[One Shot] It’s awkward (but it’s okay) [English ver.] {NoIl}

Title: It’s awkward (but it’s okay) [English ver.]

Author: Riz Aino

Pairing: NoIl (Taeil + Jeno) [NCT]

Clasification: PG

Genres: AU, college  romance, humor

Number of words: 1.8k

Summary: Taeil has to spend some time chained to a boy he doesn't know, but strangely he doesn't think it's a bad thing.

Notes: this story was written using one of the prompts of the Moon Taeil Fest.

Author’s comment: I had been wanting to write something about both of them for a while and the fest gave me the little push I needed. I’m not completely fine with what I’ve wrote because I’ve been having a slump, but I hope you like it.

 

Leaving the first class in the morning, going all the way to the other end of the building, going up the stairs and making it to his second class in the morning before the teacher got there. It was a walk of at least fifteen minutes, but Taeil had to cover it in less than ten if he didn't want to disturb the class by entering later. He could run to get there earlier, but he had never liked running, so he only dedicated himself to walking as fast as his legs would allow him, dodging students from his faculty and trying every day to find a way to get to his class on time. It was three weeks into the semester now, and he'd come close to being on time twice, but still hadn't, and sometimes he cursed the brilliant person who decided that these classes should be held on opposite corners of the building for being late, but Taeil wasn't a person to get angry even if things didn't go as they should, so he just tried to do everything he could to get to his class on time.

 

That day, with a couple of minutes to spare and only three more corridors to go, Taeil thought that maybe this would be the first day that he would arrive on time. However, just before he reached the hallway where the class was, he was suddenly surrounded by a bunch of what appeared to be first-years and had to stop. He opened his mouth to ask them to move away because he had to go to class, but before he could say anything, he felt something metal and cold brush against his wrist and wrap around it completely, adjusting to it with a tight fit and a loud click. Taeil looked down at his left hand to realize that one end of a metal handcuff was wrapped around his wrist, while the other end was wrapped around the right wrist of a boy Taeil had never seen before, a boy who also seemed to be a first year because he still had features of adolescence on his face, a face practically hidden by huge glasses on which he had a dismayed expression painted, outlining with his lips a “sorry”.

 

"I don't know what this is about," Taeil said aloud, pointing at his chained hand to the boy's, "but I have a class to attend."

"You can go to class without any problem with him, sunbae," a boy said in response, giving the boy next to him a little shove. “I'm sure he won't bother you.”

 

Taeil blinked extremely confused at all that, the answer and the situation, but in the end, he sighed and decided that once he got to the class, he would ask the boy what it was all about. Without further delay and not wanting to be late the first time he could get to class on time, he started walking again, followed by the boy he was attached to at the wrist, through the tide of first-years who had cut him off before. He didn't say anything, not until he was sitting in the back row in class, his laptop open before him and the teacher taking his attendance, only then did he turn to the boy sitting next to him and spoke to him.

 

“What's your name?” he asked him.

"M-my name is… Jeno…" the boy answered, looking a little nervous.

"Well… Jeno," he called. “What's this all about?”

 

The boy next to him bit his lower lip and looked straight ahead, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. It took a few moments for him to start speaking and Taeil, with each word he said, became more and more dumbstruck. According to what he was telling him, that year, as a rookie in the residence where he was living, they had decided to make the first-year boys experience the greatest embarrassment of their lives, making them do something that would give them infinite shame. Apparently, Jeno was someone who was shy—Taeil could see it perfectly from the way he was talking to him and all his body language screamed it—and they had decided that the best thing they could do for him was to chain him to a sunbae, and he was right. He had had to pass at the precise moment so that he had to be the chosen one. Taeil wasn't entirely convinced by that explanation because he sensed there must be something else that Jeno wasn't telling him, for whatever reason, but he didn't say anything, at least not for the moment. The boy bowed his head after telling him all that, hiding his face behind his black bangs as well as behind his huge glasses, his cheeks burning with a slight shade of pink. Taeil had the urge to call him "cute" for that, but he refrained from doing so, swallowing his words to ask instead.

