggressivity.
"Last year. Last year was horrible right?" The way Sunoo's voice was too deep, contrasting with his usual high-pitched tone was enough to make Kai and Taehyun tense in apprehension. They needed to think quickly about which strategy to adopt to answer Sunoo. And after a silent understanding with a shared glare, they chose the simple option : denial. Maybe they were overreacting and Sunoo's beharvior wasn't so bad, maybe if they act casual, Sunoo won't do anything too crazy.
Taehyun coughed awkwardly and after a second of hesitation, he shrugged, for him and Kai last year was honestly cool. They weren't obsessed with popularity like Sunoo was so they were completely fine with being treated as loosers. But they also know it's a sensitive subject for Sunoo, so they just agreed with him.
"We can't continue like this." Sunoo sighs, closing his eyes slowly to match his solemn tone. After a moment, he opened them again, this time with too much energy."I mean, it's high school ! It's supposed to be the best 3 years of our life, and all we've been doing is the same things as we did in our ten years of friendship : being losers."
Kai's shoulders slumped and he smiled weakly at Sunoo, "Yes we know, this isn't what we expected right?"
Sunoo bit his lower lips, he didn't want to hurt Kai. "Yes. Of course I love what we do when we are together but..." He stopped for a few seconds, searching for the right words. "You know. I want to go to parties, I want to get drunk, I want to have a boyfriend or even 2 or even 6 !" He laughed at the crazy - but appealing - idea. "I don't know, I- I just want to try new things you know?" He smiled sweetly at his best friends, hoping they won't misunderstand his words.
Taehyun smiled at Sunoo "We totally understand you Sunoo. But i don't think we can do all of that you know? We're like the worst losers in the entire school." He chuckled lighty, showing he doesn't find this situation as bad as Sunoo do.
Although he'd never admit it, Sunoo had always admired Taehyun. Because if Sunoo was a loser unintentionally, Taehyun was the opposite.
If Sunoo was always sad about his loser situation, thinking hard to find a way to imrove his reputation, Taehyun never gave a fuck about it. If Sunoo was (and is) always freaking out about the fact Sunghoon is in a relationship, Taehyun would never give a fuck about his also longtime-crush Beomgyu and his multiples relationships. But the major thin Sunoo loved - and almost envied - about Taehyun is that he was confident. Sunoo had always been a shy kid, but even back when they were 6 years old, Taehyun was confident. Sunoo used to be extremely jealous because he hated being shy; he hated when people made fun of him because of that. Their relationship started on the wrong foot but after some time, and thanks to Kai, they ended up liking each other. And thankfully Sunoo was different now, and it was all thanks to Taehyun and Kai.
Now, Sunoo was confident. He knew his worth and that was why he didn't accept being perpetually labeled as loser. Because Sunoo know he's fucking gorgeous and that he deserves to be one of the most popular guy of the school.
"Yes i know we're losers. But you know what? This year, i will not be a loser anymore. Because guys, this year, we're gonna be popular." Sunoo smiled at his two best friends who were looking at him dumbfounded. Before they could start questioning his statement, Sunoo started walking to his next class, with a determined but sincere smile.
Oh yeah, this years is going to be their years, and Sunoo was sure of that.