 

"And how long do we have to be handcuffed?"

"It was supposed to be an hour or two…" the boy muttered, "but Donghyuck convinced the sunbaes to come for the rest of the day." He let out a deep sigh after that. “I'm so sorry sunbae, if you want, when you're done with your class, we can go find Dongyoung hyung…maybe he'll take pity on us and beat up Jungwoo sunbae for the key”.

"Donyoung? Kim Dongyoung?” he questioned. Jeno nodded. “I know Dongyoung, he's nice, I'm sure he can help us.”

 

The boy gave him a small smile and then lowered his head again, hiding from him and his gaze. Taeil decided after the talk to attend that class to which he had never been able to arrive on time before, but his mind didn’t allow him to pay attention to the words that came out of the teacher's mouth, wandering between one thought and another. In the end, unable to concentrate, he ended up taking out his phone and looking for Dongyoung's contact to send him a brief message without the boy next to him noticing what he was doing, telling him about the situation he was in to see if he knew something about it. Dongyoung didn't take long to answer him and the first thing he sent him were several emojis laughing, and then he went on to tell him everything he knew that, apparently, he was practically aware of the entire situation. According to the information he had, he had ended up with his wrist chained to Jeno's because the boy was a hobae of his from high school and had followed in his footsteps until he ended up in that college because he had a huge crush on him. When one of his classmates found out about it, he had done everything possible to convince everyone to chain them so that he could confess his crush for him.

 

When Dongyoung finished telling him all that, Taeil understood things better, especially the way Jeno behaved with him and everything that had caused that mess. He didn't feel really bothered by that because the boy seemed like a sweetheart and because he really wasn't to blame for having ended up in that situation either. Maybe it was a bit awkward because they didn't really know each other, but Taeil didn't mind or care either. He gave the boy next to him a sidelong glance and found him playing with his free hand on the table, and looking at the one that held them together with an expression on his face that he couldn't quite identify, his big glasses hiding his dark eyes from him. Driven by an impulse that he really didn't know where it came from, Taeil leaned slightly towards the boy to whisper.

 

"I don't mind if we're chained up for a few hours," was what he told him. “We can be like this as long as your sunbaes said we should be like this. I haven't made new friends for too long and you're a nice guy.”

 

A small spark appeared in Jeno's eyes as he lifted his head from their hands and looked at him, a cute smile appearing on his face in response, causing another to appear on Taeil's.

 

During the hours that they were handcuffed, Taeil and Jeno had to share various experiences together, eating together, going to the bathroom together, having to go holding hands to first hide the handcuffs and secondly so that no one passed through both of them and got hooked. On several occasions they ran into Donghyuck who was going to look for them to see how everything was going and to laugh a little at Jeno for that, but the boy didn't seem to care what his friend said or didn't say, so Taeil did it too, ignoring him, without giving him the attention he was looking for. They talked a lot too, about everything and nothing, about themselves, their tastes, their careers, subjects that put them in a bad mood or stressed them out, and little by little the initial awkwardness faded into the background and Taeil was feeling much more comfortable in the company of the boy, Jeno also feeling less nervous around him, much more talkative with him... until, in the end, it all ended when practically the entire group that had surrounded Taeil in the morning returned to them, surrounded both of them to remove the handcuffs that had held them together all day.

 

Taeil touched his wrist, which was red and a little sore, but he couldn't help but feel that deep down it hadn't been so bad and that Jeno's company had been nice, so when the boy came up to him to thank him for would have done that crazy thing with him without question, Taeil couldn’t help but reply that he had been delighted to spend time with him and that he would like to continue spending more time with him, although without handcuffs in between, causing a huge smile to appear on Jeno's face as a blush spread across his cheeks, telling the older that he would be more than happy to get to know him.